When He Was Bad (5 page)

In retaliation, she dug her fingers in deeper but those damn fangs locked into her flesh even harder.

After several agonizing and rather physically painful moments, Van Holtz unhinged his jaw and released her while she unhooked her fingers from his wound.

With both of them panting, Irene rested her forehead against the wall and Van Holtz rested his against her shoulder.

For two people who prided themselves on always being in control, she considered this a rather tragic moment.

At what point had he lost control? When she’d stabbed him with that knife? Yeah. He had gotten a little angry there. Or when she’d tried to run? Yeah. That had annoyed him a bit.

Yet none of that had pushed him over the edge. Niles Van Holtz had lost control when she’d told him no.

It wasn’t ego either. It was something else. He could almost say he had been kind of hurt when she’d said no with so much finality and a wee bit of vehemence. As if he’d suggested something so horrendous.

And then when she’d stabbed him…accident or not, it had snapped his remaining bit of control. The wolf in him had taken over and all Van could think about was marking her. And he did.

Christ, he hoped she didn’t suddenly think this changed anything. Like suddenly they were dating.

But clearly Van momentarily forgot whom he was dealing with.

“Are you done?”

The coldness in that voice hit him like thirty-below-zero weather when he’d just shifted from wolf to human.

He stepped away from her. “Yeah. I’m done.”

“Good.” She stepped away from the wall and walked to the sink. She rinsed his blood off her hands, calmly dried them with a paper towel, and adjusted her clothes. “I assume now I’m safe.”

“As safe as you can be as long as you don’t step on their territory or talk.”

“No. I won’t talk. I’ve kept the secret to myself all these years. I’m not going to change now.”

“I tried to explain that to Melinda Löwe, but she refused to listen.”

“Not surprising. She’s never liked me anyway.” She looked up at him and those ice-cold eyes said absolutely nothing. “Well…thank you for everything. I appreciate all your help in this matter.”

Van’s eyes narrowed. He felt a growing rage in his gut he didn’t much like. He especially didn’t like that a woman put that rage there. “You’re welcome,” he said as lightly as possible.

She took a step away but stopped and looked at him. “Do you mind if I borrow your sweatshirt? I’ll make sure it’s returned to you in the next day or two. At the moment, I’m simply not in the mood to discuss this with Jackie and the scent from your sweatshirt should keep her off my back for at least a little while.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Van reached back and gathered up some of the shirt, before pulling it over his head. He shook the hair out of his face and handed it to her. She stared at him for a moment but, once again, he couldn’t read anything from her.

“Thank you.”

She pulled the way-too-big red sweatshirt over her head but for a few seconds she seemed to lose her way and he stepped forward, helping her get her arms and head through all the appropriate holes.

“Thank you,” she said again. And it was something in her voice and the way she suddenly wouldn’t meet his eyes that caught Van off guard. Putting his fingers under her chin, he lifted her face so she had to look at him.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s definitely something. Tell me.”

She frowned in confusion. “Why…why did you do it?”

“Do what? Mark you?”

“Yes.”

Van shrugged. “Because it’ll keep you alive.”

“Is that the only reason?”
Uh-oh
. Just as Van feared, Irene seemed to be thinking this had more meaning than it really did. Time to dissuade her of that immediately.

“It’s the only reason.” He cleared his throat. “Irene, you know a lot about our people but all that stuff about marking mates and making them yours forever is all folklore. Fairy tales. I didn’t believe it when I was a kid and I don’t believe it now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.” God, he felt like shit. Maybe he could beat up on some puppies later, too. Maybe kick a kitten. He had to be breaking this poor woman’s heart….

“Whew!” She let out a gasp and, for the first time ever, smiled. “Thank the DOS gods for that.”

“What?”

“I thought you’d start hanging around my house like some stray dog I’d accidentally fed. But now I don’t have to worry. Correct?”

Van nodded, that rage he’d experienced only a few minutes before roaring back to life. “Yeah. That’s correct.”

