Heart and Soul Read Online Free

oily ponytail, Mike simply stared at the man for a long moment. Finally, enlightenment appeared in the guy’s murky brown eyes, and he shrugged and mumbled, “Sorry,” before disappearing into the crowd.
    “You don’t understand the concept of being anonymous, do you, Mike?” Leandra drawled, studying him with pursed lips.
    Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, he answered, “I understand the concept. I just don’t always see the point.” Taking the stool next to her, he met the bartender’s eyes. The old man ambled their way, limping.
    “The usual?” Conrad asked, his voice raspy from years of smoke.
    Mike nodded and glanced at Leandra with a raised brow. “Rum and coke, heavy on the rum,” she told Conrad.
    As Conrad limped away, Leandra asked, “You come in here often?”
    Mike shrugged. “Often enough. Told you I patrolled around here. I get thirsty.” And often desperate to drink her out of his mind. This was his chosen den when that was the plan. Conrad didn’t water the drinks, and the liquor wasn’t so cheap it damn near killed the lining of the stomach.
    Plus it was far away from any place he had ever expected to see Leandra.
    Not that it mattered much whether he expected to see her or not. He knew that. Mike saw her everywhere he went, every time he closed his eyes, every time he took a woman and pretended she was the one he really wanted.
    And now every time he came in here, he had a bad feeling he was going to remember the image of her straddling the barstool, her skin smooth and dark as chocolate, that smirk on her lips as she met his eyes in the mirror hanging on the bar.
    And her eyes . . . that warm, golden shade of amber, always so sad.
    He’d remember that, probably more than anything else.
    She had to come to his favorite dive, didn’t she?
    As Conrad slid their drinks in front of him, Mike stood, intending to lose himself in the shadows and try to dull his mind a little.
    But she followed him, and Mike was certain his control would snap before the night was over. He leaned against the wall, staring at the sparsely crowded dance floor as though the dancers there enthralled him.
    Even through the air reeking of smoke, sweat, and alcohol, he could smell her. The stuff she used in her hair, the lotion she smoothed on her skin, and her , that sweet scent that was simply Leandra. She stood at his side, staring out at the dance floor as she sipped her rum and coke.
    Mike couldn’t think of a damn thing he wanted more than to touch her. To caress the naked flesh exposed between shirt and pants, thread his hands through the thick wealth of braids that fell down her back . . . tear those damned clothes away from her so he could feast on that long, sleekly powerful body.
    “There’s an exit at the back if you don’t want to hang around,” he said flatly. Not even ten minutes ago, he’d been dying to keep her with him for just a few minutes. But she’d always taken off running in the opposite direction after less than two. He hadn’t had to lash so tightly onto his control before, and it was tearing at him.
    The hunger rising in him teased the creature that lay deep within him, and Mike found himself battling both his own lust and the driving hungers of the wolf. The wolf—that odd entity that had placed a mark on him before Mike was even born, marking him as different, giving him the power to shift from man to wolf whenever he chose.
    It had been that part of him, that deep and primal part, that had recognized Leandra years ago. That last day, when she had come back to Eli’s, prepared to accept her judgment. Prepared to die.
    Mike had known it then. She would be his: his mate, his woman, his partner.
    Wolves mated for life, and he wanted this woman with everything he had inside him.
    Getting her to understand it, though, had proven harder than hell. She wouldn’t slow down enough for him to even speak with her, much less try to develop any sort of relationship. He needed that, to establish