Читать книгу Wolf Tales VI - Kate Douglas - Страница 9

“I wondered if you could feel my thoughts. My arousal.” Eve slowly gathered up the papers and crumbs from her meal to give herself time to think.

“You a lesbian?”

Eve smiled at the challenge in Mei’s voice. “When the company suits me.” She stood up and walked across the room, dumped her garbage in the small trash can and grabbed the bottle of brown capsules Anton had given her. She sat down again and smiled at Mei, pushing gently with her mind. Sharing her growing arousal. “What about you?”

“Sometimes I like women. Mostly I dig guys, ‘cept when there’s not one around.” She was watching Eve now with more than a little interest shining in her green eyes. Watching the pill bottle Eve had set on the table in front of her.

Somehow, Eve had to get Mei to take Anton’s pills. The big, ugly capsules were filled with a mix of dried grasses specific to the Tibetan steppe, the Chanku ancestral home. The nutrients in the pills activated a small gland lying dormant near the hypothalamus of a latent Chanku. It was the only way, she knew, to find out if Mei shared the same genes.

If Mei was merely human, the pills would have absolutely no effect on her. If she was Chanku, she would have the ability to shift from woman to wolf within a week.

Eve took a capsule out of the bottle, popped it in her mouth and downed it with a swallow of coffee. “They’re vitamins,” she said, holding the bottle out to Mei. “Nutrients and stuff to keep me healthy. I get them from a good friend. Do you want one?”

Mei eyed the ugly pills suspiciously. “I don’t do drugs.” She took one out of the bottle and sniffed it. She raised her head and frowned. “Smells like weed. Really expensive stuff.”

Eve laughed. “I don’t do drugs either, and these are most definitely not marijuana. Never mind. I don’t have all that many of them anyway. I just figured your diet’s probably not been all that healthy. These are a good supplement.”

Mei gave her a crooked grin. Instead of replacing the capsule back in the bottle, she popped it into her mouth and swallowed it down with a gulp of orange juice. “Last night’s dinner came out of a dumpster near that hamburger joint on the corner. I’ll take your pills.”

Eve grinned broadly as she took another sip of her rapidly cooling coffee. “You need to find better quality dumpsters. That place has lousy hamburgers and really greasy fries.”

Mei laughed out loud this time. “Yeah, well…when you’re on the streets, you don’t always have much of a choice.” She pushed her chair back and stood up. “Thanks for the meal. I better get going. I don’t want to impose.”

Eve reached across the table and touched Mei’s hand. “Stay. Please?”

“Why?” Mei paused. Her dark brows scrunched up in a frown. “You hardly know me.” Then her eyes narrowed with suspicion and she glared at Eve. “You want sex? That’s it, isn’t it?”

Eve shrugged. “Sex is always an option, but only if you’re interested. You’re a link, Mei. Someone who knew me when I was a child. I have so few memories of friends from my childhood. In a way, you’re the closest thing to family I’ve had since I left my last foster home. Stay, please?”

Mei cocked her head to one side. Obviously she still wasn’t buying it. “Do you live here? In this motel?”

Eve shook her head. “No. I came back here on business, but I had car trouble. My friend is on his way to fix the truck. I expect him in a couple days.”

“Boyfriend?” Mei pulled the chair out and sat.

“Could be. Some day.”

“What happens when the truck’s fixed?” Mei twisted a strand of her long, dark hair. Her constant motion told Eve a lot more than mere words. Her eyes, hands, smile…all spoke volumes of Mei’s nervous energy and lack of trust. “Where will you go then? Where do you live?”

“Nowhere, right now.” Eve sighed. “Montana, maybe. I’ve got friends there. Friends who want me to live with them, but I wasn’t ready. Like the boyfriend. I think he loves me. It scares the crap out of me, that kind of relationship. I needed time to figure out what I want to do with my life. What I really need.”

“Yeah. I wish I knew what I wanted.” Mei laughed. “Other than a bath and a clean change of clothes.”

Perfect! Eve stood up. “That I can do. We’re about the same size. You can borrow some of my things for now. Get a shower, some clean clothes. Later we can get a cab and go shopping.”

Mei blinked, but for the first time since entering the room, she sat perfectly still. Eve realized she was fighting tears.

“You’d do that for me? Buy me clothes?”

“Of course. You were my friend years ago, Mei. I’d like to think we can be friends again.”

