Predator's Kiss (4 page)

And what a shame that would be.

No, it couldn’t be. Thanks to her brother Antony, her gaydar was normally sharp and operative. These two weren’t putting out homosexual vibes. If only Antony were here. He’d know how to get her out of this situation.

She touched her throat. Why was it so sore? Her ears were positively ringing. She made a mental note to check with an ear, nose, and throat specialist when she got home.

If she ever went home again.

Memories flooded into her consciousness. Trying to escape her various tormentors. The woods. Two really big bears … and then these men. Naked. Out of nowhere.

She again envisioned them as their fur seemed to disappear and their bodies shrank. The bears had become these men. Either that or she was going to need a psychiatrist rather than an ENT.

She looked at them and realized she should probably be a lot more scared than she seemed to be. They were just so hot she forgot to be afraid. She didn’t know which one was hotter. They were so different and yet there was something similar in their statures. They both carried themselves proudly, with inherent nobility she’d never seen in anyone before. She sensed no threat from the men. At least, not the kind of danger that would scare her off.

The black-haired one certainly had danger in his eyes. They were astounding eyes, dark, yet piercing. The kind of eyes that could make you shiver if he looked at you a certain way. Combined with his strong jaw and perfectly sculpted body, he was lethal. Lethally sexy. All six foot three inches of him. He had dark curls made for touching. Her gaze fell to his biceps, hard muscle sheathed in tanned skin. And she could already imagine the rasp of his stubble on her skin. Sensory overload in one fine package.

And the blond was no less appetizing. His hair was longer, brushing his jaw in spots. His own nearly nude body was chiseled as well, with big ripples in all the right places. And with his pretty blue eyes, he looked like the offspring of a devil and an angel.

Please
, she found herself silently begging,
don’t let them be gay
.

And as she prayed, her gaze circled back to the darker man. Holy hell, he was so intense. Stunning. She began to feel light-headed again, and realized it had little to do with her sprint through the bush. She just wished he wouldn’t stare at her as if she were an enemy soldier who’d just broken through their ranks.

“Miss?” he prompted, clearing his throat. “Are you okay?”

She grinned weakly as much as she didn’t understand what was going on. “I think so?” When she realized her statement had come out as a question, she frowned.

In that moment, she spied the reluctant warmth in his black eyes and felt an echoing heat between her legs.
Dear God. This is so not the right time to make me horny
.

“What’s your name?” asked the one she already labeled
The Dark One
in her head.

“Lia,” she said on a soft breath. “Lia Goodblood.”

The blond man jumped, almost losing his towel in the process. She noticed he wasn’t making much of an attempt to cover himself, at least not until the other man glared at him. His face broke into a wide grin and he aimed it in her direction. “No. Fucking. Way.”

Oh damn. He’d heard of her. Immediately, Lia envisioned her world crumbling. Again. Why didn’t she use a fake name? She must have bumped her head somewhere. Was this what a concussion felt like?

The blond was all animated now. “Are you seriously
that
Lia Goodblood? Because that’s fucking amazing!” He laughed, his hand over his mouth. “I can’t believe it. Lia Goodblood in this cabin. Fuck me.”

The Dark One scowled at the other one. “Soren, cut the fucks, would you? For Christ’s sake. Talk about making a person uncomfortable.” He glared at her, making her more uncomfortable than the other one had with his energetic cursing. “I’m sorry for my brother’s outburst. I’m Ryland Snow. I own this fishing lodge. And this … is my brother Soren Snow.”

She knew the name. Lia racked her brain and it hit her. Soren Snow, the famous drummer. This guy was so huge on the world musical stage he had groupies. Women seriously followed him from country to country and appearance to appearance. “Oh my God. Soren Snow! Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

And the famous musician was really a bear. They both were. Like Pooh Bear’s long-lost uncles.

She realized The Dark One, rather Ryland, aimed his gaze at the floor, as if trying to burn a path clear through the hardwood. After a moment, he looked up, his face twisted into a tight grin that held no amusement whatsoever. She felt bad. She’d kind of gushed over his famous brother and ignored him. As a celebrity herself, she knew how shallow that must have sounded.

“Well,” she said quietly to Ryland. “I’m pleased to meet you … both.”

