Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set (3 page)

CHAPTER 4

V
adim's face was a little blurry for a moment on the computer screen before the picture cleared. He was sitting, as he almost always was when they video-chatted, behind his oversize mahogany desk. Behind him, bookshelves overflowed with textbooks and papers. He adjusted his glasses and leaned forward to look at her.

“Strong enough to drag a tiger over a wall but now picking a lock instead?” he asked.

Monica sipped some more of DiNero's excellent whiskey and nodded. “Yes. Maybe whatever it was got tired of the heavy lifting. It looks like it figured out how to get through one of the gates along the perimeter wall, then let itself into the mountain-lion cage. Both were missing. Some blood, some hair, but nothing else. No bones, even. If it's actually eating the animals, it's consuming them entirely.”

“DiNero's man thinks it's human, eh? An inside job? Does he have a grudge against his boss?” Vadim sat back in his chair.

Monica shrugged. “It's possible. DiNero is kind of a dick. But Jordan seems to really care about the animals. If he was somehow working with an outside source to steal the animals away from DiNero, he couldn't hurt them.”

“He could be making it look as though they're hurt,” Vadim pointed out.

“He could, I guess. Seems pretty elaborate to me. And he seems genuinely upset by what's going on. He runs a clean house here. The habitats are expensive and well maintained, not just cages. There's a wide variety of animals, but they're all really taken care of.” She paused, sipping. “He's a little odd. The zookeeper.”

Vadim grinned. “Handsome?”

“Ugh, stop.” She made a face. Vadim was always trying to set her up with some Crew member or other. Then she laughed a little. “Very.”

“I have Ted ready to head down to you once you think you might know what's going on. I'd send someone sooner, but...”

“I know. Too many investigations, not enough Crew. I got it. I'll be careful,” she put in before Vadim could lecture her.

Crew rules stated that no investigator try to hunt something alone. They worked at the minimum in pairs. Her role here was to assess the situation and try to get a handle on what they were looking for. No use coming loaded for bear, as Vadim said, if they were really hunting rabbit.

Something told Monica this was no bunny.

“Have they added any security measures?” Vadim asked. “I warned DiNero that your safety was my priority. Not that of his collection. You're not to go off on your own, do you understand?”

He was nowhere near old enough to be her father, though he tried to act as much as a patriarch to the Crew as a leader. Sometimes Vadim's protective nature warmed her. Other times, like now, it left her with the urge to roll her eyes and stamp her feet like a teenager reminded over and over again to “drive carefully.” Monica kept her expression bland.

“Don't give me that look,” he said.

She raised both brows, innocence personified. Vadim sighed. Monica raised her whiskey glass. After a moment, he shook his head.

“Something that can haul away a tiger could certainly do a lot of damage to you, Monica.”

She had, for a period after losing Carl, done many reckless things. But time had passed and her life had gone on, whether she liked it or not, because that was what life did. “I know. And believe me, I'm not... I'm not trying to get myself killed. I'm here to study and assess, and then the team will come in and we'll catch this thing.”

“If we're lucky,” Vadim said.

They both knew how infrequently the Crew got lucky. There was a reason why people kept repeating that monsters weren't real, after all, and it mostly had to do with how hard it was to find proof. Monica raised her glass again, draining it, and this time, Vadim signed off.

CHAPTER 5

T
en guesthouses, and DiNero put the woman in the one closest to his. Jordan fumed, though it was pointless. DiNero would do whatever he wanted. And, Jordan grudgingly admitted, it made sense to have Monica closer to him, if only because she'd be walking the zoo with him for the next few days.

He'd seen her out on the terrace earlier. Sipping a glass of whiskey he could smell across the lawn and through his open windows. He could smell her, too. The soap she'd used, the laundry detergent seeping from her clothes. Those were good, clean scents. So was the lingering scent of wine she'd had with dinner. She'd be mortified to know he could smell the meat she'd eaten still on her breath, though she'd covered it with toothpaste.

She made him
hungry
.

Damn it.

