Thunder Moon (Nightcreature 8)

My eyes fluttered closed again. I waited for him to take me in his arms, but the only place he touched me was in the light, feathery skate of his lips across mine.

I drew in a breath, captivated by the sensations. I was used to being handled differently. I was a tall woman who wore a gun. Guys never treated me as if I were spun glass. I didn’t want them to.

My lips barely parted, his tongue flicked between, caressing both in one stroke. He lifted his mouth, I moaned in protest, but he pressed gentle kisses across my brow, beneath my eyes, down my nose. Wherever he touched, my skin warmed. I didn’t want to open my eyes, to see his face, to remember who he was, who I was, how crazy kissing a stranger in an abandoned storefront on Center Street must be.

When he kissed me harder, deeper, his tongue delving in and stroking my own, my nipples went hard again; my whole body came alive.

He raised his head. I could feel him hovering, waiting and watching, his breath mingling with my own. Would we or wouldn’t we?

Slowly I opened my eyes to an empty hallway.

Chapter 5

For an instant I doubted my sanity, until I caught and at last recognized the scent of the balm—fresh-cut grass beneath bright sunshine—then lifted a finger to my face. The tip came away shiny. Ian Walker was as real as the cream on my skin.

I strode to the open doorway. The room was cluttered with furniture, boxes, suitcases. I guess the moving van had delivered something. He stood near the window, shoulders slumped, head bent. What was wrong with him?

Then I saw the picture—a woman in a white dress, standing on a prairie as the wind ruffled her skirt. She was tiny, petite, young, with long hair like an inky waterfall against her smiling cheek. The photo had been taken in black-and-white, then brushed with pastel colors, giving it the impression of age, although I’d seen the same technique used more recently, too.

Ian lifted his hand and shoved his own hair back from his face. The wedding band flashed in the sunlight. No wonder he’d scooted off at the first opportunity.

His shoulders slumped even more as he exhaled. He didn’t turn around but continued to stare out the window as the streets below became busier and noisier.

If he could be this broken up about kissing another woman, maybe he wasn’t such a prick after all. Then I remembered that kiss, what he’d made me feel, how my body still hummed with it, and my anger flared at the loss of something that could have been so good.

“Where’s your wife?” My voice was as cold as my heart.

His shoulders twitched as if I’d slashed him with a whip. “Gone.”

The chill that had spread over me evaporated in the heat of embarrassment. Wedding ring on the right hand must mean widower, and I’d taunted him with the memory of his wife.

“I’m sorry—”

“Not your fault. I forgot—” He stopped, shook his head, didn’t finish.

I wondered how long she’d been gone. How she had died. If he’d ever get over her.

I was such an idiot. I didn’t even like this guy. He’d kissed me once better than I’d ever been kissed before, and I was mooning over him like a lovesick teenager.

I’d been a lovesick teenager. Weren’t we all once? I never wanted to be one again.

“Here.” He snapped the cap back on the jar and held it out to me, though his gaze remained on the window. “Use it whenever the pain returns.”

Right now my face felt great—as if I’d never been popped in the nose at all. I took the jar. “What’s in this?”

“Rattlesnake oil.”

I waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t.

“You’re serious?”

He turned. His skin pale, his pupils so large his eyes appeared black, fine lines bracketed his mouth. I rearranged his age in my mind from late twenties to midthirties, which made more sense considering the medical degrees. If they were real.

“Rattlesnake oil is a common balm for rheumatism and arthritis,” he said. “It works for bruises, too, if you say the right words.”

I lifted my brows.

“Do you know anything about Cherokee medicine?” he asked.