Taming The Shifter. Lisa Childs
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ragged. And his heart was beating. She could feel the vibrations of it despite the small space that separated his body from hers. His skin radiated warmth to hers, making her tingle in reaction.
He was no ghost. No dream.
“What the hell are you?” she murmured again. “Indestructible?”
“I’m destructible,” he replied with a heavy sigh that teased her lips.
“You weren’t wearing a bulletproof vest,” she said. “I saw the gunshot wound, saw you bleeding.” Her trembling fingers skimmed down his neck to the buttons on his shirt. She needed to see the scar, needed to understand how a man could have survived such an injury. If he was a man...
He caught her fingers in his hand. “If you see my scars, I’m going to have to see yours.”
Goose bumps lifted along her bare shoulders and arms. She had scars, but hardly anyone knew about them. How could he know? The fear she should have been feeling the minute she’d discovered him in the shadows finally coursed through her. The hand holding the gun tightened on the grip.
“Who are you?”
He chuckled and cupped her cheek in his hand. “Poor Kate, you can’t figure out if you want to kiss me or kill me.”
She gasped at his arrogance and his perception. And the desire that jolted her with his touch.
“Remember how well that worked out for you last time,” he goaded her with a wink, his long thick lashes brushing against his chiseled cheekbones. “You can’t kill me.”
“You said you’re not indestructible.”
“Killing someone isn’t the only way to destroy them.”
She knew that better than most. “Is that what you’re trying to do to me?” she asked. “Destroy me?”
Reporting an officer-involved shooting and being unable to produce the body had harmed her career. Seeing glimpses of him everywhere after she thought she’d killed him had harmed her sanity. That had to be why she was so addled, so confused—that she’d asked none of the questions that she should have, that she hadn’t fired her gun.
He sighed again, raggedly, and leaned his forehead against hers. Then his hand slid from her cheek, down her neck to clasp her throat. “Like you, I can’t figure out if I want to kiss you or kill you.”
The barrel of the gun jammed hard into Warrick’s chest. He smiled in anticipation—not of the bullet but of her mouth beneath his, her lips opening for his possession. And he wanted to possess her.
In every way.
A clock chimed, the metallic clang reverberating from the living room beyond her closed bedroom door. He had been out there before, when he had checked out her whole place after coming through her window. The open living area was as big a mess as her clothes-strewed bedroom. But out there newspapers and mail littered the couch, small table and countertop. Only the grandfather clock standing on the wall next to the front door was neat and polished—its wood and brass gleaming. The old clock chimed again.
His skin tightened, tingling and itching. He shouldn’t have made his presence known to her—not this close to midnight. But when she’d awakened with that emotional shout, he hadn’t been able to just walk away—no matter how much he should have. He had been watching her...to see if the man she’d let get away that night was also watching her. Or that was what he’d told himself—that she might lead him to Reagan. Or maybe he’d just liked messing with her because of that—because she’d let Reagan go while she’d shot him.
The chime clanged again.
He didn’t have enough time. Not for what he wanted to do to her. And with her.
The clock chimed for the fourth time. And another, higher-pitched chime echoed it as someone rang the doorbell. Kate’s eyes widened as she glanced from him to her bedroom door.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” he said.
And the clock chimed again.
“No,” she agreed. “I’m going to arrest you.”
“Arrest me?” he asked. “For what?”
“Breaking and entering, for one,” she said. “And assault.”
“I haven’t assaulted you,” he said, flinching as the clock chimed for the sixth time. His scalp tingled, and his jaw grew tight, his teeth aching from the pressure. He didn’t have time to assault her. He had to leave. Now.
He pulled back from the tantalizing closeness of her sensually full lips. And closing his eyes against the sexy temptation of her naked body covered with just that thin sheet, he stood up and stepped back from the bed.
Her doorbell echoed the chime again. And he opened his eyes.
Still clutching that sheet to her body with one hand, she stood up, too, and kept the gun barrel trained on him. “I’m arresting you for the assault of that man in the alley.”
He focused on her face, anticipation of another kind winding through him. Maybe Reagan was still here. Maybe she would lead him to his father’s killer. “He swore out a complaint against me?”
Her lips thinned, pressed tightly together—refusing to answer him.
He clasped her bare shoulders in his hands. “Did he? Do you know where he is?” Maybe he hadn’t completely lost his trail.
She shook her head.
“Then no complainant—no case—no arrest,” he said, as that damn clock chimed for the seventh time.
“I will swear out a complaint.”
“If we hadn’t been interrupted,” he said, trailing his fingers down the bare skin of her shoulder in a caress, “you would have no complaints.” And then, despite the damn chiming clock and doorbell, he leaned down and brushed his mouth across hers.
Damn. Like honey and caramel and all the sweets that had always been his weakness, she tasted just as good as he had known she would. Too good for him to resist deepening the kiss. With gentle pressure, he parted her lips with his and dipped his tongue inside her mouth.
She closed her eyes and pressed her body against his. But he stepped back so that only their lips touched, clinging. He didn’t want to break the kiss. Didn’t want to leave her. But the damn clock chimed again.
* * *
Lips tingling, breath coming in ragged pants, Kate finally opened her eyes. But he was gone. Cool air chilled her skin from the breeze blowing through the open window. Had she left that open? Or had he opened it?
Or had he ever really even been there? She still couldn’t believe that the man she had shot, the man she’d watched die, had been in her bedroom. It wasn’t possible. But then, his dead body disappearing wasn’t possible, either.
Fists pounded at her door, her visitor having abandoned the bell and whatever patience he or she might have possessed.
Kate couldn’t blame them; she had kept them waiting for a long time. But hell, it was midnight. Who would visit her so late—except him?
Had he actually been there—or had she dreamed it all? No, impossible.
She could still taste him on her lips—as dark and dangerous and rich as his eerie topaz gaze and gleaming black hair. Another knock and the twelfth chime of the clock pulled her to her senses.
Still holding the gun, she thrust her arms into the sleeves of the robe draped across the foot of her rumpled bed and one-handedly secured the belt. Then she rushed to the front door before her crazy visitor woke the whole damn apartment complex. “What the hell—”
Palms