Dinner for him had been some pasta with olive oil and some fresh-baked bread. A salad. The food filled him up but didn't sate him. That was why, he told himself, he was up at nearly two in the morning to rustle around in his fridge for some scrambled tofu and cheese when he really wanted to gorge himself to bursting on a thick slab of beef still dripping with blood... Jordan shook himself. He shoveled the food in his mouth, barely tasting it, trying to fill the emptiness. When he'd finished, he rinsed his plate and looked out the kitchen window to the guest bungalow where Monica was staying.

Her lights were off, which made sense at this time of night. The bedroom window was open, though, like his own. He could hear her inside. The slide of limbs on the bedsheets, the whisper of her hair on the pillow. She murmured something sleepy.

He needed to stop being a freaking creep about it. Jordan shook himself and put the plate in the drainer, then froze, head going up, ears straining at the change in her voice. He couldn't make out the words, but the tone had changed.

Carefully, slowly, he put the knife and fork he'd been using in the drainer, too. Still listening. He closed his eyes, opening his senses.

Her scent had changed, becoming bitter. The low mutter of her voice rose, edging toward hysteria. Not quite screaming, but definitely in distress.

Jordan didn't think twice. He was out the back door and heading for the guest bungalow in seconds. He leaped the low brick wall of his back patio and landed hard on the other side, bare feet slapping at the grass DiNero paid so much to keep looking nice. He hit the guesthouse's back patio in three strides after that. She'd locked the door. One hit with his shoulder and the door frame splintered.

She was in the bedroom, and Jordan barreled through the door ready to battle whatever was attacking her. He'd been unable to save the animals, but there was no way he was going to let something hurt anyone or anything else. He skidded on the hard floor, moving too fast to stop himself when he saw the woman was alone.

She sat up in bed at the sound of him coming into the room. Her hands punched at the air. Her low cry changed as her eyes opened and she focused on him.

He'd been moving so fast that he'd ended up next to the bed. Breathing hard, he stared down at her. He looked everywhere, trying to make sure nothing was there ready to pounce on them both.

“Am I still dreaming?” she asked in a totally clear, absolutely calm voice that sounded nothing like the terrified cries he'd been hearing earlier. “Because if I am, goddamn, please get over here and fuck me.”

She wasn't still dreaming. Monica hadn't ever been able to control what happened while she was—she had friends who could lucid-dream, and there was a whole squad of people in the Crew who dealt with the monsters that lurked in the realm of the subconscious. The words had tumbled out of her before she was fully awake, though, and she wasn't going to take them back.

The man in front of her had grumbled his way through their earlier introductions. He wasn't someone she'd ever have considered in a romantic way. She was here on a job, not to get laid. Yet of course right now, after the nightmare, which had been even more intense than ever, all she could think about was getting fucked right through the mattress. It didn't matter much who did it.

“Shit,” Jordan said.

Shirtless, jeans hanging low on lean hips, bare feet. If she'd ordered him from a catalog, he couldn't have arrived in more perfect condition or with better timing. And, she realized as she took in the heave of his chest and the way his fists were clenched, he'd burst in here to...save her?

She was naked. The covers had come down. He could see her completely, and was he looking? Oh, yeah. He definitely was.

The dream was fading but her hands were still shaking. Now not just from terror. Her nipples had gone hard, and without thinking, Monica cupped her breasts. Not necessarily to hide herself from his gaze. More to draw his attention.

“Jordan,” she whispered. “Come here.”

He did, two hesitant steps until his knees brushed the edge of the blankets. He licked his lower lip, looking her over. His breathing had slowed, but only a little.

“Did you come here to save me?” Monica asked in a low, rough voice.

He nodded. “I thought whatever killed the animals was in here with you.”

“Do you still want to save me?” She shuddered, closing her eyes for a moment to push away the memories. Without opening them, she added, “I need you.”

The bed dipped beneath his weight. When his rough hands skimmed up her bare sides, Monica let out a small gasp and allowed herself to arch back onto the pillows. His breath gusted over her cheek and she turned her face, lips parting, waiting for him to kiss her. She thought he wouldn't.

But he did, oh, he did. Hard and fierce and sharp, the way she liked it. The way she needed it. His tongue stabbed into her mouth as his hand slipped to cradle the back of her head. Then his mouth was moving down her throat to nip and nibble and then, yes, oh God, yes, to scrape along her flesh in that beautiful burst of pleasure-pain she craved.

