Free Primal Cravings by Susan Sizemore

shaking. What the hell?
    He pulled her to her feet. Touching her skin sent electric shocks of desire through Jake. She swayed for a second when he abruptly let her go and stepped back.
    “What did you do?” he asked again.
    McCoy blinked slowly, took a shaky breath. “She’ll be okay now,” she said. “She’ll be okay.”
    “What about you? Are you going to be okay?”
    McCoy’s tongue slowly moistened her lips. The gesture was incredibly sensual. “I’ve got to keep it together,” she said, voice husky. “Just get through it.”
    Jake watched worriedly as McCoy slowly turned to Laurent Wolf. Wolf had freed the prisoner from her bonds. He wrapped the black satin covering around her and gently lifted the woman into his arms.
    “She’s asleep,” McCoy told the other vampire. “She needs to sleep it off. Be careful with her.”
    “Of course,” Laurent promised.
    Harry put a hand on Laurent’s shoulder. “Clean up crew’s been called. We better get going.”
    Laurent nodded. He looked at Jake. “Thanks for the help. Here’s what I found out.”
    Jake opened his mind for the rush of telepathic information Laurent sent into his head. He put it aside to sort through later. Time for him and McCoy to get back to their own assignment—and hope that helping find the missing woman turned out to be more than a sidebar adventure.
    Besides, he had an almost overwhelming urge to get Dee McCoy alone. He wanted her away from every male in the world but himself. He accepted the instinctual urge to make this female his exclusive mate. He didn’t know what to do about it in the long term, but for now he had to get her alone before he started snapping, snarling, and making an utter vampire fool of himself.
    “Let’s go,” he said to McCoy.
    She nodded. She took a step, and stumbled. Only to jerk away when Jake would have steadied her. She looked at him with wild, hungry, pain-filled eyes. “Don’t touch me! For both our sakes, you can’t touch me right now!”
    He backed off, and let her proceed him up the basement stairs. He tried not to notice the way her hips swayed invitingly in her tight jeans as he followed.
    Jake was glad to get out of the house, to have a few moments alone outside before once more suffering being closed in the SUV with the female he couldn’t touch. He took deep breaths while squinting in the light of the rising sun. He stretched and rolled his shoulders. His body wanted sustenance, his brain wanted sleep. Even vampires needed to sleep sometimes. Stress and sleep deprivation did things to a mind, even a strong, telepathic mind.
    Someone was watching him.
    Jake looked around cautiously. He didn’t see anyone. Was someone there? He turned around slowly, searching with all his weary senses. What he felt wasn’t tangible.
    “Probably nothing there,” he muttered. He waited until the passenger door had closed behind McCoy before following her to the SUV. He imagined a gaze on his back, like a knife between his shoulder blades, the entire way.
    * * *
    “May I make an observation?”
    Dee hoped he wasn’t about to mention the blood on her lower lip. She was biting it so hard to keep the moaning inside that she knew she’d broken the skin. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides. Her eyes were closed as she tried to meditate. She burned with aching need—she was afraid her insides were literally on fire. She fought the need to squirm and writhe and denied the longing to be touched by staying very, very still. As still as death.
    She wanted to grab the male beside her and have her way with him, over and over, until the maddening need went away. Since she couldn’t do that, she didn’t want to be reminded of his presence.
    “No talk. Drive,” she managed to get out.
    “You’re in heat.”
    Dee’s eyes flew open so she could glare at the vampire. “That’s—that’s so rude!”
    Piper kept his gaze on the road. His tone remained calm, matter of fact. “It is the truth.”
    It