Chapter Thirty-three
Glenna struggled to get her ragged breathing under control. This was crazy. She’d had sex with other men. Sex with her fiancé, but she’d never experienced this drive to strip off her clothes and just get skin to skin like she wanted to with Sam.
She wanted Sam’s wet mouth to suck on her aching nipples and give her some relief. Was it just the push of the disease?
She went suddenly cold.
She didn’t want to think this desire wasn’t hers. She pushed her longing for him back. Focus, she needed to focus. Sam was right. Planning had always saved her. They needed a plan. And that started with facts.
“So, you think the FBI ran us off the road? Why?”
“I forgot. You didn’t see them. They approached me at your sister’s place. I think your ex-fiancé called them.”
“I can’t believe it.” But the sad thing was, she could. She and Roger hadn’t had much, but at least she’d believed he cared for her on some level, or she would have never agreed to marry him. But not now.
“If they’d been watching the place they would have picked us up before I put you in the back of the truck. But they didn’t know where you were. The asshole definitely called after we left. They got there fast though, so they must have been close. Maybe they were watching the area.”
Her heart sank. “My place is around the corner.” She swallowed. “Was around the corner.” That life was gone, it was time she accept it.
“That explains it.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Do you think Roger will even tell Sarah he saw me? She’s my baby sister, Sam. God, he’s such a jerk.” The pity in his eyes was almost more than she could take. “The need for action had her off the bed and pacing the narrow space between the beds and the dresser. “We need to get her,” she said. “She should know he’s just using her, that he was just using me.”
“If he was just using you, why were you with him?”
“It made my grandmother happy.” How to explain how she’d had to grow up at a young age, become mother to her sister and perfection for her grandmother. He’d grown up in a happy family. How would he understand losing everything?
“So you won’t miss him?”
“Miss him?” She stopped pacing and looked at Sam. Big, rough, sexy Sam. Just the sight of him straddling the chair made her start thinking about sex again. He was nothing like Roger, selfish, sophisticated Roger.
“I don’t know.” She sank down on the bed. “I guess I’ll miss what I thought we had. He’d bring flowers and wine over to my house and we’d have dinner. He was perfect when we went out. He knew how to say the right thing to the right people.”
“Sounds perfect.” Sam leaned his chin on the back of the chair, dropped his eyes downward.
“It does, doesn’t it?” She shook her head. “But he wanted me to be perfect too. The perfect size, the perfect hostess. My hair was too wild, too red. I never wore quite the right thing; never fit what he thought I should be.”
She looked at herself in the mirror over the dresser. Shocking red roots growing out from underneath sedate auburn hair. The riotous Scottish curls that had taken her hours every day to tame for work. It had been years since she’d seen any of it like this. This Glenna—the one in the mirror with the wild eyes, and even wilder hair—was a stranger.
She touched her face: the freckles scattered across her nose, her slightly parted lips, even her eyebrows that lacked the darkening makeup. Who was she really? Had she ever been the Glenna that Roger had seen? Or was this one, the Glenna who pushed back for what she wanted, the real her?
“Too wild?” Sam stretched out his arm and took one of her wild tresses in his hand, rubbing it between his fingers. A deep shudder went through her. “Is that why you colored it?”
“Yeah. My grandmother always hated it. Roger said it would look more refined if it was auburn. Actually he wanted brown, but Sarah talked me out of it.”
“I’m looking forward to it all being red. It suits you.” Sam brought the piece of hair up to his nose and inhaled.
Dampness rushed between her legs and her focus was now all on him. He was staring back at her. His eyes had narrowed and they held her pinned on the bed.
Hormones. Sam said it was all hormones. But God—what if it wasn’t? A deep shudder ran through her. His eyes widened and he dropped her hair, jerking his hand back.
She worked on taking deep, even breaths.
They’d lost track of the subject. She reached desperately for a thread. “So, someone followed us from Sarah’s?”
“Not the same guys. They were driving a car, not an SUV. I think they had someone else pick us up.”
“But why? There must be hundreds of people who’ve caught this disease. It’s been rampant in the media.
“The media lies. There are very few people who’ve caught it. The CDC has been trying to get a live specimen to study ever since they discovered the virus.”
“What do you mean?”
“They only discovered the virus by accident and we’ve managed to sabotage every effort they’ve made to really study it. They don’t know squat about it. What they know is based on the small samples they have in the labs and a few tall tales of werewolves.”
“But they aren’t stories.”
“No, but they don’t know that. They don’t have any proof. No pictures. And no one who has truly manifested the disease.”
“If they don’t know about the wolf part, then why is it called lycanthroism? Why the paranoia and stories about insanity in the media?”
“Someone saw us change. They got a blood sample. But they weren’t believed. We’ve made sure to mostly discredit them. We have people in high places.”
“So, we’re on the run from someone who wants to take a blood sample? They have my blood from the hospital.”
“No, Glenna. They want you. You’re the first live person they’ve found with the virus.”
“That can’t be true. We’ve heard about lots of cases. They’ve all died.”
“No. They made it all up. The CDC wants the public to be afraid, so they’ll call when someone tests positive. They want to study a live specimen. You.”
A deep cold settled in her bones. It had taken a series of hard shocks to get her here, but she finally believed him. She might have a predator uncoiling inside of her but the truth was—she was the prey.