He narrowed his eyes on her, but not in anger. With some other weird emotion that set her on edge and made her want to do nasty, carnal things to him.

Gracious. She suddenly felt in need of a good fanning.

“Brothers, huh?” she finally said after staring back at him for a moment, needing to break the tension. “Funny. I wouldn’t have expected that. You look so different.”

“Yeah,” Ryland said with a mirthless chuckle. “We’re different, all right.”

She struggled to find the right words to describe her addled feelings. “Uh, that whole bear thing. I imagined, that, right? B-because I really need to believe I imagined that.”

She wouldn’t have believed The Dark One could look darker, but all of a sudden he did. His lip curled and there was a hint of snideness in his tone as he replied, “I’m sorry, Miss Goodblood. What you saw was real.”

Chapter 3

Lia eyed Ryland, trying to ignore the coldness in his tone when he addressed her by her surname. “You want me to believe you’re really bears?” No. This had to be some sort of gross error on her part. It couldn’t be true.

“Shape-shifters, actually,” he answered, his tone still terse. “And it’s not something we share with just anybody. We didn’t mean for you to see us that way.”

She bristled. Why did it bother her he thought of her as “just anybody?” Why did it bother her a great deal? “You mean this isn’t some kind of a prank? Did Harry Little put you up to this?”

“Who’s Harry Little?” Ryland barked. And then he made a face, as if realizing he hadn’t meant for his question to come out sounding like a demand.

Soren grinned and leaned in, clearly enjoying his brother’s reaction way too much for it to be healthy. “Yes, Lia, tell us. Who is Harry?”

“Never mind,” she whispered. Why did every glance from Soren Snow leave her feeling more and more nude? And she wasn’t even the one lounging in a terry cloth bath towel.

“Is this Little guy the one who’s after you?” Ryland persisted.

Soren laughed out loud. “Ryland, the whole world is after this woman! Don’t you read the papers? Lia Goodblood is a huge star!”

She retreated into herself a little. “I wouldn’t say ‘huge.’ And anyway, about this bear thing…”

He let out another incredulous laugh and then turned to his brother. “Miss Goodblood is the author of the hottest smut novel on the market right now. Surely even here on Gemini Island someone has a copy of
Love in Chains
! This woman is a reclusive author who currently has
Good Morning America
and the
Today
show scrambling to nab her for her first interview. The paparazzi are falling over themselves to get a new picture of her, and everyone’s talking about her dirty book.” He looked her up and down. “You are quite the hot commodity. Now I see why.”

She shook her head, still not understanding how things had gone so far. “I just wanted to write a book. I never wanted the rest of it.”

Soren leaned in even farther. “Tell me. Was your book based on exhaustive research?” He grinned, biting his bottom lip. “Would you like to do get exhausted doing some more research?”

“Back off, Soren,” Ryland said, growling.

It occurred to Lia his voice really did resemble an angry animal’s growl. By all that was holy, was it possible they really were shape-shifters? Everything about them, from their proud posture to the way they took up all the space in the room, screamed noble beast. And as much as she ought to be running from the cabin, hollering her head off again, she didn’t. She just stared at Ryland and Soren. Two strange men whose tense bodies betrayed how they felt about each other.

She was shocked at how badly she wanted to ease that tension for Ryland. How she wanted him to like her.

Why should she even care if he liked her?

A thousand curse words sprang into her head. She was just hard up, that was all. Not that she blamed herself. It wasn’t her fault her last boyfriend had never managed to bring her to orgasm once in their relationship … or was it her fault? Either way, it was no wonder she’d unleashed herself into writing
Love in Chains
. All her pent-up sexuality and desire had gone into the book. So she supposed she could be forgiven for feeling a little frustrated now in the presence of these two magnificent creatures.

They might really be creatures. She felt light-headed again.

“You really wrote a dirty book?” asked Ryland.

“Not just a dirty book,” Soren broke in. “The number one, best-selling, put-me-in-chains-and-whip-me-until-I’m-pink dirtiest book ever! And to think those raunchy images sprang from that pretty little head.”

“Soren,” threatened his brother. “Get lost.”

“This is my cabin!”

