Taming the Moon (3 page)

To sit at home and wallow wasn’t in his nature. There was something he could do, as much as he might be reluctant to ask for help. Scowling, he yanked his mobile phone from its holder on his belt and punched in Declan’s number. As soon as Declan’s sleepy voice came on the line, Sully muttered, “I need your help, you son of a bitch.”

“Do you have any concept of time zones at all, boyo?”

Over the phone line Sully could hear the rustle of bed linens and pictured Declan rolling over to look at the clock. He glanced at his wristwatch and did the math. It was only three in the morning in Arizona where Declan was. Tough shit.

“I nearly bit the head off a suspect today. Literally.” Sully hailed a cab. As he climbed into the backseat of the black Austin, he switched the phone to his left ear and pulled the door shut. “Lyall Mews, Belgravia,” he said to the cabbie. The car pulled away from the curb, and Sully turned his attention back to the phone. “I’ve just returned from holiday only to be this close”—he measured a small space between thumb and forefinger—“to being suspended, you bastard.” He settled back against the car seat cushions.

“How exactly is that my fault?” Declan’s voice was heavy with sleepy irritation, which thickened his Irish brogue. Sully heard a feminine voice murmur in the back
ground, and Declan’s tone immediately softened. “It’s just Sully, love. Go back to sleep.”

“Is he all right?” Sully heard her ask. Pelicia Cobb, Declan’s fiancée—the woman Declan had asked Sully to help him protect. The woman in whose home Sully had been attacked by a werewolf, his life forever changed.

Forever fucked up.

Royally.

“He’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

Sully heard the soft smack of lips meeting lips, and Pelicia’s sleepy sigh. Then Declan said, “I told you that you should’ve come to the States with us from the get-go.”

“I didn’t call to hear you say ‘I told you so,’” Sully interrupted. “Just…” He heaved a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “Just tell me the offer to come stay with you and learn how to control this…” He met the gaze of the cabbie in the rearview mirror and changed what he’d been about to say. “Tell me the offer is still on the table.”

“The offer’s still on the table.”

The cab pulled up in front of his four-storied terrace house, and the cabbie told him the amount of the fare. Sully muttered, “Hold on,” into the phone. He pulled out his wallet and extracted several five-pound notes and handed them to the man. “Thanks.”

“Right. ’Ave a nice day, guv.”

Sully got out of the cab, pausing on the walkway in front of the house and watched the car pull away. A few doors down, a woman climbed out of another taxi. He couldn’t see her face, but long, dark hair streamed over her shoulders and caught the sunlight with strands of red and gold.

His fingers curled with the desire to stroke through those tresses, to feel their silken strands against his skin.
He drew a breath and smelled a light, orangey perfume and, underlying that, a sexy, musky all-woman scent that made his cock jerk against his thigh. He stared at her, his gaze zeroing in on the flare of her buttocks in tight blue jeans. His gut tightened with something that went beyond lust. It was…

Primal.

More than mere want. It was need.

Deeper than he’d ever felt before.

Sully was five paces down the pavement after her before he realized he’d moved. There was something vaguely familiar about her, something that drew him like an unaware fly to the spider’s web. Just as he decided to keep following her, to find out who she was, Declan’s voice sounded in his ear.

“Hey! You still there?”

Sully stopped. He watched the woman who, without a glance in his direction, started up the short front walk of a redbrick terrace house three doors down. Her head was turned, so he still couldn’t get a look at her face.

For all he knew, she could be butt-ugly. But with an ass like that, somehow he doubted it.

He huffed a sigh. Turning back toward his own house, he shoved his right hand into his pocket. Jingling his keys as he walked, he told Declan, “I’ll make travel arrangements and be in Tucson tomorrow.” He went up the pavement to his front door and drew his keys from his pocket. “My passport’s up-to-date, so it’s just a matter of booking a flight.” He unlocked the door and went inside, closing the door behind him with one heel. “Fuck. I hate this. I really, really hate this.”

“It’s not that bad.” Declan was beginning to sound more alert. “You’ll find there are a lot of things you can do now that you couldn’t do before. You’ll have lots more
stamina, for one thing. In all areas,” he added with a low chuckle.

