the hall, and he looked in its direction. That blond human man was back again, leaning around the corner. Checking on Therese.
Trez’s fangs tingled as they descended.
“She’ll be right there,” he clipped out.
When the guy backed off like someone was pointing a gun at his head, Trez was disappointed for all the wrong reasons. He wanted to bare his fangs and hiss at the nosy bastard. Then maybe peel a carving knife out of the kitchen’s collection and give the fucker a haircut. Starting with the feet and ankles, then working his way up.
Like any of that was going to help this situation, though? Dead bodies were inconvenient when they were created in public.
Plus, hello, body parts on the carpet were not going to help his case with Therese.
“I have to go.” She offered an apologetic smile. “I was late tonight, and everyone took care of me.”
Everyone? Trez thought to himself. Or one particular guy.
As his heart dropped and his stomach churned, he shook his head. At himself. “Look, if you’re worried about… you know, privacy. It’s fine. It’s… whatever. I’m not going to intrude on your life.”
The fuck it was whatever. But like he was in any position to criticize her choices? If she wanted to bang that human until the sonofabitch walked with a limp and needed an IV bag for fluids, then there was not a damn thing he could do about it.
Well, except go to work with that knife. Although chances were, if she actually liked that motherfucker with the flaxen fucking hair, she was going to get a little offended if a headstone was brought into the equation.
Oh, God, he needed to get out of this—
Therese put her hand on his arm, and swear to God, he felt the contact go through his entire body.
“I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I really want to do this on my own,” she said. “I’ve thought about your kind offer, I really have, and I shouldn’t have jumped at the chance without considering the implications. It would be so easy to rely on you, but I need to stand on my own two feet. It is why I came to Caldwell, and I am not going to compromise on that.”
Trez covered her hand with his own. “I won’t have a key, I promise. I won’t be able to get in there—it’s nothing like that. It will be your private place, for you to do… whatever in.”
The fact that he felt like vomiting seemed a sad commentary on where he was. The desperation was, literally, nauseating.
“This is not about you,” she said. “Or anybody else. I want to take care of myself. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s best not to rely on other people, and if I don’t start being independent now, when is it going to happen—”
“That shithole you’re in now is not safe.”
“I really appreciate your concern.” Her eyes were luminous as she stared up at him. “But it’s a no-thank-you. And I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Removing her hand from under his own, she patted his arm, in a classic just-a-friend kind of way, and then slipped by him. As she passed so close to his body, he closed his eyes and breathed in her scent. Then he turned and watched her go. She was going to work with that blond human all night long, and Trez was willing to bet they were going to share inside jokes, and the bastard was going to offer to take her home at the end of the shift. How far would things go at that point?
As the urge to kill resurged, Trez argued with his biochemistry. He was not bonding with her, goddamn it. That was crazy.
This was all crazy.
He was all crazy.
Leaning back against the cool wall, he breathed deeply and tried to ignore the smells from the kitchen, the sounds of people talking in the building, the low-level howl from the storm outside. He could not control his thoughts or his body when he was around that female, all kinds of haywire happening. So the easy solution was to not come here. Not see her. Set up boundaries that were high and wide and accessorized with barbed wire.
And yet he kept throwing himself at this gauntlet of his own invention. To the point where that female, who had asked for none of this, and didn’t even know the half of it, was the one putting up the “No Trespassing”