She looked at the map. At the band. At all her careful numbers arranged into a shape that was suddenly, undeniably obvious. “It’s like pollution,” she said. “But it’s not. The plants are physically healthy. Soil is fine, moisture is fine, no disease. It’s only the active properties. The tannins, the alkaloids, the compounds that make them medicinally useful or magically resonant.” She shook her head slowly. “Something is draining that specifically, leaving everything else untouched.”
“It got worse right after Letha,” Rex said. “Which is exactly when the elves had to leave to recharge.”
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
“They’re tired,” she said, and her voice came out strange, a little awed. “The plants. They’re not sick, they’re not damaged. They’re exhausted. Something has been drawing on them the same way Letha draws on the elves, and they’ve got nothing left to give.”
Rex was already reaching for his phone, typing a text. “We need to talk to Lachlan ASAP.” He hadn’t even put it back in his pocket when it buzzed. “He’ll be here in thirty minutes.”
“That was fast.”
“I told him to move his ass.” He pocketed the phone and looked at her.
“Is Mayor Fraser usually on time?”
“He can be.”
“I see.” She tipped her head on one side. “Thirty minutes, then.”
The shift was subtle, but she felt it in the bond even before she saw it on his face. That slight change in frequency, the investigation, putting itself on pause. His eyes moved over her in an unhurried way that made her entire body demand a series of very indecent things. She ran a finger along the front of his uniform shirt, following the line of the buttons. “I was going to say, and I want it noted that this is a completely professional observation, the uniform does something genuinely unreasonable to your backside.”
“Does it now?”
“Phenomenal, actually.”
The bond was getting warm. Make that hot. She could feel his hunger for her like a physical thing, and the low hum that ran between them when they were close was not joyful and easy anymore. She glanced at the front of the shop and at the windowed door, at its wide windows that took up all the wall. Saw the good people of Mystic Hollow occasionally strolling past with their coffee and their dogs. “That’s a lot of glass.”
He looked at the counter, seemingly taking measurements. Then his eyes moved on her, and his mouth took a wolfish grin that made her tremble. “Go hide, Moonbeam.”
She retreated behind the counter until there was nowhere else to go, and when she turned around, he was coming on hishands and knees with an expression that made her squeak, back into the cabinets, and drop onto the floor, laughing breathlessly.
He rose on his knees when he reached her, caged her against the wood with both hands braced on either side of her. The laughter faded. This close, his eyes were dark and wild, and she had no intention of letting the need in them go unanswered. She rose on her knees to kiss him, her hands in his hair, his growl the most erotic sound. “Will it ever get better?” she whispered on his lips. “I can never get enough of you.”
“Do you want it to?”
“No.” She licked his bottom lip, shivered when the bond trembled. “No.”
She got her hands on his shirt buttons. The first two cooperated. The third didn’t, and Rex’s patience ran out somewhere between one breath and the next. His hands closed over hers, and then the button was simply gone, a small, irrelevant casualty lost to the battle against time. She chuckled, a little startled, and the sound turned into a moan when he licked where the sign of the bond stood.
She shoved the shirt off his shoulders as he unhooked her bra, dragged her shirt up and off in the same motion, and then his mouth was on her throat.
The bond was a live wire. His hunger hit her like a second heartbeat, her own desire throwing it back, amplified, and the feedback loop made her dig her nails into his shoulders just to have something to hold on to.
His mouth found her nipple to nibble.
His name came out breathless and full of demands. “Rex.”
“Moonbeam.”
“I need you to—” His mouth closed over her breast, and the rest of the sentence dissolved. Her hands went into his hair, holding on, and she felt the low vibration of a growl against her skin, satisfaction and want rolled together. His hands workedher jeans open, pushed them down just enough, and when his fingers found her, she was already slick and aching, and the sound that escaped her was greed.
He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing hard; he motioned her to stand enough to pull her pants and underwear down and off with a focus that was somehow efficient but couldn’t quite hide the savagery of his hunger.
She dropped down on her knees again, worked his belt, got his pants open, down, and finally, finally, got her hands on him. His exhale was sharp, but he didn’t let her go on with her amazing plan of taking it into her mouth and tasting him, how it was supposed to be.
No.
