Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 05 (20 page)

She frowned, slanting him a look that was equal parts
unease and irritation, as if she didn’t like how easily he could read
her—though he’d have had to be blind not to have noticed the problem.
Especially after her reaction in the crowded arcade of shops in Kladno, just
before they’d been involved in the car crash.

“If you don’t want to talk about it,” he said in a low
voice, looking away from her, his gaze sliding over the crowd as he searched
for Granger, “that’s fine. I’m not looking to start a fight. I just thought it
might be good to get it out in the open.”

“If it’s all the same,” she murmured, “I think we’ve
gotten enough out in the open already today.”

While his chest shook with a gruff bark of laughter,
Kierland guided her toward the ornately carved mahogany bar that took up one
entire side of the club. Settling onto an empty stool, Morgan sat with her back
to the bar, so that she was facing the jam-packed room. Although he could sense
a large presence of Deschanel within the crowd, many of the patrons were human,
almost all of whom would have no idea that there were vampires and werewolves
mingling among them.

“And if we blow the lid on all our secrets,” she went
on to say, keeping her gaze focused on the men and women who were standing
around high cocktail tables as they chatted with their friends, “we might run
out of things to fight about.”

Staring down at her delicate profile, Kierland
couldn’t help but shake his head, a slow grin kicking up the corner of his
mouth. “Think about it, Morgan. If Granger agrees to come with us, we’re going
to be stuck with the bastard for days out in the Wasteland. I seriously doubt
that ‘not fighting’ is going to be a problem for us.”

She released a soft laugh under her breath, her
tension seeming to ease now that they were no longer in the thick of the crowd.
“You make a good point, Kier.”

The bartender came to ask what they wanted, and they
both ordered a Heineken. When the chilled green bottles were set on the bar,
Kierland took one and handed it to Morgan, before grabbing his own. “You sure
he’s here?” he asked, watching her from the corner of his eye.

She lowered her thick lashes, took a deep breath, and
her mouth curled with a warm, satisfied smile. “Oh, yeah. I’m sure,” she
replied, taking a drink of her beer before tilting her face up so that she was
looking right at him. Kierland could see that her color was high, her soft gray
eyes dancing with anticipation.

“You seem pretty excited,” he grunted, his fingers
tightening around the frosty bottle in his hand. He hated his inability to
control the ugly burn of jealousy singeing through his veins, knowing it was
only going to lead to trouble, same as it always had.

With a slight roll of her shoulder, she shifted her
focus back to the crowd. “Of course I’m excited. I haven’t seen Ashe in months,
and he’s one of my best friends.”

“As well as one of your past lovers,” Kierland added,
his mouth twisting with bitter humor as he stared down at the icy vapor
swirling around the mouth of his beer bottle.

She snuffled another one of those soft laughs and
shook her head, her dark hair sliding like silk over her cashmere-covered
shoulders. “Is this ‘state the obvious’ night,” she drawled, “and nobody
remembered to tell me?”

“Maybe I’m just wondering if you’ll be sleeping with
him on this trip, in return for his help, like you’ve done before.” They were
rough, huskily spoken words, barely audible beneath the din of music and
voices, but Kierland knew from the tight set of her jaw that she’d heard him.

Though Morgan turned her body toward him on the stool,
she didn’t make eye contact. Her head was lowered, her gaze on the slender
bottle in her hand as she said, “This is an issue for you, isn’t it?”

Setting his beer on the bar, Kierland ran his tongue
over his teeth, wishing he’d just kept his effing mouth shut. “What is?” he asked,
knowing damn well what she meant.

She lifted her head, locking her curious gaze with
his. “Jealousy.”

The soft word made him cringe, and Kierland ground his
jaw, figuring it safer not to say anything at all. Her head tilted a bit to the
side, her eyes bright as she studied his expression, and whatever she saw there
brought one of those strange, womanly smiles to her mouth that always left a
man scratching his head, wondering just what in God’s name she was thinking. “I
won’t be sleeping with Ashe,” she finally told him. “In case it escaped your
notice, Kier, I happen to be sleeping with you.”

