Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite) (8 page)

BOOK: Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite)
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In point of fact… “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He groaned. “Fine. I’ll Google it and take a guess.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Google it?”

“Yes. If you’re not going to volunteer the information…”

“Oh, there’ll be no more volunteering much of anything…so it’s a moot point.”

“Yes, there will. Because you find me as irresistible as I find you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, you’re having a terrible time resisting me.” He’d tossed her into a cold shower. She hugged her knees tighter to her chest.

Tipping his head back, he laughed. “Which is why I’m in here too. Another few seconds and we’d have blazed through each other so fast neither of us would remember anything other than a blur of sex. You do remember snarling at me that you didn’t care how long I lasted, right?”

She swallowed. Vaguely. It sounded like less-than-ideal pillow talk.

She chewed on her lower lip.

He
was
out of breath, and he
had
dragged them
both
under the cold shower.

Maybe he didn’t
hate
her.

“What do you say we get out of these wet clothes”—he slid a look her way—“separately, put on some dry ones, and go sleep for a few more hours? I don’t know what time receptionists go in to work after they’ve had big receptionist emergencies, but I’ve got work in a few hours, and I need more sleep.”

“You’re letting me stay?”

His grin made her heart start to pound again. “Of course. I told you that you can come over whenever you want.” He stood and reached a hand out to help her up. “Now, this house key I’m going to give you—can it be silver or will that light your skin on fire?”

She crossed her arms.

Chapter Five

Despite her flipping him off when he’d asked about it, he still felt a little weird leaving the key in her hand. The silver bullet and werewolf myth had to come from somewhere, after all. Or maybe it didn’t, and apparently, they were going to go through this relationship with her pretending he was losing his mind because she wasn’t admitting she was…whatever she was despite the overwhelming amount of evidence. Not that the key was actually silver, but no sense taking any chances. For all he knew she was allergic to metal.

He’d thought about leaving the key on the bedside table, but after that cold shower, she’d been trying to keep her distance, even if she’d responded to his kisses. As soon as she’d fallen asleep—which necessitated him putting in earplugs again—Vanessa scooted over to his side and became a second skin. In fact, he’d put a few more layers on so he wouldn’t need to take a cold shower every hour.

And he hadn’t slept after that.

At all.

Eventually, he’d gotten up and dressed there in the room—confident that her snoring would alert him if she woke. So it was convenient in that way. After he’d located his spare key, he’d pressed it into her hand and curled her fingers around it. Then he’d leaned over and kissed her good-bye…on her forehead…because she slept with her mouth hanging open.

The level of attraction he felt for her was astounding considering he hadn’t felt this way about Kaylee on her best days—when she had spent hours on her hair and makeup and wore a backless black dress that was too short and too tight. He felt twice that level of lust for Vanessa when she was snoring and snarling and he felt fifty times that when she was irate and glaring at him.

True to his word, he looked it up on the internet. Wolves were in heat for a “few weeks.” If that corresponded to whatever Vanessa was, he might have three weeks of total celibacy because even kissing her set off a nuclear meltdown when they weren’t on the verge of hypothermia, and the shower solution hadn’t pissed her off—he liked her in a temper—it’d hurt her and made her self-conscious which, in turn, made him feel like an ass.

Plus, even freezing couldn’t seem to chill out his response to her, and his shower stall didn’t strike him as the best location to prove to someone you valued her as a potential soul mate.

So, they’d be dating like a couple from the mid eighteen hundreds. Next week, he might hold her hand as they sat on a front porch swing. They’d keep it more platonic until she was through this, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to be some guy scratching an itch whom she only vaguely remembered as being on two legs instead of four.

He’d sleep on the couch if she stopped by his house at night—and hopefully, the key said he wouldn’t mind that.

As he was driving to meet with Sammy, he was meant to be looking for any sign of the missing woman. Travis had kept his word, and they’d been brought into the investigation to help look for her. He should be concentrating on the mystery of the abandoned car and its missing driver. Instead, all his focus was straight ahead as his thoughts centered solely on the gorgeous female he’d left in his bed. She’d been so soft and warm, and she’d crawled all over him in her sleep.

Yeah, the couch. It’d have to be the couch from now on.

When he arrived, it actually surprised him; he looked around to make sure he was in the right place because this should have taken him twenty minutes to get to where the abandoned car had been, and he’d
just
left Vanessa. Crap. Hopefully this was a lack of sleep thing and not a being with Vanessa thing.

He parked beside Sammy’s Jeep and got out. The other ranger was crouched on the opposite side of the ditch near the tree line. She was older than him by a few years and single, and a few of the locals joked that she was looking to cougar him. If she was, it was a very slow approach, and obviously wouldn’t work now.