Mei nodded. Then she grabbed her purse. She didn’t hesitate when Eve pointed her toward the shower. Nor did she seem to realize her thoughts were growing clearer by the minute as Eve consistently probed her mind. She had to be Chanku. Could Mei be the reason Eve had been drawn back to Florida? It was too perfect to be purely coincidental.

Anton was going to love it! His ongoing argument with Stefan over fate versus coincidence was gaining credence by the day. Eve almost picked up the phone to call Anton. Almost. She hesitated, fingers spread in the act of grabbing her cell phone off the nightstand.

How easy it had become, to think of Anton, of Keisha, Stefan, and Xandi when she had something to share. Already she thought of them as family. Why hadn’t her thoughts rushed to Adam? Or even to Oliver?

Because they scare the crap out of you. She wasn’t ready for the powerful connection she felt with both men, but especially with Adam. Not yet. It was easier not to think of them. Knowing what little she did of the two men, she still expected at least one, if not both, of them to show up within a day or two.

Eve curled her fingers into the palm of her hand and listened to the sound of the shower. Mei was in there now, her slim body naked beneath the spray, her long black hair flowing with the rivulets of water as it sluiced over her shoulders, trailed between her breasts.

A sense of well-being poured into Eve, and she knew she was catching Mei’s thoughts and feelings. She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. She would think of Mei, of possibilities. Adam was on his way. Eve knew it the way she knew the sun would rise each morning. He was coming and he wasn’t alone. She shivered with a strong sense of premonition. There was power in this room, in the woman blissfully enjoying the shower. Power in the throbbing arousal that surged through Eve’s body at the mere thought of Adam, of Oliver…and Mei.

She wrapped her arms around her waist and bowed down until her head was between her knees. Desire shimmered, hot and sultry, pulsing in her veins, engorging her sex. Desire fueled by images of herself, of Adam and Oliver and Mei, a tangle of arms and legs, slick with the lush dampness of sweat and saliva and all the intimate fluids that bodies produced in the heat of passion.

She’d gone three weeks without sex. Three weeks of easing her own needs but never satisfying them. Three weeks with the powerful surge of arousal that accompanied each shift, growing and spreading with the same rush and power as the blood in her veins or the oxygen in her lungs. Arousal so much a part of her very existence she’d become one living, breathing, pulsing creature of lust.

She’d risked everything to bring two strange men to her room, just for sex. Thank goodness she’d survived that idiotic decision. The risk with Mei was different. With Mei, she could lose another bit of herself. Strangely, though, the need for independence that had driven her away from Adam and Montana somehow faded, now that she’d found Mei.

Even Adam wasn’t as frightening anymore. She realized she missed him, wanted him for more than what he could do to ease her basic sexual needs.

That was definitely a step in the right direction.

Smiling, Eve stared at the closed bathroom door, imagining Mei. Picturing the younger woman’s lean body slick from the shower, imagining Mei’s hot mouth between her legs, licking and sucking, bringing Eve closer and closer to climax.

She leaned back in her chair and spread her legs wide, imagining and calling out silently, in the way of the Chanku. Calling to any mind willing and able to listen. Her breasts ached, her womb clenched and the need built. Eve closed her eyes against the growing arousal that had become as much a part of her identity as her name. She thought of Mei, and then she thought of Adam and Oliver and the things the four of them could do together, in that nice big king-size bed, back at the house in Montana.

But Mei was here, so most of all, she thought of Mei.

Mei closed her eyes as the hot water cascaded over her body. She’d not had a decent shower in weeks, bathing instead in the dirty sinks in public restrooms and quick showers at the occasional homeless shelter when she’d been lucky enough to find a bed. This was luxury unlike anything she’d experienced for far too long.

It felt wonderful. It felt beyond wonderful when she washed her hair with the expensive shampoo on the side of the tub and used the conditioner she’d never once been able to afford in her life. She’d grabbed a new razor out of a pack on the counter and, while she’d never had much body hair, went ahead and took the time to shave what was there.

Sleek and smooth and clean. It just didn’t get much better, especially since there was still plenty of hot water and she didn’t have to get out if she didn’t want to. Suddenly Eve popped into her thoughts and just like that, Mei’s nipples puckered up into tight, sensitive little beads and she felt a rush of heat between her legs.

What was it about Eve that turned her on so much? Mei had never been all that particular about her sexual partners, but she was most definitely heterosexual. At least she thought she was, until she thought of Eve. Eve was definitely beautiful. She was kind, and she smiled a lot. She had a fun sense of humor, but there was something in her eyes, something about the way Mei felt as if Eve were inside her, reading her thoughts, feeling her feelings.

