Restraining glyphs to keep him from flashing out of the cage and from crying out for help from his pack. “Were there symbols on the cage, too?”
She nodded, her wet hair falling forward to conceal her cheeks. He wished she’d step out from behind the door so he could see what she was wearing. Not that it mattered. But she seemed like the jeans and sweatshirt type, and he wanted to see if he was right. That, and he’d love to know what her extremely fine ass looked like in denim.
“So we both dreamed the same thing,” she mused. “What do you think it means?”
“No idea. But with any luck, we won’t dream of caged dogs again tonight.” It was a lie, because he needed her to dream. At this point, she alone could lead him to Sestiel.
“That would be nice.” She had a musical, soothing tone to her voice, and Ares found himself hoping she’d keep talking. “Hey, do you have a phone number where I can reach you? Um, you know, in case I have any questions about the dog or anything?”
Bullshit. She wouldn’t have questions about the dog. But he’d established a connection with her, had given them common ground in the form of a mystery, and any normal human would want to solve why two complete strangers would have the exact same dream.
He covertly fished a hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket and tucked it under a business card with his cell number. Why, he wasn’t sure, except that he knew she needed the money and he had plenty of it.
She finally came out from behind the door, and he allowed himself a long, slow visual ride down her body. Hell yeah, he’d been right about her clothes, and the plain gray oversized sweatshirt and well-worn jeans looked great on her. She had hips made for a good grip, thighs meant to crush a male between them, and sexy, dainty feet that would lock tight behind that male’s back. He’d bet his left nut that she had sensitive ankles.
“Thanks.” She took the card, but scowled at the money. “I said—”
“Take it. If you don’t, I’ll leave it on your porch with another hundred.” He might do that anyway. And fuck, when did he become a walking, bleeding-heart charity? Maybe when he’d been sizing her up for sex and all his blood drained out of his head.
She offered him a tentative, hesitant smile that jacked his temperature a few degrees. He’d had his mouth on those lush lips, and damn if he didn’t want to do it again. It had been his first taste of a woman in forever, and he wanted more.
“Thank you.” She scratched her phone number on a scrap of paper and handed it to him. He made sure his fingers brushed hers, a lingering, yet “innocent” touch that made her lips part on a gentle, startled inhalation of breath.
Her hands were so damned soft. He had no doubt she’d be soft everywhere.
“Feel free to call me anytime.” He feigned a shy smile. “Maybe sometime we could go out for a drink or dinner?”
Wrong thing to say, because she skittered backward, deeper inside the house. “I, uh, I don’t think that would be a good idea, but thank you.”
“You married? Have a boyfriend? Girlfriend?” All good things to know, since he was going to have to get a little more involved in her life at some point, if he wanted information from her. He didn’t need interference or questions from a jealous lover.
“No,” she said, and the answer pleased him more than it should. “I’m just not feeling social.”
He had to wonder what had happened to her to make her so reluctant to accept his offer. Granted, he was a stranger, but no female had ever resisted his advances. One of the few bennies he’d gotten from his sex demon mother was an irresistible sexual magnetism that only succubi could resist. Even human women who became violent in his presence threw themselves at him. They just did it while wanting to kill him.
Cara’s resistance was trauma-related… the evidence was in her mannerisms and speech, but mostly, it was in her eyes. What had put those tortured shadows there?
Fuck it, there was nothing Ares could do about it anyway. He started down the steps again. “If you change your mind, you have my number.”
She frowned down at the card he’d given her. “Where do you live?”
“Greece.” He shot her a wink, and he swore she blushed. “If you ever want to visit, I have lots of room. You’d love it. White sand, blue sea… it’s so beautiful you’ll swear you’ve been there before.”
Because she had.
Cara watched Jeff saunter away, her belly fluttering madly, her palms sweating around the business card and money, but for once, it wasn’t fear that made her so jittery. The man was hypnotically gorgeous… and without a doubt, he was the person kissing her in the weird dream/memory she’d had.
So even though she didn’t remember him bringing the dog to her, clearly, her brain cells had taken detailed notes. You just couldn’t completely forget a guy who stood well over six-and-a-half feet tall and radiated confidence, power, and sex. Oh, yes… sex. She might not have had sex in years, but she remembered it, and feminine instinct told her that one night with Jeff would be better than all other nights in her past combined.
And his smell, the masculine, spicy fragrance that had wafted from him might as well have been an aphrodisiac. Common sense told her she should be terrified, but her hormones were trying to beat her fear into submission.
A shiver of appreciation wracked her as she gazed after him, unable to tear her eyes away from his graceful, rolling gait. His tan cargo pants hugged his butt in an obscenely nice fit, and his back muscles formed a symphony of movement under his shirt. In the sunlight, his brown hair glinted with reddish highlights, and she could only imagine the number of women who had run their fingers through those messy locks while arching beneath that spectacular body.
Regret was a bitter lump in her throat that no amount of swallowing was going to clear. The hottest man she’d ever seen had asked her on a date, and she’d reacted like he’d offered to murder her. Would it really have been that bad to accept? To maybe meet him somewhere public, so she’d have her own vehicle and there would be no pressure?
As if Jeff sensed her eyes on him, he slowed, and her heart kicked into a higher gear. In an agonizingly unhurried motion, he turned his head to look over his shoulder at her, a long lock of hair falling over his forehead and one eye. Their gazes met. Tangled. Awareness washed through her in a hot, liquid rush of oh… my… God. No man had ever affected her like that, especially not from just a look.
His mouth tipped up in a cocky, sensual smile, as if he knew what she’d been thinking… and knew he could give it to her like she’d never had it before. Sweet baby Jesus, she nearly choked on her own tongue.
And what in the world was she doing standing in her doorway ogling a complete stranger when she needed to be… what, not paying bills?
Before she made an even bigger idiot of herself, she started to close the door, and then she blinked. Jeff had disappeared. She hadn’t seen a car, and she hadn’t even considered that he might be walking back to town, and now he was… gone.
Chalk it up to all the other weirdness.
Yeah, good plan, except that Jeff had accounted for almost everything. The dog, the grass stains, the blood.
But that didn’t explain why she’d drunk so much vodka that she couldn’t remember any of it. Or why they’d both dreamed the same thing.
Or what she’d done with the body of the dog—it had to have died, or she would have put it in one of the kennels next to the house, and they were empty.
At least the feeling that someone was watching her was no longer with her, but Cara still felt the unwelcome buzz of fear slithering over her skin. Something had happened last night to make her drink, but what? She’d never defaulted to the bottle, and if her father’s death and the night of the break-in hadn’t done it, nothing would.