She was not what I expected. I watched her hands as she worked. She was afraid to touch me. I considered teasing her a little, asking what was so scary about a big guy like me. Did she know who or what I really was?

Only one way to find out.

“What do you know about me? Did Mary tell you why I need this?”

She shook her head. Her hair was the color of wheat, hanging in a braid over one shoulder. I looked at the top of it while she focused on finding a vein in my arm.

“I got the impression that this is very much a need-to-know sort of thing, and I don’t need to know. At least, not according to those who assigned me to you.”

“Why did they assign you?” I winced when the needle pierced my skin.

Her blue eyes met mine for the merest second, then went back to what she was doing.

“Honestly? I have no idea.” She shrugged. “I guess they figure I can be trusted. And I’m probably the only person in my group who had any success with work. A bunch of slackers, really.”

“What’s your work?”

“My team is working to develop a new vaccine. It’s sort of confidential.” She glanced at me in between removing one full tube and replacing it with another. “Like what we’re doing here.”

I grinned. “Well, that’s two points in your favor. You’re a discreet, hard worker. It’s not rocket science. You’re the best person for the job.”

And I wanted to shake the hand of the man who suggested her to Mary. I’d shake his hand, buy him a drink, maybe put his kids through school, if he had any. Because she was gorgeous.

My dragon thought so, too. He was aware of every move she made. The smell of her skin, the way her pulse jumped in the side of her neck. The touch of her hands. The warmth coming from her, calling out, wrapping itself around me.

This is way too important for us to screw it up, I reminded him when a whiff of her light, musky perfume made my cock thicken. I reminded the dragon about the rest of our clan. His family as well as mine. If we scared this girl away, we were screwed. Mary’s buddy Harrison, wouldn’t want to work with us anymore.

And Mary would have my ass. So would the rest of the family when I got home.

“What about you? What do you do?”

She was up to three tubes and inserted another. Blood filled it like magic, thick and deep red.

“Security,” I replied smoothly. It wasn’t strictly a lie. We just happened to guard a secret cache instead of a bank or a store.

“That makes sense,” she murmured.

Suddenly, her head ducked a lot lower, but I caught a glimpse of the deep red color that painted her cheeks.

This was too good to let go. “Why does it make sense?” I asked, playing innocent.

The scent of her perfume got stronger, which told me her skin was growing warmer. Was it embarrassment or something else? Arousal?

“It’s not important.” She covered the insertion point with a piece of gauze before withdrawing the needle. “There you go. Hold this.”

Our fingers brushed when I placed mine over the gauze pad. She turned away before I could read her expression. Was she as curious about me as I was about her?

“You know about me?” I asked.

Might as well get it out of the way. She probably had questions and if she was busy asking them—silently, to herself—she wouldn’t pay enough attention to solving my iron problem.

“Yes. I know about you.” Matter-of-fact.

“And it doesn’t bother you? Who I am, I mean?”

She shrugged, her back turned to me as her fingers flew over a keyboard. “Why would it bother me?”

“It bothers some people.” At least, that was what I understood of the human/shifter relationship. I had no hands-on experience.

She placed the tubes of blood in what looked like a freezer before turning to me. “You’re not the first I’ve ever known. Not that I know him personally, mind you.”

“Who?”

“His name is Jace. He lives in Florida. Part of the Everglade clan.” She rattled off this information like it was nothing, but gave the name heavy significance.

Like I was supposed to know who she meant. Was I? If the family was a famous one and I didn’t know about them, what would it say about me? That I was out-of-touch. That I couldn’t be part of the mainstream.

I wasn’t, of course, but she couldn’t know that. If they lived in Florida—and kept out of human affairs, which shifters did as a general rule—there was little reason why I’d hear about them in West Virginia.

“Oh, really?” Just casual enough, I thought. “Who is he to you?”

“He’s married to my cousin. Step-cousin, really. It’s complicated. I’ve always thought about her as my cousin.” She blushed again. It seemed to take nothing to get her to blush. “I’m babbling. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I couldn’t help but smile. There was something about her, under that hard, scientific shell, that touched me. She was the sort of girl who could evaluate a blood disorder but probably forgot to water her plants and habitually lost her car keys.

“Shifters don’t scare me, in other words. I don’t rush to judgment based on stereotypes or anecdotal evidence.”

She was every inch the scientist. If she wore glasses, that would’ve been the perfect moment to push them further up the bridge of her nose.

“You approach things with a scientific mind,” I summarized.

“Exactly. Which is why we’re here, and as good a segue as I can imagine. I have to perform an analysis on what I just drew, to see what I’m working with. I may need you for a few tests today. We’ll see how long it takes to get my results.” She laughed nervously. “This is my first time as a one-woman show.”

“I’m completely at your disposal,” I assured her as I went to my room.

She needed to work alone. Something told me my presence would only slow her down.

I needed a little alone time, too, though I’d had nothing but that until her arrival.

She shook me up without even trying to. I hadn’t had much long-term contact with women, Jasmine and Alina notwithstanding. They didn’t count, anyway, seeing as how they belonged to my cousins. Aside from those two, the most contact I’d had with the fairer sex had taken place in a store. Not exactly the opportunity to get to know a woman.

Even so, I’d watched. Ogled. Fantasized a little. Nothing obvious. I didn’t follow around with my tongue hanging from my mouth. And when a woman did happen to notice me noticing her, she’d smile. Sometimes she’d offer me her number. That was a nice diversion.

This was more than a pleasant diversion, however. Carissa wasn’t jack-off material for when I was alone in the shower, and not just because I’d be spending time with her. Mostly because while my dragon never reacted to any of the women I flirted with, fantasized about while I was alone, even watched on TV, he was deeply interested in the girl currently analyzing our blood.

He was highly interested and grumbling about her.

I tried to ignore him by flipping on the television and looking for the most mindless entertainment I could find, but he was louder than any trashy daytime talk show.

He was also very insistent that she didn’t have the scent of a mate on her.

I’m aware of that, I thought, almost angry at his insistence.

He was an ancient beast, operating on pure instinct. Subtlety was lost on him. It mattered nothing that she was a thinking, breathing human with a life of her own. What he wanted, he wanted. And he wanted her.

The real problem was that I wanted her, too. And he knew it.