When his lips closed over one nipple, Monica threaded her hands through his thick dark hair, fingers tangling. “There. Yes.”

She still hadn't opened her eyes again. She wanted to be lost in this, all the sensations sweeping over her. She gave up to him.

When Jordan's mouth moved lower, though, she tensed. His lips tickled the scars on her ribs and belly. She waited for the questions, but all he did was kiss her softly and then move lower to nip at her hip bone. When he parted her thighs, again she tensed, though this time not out of trepidation.

At his first slow, long lick, she cried out. She lifted herself to his mouth, but Jordan had moved to slide his hands under her ass and his grip stilled her. When she tried to move again, his fingers tightened on her skin hard enough to bruise. She didn't quiet at the sting. She writhed.

His tongue flickered along her clit, then switched to flat, smooth strokes that had her bucking beneath him in a few minutes. Desire was already building, surging. She always woke from the dreams desperate for sex, but this, oh, shit, this was amazing. Brad had been a competent, considerate lover. Jordan, on the other hand, was eating her pussy as if he meant to destroy her with his mouth.

Monica's orgasm tore through her, leaving her gasping. Her fingers tightened in Jordan's hair again, involuntarily yanking. He made a noise, something like a low...growl?

Startled, Monica opened her eyes at last. With her climax still washing over her, all she could do was ride it as, seemingly without effort, Jordan pulled away just enough to flip her over. Hard. Reckless. Not at all gentle—in fact, her head butted the headboard for a second before she managed to look over her shoulder.

He was on his knees behind her, already tearing open his jeans. His cock, thick and gorgeous, sprang free into his fist. His other hand slapped her ass as he gave himself a few strokes. He looked at her, eyes gleaming.

A flash of red.

In the next moment, he was inside her, thrusting so hard she again moved forward and only her hands pressed to the headboard kept her from hitting it. He fucked so deep inside her that she cried out, expecting pain but feeling only the hot, slick engulfing of his cock by her still-clenching pussy. Again Jordan thrust inside her. Again.

When his nails raked down her back, she screamed, breathless and gasping. His body covered hers in the next moment as he leaned to find her clit with his fingers. No soft strokes now. He pinched, jacking it as he fucked into her, and it was too much, too much—she was going over again. Spiraling. Exploding.

Jordan's growl this time sounded like her name, which sent one last wave of ecstasy pulsing through her. He shuddered against her and...oh, fuck, he bit down on her shoulder as his fingers gave her one last pinching stroke and he came inside her. Monica couldn't come again, not after that, but it was close.

Spent, she collapsed onto her face in the pillows. His weight pressed her for a few seconds before he moved off her to flop onto the bed beside her. Boneless, sated, exhausted, Monica couldn't move.

She ought to say something, she thought blearily but couldn't make her mouth form any words. The dream had always made her crave sex exactly how she'd just had it, but this was the first time she'd ever had it exactly how she needed it. She tried to roll over onto her back to at least see if she could get up and go to the bathroom, but her body refused to do anything but sink back into dark and dreamless sleep.

When she woke up to golden streams of late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, Jordan was gone.

CHAPTER 6

A
s much as Jordan might have loved to take care of everything all by himself simply so he didn't have to deal with other people, there was no way he could possibly manage to feed and clean the habitats of every animal in DiNero's menagerie. Not even if he worked twenty-four hours a day. That was why he had a small rotating staff of three workers who took care of the daily care under his charge, while he spent his days visiting each habitat to be sure the animals were safe, healthy and as happy as they could be in captivity.

The woman was supposed to be with him again today on his rounds. He didn't need her advice on how to keep his animals safe, he thought sourly, just some thoughts on what the hell was continuing to break through and attack them. So far, all she'd done was toss a lot of stupid theories at him. Nothing he could actually work with. Besides that, she hadn't shown up this morning, not a call, not a note, nothing.

He couldn't stop thinking about the taste of her.