“Good. Now I can relax.” She let out another deep, relieved breath. “Well…again, thank you for everything. Although I think I’ve been mauled enough to last me a lifetime.” She kind of, sort of chuckled. “Oh. And give your parents my best.”

Then she was walking away from him. Not even doing that backward-glance move. Without thinking, he followed her. She already had her backpack sitting beside the front door, ready to go.

“Are you leaving now?”

“Jackie’s waiting outside. Didn’t you see her car when you came in?”

“Must have missed it.”

“I told her to come in but you know you guys and territory.” She opened the front door and Van wondered how he could have missed that two-door, cherry-red Mercedes and the pretty woman sitting on top of the hood reading a book.

The She-jackal looked up and smiled. “Ready to go?”

“Yes.” Irene picked up her backpack and swung it onto one shoulder, wincing as the weight of it landed on her newest fang marks.

She looked at him over her shoulder and shrugged. “Well…goodbye.”

Van stood at his front door and watched Irene Conridge get into her friend’s car, placing her backpack in her lap like a small child, and then drive off.

He didn’t know how long he stood there before his sister came to his side.

“That was…really…odd,” she said softly.

“I know.”

“Are you okay?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I’m fine. It’s over.”

“This is true, but—”

“No, Carrie. No buts. No nothing. Even if I did care, which I don’t,
that
woman is like a polar ice cap. Thank you but I like a little more heat in my bed.”

“Okay.”

“So let’s just forget it.”

“Okay.”

“It’s over.”

“Um…okay. And Conridge—”

“Couldn’t care less. Trust me when I say, Irene Conridge feels nothing for no one.”

“I hate him.”

Jackie glanced at Irene in surprise. “What?”

“I. Hate. Him.”

“But you don’t hate anybody. You said it required emotion that took time out of your schedule.”

“That was before I met the biggest…” She struggled for the right word and her friend helpfully provided one.

“Asshole?”

“Yes! He
is
the biggest asshole. And I hate him.”

“Did something happen I should know about, sweets?”

“I don’t want to talk about it or him ever again. I just want to put this whole horrible time behind me and get back to work.”

“Okay.” Jackie stopped at a red light. “How about we get you home and changed and then we catch a movie?”

She definitely needed to change. The bright red sweatshirt she wore stunk of the man’s scent. And although it wasn’t a horrible smell—in fact it was quite nice—she was clearly too angry to not let it annoy her. In fact, she regretted promising to return the sweatshirt to him. She’d rather burn it in effigy.

“Irene?”

“What movie?” she asked.

“
The Terminator
is supposed to be good. And there’s lots of killing.”

Irene crossed her arms in front of her chest and felt as if she was possibly pouting…a truly horrifying thought. “You sure there’s lots of killing?”

“Vicious cyborg from the future goes on killing rampage searching for one woman to destroy. At least that’s how Paul described it to me. So, yeah, I think there’s lots of killing.”

“Fine.” Because she refused to sit around thinking about Niles Van Holtz…the asshole. “I’ll go.”

“Good.” Jackie started driving again and her hand reached out and patted Irene’s leg. “And don’t worry. As soon as you get back to work, you’ll feel like your old self again.”

“I better,” she growled. Because if she had to keep “feeling” things for much longer, she might have to kill that man on principle.

The asshole.

When her thirty-three-year-old master’s student burst into tears, Irene felt like maybe she’d crossed the line a tad with “Pass you? You’re lucky I haven’t killed you.”

Annoyed more with herself than anything else but unwilling to show it, Irene reached her hand back and her teaching assistant handed her a box of Kleenex. She slammed it down in front of the student, ignoring the man’s increased sobs, and stalked back to her desk.

“I expect all lab work completed by the end of next week.” With her back to the students, Irene quickly shuffled the recently handed-in bluebooks into an orderly alphabetical pile for her TA. “I won’t accept any excuses because, mostly, I really don’t care. Short of ending up in a casket, any student with unfinished work will automatically fail the course. And please don’t test me on this.”

