Hot Blooded

Tangling with thorny
bushes, angry cats or rambunctious dogs, falling on a lawn rake. Getting a
little carried away during sex." He pushed a bra strap down over her shoulder,
then pulled the cup away and downward, exposing her breast completely.
    It wasn't exactly unnecessary, she told herself. The scratches did continue
an inch or so beyond the fabric. What was unnecessary was the way her body
reacted to his intense scrutiny, and the way her nipple tightened in the chilled
air of the exam room.
    When he licked his lips, she almost moaned.
    "Did any of those other patients with scratches ever claim they were attacked
by a werewolf?" she asked, but her voice was barely more than a whisper.
    His eyes still on her breast, he put a little more ointment on his gloved
hand. "Not a one. Until now."
    She blinked slowly. "You wouldn't lie to me about that, now, would you?"
    "Not on your life." He met her eyes, held them as his hand moved to massage
the ointment over her breast. He had, she thought, beautiful eyes. Dark and
intense and full of sexual promises that didn't need to be spoken aloud. His
fingers brushed her nipple and she bit her bottom lip.
    "So do you suppose you'll turn into a werewolf now, too?"
    His voice, too, had lowered, turned rough.
    He was teasing her now, with his words as well as his fingers, and she wasn't
objecting. Shivers tiptoed up her spine. "I don't know. The mythology says it
has to be a bite for that to happen, but—"
    "He didn't bite you, then?"
    "N-no."
    "Damn stupid werewolf, if you ask me." Again his fingers flicked across her
nipple.
    She sucked in a breath and drew back, just a little. With more regret than
she could even believe, she tugged the bra's cup back into place.
    He sighed as if he regretted it, too. "So just what does a hundred-pound
redhead do with a werewolf, once she finds it?"
    "Study it. Talk to it, if that's possible. Try to learn what it is, how much
of the folklore is true and how much isn't."
    He smirked a little, lowering his eyes.
    "I take it you don't approve of those goals?"
    He shrugged. "Lie back and I'll bind you up." He caught her quick look. She
knew damn well he'd intended the double entendre. "Bandage your cuts," he
corrected.
    She laid down on the table, and he unrolled soft gauze over the
ointment-daubed scratches. "What would
you
do?"
    He smoothed tape over the gauze to hold it in place. "I'm a doctor," he said.
"I suppose I'd try to help it, if that were possible. Cure it, if that was what
it wanted. And I'd keep its secrets, either way. Not write them up for some
scientific journal and my own fame and glory."
    "Is that what you think I'm after? Fame and glory?"
    "Isn't it?"
    "No," she said. He finished with the bandages, never baring her breast again.
She sat up, and he handed her the blouse.
    "Well, that's good to know." He didn't sound as if he believed her. And he
watched her while she pulled her blouse on, watched her while she buttoned it.
    "Thank you for patching me up," she said.
    "It was my pleasure." He put extra emphasis on the word "pleasure."
    "Don't be too sure about that."
    He met her eyes, silently acknowledging that he got the message, loud and
clear.

----
Chapter 2
    Â« ^ »
    JENNY walked back to the sprawling white plantation house and went inside to
find the crew—three grad students who thought they were smarter than her and one
department head who knew he was—gathered in the dining room, munching on
pastries and slugging down coffee.
    "Where have you been all morning?" Professor Hinkle asked in his usual
tone—the one that always seemed to insinuate something, never quite letting on
what.
    "Interviewing some of the locals in town. No hits, so far." She wasn't about
to tell him about her lycanthropic encounter and subsequent visit to the
hotter-than-hell doctor. He wouldn't believe her about the werewolf anyway. No,
not until she had
proof
.
    "Did you see anything last night?" Carrie asked. She was the most gullible.
Believed everything until it was proven false, when the ideal cryptozoologist
practiced the opposite. She had a long way to go.
    "Wild boar," she replied. "Ran out of the woods at me so suddenly, I almost
darted it."
    Carrie grinned. Mike and Toby exchanged smirks that said only a woman would
be so jumpy. Right, she'd like to see one of the "twins" come face-to-face with
that thing from last night. They'd have jumped right out of their matching
chinos