Page 33 of Fae Devoted
“I’ve forgotten their last names, but they’re from the local Groverman Pack. They insisted on formal introductions, even though I was sendingnot-interested-so-don’t-bothervibes, but you know how unmated Ferwyn males can be.”
Jacob answered with a harsh grunt.
“Anyway, they wouldn’t give up, so I had to lie to them.”
“And you got away with that, how?”
“Well,” Johnnie began, taking the first easy breath in what seemed like forever. She had gotten away with it, hadn’t she? Jacob was safe, and they were together. Nottogethertogether, but that was a problem for another day. “I distracted them with Bunny.”
“Who’s Bunny?”
“You are.”
Chapter 10
“I’m ready.” Joemerged from the bathroom in an orange sweater and a navy skirt that showed a flash of bare thigh with every step.
“You should sleep,” he said, forcing his gaze from the beguiling sight.
“I’m fine, Jacob. We can’t afford the delay if there’s even a chance Jeremiah might still be at the Rivière.”
She moved to the foot of the Detroit motel room’s sole bed and bent at the waist to return her toiletry bag to the suitcase on the floor. Tucker almost groaned when the narrow skirt pulled at her hips and hugged her shapely ass.
Gums tingling, he ran his tongue over his aching teeth, swearing that the sweet orange flavor that was uniquely Jo still lingered in his mouth. How the hell was he supposed to resist now that he’d tasted her, no matter how briefly?
And how was he supposed to sleep in the same bed and not touch her?
“Now, remove your shirt,” she said, still turned away.
His entire body hardened in an instant, tips of his fangs elongating. He clamped his lips shut to hide them while fighting to regain control.
Jo stood and spun, brandishing a bottle of perfume and a nervous smile. “You showered with the soap and shampoo I left in the bathroom?”
Unable to do more than grunt, he nodded.
The soap smelled of anise and musk—of Anwyll and sex. The fragrance wouldn’t fool a shifter’s nose up close, but it’d mask his Clan scent from a vampire as long as Tucker didn’t give thema reason to delve deeper. Any Dádhe crossing his path would assume he was intimate with a witch and move on.
Jo came to his door in the middle of the night, not only armed with a wild idea but prepared to implement every aspect of her strategy. And if he vetoed Plan A, she had an alternative scheme tucked in her pocket.
His she-wolf was a force of nature when an idea got into her head, and Tucker found it hard to deny her anything. Jo had him wrapped around her dainty finger since day one, even if she didn’t know it.
“I um…brought this to reinforce the smell of the soap.” She approached hesitantly, the freckles he loved lost in the rosy blush spreading across her cheeks.
Tucker had trained for combat from the age of fourteen and faced multiple battles for dominance after reaching his majority. He fought in territory wars before the formation of the nine regions, killed shifters driven feral by a broken bond, and confronted a pureblood Fae with nothing but his fangs and claws, yet it took everything in him not to retreat from one determined female.
“Shirt?” she said again, gaze stuck at the level of his throat.
Tucker stared at the dingy motel wall behind the bed, undid the row of buttons, and tugged his shirttail from his jeans, leaving his chest and abs bare. The unique scent of Jo overrode the mild licorice aroma already on his skin, and he savored the comforting smell knowing in moments it would be obliterated.
“It’ll be more convincing if the perfume is kept subtle by rubbing it into your skin rather than spraying your clothes.” Jo spritzed a small amount of the fragrance onto her hand and tipped up her chin.
Looking down at the fingers shining with liquid hovering above his breastbone, he nodded his permission and braced against the touch he longed for yet shouldn’t want—couldn’twant. He ground his teeth as the coolness of her damp palm glided across his pecs and collarbone.
“You should smell like you’ve recently had sex with a witch,” she said, then smoothed the strong fragrance over the tense muscles of his stomach; the aroma nothing like the citrus undertones specific to Jo’s complex scent. “And not like you’ve doused yourself in a female’s perfume.”
Her soft touch left him, her warmth with it, and he opened his eyes to watch her spray more of the anise-scented fragrance on her fingertips.
“If we were, um…together,” she pressed trembling fingers against his taut throat, trailing them up the rigid tendon on the side of his neck. “I would have left my scent here.”