She handed the stack of books to her TA and turned to face her class. “Why are you still here? Get out.” They ran like she’d unleashed live poisonous snakes on the floor.

“Is it my imagination or are you a little…uh…
terser
than usual?”

Irene glanced back at her TA, Mark. She’d gotten over seventy submissions to be her TA last year but Mark was the only one she’d felt qualified for the position. She wasn’t an easy teacher to work for, but she made it worth the trouble. Almost all students who survived one of her internships went on to super-hot jobs at some of the most important labs or installations in the country. For top dollar. So she had no regrets putting them through the Conridge Gauntlet, as many called it. Only Mark didn’t seem remotely intimidated by her. She kind of respected him for it, but on days like today, she really was only looking for a victim to take out her recent bout of anger on.

“If you really want to see how terse I am, keep annoying me, Marcus.”

“Gotcha.” He picked up all her papers and headed off to her office. She grabbed her briefcase and followed.

Why she ended up crashing into his back, she didn’t know until she looked around him and saw the two men sitting in her office.

Perfect
, she thought.

Stepping around Mark, she leveled her gaze on the first male she saw. “And what brings you here, Agent Harris?”

“Just came to check on you, Professor Conridge.”

Irene moved into her office, dropping her briefcase on the floor beside her desk. “Is there a particular reason you can’t call me Dr. Conridge? Or is it just your general insecurities as a man speaking for you?”

Mark grabbed his backpack from a corner and nodded at Irene. “Uh…Dr. Conridge, I’m going to head off to the library and get through these papers for you tonight.” Then he practically ran.

“Another pussy-whipped male, I see,” Harris murmured.

Irene sat down at her desk. “Is there any other kind?” She placed her feet up on the worn wood and relaxed back into her chair. She’d learned a long time ago how to fake a relaxed posture when that was the last thing she might be feeling. But Agent Phillip Harris wouldn’t be here unless he had a reason. The FBI rarely wasted time with fishing expeditions.

“So, Agent Harris, what brings you to my humble little office?”

“You do, Professor.”

“Really? And why is that?”

“There’s been a lot of talk about you lately.”

“I’m very well-known among the biochemical and computer technologies communities. You know that.”

“These aren’t articles about your work, Professor. I’m talking about intercepted conversations between known Soviet agents.”

Irene blinked in surprise. Russians? Why the hell would Russians be chattering away about her?

“I would ask you what they’ve been saying but I’m sure if you knew, you’d have moved on it by now. So you’re here hoping I tell you something fascinating.”

“Perhaps this is a game you shouldn’t play, Professor. Treason—”

“Is not the issue here and we both know it. I’m the wrong person to play chess with, Agent Harris. You can’t scare me into thinking you’re worried I’m a Russian agent.” She chuckled. “Although with my complexion I’m sure I’d fit in quite nicely in that country. But sorry to disappoint. I have no idea what they or you think I have and I’m not about to start worrying about it now.”

“I could take you in for your own safety.” And she knew it was a threat.

Irene smiled and the agent standing behind Harris looked like he might make a run for the door. “Do you really want to do that, Agent Harris? Do you really want a repeat of what happened when that was tried before?” Irene put her hands behind her head, interlacing her fingers. “Tell me, did they ever repair that city block? Or is it still a sunken hole?”

Harris didn’t answer, but he glared awfully well. Irene rolled her eyes and swung her legs off her desk. “I’m done talking to you, Agent Harris. I have work to do and, to be quite blunt, you simply aren’t that interesting.”

Turning to her computer, Irene flipped on her monitor.

She could hear Harris getting to his feet, and his partner moved quickly to the door.

“I’m sure we’ll talk again, Professor.”

“I live for the day, Agent.”

