Boiling Point (4 page)

The door stood ajar, internal lights off but for the soft glow of a lit computer monitor. Cooper poked his head around the corner, but the room remained still. Whoever had been there moments before had already gone. No, that wasn’t exactly right either. It wasn’t a
who
, but a
what
.

No wonder the intruder had been clumsy enough to be seen on the perimeter. He hadn’t worried about being found. Only an elemental could thwart the perceptions of another elemental.

Cooper retraced his steps, keeping a keen awareness to the elements. He sensed nothing. Whichever element was near, he was in hiding specifically from Cooper’s talents. It could be anyone, even one of his own kind. A salamander could easily offset the perceptions of another Fire based elemental. But the earth gnomes, water undines, and air sylphs could use their own abilities to confuse fire as well.

Which meant there was a leak in the salamander scientific community Cooper belonged to. Someone, somewhere, had found out what the humans were up to and where the planned experimentation would occur. Securing the university just became a lot more challenging.

Fauna
.

Cooper raced through the building. Silence no longer mattered. Whoever had snuck in already knew he was there and what he was. Chances were, the elemental knew Fauna was hiding outside, too.

Cooper began transferring himself into pure heat energy as he approached the window. As he reached for the metal frame, his fingers brushed the glass. Chilled pain shot up his arm, and dropped his core temperature. Heat conducted through the frame at a cooler rate, keeping his molecular structure more solid than it should have been as he projected himself out of the building to reform on the other side.

Cooper rematerialized, doubled in pain as he stumbled to the place where he’d left Fauna. Muscle spasms racked his body and dropped him to his knees. If he’d been prepared for the fumble, he could have compensated, reheated, and transported. But he hadn’t and the result seized his every cell.

“Cooper?” Fauna called in a harsh whisper.

“Fauna, you’re okay,” he said, relieved. Cooper fell to his knees at her feet. He tucked his chin to his chest, his hands into his armpits as he folded his arms across his chest, shivering.

“What happened to you? Are you okay? I saw someone running out of the building just seconds before you. Were you seen? Did he hurt you?”

A harsh laugh escaped him. “I’m fine. I jammed my hands on the way out,” he lied. He kept his face in shadow. If she saw him now, she’d know what he was. His eyes would be more red than brown, and his skin would appear scaled like the salamander he was.

Given her reaction to other faeries, he knew she wouldn’t like it. Worse, she might insist he leave the project, putting both their kinds at risk. Cloning was of great interest to all sentient beings. It was a simmering cauldron of research, capable of making or destroying them all.

Right now, though, he needed heat. Lots of heat. With the lovely Fauna Harper leaning over him, concern dripping from her voice as she hovered to protect him from the unseen enemy, an enemy she had no way of knowing how to fight, he couldn’t help but want to tuck her in his arms close to his heart.

Maybe she wouldn’t notice the scales if he kissed her in the dark. Maybe he could just sample some of her heat, using intimacy to generate more of it, and sip from her until his appearance had returned to normal.

There was a lot about Fauna he wanted to sample. A helluva lot.

Cooper caught her wrist and drew her down. He kept his eyes closed, hiding the bright red he knew she’d see if he let her. It was a risk, but he needed heat. The insulating properties of glass still stung at his cells. It didn’t help that he’d completed the transfer of energy anyway. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to kiss Fauna the first time, or the reason, but he’d take his excuses where he could get them.

His sharp pull jerked Fauna off balance and a small yelp escaped her as she dumped into his arms.

“What the—?”

Cooper silenced her with a kiss. Her cheeks were touched with gossamer coolness of Texas autumn evening. Not noticeable to most, it was to someone whose existence revolved around heat and the lack of it.

Her fists bunched in his shirt just below his shoulders, and as he kissed her, holding his lips against hers, he could already feel the coolness leave her cheeks and her lips plump with warmth.

Fauna twisted her face away from his. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I would think it’s obvious,” he murmured. The kiss had helped, but ended too soon to completely resolve his problem.

“Bad timing,” she snapped.

“If I’d kissed you some other moment, it would have been all right?” he teased.

“No!”

Cooper nuzzled her neck, still hiding his face from her and trying to turn her on. “You smell incredible,” he said, nipping the delicate tendon at the side below her ear.

“You aren’t supposed to notice stuff like that.”

“I’m not?” He asked, flicking his tongue on the edge of her earlobe.

Fauna shivered. “No you aren’t.”

“Then why did you bother to put perfume on, if no one is supposed to notice it?” His lips closed over the soft offering and Fauna’s anxious whimper definitely heated
his
blood, if not hers.

Chapter Three

Fauna twisted her fingers into Cooper’s cotton sweatshirt. Soft and warm from his body, it felt more like a promise of a hug than clothing. His arms circled her, his firm thighs bracketed her bottom where he sat cross-legged on the grass. His body practically dwarfed hers and the fact that he was suckling her ear, his breath fluttering into the sensitive whorls and raising goose bumps all over her body, did nothing to make her want to keep pushing him away.

