Natural Evil (Elder Races #4.5)(16)

The car was a 1984 BMW. Claudia climbed out of the driver’s seat. She still wore jeans and a black sweatshirt, her lean, graceful body and hard, composed face illuminated by the light that shone from the house’s windows. Metal glinted briefly as she tucked her Glock at the small of her back. Luis relaxed as his immediate sense of urgency eased. He let the curtain fall back into place.

“Be right back,” Jackson said. Stewart had already stepped out, the frigid night air swirling into the trailer’s interior.

Luis nodded. He glanced at the older male as he said, “Thanks. For everything.”

Jackson returned the nod then shut the door behind him as he left.

Luis twitched the curtain aside again. He watched Jackson intercept Claudia, and they stood close together, talking. Claudia glanced at the trailer.

He turned away and looked around the interior. After a moment’s hesitation, he strode over to the shadowed alcove of the bed, took a sheet, folded it a couple of times then wound it around his waist. You know, to at least cover the basics.

As he knotted it, the trailer door opened again and Claudia stepped inside, talking as she entered. “Jackson told me about the healing potions and that you were able to—” Her voice cut off abruptly.

He turned to face her, one eyebrow raised, and a vain part of him felt intensely satisfied as she looked as poleaxed as Jackson and Stewart had, her vivid green gaze stricken.

Then one corner of her beautiful mouth lifted. She said, “Boy howdy, Precious, you really are one big son of a bitch.”

“Yes,” he said.

He walked over to her, moving gently. The distance was not far, perhaps four paces. Her expression changed and grew wary, eyes watchful, but, he was glad to see, she didn’t retreat like Jackson and Stewart had. Ready to pull back at any sign of aversion, he bent and tilted his head. He noticed she held her breath, but he didn’t. He inhaled deeply her warm scent that carried a hint of gun oil and now held a hint of beer.

So goddamn hot. And that was no longer hypothetical.

He pressed his lips lightly, quickly, to the high, firm curve of her cheekbone and drew back to look into her eyes. He said quietly, “Thank you for saving my life.”

The stiff wariness eased from her long body. She gave him a faint but real smile. There were tiny laugh lines in her smooth, tanned skin, at the corners of her mouth and her eyes.

“You’re welcome, Luis.”

Really shaken for the first time that evening, Claudia tried to hide the impact that Luis in his human form had on her.

He was so tall, she noticed he had to be careful that he didn’t scrape his head on the trailer’s ceiling. His body was massive, heavy muscles overlaid on strong, sturdy bones, with a wide, powerful chest that tapered to a long, washboard stomach. His smooth, brown, silken-looking skin wrapped the whole package like the world’s most extravagant Christmas gift, and that sheet he’d knotted at his lean hips was the bow. He had dark, bitter-chocolate eyes, boldly molded features and a mouth that was so full and sensual, it should have looked girlish but didn’t. His thick, black, gleaming hair held a hint of curl. It was a touch too long for the style he wore and flopped in his eyes, as though he were a couple weeks’ late in getting it cut.

As he walked toward her, he moved with a fighter’s easy, athletic confidence, and when he brushed her cheek, his mouth was very warm against her chilled skin.

She was used to big, tough men, and experienced with commanding them in combat missions. In some ways, Luis’s physical presence was so damn familiar it was comforting on a visceral level. That was disturbing all on its own, because her gut insisted that she recognized him and his presence filled a hole that had been inside of her ever since she had lost the others in her unit and retired.

As if that weren’t enough to knock her off balance, his presence had an intense vitality filled with a sexuality that ran dark and hot. It was sultry, powerful. It was knowledgeable. He carried that knowledge in his DNA, and it manifested in every languid, graceful move of his body and in those dark, intelligent eyes.

This was a man who’d had a whole lot of sex and he really, really liked it. And why wouldn’t he? By the time he hit puberty, every female he met and probably several of the males would have fallen over in invitation the moment they laid eyes on him.

And she was not immune either to his particularly potent brand of alchemy.

She had not felt sexual interest or desire in over three years. She had really been okay with the thought that perhaps that part of her life was over, which made it doubly shocking to have her sexuality come roaring back to life like a lit match thrown on a lake of kerosene. Heat washed through her body, and she could tell by his small smile that he knew it. He would be able to tell by her scent she was attracted to him.

The final sucker punch? He was so goddamn young.

Goddamn. Young.

Good Christ, even taking into account that he was Wyr and not human, she was fairly confident that he was somewhere in his mid-twenties.

Which meant she was a good fifteen years older than he was.

Fifteen years. It was actually, physically possible that she might be old enough to be his mother.

She turned away. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. She looked down at them. They were shaking. She clenched them into fists and willed the shaking to stop.

“Jackson said you went out to the bars,” he said. With that slight touch of accent, his voice was just like the rest of him, low and dark and sinful like melted chocolate.