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“Can I go now, lady?”
She jumped and looked to her right. A young man, early twenties at least, stretched out beside her. Sakura took in his scruffy clothes, his scraggly facial hair, and crinkled her nose at his obvious body odor. The man looked pointedly down, and she followed his gaze to find her fingers curled around his arm in a grip so tight bruises under it were obvious.
“Wha…” She gasped. “You attacked me!”
“No, I swear, I didn’t.” He tugged at his arm, but she held on. Fear widened his eyes. “Please, it hurts.”
She looked between them and spotted her purse. She realized her wallet hung half way out of it, and she guessed what happened. This man had tried to rob her while she was unconscious, and then what? She licked dry lips.
“What happened?” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“I um…” He rubbed the back of his neck, sitting up. “I tried to see if you were okay and you grabbed me. I tried all night to get away, but you held on. I’ve never met a woman so strong. I thought you were going to crush my bones.”
“And you didn’t yell for help?”
He flushed.
Sakura opened her fingers slowly, and as soon as she did, the man scrambled to his feet, fell in the sand, and rose again. He ran full tilt down the beach and disappeared along one of the paths around the side of a hotel. Left alone, Sakura gathered her purse and frowned at all the sand inside. She searched her wallet and found all money and cards present. The blinking light on her cell phone caught her attention, and she checked the messages. Several calls, voicemails, and texts from Adam. None from Roger. Without listening to or reading any, she tucked the phone in her purse and stood to look for her shoes.
The journey to her hotel blurred in her mind, especially with thoughts out of control of what happened to her—what was still happening, from the burning in her arms and legs to the churning in her stomach. Her tongue felt too big and her teeth sharper, but when she reached up to investigate with her fingers, everything seemed normal.
“I’m imagining it all.”
Thoughts of the way she’d held that man for hours came to mind. No amount of training would give her that level of strength. A new idea presented itself while she used her key card to enter the suite. Perhaps she had been poisoned as she thought, and it wasn’t a shifter turning her. She smiled with the hope that this was true, but paused just a few feet into the room. A deep breath burned her lungs, and her purse slid from her fingers. Her legs gave, and she dropped to one knee. Scanning every surface, she judged whether anything had been moved and decided nothing had been. Unfortunately, this didn’t change the certainty that Roger had been in her room. His scent filled her nostrils, and she moaned in anguish. Roger’s natural aroma was wholly male and pleasant, but it was hardly strong. He didn’t wear overpowering cologne, so why the hell could she smell him?
She found the strength to stand and strode deeper into the room. A square of the hotel’s notepaper lay on the end of her bed. A smiley face had been drawn in the middle. Atop it was a scribbled message. “Call me. R.”
He could have dialed her cell or texted her. He had the number. The sneaky devil had decided to worm his way into her private space instead. Why? Pissed, she crumpled the sheet and tossed it into the garbage, then returned to her purse to grab her cell. With fingers poised over the keys, she froze as realization of the truth came flooding through.
Roger came to the room to show her he could, to remind her of his scent, and to nail a particular fact home. He was a shifter, and whatever kind he was, now, so was she!
Chapter Seven
Adam frowned at his phone. No calls. No texts. He toyed with the idea of phoning Sakura again but changed his mind. If she’d wanted to talk to him, she would have
returned his call. He knew she was pissed. After all, he’d left the room without even waiting for her to get out of the bathroom, but he couldn’t explain how he had no choice in the matter. The night before last, he’d been close to crossing the line. Desire like he had never known drove him to take Sakura’s body and use it for his own pleasure. He had never treated her that way and never wanted to again. Yet, even now thinking about her, he’d give his left nut to have her writhing beneath him.
Maldita sea, calm down, Adam.
Arms roved around his waist, and large breasts flattened against his back. He stiffened, clenching his jaw. “How did you find me, Laila?” he demanded.
She chuckled, and he extricated himself from her hold then stepped back. She tapped her nose. “This is very good.”
He glared. “Qué demonios estás hablando?”
She squealed like a schoolgirl. “Oh, I love when you speak Spanish, and your accent gets me wet. What did you just say?”
He drew away when she tried to latch onto him again. Not that Laila Stark wasn’t beautiful. She was. Long tresses of silky black hair flowed around slender shoulders. Wide, green eyes gave an air of innocence that he’d learned right away was deceiving. One might assume her to be in her early thirties, but she bragged to him the first day when he met her that she passed forty-five six months back. Confidence oozed from every pore, but what annoyed him more than anything was the Southern belle wanted him in her bed, and she never stopped trying to seduce him.
“It means what are you talking about,” he supplied with long-sufferance in his tone, hoping she would get the message.
“Oh, well it sounded sexier. Never mind that. When are you going to stop playing hard to get, Adam? The two of us could have a lot of fun between the sheets. Us bears have some hot blood running through our veins. We can hardly stand a day going by without getting our needs met, if you know what I mean.”
He frowned. “I’m sure you can have any man you want.”
“Yes, I can.” Her words were pointed as she stared at him, meaning, he assumed, it was a matter of time before he gave in to her. He admitted what she’d said to him was true. His sexual desire bordered on obsession. A beating of his cock in the shower that morning had done nothing to ease the ache.
“I want one thing from you,” he said.