His thick hair brushed her jaw like a silken caress. Fauna’s eyes automatically closed to savor the feeling of Cooper’s delicious attention. Her body tightened and parts of her that she’d insisted remain dormant to his charms shivered to life every second she didn’t move away.

“Really bad timing,” she breathed. She’d said the words aloud more to hang onto the thoughts she knew were important, than to actually object.

Cooper scraped his teeth just behind her ear and Fauna lost all sense. Her fists pulled him in instead of pushing him back. She didn’t remember letting go of his shirt, but her fingers did sink into his thick, gorgeous hair to hold him against her as his lips, teeth, and tongue seduced her.

His lips seemed to inflame her flesh with ribbons of liquid heat, making the rest of her feel chilled from the difference. Fauna threw her head back allowing him to do whatever he wanted to her. The world shifted and suddenly, she was lying in the grass, Cooper over her.

His lips found hers again. Fauna slitted her eyes and deliriously thought she saw a red glow before she dismissed it in favor of closed eyes and absorbed sensations. Her breasts ached, nipples in hard cold points under two layers of clothing. She heard the snaps pop on her windbreaker and nearly cried with relief that her breasts would finally get some attention.

Cooper stopped abruptly. His breath quick and puffing in sharp bursts on her cheek. “Wrong place, wrong time,” he rasped. “Not like this.”

Confused and still dazed Fauna looked up at his dark silhouette. “Wh-what?”

“You’re right. You deserve a lot better than this.”

“What?” she asked her voice sounding squeaky. “No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. I shouldn’t have come onto you like this.”

“You can’t just stop all the sudden.”

“So now you don’t want me to stop?” he asked, sounding confused.

“No. Wait…”

Fauna sat up. Cooper gave her some room. She licked her lips and tried to remember what had started the whole thing and why she suddenly didn’t want him to stop when stopping would be a good thing, right? It had to be a good thing. She shouldn’t be making out with a coworker. She especially shouldn’t be making out with a coworker who was on duty with her. And hadn’t it been she who’d first
said
it was a bad idea?

Why had she said it was a bad idea?

Crickets chirped around her and she remembered. “Oh, my God! I can’t believe you did that!”

“It’s not rocket science. I felt like kissing you. You seemed to be feeling it too.”

“Not until you stuck your tongue in my ear,” she accused.

“I didn’t stick my tongue in your ear.”

“You might as well have.”

Cooper sighed and stood. He held out his hand, but Fauna rejected the help and got to her feet quickly, dusting off her bottom. If she’d taken his hand, she might have pulled him on top of her again. Except that he’d never laid on her, only laid her down and hovered over her. And it pissed her off because she felt like he’d cheated her out of feeling his body pressing into hers. Which, technically, he had. And because it was trickery. She hadn’t
wanted
to kiss him until he’d made her want to kiss him. How was
that
fair?

She harrumphed at him. He smiled. She didn’t know how she knew he’d smiled, because it was too dark to see him well, but she did know. He shouldn’t know he had that kind of mind melting effect on her unless she wanted him to know. Thank God she was too annoyed with herself to disappear again. Not that it would matter, it being dark and all. But damn it! He clearly knew his effect on her, and the smile just proved it.

“If you insist, I’ll make a point of sticking my tongue in your ear next time,” he offered jovially.

“Ew. No. Don’t do me any favors. Like I’d want your tongue on me,” she muttered. Oh, hell, her whole body wanted his tongue on her, and she felt the flush of her body’s response to the thought.

“It didn’t feel like ‘ew’ when you moaned. I totally misread that. My bad.”

“Yes, well,” she asserted stubbornly. “Now you know.”

“Yep, now I know.” He nodded. “I know you hate being kissed, have zero attraction to me, and that when you’re holding my face to your neck, you’re actually trying to teach me a lesson.”

“That’s right.”

“Just out of curiosity, what meaning do I take from arching back and pointy nipples?” he asked innocently.

Fauna gasped, whirled away from him, and started back toward the car. There was no possible way he could have known that. It had been too dark and he hadn’t so much as grazed his fingers over her breasts. They still ached, her core still squeezed for his touch on her body. She’d been so ready for him. It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d been on a goddamn stage in front of her family and the world, she’d have let him take her on the spot.

So why hadn’t he?

Her pride stung almost as sharply as her neglected body. He was so confusing! Flirting one minute, blinking drolly at her the next, running from the building they’d been hired to secure, and nearly lighting her on fire with lust two seconds later.

Where had her head been? He made her act so out of the ordinary, it was scary. Her whole existence revolved around organization and control. The one area of control she didn’t have was in her faery ability to disappear. She hated its unpredictability which had everything to do with her aversion to all things faery.

Damn the faeries
.

And what did she do? She went and got hot for the first guy to come along who made her act irrationally and who, himself, behaved irrationally. It was enough to make her pull her hair out.