Zane snorted. “You’re actually closer to being right than you might think. The poison in the bullet was fast acting, and there was no possibility of me making it to the nearest hospital alive if it spread. So one of the SWAT team medics had to remove the infected tissue with a pocket knife while transporting me in the back of an SUV.”
Alyssa stood there with her hand resting on his damaged arm, staring up at him with a look that suggested she hoped he was messing with her. “That sounds extremely painful.”
It had been. The mere mention of the shooting brought back memories that he tried to always keep tucked away. The pain of the wolfsbane poison spreading through his bloodstream had been unreal. Worse even than the feel of his teammate’s knife cutting through his flesh. He vividly remembered asking one of his pack mates to cut off his arm and be done with it—or kill him.
That probably wasn’t something he should tell Alyssa. So he shrugged with his right shoulder—he’d gotten good at doing that—and smiled. “It was bad, but I survived.”
Now that Alyssa had heard the story and seen the scar, he expected her to pull her hand away and walk back over to her side of the table. There were still more fries to be devoured after all. But instead, she slid her hand farther up his left arm. Then she lifted the other and casually placed it on his chest.
Maybe the move was casual to her, but as her fingers slid under the edge of the sleeve of his T-shirt, lightly massaging the scar tissue as if trying to soothe it, his heart beat even faster. With her hand on his chest like that, there was no way she couldn’t feel it thumping like mad.
His fangs slowly extended.
Bloody hell.He’d never lost control so much since he’d first gone through his change. And it was all from a simple touch.
“Does it hurt when I do this?” she murmured, interrupting the thoughts spinning through his head as she ran the tips of her fingers above the top of the scar, testing the muscles along his shoulder.
He tried to speak, wanting to tell her how amazing her fingers felt on his skin, how the hand on his chest was as warm as the sun right then. But there was no way he could open his mouth and say a thing, not without letting the growl bubbling up in his throat escape. So instead, he shook his head, hoping she’d get the message and keep going.
It was crazy. He’d slept with women over the years since everything had fallen apart with Sienna. But not a single kiss or touch from any of them had felt as intimate as the simple contact of Alyssa’s hand on the bare skin of his arm. It felt like the first time a woman had touched him in nearly forever. Hell, who was he kidding? He’dneverbeen touched like this. It made him want things he’d been telling himself he shouldn’t want. Things he couldn’t have.
“Is there anything the doctors can do?” she asked, running her fingers tenderly from his shoulder and along his triceps. “Some kind of surgery maybe?”
He shook his head but felt he needed to answer. “The doctor has me on a few different experimental drug protocols trying to encourage new muscle growth. So far, it’s not working. Truthfully, I think he’s running out of options.”
Alyssa gazed up at him, eyes filled with concern as she gently pressed the palm of her hand against the scar. Her heart was racing as fast as his. “You can’t give up, okay? Something is going to work. You have to keep trying until it does.”
He opened his mouth to reply when a scent so overwhelming and intoxicating surrounded him that he didn’t even stop to think before bending his head to softly brush his lips against hers. Even that slight touch was electric, but he forced himself to hesitate, wanting to give Alyssa a chance to pull back.
But it didn’t seem like pulling back was something Alyssa was interested in. Instead, she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and tugged him down farther, her mouth urgent and demanding on his. Zane was more than willing to meet those demands, slipping his tongue between her lips, tangling and teasing as a growl rumbled out. She tasted even better than she smelled.
He moved a hand down to her waist, intending to tug her closer, when the sound of squawking tires from the direction of the garage caught his attention. His inner wolf told him to ignore the noise and keep snogging, but his human side got in the way, forcing him to lift his head and glance at the window.
Alyssa stepped back a bit, looking slightly embarrassed. His inner wolf, on the other hand, was pissed off—and turned on.
Shoving his arousal to a small, dark corner of his mind, Zane leaned over to look out the window. He immediately caught sight of a vehicle spiraling up one level of the garage to the next, moving fast enough to squeal the tires.
“They’re heading up, not down to the lower levels,” Alyssa pointed out, moving up beside him, her delicious scent almost making him drool. “That probably means they’re not involved with Stefan.”
Zane would have agreed if he had been capable of forming coherent words at the moment. But he wasn’t, because he’d finally recognized what it was about Alyssa’s scent that was so mesmerizing.
She was aroused, too.
He curled his fingers in as he felt his claws partially extend…then his fangs…then his cock. Bloody hell, it was like a werewolf hard-on trifecta. He fought for control, but it was nearly impossible. She smelled like chocolate buttercream frosting. And damn, did he want to lick her off a spoon right then.
“They stopped on the fifth level and turned off their lights, but they’re not getting out of the car,” she added. “What the hell are they up to?”
Zane forced his gaze away from Alyssa and looked across the street, finding the car easily in the darkness. Yeah, werewolves had excellent night vision.
He saw movement inside the front seat of the car, then even more movement as the two occupants of the vehicle climbed into the back seats. It didn’t take too long after that to figure out what they were up to.
He chuckled. “They’re shagging.”
Alyssa laughed as she moved around the table and sat down on her side. “Sex in a parking garage. O-kay. But I guess we should take that as a sign and pay attention to what’s going on across the street. If those two hadn’t been in such a hurry for a quickie, we never would have heard them pull in. We could miss Stefan just as easily.”
He sighed with disappointment and dropped into his own chair. “You’re right. It wasn’t very professional of us to let ourselves get distracted.”
“No, it wasn’t.” She picked up the last few fries she’d spilled out on her burger wrapper earlier. “But it sure was fun.”
