Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 04 (3 page)

She shook her head, her confusion obvious. “I don’t
understand. Who is Molly? How can she communicate with my sister?”

Biting back a groan of frustration, Aiden finally
levered himself off her body and stood, then offered her his hand, pulling her
to her feet. He’d have been lying if he’d said he didn’t ache to pull her
against him, molding her curves against his hardness, but she quickly released
his hand, taking a shaky step back, her fingers swiping nervously at the tears
glistening on her cheeks. As he ran his gaze down her body, he realized he’d
been wrong to think of her as a “chick.” Though she was dressed in faded jeans
and a simple, long gray sweater, she had class written all over her. A fact
that set her even further out of his reach, seeing as how he avoided classy
females like the plague, since they tended to turn their noses up at what he
was willing to offer. Which wasn’t a hell of a lot.

“I’m w-waiting for an explanation,” she stammered,
though her voice was beginning to even out.

“Aw, hell.” He lifted one hand, rubbing at the back of
his neck. “This is the part I’m no good at.”

“Well, give it a try,” she snapped, crossing her arms
under her breasts. “Because I’m completely freaking out here.”

Aiden did his best to keep his eyes focused on her
face, and not on those hefted breasts, knowing without a doubt that she
wouldn’t be holding her arms that way if she realized what it was doing to her
chest. “First, where’s the kid?”

She tried to give him an innocent blink. “What kid?”

“You can’t lie worth a damn,” he said in a low voice,
“so don’t even try it. It’s just going to waste our time, and we don’t have any
time to lose. You’re taking care of Monica’s daughter. I think Molly said her
name was Jamie.”

Her eyes tightened, her expression filling with hard
determination. “She’s my niece, and I’m not just taking care of her. I’m going
to adopt her and raise her as my own. And God help anyone who tries to stand in
my way.”

Aiden arched his right eyebrow. “If you’re so
protective of her, why did you start running off without her the second you
laid eyes on me?”

Her fear momentarily forgotten, she vibrated with
anger as she pointed one feminine little finger in the direction of the house.
“I was running toward the back door, you ass! I was running to get back to
Jamie, not away from her!”

He grunted, feeling every bit like the ass she’d just
accused him of being. “Where is she?” he asked, hoping the kid wasn’t watching
them from one of the windows.

For a moment all she did was glare up at him, her gaze
piercing and sharp, making him feel as if she was sizing him up, doing her best
to figure him out. Just when his patience was about to snap, she said, “Jamie’s
watching Hercules upstairs.”

Nodding his head toward her car, he asked, “And where
exactly were you headed?”

“I was going to search for help,” she replied with a
slight shrug.

He didn’t like hearing that, though he couldn’t
explain why. Any explanations he could have come up with didn’t make any sense—and
he wasn’t about to own up to any of them, anyway. Determined to ignore the
strange, possessive edge of his reaction, he simply said, “Help from who?”

“I was going to try to find the Watchmen.”

He couldn’t help it; he laughed. When she frowned at
him, he gave her a mock salute with two fingers against his temple and drawled,
“Watchman Aiden Shrader, at your service.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s not funny.”

Another dark rumble of laughter vibrated in his chest
and he shook his head. “Christ, you’re telling me.”

“Then do you care to explain why you’re laughing?” she
asked tightly.

The gusting wind pulled the long sun-bronzed strands
of his hair across his face, and he lifted his hands, pushing it back. “Because
I’m telling you the truth.”

“You’re really one of the shifters?” she whispered,
her violet gaze moving with slow precision over his body, from his scuffed
boots, up his jeans-clad legs, over his ridged stomach and broad chest, until
she was once again staring into his eyes.

Feeling as if there were a fire burning inside him,
Aiden nodded in response to her question, waiting for her to ask what kind of
shape-shifter he was. But she didn’t. Instead, she pulled that lower lip
through her teeth again and said, “You know, m-maybe this isn’t necessary.”
Soft, quiet words that betrayed her uneasiness. “I’m sure that I can get Jamie
somewhere safe, and you can just get back to…whatever it is that you do.”