Sully ignored the innuendo. Since he had no sex life at the moment to speak of, whether or not he had more stamina wasn’t an issue. “Yes, and I can run faster, see clearer, hear things from greater distances.” He gave a growl of frustration. “I also nearly killed a man today. If my DC hadn’t caught up to us when he did—”

“But he obviously did, otherwise you’d be sittin’ in a jail cell and not talkin’ to me on the phone.” Declan heaved a sigh. “Look, call me when you have your travel itinerary, and we’ll pick you up at the airport, okay? Until then…buck up. It’ll be all right.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” Sully said good-bye, not waiting for Declan to respond, and closed his phone, disconnecting the call. He loosened and then pulled off his tie, tossing it onto a decorative table in the narrow entry hallway. Then he went upstairs to pack and try to begin coming to terms with his new life.

O
livia prowled around the back yard of the swanky town house, taking particular care to be quiet so the werewolf inside wouldn’t hear her. She tried to find a way in and cursed under her breath at being thwarted. Damn. Cops were the same world-over. This guy’s place was buttoned up tighter than the White House.

Or, since she was in London, maybe Buckingham Palace was a more appropriate analogy.

She’d already lost almost twenty-four hours of her seven-day reprieve getting from New York to London and waiting outside New Scotland Yard for a glimpse of DCI Sullivan and the chance to follow him home. He’d finally come out, looking as pissed as hell and, interestingly enough, flagged down a taxi instead of driving off in an unmarked police car as she’d thought he’d do.

She’d grabbed a taxi of her own and followed him, having the driver pull over a few houses up from where Sully got out. Thankfully Sully was so preoccupied with his current…predicament that he hadn’t noticed he’d been followed.

When she had first gotten out of the taxi she’d seen him
glance her way. She’d quickly turned so he wouldn’t see her face, her heart beating fast. Her citrus-based perfume would mask her scent, so he wouldn’t be able to smell her as another werewolf.

She had to act like she belonged in the neighborhood, so she’d walked down the short sidewalk to a nearby town house as if it was hers—thankful no one poked their head out asking what she was about, loitering around their front door.

While they were both outside, her enhanced werewolf hearing had allowed her to listen in on his phone conversation, even from three doors down. As soon as she’d heard him making plans to leave the country, she knew she had to act.

If she didn’t get him now, she’d lose at least another day or two waiting to get him once he got to Arizona. She paused, peering into a downstairs window.

It looked like some sort of home office. A big mahogany desk took up one side of the room, a comfy sofa on the wall facing it, and book-lined shelves made of the same dark-hued wood. She didn’t know much about Rory Sullivan, but she recognized that he had money.

Hell, the fact that he lived in one of those old town houses made her think he had oodles of money. Probably old money, but who knew? There were a lot of nouveaux riches in the world these days, even with the uncertainties in the stock markets in the last couple years.

God, what would her life have been like had she had this kind of money? Instead of living in a modest apartment in the Bronx, she and Zoe might have been living large in the East Village or Gramercy. At the very least, she probably wouldn’t have been turned into a werewolf, so anything different would be an improvement.

Now’s not the time, Liv.
She pushed away the feeling of despair at her current situation, remorse at what she was being forced to do—and, yes, jealousy at Sully’s good fortune—and focused once again on a way to get to him.

Thirty minutes later she heaved a sigh of defeat. She could break in, but he’d hear her and be prepared for a fight. Before, when he was human, she would have been twice as strong as him. If she hadn’t been interrupted by O’Connell, the job would have been finished in the Isles of Scilly. Without the element of surprise on her side, she had a slim-to-none chance of defeating him.

Now that he was a werewolf he was stronger and faster than her, so it would be better if she could avoid a fight. She couldn’t afford to be wounded—or worse. Zoe’s life depended on her mother murdering this man.

An innocent man. A good man.

Someone Olivia might have liked to have called “friend.”

A light flicked on inside the study. Sully walked in, head down, brow furrowed. She caught her breath and moved to one side of the window, slowly so as to not draw his attention.

My God, but he’s handsome
. She swallowed and tried to control the primeval reaction of her body to the superior specimen of male. Over six feet of lean muscle, symmetrical features, and glittering green eyes took her breath away.

She’d never been introduced to him, but she’d observed him while he was staying at that little bed and breakfast on the island of St. Mary’s.

And she’d tasted his blood. His flesh.

So on some level she felt she knew him.

