Authors: Shelly Laurenston
“You’re being an asshole.”
“Sorry. It must be the after affects of
the drugs you gave me
!”
Miki didn’t even flinch when he started yelling. “You’re going to hold that over my head forever, aren’t you?”
Conall
just stared at her with his mouth open.
“What?”
He turned away from her. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Okay. Fine. He wanted to be an unforgiving asshole; he could be an unforgiving asshole.
Self-righteous prick
.
She jumped out of the SUV, pulled her backpack over both her shoulders, and cut across campus toward her advisor’s office.
“Hey, psychopath!” Miki, halfway to her destination, turned around to see Amy and Craig walking toward her.
“Hey.”
“You okay?” Amy knew her well. “I can’t tell if you’re pissed or sad.”
Both
. “It’s nothing. I’m okay. What are you guys doing up so early? Or did you even bother going to bed?”
Amy sighed, “I
gotta
teach a bunch of freshman about quantum physics. Three hours of my life I’ll never be getting back.” She bitched a lot, but Amy was one of the best associate professors the university had. And if they were smart, they’d cough up and give her tenure before MIT or Harvard finally stole her away.
“And I’m here to see Professor
Leucrotta
.”
Miki felt a shudder go down her spine and it wasn’t one of those cool ones that
Conall
gave her. But one of those creepy ones she got like when she saw a spider crawling around her bathtub.
“Why?”
“Don’t worry. He agreed to meet with me about the grant money. Maybe I’ll be able to track down his password while I’m in his office.”
“Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Who? Me? And where is my fifty bucks?”
She smirked. “I believe you
forgot
to give me that this morning.”
“You’re not giving that back to me, are you?”
Miki grinned. “Nope. But thanks for checking up on me.”
“Anytime. We felt like we couldn’t leave you alone with Conan the Barbarian. ”
“Hey,
Mik
.” Amy nudged her. “Check it out. Your boring dream man.” Miki followed Amy’s nod and saw Troy Benson walking toward her.
“Miki? Is that you?”
Miki braved a smile at Troy as she quickly slipped her backpack off her shoulders. Nothing geekier than walking around with a giant backpack attached to you. And Troy was so not geeky. Almost six feet tall—a nice
normal
height, unlike some other abnormally large males she knew—with light brown hair and dark green eyes. She’d had a crush on him since Advanced Chem. Not surprisingly, Troy had his arm around some tall, blond babe that looked like she didn’t eat without throwing up after, but he kissed her on the cheek and sent her on her way before walking over.
“Wow, you haven’t changed. Still my little Miki.”
Funny, that just didn’t seem like much of a compliment.
***
“Did she say anything else?”
Conall
leaned against the passenger door of the SUV, his cell phone against his ear, and stared out at the deserted campus. It was still early and students were just starting to appear. “Said she was trying to get herself a cowboy.”
“I don’t really think that’s helpful.”
Conall
grunted and Zach was silent for a moment on the other end. “Is everything okay with you?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I’ve just never heard you sound so much… like me.”
Conall
chuckled. “I’m fine.”
“Miki still giving you a hard time?”
“Something like that.” He wasn’t about to admit to his Alpha male that he let some crazy woman drug him and take off in the middle of the night. If for no other reason, then he knew Zach would never let him live it down.
“I’m sure she’ll get over it eventually. Anyway, did you believe her?”
Yes
! But he was never going to believe short, vicious women again. Especially ones whose whole bodies shook during orgasm.
“Who?”
“Victoria
Löwe
.”
“Oh… uh… yeah, yeah. I did. I believed her.”
“Okay. Well, you two be careful anyway. Soon as Miki’s done, bring her ass back here before my mate forces me to start drinking. When she’s stressed, she paces. It’s driving me nuts.”
Conall
sniffed the wind coming from the direction Miki had headed. He smelled something… it was Miki’s scent. But it was mixed with… some other guy.
Conall
growled.
“
Conall
? Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah. Sure. We’ll be careful.
Gotta
go.” He shut off the phone and followed.
***
“So? Still living in Texas, huh?” Miki took a deep breath. She would stay calm. She could do this. Although it wasn’t like Miki was exactly Miss Smooth with the moves. In fact, she was kind of a
doofus
with men… except
Conall
. With him she didn’t seem to have any problems wrapping her legs around his waist while he slammed her against a wall.
“For now. I’m going to be finishing my doctorate this week. And
Conridge
mentioned an assistant professor position.”
“That would mean we’d be working together. Not bad. And
Conridge
is tough.” Boy, was she. Professor
Conridge
was notorious throughout the university. People feared her. When Miki decided to finally finish up her thesis, her old advisor had gone to another university and
Conridge
volunteered to take her on. To this day, she had no idea why. She thought the woman hated her. Of course, she seemed to hate everybody.
“So that’ll be great for you, huh?”
She should have noticed the look of fear on Craig’s face and the look of lust on Amy’s. She should have noticed the fact that the most enormous shadow had just fallen over her. But all she’d noticed was Troy and her lame attempt to get him to notice her. “Well, you know, it’s definitely time for a change.” She stopped talking because Troy had obviously stopped listening. She was about to see what horror was standing behind her since that seemed to have everybody’s interest, but big long arms wrapped around her and suddenly she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Hey, baby.” Miki froze as warm lips pressed against her ear, sending a delicious and treacherous tingle down her spine and straight to her clit. “I thought you were going to see your professor. You’re going to be late.”
