His smile grew.
“It’s just too bad I’m not really a fan of fencing,” she said innocently.
His smile stalled, but his eyes continued to dance. “Oh? I'm quite the bruising sportsman.” His boast ringed of honesty and vanity.
“Sports? What kind of sports?” She arched her eyebrow.
“Racing, fox hunting, wrestling, boxing. All the sports of gentlemen.”
“Hmm....” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “In racing, the horse gets the most exercise, in fox hunting the dog does all the work. Your idea of wrestling is basically two grown men hugging, and boxing is bloody and brutal and boring. Don’t you do anything requiring true stamina?”
It was his turn to quirk an eyebrow, his gaze flashing fire. She trembled at the heated look, desire rising over her skin.
“I can think of a few things,” he drawled deeply.
He wasn't talking about sports anymore.
Heat bloomed through her belly.
She swallowed past the newly formed lump of desire in her throat. “A sport that takes real skill is hunting—with a gun. I’m not talking hunting for fun, but for keeps.”
“Is that so?”
She walked toward the tree line furthest from him. “Yep. The preparation, knowing every detail about your prey: their weaknesses, their strengths, where they forage for food, where they like to lie down and sleep at night. Then, you have to stalk them, watch, remain utterly still and silent, and draw them in until they are so close you can smell the musk of their hide.”
He followed behind her, his heavy footfalls breaking twigs and kicking loose stones.
Prickles of awareness danced across her skin.
“Once you have your prey in your sights, you pounce, going in for the kill. Devouring them until there is nothing left.” She turned to gauge his reaction.
Empty darkness greeted her.
He was gone.
Haven narrowed her eyes, stopped walking and tensed, her heart pounding—a prey response.
She was being hunted.
She stood there for long moments, listening for his heavy footfalls in the pine needles, searching for any sign of where he’d gone.
How did a man his size move so quickly and quietly? It was eerie, but also a turn on.
Listening seconds longer, she heard Gehenna and Gamehen grazing nearby, and a slight breeze pushed against the trees.
She couldn’t hear Logan.
Her short, nervous chuckle burst through the silence, and a slight shuffling noise sounded a few paces to her right, toward the denser part of the woods. She’d just been teasing him about how hunting took real skill. Now, he stalked her. And it was thrilling.
In her line of work, she was used to flirtation—catcalls, lurid invitations, and even some incidences of stalking—but she’d never been pursued by someone who held such power over her. Not only could he set her heart racing by looking at her, but he could also turn her to mush with a single touch. Now he turned her moment of playful teasing into an erotic game of cat and mouse, of predator and prey, and she was burning up with expectant desire.
Where was he?
The bright moon shone down, piercing the covering of trees to cast ethereal shadows at her feet. Her path was well lit, but just a few feet away, the night was black between the branches and trunks of the trees. She should be scared, or at least alarmed, but something about being stalked by a fiercely sexual and devastatingly sexy animal made her heart race from excitement and the promise of a chase.
The scents of the night carried to her on the wind, and captivated her with the smells of forest, spring, and danger. Something in the air teased her, pulled, called her to move deeper into the darkness, and into the hunter’s domain. A gentle breeze slid across her skin, and goosebumps rose. She treaded softly, fighting the urge to dash away from the shadows and the mysteries they hid.
He was hunting her.
