Chapter Twelve
C HAPTER T WELVE
Dogs are proud creatures and often find it difficult to back down from a challenge.
—Man’s Best Friend: An Essential Guide to Dogs
With his bleary eyes and slurred speech, Lenny’s foster father was undeniably human. A sorry excuse, but human nonetheless. No way could he be the lycan responsible for infecting Lenny. Claire had hoped, at the very least, that he might have some information, some clue to send them in the right direction. The two friends of Lenny’s they had visited earlier that morning—boys she had often seen him talking to at school—had been of no help either.
But the foster father knew even less of Lenny’s habits than his friends had.
“Where’s your wife?” Gideon demanded, shaking him by the shirtfront when it looked like the guy might pass out.
“She took off with some guy. Weeks ago.”
Gideon let go of his shirt. The man slumped back into the couch, his bloodshot eyes drifting to Claire. The Price Is Right blared loudly behind them from the tiny television. His head swayed side to side as he asked, “You that teacher Lenny always talked about? Miss Whatsit?”
“Miss Morgan, yes.”
“Coulda jammed my fist in that kid’s mouth for all his yapping about you.” He took a swig from a can of beer. Several other crushed cans littered the chipped and stained coffee table. “Miss Morgan this, Miss Morgan that. Had a real hard-on for you. Coulda puked the number of times that kid tossed your name out. Stupid kid,” he mumbled, shaking his head in disgust as he fished the remote control from under a couch cushion.
“Come on, Claire.” Gideon grabbed her hand. “Let’s go.”
But she couldn’t move. His slurred words rooted her to the floor.
“Len thought you were gonna save ’im.” Throwing his arms wide, his voice cracked with harsh laughter. “Take ’im away from all this and turn ’im into a college boy. Well, how’s he doing now, teacher lady?”
Claire took a deep, shuddering breath, willing her feet to move, to walk out the door.
“Let’s go. Don’t listen to this jackass.” Gideon tugged on her hand, finally managing to pull her out the door. It slammed behind them, stinging her ears.
Claire barely registered walking, much less climbing into the Jeep. She gazed blindly through the windshield, gnawing her thumbnail to the quick before she realized the Jeep sat parked, motor silent and still.
Glancing at Gideon, she asked, “Why aren’t we moving?”
Gideon gestured to the apartment building with a flick of his wrist. “Don’t let that guy get to you.” A flash of light lit up the sky followed by a rumble of thunder.
She shrugged one shoulder and faced the front again, the leather seat creaking as she settled her weight and leaned her head against the headrest. “He’s right. I didn’t help Lenny.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t see any other teachers in the alley putting their asses on the line for a kid that night.” His voice turned hard and angry as he started the Jeep. “Maybe if you had worried a little less about Lenny and a little more about Claire, you wouldn’t be where you are now.” He gave the gear stick a rough yank. “I think you’ve sacrificed plenty, more than Lenny ever wanted or expected—”
“How do you know what Lenny thought? He probably thought I didn’t—”
“He knew you cared. His last words were of you.”
Her mouth snapped shut. Nothing could have shocked her more. Lenny spoke of her at the end? Pressing a hand to her chest, almost afraid to ask, she whispered, “What did he say?”
She watched Gideon’s jaw tense, the muscles flexing. A loud crack of thunder fractured the silence.
“What did he say?” she repeated over the thunder’s echo, staring at the fast-darkening sky through the windshield.
“He told me to help you.” His gaze flicked to her, then back to the road. “He made me promise to help you.”
“And that’s why you’re doing this?”
Another pause. Then he answered, “No.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why then?”
“I don’t know why,” he explained, his voice impatient.
At that moment, the sky opened up and rain poured down in torrents, angrily pounding against the windshield and beating noisily on the Bikini top. The windshield wipers worked overtime, fighting the onslaught of water.
They drove on the congested four-lane highway in silence before she dared to announce, “Could we get something to eat?”
She scanned their surroundings. A myriad of restaurants blended together through a veil of rain, indistinct shapes dwarfed by tall gray buildings and taller billboards, but none were what she wanted. “There’s a place called Angelo’s near my apartment, and I could pick a few things up while we’re there.”
Thirty minutes later, a red-checkered vinyl tablecloth separated them. Gideon opened a plastic-coated menu, his hair glistening and slightly wet from the dash to Angelo’s covered portico.
“Everything’s good,” she volunteered, fluffing her own damp locks with her hand.
The waiter soon arrived and Claire placed her three-course order. Gideon didn’t blink an eye, no doubt accustomed to her unending eat-fest.
“Maybe we could go grocery shopping after this and get some things for the house.”
His eyes shot to hers over the rim of his glass, wide and unblinking in his expressionless face. He took his time setting his glass back down on the table before saying quietly, “I don’t think so.”
“It’d be nice if—”
“It’d be nice,” Gideon interrupted, “if you stopped trying to play house with me.”
Heat flooded her face. “I only suggested we buy groceries so we don’t have to keep eating out.”
“You made my bed,” he cut in.