Mei stood there for a moment longer with the water running over her shoulders, pondering the weirdness of it all. Slowly, the water cooled. Sighing, she turned the spigot off, wrapped her long mass of hair in the soft terry cloth towel and grabbed a second towel to dry herself. She glanced at the filthy clothes on the floor and kicked them into a pile.

She paused a moment, staring at the closed door. Was she ready to walk out into the room naked? Even with a towel around herself, Mei knew exactly where it would lead, but that was a good thing, for now, at least, as far as she was concerned. She felt drawn to Eve on so many levels, in so many different ways. Felt a connection to her that reminded Mei of the time they’d been together as children. Now though, there was a major difference. That same connection carried the weight and promise of two sensual women.

She’d trusted Eve then. She would trust her now. And just maybe, they’d still have time to shop.

Eve glanced up as Mei walked into the room. Mei’s green eyes were wide, her skin glistened dark and damp against the white terry cloth towel. Mei looked around with studied innocence and shrugged. “I left my clothes in the bathroom. They’re pretty dirty.”

“No problem. I’ve got things you can wear.” Eve slowly peeled herself out of the chair. Her heart pounded. Her sex throbbed and her nipples had puckered into such tight, needy little peaks that they ached. When she stood up, Mei stepped closer, the movement slow and subtle like a sinuous cat stalking its prey. Eve watched a single drop of water find its path from Mei’s throat to the dark valley between her breasts. It slipped beneath the towel and she imagined its damp trail down the middle of Mei’s belly to the soft thatch of dark curls beneath.

Eve realized she was staring and snapped her chin up. She caught herself in Mei’s green eyes and sensed a pressure behind her own eyes, as if Mei searched her mind. Could she read thoughts? Did she have the Chanku power even now, before the nutrients had had time to work their magic?

Mei swallowed and the sound was loud between them. She blinked slowly and her pupils narrowed. They changed to vertical slits, then slowly returned to their natural round shape. The effect was oddly feline, reminding Eve of a Siamese cat she’d had at one of her many foster homes.

“I don’t understand.” Mei’s whisper was a harsh counterpoint against the pounding of Eve’s heart.

“What?” Eve asked. She shook her head. Her mind felt fuzzy and thick, as if everything moved in slow motion. “What is it you don’t understand?”

Mei shook her head slowly, side to side. “I feel you in my head and my body responds to yours. There’s a sense that we have to have sex, we have to touch and share, but I don’t understand why. I’m not like this. Not usually.”

Eve licked her lips. How could she explain without telling her secrets? Were explanations all that necessary? Now, when all she wanted was to feel, to touch and taste and share her needs and desires?

She didn’t answer. Instead she reached out and cupped Mei’s cheek in the palm of her hand. Drew the woman forward until the damp heat of Mei’s body enveloped Eve. Mei smiled and shrugged, and her towel fell to the floor. She tilted her head and the one wrapping her hair slowly unwound and fell beside its mate.

Naked, she stared at Eve. Then, as if they’d done this many times before, Mei leaned close and kissed her full on the mouth. Her lips were firm, her tongue an insistent pressure against Eve’s mouth. Groaning, her body throbbing with heat and lust, Eve wrapped her arms around Mei and pulled her slim, damp body close against her own.

She smelled of fresh soap and floral shampoo, of need and want and the subtle hint of forest. The mingled scents filled Eve’s head, an aphrodisiac as powerful as Mei’s sleek, wet body.

Eve opened her thoughts. Opened to whatever she could find in Mei’s mind, and she was immediately swamped in the lush purity of Mei’s arousal, in sensation and expectation and want. Weakened by the power of Mei’s desire, Eve collapsed with her into the welcoming softness of the big bed.

They lay together, lost in the ripe sharing, the images passing from mind to mind without words. Heat spiraled through Eve’s core, and she knew Mei felt the same intense wash of pleasure. Her clothing was nothing more than an inconvenience, so Eve slipped out of her shorts and panties. She held her arms up while Mei peeled the soft tank top over her head and tossed it aside.

Thoughts of Adam swept over her with a brief wash of longing. His taut, muscular chest and rippling abs, the long blond hair falling over his eyes as his body covered hers. But he was gone and Mei was here, all slim and soft. Their bodies met, breast to breast, belly to belly, mouths exploring, hands kneading taut buttocks. All senses and thoughts attuned, one to the other, they pressed close and clung. Bodies slick with sweat and shower, they explored, touching, tasting, plucking at turgid nipples, tracing fingers through damp clefts and warm openings.

