Up All Night
Authors: Faye Avalon
Evernight Publishing
Copyright© 2013 Faye Avalon
ISBN:
978-1-77130-269-2
Cover
Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: Melissa
Hosack
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal.
No part of this book may be
used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a
work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For AJ, as always.
UP ALL NIGHT
Faye Avalon
Copyright
© 2013
Chapter One
“You moron! Are you insane?”
For a few surreal seconds, Marco
Zutini stared at the vision before him, wondering where in hell she’d come from
and how he’d managed to splatter her quite so spectacularly. “Shit.”
“My sentiments exactly.” The woman
stood frozen to the spot as if the paint plastered to her had transmuted into
glue. “Look what you’ve done, you idiot.”
Marco narrowed his eyes, hoisted his
paintball gun, and then strode to where she gawped down at her ruined clothes,
all the while muttering curses that wouldn’t be out of place during a guys’
poker night.
As he neared, she glared up at him,
fierce blue eyes staring out of a face smeared with bright red paint. There
were also splashes on the black ball cap she adjusted as she continued to
glower at him. Shit. He’d expected one of the guys to step out of the bushes,
not some female who barely reached his shoulders.
Attack, he remembered, was the
wisest form of defence. “What the hell do you think you’re doing wandering
around here anyway?”
“It’s a public wood.” Paint trailed
down her cheeks onto her upper lip. “I’ve got every right.”
“Actually, you haven’t.” When she
swiped at her lip, Marco was momentarily distracted. Damn fine lips. “These
woods are private. Didn’t you see the signs?”
“No. I didn’t see the damn signs.”
She held out her arms like a scarecrow and looked down at herself again, before
returning her gaze to his. “Well, don’t just stand there.”
Damn fine eyes too
, Marco thought, planting his feet hip width apart. All that blue fire.
“What do you expect me to do? You’re the one trespassing.”
“And you’re the one playing Cowboys
and Indians.”
“Cowboys and Indians don’t use guns
filled with paint,” Marco felt compelled to point out.
“Whatever.” She flicked her hand,
sending tiny flecks of paint into the air. “Boys. Toys. Who cares?”
Okay. She was starting to piss him
off. “The gate’s back that way.” He hefted the gun across his chest and started
to turn away. “Have a nice day.”
“What?”
He ignored her frustrated screech as
he continued to walk back toward headquarters. While he knew he should do
something to help her, a part of him rebelled at her brusque, irritating
manner. Life hadn’t been all plain sailing lately, and now even this male bonding
thing he’d arranged for his friend Ethan’s stag party had backfired and shot
him in the ass. He didn’t need some cranky female adding to the mix.
“Hey! Just wait a minute.”
Marco continued to walk but heard
the rustle as her footsteps crunched through the wooded path. He shook his
head. Bloody woman was following him. “Don’t have a minute to spare,
bella
. Too many Indians lurking in these
here woods.”
“You can’t go off and leave me here
after what you’ve done. The least you could do is help me.”
He came to an abrupt stop, but
didn’t turn. “Only thing I’m guilty of is hearing a sound in the bushes. And
since these woods are earmarked for paintball activities, I aimed and fired.”
Truth was, he hadn’t aimed but had simply vented his frustration by shooting out
at the rustle of foliage. “If you need help, I’d suggest you go find the
nearest ranger.”
He thought he heard her mutter
“bastard” but couldn’t be sure. He had to smile and was about to turn when a
huge dog shot out of the woods and aimed straight for him. He had a moment to
think
mastiff
before the dog lunged
at him and knocked him back a clear two steps. “Fucking hell.”
“Roscoe, down!”
The gun fell from Marco’s grasp as
he tried to defend himself. It soon became clear that the dog’s only intention
was to play see-how-high-I-can-jump and possibly lick him to death. “Hey, down
boy. Good dog.”
A hand shot out and a clip attached
to the animal’s collar before he was tugged away. “Bad boy.” The
paint-splattered beauty’s breathy tone echoed through the suddenly quiet woods.
“First you run off and scare me half to death, then you want to make friends
with possibly the most obnoxious man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.”
Marco turned to face her and stared
down into those fierce blue eyes. The dog, now suitably restrained at her side,
panted like a train as he stared up at Marco. “Maybe he’s a better judge of
character than you are.”
“No, he’s just more naïve. Dogs are
like that.” She glared up at him as if all the bad stuff in the world was his
fault. “It’s one of the reasons I prefer them to people.”
“Your prerogative. Now why don’t you
run along and stop bothering me.”
He was about to turn away again,
royally pissed with her now, when the dog shot off after something that rustled
in the trees and she stumbled into the bushes, the leash escaping her grip. “Shit.
Roscoe! Come back!”
But the dog was already charging
joyously off toward the sound he’d heard, barking with the thrill of the chase
and of being free to pursue whatever had taken his fancy.
“Hey.” Marco bent and wrapped his
hand around her arm preparing to pull her up. “Are you okay?”
The ball cap had dislodged, sending
a swathe of long brown hair onto her face where it promptly got caught in the
paint. “Do I look okay?” She batted his hand away, stuffed her red-streaked hair
back under the cap and pulled down her jacket. Marco had a moment to wonder how
she managed to get all that hair under such a small cap, but then she planted
her hands on her hips. “Damn. Where did he go?”
“Took off after something.”
She huffed. “I’d never have worked
that out if you hadn’t been around.”
That pissed him off some more. All
he was doing was trying to help and here she was acting like he was the cause
of all her problems. Well, maybe he was the cause of the current one, or at
least partly, but still. “Instead of standing there complaining, why don’t we
just concentrate on getting your dog back?”
She glared at him some more, then let
out a long sigh. “He doesn’t know these woods, this area even, he’ll probably
get scared and be disorientated when he calms down.”
“He’s not from around here?”
As they started off toward the trees
in the direction Roscoe had fled, she spared him a glance. “Came in a couple of
weeks ago. He was found dumped on a roadside about thirty miles away, tied to a
tree and suffering from exposure.”
“You rescued him?”
She made a sound that was probably in
the affirmative, but her head was turned away from him now as she searched the
woods. Since her hair was tucked into the cap, he got a fine view of her long,
slender neck with all that milky white flesh. He held back a pace and let his
gaze travel down to her ass. No problems there either. Round, firm cheeks
encased in all that tight denim. His cock jerked beneath the old army fatigues
he wore, but any further deliberations were halted as her shout pierced the
wooded silence.
“Roscoe! Here boy. Roscoe.”
She picked up speed and since she
didn’t seem to want to continue their chat any time soon, Marco cleared his
throat as he strode alongside her again. “You live nearby?”
“Near the Center. God, I hope he’s
okay. He’s hardly out of puppy-hood and doesn’t have any street smarts yet.”
“We’ll find him.” Shit. He didn’t
usually have to work this hard to get information out of a woman. It was like
pulling teeth. “What Center?”
She glanced up at him as she
continued to stride out. “The
I work there.”
When he didn’t immediately respond,
she rolled her eyes, as if the existence of
biggest animal rescue center was beyond his idiot perception.
Okay. Now he was beyond pissed.
Maybe he wasn’t the world’s most sensitive mortal, but he was damn well not the
jerk she was making him out to be. Forget that tight ass. The woman was fast
becoming a royal pain in his.
“Roscoe!” His shouted command came
out louder and more forceful than he’d anticipated and he was hardly surprised
when she came to a stop and looked at him. “What?”