Both. “It’s nothing. I’m okay. What are you guys doing up so early? Or did you even bother going to bed?”
Amy sighed. “I gotta teach a bunch of freshman about quantum physics. Three hours of my life I’ll never get back.” She bitched a lot, but Amy was one of the best associate professors the university had. And if they were smart, they’d cough up and give her tenure before MIT or Harvard finally stole her away.
“And I’m here to see Professor Leucrotta.” Miki felt a shudder go down her spine at Craig’s muttered words. And it wasn’t one of those cool ones Conall gave her. But one of those creepy shudders she got like when she saw a spider crawling around her bathtub.
“Why?”
“Don’t worry. He agreed to meet with me about the grant money. Maybe I’ll be able to track down his password while I’m in his office.”
“Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Who? Me? And where is my fifty bucks?”
She smirked. “I believe you forgot to give me that this morning.”
“You’re not giving that back to me, are you?”
Miki grinned. “Nope. But thanks for checking up on me.”
“Anytime. We felt like we couldn’t leave you alone with Conan the Barbarian.”
“Hey, Mik.” Amy nudged her. “Check it out. Your boring dream man.” Miki followed Amy’s nod and saw Troy Benson walking toward her.
“Miki? Is that you?”
Miki braved a smile at Troy and quickly slipped her backpack off her shoulders. Nothing geekier than walking around with a giant backpack attached to you. And Troy was so not geeky. Almost six feet tall—a nice normal height, unlike some other abnormally large males she knew—with light brown hair and dark green eyes. She’d had a crush on him since Advanced Chem. Not surprisingly, Troy had his arm around some tall, blonde babe who looked like she didn’t eat without throwing up after, but he kissed her on the cheek and sent her on her way before walking over.
“Wow, you haven’t changed. Still my little Miki.”
Funny, that didn’t seem like much of a compliment.
“Did she say anything else?”
Conall leaned against the passenger door of the SUV, his cell phone against his ear, and stared out at the deserted campus. It was still early and students were just starting to appear. “Said she was trying to get herself a cowboy.”
“I don’t really think that’s helpful.”
Conall grunted and Zach was silent for a moment on the other end. “Is everything okay with you?” he finally asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I’ve just never heard you sound so much…like me.”
Conall chuckled. “I’m fine.”
“Miki still giving you a hard time?”
“Something like that.” He wasn’t about to admit to his Alpha Male he let some crazy woman drug him and take off in the middle of the night. If for no other reason, he knew Zach would never let him live it down.
“I’m sure she’ll get over it eventually. Anyway, did you believe her?” Yes! But he was never going to believe short, vicious women again. Especially ones whose whole bodies shook during orgasm.
“Who?”
“Victoria Löwe.”
“Oh…uh…yeah, yeah. I did. I believed her.”
“Okay. Well, you two be careful anyway. Soon as Miki’s done, bring her ass back here before my mate forces me to start drinking. When she’s stressed, she paces. It’s driving me nuts.”
Conall sniffed the wind coming from the direction Miki had headed. He smelled something. Miki’s scent, but mixed with something else. Something…male.
Conall growled.
“Conall? Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah. Sure. We’ll be careful. Gotta go.” He shut off the phone and followed.
“So? Still living in Texas, huh?”
Miki took a deep breath. She would stay calm. She could do this. Although it wasn’t like Miki was exactly Miss Smooth with the moves. In fact, she could be kind of a doofus with men…except Conall. With him she didn’t seem to have any problems wrapping her legs around his waist while he slammed her against a wall.
“For now. I’m going to be finishing my doctorate this week. And Conridge mentioned an assistant professor position.”
“That would mean we’d be working together. Not bad. And Conridge is tough.” Boy, was she. Professor Conridge was notorious throughout the university. People feared her. When Miki decided to finally finish up her thesis, her old advisor had gone to another university and Conridge volunteered to take her on. To this day, she had no idea why. She thought the woman hated her. Of course, she seemed to hate everybody.
“So that’ll be great for you, huh?”
She should have noticed the look of fear on Craig’s face and the look of lust on Amy’s. She should have noticed the fact that the most enormous shadow had just fallen over her. But all she’d noticed was Troy and her lame attempt to get him to notice her. “Well, you know, it’s definitely time for a change.” She stopped talking because Troy had obviously stopped listening. Moments from turning to see what horror stood behind her since that seemed to have everybody’s interest, Miki instead froze as big long arms suddenly wrapped around her and she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Hey, baby.” Warm lips pressed against her ear, sending a delicious and treacherous tingle down her spine and straight to her clit. “I thought you were going to see your professor. You’re going to be late.”
She looked up to see Conall holding on to her. He smiled. An evil wolf smile. The kind they gave just before they took down a deer.
Sonofabitch!
“What the hell—”
He squeezed her tight and Miki fought just to breathe. “You always have to make sure Miki’s doing what she needs to do otherwise she gets totally lost.”
Miki looked at Craig and Amy but she could already see they were enjoying this way too much to do anything about it.
Conall nuzzled her neck and she thought about digging his eyes out of their sockets. “So, you going to introduce me to your friends, baby?”
Baby?
She tried to pull away, but he wasn’t letting her go anywhere. And Troy looked way too freaked out by Conall to say anything. Instead he kept staring.
She would so make him pay for this later.
“No. I’m not.”
Amy jumped in before Miki could start slamming her boot into Conall’s instep. “I’m Amy. This is Craig. And this is Troy.”
Miki stared at his neck. It was a big neck. Might spurt a lot of blood if she cut it.
“Hey, Craig. We met this morning in our hotel room.”
Our?
“But it’s nice to meet the other friends of my honey-bear.”
Amy almost spit out her gum while Craig suddenly became interested in what was halfway across campus. Troy looked a little disappointed as he stared at Miki. She could see her future slipping away.
“Troy—” she began. But one of Conall’s big hands slid under her T-shirt and suddenly she felt claws. His claws, running lightly across her stomach.
I am going to kill him.
“Baby, we better get you to your professor’s office or you’re going to be late. Nice meeting you, Amy. Craig. Trey.”
“It’s Troy.”
“Whatever.” Conall’s hand gripped Miki’s and dragged her away. She barely had a chance to grab her backpack before she was stumbling behind him.
“Which building?” he bit out.
“Fuck you!”
He suddenly pulled her into his arms. To anyone else it probably seemed affectionate, but she knew better. And, as it was, she was way too pissed to feel anything but homicidal rage anyway. He leaned in close, his hot breath in her ear. “Keep it up and I’ll make you wish they’d finished you in that alley.”