There was something almost mystical about Mei’s touch, the way her fingers brushed Eve’s nipples with the barest of pressure, shaped the curve of her breast and followed the line of each rib. Eve copied the younger woman, following her lead, stroking along the smooth line of her hip, teasing the smooth mound between her thighs.

She felt Mei’s response, the liquid rush of pleasure when Mei rolled her hips and helped drive Eve’s fingers over her hooded clit. Eve rubbed small circles over that tiny bundle of nerves and felt the electric charge between her own legs, felt the rush of warm fluids, the pulsing in her labia as blood rushed to her sex.

Eve raised her hips in response and Mei slipped lower on the bed to kneel between her legs. There was a feral look in her eyes, a needy, greedy sense of arousal that sent a shiver along Eve’s spine. Something was different. At first Eve wasn’t sure what, when it slammed into her, spiking her growing arousal even higher.

Mei was taking charge, usurping Eve’s sense of control with nothing more than a glance. She caught Eve watching her and smiled, but her thoughts suddenly disappeared behind solid, protective walls. Eve shivered again, but her lips parted and her womb fluttered in response. She grasped the bedspread with both hands, anchoring herself as Mei shoved pillows beneath her hips, raising her.

Preparing her.

Three weeks of screaming need, three weeks without Adam, with a body growing more aroused after each shift, had left her primed on the edge of orgasm. Mei slipped her hands beneath the pillows and grasped Eve’s buttocks in her long fingers. She lifted Eve’s hips even higher, licked her lips and leaned close.

Her silky hair formed a black curtain, hiding Mei from Eve’s view. She felt the brush of the long, damp strands across her belly and thighs and the muscles between her legs convulsed.

Warm breath touched her clit, a silky tongue parted her swollen labia and stroked her sex in one long, smooth sweep of heat.

Eve screamed, climaxing with Mei’s first touch. She tried to squeeze her thighs together, but Mei’s shoulders held them apart. That amazing tongue found her clit, circled it once, then twice. A second climax slammed through Eve’s body. She tried to pull away, but Mei’s fingers dug into her buttocks and held her in place.

Mei licked her now, long strokes from ass to clit, her tongue probing the damp entrance to Eve’s sex, circling her clit, almost painful now as she forced yet another orgasm on Eve.

Whimpering, Eve gave up her struggle for control. Her thighs fell limply to either side, her fingers tightened around the bedcovers and she was carried away by sensation. Only then, with her surrender complete, did Mei allow Eve back into her thoughts.

They were filled with a jumble of twisted, tangled images. Confusion, arousal, curiosity. Obviously Mei didn’t realize what she’d done. Didn’t know the power of her own mind.

How, Eve wondered. How did this young woman wield power she didn’t understand? Power obviously beyond what Eve herself could control. Body shuddering, legs trembling and jerking with each sweep of Mei’s velvety tongue, Eve finally opened her eyes. She caught Mei sitting back on her heels, staring warily at her.

Eve reached out and touched the top of Mei’s thigh. Mei jumped, blinked and turned her head slowly to look down at the spot where fingers met flesh.

“This is just too weird.” Mei shook her head. Her body trembled, but Eve wasn’t sure if it was from arousal or something else. “I felt you again, in my head. I knew what you wanted. Where to touch you, where to lick you, how hard. I felt as if you controlled everything I did. What’s going on?”

Shocked, Eve scooted back and sat against the headboard. “I didn’t feel that way at all. I felt as if you were in control, as if you’d taken control.”

Eyes narrowing to dark slits, Mei covered her breasts with folded arms and glared at Eve. Her lips and chin glistened, still bathed in Eve’s intimate moisture. “You were in my head. Admit it.”

“As you were in mine.” Eve patted the mattress next to her. “Come, sit here. I’ll try and explain, at least as much as I’m able.”

Moving warily, more like a frightened animal than a young woman, Mei scooted closer to Eve. At least she’d stopped trembling, and she used a corner of the sheet to wipe her mouth, scraping it defiantly across her face. “Okay. I’m waiting.”

Eve nodded and took a deep breath. Anton had been very specific about not telling anyone about the Chanku, at least until she was certain the other person carried the same genes. With Mei, Eve was almost sure, but not quite.