She hadn’t shown any interest, but the fact that she was around his age, somewhat attractive, and female discomfited him more than it should. It wasn’t like having a girlfriend or whatever Vanessa was to him meant he couldn’t be around other females. She was a coworker. A fellow ranger. He stopped about ten feet away and stared at her. Dark hair in a braid. Normal female figure. She was tan, like him, not pale like Vanessa. He had no idea what color her eyes were—not brown like Vanessa’s, if he had to guess.

Nope, he felt nothing. There was no reason to feel like he should keep his distance. This strange and almost innate hesitation was a remnant of an odd couple of days without sleep. And being with Vanessa. And leaving her sleeping in his bed. Where he wished he was.

“What are we looking at?” he asked as he stepped closer.

She snorted and shook her head. “Something insane.” He caught the scent of her perfume or deodorant or shampoo—a musky sweet scent that was nice, but did nothing for him. He didn’t want to grab her and press his nose into her neck like he did whenever he was close to Vanessa and, to his knowledge, Vanessa didn’t wear anything scented—probably because it’d drive her crazy…or she was allergic to perfumes. Could be either.

Sammy looked over her shoulder at him with squinted eyes.

“What?” It would be strange if, today of all days, she started coming on to him.

“Nothing. You just…seem different.”

“Different like how? Like I look different or I’m acting different or what sort of different?” Different like she could tell he’d spent the night with a werewolf? Different like he was falling apart because now he was keeping it secret that he spent the night with a werewolf?

Raising her eyebrows, she fought a smile. “Well, you
are
acting different.” She seemed to shake it off and returned to staring at the ground. “What’s the matter, Hansen? Have a hot date last night?”

“What makes you think it was a woman?” He blinked. “I mean, not that it would be anything other than a woman.” Okay, so he should really stop talking. Or change the subject. “So, what is it you’re staring at?”

She gestured in front of her as he crouched.

Okay, maybe he hadn’t needed to ask. “Lots of tracks,” he said vaguely.

“Wolf tracks.”

“Could be dogs or coyotes.”

She shook her head. “No, look how big these are…and they’re elongated. Also the pattern is straighter. Definitely not dogs.”

“Coyotes?” He didn’t know why he was trying to throw her off. He was playing the same game Vanessa was with him.

“Nope, coyote tracks would have tighter and less round digits. I know wolves and these are wolves.” They were definitely wolf tracks. He’d seen it at a glance, but he’d been hoping the other park ranger wasn’t as familiar with them. There weren’t many packs in this area—of real wolves. And really, now he could say he “knew” wolves too—if not for that cold shower it would have been in the biblical sense even. Well, not wolves per se—whatever Vanessa was.

“So a few wolves went through here.” He stood up, trying to act like it was nothing. It was insane, but he felt protective of Vanessa’s secret. Maybe that was the same reason she was acting like he was crazy.

“A few?” She looked at him over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised incredulously. From her expression, Sammy felt like he’d failed an important test—also he noticed her eyes were greenish, brownish. Vanessa’s were brown—deep brown—and he liked them narrowed and squinty as she prepared some angry retort.

Sammy tossed her braid over her shoulder. “A huge pack…and traveling more like a herd. I’ve never seen this many. I didn’t know we had so many around.” She narrowed those greenish-brownish eyes. “You know, Frank…guy that owned that house before you, he had a degree in zoology. He had a real talent for tracking animals.” She gestured at the ground. “I don’t know that he saw a single wolf in the forest the whole time he was here.”

Dane covered a smile by itching his nose. “Not a single one?” He’d already one-upped his predecessor without even trying. Of course he couldn’t tell her that. He’d have to keep playing stupid. And okay, his degrees were in geology and forestry, not zoology, as evidenced by the fact that he’d had to Google how long his girlfriend would be in heat. If he’d known he’d be crossing species to date, he might’ve switched majors.

“Of course, if wolves don’t want to be seen, they won’t be, but I didn’t think they’d come out like this—especially not this close to town, or this close to the road.”

Hell, they lived in town. He’d slept next to one last night.

She stood and looked back at the deep grooves of the tires on the other side of the ditch. The police department had already dragged the car away, but the soft ground still retained the print of where it’d been. “I don’t like how close these are to where that woman disappeared.”

That sobered him right up.

“Her boyfriend claims she’d decided to move back east—only he wasn’t going with her, so I guess he’d be an ex. Anyway, doesn’t look like she caught a flight and no one back east has seen her.”

“What does the sheriff say about her ex?”

