Instead, Lucan found his thoughts drifting to a quiet Beacon Hill apartment, back to a midnight visit that never should have happened. Like her jasmine scent, the memory of Gabrielle's soft skin and warm, willing body coiled itself around him. He tensed, his sex rousing at the very thought of her.
Damn it.
This was the reason he hadn't already brought her under Breed protection here at the compound. At a distance, she was distracting. In close quarters, she would prove a bloody disaster.
"You all right?" Gideon asked, his chair spun around, so that he faced Lucan. "That's some major fury you're wearing, buddy."
Lucan snapped out of his dark musings long enough to realize that his fangs had begun to lengthen in his mouth, his vision sharpened by the slivering of his pupils. But it wasn't rage that transformed him. It was lust, and he was going to have to slake it, sooner than later. With that thought pounding in his veins, Lucan grabbed Gabrielle's cell phone from the desktop where it lay, and stalked out of the lab.
Chapter Seven
"Ten more minutes to heaven," Gabrielle said, peering into her opened oven and letting the rich aroma of homemade baked manicotti waft into the kitchen of her apartment.
She closed the windowed door, reset the digital timer, then poured herself another glass of red wine and carried it with her into the living room. An old Sarah McLachlan CD was playing softly on the sound system. At a few minutes past seven in the evening, Gabrielle was finally beginning to unwind from her little morning adventure at the abandoned asylum. She had gotten a couple of decent shots that might amount to something, but best of all, she had managed to escape the scary-looking bruiser who'd apparently been running security detail for the place.
That alone was worth celebrating.
Gabrielle folded herself into the cushioned corner of her sofa, her skin warm beneath dove-gray yoga pants and a pink, long-sleeved tee-shirt. Her hair was still damp from her recent bath, loose tendrils slipping out of the careless ponytail fixed haphazardly at the nape of her neck. Freshly scrubbed and chilling out at last, she was more than glad to settle in for the night and enjoy her solitude.
So when the doorbell rang not a minute later, she cursed under her breath and considered ignoring the unwanted intrusion. It rang a second time, insistent, followed by a sharp rap delivered by a rather powerful hand that didn't sound like it was going to take no for an answer.
"Gabrielle."
She was already on her feet and cautiously walking halfway to the door when she heard a voice she recognized at once. She shouldn't know it with such certainty, but she did. Lucan Thorne's deep baritone came through the door and into her bones like a sound she'd heard a thousand times before, soothing her even as it kick-started her pulse into a sudden flutter of anticipation.
Surprised, more pleased than she wanted to admit, Gabrielle unfastened the multiple locks and opened the door to him.
"Hi."
"Hello, Gabrielle."
He greeted her with an unsettling familiarity, his eyes intense beneath the dark slashes of his brows. That piercing gaze traveled a slow, downward path, from the top of her mussed head, to the silk-screened peace sign stretched across her braless chest, to the bare toes peeking out from the flared legs of her low-slung pants.
"I wasn't expecting anyone." She said it as an excuse for her appearance, but Thorne didn't seem to mind. In fact, as his attention came back to her face, Gabrielle felt a sudden flush of heat fill her cheeks for the way he was looking at her.
Like he wanted to devour her where she stood.
"Oh, you have my cell phone," she said, blurting out the obvious when she spotted the gleam of silver metal in his big hand.
He held it out to her. "Later than intended. My apologies."
Was it her imagination, or did his fingers deliberately brush hers as she took the device from his grasp?
"Thanks for returning it," she said, still caught in the hold of his gaze. "Were you, ah... were you able to do anything with the images?"
"Yes. They were very helpful."
She exhaled a sigh, relieved to hear that the police might, at last, be on her side in this. "Do you think you'll be able to catch the guys in the photos?"
"I'm certain of it."
His tone was so dark, she didn't doubt him for a second. Actually, she was getting the feeling that Detective Thorne was a bad guy's worst nightmare.
"Well, that's great news. I've got to admit, this whole thing has been making me a little jumpy. I guess witnessing a brutal murder will do that to a person, right?"
He gave her only the barest nod of agreement. A man of few words, evidently, but then who needed conversation when you had soul-stripping eyes like his?
To her relief and annoyance, from behind her in the kitchen, the oven timer started beeping. "Shit. That's, um - that's my dinner. I'd better grab it before the smoke alarm goes off. Wait here for a sec - I mean, do you want to - ?" She took a calming breath, unused to being so rattled by anyone. "Come in, please. I'll be right back."
Without hesitation, Lucan Thorne stepped inside the apartment as Gabrielle turned to set down her cell phone and liberate her manicotti from the oven.
"Am I interrupting something?"
She was surprised to hear him in the kitchen with her so quickly, as if he had been silently on her heels from the instant she invited him in. Gabrielle lifted the pan of steaming pasta out of the oven and set it down on the range top to cool. She stripped off her hot mitts and turned to give the detective a proud grin.
"I'm celebrating."
He cocked his head to regard the quiet space around them. "Alone?"