He was hard now, thinking of it, and that pissed him off, too. For Jordan, sex over the past few years had been relegated to an occasional one-night stand when he traveled into New Orleans. He favored tourists, women in sundresses and wedge sandals, drunk on hurricanes. The ones who were shy or claimed to be, at least until he cut them from the pack of their squealy girlfriends and took them back to the small, barely furnished flat he kept just off Bourbon Street. Anonymous, brief, nothing but two bodies—or three, and once four—writhing and grinding until there was nothing but pure mindless pleasure. It was something he did with strangers, some who never even thought to ask his name. It was not something he did with women he ever expected to see again.

But he'd had sex with Monica last night, and he
wanted
to see her again.

By the time lunch had come and gone, Jordan had made his rounds. He checked in on the staff congregating in the small common room outside his office but didn't linger, even though today was Peter's birthday and Karen had brought a cake. Instead, Jordan headed for the perimeter wall, intending to walk the entire length of it to look for any breaks or to repair any damage. Also to check for any signs that the thing attacking the animals had returned. He'd made it all the way beyond the empty tiger habitat when the light scent of feminine soap lilted to him along the breeze. His nostrils flared, but he didn't turn. He could hear her and smell her. That didn't mean he needed to acknowledge her.

“Hey,” Monica said from behind him. “Sorry I missed you this morning. I totally overslept. I never do that.”

Jordan had been looking carefully over one of the spots that had been damaged to make sure the repairs were holding. He glanced over his shoulder. “No problem.”

She stepped up closer, moving beside him. She pointed. “It came through here originally?”

“We found two holes in the outside wall after the first attack. Both broke all the way through, but this was the biggest, and neither one was big enough to get anything through. Even if
it
could squeeze, you can't squeeze a tiger. The barbed wire—” he gestured along the top of the wall “—had been completely torn away. Whatever it was tried to make it through, and when it couldn't, it went over the top.”

“Any signs of blood here? Like something had cut itself?”

He gave her a flat look. “There was blood everywhere. Whatever it was came in and dragged away a full-grown tiger.”

“There are a few things that could do that.” Without looking at him, Monica moved closer to the wall to run her fingers along the patched section, then took a step back to look upward. “The other hole was smaller than this one?”

“Yeah. I can show you.”

Wasn't she going to mention anything about the night before? Was she not going to say a word? She'd come on to him like a freight train, and now she was going to pretend it had never happened?

Fine.

He took her there and watched as she studied the repaired spot. She pulled out her phone, took a few photos. Tapped some notes.

“So,” he said, unable to stop himself. “What do you think it is?”

Monica looked up. “I'm still not sure. I came here convinced I was looking for a new breed of chupacabra or something similar, but now I'm thinking this is something else entirely.”

Jordan snorted. Monica's brows rose. He shrugged.

“Is it really so hard for you to believe in the unknown?” She put a hand on her hip and gave him a hard look he thought was meant to shame him.

It didn't, though it did stir another, baser emotion in his lower gut. Jordan shrugged again. Monica sighed.

“Do you know there are thousands of new species of animals and insects discovered every year? The rain forest—”

“This isn't the rain forest,” Jordan pointed out. “This is Louisiana.”

“And every inch of it's been explored, huh?” she challenged, moving a step closer. “There are thousands of acres of land, all charted. Nothing could possibly be hiding away from the rest of the world, could it?”

“Nothing like what you're talking about. Something big and predatory would've been discovered before now, that's all I'm saying.”

Monica frowned. “My grandparents live in New Jersey. Not Jersey Shore, but up north, close to New York. They have a postage-stamp lot backed up to another postage-stamp lot, with neighbors all around them. You could spit and hit two different highways. And guess what they have in their backyard every night.”

“A lot of noise?”

“Smart-ass,” she said but didn't seem angry. If anything, he'd made her smile. She shook her head. “Deer. They eat my grandma's garden and make her crazy. It's not a place where you'd think you'd see deer, but there they are, and why? Because they've been driven there. They don't have another place to go.”

“You're saying whatever's attacking the menagerie has been driven here?”

“Could be. Land development, taking away territory. Chemicals in the water, changing the food supply. Something we don't even know about, like down in Florida, where those people are dropping off their ball pythons and anacondas that got too big to be pets, and now they're breeding and fighting with the alligators for dominance on the food chain.”