“It’s too late for you to run and hide,” he muttered,
absurdly irritated by her reaction. “I’ve said I’m going to protect you, and I
will. Which means you’re stuck with me.”

She frowned again, her arms tightening across her
chest. “I wasn’t planning on running, but I b-bet I could hide if I wanted to.”

The slow smile spreading over his mouth had her
blinking, and he could literally hear her heart rate speeding up as her face
went hot. There was a healthy dose of worry and fear in her tense expression,
but there was also desire. Olivia Harcourt might not like him, but Aiden would
have been willing to bet his favorite body part that she was fully aware of the
connection sizzling between them.

And the woman thought she could hide from him. Hah.
He’d like to see her try.

“Not from me you couldn’t,” he finally rasped.

“Do you have any idea how arrogant that sounds?”

He shrugged his shoulders, liking the way her gaze
kept slipping to the bulge of his biceps, across the broad expanse of his
T-shirt-covered chest, before whipping back to his face. “Not arrogant. It’s
just fact. One that you’d be smart to accept. Now that I know your scent, I
could find you no matter where you tried to hide from me.”

The words practically reeked of possession, and Aiden
inwardly groaned. Oh yeah, touching her had been a bad idea, all right. Because
now that he knew how she felt beneath him, he just wanted to keep on touching.
Hell, who was he trying to fool? He wanted to do a heck of a lot more than
touch Olivia Harcourt. What he wanted was to lay her down, spread her open and
bury his face between her soft little thighs until she was wet enough to take
every inch that he had to give her.

Then he wanted to do it again…and again, until they
were both completely destroyed, their bodies wrecked, bruised and limp with
exhaustion.

As one of the most primal breeds of shifter, Aiden
often felt the need for hard, aggressive sex. But this was different, as if
“need” were just some paltry emotion that didn’t come close to describing how
badly he wanted this woman. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like being drawn to a human
this way, and his instincts were screaming that he should be wary…cautious.
That she could spell trouble for him in so many ways.

He’d known it could happen. There were always certain
females who were more attractive to his kind. Ones who could draw him in.
Mesmerize the beast. He didn’t know why it happened. Was the phenomenon based
purely on scent? Bloodline? Random chance or the fickle hand of fate? Whatever
the reason, these women were the ones to be avoided, and not just because of
that “mate for life” crap. That wasn’t possible unless his emotions were to
become involved and he was driven to bite her, but they were still dangerous.
If anyone had the ability to become his true mate, it would be one of them. One
of the ones who personally awakened his beast…who managed to touch the hungers
of the animal that prowled within him, as well as those of the man. Aiden had
heard it referred to as “the Eve effect”—named for that first feminine
temptation—but it was exceptionally rare for it to happen to a Prime predator.
And to experience it with a human wasn’t just odd, it was downright wrong. Not
to mention potentially disastrous, considering humans were fickle,
untrustworthy creatures at best, and his kind mated for life.

For all the catting around the males of his species
liked to do, when they stuck, they stuck hard, like friggin’ superglue. It was
like that with all the Prime predatory breeds. Sure, Raptors were renowned for
their possessiveness and their insatiable sex drives, but then so were the
furry ones, from the tigers to the wolf breeds, like Kellan and his brother
Kierland. But the Prime predators took their hungers a step further than the
Raptors, needing their fangs buried in the neck of the woman they chose to mate
for all eternity. They needed the hot, metallic taste of her blood on their
lips. Needed to mark her flesh with the provocative power of their bite. Needed
her in every possible position that had ever been used between two consenting
adults…and a few more thrown in for good measure.

