“You have to stop,” I begged, but did nothing to make him. If I wasn’t mistaken, and I wasn’t, I was fairly sure I’d readjusted so my butt was more firmly in his hand. What was wrong with me?
“Do you really want me to?” he whispered in my ear, sending chills down my spine and my girlie parts into a tailspin. God, if he kept talking I would come apart by his voice alone. He had that sexy Werewolf magic thing down pat.
I nodded my head yes, afraid that my mouth would tell him to bend me over his desk and make me see Jesus.
“You have no idea how hard it is, pun intended, for me to let you go right now…but I will. We have to find out what is happening to our people and end it, but this conversation is far from over. Do you understand me?”
I nodded again, terrified that I was going to beg for a quickie before I went out and kicked some ass.
He slowly slid his hand from my panties and my body felt bereft. I may have nodded yes, but the rest of this conversation was never going to happen. He already had my broken heart. I’d given it to him years ago. There was no way in hell he was going to take my pride.
“Your appointment is in fifteen minutes. You’ll meet me for lunch afterward. Everyone in town believes we’re back together.”
One last time I nodded, afraid if I spoke I might cry. I stared at him for a long moment. His strength and power were evident in every move he made. At one point in time I basked in it, but now I just admired it from afar. He was a force of nature—a true alpha. I worried for a brief moment that if he couldn’t find our people that I might not be able to either, but I pushed that thought aside. I might be a screw-up in life, but I was damn good at finding trouble…it came to me. And now because I was prepared I could destroy it—and I would.
I walked slowly toward Hank. His quick intake of breath brought a small smile to my lips. He was right. Who knew what I was getting into? Today might be my last and I wanted to do one small thing, just in case. He stood as still as a statue as I pressed my lips to his. I breathed in his masculine scent and I was home. It was just too damn bad his lips liked other necks and chests and asses. But for one brief moment I pretended he was still mine.
I pulled back and moved to leave.
“The conversation is not over, Essie,” he warned.
I turned and walked away. There was little else I could do.
Chapter 7
The agency was on Main Street next to the cozy used bookstore that I had practically lived in as a kid. The sense of home I felt in this little sleepy town made my heart thump painfully. However, this was no longer my home. I had left by choice and I would leave again. Glancing around, I zeroed in on the modeling agency. Damn, it was ugly. Models Mania was sleek and modern and didn’t fit into my charming town at all. The name was beyond stupid too. I let go of my attitude, hunkered down in my smelly car and reviewed what I knew.
It was run by three human males from New York: Peter Pyre, Paul Tinder and Puck Flare. The names were bizarre and slightly unfortunate. I had concluded that they were aliases since we couldn’t trace them. They clearly thought they were hot, considering they all had forms of fire as their surnames. I bit back a groan and read on.
There was no indication that the Three Ps knew that shifters existed, but I didn’t buy it. No human women had gone missing and I didn’t believe it was a coincidence. It was risky to imply that the Council, since they had backed the agency, had let the humans in on our secret, but the evidence was pointing that way.
It appeared that the missing girls had been recruited. Did the humans recruit them or did the Council? I flipped through the file and found nothing. I quickly texted Granny and told her to call around and find out the buzz on the recruiting. She texted back that she would get on it after she and Dwayne finished a round of paintball. She promised to have some info at lunch. I hoped to hell they’d at least gone out to the deserted beach to shoot each other with paint, but my expectation was that they were attacking each other in broad daylight in the quaint confines of her neighborhood. So much for no arrests…
The agency looked empty, but I had an appointment in five minutes. I grabbed a cup and filled it with water from a bottle I found under the seat. I hoped to come out of there with some fingerprints on it.
Checking my makeup in the rearview mirror, I was satisfied. The fact that I could pass for a model didn’t thrill me. My looks were inherited. Actually, most Shifters were pretty people. While being attractive had gotten in the way occasionally during training, it certainly came in handy today. I pushed up my boobs, hiked up my skirt, checked my wire and went into battle.
“Hello,” I called out in the darkened office. It was obsessively neat and smelled odd. I couldn’t place it. I wandered to the counter and examined the stack of beauty products. I found the culprit—self tanner. It had the strangest odor. I slipped one in my purse and took a seat on the white leather settee.
“Be right with you,” a rough male voice called from the back.
The sound of a woman giggling in the back room made my stomach lurch. I recognized the laugh and I had to breathe deeply to keep my claws from coming out. Literally. I despised the owner of the laugh. Damn it, if one of them was back there, I’d bet money all three were. Of course they were here. They were beautiful on the outside, even if they were nasty evil home wreckers. Whoa, Nelly. Hank had a choice. It took two to tango, or in their case, four. I might hate them, but if it hadn’t been them, he would have most certainly fooled around with someone else. Maybe I should thank them…nope, that was never going to happen. I could have mated with him and found out what a cheating dog he was after the fact. As much as I wanted to shift into my wolf and tear those girls apart, they had actually done me a favor.