Irene waited until the door closed and she’d given them a minute or two to walk away before she let out a sigh. Okay, so she did have a rough idea of what the Russians wanted. And what her government would love to get its hands on. But no one, absolutely no one, would ever touch it. She’d never unleash that stuff on the world. But sitting around obsessing over it wasn’t going to help either. So Irene called up her latest work and thought about other things.

Unfortunately, those other things turned out to be Van Holtz. Three days had gone by and she still thought about him. Why? Most people she could stop thinking about in minutes, if not seconds. But every time she allowed herself a moment to think about something other than equations and formulas, her poor belabored mind always went back to that idiot.

She glanced across the room at the poster of Einstein one of her students had put up to, in his words, “Make this office a little more…friendly.” But she wasn’t seeing brilliant Albert. No. Instead, she kept wondering how many women the bastard had slept with by now. Probably hundreds. She’d bet cash he was a sexual glutton. An any-hole-will-do sort of man.

And here she sat…
thinking
about it. Putting portions of her million-dollar mind toward that boneheaded idiot. How pathetic. How ridiculous. How…human. Jackie promised it wouldn’t last. This sudden surge of emotion. And Irene had begun to count the days until these “feelings” would go away. Far away. How normal-IQ people lived with this sort of thing from day to day, she’d never understand.

Irene Conridge using her extraordinary brain power thinking about a man. Absolutely tragic.

“Someone shoot me now.”

Except for a few students, she didn’t think many would take her up on the offer.

“And the bastard has probably slept with thousands,” she griped before sending one of her favorite pens flying across the room.

Van paced restlessly behind the boutique shop owned by Athana Löwe of the Löwe Pride. Although Van found Athana’s older sister Melinda a real pain in the ass, he liked Athana a lot more. Plus the lionesses were great for the occasional “get together.” Lions mostly bred only with their own kind, which meant they were great for no-strings-attached sex. Exactly what Van needed at the moment. Simply so he could prove his parents horribly, horribly wrong.

For three days he’d been going to work and back to either his apartment or the Van Holtz estate and not once, in all that time, had he brought a female with him. Only this morning he’d been standing in the kitchen, chatting with his sister, when one of the newest She-wolves walked in. She had on shorts and a T-shirt and nothing else. From what he’d heard, she hadn’t shown much interest in anyone so far. But she’d looked at him with avid interest. She was adorable and surprisingly petite for a She-wolf. But what had he done? Smiled, nodded at her, and gone back to talking to his sister.

To quote one of his cousins, “What the fuck was that?”

When he’d realized what he’d done, Van had been absolutely horrified at himself. Where had the old Van gone? The “if she’s cute and stops long enough, I’ll fuck her” wolf that had such a reputation? Had that evil woman, with her cold eyes and cute, curvy body given him one of her experimental drugs to see if she could rid men of a sex drive? He wouldn’t put it past her.

Hell, even his sister noticed. Mainly because more than once he’d walked away from her in the middle of one of their conversations to chat up a girl. But this morning…nothing.

When he complained to his parents, they only snorted and gave each other that
look
. The one every parental unit had down to a fine art. The “let him suffer until he learns a lesson” look.

In the end, though, Van refused to believe it. Irene Conridge, PhD, had absolutely no hold over him whatsoever. And she never would. If he wanted to sleep with a cold fish, he’d have the mob cut his throat and toss him into the Pacific Ocean.

The back door to the shop finally opened and Van turned around to see the lovely lioness poke her head out. When she saw him, her expression went from welcome to sultry.

“Hey, handsome.”

See? Now
that
was warm and friendly. From a cat, no less. Christ, Irene Conridge was colder than a cat? Was that even possible?

“Hey yourself,” he replied gruffly. “Now come here.”

She smirked and sashayed over to him. Athana pretty much sashayed everywhere. He’d always liked that about her.

Gold eyes looked up at him from beneath pitch-black lashes. “Yes?”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a strange feeling of guilt washed over him simply because he stood alone with a female in a back alley. He’d never felt it before and to say he wasn’t happy about it would be a drastic understatement.

