Authors: Morgan Fox
Ryder nodded in understanding and stood, standing eye to eye with him. “Very true,” he said. “Last night Bryce and I were heading to the clinic to talk with Megan about Mason’s blood. Our people want to know what you’ve been able to discover about the virus, since it started with a were-panther.”
“A hybrid,” Reyes corrected.
“Regardless,” Ryder said, moving. “When we arrived, a mean bitch of a vampire was kicking the shit out of your big friend.”
Lilly.
He cringed as he repeated her name again and again in his mind. “Why didn’t she try to kill you, too?”
Ryder shrugged. “Strangely, she didn’t want to fight us. She did, however, sniff me and said I smelled just like him. I’m assuming she meant Mason.”
Reyes scratched his whiskered jaw. “Makes sense,” he said in a low, husky tone.
“What does?” Bryce finally chimed in.
Reyes met the large were-panther’s gaze head-on, the cool flare of gold swirling in the depths of his eyes. “She was in love with Mason, believe it or not. That’s why she was attacking Dominic. She attacked Megan earlier today.”
Ryder’s spine went stiff and instantly he took a step closer to Reyes. “Is she all right?”
“Yes, she’s fine.”
Bryce dropped the crinkled newspaper on the couch and folded his arms over his chest. “Do you think that the vampire was after Mason’s body?”
“No. She wants revenge.” The soft flutter of Megan’s voice sliding into his ears caused Reyes to glance over his shoulder.
A freshly showered and exquisitely beautiful, red-haired temptress gazed at him. Never had he seen her look at him with such familiarity. There was a subtle spark of intimacy and respect firing between them, and he suddenly wanted her hand clasped in his. Instinctively, he reached out for her, and she willingly placed her hand in his.
“Well.” Ryder snickered, glancing from Reyes to Megan and back again. “Seems one of us has finally secured his mate.”
Reyes’s gaze drifted over Megan’s face at the acknowledgement of being called his mate, praying he would see nothing in her expression other than what he’d witnessed all evening as they made love. To his heart’s desire, he saw her smiling with a slight blush coating her cheeks. His heart skipped.
“Gentleman,” Reyes addressed them, “if you don’t mind, my mate and I are hungry. Please leave the number where you’ll be, Ryder, and when Megan is up to discussing the details of Mason’s autopsy, she can reach out to you.”
Before he and Bruce showed themselves out, Ryder winked at Megan, teasing, “You two lovebirds enjoy yourselves, but please don’t keep me waiting too long, Megan.” Before he left the room, he turned once more to face her. “If by chance I don’t hear from you, I’m sure I’ll see you soon at the McCarthy wedding. Until such time—” He bowed his head, turned, and left.
Chapter Ten
Megan knew that Reyes was taking curious pleasure in watching her bustle around the kitchen in search of dishes, pots, and pans, and whatever other items were needed to make her splendid concoction. She promised a meal he would thoroughly enjoy, but not nearly as much as she would enjoy retreating back to his bedroom, a thought she couldn’t strike from her mind, and she didn’t really want to. At the moment, a protein energy bar would have satisfied her. The desire to have him buried deep inside her pussy once more was all-consuming and mind-numbingly enticing.
The tingle of his gaze burrowed its way into her skin, coating her in delicious currents of prevailing arousal and spellbinding allure. Grinning, she couldn’t help but call him out on his fevered stares because if she didn’t dinner was never going to be prepared.
She stretched to reach a dish located on the top shelf of one of the cabinets, and said with brevity, “Stop looking at me like that, Reyes.”
As if sensing her inner desires to have him near, he reached above her and grabbed the dish she was struggling to seize. Even at her tall height, she would have needed a little help, which she received with a glowing smile. The rough, masculine rumble of his words was silkily whispered in her ear, sending wave after wave of tingles racing up and down her spine.
“Looking at you like what?” he asked, sounding perplexed.
She whirled to face him, chest to chest. She pressed her hands against the firm slabs of rock-hard strength. With a coy smile, she moved her hands seductively to tease her fingertips against the peach-fuzz hair on the back of his head and said shamelessly, “You know exactly what look I’m referring to.”
Reyes hauled her up into his arms. She moaned at the sudden rush of blood that warmed her pussy. As her ass planted firmly against the countertop, she captured the heat of his kiss in greedy anticipation. Wild and uninhibited, he was on her like a savage beast, his mouth tearing at hers with voracious need.
Panting, she worked the buttons of his jeans and her hand dove inside, gripping his swollen cock, stroking and fondling him with unbound desire. His feral growl turned her body inside out, dissolving her bones. Liquid heat saturated her cunt as he continued to swell in her grasp.
“Oh, God,” she moaned as his mouth clamped down on her collarbone. He leaned her back and then captured her T-shirt-covered nipple. Her fingers massaged his scalp as the pull of desire laid claim to her body once more. So hungry, her body begged and begged for more. “I want you, Reyes. I want you to fuck me.” She pulled his head up to meet her gaze. “Right here, right now.” Her body was filled with lustful urgency, and she took possession of his lips again.
