Hollow Back Girl Page 3

  “Hey, my name’s Gwen; I’m supposed to pick up a package from a friend here?”

  “Oh, okay,” she said, getting to her feet. She dug around behind the counter for a second, pulled a fat envelope out, gave it a once-over. Tossing away the post-it on the front, she looked back up at me. “Can I see your ID?”

  “Yep,” I pulled it out of my bag, handed it over. She gave it a pretty thorough examination, tilting it in the light before handing it and the envelope over. I thanked her, yanked open the envelope and laughed, making my way toward the elevator. Owen had left me a note and a candy bar. Of course, I tore into the candy first, but it was just as well; the note was simply his room number.

  I was halfway through the candy when he opened the door to his room and I got a look at him. It’s a testament to how attractive he is that I chose to grab him and yank him into a kiss rather than finish my chocolate. I watched his blue eyes drift shut as our lips met, felt his hands come around my back to press against my spine and pull me into the room. Once over the threshold, I dropped my bag, made a happy sound against this mouth. Affection, arousal, and delight burbled and tumbled through him, tinged with an edge that made me want to bite him, to scratch my nails across his bare skin. I felt his fingers dig into my hip as I slid my arm from his shirt around to grip his hair just this side of too tight.

  “Your candy’s going to melt,” he murmured between kisses.

  “Still edible,” I responded, wrapping my other arm around his neck, despite the fact that it was still clutching the chocolate bar. He chuckled against my mouth and, much to my dismay, pulled back. I did my best to give him a chastising glare, but I couldn’t quite make it happen; my body was just too damn happy to be so close to his.

  “Hey,” I said conversationally. He pulled away further, straightened up.

  “Hey,” he said back. I looked over his narrow face, wondered briefly if I’d managed to get chocolate in his blond hair. I bit my lip, figured neither one of us really cared that much, and looked over to the bed across the room. He followed my gaze and I felt another swell of arousal run through him.

  “Down girl,” he purred, his tone oppositional to his words. I blinked up at him, trying to decide which of his mixed signals I should heed. His body and brain were not in agreement and, in the end, I just giggled, took the final few bites of the chocolate. Giving me a quick kiss on my forehead, he pulled away, looking me over. I did the same to him, enjoying the thought of what I had planned for his slim body.

  “Down, eh?” I asked with a lascivious eyebrow wag. “I can do that.”

  He laughed and twisted to walk toward a small round table at the back of the room. I noticed two covered plates set out alongside an open bottle of wine. I squinted at the wine as I crumpled the candy wrapper and tossed it toward the small garbage beyond the table.

  “What’s that for?” I asked. The last time we’d had wine, it hadn’t ended so well for me.

  “Oh, the hotel sent it up. I still don’t drink, but I thought you might like it.”

  “I don’t know if I trust it.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, stepping close and removing the lids of the food. “I checked it for puncture marks.”

  One plate held a thick cut of steak, a large portion of vegetables and a small roll with a little, foil-wrapped pat of butter. The other plate held a giant slice of cheesecake. I smiled, turned my gaze to his and felt suddenly swamped with affection and pleasure.

  “You are getting so laid tonight,” I declared. A laugh rumbled through his chest as I hopped forward, pulling him down into another kiss. He indulged me briefly, but spun me around, aimed me at the chair in front of the cheesecake.

  “At least let me build up my strength first,” he said, stepping away. I took a seat, watched him do the same, and then grabbed the bottle of wine to inspect it. He watched me with a half-smile as I poked at it, peeled back the label and aimed the cork at my face like I was planning on shooting out an eye.

  “Hmm,” I said cynically, before setting it aside. “I think I’ll stick with the cheesecake.”

  “At least take it home with you?”

  “And drug my family? I—” I paused, considered life at home with my parents. “Actually, that might not be such a bad idea.”

  Owen snorted, cut into his steak, and scooped it up along with vegetables. After a bite of the tasty cheesecake, I lifted a brow, caught his eye.

  “What’s with the late night meal?”