“That's not happening here,” Jordan said.

Monica gave him a solemn look. “Could be something else, then. Too many gators being taken, maybe this thing normally eats
them
, and now it's hungry. Whatever it is, it's discovered the menagerie, and it's not going to stop coming back unless we stop it.” She paused. “Why is it so hard for you to believe?”

“I don't believe in monsters,” he said flatly.

Monica laughed. “You're lucky, then. Because trust me, they exist. Or they did and have gone extinct. Or, like in this case, haven't been discovered.”

“Maybe it's zombies,” he said, deadpan. Scoffing.

She narrowed her eyes. “You mean like voodoo?”

“I mean like ‘They're coming to get you, Barbara,'” Jordan said. “Voodoo is a religion.”

She frowned again. “I wasn't trying to be offensive. Zombies like in
Night of the Living Dead
definitely are not real, I can tell you that much.”

“No? But Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster are, huh?”

She turned on him, finally, with a scowl. “I'm a cryptozoologist, Jordan. That means I search for the existence of animals whose existence has not been proven. Or things outside their natural realm. Do you know that just last year a half-sized cougar was discovered rummaging in the Dumpsters of restaurants in Hell's Kitchen? A cougar in New York City.”

“That's not surprising, I bet there are lots of cougars in the city,” Jordan said.

Monica laughed, and he discovered how much he liked the sound of it. “Not that kind of cougar. My point is, it might've been someone's pet that got too big or some kind of inbred cougar that managed to thrive in the urban environment. People had been reporting sightings of it for months before the Crew came in and was able to trap it. But first we had to prove it existed.”

“A cougar is still a real animal.”

“Yes. But there
are
things in the world we don't know or understand, whether you want to believe it or not. And they're animals, too. People can't turn into something else. No vampires, no zombies, no werewolves. There are monsters, but they're not human.”

Not human.

Monica drew herself up and visibly shook herself. “Look, I'm here to do a job, so let me get on with it, okay? What's on the other side of this wall?”

“Bayou.”

“I guess that goes without saying,” she said. “Dumb question, sorry.”

“DiNero put a lot of money into draining his land. Lots of money into landscaping. You wouldn't know there's anything out there besides more grass, I guess.” Jordan tried to shrug off her words, but they clung to him, making his skin itch.

“I've never been to Louisiana before, if you can believe it.” She gave him a small smile and another of those neutral but somehow assessing looks. She turned back to the wall, then glanced at him over her shoulder. “Can you take me over the wall? I want to see the other side.”

Jordan paused. “Yeah. I guess so.”

They spent the rest of the day that way. He took her outside the gates and showed her the places that had been compromised. She collected scrapings of the bricks. The soil. The water. She didn't tell him what she was looking for, and Jordan didn't ask. When finally she was satisfied, he brought her back inside. They'd shared scarcely more than a few words, which normally would've been perfect, except that the longer she went without paying attention to him, the more disconcerting he found it. They'd been driving in one of the estate's golf carts, so he pulled up into the small space between their bungalows and waited for her to get out.

What the hell kind of woman seduced a man and then proceeded to ignore him as if they'd never been naked and sweating and...

“Thanks,” Monica said.

Jordan shrugged, stone-faced. “It's my job.”

“Not everything you did was part of your job,” she said. When he didn't answer her, she gave him another enigmatic smile and got out of the golf cart. “See you later.”

He watched her go, waiting to see if she'd turn back. She didn't. But he was suddenly so damned hard it hurt to move. It made his hands shake, so he clenched them into fists on his thighs, but the hunger didn't abate. It rose within him, something fierce and unyielding, until all he could think about, all he could do, was get out of the golf cart and force himself to put on a pair of running shorts and go for a run.

Run. And run. And run.

By the time he got back, night had fallen. Golden light welcomed him from the windows of her bungalow, while his were cold and dark. Breathing hard, the coiled snake of hunger still hissing in his belly but low and quieter, Jordan paused to bend over and spit into the grass.

Her door opened. Her silhouette made him groan. She took a step onto the patio and was followed by the waft of something warm and delicious. His stomach growled.

Not human
, he thought.

“I made dinner,” Monica said. “Come inside.”