However, this time the officers did not hear them. She opened one eye. The shimmering glow that encapsulated them appeared to have thickened.
Barlow let go of her lip, hovering over her, hesitant, uncertain. Then, almost as if he couldn’t help himself—hell, she couldn’t—his tongue flicked out, laving the tiny hurt. The gentling of his mouth was followed by a roughening of his hands. He ran them over her, as if memorizing the length of her body, testing the shape of her backside; then he skimmed them up her ribs beneath the borrowed T-shirt, cupping and lifting her unbound breasts.
Both his palms and his fingertips were callused. They scraped her skin, made her shiver. She arched into his touch, spellbound by his kiss.
How could he make her wet with just the taste of his mouth? There was something here, something she craved more than blood. She wanted to wallow in the sensations, the stroke of his tongue, the nip of his teeth, the all-encompassing pleasure promised by his touch.
She didn’t realize she was fondling him still, sliding her curved fingers along his length, rubbing her thumb over his tip. Stroking, squeezing, making him come.
Almost.
He swelled in her palm. She increased the speed, the pressure, skated her teeth over his jaw, down his neck, contemplated sucking on the throbbing vein there, or maybe sliding to her knees and sucking on something else.
Then he grabbed her wrist, yanked it out of his pants, tightening his grip to the point of pain when she struggled. “They’re gone.”
He shoved Alex away, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He might as well have slapped her.
What had she been doing? Had she lost her mind as well as her humanity? She’d never behaved like that with any man, let alone with one who wasn’t even a man.
But she wasn’t a woman anymore, either.
“What the fuck was that?” she muttered.
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. She didn’t blame him. She’d just had her hand down his pants. Alex dropped her gaze. Not that he’d minded. If he hated her as much as he said, and she was certain he did, then why did the front of his pants still bulge? Why had it ever bulged at all?
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “A—a typical reaction to danger when in close proximity to your maker.”
She blinked. “That’s going to happen again?”
“Not if I can help it.”
What the fuck was that? Julian thought to himself.
He’d come up with a quick excuse of danger combined with a common reaction to one’s maker, but it was BS. Their reaction to each other was far from common.
At the moment, Alexandra seemed to believe his explanation. However, if that happened again—and considering he had no idea why it had happened in the first place, maybe it would—she’d know he was lying.
More sirens wailed in the distance, pulling his attention from the problem of his hands on her breasts, hers on his—
“We have to go.” Julian reached for her, and she took a step back. He didn’t blame her.
“This is nuts,” she murmured. “Werewolves can’t touch in human form. We should both have big fat migraines.”
Ordinary werewolves—how was that for a misnomer—had a little tic. If skin met skin while in human form, mind-numbing agony was the result.
“I’ve always been able to touch the wolves that I’ve made.”
Being able to touch her didn’t bother him. That he wanted to so badly did.
Alex stared at him, green eyes wide in her triangular face. With her blond-brown hair, he found himself wondering what she looked like in wolf form. Right now she resembled a startled Siamese cat.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Julian Barlow.” He glanced down the corridor where the cops had disappeared.
“No, I mean what are you?”
He didn’t have time to explain. They’d be back.