the abridged version, “So many years ago, I watched my parents and their friends die. I watched them get killed in a very violent manner.”
Sympathy and sorrow sprang into her eyes at once and she reached out a commiserating hand to squeeze his arm.
He accepted her sympathy with a nod. “I don’t like to talk about it much, but I suppose it still affects me more than I care to admit. Every time something reminds me of them, so seriously, I tend to, um, pass out.”
Confusion mingled with the other expressions already on her face, “Our lovemaking reminded you of your parents’ death? I don’t know how that makes me feel.”
He quirked his upper lip, “No, it’s just that I am sometimes wary of getting close to anyone. In that moment, I honestly thought you were beginning to mean more to me than I could handle. I panicked and tried to remember the last time I had cared for someone that much, and it was my parents that came to mind.”
She nodded, “I think I can understand a little. After my ex, the kids’ father, I’ve never let any man close to me. I haven’t even … well, been with a man until you.”
Male triumph and possessiveness gleamed in his eyes for a moment, then he grinned, “That’s saying something, huh?”
Jessica looked down at the vial in her hands and then back up at him, “Do you think this might be fate? Like, maybe, all of this was supposed to happen so that we could meet and get involved?”
The familiar panic clutched at his gut and Theodore took a step back, “Involved? We’re not involved. Last night was just about —”
“Sex,” she supplied, her voice as sharp as a razor.
He sighed, “I was going to say lovemaking.”
“It’s all semantics, Mr. Cooper. But thanks for setting me straight at once,” she whispered, putting space between them.
“Why the formality? Jessica —” he began.
She lifted one hand. “Save it.”
The screen door crashed into its frame behind her as she exited the room.
Theodore swore, fighting the urge to slap a hand against his head. He had made such a grave mistake, again, and now, he might never be able to fix it.
Chapter 18
Roy Davison grunted in satisfaction as he surveyed the stealthy black garb Sean and Peter, his two most trusted men, had arrayed before him.
It was high time he taught his nemesis a lesson. Theodore thought too highly of himself, and it was about time he made him pay for this.
He looked at the men, “I want us to be in and out in a matter of minutes. Move swiftly, make as little noise as possible, and get very good pictures.”
The men looked at their teams and nodded. They were twelve in all, and Roy had commissioned them to infiltrate Theodore’s Exotic Rescue. They were his men and he had indoctrinated them with his theory that Theodore was up to something that was evil and venomous; something that could harm humans.
As he watched them go, Roy’s eyes glinted with satisfaction. He couldn’t wait to expose Theodore for the shifter he was. He was one of the few people who knew the truth about that mutant, and he would expose him for the vermin he was, if it was the last thing he did, he thought, his hand balling in anger.
This was a reconnaissance mission and nothing more. He would join them when it was time for the real party, he thought, throwing back his head and emitting a deep belly laugh.
Over the years, he had tried everything. He had sabotaged Exotic Rescue by cutting wires, ruining transformers, tampering with water lines, but as soon as he left the place, Theodore flung money at whatever mishap he had created and it went away. He had hated Theodore for years because he had watched the bastard kill his father, helped by that wolf in his pack, Michael Bennet. There were no two … creatures he hated more. He wanted to make certain he ruined them.
Orgasmic pleasure coursed through him as he remembered the devastation the great Atlas Corning had caused all those years ago. Atlas had been a very wise man and he had hated humans and shifters as much as Roy did.
Atlas had led the crusade that wiped out most of the shifters around Angel Springs at that time and he had slowly began to fill the town with their kind; vampires. They had been feeding happily on the townspeople until the children of