  “I haven’t eaten all day. I figured you wouldn’t be hungry, but I also figured it would be rude to eat in front of you. Plus, I know you can’t say no to sugar.” Several dirty and possibly sexually improbable thoughts crossed my mind at that moment, but I just smiled, held my tongue. We watched each other for a bit as we ate, before he spoke again.

  “What’ve you been up to?”

  “Not having sex, that’s for sure,” I grumbled. Owen winked, stretched his leg out knock his toe against the side of my shoe.

  “I’ll fix that.”

  “That’s the plan.” I stuffed more cheesecake into my mouth, made a happy humming sound.

  “So you’re chaste now; anything else interesting? Any more succubi hanging around?”

  “Just Madeline. It’s been boring, mostly. I mean, there was the week I spent with Mel and the giant spider thing, but that’s about it.”

  “Are we talking Arachnophobia or Eight Legged Freaks?”

  “Ah.” I considered his question, waggled my hand in the air as I crammed more cake into my mouth. “Somewhere in the middle. It was called, ah,” I tried to remember the pronunciation as I swallowed my food. “Unktomi?”

  “Ah. Fuckers,” he grunted around a mouth full of meat. I nodded.

  “Yeah. Caused me these.” I held up my scarred arm, realized I had a long-sleeved shirt on, and frowned at it. Owen watched patiently as I set down my fork, yanked my sleeve up to show off the rough, shiny lines along my skin where I’d been attacked by a confused werewolf. Owen lifted a brow, gave an impressed nod.

  “Damn. The spider did that?”

  “Oh, not exactly. Mel did, but only because he thought I was the spider at the time.”

  “You survived a werewolf attack?”

  “Er,” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks go a little pink. Owen’s lip quirked as he realized there was something there I didn’t want to admit. Knocking his foot a bit harder against mine, he jerked his chin at me, took a bite of vegetables. I rolled my eyes, slumped a little further in my seat.

  “He … We’d had … He didn’t really try to kill me. Past the first bite, that is. He … knew what I tasted like.”

  “So you have been having sex,” Owen chastised, shook his fork at me. I shook my head rapidly as he continued. “You little minx.”

  “Bad sex doesn’t count.”

  “Bad sex with a werewolf?” Owen asked; I felt genuine confusion bubble out of him. “Did he think you were the spider while you were having sex?”

  “Not … that I know of. Though, that would explain a lot.”

  “I just can’t think of any other reason for bad sex from a werewolf.”

  “Oh my god, don’t you start.” Owen stifled a laugh around the food he was chewing, pulled the cover over his plate and leaned back.

  “Don’t start what?”

  “Everyone’s always telling me, ‘oh sex with Mel is great! It’s wonderful! Best you’ve ever had!’ Well, excuse me, but you are all crazy, it was dreadful.”

  Owen shook his head, amusement warring with confusion for the top spot in his psyche. “I’m sorry to add to the chorus, but I’ve had sex with several werewolves and it’s just hard to believe.”

  “Well, believe it.” Still grumpy, I stabbed into the last bite of cheesecake, pulled it to my mouth and bit into it hard enough that I dinged my tooth on the edge of the fork. This did not help my mood.

  “So you got attacked and then what?” Owen asked. I let myself glare at him as I finished chewing, shoved the pla
te petulantly aside.

  “Then Mel and his sister killed it. I just sort of hung back and waited. I mean, there was all the throwing up I did just being next to the damn thing, but mostly I did a lot of waiting.” After a second, I added in a cheerful voice, “also bleeding.”

  “But you’re okay now,” Owen stated, pushing to his feet. I watched him as he stepped around the small table and stood in front of me. I smiled at him and nodded.

  “Peachy,” I said. He held out his hands, pulled me upward when I took them.

  “Good.”