She looked up to see
Conall
holding on to her. He smiled. An evil wolf smile. The kind they gave just before they took down a deer.
Sonofabitch
!
“What the hell…” He squeezed her tight and Miki fought just to breathe. “You just have to make sure Miki’s doing what she needs to do otherwise she gets totally lost.” Miki looked at Craig and Amy but she could already see they were enjoying this way too much to do anything about it.
Conall
nuzzled her neck and she thought about digging his eyes out of their sockets. “So, you going to introduce me to your friends, baby?”
Baby?
She tried to pull away, but he wasn’t letting her go anywhere. And Troy looked way too freaked out by
Conall
to say anything. He just stared at him.
She was so going to make him pay for this later.
“No, I’m not.”
Amy jumped in before Miki could start slamming her boot into his instep. “I’m Amy. This is Craig. And this is Troy.”
Miki stared at his neck. It was a big neck. Might spurt a lot of blood if she cut it.
“Hey, Craig. We met this morning in our hotel room.”
Our?
“But it’s nice to meet the other friends of my honey-bear.”
Amy almost spit out her gum while Craig suddenly became interested in what was half-way across campus. Troy looked a little disappointed as he stared at Miki. She could just see her future slipping away.
“Troy…” she began. But one of
Conall’s
big hands slid under her T-shirt and suddenly she felt claws. His claws, running lightly across her stomach.
I am going to kill him.
“Baby, we better get you to your professor’s office or you’re going to be late. Nice meeting you, Amy. Craig. Trey.”
“It’s Troy.”
“Whatever.”
Conall’s
hand gripped Miki’s and dragged her away. She barely had a chance to grab her backpack before she was stumbling behind him.
“Which building?” He bit out.
“Fuck you!”
He suddenly pulled her into his arms. To anyone else it probably seemed affectionate, but she knew better. And, as it was, she was way too pissed to feel anything but homicidal rage anyway. He leaned in close, his hot breath in her ear. “Keep it up and I’ll make you wish they’d finished you in that alley.”
“That one. Over there.”
Conall
again started moving, pulling Miki behind him. He walked into the building, found a stairwell, and dragged her inside it. As soon as he released her hand, she slugged him in the chest. Then cursed up a blue streak when she felt the pain all the way up her arm. Of course, he didn’t even flinch.
“Are you done?”
“
Sonofabitch
! What the fuck was that shit!” She shook her hand out, worried she broke a knuckle.
Conall
suddenly caught it and rubbed the knuckles between his two hands while he glared at her. She was almost positive he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
“Who the hell was that guy anyway?”
“Who? Troy?” Was he jealous? Well, then, she shouldn’t disappoint. “That was the future Mr. Miki Kendrick.”
***
Wrong!
He
was the future Mr. Miki Kendrick. Not some lame, tiny man with tiny little hands. He took one look at the guy and knew he was an asshole. And there was no way he was letting Miki anywhere near him. True, she was a vindictive bitch. But she was
his
vindictive bitch. He knew that now. No more bullshitting around. No more debating about what he really wanted. Miki Kendrick was his.
But clearly, he needed new tactics. The usual wasn’t working with her. Mostly because she was nuts. But he was flexible. And mean enough to go after what he wanted.
“I think you need to stay out of my life, Viking.” She was trying to yank her hand out of his grasp, but he wasn’t letting go.
“And I think you fail to realize that I now have the upper hand here.”
“What? For drugging you? You expect me to believe for a second that you’d hurt me or turn me into the cops?”
“No. But who knows what I would do to
him
.”
Miki froze. Those big beautiful brown eyes staring up at him. “You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”
“You spit food at me. You set me up with the cops at the airport. And you
drugged
me. Do you really want to test the ‘you wouldn’t dare’ theory now?”
He could see the muscles of her jaw clenching and unclenching. She was so pissed off, which only made her smell so tasty.
“Leave him alone,
Conall
. He didn’t do anything to you.”
He kicked her backpack unceremoniously out of the way. “But what about you,
Mik
? Does he have you?”
“Nobody has me.”
He stepped toward her until she’d backed herself up against the wall. He’d never worked so hard to be menacing before, but Miki just kept bringing that out in him. And it didn’t help that every time he did it, the smell of her lust punched him in the face.
“But I want you.”
“So I gathered.”
“And if I’m busy chasing you around, I can’t exactly be kicking the living shit out of him, now can I?”
Miki crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I guess.”
“So then maybe we make a little agreement.”
“What kind of agreement?”
“You give me until Friday.”
“To do what?”
He placed both his arms on the wall above her and leaned in. “To get close to you. After you defend your thesis, if I haven’t gotten between those sweet thighs of yours by then, it’s over. I never bother you again. I won’t even look at you.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“When it comes to you, I don’t joke around.”
He was expecting her to kick him in the
nads
. But she didn’t.
Interesting
.
“At least give me a shot,
Mik
.” He gently pulled her arms away from her body and leaned in to her. She watched him closely, but didn’t try and stop him either. “See? That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” He leaned down and kissed her. A small one. His lips against hers. She didn’t pull away, so he nipped at her bottom lip until her mouth opened and she let him in. His tongue moved slowly over hers, savoring the taste of her. She tried to pull her arms away, but he held them tight, moving them so that he had them flat against the wall over her head. He pinned her with his lower body, his knee sliding in between her thighs.