“You’re lucky I’m letting you have a cabin at all after the bombshell you dropped on me today. Get. Lost.”

“Fine.” Soren relented and stood. “I’m bored here already anyway.” He made for the bedroom door. “We’ll chat later, Lia. There’s a certain chapter in your book dealing with paddles and maraschino cherries that I’d love to discuss with you.” Grinning, he disappeared into the next room. Within moments, they heard the TV turn on. Soren must have found the porn channel, because all of a sudden, the cabin was flooded with the sounds of people grunting and moaning.

A full awkward minute passed in which Lia stared at Ryland as the sexual soundtrack played in the background. The man seemed to believe he was an actual shape-shifter, and yet he seemed more flabbergasted by the fact she’d penned what her parents so lovingly called “a sex manual for deviants.” Yes, it was graphic, which was why it was selling like hotcakes at a maple syrup festival. But sex was graphic … or at least it was supposed to be, wasn’t it? Carnal and physical and luscious?

Like the look she saw hiding deep in Ryland’s eyes.

Not that she had much experience with the topic. She had to be wrong about the way he was assessing her. Yet no man had ever looked at her the same way, or had given her the serious case of tingles he was currently giving her.

“So,” he said quietly in that gruff voice of his. “You write porn.”

“It’s not porn!” She breathed in and out, and then launched into the tirade she’d prepared for all the people seeking to condemn her for polluting society. “It’s not even smut, you know. At its heart, it’s a love story. Yes, my characters Lady Adelaide and Prince Claudio do explore very dark aspects of their sexuality, but always within a deeply committed relationship. They would do anything for each other, would die for one another. And there’s not a single part of them that’s off-limits to the other. My book is about trust and belief and redemption, not just whips and restraints.”

Ryland offered her a shy smile. It set her weak heart fluttering, even though she suspected he was smiling because he thought her an idiot. She got the sense he didn’t bestow smiles easily—one would have to work at prying one out of him. “You don’t have to defend your book to me. I’ve just never met an author before, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

“Look, Miss Goodblood,” he continued, serious once again.

“Lia, please.”

He stared past her face for a moment, obviously trying to decide whether he wanted to lower himself by using her Christian name. “Fine, Lia. We need to talk about what you saw, and about what was chasing you through the woods.”

“I know.” She couldn’t drag her eyes off his face, or his body, damn her overactive libido. There was something about this man. Something that tugged on her spirit and her sex with a power that astounded her. Called to her. And she’d known him for all of five minutes.

But he thought he was a paranormal creature. He was something different. There was no denying what she saw. Maybe she simply had a screw loose. Maybe she’d been watching too many reruns of cheesy shows on the Supernatural Channel and her mind was muddled.

And anyway, he’d called her book porn. She hated that.

Ryland laid a big hand on her arm. She looked at it. Hell, it was big enough to be a paw. Had been a paw mere minutes ago. For all she knew, he played poker with Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster on the weekends.

Lia felt the blood quickly drain from her head the more she pondered the sight of the quiet man as a snarling beast. All of a sudden, losing consciousness again felt like a desirable option.

The lodge owner must have seen her blanch. “Lia.” He rubbed her arm, sending chills and thrills up her spine. “Stay with me. Do you want me to call someone?”

“No!” That brought her back to reality. “No one can know where I am. Please.”

He stared hard at her, as if trying to see into her. “You’re really scared.”

“No, I’m not.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, you are. Your heart’s racing and I can smell your fear.”

Well, wasn’t that just jim-dandy? What other powers must he have? Could he fly? Could he swallow her down in one gulp? She shoved aside the covers and threw her legs over the side of the bed, looking around. “My backpack,” she said, her voice rising with each syllable. “Where’s my backpack? My laptop’s in there.”

Once again, Ryland’s hand was on her arm, a calming influence she didn’t understand at all. “It’s right here. Don’t worry.” He reached for it and set it on the bed.

“Thanks.” Just seeing the bag that currently housed her most prized possession made her want to burst into tears at her plight. What if she’d lost it in the woods? She had to be more careful. She couldn’t bear to lose her saved manuscripts. Wiping her stinging eyes, she clasped the bag strap and stood. “I have to go.”