under his breath as he’d rolled off Crissy Cowell’s soft, warm body, extricating himself from her grasping arms as he’d turned his back to her and retrieved his cell phone to take Hendricks’s call.
He’d felt bad about turning away from Crissy to answer the phone, but there was no denying that he’d been thankful for the excuse to remove himself from the Lycan’s clingy post-coital embrace. Never one to cuddle, it wasn’t the first time Eric had felt a piercing sense of relief at freeing himself from a woman’s hold once their passion was spent—though it seemed that recently, no matter how physical the encounter, his body was left burning with a restless hunger for something more.
Not that there was anything wrong with Crissy, a well-respected pack female who owned the local garden center in Shadow Peak. She was nice, pleasurable and more than easy on the eyes. No, the problem was his and his alone.
A shrink would probably tell him he was psychologically punishing himself—perhaps even seeking some kind of screwed-up atonement for the destruction his father had caused, but Eric knew it was more than that. Still, guilt poured through his veins as steadily as his blood these days, until it felt as much a part of him as an organ or a limb—just a constant, sickening acceptance that his life would forever be tainted by his association with Stefan Drake: father, pack Elder…and psychotic son of a bitch.
The weight of the shame he carried in his gut over the horrifying events that unfolded five months ago had yet to lessen with the passage of time, and the Runners often told him he was working himself into the ground to pay for crimes that weren’t his. But while there were some in the pack who had seemed to accept his innocence, Eric was aware of the accusatory sneers still sent his way…and he knew there were more than a few who blamed him all the same. For some, the sins of the father were often the hardest to forget…or forgive.
And yet, he was certain that this incessant hunger, this craving gnawing away at him from the inside out, had more to do with his future than it did with the past. Always one with a healthy sex drive, Eric had never before questioned his lack of interest in making a commitment to one of the women in his life. After being abandoned by his mother at an early age, he didn’t need to be psychoanalyzed to understand the wounds that had been cut into his emotional fabric—but his commitment issues had never interfered with his enjoyment of the opposite sex. Even now, the problem wasn’t that sex didn’t feel good. Sex was sex, and it sure as hell didn’t feel bad.
It just didn’t feel…right, whatever the hell that meant.
And I sound like I’m losing my bloody mi—
“You know,” the human murmured, interrupting his irritating train of thought…apparently unable to hold back what she’d wanted to say before. “I realize this may come as a surprise to you, but just because you’re a guy who looks like God’s gift to women doesn’t actually mean that you are.”
The second the words left Chelsea’s mouth, a low, rich vein of laughter jerked from his chest, seeming to catch them both by surprise. Her toes curled inside her socks at the delicious sound, while her face burned with color as she realized what she’d just said.
Wow. I’m so smooth. Why don’t I just shout it to his face that I think he’s hot?
“Come on,” he drawled after his laughter had died down, his mouth kicking up at one corner in the wickedest grin she’d ever seen. “You’re judging me by my looks, and that isn’t fair.”
Maybe not, but Chelsea still wanted to curse at him for flashing her such an irresistible grin, the dimple in his cheek enough to make her groan. Not to mention the high-voltage sexual energy he was blasting at her, making her head spin. Given her lack of a social life, Chelsea knew her family and friends probably thought she was still a virgin, but they were wrong. She’d had sex. Not a lot, mind you, but enough times to know what it was all about. But her experiences had all been with cerebral types who were easily controlled and easily forgotten. She’d never played with a rugged, testosterone-laden male before, and she doubted she’d even know how to if she tried.
Her looks, or lack of them, had always made it easy to avoid charming, oozing-sex-appeal-from-their-pores Neanderthals like this guy, for the simple fact that they ignored her. No, that wasn’t right. They simply didn’t see her, as if she were a ghost. Something they looked right through. Not even a blip on their radar.
But this guy…he noticed. He was staring right at her, that strangely compelling gaze making her feel as if he didn’t want to be looking anywhere else in the world. As if he saw her in a way that no other man ever had, and she resisted the urge to pull her shirt away from her skin, seeking relief from the blistering warmth sizzling inside her, despite the nighttime chill in the air.
And maybe she was just wasting both their time, keeping the argument going because she liked the look of him. Who said she couldn’t start her bus, head down the road a ways, wait for them to leave, then turn around and come right back to find some other nearby place to camp for the night? According to the bleary-eyed girl she’d talked to at the strip club down in Wesley, Perry had only worked at the club for a couple of days before heading up into these mountains to stay with her so-called boyfriend. There was obviously a hell of a lot more to the story, but considering this was her only lead, Chelsea had to go with it.
She’d tried asking some locals in Wesley for assistance, thinking they could point her in the right direction, but none had been able to help. They knew of some private settlements in the mountains, but couldn’t tell her where they were…or anything about the people who lived there. The whole situation was eerily unsettling, but she couldn’t turn back now. She had to keep searching every small town she stumbled across up here until she found Perry, whether these guys liked it or not.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t start with another part of the mountain and work her way back here—hopefully avoiding the gorgeous jackass watching her with those unusual eyes.
“Fine,” she said, blowing out a rough breath of air. “Have it your way.”
Surprise lifted his dark brows. “You’ll leave?”
She allowed her own mouth to curl in a cocky smirk. “Yeah, I’ll leave. But not before telling you how ridiculous you look with that red lipstick smeared all over the corner of your mouth. I hope she was a brunette. A blonde could never have pulled off that color.”
He quickly lifted his hand, wiped at his mouth, then glared at the red smear on his fingertips. “Son of a bitch,” he growled, scrubbing harder at his face. “Hendricks should have told me.”
“It’s all gone now,” she murmured, taking pity on him. “You’re clear.”
He grunted something foul under his breath, then stepped closer and placed one hand over the window ledge, curving his long fingers over the door frame, as if he could keep her in place with that simple touch. “Where will you go?”
“That’s none of your business,” she said quietly, staring at those dark fingers, imagining them on her body…against her skin. Shaking herself, she set the gun on the passenger’s seat, then turned the key in the ignition…but nothing happened. Just a sad, pathetic wail of sound from the engine, followed by a rapid clicking noise. Gritting her teeth, she turned the key again…and again, but with the same results.
Shit.
Without looking at him, Chelsea lowered her head to the steering wheel and prayed for patience. Nothing, not a single goddamn thing, had gone her way from the moment she’d started this miserable search. Why? She was trying so hard to do what was right, damn it—trying to help her sister…to get her out of what could potentially be a dangerous situation, especially after the girl at the club had said that Perry wasn’t looking too good. So why this? Why was karma, fate or whatever the hell it was that controlled her destiny giving her a kick in the ass with every step she took?
It wasn’t like her to be whiney, but she’d lost her sense of optimism so long ago, Chelsea no longer even knew what it felt like. Now all she had was this grinding, sickening