She reached for Mei’s hand, spread Mei’s fingers out against her own, and admired their long, slender length and the perfectly shaped fingernails. Unusual, she thought, for a young woman who was homeless to have such perfectly groomed hands. Eve looked up and caught Mei’s intense stare.

“I think,” she said, “in a way, we are related. I can’t explain all the details, at least not yet, but when my friend Adam arrives, I’ll be able to tell you more. I’ll know more. Adam and I can communicate telepathically. It’s something in our genetic code. Obviously you and I have the same ability. I’m guessing you share the same genes, but I’m not certain. Have you ever been able to read minds before?”

Mei shook her head. Her eyes were wide and green, though her pupils narrowed once again to that intriguing vertical slit.

“The pill I gave you enhances that ability, but it’s too soon for it to have had any effect on you. You must have a powerful mind if you can communicate and pick up thoughts without the nutrients in that capsule.”

“You said it was just a vitamin.”

There was no avoiding the accusation in Mei’s voice. Eve dipped her chin, but she raised her head and looked directly at Mei when she answered. “I know. I couldn’t say anything more until I knew for sure if it would affect you, but since you’re already capable of at least a moderate form of telepathy, I’m going to assume you’ll just keep getting stronger. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I really needed to know. I sensed something in you from the beginning.”

“Did you sense my need for you?” Mei surprised her when she leaned forward and kissed Eve. “Did you know my body was reacting to yours from the beginning?”

On safer ground, Eve grinned. “Oh yeah. The feeling was mutual. And ya know what? It’s your turn, sweetie.” She leaned over and caught one of Mei’s nipples between her teeth, then sucked it into her mouth. Mei arched her back and moaned.

Eve’s mind flooded with sensation and she felt the spike of need run directly from the nipple between her lips to the damp recesses between Mei’s thighs. Mei didn’t want subtlety, nor did she need slow and steady. She wanted to climax, needed an orgasm to soothe the roiling emotions and powerful arousal thrumming through her veins.

Sliding lower along Mei’s sleek body, Eve went directly for her clit. Suckling the tiny organ between her lips as if it were a nipple, she tongued the underside at the same time her fingers were finding their way closer to Mei’s damp heat. Suckling and licking, Eve lost herself in the unfamiliar flavors, the smooth yet surprisingly solid curve of Mei’s clit, and the thick and swollen lips of her sex.

Mei groaned and her thoughts continued spilling over into Eve. She wanted penetration. She hovered, close now to coming, but she needed the sense of fullness only a man could give her.

Or a very large vibrator. Smiling to herself, blocking her thoughts as she suckled and licked, Eve reached for the drawer next to the bed. Her fingers locked on the smooth surface of her brand new vibrator. Shaped like a penis and made of some sort of gel-like substance over a rigid core, it felt almost lifelike in her grasp. She’d bought it because the large size, the broad crown, and thickly veined surface reminded her of Adam.

Holding this plastic imitation in her hand, Eve suddenly realized how much she needed the real thing. Mei was the key. She’d found Mei, and her fear of Adam and the commitment he represented, seemed totally unimportant.

Mei whimpered and drew her back to the here and now. Eve rubbed the smooth, rounded tip of the dildo back and forth between Mei’s legs, sliding across the sensitive nerves surrounding her anus, then slowly between her feminine folds to the base of her clit. Eve kept up her licking and sucking, well aware of Mei’s frustration with Eve for not taking her over the edge.

Mei raised her hips, bucking against Eve’s busy tongue and lips and she squirmed when the slick dildo slipped along the damp cleft between her cheeks, pausing to press just a little harder at her tightly puckered sphincter.

Eve pressed again and Mei moaned. Her body shuddered and her thoughts swirled incoherently. A sense of want and need, of delicious yearnings and anxious pleas for fulfillment drew Eve once again to the verge of coming.

Like Mei, she hung there, her own body awash in shared sensation, caught on the edge of her own climax, tuned to every touch of her tongue against Mei’s heat, every small slide of the lifelike phallus over anxious nerves. Finally, hands trembling, Eve placed the thick head of the vibrator against the damp entrance to Mei’s sex, clamped down on her clit with her lips and tongue and pushed the vibrator deep inside. At the same time, she flipped the base and turned it on.

Eve felt the tip press up against the mouth of Mei’s womb, only it was Eve’s womb that clenched against the vibrating phallus. Mei’s thoughts swamped Eve’s mind and the link was eternal, complete, the orgasm shared, one woman to the other. Mei arched her back and screamed. Eve’s muscles went rigid as she climaxed as well. She held the fake cock deep inside Mei, and felt the shivering life in the damned thing as if it pulsed against her own cervix.

