Chapter 15
The cold shower didn’t help. Neither did coming out of the shower to see her sitting at his kitchen table with her phone in one hand and furiously scribbling on his grocery list pad with the other. Her brow was furrowed, and she was clearly focused on something scientific he hadn’t a prayer of understanding. But the sight of her working at his kitchen table was so powerfully domestic that his belly tightened with need. He wanted to see her there every day and every night. He wanted to feed her when she forgot to eat. And he wanted to pleasure her when she became too stressed to think.
“I can feel you staring. So either bend me over this table or let’s get to the hospital. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Her words short-circuited his brain and lust leapt to the fore, but he’d promised not to take her…for some reason he couldn’t remember. Then she looked up, her gaze confused and her lips incredibly kissable.
“Hank?”
“You don’t help my control. You know that right?”
She shrugged. “I know. But it’s fun to test your limits.”
“And if you cross too far?”
“Screaming Os until I’m hoarse?”
He swallowed. Damn it, he’d put on fresh jeans and they were too damn tight. “Is that what you want?”
She threw up her hands. “Can’t I want both? Screaming Os and my job? But since we’re being all self-denying in the name of freedom from magic, let’s get to the hospital.” She grabbed his notepad and headed for the door.
“Don’t you want your lab coat? It’s got your ID on it.”
She blinked and patted her hips as if her ID were somewhere in her leggings or tunic. He took a step forward and grabbed her coat from on top of his large beanbag cushion.
“Oh!” she breathed. “Thanks. There are too many things to remember, and you’re taking up half my brain space.”
Only half? He might be insulted if he didn’t know just how huge her brain was. And wasn’t that a surprising turn-on? He’d never gone for dumb girls, but brainiacs were never his type. Until now.
“This way.” Opening the door for her nearly undid him. She stood right beside him, her hair up in a messy bun. He smelled the passion on her, perfuming everything she wore. He knew what that tasted like, he knew what it would feel like to run his fingers through the dark silk of her hair. And how he wanted to tame her lips and her mouth.
“Hank,” she said, his name cracking as desire and denial fought in her voice. “This is going to be a problem for me.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Me, too.”
“How do we stop it? Or at least…” She shrugged. “Quiet it to a dull roar?”
Screaming Os filtered through his thoughts. As well as all sorts of wicked things he could do to her all over his apartment. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll tell you all the stories I’ve heard about bondings.”
She nodded and took a step into the hallway. “Do they end happily?”
He shook his head. “If they did, they wouldn’t be stories. They met, they humped, they lived happily ever after doesn’t make for a very good tale.”
“So it’s more like they met, someone stalked, someone said no—”
“And someone lived miserably ever after.”
She sighed, and he couldn’t help but agree. Romantic souls liked the idea of being fated to another soul, but he was horrified by it. He’d spent his life learning how to balance his needs and his bear’s needs until they lived in harmony. This hunger he had for Cecilia wasn’t rational, and it certainly wasn’t balanced. He didn’t want to lock on to Cecilia unless he chose it and she wanted it. Right now, he couldn’t tell if this desire was a choice or a compulsion, and he wasn’t going to act on it until he knew the answer.
So rather than focus on that, he kept a wary eye on the environment as they moved to his car. Things seemed to be quieter during the day, but violence could erupt any moment, especially with the city on edge. The poison seemed to ramp up everyone’s aggression, not just the shifters, and those that could, hid inside as much as possible. Or stayed perched over a toilet throwing up. In any event, he and Cecilia seemed to be the only idiots who needed to drive all over the damn city.
Meanwhile, she kept talking, showing him that her mind was on the problem even while she scanned the area as much as he did.
“So the magic wants magical babies.”
“That’s the common interpretation.”
“What happens afterwards?”