“And that means something?”

MORGAN FORCED DOWN AN instinctive burst of irritation,
determined to keep her cool. On the one hand, the words coming out of the
gorgeous Lycan’s mouth belonged to a jackass. But on the other, there was
something in his eyes that made her think Kierland was hiding something behind
his jerk-of-the-year attitude. She just didn’t know what he was hiding, and her
brain was still too fried from the mind-blowing orgasms he’d given her to
figure it out.

Setting her beer bottle on the bar beside his, she
raised her brows and said, “One man is more than enough for me to handle, Kier.
And before you start making ugly accusations, let’s just remember that I wasn’t
the one with the psycho Barbie twins on Saturday night.”

His eyes went narrow, while frustration hardened his
masculine features. “I already told you that I didn’t touch either one of those
women,” he rasped.

“Only because I pulled you away,” she pointed out,
shrugging her shoulders.

“And did I mention that I didn’t even want to touch
them?” he shot back in such a low voice, she almost didn’t catch the words.
Heat rose up in her body, prickling in her earlobes and behind her knees, her
pulse suddenly rushing in her ears like an ocean surf. “They were just
substitutes,” he muttered, raking his auburn hair off his forehead as he looked
out over the club.

Morgan wet her lips, unable to take her gaze off his
rugged profile. “Substitutes for what?” she asked, her body still experiencing
a series of delicious little aches and twinges from having been so thoroughly
used.

A low, gritty laugh fell from his beautiful mouth, and
he said, “Like you mentioned before, we’ve probably gotten enough out in the
open already tonight.” He ran a hand over the rough edge of his jaw, the rolled
up sleeves of his white shirt revealing the long lines of muscle and sinew in
his powerful forearms, and then slanted her a shuttered look. “Let’s find
Granger and get out of here.”

With a nod, Morgan slipped off the stool. “I think
he’s in one of those rooms over there,” she told him, pointing toward a far
wall with several wooden doors leading to private rooms. They began making
their way toward the closed doors along the edges of the crowd, and she noticed
that Kierland kept his tall body positioned so that no one could get too close
or bump into her. The protective gesture was so unlike him—at least where she
was concerned—that it deepened the dreamlike sense of fantasy she’d been
drifting in since that afternoon. Sooner or later, Morgan knew she was going to
get a cold, hard slap of reality in the face, but for the moment she was still
riding the high…and secretly enjoying the hell out of it.

“What now?” he asked, when they were standing outside
the three mahogany doors, the rich brown contrasting sharply to the club’s pale
sage-colored walls.

Pushing her hands into the front pockets of her jeans,
she did her best to ignore the couple making out at a table to their right, and
said, “I guess we wait. I’m not exactly sure which room he’s in, and since I
have no idea what’s going on in any of them, I’m not about to start knocking on
doors.”

He gave one of those gritty, wickedly sexy laughs in
response, then propped his shoulder against the nearby wall. Morgan stood
beside him, her attention focused on those three doors, trying to determine
which one Ashe was behind, until she felt the blistering heat of a stare
against the side of her face. Shifting her gaze toward Kierland, she found his
eyes focused on her, instead of the doors. Her breath stuck in her throat, a
thick, liquid heat spilling through her body as she spied the molten gleam that
told her exactly what he was thinking about.

“Stop it,” she whispered, her pulse racing as she
remembered what it’d felt like when he’d pushed his cock inside her, stretching
her, burying himself hard and deep. He’d been everywhere, touching every part
of her, the pleasure burn still buzzing beneath the surface of her skin like a
powerful current.

“Stop what?” His mouth kicked up in one of those lazy,
crooked grins that made him look like a devil—a gorgeous devil sent to earth to
make all the good girls sin—and Morgan could literally feel her brain cells
being melted down by lust.