Claire jerked, not foreseeing that complaint. “So.” Thank God he hadn’t caught her inhaling his scent on the sheets and pillows, closing her eyes as feelings for Gideon washed over her unchecked. She fisted both hands on the tabletop.
At that moment the food arrived. A strained silence fell. Tension crackled on the air. The waiter looked from one to the other uneasily before making a quick escape.
Gideon motioned between the two of them. “This has got to stop.”
“What?”
“This thing between us. It’s distracting me from what I need to be doing… which is focusing on finding the alpha to break your curse.”
“I thought that’s what we’ve been doing.”
His green eyes sparked fire. “I suppose we are. When we’re not fucking. Or when I’m not thinking of fucking you.”
She blinked at his coarse words. Unbidden, the image of them sweaty and tangled in his sheets rose in her mind. Body tingling, she traced the rim of her glass. “What are you saying?”
“If I’m not going to put all my energy and attention into helping you break this curse, then I might as well destroy you now.”
Claire sucked in a deep breath and sank back into the leather bench, tossing her napkin on the table. “So you scratched your itch and now you’re wondering why you’re keeping me around anymore, is that it?” She swallowed down the hot lump rising in her throat.
“Claire, that’s not—”
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, her voice shockingly calm. “You think I need to be destroyed. Go ahead, then.”
Their gazes clashed in silent battle. Belatedly, she realized that she’d thrown down one hell of a dare.
She waited for him to say something, to refute her taunt by saying that he couldn’t do that. That he didn’t want to, that what he felt for her would never permit him to do such a thing. Instead, he just stared at her with cold eyes.
Even knowing he could offer no such assurances—that it was unfair to expect him to soothe her with false promises—she felt a flash of anger. She had given more than her body to him. It was not just some curse, some animal instinct that drew her to him. Her hunger forgotten, Claire bolted from the table and fled the restaurant.
She heard him call her name, but didn’t stop.
Pushing the door open, she fled into the rain. She hurried along the uneven sidewalk edging the road, enduring the splashing water from passing cars. One stopped. A Jeep. A maroon Jeep. The passenger door flung open. Gideon leaned across the seat, shouting, “Get in!”
“No,” she shouted back and continued walking in stiff strides, hands shielding her face in a feeble effort to ward off the rain. A pointless endeavor. She was already soaked.
With the passenger door swinging open, the Jeep sped ahead and drove up onto the sidewalk, jerking to a stop several feet in front of her and blocking the driveway to her dry cleaner’s. Claire stopped and stared at those red parking lights warily. The driver’s door thrust open and Gideon climbed out. He marched toward her, his lean figure cutting through the rain like a blade, eyes unblinking against the deluge of water sluicing down the hard planes of his face. Hands fisted at his sides, he stopped in front of her. Her head fell back to glare at him.
“Are you getting in?”
She hesitated, staring at the unyielding set of his mouth and reading the determination in his face to have his way, to win. He wouldn’t accept anything less than her total surrender. She knew that. Just as she knew she could not—would not—give in to his bullying. She’d been bullied enough in her life. No more.
She found the will to lift her voice over the pounding rain. “No!”
Gideon had seen this in a movie before. Girl won’t get in the car. Guy demands she does. Girl tells him to go to hell right before guy flings her over his shoulder in a caveman display of dominance. If Claire wanted to play that girl, then he would be more than happy to oblige her and play his part.
Bending, he grabbed her by the knees and flung her over his shoulder. She screeched and pummeled the backs of his thighs with her fists. He was well aware she didn’t hit like a girl—not with the lycan blood coursing through her veins—and that first blow nearly brought him down.
“Let me go!” she demanded over the steady beat of rain.
“Can’t.” Grinning, he adjusted her more comfortably on his shoulder and suffered her punches. “You’d fall on your head and break your neck.”
She jabbed a fist into his back, grinding her knuckles into his spine and nearly upsetting his balance on the slippery sidewalk. He delivered a loud smack to her rear end. “Stop that or we’ll both fall and crack our heads.”
“Well, that wouldn’t kill me , would it?” she retorted.
“Smart-ass,” he grumbled, dumping her in the passenger seat.
He was half afraid she would bolt when he left her to walk around to the driver’s side, but she wisely stayed put. Slamming his door shut, he turned to look at her. With her wet hair plastered to her head, she reminded him of a drowned cat. Her chest rose and fell with ragged breaths, her dusky nipples pebble hard through her soaked shirt. His hands itched to take hold of them, to taste them through her wet bra and shirt.
She stared ahead, not looking his way, ignoring him.
He rested both hands on top of the steering wheel, palms and fingers slippery wet against the leather, grappling for control. What the hell was he doing? Getting in too deep, his mind was quick to reply.
Simultaneously, they turned and looked at each other.
