In the Company of Wolves (SWAT, #3)(21)
“Crap. You’re right.” She hadn’t even thought about that. “How am I going to get it off? I don’t think a sponge bath in the bathroom at Starbucks is going to do it.”
“You’re going to have to take a shower.”
That meant getting a hotel room. How the hell was she going to afford that?
Jayna was still wondering if she could somehow wash in Starbucks when Eric pulled out his wallet, yanked out all the cash he had in it, and held it out to her.
“Buy what you need and get a hotel room. It’d be best if you washed your clothes too, but I’m guessing you don’t have time for that, so spray a lot of perfume on them instead.”
To say she was stunned would be an understatement. Eric was a cop. He should have been arresting her instead of helping her.
“You might want to take the money now,” he said softly. “It’s starting to look like I’m offering to pay you for a sexual favor or something.”
That got her moving. She quickly reached for the money, shoving it in her pocket with a nod of thanks.
“Be careful,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I promise I’ll come up with some way to get you and your pack mates out of this mess. Just try to stay alive long enough for me to do it, okay?”
Jayna nodded, a tiny part of her believing he really could help them. But she quickly dashed that hope. There was no simple way out of a crappy situation like this. That was one thing her life to this point had taught her.
She agreed to be as careful as she could—and to exchange phone numbers with him. She was embarrassed pulling out the cheap prepaid cell phone Liam had given her, but Eric didn’t say a word as he entered his name and phone number into the memory. Then she gave him her number and watched as he typed it into his fancy iPhone so fast she could barely see his fingers move.
“Don’t call me unless it’s important,” she said after he put his phone away. “The only people who have this number are my pack mates. If it rings when they’re all there, Liam will flip out.”
He nodded. “Can we meet again tomorrow? Around this same time? I should have some kind of plan by then.”
Even though she had no idea why, Jayna agreed. Meeting him twice in two days was beyond dangerous. She must have been insane. Clandestine dates with a cop who thought he could save her and her pack from a gang of vicious mobsters—what the hell was she thinking?
Eric opened his mouth, then closed it. She thought he was going to ask her to stay. For one crazy moment, she almost wished he would. But then the real world intruded and she remembered she’d been gone from the loft for a long time.
Giving Eric a small smile, she forced herself to turn and walk toward the door, pleased that she was able to keep herself from turning back to see if he was watching her…at least until she reached the door. Then she threw a brief glance his way. He was still standing where she’d left him, gazing at her with those beautiful blue eyes.
Why did that make her so happy?
Chapter 5
It took every ounce of werewolf strength Becker possessed not to follow Jayna to make sure she got back to the loft okay. If he had, he would never have been able to leave, and he couldn’t help Jayna and her pack if he staked out the loft 24-7. Now, on the ride back to his apartment, all he could think about were the past few hours he’d spent with her. He’d go to his death before he ever told a soul, but it had been the best date he’d ever been on. Maybe that was because he’d never been on one that started with a full-out sprint across downtown Dallas.
Damn, Jayna was fast as hell. He’d really had to push it to keep up with her, which had shocked him. He could outrun anyone in his SWAT pack without even breaking a sweat. And the way she’d gone from flat-out hauling ass to a full stop in two steps was unbelievable. He’d almost snapped his ankles trying to do the same.
But as much as he’d enjoyed racing Jayna, he’d liked the benefits that came with it even more—the view of her ass in those curve-hugging jeans and the pheromones coming off her incredible body. In fact, he was having a hard time figuring out which one of those things had come closest to making him nearly pass out.
While Becker would have liked to spend the rest of the drive to his apartment fantasizing about Jayna, he had more pressing things to think about—like figuring out how to help her and her pack. And he needed to do it fast. The longer they stayed with the Albanians, the more chances there were that it would end badly.
But just because he needed to come up with a solution fast didn’t mean he could. Other than finding a place near the loft and trying to keep an eye on Jayna’s pack from a distance, he had nothing. As plans went, it was pretty damn useless.
He was still trying to come up with something when he turned into his apartment complex and saw Cooper’s Jeep Wrangler in the guest parking spot beside his reserved space. When Becker pulled in beside him, Cooper got out and fixed him with a pissed-off look.
“Why the hell aren’t you answering your phone? I haven’t heard a word from you in over twenty-four hours and every time I called, it went to voice mail. Where the hell have you been?”
Becker flipped down the kickstand on the bike, then climbed off. “With Jayna—the female werewolf from the warehouse.”
Cooper did a double take. “You found her? What’d you find out?”