Hunger clawed its way up his spine, ripping through his system with such force that he expected to look down and see blood seeping through the thin cotton of his navy T-shirt and dark gray flannel, spreading like death down to the ragged denim of his jeans. Ripping him open quicker than teeth or claws ever could.
His nostrils flared as another soft drift of mouthwatering scent crashed through him. Yes, it was right there…lingering on the air, and a hard shudder racked the long length of his body, his skin going hot and damp as a low, unfamiliar burn began in his belly. An animal lust…but different. The unmistakable hunger for hard, grinding, gritty sex, and yet utterly foreign from the driving need he’d known in the past. He’d had his share of women in his lifetime, leaving them quickly, yet always with their well-used bodies heavy with pleasure, steeped in satisfaction—but this was more. Harder. Deeper. A sharp-edged, driving need unlike anything he’d ever experienced, raging and explosive.
He didn’t just want to bury himself inside her—he had to.
But first he had to find her.
“You’re growling.” The deep voice came low and lazy from just behind him, sounding almost bored, though Mason knew his friend well enough to sense that Jeremy had picked up on his tension, even without the telltale growl rumbling up from his chest.
“Shut up,” he muttered silkily, and Jeremy snorted in return, nudging him over as he forced his way in through the door, leaving the bitter wind behind them as the glass monstrosity pulled automatically to a close. A few customers turned their heads to look at them, doing double takes as they took in the sight of two hard, well-muscled men who stood over six feet, their casual clothes in no way disguising the brute strength of their battle-honed bodies. The two Bloodrunners reacted to the attention the same way they always did—they ignored it.
Focused on finding the woman, Mason’s nostrils flared, the sound of his heart all but filling his ears as it began a hard, purposeful beat like the pulsing chords of a Goth song. “Don’t you smell it?”
“What I smell,” Jeremy said, exhaustion weighing his words, “is food, which reminds me we skipped breakfast in order to get a head start on our hunt and we still haven’t had lunch. Are we going to stand here in the entrance all day, or actually order something before I have to gnaw someone’s arm off?”
“You’re not scenting her?” he questioned again, ignoring Jeremy’s crude sense of humor, and recognizing the increasing gruffness of his own voice as a clear sign that he was losing control.
Bad timing, considering they were surrounded by the flesh and blood of other customers, but there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do about it. He wasn’t leaving until he found her.
“Which one?” Jeremy muttered, scrubbing one sun-darkened hand over the golden stubble covering his chin as he jerked his hazel gaze left to right, scanning the crowded café. “With all the soaps and lotions women drown themselves in nowadays, flowers are all I can smell in this place, other than the food.”
Mason shook his head in frustration. No, not flowers. The evocative scent was different—deeper…earthier…and it was getting stronger.
The smell alone had him tied in knots, his body feeling tight and hot and swollen. It was something succulent and rich that sat on the tip of his tongue like a warm drop of honey. He wanted to roll it around for a deeper taste. Draw it into the cavern of his mouth and bite down on it. Hold it. Keep it and fight for it.
Harsh, lust-thick images in blazing ambers and reds flashed through his hunt-tired mind, revitalizing him, jamming his system, jacking him up and taking him to a bigger high than any substance he’d ever used. Like most cross-breeds, he’d spent his youth searching for a way to fit in and find a measure of peace, but it hadn’t taken him long to learn that life held enough chaos without him screwing with it. By the time he was a man, his innocence had long since vanished. He knew what sin tasted like…and this was it. Wicked and yet as sweet as heaven—the most dangerous kind of pleasure.
His keen eyesight scanned the immediate area again, falling on a lush blonde in a skintight spandex workout suit sucking down a coral-colored smoothie, before quickly moving on. Not her. No…this one was different. Something sharp and uncomfortable in his gut, an uneasy trepidation, told him far different than anything he was prepared for.
Give him blood and battle and he was right at home. Give him easy and loose, and he could make a woman scream without even trying. But give him a complicated female and he shut down. Too much work and he didn’t have the time, the patience or the inclination. Women had always come too easily for him, so why the hell should he work for one?
And this one smelled…complicated.
“Seriously, man,” Jeremy growled. “If you don’t want me turning to the dark side, we need to get in line and order. I’m hungry enough to do something that we’ll both regret.”
“You’re sick, you know that.”
Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Jeremy placed his hand over his heart. “Keep saying things like that and I’ll start thinking you don’t love me anymore.”
Mason opened his mouth, a smart-ass comeback ready to slip free, suitably biting and caustic, when her scent slammed into him so hard he nearly reeled. He spun toward the line that paralleled the one he now stood in, where customers were picking up their stylishly brown-bagged orders. He knew the instant he set eyes on her, though he never would have guessed she’d be the one, had that intoxicating scent not wrapped around him like a vise. But it was her. The innocent-looking little waif with the long auburn braid, her lunch tray tucked up in front of her and a bulky paperback wedged under her right arm, tortoiseshell glasses perched smartly on the bridge of her small nose. She was wearing a deliciously tight white polo shirt with faded blue jeans, a dark red jacket tied around her waist and braided bracelets circling one delicately boned wrist, a slender silver watch on the other. A simple outfit, nothing too provocative, but on her it looked downright sinful, the way it hugged her delicate curves.
A fierce, possessive wave of heat poured through his veins while his mouth watered, and it was only with a conscious effort that Mason controlled the urge to pant like a randy dog. A nice long howl would have felt damn good at the moment, but hardly appropriate, considering their surroundings. Left with no other choice, the animal inside him grumbled its agitation, curling around itself and settling down to quietly seethe, while his human half struggled against the intense need to grab her and run, as far and fast as he could, until he had her all to himself. Not a bad idea, either, except that he’d probably scare her half to death before they got there.
Left with no other option, he waited.
Time seemed to stand still as she walked toward him, his lungs burning while the top of his head felt about ready to come off. Within seconds she was in front of him, without even having glanced in his direction. With an utterly foreign sense of desperation, he did something that he’d never, in all his thirty-three years, thought he would do.
He tripped her.
One moment she was walking past, minding her own business, and in the next his strategically placed scuffed brown hiking boot had her sprawled over the stylish Italian tiled floor, sputtering and cursing quietly under her breath as she came to her knees and struggled to wipe tomato soup off her lenses.
“Are you okay?” he asked, crouching down beside her, wincing