With the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Tessa drew the chair over to the bed. "Rourke's upset with you for biting him. I told him you didn't mean it."
Hunter grunted. "He shouldn't have had his finger in my mouth."
"He was trying to help you. Would you have bitten me?"
"If I had, you'd have given me hell for it."
Looking wiped out, but as beautiful as ever with her long red hair in tangles around her face, she sat in the chair. "Do you know that nurse?"
"No."
"But you both seemed to recognize each other."
He noted a hint of jealousy, but he didn't want her believing he knew the woman when he didn't--just that she was a lupus garou. "I thought she seemed familiar, but I've never met her before."
"What about Meara? Who's she?"
"Meara?" He frowned. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn't recall.
"You said her name when you were delirious with fever. Is she your sister maybe?"
"Maybe, I can't remember."
Tessa reached her hand out to him. "Hunter, don't get mad at me, but Rourke realized our cover story wasn't true. I don't know what made him suspicious, but now he knows about your amnesia and how I found you on the beach. About the fact someone may have tried to murder you, too. He won't tell anyone. He's promised."
Rourke would know a hell of a lot more in a little while. "I figured he'd learn of it before long."
Her posture relaxed a little. "What about Ashton?"
"Not a word to him. I don't want to shatter his image of me."
Tessa smiled and rested her head on Hunter's lap, pressing against his groin and instantly he hardened. Despite the way his shoulder felt, she stirred his loins. Not only that, but her scent and the feel of her set his blood on fire.
"I wish we could snuggle together."
Just what the doctor ordered. Hunter patted the mattress. "It's small, but if we get really close, we should be able to manage."
She raised her head and looked at him. "But I don't want to hurt you."
"I'm feeling much better."
"If we get caught--"
"They can throw us out of here." He gave her a devilish smile.
"Yeah, but you need their help."
"I need you--more."
The smile on her lips said he won. She climbed onto the bed, one knee posed on the right side of him before she raised her other leg to cross over his waist. "Are you sure?"
"The anticipation is killing me, Tessa." With his good arm, he helped her get settled, groaning when her sweet body sank on top of his rigid erection.
"Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"
Hunter wrapped his arm securely around her, holding her hot little body tightly against his before she bolted from the bed. "Pure torture, but not in the way you mean."
She chuckled softly against his chest and relaxed.
Feeling Tessa's heated body against his, he had the overwhelming desire to screw convention and turn her, claim her. Had he ever felt this way toward a woman? He couldn't remember.
But he wondered how he could ever give up the minx. And yet he knew he had to. No woman in her right mind would willingly become a lupus garou. He wasn't sure how he was going to cope with Rourke's change, let alone a female he'd make his mate. It wouldn't be fair to her, any more than it was to Rourke. But the deed was done and there was no going back.
She took in a deep breath and kissed his chest covered in the thin hospital gown. Her lithe body pressed against his heavy groin. He moaned inwardly. Already, he wanted her again, when he had no business coveting her. But everything about her made him desire her, the way her soft body felt against him, her fragrance, the way she cared so about his welfare.
Her breathing soon grew shallow, and he sensed she had fallen asleep.
Maybe he could take her to Rourke's place for a while. At least until he healed up sufficiently. The stalker's wound wasn't as severe, and he would be back to Tessa's house soon, probably with the brother who wasn't injured badly either.
Knowing sleep would help his body to heal more than anything else, Hunter willed himself to shut down his concerns.
But he didn't realize he had even fallen asleep until sometime later the sound of footsteps entered the room, waking him. Hunter opened his eyes and stared at the man dressed in scrubs, his dark hair curling down to his shoulders, his face covered in a shadow of a beard. He looked way too scruffy to be a male nurse. Hunter expected him to come closer, to make a comment about the sleepy redheaded goddess in Hunter's arms, to check his vital signs. But this wasn't a medical call.
Hunter got a whiff of the man's scent. One of the stalker's brothers. The one who hadn't been injured too badly, probably now completely healed. If he'd thought to slip in and steal Tessa away while Hunter was drugged and asleep, he was going to have a fight on his hands.
"Why does your brother want her so bad?" Hunter hoped to learn more about these men before he had to eliminate them. Maybe he could still convince the brothers to give up the deadly quest.
"You have to ask?" The man snorted. "She's as close to one of us as we can find, and my brother, Yoloff, will have her. If I'd seen her first, she would've been mine."
"Had he followed her to California?"
The man's grim face brightened a little. "He almost had her there. Several times he's nearly taken her. The hunt is as appealing as the mating. Then you came along and he had to solicit our help."
Hunter could envision how frustrated the lupus garou was, but the previous comment stuck in his craw. "What do you mean by she's nearly one of us?"
"Hell, you can smell her pheromones."
Which didn't make sense, but there wasn't any way she was one of them. "She's not a lupus garou."
"Say what you will, but she's garnering a lot of lupus garous' attention in any event. Only she'll be my brother's mate. You can either give her up nice and easy or we'll take her the hard way. You don't want her in any event or you would have already turned her, so you might as well just let us have her."
"Then there's only one way this is going down." Hunter reached for the nurse's call button.
Before he pressed the button, a female nurse suddenly entered the room. "Who are you?" she asked the faux male nurse.
"I work on another floor." He gave Hunter a sinister smirk. "Just checking on my buddy here."
She glanced at Hunter, her eyes rounding when she saw Tessa asleep with Hunter. "What... you can't--"
The stalker's brother gave Tessa another long look. "Just remember what I said." Then he left.
"She can't sleep with you in the bed. I can get another bed for her."
"The man who just left has been stalking Tessa. He'd planned on grabbing her while I was knocked out on pain medication. She's not moving from here."
The woman's face paled. "I'll call security and report him." She whipped out of the room and shut the door.
Hunter must have fallen asleep after that because the next thing he heard was Ashton's chuckle near the doorway. Hunter opened his eyes, his arm still wrapped securely around a sleeping Tessa. His shoulder was stiff, but not half as painful. Although the medication dripping into his veins could have had something to do with that.
"You have style, Hunter. Real style."
"Where's Rourke?"
"He's still sleeping at his apartment down the road. He was pretty wiped out, but before I left, I checked and his fever was gone. We were going to take Tessa with us, but found the two of you like this before we left. Guess Nurse Godzilla didn't bother you any longer. I asked about her schedule and she's gone home, but she comes back on duty tonight."
Tessa stirred. Her eyes opened and she would have jumped from the bed if Hunter hadn't held on tight. He kissed her good morning on the lips and wanted more, but she was squirming in an attempt to bolt, stirring him to high heaven, and he released her.