She leaned a little closer to the window and ran her gaze over his tall form, working from his scarred hiking boots up to his short hair, then shook her head and raised her chin a notch higher. Eric choked back a low groan, thinking why me? Why couldn’t his friend Jeremy have been stuck with this tonight?
“Look, I can be as stubborn as you are, so save us both the trouble and just roll down the damn window,” he ground out, unable to soften the gruff edge to his order this time. He was uncomfortably aware of his wolf steadily prowling closer to his surface, taking note of her in a way that caused a deeper sliver of alarm to slip down his spine.
This time, she didn’t shake her head in response to his…request. Instead, the crazy-assed woman narrowed her eyes and lifted one closed feminine hand. Then she very deliberately extended her middle finger.
What the…?
Eric stared…a little stunned, thinking there was something definitely not right about her.
Taking his hands from his pockets, he braced them on either side of her window and leaned forward, so close that his warm breath fogged on the glass as he spoke. “You can’t stay by yourself out here in the middle of nowhere, so either turn this thing on and get the hell out of here,” he said in a low, painfully controlled tone, “or start talking.”
If looks could kill, Eric had no doubt he’d be drawing his last breath just about then. But at least he got the desired results. She uncrossed her arms, the scooped neck of her long-sleeved T-shirt revealing a shocking jolt of cleavage that was damn hard not to stare at. He forced his dark gaze back up to her face just in time to see her mutter something he couldn’t quite hear, but could all too easily decipher on those sexy lips. Then she angrily reached for the window lever.
The second the window cracked open, he pulled in a deep breath, his razor-sharp senses searching…seeking. With her strange behavior, he’d half expected her to reek of alcohol or drugs, but he couldn’t pick up a trace of either. Instead, she smelled…like a puzzle. Fresh and clean and delicious, but almost painfully complicated. Like something he needed if he wanted to figure out an answer, even though he didn’t have a clue what the question was.
And it sure as hell isn’t anything to do with me.
For a split second, Eric was almost disappointed by that particular truth. By the fact that his wolf didn’t recognize that warm, mouthwatering scent as something that belonged to them. Something they were meant to own and claim and possess. But that was nothing short of insane. He lowered his arms and backed up a step from the bus, determined to put some distance between them. As well as knock some sense into his wayward libido.
That scent made him want to…No. He gave his head a hard shake, ignoring a bad idea that would only lead to an even worse situation.
She was the kind of trouble he didn’t need. Or want. And once she drove out of his life, he’d forget her as easily as he forgot every other woman who’d ever stirred his interest. It was a given. A fact. He just had to convince her crazy little ass to get off the pack’s private property, and that would be that.
Should be easy enough, considering how his species resided at the top of the food chain, and hers didn’t. Even though she didn’t know he was different, she would sense the predator in him. Would know this wasn’t a safe situation for her to be in, the same way she’d naturally avoid a dark alley or a snarling, snapping animal. It was instinct. Simple self-preservation.
But as Eric stared down into narrowed eyes that burned like a heat-glazed summer sky, he knew, with his own gut feeling, that it wouldn’t be that cut-and-dry. Knew she was going to be a pain in the ass, which should have bothered the hell out of him. But it didn’t.
No, what bothered him was how much he and his wolf were suddenly looking forward to the challenge.
Chelsea Smart refused to take her glare off the man standing beside her bus. What exactly had she managed to land herself in? Something wasn’t right, and while common sense demanded she get the hell out of there, her heart refused to budge, knowing this spooky mountain might prove to be her best chance at finding Perry. Not that her younger sister was a child in need of supervision. At nineteen, Perry was old enough to make her own decisions—even if they landed her in a crapload of danger.
Unfortunately, Chelsea was afraid that was exactly what had happened. And with no one else willing to act as Perry’s rescuer, she’d gathered what was left in her meager checking account, taken emergency leave from her teaching job in Virginia and hit the road in search of her only sibling. That’d been two weeks ago. Now she was almost out of money, low on gas and worn down to her last nerve, her frustration mounting with each passing moment.
The small pistol she’d bought three years ago rested in her lap, beneath the afghan she’d pulled over herself before the other two men had scared fifty years off her life, knocking on her window and waking her from a restless sleep. She resisted the urge to reach down now and stroke the cold metal for comfort, assuring herself that it was there. She could only assume this giant bulk of a man staring at her with dark gray eyes was meant to achieve what the other two had failed to do, and get rid of her. Hadn’t he told her as much?
When he’d pulled up in a massive, black, testosterone-oozing truck, the engine rumbling obscenely loud in the eerie quiet of the forest, she’d looked away, not wanting to appear flustered or worried, even though she was a mass of churning emotion inside. She’d learned long ago how to bury her feelings beneath a calm, icy shield of indifference, which had been the only way to deal with her father’s tyrannical rule while growing up. Though it’d been years since Chelsea had lived under his roof, some habits had become so deeply ingrained, it seemed it would take a lifetime to unlearn them.
Then again, she hadn’t tried very hard to change, always finding it easier to avoid uncomfortable encounters simply by making it obvious that she wanted to be left alone.
But she hadn’t been left alone tonight, and her worry and frustration were getting the better of her, to the point that anger rode the flushed surface of her body like a second skin. It was evident in her posture and her expression, and then she’d gone and actually shot the illustrious “bird” at this dark-haired stranger in a purely reckless display of temper. That was something she’d never done before…and would hopefully never do again.
The only thing that made her momentary loss of dignity bearable was the fact that the fascinating tower of maleness standing there, watching her, had obviously never mastered the art of masking his own reactions. From the moment she’d rolled down her window, emotions had been flitting across his rugged features like a montage of images flashed across a movie screen. Frustration. Shock. Irritation. Maybe even a touch of loneliness. They were all there, as well as something that looked surprisingly like lust. His glittering gray eyes had gone wide, then heavy, until she could barely see the mesmerizing color through the inky black weight of his lashes.
He was too tall, too rugged, and too damn good-looking, and he probably knew it. Add to that the obvious fact that he held some sort of position of authority in this area, and Chelsea knew he was the kind of guy she normally went out of her way to avoid. Of course, the last time she’d seen her sister, Perry had accused her of avoiding all men, making the snide assessment that she should either go lesbian or resign herself to being alone for the rest of her life. She’d told her sister to mind her own business, then changed the subject, but Perry’s words had stayed with her, proving difficult to forget.
As a modern, educated woman, Chelsea knew, deep down, that her cool attitude toward the opposite sex had been born from a soul-deep fear of ever becoming like her mother. Perry had dealt by immersing herself in the party scene, earning a reputation as the girl who would try anything at least once, whereas Chelsea had simply closed down, withdrawing, just like an oyster hiding within its shell. Despite her worldly views, she had little experience when it came to male animals, especially ones like the hunk standing so close to her bus…staring at her as if he couldn’t decide