He didn’t know who moved first. Whatever the case, he was kissing her, his hands cupping her wet cheeks, his fingers tangling in the soaking strands of her hair. He crushed her to him, swallowing her moan into his mouth, frustrated by the uncomfortable gear stick between them. God, he felt like he was back in high school again, making out in the front seat of his grandmother’s cramped Honda. Only she wasn’t some horny teenager. And he wasn’t some fumbling, desperate boy. Well, maybe he was desperate. He had to be. Why else was he so damned attracted to her? A lycan? One overexcited nip from her and it all ended. At least for him. Like playing with fire. And even that knowledge couldn’t make him stop, couldn’t keep him from delving his tongue deeper into her mouth.
Her little mewling sounds drove him wild and he strained against her, hungry to get his hands and mouth on the soft mounds crushing into his chest.
The sound of a horn startled them and sent them flying apart. He looked wildly about, realizing he had caused a minor traffic jam.
A woman in a Cadillac was stopped halfway in the road, halfway in the driveway, honking madly on her horn. A line of cars honked behind her, all unable to move forward.
Ignoring the way his hands shook, he shifted the gear stick and sped off. His tires locked for a moment on the wet road, sending his Jeep into a fishtail. Claire gasped beside him until he gained control of the vehicle.
He didn’t speak until they pulled up in front of her apartment a minute later. “I thought we could dry off and you could get the things you wanted.”
At that precise moment the aroma of melted cheese and rich marinara sauce hit him in full, tantalizing force, reminding him of what he had in the backseat.
“What’s that smell?” Apparently, Claire hadn’t missed it either.
“Our lunch.”
She looked over her shoulder at the bags of food sitting in the back. Taking one bag, he handed her the other. Arms shielding their precious cargo, they darted through the rain to her apartment, which was dark and stale from lack of use. Flipping on the light, she set her bag on the table. He placed his bag on the surface as well. She looked around her apartment, surveying everything with an air of sadness, as if seeing it for the first time. And in many ways it was the first time, he reasoned. She saw it through new eyes. The eyes of a woman who didn’t know how much time she had left.
Damn, there he went again. Connecting with her. Empathizing with her. Wanting to pull her into his arms and kiss her fears away, to bury himself in her heat until both of them forgot the world around them.
He had to keep personal feelings for her at bay. It would only make destroying her harder—if it came down to that.
Her eyes widened as he pulled his sodden shirt out of his jeans and over his head.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting undressed. Got a towel?” he asked.
She nodded jerkily and disappeared into her room, returning seconds later with a towel in her hands. “Why don’t you throw your clothes in the dryer.” She pointed to what looked like a closet tucked behind her kitchen table. “I’m going to change.”
He waited until the bedroom door shut behind her before removing the rest of his clothes. Standing naked in the middle of her living room, he used the towel to rub himself dry. That done, he secured the towel around his waist and dumped his wet clothes in the small dryer. The machine’s rumble soon filled the air, accompanied by the occasional clinking against the metal drum.
By the time she joined him, wearing a pair of gray sweats and a Texas A&M T-shirt, he sat at the kitchen table unloading their food. Her gaze shot to his bare chest, her hungry gaze chipping at his resolve to keep things impersonal between them.
“Do you understand what I was trying to say at the restaurant?” he blurted, compelled to reach an understanding with her… with himself.
She bit her bottom lip and his gaze focused on those small white teeth sinking into the moist pink flesh. Releasing the lip, she replied, “Yes.”
“No more intimacy. From now on, what we have is strictly a working relationship. Our only focus is on getting you out of this mess. It’s the only way.”
“Of course.” She nodded.
They ate in silence. Exactly what Gideon preferred. No more talk of grocery shopping. No more behaving like a couple, like lovers. Silence. Distance. No threats to the walls he struggled to erect between them. She finally understood how it had to be between them.
A heavy weight settled in his chest, part remorse, part resignation.
He was halfway through his spaghetti when Claire gave a small gasp and looked up. “Woody’s,” she blurted, clutching her spoon tightly. “Lenny hung out at a place called Woody’s. A student mentioned seeing him there shortly before he attacked me. She said he was with some creepy older-looking guys.”
“Woody’s? In the Village?” he asked. Instead of relief that they now had a lead, he felt a flash of anger. “Why are you only now telling me this?”
“I just remembered,” she said in defense, shrugging. “It’s not as if I kept it from you on purpose.”
“?’Course not,” he replied in a clipped tone, annoyed all over again and feeling suddenly validated. Maybe she would have remembered sooner if he hadn’t been busy getting her flat on her back. “Anything else you forgot to mention? Any silver-eyed students? A colleague exhibiting uncharacteristic aggression?”
Her eyes shot icy daggers at him. “Very funny.”
“Because it’s only your life on the line here.”
Claire’s voice trembled. “I’ve got more at stake here than you. Next time you’re worried about growing too attached to someone you might have to kill, remember that I’m the one needing the killing.”
She surged to her feet, her silver eyes shadowed with raw emotion. “I’ll be in my room getting a few things.”
Alone, he stared at her door, contemplating whether he should knock and check on her. Then he shook his head, hardening his heart. Distance, he reminded himself. It was the best thing. For both of them.