The mere fact that Olivia Harcourt was human should
have soured him to her taste and her scent, but it hadn’t. No, there was
obviously something about the woman that did it for him, but Aiden wasn’t going
to let it screw with his mind. Not if he could help it. If he’d learned
anything in his life, it was that humans weren’t to be trusted, no matter how
damn appealing they were.

Scrubbing his hand over his jaw, he suddenly asked,
“So what is it you do, anyway?” He knew the question was out of left field, but
his growing curiosity was too much to ignore.

“I’m a teacher,” she replied. “But I’ve taken a leave
of absence.”

“Teacher, huh? What exactly do you teach?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said
defensively, as if anticipating his reaction, “but I teach kindergarten.”

For a moment all he could do was stare, the word
running itself around and around in his head while his brain tried to make it
compute. He had it bad for a freaking kindergarten teacher? So bad he could
hardly see straight? When the others heard about this, they were going to be
relentless with their ribbing.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied his expression. “I
said kindergarten, Mr. Shrader.”

“Yeah, I heard you. And for the love of God, call me
Aiden.”

“Then why are you staring at me like I have two heads
and just told you that I’m a professional snake charmer?” she asked, her tone
as dry as a desert wind.

Aiden rubbed his hand over his mouth. “No offense,” he
muttered, “but I think I’d have been less surprised by the snake-charming gig.”

“You are such a strange man,” she murmured, shaking
her head, her windblown hair just reaching the tops of her shoulders.

“Lady, you have no idea.” He sent her a crooked smile,
then took a quick glance at the sturdy watch on his wrist. “Go ahead and call
down the kid. We gotta get going.”

She stared, unmoving, and he made a thick sound of
impatience. “Honest to God, Olivia, we don’t have the time for you to turn
difficult. Not if you want to get out of here alive.”

When she still didn’t move, he ground his teeth
together and shoved his hands into his pockets, trying to appear as
nonthreatening as possible. “Look, I’m…sorry for what happened,” he offered in
a rough voice. “I don’t force myself on women. Ever.” No, he knew too well what
it was like to have something taken from you against your will, and he’d vowed
at a young age to never make anyone feel that same sense of helplessness, which
was why he never even got close to a woman unless she made it clear that that’s
what she wanted. Tonight had been a first, and he was still pissed off at
himself for losing control, which was why he was forcing out this awkward-assed
apology. He also figured it would probably be a good idea to throw in I won’t
ever kiss you again for good measure, but couldn’t quite get the words out, so
he simply tacked on “It, uh, wasn’t my intention to scare you.”

She nodded, still looking a little wary. A second
later she opened her mouth, then closed it again, and he wondered what she’d
stopped herself from saying. Whatever it was, she’d obviously decided against
it. After a moment she simply asked, “How did you manage to find us here, anyway?”

“I talked to your elderly neighbor back in town.”

“Georgia told you we were here?” she groaned, her
expression an adorable mix of worry, anger and frustration as she pressed one
palm to her forehead. “What was she thinking? I made her promise not to tell
anyone!”

Aiden shrugged one shoulder and grinned. “Don’t be
pissed at Georgia. She tried to hold firm, but I can be pretty charming when
the occasion calls for it.”

“What’d you do to her?” she gasped, eyeing him with a
heavy dose of suspicion.

He snorted and rolled his eyes. “She’s seventy if a
day, Liv. It wasn’t like I put any moves on her. All I did was eat some of her
lemon cookies and tell her I was a cousin who’d decided to come into town to
surprise you. After that she was only too happy to tell me where I could find
you. I warned her not to talk to anyone else, but who knows if she’ll do it. So
the sooner we can get out of here, the better.”

“I’ll go get Jamie,” she told him, heading for the
house. After she climbed the porch steps and disappeared inside, Aiden paced
back and forth across the lawn, sweating despite the chill in the air, his head
still dazed from her strange effect on him. It was a good five minutes before
she came back out, holding a small child bundled against her chest, the little
girl’s face buried in her shoulder.