"But you will be." His mouth replaced his breath on my shoulder, and slowly, languorously, he kissed his way toward my ear. When the sweet heat of his tongue delved inside, a helpless sound of pleasure escaped my lips.
He chuckled, a throaty sound as seductive and as arousing as his touch. His fingers trailed from my hips to my breasts, and lightly began to tease and pinch the engorged points. I squirmed, put my coffee on the table and forgot about it as every inch of my body vibrated with the hunger that flowed through my veins.
When I could stand no more, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close, so that my breasts were squashed against his chest. The beat of his heart was as wild as mine, and the heat of his desire a furnace that burned my skin, making me sweat. Want.
His mouth brushed mine, a tingling, tantalizing promise of what was to come, then he reached behind me. "Your coffee, madam," he said, offering me the cup.
I smiled and accepted it. "And what will you be doing while I drink it?"
"Oh, this and that."
His fingers slid into my moistness. I groaned, put the cup back down as I shifted to give him greater access. He caressed me, teased me, bringing me to the edge all too quickly. But he offered no release, withdrawing his touch, kissing me fiercely and thoroughly, until the threatening tremors had subsided. Then he offered me coffee and started all over again.
By the time I'd finished the rest of that cup, the coffee was cold and I burned. My heart was hammering so loudly its cadence seemed to fill the silence, and every fiber in my being quivered.
His hand slid up the inside of my spread thighs, his fingers grazing me yet again. I shuddered, thrusting into his touch, sure I was going to burst if he didn't get on with it. "Stop teasing," I moaned, when he did it a second time.
He chuckled, then wrapped his free hand around my neck and kissed me hard. As his mouth claimed mine, his fingers slid between us, pressing into my slickness, caressing, delving, until he'd slipped inside. Then his thumb pressed into my clit, and he began to stroke, inside and out. I shuddered, writhed, as the sweet pressure built and built, until it felt as if I was going to tear apart from the sheer force of pleasure.
Then everything did tear apart, and I was shuddering, writhing, moaning. The tremors hadn't even subsided when his hands tightened on my rump and he pulled me forward. His hardness speared me, and it felt so good I groaned.
He began to move, and thought became impossible. All I could do was move with him, savoring and enjoying the sensations flowing through me. But the calm control of his initial seduction quickly disappeared, replaced by urgency, need. His strokes became fierce, hungry thrusts that shook my entire body, his fingers bruising my hips as he held me close. I didn't care. The sweet pressure had begun to build again, and was quickly reaching boiling point.
We came together, his roar echoing across the silence, his body slamming into mine so hard the whole table seemed to shake.
When I finally caught my breath again, I took his face between my palms and kissed him long and slow. "I think we both needed that."
His grin was that of a man who knows a job has been well done. "Yeah. Though I have to admit, it was a little too fast for my liking."
I grinned. "Fast can be good."
He raised a hand, and gently thumbed away a trickle of sweat from my cheek. "Fast was very good."
"So, you feeling up to answering a few questions now?"
"I think I could manage one or two." He parked his butt on the table beside mine. "What do you want to know?"
"What do you know about Mrs. Hunt?"
"She's a snobby old fart who does a marvelous job for her chosen charities." He studied me for a moment, then said, "Why?"
I hesitated. How much could I tell him? How much should I tell him? "Her name cropped up in an investigation," I hedged. "I've just been sent up here to check her out."
"By whom?"
Oh, crap. Still, if we were going to get involved, he'd have to know sooner or later who I worked for. "The Directorate."
"You're a guardian?" Disbelief edged his voice.
I laughed. "No, just a liaison. But we're short staffed at the mo, so I get to do the unimportant stuff, like follow leads that probably go nowhere."
"What was the lead?"
"That she was involved in some funds going missing." The lie slipped easily off my tongue, and part of me felt guilty about it.
Though the more worrying thing was the fact that only part of me felt guilty about it.
"How is missing money connected with a Directorate investigation? The mob you work for only go after killers, don't they?"
"Generally." I shrugged. "I do what I'm told. Makes life there a whole lot easier."
And if Jack heard me saying that, he'd laugh his head off. Doing what I was told had never been a priority of mine.
He frowned. "She's from an old money family, and takes pride in her charity work. I can't imagine her wanting to jeopardize either her family's standing or her own in the wider community by becoming involved in anything nefarious."
"So you haven't noticed anything odd about her behavior over the last few months?"
"No." He hesitated. "Although she did miss several charity events a few months back. The general said she was üi."
"You didn't believe him?"
"We're talking about a woman who dragged herself out of hospital after an appendix operation to attend one of her pet events."
"Did you talk to any of her friends about it?"
"'One. Not that I was concerned or anything." He shrugged. "Apparently, she refused to see anyone for at least three weeks. Her friends were quite concerned."
"Did they speculate why?"
"Plastic surgery gone wrong. The general beat her up. Her new nails dropped off and she was mortified with shame."
I raised my eyebrows and he grinned. "Okay, I made that last one up."
"So, once the three weeks was up, she acted same as normal?"
"As far as I noticed, yeah."
"What about her scent?"
He raised an eyebrow. "What about it?"
"Did it change any after her three-week stint of seclusion?"
He hesitated. "Sort of. It got sharper. More distinct."
"In what way?"
He shrugged again. "I really wasn't paying that much attention to the old cow, trust me."
Great. No clue to sate my confusion in that answer. So were my memories totally scrambled, or were they giving me bits of the bigger picture? One I couldn't yet understand? Maybe Mrs. Hunt had been there. Maybe she enjoyed watching her husband taking other women. She didn't exactly look the voyeur type, but these days, you couldn't judge a book by its dowdy cover.
Yet her scent was exactly what I remembered smelling in that room, and it was also the scent of someone in my past. But two people couldn't have the exact same scent. A spoor was as individual as fingerprints or eyes. No two were ever exactly the same.
So why did I remember her scent and not her husband's, if indeed he was there? What the hell was going on?
"What about her husband? Anything odd happen with him over the last few months?"
He shook his head. "Wouldn't know. The general doesn't always get involved with the charities. He's on base a lot, apparently."
"With a wife that looks like that, who can blame him?" I muttered.
Kellen grinned. "That's why a man should pick his woman carefully. He has to live with his choice for the rest of his life."
"Humans don't."
"Humans don't do a lot of things—which is why I'm glad I was born a wolf."
I smiled. "So how come you're here tonight?"
He shrugged. "It's my building, and my dad is one of the sponsors. I'm here representing both parties."