  I stood on tiptoe and he bent down and we met somewhere in the middle, arms coming around each other tightly. I hummed eagerly into his mouth as he pulled me back toward the bed, his hands slipping under my shirt to rub roughly along my skin. My fingers got straight to the point, moving to unbutton his jeans, tug his shirt free so I could feel his belly, scratch at his back. He smiled against my lips, pulled my arms away just long enough to spin us both and push me back a step. The backs of my knees hit the soft bed and I dropped onto the blankets.

  The look in his eyes was intense as he crawled over me, bent down to press his lips against my throat. I sighed out as he bit my collarbone, his hands shoving my shirt up. I twisted under him, helping him tug my shirt up and over my head, but quickly pulled him down against me, wrapping my legs around his hips. Our kisses were frantic as I ran my fingers through his hair, my other hand slipping under his shirt to scratch along his back.

  His phone beeped from his pocket as I made my move to get him topless. I loved his shoulders, the look and feel of them. I wanted to drag my teeth along his skin, grip him tight and taste him. I got the shirt pulled up enough to bunch under his arms but he didn’t help me along like I’d done for him. I felt a tension run through him, resignation flooding his psyche, overtaking the arousal. I caught sight of the light from the phone when he held it up near my cheek, pulling away from me enough to look at the screen. I knew the second the resignation and disappointment took over.

  “I have to go,” he sighed.

  “By go, do you mean come?” I asked, turning his mouth to mine. I got another kiss but it was slightly marred by his grin.

  “This time, no.”

  I sighed, letting up my grip enough that he could pull back. He sat up on his knees, glanced down at my legs wrapped around his hips, ran his eyes over my body. The sigh he let out perfectly encapsulated the disappointment and slight hint of irritation that ran through him. I lifted a brow, watching him.

  “Is someone dead?”

  “Likely, but that’s not why I have to go.”

  Fighting the urge to pout, I loosened my thighs' grip on his hips, gave him the chance to move away. He didn’t for a second, watching me.

  “I’m sorry. Believe me, I’d rather be here with you than traipsing through—actually.” He paused and I felt delight snap through him. I smiled, wondering if I was going to get lucky after all. “Maybe you can help me.”

  “Damn straight I can.” I reached up, looped two fingers through his belt loops and tugged. He snorted as he leaned over me again, let me wrap myself around him for another kiss. He played along briefly as I slid my hands from his hips to his hair, doing my best to entice him to stay. After a few moments, he turned away from my mouth, ignoring the pain it must have caused him with my fingers tangled so tightly in his hair, and spoke quietly against my ear.

  “Can I borrow your empathy for an hour? I promise we’ll come right back here after, and finish what we’ve started.”

  “You need my help?”

  “Need is a strong word,” he said, pulling back to catch my eye, “but I could use it.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I have to … meet a source.”

  It wasn’t exactly a lie.

  Chapter Four

  “It. Is. Freezing!”

  Owen glanced over at me with a small smile on his face.

  “Well, you didn’t bring a jacket.”

  “Even with this,” I flopped the arm of the over-sized, zip-up hoodie he’d lent me. “It’s cold as hell.”

  “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

  “You don’t know. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong and Satan digs the arctic.”

  Owen rolled his eyes over a smile, shook his head. Then, after a moment, he said, almost as an aside, “I don’t believe he actually goes by Satan.”

  “You can’t blame me for not bringing a jacket,” I griped, not jumping on that tangent. “I thought I was going from the car, to your bed, back to the car, and then to my bed. I didn’t know we’d be—how’d you put it?—traipsing through the forest at midnight.”

  “It’s not midnight yet,” Owen said, stepping close. I felt the net bag of loose, raw produce he’d brought bump my arm and I glanced over.

  “You still haven’t told me what those are for.”

  He laughed and I felt it. “Man, you get cranky when you haven’t had sex.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “Mel’s?”

  “Dammit,” I snarled, suddenly angry all over again that Mel was a crappy lay.

  Owen threw back his head and laughed, stepping around to my other side so he could wrap his free arm around my shoulders. Despite my attitude, I leaned into him, looked about. The moon was bright through the autumn-bare trees.

  “What are we looking for? Who are we meeting?”