He was more than just his looks. He was a staunch defender of the innocent, and a man who saw things in black and white.

She bit her lip. Wasn’t he going to be surprised at just how gray things in his life had gotten? Looking at the expression on his face, at the dispirited look in his eyes, she thought perhaps not. It seemed as though he may have already had a lesson or two.

She could only hope he hadn’t yet mastered control of the wolf, for it was on his lack of control she had to pin her hopes of destroying him.

Olivia blinked back tears. God in heaven, how had she gotten to a point where she was willing to take someone’s life?

The answer was simple. It was all about Zoe.

Olivia would do anything—
anything
—to protect her little girl. Even if it meant going against everything she believed in.

But she had to do it smart. That meant not attacking him where he was comfortable, where the advantage was his. That meant getting him off on his own someplace where the chances of being interrupted again were slim.

That meant she had to keep her focus on the task at hand and not on his body. Or his face. Or those big hands that, at the moment, were clenched at his sides.

Big hands that she wouldn’t mind feeling on her skin.

Stop it!
She tried to ignore the frisson of arousal that tightened her core, made her clit throb with insistent heat. There was no future for them, of any sort. Because in under six days’ time, one way or another, he’d be dead.

Or she would be. But then what would happen to Zoe?

No, she couldn’t fail. It had to be Sullivan.

So, what was she going to do? Sit in his back yard like a dog, or hop a plane and beat him back to the States?

There was only one thing she could do. Wherever Rory Sullivan went, she would go, too.

She began plotting her next moves. She would do a search on the Internet for Declan O’Connell’s address and get to Arizona before Sully did. Hell, if she couldn’t locate O’Connell, she’d camp out at the airport and wait for Sully to show up. She could follow him and at the first opportunity take him out in the relative isolation of the desert. Whatever it took to make it happen, she would do it.

“Tucson, here I come,” she whispered and quietly made her way around the house to the front. Once she was far enough away that she was sure he wouldn’t hear her, she broke into a run to the closest main street and flagged down a taxi.

The next evening, Sully watched the passing scenery from the backseat of Declan’s Mustang as they made their way from the airport. They’d already been on the road for thirty minutes. “I’d no idea you lived so far from town,” he commented.

“We haven’t technically left the city.” Declan brought the car to a stop at a traffic light. “This is still part of Tucson.”

The mountains to the north were closer, and Sully found himself envying Declan—however briefly—for the chance to live with such raw beauty all around him. The bright blue sky contrasted with the craggy slag heaps, and the desert floor held cacti and other plants flowering in yellows, purples, and oranges.

Still, he’d called London home for over twenty years. This place, while beautiful, was too quiet. Too untamed.

As if to prove his point, a scrawny-looking dog crossed the road to his right.

“Coyote.” Pelicia twisted in the passenger seat. She
glanced back at Declan. “Right?” At his nod she looked at Sully. “They’re all over the place out here, Declan says. That and javelina—they’re somewhat like pigs—bobcats…oh, and let’s not forget the rattlesnakes and scorpions,” she added with a sidelong glance at Declan. “Declan showed me my first rattlesnake yesterday while we were out for a walk.”

“What did he do, point to himself in a mirror?” Sully muttered.

“For God’s sake, boyo, let it go.” Declan shot him a dark glance over his shoulder. As he turned forward again the light turned green. He drove through the intersection. “What’s done is done. You need to deal with it. Besides,” he went on in a blithe tone, “no snakes have gotten into the house, and the scorpions are usually dead by the time we find them.” He laughed at Pelicia’s little roll of her eyes and cupped his right hand behind her head, beneath the single plait of blond hair that rested against her back.

Sully saw his fingers stroke behind her ear, and the two shared a look that made envy curl around his gut.

The image of a woman with long, dark hair and a sexy ass flitted into his mind. Along with it came the remembered scent he associated with her—light citrus mixed with warm woman. Damn. He should’ve followed that woman by his terrace house in London, at least gotten her phone number.

So you could…what? Have her over for dinner some night à la Hannibal Lecter?

He scowled and folded his arms over his chest.

Declan met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Anyway, you might find there are some advantages now when it comes to doin’ your job.”

“Advantages on the job, you say?” Sully shifted in his
seat and raised his eyebrows. “You mean, like I can run faster?”

“Aye.”

