Megan Hart - Bound By The Night - Dark Heat / Dark Dreams / Dark Fantasy

He swung around to look at her, brows furrowed, mouth curled into a sneer. “Sure. Like a goat sucker?”

“Among others. Yes. You work with animals—is it so hard for you to imagine that there are creatures we don’t know about?” She put her hands on her hips. “Something came through that wall. Multiple times. Something killed those animals. And something, if we don’t figure out what the hell it is, will come back again and again and continue until everything in this zoo is dead, probably including the people. Because it can, Jordan. It simply fucking can.”

“Keeping the animals safe is my job. Not yours.”

“Yeah, well, DiNero hired me to figure out what it is, okay? So once I do that, I can tell you what to do to keep them safe. My crew can come in and hunt it down, and if DiNero wants it alive, maybe we can even figure out how to tell you to take care of it. I’m sorry I stepped on your toes, if I did. And I’m sorry about last night... No, fuck that,” she amended. “I’m not sorry about last night. I needed you, and you were there. I’m glad you were. Believe it or not, I appreciated it.”

“Great. So I did you a favor?” Jordan’s scowl twisted further.

She stepped closer to him. He backed up. She took another. This time, he stayed. She’d seen a look like that before. It turned out she’d been developing a habit of wounding men’s pride, and that broke her more than anything else had.

Monica closed her eyes for a second. Thinking of Carl. How much she’d loved him and how long it had been since she’d felt that way about anyone. Maybe she never would again.

“I had a nightmare. I was attacked some time ago, and sometimes I dream about it,” she said in a low voice.

“Okay.” He eyed her warily. “And that’s my problem?”

Oh, he was going to make this difficult. “In the dreams, I relive the attack. When I wake up, I can’t get out from under it. The only thing that really helps me is to...fuck.”

“What kind of attack?”

“I was hiking with my husband,” Monica said flatly. “We’d gone into some unknown trails, stupid, I guess, but we thought it would be fun. Isn’t that how horror stories always start? We thought it would be fun at the time?”

“I don’t like horror stories.”

Monica laughed bitterly, then shrugged. “Something came out of the woods. Slashed at him. Knocked me out next, so I didn’t see what happened. It dragged him into a cave, where it killed him. It took me next. I woke up next to his body. When it came back, I fought it and killed it.”

She said it matter-of-factly, not because the story didn’t move her emotionally, but because it was the story she’d told the police and the wildlife officers and everyone else, the same story so many times the words themselves came by rote. It was the only way she could tell that story without breaking down.

Monica rubbed her arms again, this time against the chill of gooseflesh that had risen there. The food in her belly shifted uncomfortably. She couldn’t look at him anymore.

“What was it?” Jordan asked.

She shook her head. “They said it was a bear.”

“Bullshit,” he said.

She did look at him then. Her chin went up. “I don’t know what it was. I never figured it out. But I knew it was something, not a bear. It had scales. It could see in the dark. It had claws...”

She shuddered and went silent.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Jordan said quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“I’d been studying to become a vet. I decided to focus on figuring out exactly what sorts of thing could have done that to my husband. I’m going to figure out what did this to your animals, too.”

“But you still dream about it at night.”

She nodded.

Jordan took a step closer. He pulled her into his arms again, this time more gently. Her face pressed against his hot bare skin, and though he might’ve grumbled about needing a shower earlier, all Monica breathed in was warm male. She closed her eyes. His hand stroked over her back.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

Jordan, typically, didn’t say anything. The steady thump of his heart beneath her cheek skipped a beat or so, though. His arms tightened around her.

After a minute, Monica pushed away. She cleared her throat. Jordan stepped back. They stared at each other.

“I need a shower,” he said finally. “But after that, if you want to come over so we can talk about what you think this thing out there is...”

She nodded, hiding a smile. Stiffly, he backed away from her. She waited until he’d gone out the front door before she went after him to watch him cross the small piece of lawn between their bungalows. She could not figure him out. Not at all.

Chapter 8

The glass of red wine he’d downed had lit a fire in him that wasn’t going to go out. The whiskey wasn’t a good idea, not after last night and the wine and the conversation he’d had with Monica earlier, but then again, Jordan didn’t always make the best decisions. He downed one shot before getting in the shower, where his cock got hard as soon as he tried to soap up. He took another when he got out. His hair was still wet and he’d barely put on a fresh pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt before she was knocking on his front door.

“I brought dessert.” She held up one of the cook’s chocolate cakes. Jordan knew it by the scent of the icing. “I got it from the main house.”

“Looks good. C’mon in.” He stepped aside to let her pass. He’d managed to tame his dick, but barely. When she brushed his belly with her arm, he felt it stirring again.

They sat at his dining table. He’d put out a box of cheap chocolate doughnuts and made coffee, though the caffeine was going to do a number on him, as well. All of this was. Shit, he was going to need another run.

She’d brought along her tablet to show him some of the things she’d been working on, and before he knew it, they were side by side on his couch while she ran through lists of what she was putting together. She smelled so good. It had been a mistake to invite her here, Jordan thought. He was too hungry.

“But I don’t know.” Monica shook her head, then tucked a dark cherry curl behind her ear. She flicked her finger along a line of photos she’d pulled up. There was no denying the edge of excitement in her voice. “None of these things match the patterns. I’ve run through all the databases, and really, just...nothing.”

“You love this, don’t you? The unknown.”

She looked at him. “Love it? I’m not sure. I’ve always thought of love as something that makes you happy.”

“Me, I’ve always thought it was something that made you miserable,” Jordan answered.

Monica laughed. “How many times have you been in love, Jordan?”

He didn’t have an answer. He’d been homeschooled since the age of fourteen, when his parents had yanked him out of public school at the first signs of what they both had prayed would never come true. He hadn’t gone to the prom, basketball games. Hadn’t played in the band. He’d gone to college too wary of other people to trust anyone enough to fall in love.

“I thought so,” she said when he didn’t answer. “Sure, love can make you miserable. But it also makes you happy. So happy.”

For a second, her gaze went faraway. Unexpectedly, Jordan envied the man who’d married her, the one who’d made her look that way. The one who’d died, he reminded himself.

Monica shrugged off her expression. “Anyway. I have some calls and messages out to some of my colleagues, but at this point, I’m looking at something big. Something strong. Something that lives in the bayou.”

“Anaconda? Python? Something like that?” He shook his head. “I know there’s a huge problem with that in Florida, but I told you, not so much here.”