“Ali Waters.”
He smiled at her name like he approved, but Ali had no idea what that meant. She didn’t get what was going on, and he kept saying that he wanted to make sure that she was okay. Ali had told him several times that she was, so why wouldn’t he take that answer if that was what he was after?
“Ali Waters, It’s good to meet you. I’m glad I was able to get you away from Trenton. He had plans for you, said you were special.”
“I’m not special. I’m nobody. I was just here to celebrate my graduation from college. I never go to this side of town, and now I know why. There are always bad things happening around here.”
She avoided the man’s gaze because it was impossible not to think that he was one of those bad things. He had saved her, but while the world was becoming less believable and Ali felt like he somehow was part of the mystical side that scared the daylights out of her.
“Well, you have to be somebody. I could hear you screaming and focused on you as soon as I got in the bar. You have a smell to you, and there was a particular sound to your voice.”
“I smell?”
Ali looked horrified, and he chuckled at the circumstance. She’d just fought off a vampire, and she was more worried about how she smelled to him. Ali imagined that he had a very good sense of smell in his animal form and she felt her cheeks getting red with the thought.
“No, it’s nothing like that. It was like pheromones, calling me to you. There is nothing to be embarrassed about.”
She hid her face a little more because parts of him were moving as he spoke. Ali didn’t know where to look and down at her feet seemed the only safe place for her eyes.
“I need you to take off your clothes, Ali. I need to make sure that Trenton didn’t get you.”
“I told you that he didn’t. I’m not taking my clothes off!”
He growled at her. “You smell like them. I have to be sure.”
Ali didn’t know what was going on or why he was so upset, but she just wanted to get it over with. She knew that Trenton hadn’t bit her. She was sure that she would know if she was bleeding out of her neck like that.
“Are you sure that you’re just not doing this to be a pervert, Calum?”
“No, if I were being a pervert, I would have ripped your clothes off already and slammed into you like I’m aching to do. I’m holding off more than you know, and you should be happy that I have far more restraint than my brothers. The scent you’re giving off would drive any man or beast insane.”
Her cheeks were back to a beet red, and Ali didn’t know what to say. His eyes were intent on her as she started to pull the shirt that was slightly tattered over her head. She was shivering from the cool night air, as well as the intense inspective gaze that she was getting from Cal. He was watching every inch of her be revealed, and she looked down to avoid his stare.
“If you aren’t really doing this to be a pervert, you could have fooled me.”
That just made him chuckle before he tried to reassure her that it wasn’t his intention at all. She didn’t know if she believed that or not because he hissed through his teeth as she shimmied out of her skirt and let it fall to the forest ground. Stepping out of it, Ali was sure that she was going to lose it if he didn’t stop looking at her like that.
“You’re very beautiful, Ali.”
She was trying hard not to cover herself, which was the first reaction that she had. She didn’t want him to see all of her and Ali felt judged or examined, one of the two.
“Come on; you’re almost there.”
Ali was already basically uncovered, and he could almost see every inch of her. It was hard to ignore the way he made her feel and the way she shivered because of him, far more than she did because of the cold. There was no warming up from the heat in his eyes and the way that he grinned at her.
“Are you sure that you need to see all of me?”
Cal nodded his head with a grin. “Just to be on the safe side, I think I should.”