“Jordan Hill? Oh, Travis says it’s nothing to do with him. Jordan has been pushing the sheriff to look into it. The sheriff thinks she was transported magically somewhere and didn’t bother doing anything with her car.”

The sheriff could kiss his ass. He should have stayed that night and helped search. Of course, if he had, he wouldn’t have met Vanessa. Who was a wolf. He looked down at the prints again. Damn. Vanessa couldn’t have anything to do with this.

“But they don’t think it was anything to do with the ex?” He’d be the first person Dane would suspect.

“It wasn’t Jordan,” Sammy said, shrugging, and staring at the tracks again.

An abandoned vehicle. A whole load of wolf tracks. A missing woman. A sick feeling settled in his stomach.

“I don’t like this,” she said again. “There’s so many of them. I’ve never seen this many wolves out at once.” She picked up her radio. “Hey, we’re going to scout the area around here. There’s been a lot of what looks like wolves around. Can you ask Travis if he ran across any wolves while they were out looking?” She smirked a bit and said to Dane, “I’m just curious what he’ll say.”

“You don’t think it was wolves that did this, do you?” Dane asked. He didn’t even want to think it—didn’t want to consider it, but that black wolf would have ripped him to shreds if given the chance.

She shrugged.

There was silence on the other end. And then Ross from dispatch cleared his throat and asked, “Have you seen any?”

“No. Just prints. A lot of prints.”

“Well, I should touch base with Travis before you look around. Maybe you should leave it be though.”

“We found a bunch of wolf prints near where a woman went missing and you don’t want us to follow them?” she asked—in a voice that conveyed how stupid she thought that was.

“Why would wolves have anything to do with a missing person?” The question left Sammy and Dane blinking at each other.

“Are you serious?”

“Let me just check with Travis first.” Ross sounded almost desperate.

She frowned. “Never mind. You can go ahead and let the sheriff’s department know we’re going to look over the surrounding area.” The minute she’d let go of the button, she muttered, “You and I can handle a few wolves.”

“Just be careful then,” the dispatcher said over the radio, making Sammy smile.

“Aww…Ross. Are you worried about us then?” she asked.

“Just don’t want any more missing persons.” Ross was around her age and single. There had been a few times when it seemed like they were flirting or at least Ross was making an attempt. Maybe he’d moved to romancing her over the radio. Dane wasn’t one to judge a courtship—not now.

She was back to smiling, but he was pissed off. He should’ve forced Vanessa to tell him a little more about the local wildlife. Yesterday’s brush with nature in his front yard left him with more questions than answers in regards to how friendly the local pack was. Maybe that was the wolf Travis had tried to warn him about.

Clipping her radio to her belt, Sammy tossed her braid over her shoulder. “So, we’ll start here and follow these prints as best we can.”

The image of the black wolf flashed through his head. “Armed, I think. I’m getting my shotgun.”


The slam of the front door made Vanessa jerk awake and something pointy stabbed at her palm as she reflexively crushed it in her fist. Opening her hand, she saw a key. Apparently Dane had meant what he’d said about her coming and going.

“Hello, Dane?” a female voice called from the entryway. “I let myself in with the key. I don’t know if you’re here somewhere…” Her offhand tone suggested she didn’t actually think he was. “I’m here to get my cat.”

Vanessa slid to the edge of the bed quietly. Whoever this woman was, Dane had given her a key too. Maybe he gave every woman he knew keys. She set the one in her hand on the side table. It’s not like she could carry it back with her when she shifted anyway. Also apparently he tossed them around like Mardi Gras beads.

“Lucifer?” the female called, approaching the room.

Okay, maybe she shouldn’t be sitting on Dane’s bed in just his shirt. Then again, maybe she should. Dane would have to be hers…at least for right now. If this was in the pack, and another female was interested in a male she wanted, Vanessa would take that she-wolf down by the scruff and hold her until the female submitted and relinquished claim—and that was without the scent-match. Just because she typically chose running didn’t mean she couldn’t be scrappy in a fight. Since this was a human, that seemed excessive, but she was still going to call dibs, and hopefully, this chick would back off before she had to get ugly.

“Luci—” The woman poked her head around the corner and stopped and stared at her. “Oh.”

Oh, wow, see, this is why it might have been good to have a working sense of smell, and her allergies weren’t providing that. Siblings often had similar scents, and she might be hiding in a closet right now instead of meeting Dane’s sister wearing only his shirt.

“Uhh,” Vanessa said.

Dane’s sister gestured over her shoulder. “I’m, uhh, looking for a cat, but clearly he isn’t here…I mean…in this room…where you are…”

BOOK: Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite)
9.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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