Free Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set by Megan Hart Page B

But I am real, Monica.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t... I can’t...”
    That was it. He’d had it. This woman had blown into his life like a fucking hurricane. He’d never asked for it.
    â€œFuck this noise,” Jordan said. “All I ever wanted was to do my job and be left alone. You can believe in monsters, but you can’t believe in me?”
    He didn’t realize how much he’d wanted her to answer him until she didn’t, but all she gave him was her silence. His fingers curled again, pressing old wounds before he could force them to open. Then without another word, Jordan left her there alone.

CHAPTER 12
    â€œI t’s reptile, we’re pretty sure of that.” Ted pushed his glasses up on his nose and waved expansively. “Based on the blood samples you gave us and some of those markings, I compared it with a case Boris and I were on last year in Miami. Rangers had found a bunch of gators slaughtered, figured poachers, of course, but we hunted what turned out to be a monstrous fucking... Hell, it was a dinosaur, I’m telling you.”
    Monica couldn’t sit still. She had Ted and Vadim in her bungalow, both of them chowing down on the deli platters DiNero’s cook had sent down, but she couldn’t take even a bite. Not with Jordan mere steps away in the next bungalow.
    You can believe in monsters, but you can’t believe in me.
    â€œYou’re sure it’s reptilian?” she asked finally. “It couldn’t possibly be something else? Something we haven’t seen before?”
    Vadim looked up from the sandwich he’d been piling high with meat and cheese. “What is this? You have something, Monica?”
    She opened her mouth to spill it all, but at the last moment, her jaw shut with a snap of her teeth so hard on her tongue that tears sparked in her eyes. Secrets tasted like blood, she thought. She poured herself a glass of DiNero’s whiskey and sipped it, relishing the burn.
    Ted shoveled a handful of chips into his mouth and kept talking. Monica liked Ted a lot, but right now with him misdirecting Vadim’s attention from her, she kind of loved him. She pretended she hadn’t heard Vadim ask her anything at all.
    â€œThe patterns are almost identical,” Ted said. “It could be something else, I guess, but I think we should go in armed for dino.”
    â€œWhat happened to the one you went after in Miami?” Monica asked.
    Ted sighed. “It went down in the swamp, sank like a stone. Gators were on it before we could even get close enough to try to net it or anything. But it only took a couple shotgun blasts. Thing looked like a raptor of some kind. It wasn’t much bigger than a gator—I mean, I’ve seen ones that were a lot bigger. But it stood on hind legs and worked with its front ones. Definitely smart enough to work at a lock. I could’ve kicked myself for not trying to tranq it, but when something with teeth the size of your fist is coming at you...”
    â€œThat’s the nature of our work,” Vadim put in. “If it were easy to prove what we find, we’d be out of our jobs, eh?”
    He gave Monica a long, steady look that she had to pretend she didn’t notice. Everything in her world had turned upside down. She couldn’t stop turning it over and over in her head. Jordan, his touch, the sound of his voice, the way he’d made her feel.
    There’d been more than a few men after Carl. She’d lost herself in physical sensation to keep herself from feeling anything else, and it had worked, in the short-term. But Jordan had been the only man so far who’d entirely chased away the remnants of the memories, left nothing lingering behind.
    Sex was only sex, though.
    â€œMonica?”
    She tore herself away from memories of Jordan’s hands on her and faced Vadim. He’d been there for her, too, in many other ways that had saved her.