Only it wasn’t made of plastic. Wasn’t held in her own hand at all. It was Adam pressing deep inside. Eve felt the roll of his hips as he thrust harder, heard his harsh, rasping breath as he struggled for control. Her mind swirled in convoluted eddies of fantasy and memory and shared sensation. Mei, Adam, and Oliver. The three of them mingling and becoming one.

Linked, all of them loving Eve. Loving Mei. A single entity, spilling out of Eve’s thoughts, joining Mei’s experience to Eve’s, combining them all in a lush melding of pure sexual arousal and desire.

Gasping for air, Eve set up a slow and steady rhythm. She felt as if she fucked herself, as if each penetrating slide inside Mei stretched her own channel around the warm bulk of the vibrating phallus.

She moved it faster and found a rhythm to match the tight clenching pulse of Mei’s orgasm. Images of Adam and Oliver faded away. Now Eve’s mind raced with the sense of Mei’s arousal, Mei’s past, Mei’s needs.

And over it all was a knowledge of something other. Something beyond Chanku. Something feral and cruel, powerful and alone.

Always alone.

Shaken by alien images and feelings, by unfamiliar sensations, and missing Adam and Oliver more than she ever would have imagined, Eve slowly pulled the vibrator out of Mei’s channel. Mei whimpered, her clenching muscles grasping the phallus even as Eve pulled it free.

Breathing hard, Eve planted one more kiss on Mei’s smooth mound, just above her clit, and then she backed away.

She wasn’t sure. Couldn’t tell why or what was different about this woman. Eve had very little experience of her own as Chanku, though she’d learned much from her links with both Keisha and Xandi. Still, what she felt now was totally alien, this feeling she had with the woman who sprawled boneless and sated in her bed. The woman who sighed with repletion, who gazed at her out of half-lidded eyes.

Mei was different. Chanku, yet not. Feral, intelligent, wild and free, yet trapped in her own world of images and half-memories.

Memories that confused and bedeviled Eve. Running her hand softly along Mei’s trembling flank, she buried her worries behind a smile and thought longingly of Adam. He would know what was wrong. Adam always had answers. He fixed things, didn’t he?

She lay down beside Mei and closed her eyes. She thought again of Adam and Oliver. They had belonged in her fantasy, but now she was surprised that for once their images came into her mind first, before the other members of the Montana pack. Still, the others were there as well. Stefan, so tall and handsome and full of fun, his mate Xandi, always practical but with a twinkle in her eye, her perfect baby boy snuggled in her arms.

Keisha, regal and beautiful, an African princess in bearing and action with her dark hair pulled back in braids and beads, her amber eyes aware of so much more than Eve had wanted to share. And then there was Keisha’s mate, Anton. Just thinking of Anton sent a shiver along Eve’s spine. He was all gorgeous male and pure mystery combined, powerful and aloof, yet an absolute pussycat where Keisha and their little girl, Lily Milina were involved. A Chanku shapeshifter, a wizard, a father, and a friend. He’d frightened her at first, but Eve knew Anton was someone she could always count on.

Just as she could count on Adam Wolf. And Oliver.

Why, when she thought of Oliver, did she always smile? Eve wasn’t quite sure, but Anton’s manservant-slash-friend was definitely special. Thinking of all the new men in her life, Eve rolled to her back and listened to Mei’s breathing as it slowed, steadied, and took on the cadence of sleep.

Mei was a mystery. Obviously not purely human, yet not entirely Chanku, either. Adam would know what to do. Like Anton Cheval, Adam always seemed to have answers.

Eve really hoped he could fix the truck. She wasn’t necessarily worried about Mei. Just curious, more than anything. Whatever mystery surrounded the young woman would eventually come to light, but damn, the truck was something else. She’d ripped a lot of stuff loose under the hood. Stuff that might be really important. She hoped Adam saw the humor in what she’d done. It wouldn’t be nearly as great a plan if her actions made him angry.

She really shouldn’t doubt his ability to repair her unskilled attempts at vandalism. Adam could do it. He could do anything. Hopefully, if he still wanted her, he’d recognize the reason for her actions.

Hopefully.

Feeling only moderately guilty for damaging Stefan’s birthday gift, Eve closed her eyes and drifted into sleep.