“And see more clearly and at farther distances?” He kept his tone even with an effort.

Declan nodded.

“And that my senses of smell and hearing are better?”

Declan glanced around with a slight frown as if Sully’s too-sedate tone was finally getting through to him. “Aye,” he drawled slowly.

“And try to rip out the throat of my suspect and so perhaps lose said job?” Sully clamped his jaws together against the howl of rage threatening to break free. Regardless that the Chief had sent him on a personal leave rather than an administrative one, the outcome could still be the same.

He could be sacked.

If he couldn’t be a cop…He drew in a breath. Serving at the Yard was all he knew. If he couldn’t be a cop, he didn’t know what else to do. Going home to his family’s estate was out of the question, though he knew his mother would love for him to come home. But living the life of a rich, pampered sot wasn’t for him.

Making a difference in people’s lives by getting bad guys off the street—
that
was what he was all about.

“That happened because you haven’t yet learned how to control the wolf.” Declan didn’t bother to hide the irritated growl in his deep voice. “If you’d listened to me in the first place—”

“It was
because
I listened to you in the first place”—Sully leaned forward—“that I’m in this fucking mess.” He slumped in his seat. “Never mind,” he muttered, interrupting Declan’s retort and avoiding Pelicia’s gaze. He didn’t want to make her feel any guiltier over what had happened
to him than she already did. “Just”—he met Declan’s gaze in the rearview mirror—“tell me that when I go home in six weeks I won’t be trying to eat my suspects.”

“You won’t be tryin’ to eat your suspects.”

Pelicia twisted again in her seat, her gaze bright with compassion mingled with lingering remorse. She said in a quiet voice, “This is something you
can
learn to live with, Sully. Once you’ve learned how to control your emotions, you’ll see a marked difference in your reaction to things.”

Sully gave a nod.
That
he’d have to wait and see about.

“Here we are.” Declan turned the car onto a gravel driveway, winding between tall green cacti with arms and smaller purple cacti with flat, circular appendages. “I’ve put you in the guesthouse—reckoned you’d want some time alone, and some space—but you’re more than welcome to stay with us in the main house if you’d prefer.”

“The guesthouse is fine.” Preferable, truth be told. With a sense of wonder Sully took in the sprawling adobe house with its southwestern architecture. So very alien compared to what he was used to in London. “This is…different.”

Pelicia grinned and opened the door. As she got out of the car she said, “Yes, we don’t see much of this style of house in England, do we?” She pulled the lever to move the seat forward so Sully could climb out of the back.

“No, we don’t.” Arms above his head, Sully stretched, working kinks out of his muscles brought on by the nearly forty-five minute ride. So many new smells—predominantly one of citrus. He glanced around and saw two lemon trees at one side of the house.

“So?” Declan walked around to the boot of the car and popped the lid. “What do you think? I mean, I realize it’s not the same as the stately old manor house you grew up in, but—”

“Shut it.” Sully took the big suitcase Declan handed to him. Looking at the gravel, he realized he’d be better off carrying the thing rather than trying to wheel it over the uneven surface.

“The guesthouse is this way.” Pelicia took his small overnight case from the boot and started around one side of the house.

Sully obediently fell in line behind her, aware of Declan bringing up the rear with a third suitcase, smaller than the one Sully carried.

“You brought more luggage than a woman,” Declan muttered.

“Shut it.” Sully wasn’t in the mood to listen to the Irish version of the Mad Hatter. “I brought what I needed.”

“Even Pelicia didn’t bring this much crap with her, and she’s stayin’ three months before she has to get back to Scilly and wrap things up there.”

Before Sully could tell him to shut up for a third time, Pelicia looked over her shoulder. “Declan, stop it.”

“Stop what?” His voice was all innocence.

“You know very well what. You’re trying to rile Sully, so just stop it. Let the man rest from his journey before you throw him headlong into a training session.” Her pretty lips bowed down, and she shook her head in an age-old feminine gesture of irritation. Without waiting for either man to respond, she said, “Here we are.” She took a key from her pocket and unlocked the red door of the small guesthouse.

Sully followed her inside. Setting down the suitcase, he gazed around the room. The front door opened directly into a living room with a plump leather sofa sitting in front of a beehive fireplace, a large flat-screen TV, and var
ious pieces of Native American pottery on the built-in bookshelf beside it.