Mine to Possess (Psy-Changeling 4)

"A guy I knew from juvie - turned into a hotshot artist," he muttered. "Where the hell did I put it?"

Hopes rising, she stood on tiptoe beside him, trying to peek inside. "Chocolate?"

He reached deep into the space. "Chocolate." Pulling out his hand, he put a bar of luscious dark chocolate in her palm.

She could've kissed him, growly face and all. "Do you like chocolate now?"

"Hell, no. I can't stand the stuff." He closed the cupboard and leaned his hip against the counter. "Sascha, however, has a love affair with it. She gave it to me." He sounded puzzled.

"Maybe because she likes you?" Talin suggested, setting the milk to warm on the small heating unit she guessed was powered by an eco-generator. Everything in Clay's house seemed to have been designed with the forest's delicate ecology in mind. "She wanted to make you happy and probably figured that everyone likes chocolate."

"I guess." He yawned again but didn't move from where he stood only two feet from her, all dark masculine beauty. "You do this a lot?"

"Most every night," she admitted. "I don't sleep much."

"I'll need to get more chocolate, then."

"No." She looked up from peeling open the bar. "I can't stay here."

His eyes gleamed. "Why not? Afraid I'll bite you?"

"You already did," she reminded him with a scowl.

"You survived." He sounded very much like a cat at that moment.

"You know why I can't stay. We keep setting each other off. It's not exactly a peaceful environment."

"When did you get so hung up on peace?" He nodded at the milk. "Put in the chocolate."

"What? Oh." She broke off several chunks and dropped them in. "This kind makes good hot chocolate. Some of the others end up tasting weird."

Reaching into a drawer in front of him, he gave her a wooden spoon. She began to stir, inhaling the rich scent into her lungs with a sigh. "Heaven."

When Clay didn't say anything, she looked at him. He was watching her with a stare that was frankly assessing...and very sensual. Her heart kicked and she broke the searing eye contact, tucking her hair back when it twisted out from behind her ear. "Don't."

A hint of steel entered his languid pose, as if with her rejection, she'd pushed one of his damn male buttons. "Why not?"

The arrogance in his question put her back up. "Because!"

"You're a clearly sexual female. I'm a male. You want me. I want you. What's the problem?"

Her hand trembled as she turned off the heating unit. "Who says I want you?" She pointed the dripping spoon at him.

He winced as a drop of hot chocolate hit his chest but didn't move. "I can smell arousal, Talin. You get hot every time you see me half-naked."

The erotic need that flared through her body was mortifying. Perhaps that explained the stupidity of her next words. "Maybe I get that way for every half-naked man."

He stilled, becoming so very motionless that she felt like some tiny forest creature in front of a beast of prey. "So you'll have no problem spreading your legs for me, will you?"

Chapter 14

Putting the spoon very carefully on the counter, Talin picked up a mug from the stand. "Go away."

Clay had expected anger. This calm distance left him flatfooted. She sounded so focused, so controlled, she might as well have been Psy. "Talin, look at me."

She picked the pot up off the stove and poured her drink into the mug. He waited until she'd put the hot object safely into the sink before grabbing her wrist. Her skin was damp, cold. "Talin?"

"What?" She looked at him, face serene in a way he'd never before seen. Tally had too much energy, too much emotion, to ever be that quiet.

His beast sniffed at her, found something terribly wrong. "Talin, who am I?"

"Clay," she said, but didn't tug at his hand, didn't display any of the reactions he'd already come to expect from her. Her calm was eerie, unnatural. "Can I go now?"

He frowned at the childlike question. Her tone had shifted, as had her rhythm. She sounded like a six-year-old version of herself. "Tally, sweetheart, are you in there?"

"'Course I am, silly." She smiled and it was that sweet, innocent Tally smile. The one she had stopped smiling a very long time ago. "I want my hot chocolate."

"Go sit on those cushions. I'll bring it to you."

She followed his gaze to the other end of the room. "Is this your clubhouse?"

"Yeah." Cold fear squeezed his heart. "Go on, baby."

Smiling with absolute trust, she went to a cushion and sat, one of her legs tucked under her. He picked up her drink and took it to her. She accepted it with a smile. "Yum. Did ya learn to make hot choccie, Clay?"

His rational mind noted that her enunciation and syntax were also regressing, but all he could see was the look in her eyes. He'd seen that look before, those eyes. This was Tally as she had been over twenty years ago. Raw terror made the leopard pace in bewildered circles inside his mind.

"You made it, Tally," he said, gathering every ounce of tenderness he possessed in an effort to be gentle for her. "Don't you remember?"

She frowned at him. "No, silly! Not allowed - " Her eyes glazed over. She took a sip of hot chocolate, then...nothing. She didn't move. If he hadn't been able to see her breathing, he wouldn't have known she was alive.

"Tally?" He touched her cheek. No response. Desperate, the leopard starting to panic, he cupped her face. "Tally, wake up!" The last word was a growl.