  “Just keep an ear out. Or, well …” He trailed off, turning to look down at me with a lifted brow. “What do you keep out, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your empathy. Do you consider it a muscle, a sense?”

  “Uhhh.” I considered his question, tried to decide if there was an applicable comparison. “I don’t really keep anything out. I mean, I guess I always do. I can’t really turn it off.”

  “Well, then just be quiet.”

  To placate me before I could growl or fight or make a smart comment, he squeezed me against him, dipping low to give me a quick kiss. I sighed but did as he asked and stayed silent. We’d been walking for what felt like an hour, after having driven for at least thirty minutes toward the hills around Balanis.

  We’d pulled up near the edges of a forest I hadn’t been in since my father had taken us all camping when Thomas was little. Then, without pretense or camping supplies, we'd just traipsed on in. Owen hadn’t explained what we were looking for or where we were going or even why he had a bag of onions, potatoes, cauliflower, and a handful of other root vegetables that I couldn’t have named even if you’d pointed a turnip at me and threatened to pull the trigger.

  I’m just guessing here, but you can shoot a turnip, right? That’s a thing.

  “You still haven’t told me why you brought all that.” I elbowed Owen and he smiled, but it was just a show. Something in him had changed from easy amusement to wary calm.

  “In case we get peckish,” he said distantly, pausing. I stopped too, stepped out of the circle of his arms and reached up to scratch at an itch along my skull. Much to my dismay, it was one of those irritations that presented in one place but actually needed to be scratched in another. As I rubbed my nails vigorously over my skull like you do to a happy, excitable dog, I watched his face.

  “What’s up?”

  “You feel anything?”

  “My head itches,” I said, as if he hadn’t noticed. He watched me passively for a moment.

  “That’s it?”

  “Uh,” I said, shrugging my shoulder before realizing that too itched. “No, my … actually I itch all over. Dammit. Did we walk through—whoa.”

  This wasn’t poison oak.

  We weren’t alone.

  Owen watched me as I froze in place, trying to ignore the itching along my skin in favor of going perfectly still like a frightened bunny. He hadn’t made it to worried, but there was caution in him.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered, giving in and scratching the wriggling line of irritation attacking the back of
my ear.

  “You feel something?”

  “I think so,” I hissed, looking around. As I turned, the itching along my scalp moved to my forehead. I blinked into the darkness, considering that this wasn’t just itching, it was emotion. Something in front of me was feeling nervous, unhappy, concerned. Something—multiple somethings, if I wasn’t reading my empathy incorrectly—here didn’t want us so close. “There’s something out there.”

  “Perfect,” Owen said before dropping the sack of produce to the ground. I yelped, jumping away from it as if it might explode, my nails still scraping along my face and neck. Owen held both hands in front of him and started making complicated hand gestures out into the air. I turned to watch him before half-grinning and jerking my head toward where I felt the emotions originating.

  “They’re over there, slick.” A needle-thin line of embarrassment oozed out of Owen, followed by a hot arc of annoyance. I hugged a little closer to him, his very human emotions helping—though only a bit—to combat the vicious disquiet tearing through my skin like graboids trying to eat Kevin Bacon. Owen turned, repeated his hand motions and then pointed at the bag of vegetables on the ground.

  Silence tried to fall but my fingernails still rasped loudly over my skin as I continued to fight the discomfort of being so close to whatever was out there. The emotions in front of me shifted slightly, calmed, and then I was staring at a group—a pack? A pride? A bushel?—of sasquatches.

  Sasquatches!

  There were sasquatches right in front of me, possibly even a whole family. I could see six or seven, but the emotions my empathy was interpreting as itching made me think there were several more that I couldn't see. My brain and my eyes were disagreeing over what was going on, but my skin didn't care about their argument. It knew these weren't imagined; I could tell this wasn't a pack of kids stacked on top of each other, wearing a gorilla costume.

  These were the real thing; I was actually close enough to a bigfoot to see the rough fur along its grumpy face.