* * * *
Like everything associated with bad timing, the vision was unwanted. The vision of Dominic’s battered body jumped into Reyes’s head, and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Was the feeling swirling in his gut guilt or jealousy?
Shit.
He wanted Megan more than anything, but at the same time, he didn’t want to ruin any chance he had at keeping his friend his friend.
A ghost of a smile on his face, Reyes inclined his head slightly toward Megan. “As much as I want to rip your clothes off of you and fuck you right here in my kitchen, perhaps we should wait till we’re truly alone in the house.”
She gasped, her eyes flaring wide as she understood Reyes’s meaning. “Dominic’s home?”
“You didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “All I can smell is you,” she admitted, her cheeks blazing bright red. Damn, he loved to see her blush. “How long has he been home?”
With a scowl, he said, “Ryder and Bryce brought him home. He’s resting now.”
Megan’s brows pinched tightly together as her eyes searched his expression for clarity. “Why did he need a ride home? Did something happen?” The panic from her voice churned inside him and sank deep into his stomach, knotting with nerves of unease.
Brushing back a few strands of hair that had fallen from her ponytail, he did his best to soothe her. He could feel the shift in energy between them, knew she was worried about Dominic, but for whatever reason, he didn’t want to tell her about his vampire-filled evening. “Dominic’s fine. Ryder went to the clinic to find you, and that’s why he was here. He had hoped to learn what you’ve discovered from Mason’s autopsy.”
“Oh,” she said, not sounding as convinced as he would have liked, so he quickly changed the subject.
“What exactly have you decided to make us to eat?” He glanced at the gathered ingredients on the counter beside them.
“Thanks to whoever stocks your pantry and refrigerator,” she said with unspoken curiosity, exchanging a whimsical glance with him, “I was going to prepare a simple but wonderful family dish—pasta with marinara, complemented by a delicious Greek salad.”
Pulling her back into his strong hold, he asked, “Anything I can do to help?”
She playfully shoved at his chest. “You can go over there and sit.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a chuckle, and then stuck his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout.
“Go,” she said firmly, pointing in the direction of the barstool. The same one she had occupied earlier.
He did as she commanded, and again, he marveled at her grace. For a well-respected doctor with a medical practice to run and a supernatural case to solve, she sure did seem at ease in the kitchen, like she had spent years learning the craft, which he found ridiculous with a schedule like she had.
“I’m afraid you’ve sparked my curiosity.”
“About what?”
“Well, how is it you seem so at home in the kitchen?”
“My father was a chef, and my mother, like me, was a workaholic.” She smiled at the pleasant memory of her past, but he made a quick note about her use of the word
was
. “My father would keep me in the kitchen with him for hours. He refused to have a daughter who didn’t appreciate the culinary arts as well as the scientific ones. He used to tease my mother that I was just as much his daughter as I was hers.”
“I take it your mother was a doctor?”
“Yes, but she focused on neurology, while I stayed geared towards diagnostic and general medicine.”
“Were you an only child?”
“Yes,” she said. “My father begged my mother for years to have a child, and she finally caved, but once I was born, that was it for them. Being a doctor is hard, adding a family to it…I guess that wasn’t really for my mother.”
Reyes blew out a sharp breath. “I think I know what you mean,” he said, meeting her gaze. “My father only wanted me so he could have a son to follow in his footsteps.”
“My father was the perfect dad. He spent so much time trying to make up for the absence of my mother. I adored him.” Her eyes watered, and he knew more memories of her childhood danced behind her teary eyes. He wished he could take a glimpse into her life and truly know the woman who so easily had captured his heart. “I just wished my mother had loved us as much as she loved her work.”
“Megan, where are your parents now?”
“Dead,” she said simply, turning to begin combining items into a giant bowl. “They were killed by hunters when I was only sixteen.”
“Megan, I’m so sorry.” He stood to comfort her, his arms itching to wrap around her and hold her close.
She raised her hand to stop him from approaching her. “It was a long time ago, Reyes.”
He frowned. “It still doesn’t make it any easier,” he said, his fingers griping the edge of the countertop.
“No, it doesn’t, but I’ve come to terms with their deaths, and even though it still hurts when I think that it was my fault—”
“Why do you think their deaths were your fault?”
She sighed. “My father was trying so hard to get my mother to notice him again. After thirty years of marriage, I guess things had gotten stale.” She continued mixing the necessary ingredients for her pasta and marinara dish. “I’d heard them arguing one night, and my mother confessed that she’d never been in love with my father, that she loved him, but was never in love with him. The mating heat was all she truly felt between them.”
She paused, and he could see her trying to swallow the emotions bubbling up inside her. “I thought that if they just spent time alone together, they could discover the true love that should have brought them together in the first place. For whatever reason, my mother agreed to go on a trip with just my father. Maybe somewhere deep inside she wanted to see if true love really did exist.” Megan shrugged. “My father took her to a cabin in the mountains. One night while they were out running…” A row of tears slid down her cheeks, and he knew he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. “Hunters tracked down my parents and killed them.”
“Human hunters?”
She shook her head.
“Vampires?” His voice shot up in amazement. Vampire attacks on lycans were rare, but not completely unheard of.