Change of Heart 05 - Forging the Future Read Online Free Page B

you.”
    “That’s a very kind offer, but your yareah is already not enjoying my presence here.”
    “I am, though… enjoying your presence. You’re very easy on the eyes.”
    “As are you.”
    He leaned forward and wrapped his hands around the bars of the gate. “I’ve never seen such dark gray eyes before.”
    His were a lovely warm blue.
    “Let me come up there with you.”
    I shook my head. “I can’t cheat on my semel.”
    “You don’t even know who your semel is.”
    “But that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten me as well. I have to go on the assumption that he’s out there, missing me.”
    “You’re not missing him.”
    That was a lie, though, because the idea of a mate, the one person who knew me… him, I had been missing for so very long.
    “He might be dead.”
    “That’s possible,” I replied, my throat suddenly dry.
    “Even if you find him, do you really want to be returned to a place you don’t know? To strangers? Wouldn’t you rather stay here and make a new life?”
    “I still want to know about my old one, and it would be better if I met my semel without your scent all over me.”
    He growled then, which startled me. “Oh, but Jim, I want my scent all over you.”
    It was hot, sexy, but I knew how it would play out, so that leeched the heat from his words. Just his fingers on my skin lifting my chin had stung. Having him kiss me, bite me, claw me—all the things panthers did in bed—would make me scream, and not in a good way.
    “Dinner tomorrow,” I said softly. “I’ll see you.”
    “Until then,” he agreed after a moment.
    I turned for the door, and when he called for me, I smiled and waved. After I locked the door behind me, the wave of relief was instantaneous. Yes, he was a nice man, just not the one for me. Until I knew if the man to whom I’d belonged was dead or alive, I wasn’t about to take another to bed. Not that my body would seemingly allow it anyway. I had a whole new batch of uncertainty to contend with. Just thinking was exhausting because I was scared all over again.
    Once inside my apartment, I was going to take a shower first, because I smelled like smoke and alcohol, but I was too exhausted and so collapsed onto the air mattress that needed to be inflated a bit. It turned out that it didn’t matter. I only managed to toe off my shoes before I passed out.

Chapter 3

     
    I N MY dream the noise was a train, but what it turned out to really be was pounding on my front door. When I figured that out, woke up enough to make sense of my surroundings, I stagger-stepped across the small space—only 350 square feet total—and opened the door as far as the chain would allow.
    Two men stood on the other side, and even though they smelled like panthers, they gave off a policeman vibe.
    “Can I help you?” I asked, my voice gravelly since I’d just woken.
    “Jim Smith?” the one standing closest asked.
    I grunted.
    He smiled instantly, and my brain processed how striking he was. Short hair, immaculate beard and mustache, blue-blue eyes, thick brows, long straight nose, and those full lips that made you think I wouldn’t mind taking a bite of those .
    “Hi,” I said breathlessly.
    The dark navy blue suit fit him perfectly—like it was made for him, which perhaps it was—hugging his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs.
    “Hello,” he greeted. A faint accent warmed his voice. “I’m Dov Yadin, and I work for Domin Thorne, the akhen-aten.”
    “Okay.”
    He turned sideways so I could see the man behind him, also handsome, but in a different way. His partner made me think of men who brawled in bars, slept with too many people to count, and drank like fish. He was not as polished, instead a bit rumpled, but the rakish grin, bright red hair, and dancing green eyes put me more at ease than his more pristine counterpart’s handsome visage.
    “Wickham Morris,” he said quickly. “Wick. Good morning to ya.”
    He had an accent too, though his was