“Stop looking at me like you want to eat me alive,”
she said unsteadily, pulling her lower lip through her teeth.

“Can’t help that,” he drawled in a low, husky rumble,
the wine-dark strands of his hair falling back over his brow as he flashed her
a wide wolf’s smile. “Because it’s exactly what I want to do.”

Embarrassed by the schoolgirl’s blush she could feel
burning in her cheeks, she used a dry tone as she stated, “You’ve already
gotten off once today. Or…twice, actually.”

And she had a feeling he could have kept going, if
they’d had the time.

His right eyebrow lifted in a slow, knowing arch.
“What gave you the impression that once was going to be enough with you? Once
didn’t come anywhere close to being enough.” A deep breath, and he looked away
from her, a guttural edge bleeding into his deep voice as he said, “If
anything, what happened in that hotel room today only jacked me up even
tighter.”

It would have been impossible to miss the tension in
those graveled words, even if Morgan hadn’t been watching him as closely as she
was. “And that bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Staring at the doors, he shrugged, saying, “Everything
about you bothers me. It always has. But I still intend to screw your brains
out the second we’re back at our hotel tonight.”

Morgan’s breath caught on a sharp gasp, but before she
could make any kind of response, the center door opened and Ashe Granger came
through the doorway, his silver eyes widening with shock when he spotted her
standing there with Kierland Scott. Dressed in black cashmere and jeans, the
vamp was still as gorgeous as ever, his body long and lean and heavily muscled,
his hair a rich, sable brown, the cut more severe than it’d been the last time
Morgan had seen him. The short brush cut would have been too much for most men,
but when you had a face like Ashe’s, it didn’t matter. In fact, it only
accentuated the fact that his tall body and rugged face were…well, obscenely
perfect.

It was said among the clans that the complex nature of
the Deschanel was a delicate balance between the light and dark aspects of the
world, and Ashe was a prime example. He was a thing of outrageous beauty, and
yet…he was also a thing of sinister danger. The complex duality of his nature
was a helpless allure to most women, and Morgan knew damn well that he never
lacked for female companionship. But then, she also knew that none of the women
who shared the vampire’s bed ever meant anything to him. Though Ashe made sure
his lovers enjoyed their time with him, he seldom even recalled their names
once he’d left their beds, and Morgan couldn’t help but feel sorry for her
friend. After so many years on his own, she desperately wanted Ashe to find the
love and peace and happiness that he deserved.

“Morgan,” he purred in a low, decadent rumble, his
smile a slow melding of sensual delight and hard-edged tension as he quickly
snapped the door shut behind him and came toward her. “Stellar timing as
always, sweetheart.”

“You could sound a bit happier to see me,” she
murmured, her keen senses easily picking up on the predatory aggression she
could feel blasting from the Watchman beside her. “I haven’t seen you for
almost three months.”

“Happy isn’t good enough to describe how I feel when I
see you.” His gaze slid to Kierland, and she could see him trying to figure out
just what she was doing there with the Lycan. Ashe knew all about how Kierland
had treated her for the past decade, and he wasn’t shy about voicing his
opinions on the subject. “I’m just not too keen on your company.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Kierland muttered, pushing away
from the wall. His hands flexed at his sides, no doubt imagining how good it
would feel to curl his fingers into a huge fist and knock Ashe clear off his
feet.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” she said quickly,
moving a little to the side as she took a step forward, putting herself between
the two primal, dominant males.

The corner of Ashe’s mouth twitched, and he said, “I’m
sorry I missed your calls, honey. But I lost my phone a few days ago.”

Morgan grinned, since Ashe’s inability to keep track
of his cell phone was an ongoing thing with the sexy vamp. He might have had
the IQ of a genius, but the guy was notorious for setting his phone down in
public places and then forgetting to take it with him when he left.

Jerking his chin toward her, the Deschanel said, “I
imagine you’ve got something pretty important to say, seeing as how you’ve
tracked me down, so let’s get somewhere we can talk.”