Hour of the Lion by Cherise Sinclair (reading a book txt) 📕

He rose to his feet. "I‘ll get some breakfast prepared."

God. He hadn‘t buttoned his shirt, and his chest was thickly muscled. The man was lethally sexy. Her body quivered with need, and there was no cold shower in sight. "We got an outhouse somewhere, or do we use an available tree?"

"A tree." He grinned, a flash of white that curled her toes.

She closed her eyes. She fought a losing battle here; everything he did turned her on more.

Outside in the freezing snow was where she needed to be. "I‘ll be back in a minute," she muttered.

Several minutes later, after she‘d struggled through the foot-deep snow, fumbled her coat and shirt out of the way to undo her jeans, froze her ass off, and buttoned everything up with numb fingers, sex was the very last thing on her mind. Just let her hang out close to the fire and she‘d be a happy camper. She rushed back inside.

He handed her a mug of steaming coffee. "This‘ll help."

Her hands were shaking with just that brief outing. "It‘s really cold out there."

"Temperatures can drop to under zero up here at night. It‘ll warm up a little during the day."

"A little, huh." She slugged back some coffee—crappy-tasting instant, but it burned all the way to her stomach and started filling her veins with caffeine. Only a fool would complain. A few more sips, and she felt almost normal. Settling on one of the stump chairs, she set her cup on the table. "Now tell me about shifter-human relationships."

He held up a freeze-dried packet of scrambled eggs and grimaced. "Maybe I should trawsfur and go hunt us up some real breakfast."

"No." She snatched it out of his hand. "Talk."

"Are you always this bossy?" he asked curiously.

She opened the packet with one wicked slash of her boot knife, and he winced.

"That‘s a nasty temper you have there, female." He mixed the eggs with water. "Basically, shifter-human matings are sterile. No children. And for various reasons, our numbers are declining. So shifters need to mate other shifters."

"Ah. Like a Muslim marrying a Catholic, huh?" A jagged ache made her chest throb.

"Something like that, only the Muslims won‘t die out. We might." His gaze was level, yet held regret. "I‘d planned to talk with you, but then you said you were leaving, and I didn‘t think it mattered." He sounded like they‘d had something...real ...going.

"Geez, Alec," she made her voice cold. Hard. "I just wanted sex, not some damned relationship."

"Yeah." He put his hand over hers, his fingers hot against her icy skin. "I knew that."

She felt her lips tremble and pressed them together. God, she had to get out of here, away from him and his fucking pity, before she burst into tears and embarrassed them both. "I need some air."

Yanking her hand back, she stalked out the door and into the snow-filled wilderness, heading anywhere, just as long it was far from the cabin. From him. This was stupid, stupid, stupid. How had he come to mean so much to her? Hell, she‘d planned to leave, hadn‘t she?

She leaned against a giant pine and listened to the snow hissing down through the branches, the soft groaning of the trees swaying in the wind. Thin gray clouds trailed across the sky, blotting the sun‘s warmth, and the air was so cold it hurt her lungs. Alec would probably come out to check on her if she stayed here much longer. He never seemed to leave her alone for—

She thumped her head against the trunk. Had she subconsciously hoped he‘d chase after her when she left Cold Creek? God, she was such an idiot.

Well. She exhaled slowly and watched her breath hang in the air before the breeze took it away. At least that idea was killed dead. Absolutely no hope of a relationship. She shouldn‘t have let Alec talk her into coming up here. And damned if he‘d keep her from going back down.

If Swane had people watching her house, well, wouldn‘t it be too bad if she had to disable a few?

Break her heart, it would.

Fine, then. Get breakfast and some coffee, bundle up, and move out. She had a plan.

Shoving her icy fingers under her arms, she headed back to the cabin.

She stepped inside and stopped at the sight of Alec near the fireplace. Buck-naked. Washing himself off with a sponge. The light from outside glowed against his skin, highlighting the hard muscles, the tight curve of his ass, his long, lean thighs, and glinted off the golden-brown hair at his groin and chest. Her breath strangled in her throat, and every little hormone that had finally cooled down flared up again like she‘d been napalmed. Growling, she backed out and slammed the door behind her so hard the cabin shook. An avalanche of snow from the roof hit her, and something thudded on her boot. She looked down.

It was a tiny doll, the size of her hand. On the roof? Probably some boy had teased his sister by throwing her dolls up there. She‘d get Alec to return it to whomever.

She turned the toy over, smiling. Naked. Anatomically correct with small high breasts.

Pointed ears? An elf doll?

It moaned.

"Fuck!" Vic dropped it, caught it in midair, and felt it move slightly within her grasp. It was one of those tree-thingies. She shoved the cabin door open. Naked or not, Alec needed to answer more questions. "Yo, cat-boy!"

The irritated look on his face was a pleasure to see. He‘d donned his jeans and was pulling on a green flannel shirt that matched his eyes.

She held up the doll-that-wasn‘t-dead. "What the hell is this thing?"

He walked over. "Oh, shit." Cradling the doll-thing gently in his hands, he squatted next to the fireplace. "Toss more wood on, would you?"

With another log, the fire blazed higher. She dropped down into the pile of blankets beside him. "What is it?"

"She, not it." Alec held it closer to the heat. "She‘s a wood-sprite. A forest pixie."

"Oh, well, I knew that," Vicki