Snarling, he grabbed Athana’s arms and yanked her close. Startled, her lips parted and he swooped in, kissing her hard.

After almost a minute, he finally pulled back and Athana stared up at him.

“Wow,” she finally said. “Kind of like kissing my Aunt Gertrude when she comes over for Thanksgiving.”

Van held her at arm’s length. “
What?
”

She actually pouted but didn’t seem really upset. “Damn. And you are so good too. The hyenas were running around saying you’d mated with a full-human but I kept hoping the rumors weren’t true.”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

Athana giggled. “Come on, Van. You’re a wolf. You might as well accept your fate.”

He shoved her away and paced over to a Dumpster. “No. I refuse to be trapped by this.”

“Sweetie, it’s too—”

Before the word “late” could come out of her mouth, Van spun around and said, “Let’s get a hotel room and fuck.”

Rolling her eyes, Athana headed back to her store. “Forget it, Van. I’ve never fucked around with another female’s mate, and I’m not about to start now. Even if she is full-human.”

“But I’m not interested in her.” Oh, God! Did he just whine that?

She pulled the door open. “If you’re that convinced it’s a mistake, go to her and find out.”

Go to her? His healed but scarred thigh automatically tensed at the thought…then other parts of him tensed for an entirely different reason.

“Trust me,” Athana sighed. “If you kiss her the way you just kissed me, you are definitely not interested.”

“How do I look?”

Irene looked up and nodded at her friend. “You look amazing.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” A car horn blew and Jackie grabbed her wrap. “Sure I can’t talk you into coming? These university events are so much more tolerable when you’re there to mock with me.”

“I can’t face it. Not tonight.”

“Agent Harris freak you out?”

“Well, he didn’t make me feel at ease.”

“Should we stay?”

“No. You and Paul go. Have a good time.” Irene tossed her lopsided ponytail off her face for the eighteenth time. “I’m going to work on these papers and watch some television.”

“Okay.” Jackie started to walk out but stopped. “Do not, Irene, take apart my Macintosh.”

Irene looked over at the newest “thing” in computing. A three-thousand-dollar Steve Jobs joke, if you asked her. An overpriced toy. Still, Irene wanted to take it apart to see what Jobs had done. Damn Jackie for knowing her so well.

“I mean it.”

“Yes. Yes. Isn’t Paul waiting?”

Jackie narrowed her eyes in warning one more time before swooping out.

Irene glanced at the off-white box sitting on her friend’s desk and forced herself to focus on the student papers before her.

A few minutes later the doorbell rang and Irene didn’t move. She wasn’t expecting anyone, so she wouldn’t answer the door. She dealt with enough people during the day, she’d be damned if her nights were filled with the idiots as well.

The doorbell went off again, followed by knocking. Irene didn’t even flinch. In a few more minutes she would shut out everything but the work in front of her, a skill she’d developed over the years. Sometimes Jackie would literally have to shake her or punch her in the head to get her attention.

But Irene hadn’t slipped into that “zone” yet and she could easily hear someone sniffing at her door. She looked up from her paperwork as Van Holtz snarled from the other side, “I know you’re in there, Conridge. I can smell you.”

Eeew.

“Go away,” she called back. “I’m busy.”

The knocking turned to outright banging. “Open this goddamn door!”

Annoyed but resigned the man wouldn’t leave, Irene put her paperwork on the couch and walked across the room. She pulled open the door and ignored the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach at seeing the man standing there in a dark gray sweater, jeans, and sneakers. She knew few men who made casualwear look anything but.

“What?”

She watched as his eyes moved over her, from the droopy sweatsocks on her feet, past the worn cotton shorts and the paint-splattered T-shirt that spoke of a horrid experience trying to paint the hallway the previous year, straight up to her hastily created ponytail. He swallowed and muttered, “Goddamnit,” before pushing his way into her house.