for her back home, along with a beautiful apartment she had spent the last three years decorating until she got it just so. Her life was somewhat empty, now that all her friends were married and they saw each other less frequently, but it was still her life. The one she had created for herself.
“It’s okay.” Jason dropped her hand and tucked both of his into his jeans pockets. His shoulders hunched a bit as he began walking toward the woods. She followed. “You don’t have to make any decisions today. You’re on vacation, right? We’ll just see where things lead. But I figured I should draw your attention to the facts at least once before we do some serious sightseeing.”
His smile was easy, but she could feel the undercurrent of tension in his voice. Her response mattered to him more than he was letting on, for some reason. She liked that he wasn’t pushing her too hard. She had things to think over and she needed to learn more about Carly’s new existence. She needed to learn a lot more about shapeshifters too, for that matter. This world was completely new to her, though not as unsettling as she would’ve expected. Somehow, she had always suspected there was something more to the odd things that happened to her as a cop.
She’d felt the pull of the full moon and chalked it up to coincidence, or perhaps superstition. She’d always been able to hear things others couldn’t and see things in greater detail than her colleagues. She had gained a reputation as a sort of super cop among her peers and enjoyed the way they treated her with increasing respect as she rose through the ranks.
Hers was a sometimes violent job. It could be rewarding as well. Catching bad guys before they could harm anyone else had been her passion for a long time, though lately she had found herself more than once simply going through the motions. She hadn’t felt the same elation that she had when she was younger. Justice had become her goal in both work and life, and sometimes, it was hard to achieve. She’d become disillusioned with the system over the years and now that she was away from home for the first time in a long time, she realized she was at a crossroads. She could either continue the way she was going, or choose a new path.
Jason had just laid a tantalizing new possibility before her. The question was, did she dare pursue it?
“Jason…” She trailed off, uncertain how to ask all the questions in her mind.
He turned toward her. They stood facing each other in the whispering woods. Suddenly the tension was back. The yearning. The need.
“I had such good intentions.” His hand rose to touch her hair, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. His eyes honed in on her lips, parted…ready…willing. “I think I know how Adam must’ve felt in the Garden of Eden. You are temptation itself, my Eve.”
“Sally,” she reminded him playfully, though she was touched by his words beyond bearing. No man had ever given her such verbal tribute. And no man had ever looked at her like Jason did. As if she were special, though that was too mild a word. As if she held his world in the palm of her hands.
She knew she was being fanciful, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Jason and this moment—and how much she’d wanted him from almost the first time she’d seen him. There would be time to worry about everything else later. Right now, all she wanted was him.
His head dipped, and his lips found hers. She had a sensation of weightlessness and then she felt the cool grass beneath her back, tickling her neck as Jason pressed her into the thick green mat. A fresh scent rose from the crushed fronds, enveloping her in its delicious aroma. Never before had anything felt so right.
Jason’s hard body bracketed her, his long, jeans-clad legs slipping between hers as if they belonged there. The only problem was, they were wearing too much fabric. Skin on skin would feel so much better.
As if her thought conjured his
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