Rise of the Gryphon (Belador #4)(19)

Storm had to admit that Evalle had thought this through and hoped that meant she was gaining control of the bone.

She finished, “Once VIPER knows what’s going on, they can use the armband to send in a covert team.”

Call him cynical, but that still sounded too easy.

Storm started walking toward his truck again. It should be in sight any time now. “Sen may bar you from being on the covert team that goes into the ABC.” One could only hope.

Evalle fell into step with him again. “Not if Macha demands that I’m on the team, and you know she will, so that I can get to Tristan and maybe some of the other Alterants.”

“I’m still going with you.”

“You’re no longer with VIPER, and Sen may not take you back.”

True and true, but Evalle needed someone else to watch her back besides Tzader and Quinn. Those two Beladors cared for her as if she were a little sister, but they couldn’t watch only her on an op. Storm could and would.

He offered, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

She made a gritty noise that might be an agreement. “How’s your back?”

He let her change the subject. “Fine.”

“I’ll want to see it.”

“You know I’ll heal by the time—”

“I said I want to see it,” she said with determination, which probably came from worry.

Okay, Miss Cranky. “Fine. When we get to the truck.”

She picked up the pace down the rolling elevation to the foot of the mountain, where pine trees swayed in the breeze.

Evalle reached the sport-utility vehicle and turned to him with a stubborn look burning in her eyes. She knew he could draw on his jaguar powers to heal and had already started the process, but she had that single-minded look, and he wanted her calm for the drive back so she might sleep. She’d had no real rest in over three days.

Reaching his SUV, Storm opened the door to the back seat on the driver’s side, shrugged out of his jacket, then tossed it in. No interior lights came on.

He’d disconnected those for situations just like this one.

It would have been simpler to wait until he got home to remove his shirt and use a healing chant to aid his powers in sealing the cuts, but the smell of his blood might be bothering her, reminding her of the fight, so he yanked off his shirt, ripping open the scab that had already formed.

She walked around to the passenger side and pulled out a bottle of water from the console. When she returned to his side, she snagged the shirt from his hand and ordered, “Turn around.”

Any other time, he’d find her bossiness sexy, but there’d been nothing playful in her tone. Worry poured off of her in angry waves.

The things a man did for a woman.

He complied, closing the door, then putting his crossed arms against the top of the car and leaning on them.

She grumbled under her breath about how letting him fight was stupid. Just as he’d thought, she was stressing over his fight with the Alterant.

Water sloshed behind him, then the wet rag brushed gently across his back. He still flinched from the cold contact. Good thing he kept an extra change of clothes in his truck. While he let her clean off the blood, he tried to be at ease with her attention, but just having her hands so close to him raised an interest he’d be hard-pressed to hide soon. He hadn’t been injured enough to warrant this much concern. The cuts were more nuisance than serious for him and she knew that.

Evalle didn’t nurture, but like everything else she did when she cared about someone, it was all or none. That meant she’d dive into battle with any creature if it meant protecting the ones who mattered to her.

But she was no Florence Nightingale.

Not that he was complaining.

Especially when her fingers grazed his skin.

Heat blazed a trail from his back to his groin from just that slight touch.

No longer grouching at him, she moved the rag over his skin slowly in what she probably thought was a soothing way, but having her touch him was killing him. He stayed in perpetual arousal around her as it was.

Shutting his eyes, he tried to focus on the cold mountain air, the soft breeze, anything but how much he wanted her hands everywhere on his skin. This was neither the time nor the place. Tell your body that.

The rag disappeared.

Her hands slid up his back, slowly, inching her way to his shoulders.

Really?

He froze, straining not to flex muscles that urged him to push against her hands. Her warm touch crawled up his neck, fingers gliding through his hair, then moving back over his shoulders and along his arms. She paused, then placed her hands on each side of his waist.

His lungs tightened, holding his next breath while he waited to see what she’d do.

In the past few weeks, she’d become more trusting of his advances, more open to the first stages of passion, but her instigating this much touching was unexpected.

Her fingers slid around front to where she ran her hands over his stomach.

That brought her chest to his back.

Her breasts nudged him.

Blood surged in his groin.

His heart beat out of control. He’d known this moment when she’d be ready for intimacy was coming, but damn, he hadn’t wanted it out here in the woods.

What had brought out her amorous side tonight? Seeing Storm so close to being killed? He’d envisioned her naked in front of a roaring fire or spread across his bed or under a rush of water in his shower.