She glanced over her shoulder in disbelief. His gaze danced with amusement and the sun that broke through the treetops cast shadows on his closely shaved dark head. Therapeutic teddy bear? The guy looked like he should be playing for the NBA, not hunting bad guys in a government agency.
“Yeah well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to treat you like my new BFF.”
“I figure you guys have slept together or are damn close to doing it,” Agent Hilliard prodded anyway. “But he’s backing off. Let me guess. Does he think you’ll get hurt?”
Well, crap, this guy was pretty perceptive. “Something like that.”
“And would you?”
She already had been. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Sure it does. Nobody wants to see you hurt, Sienna.”
“Are you kidding me? Nobody gives a rat’s ass about me,” she said with a disbelieving laugh. “I’m just the means to an end. If you guys didn’t believe I was hoarding information, you’d have wiped my memory by now.”
“I’m not going to lie. You’re probably right.” Hilliard sobered and shook his head. “But Warrick does care for you. I’ve known the guy long enough to be able to see it.”
Sienna swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and was horrified to feel tears welling in her eyes. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Obviously the possibility of a future between us is zilch.”
And why had she just said that? Man, he must really be working his big therapeutic teddy-bear mojo.
“Ah shit. I made you cry.”
There was a crunching of footsteps, before she felt Agent Hilliard slip an arm around her shoulder.
“I’m fine.” She shook her head and brushed away the tears. “Really, I am. I understand perfectly why your community has the rules it does. I get it. You need to keep the shifter blood strong. Whatever is going on with Warrick and me is fleeting, and I’m fine with that.”
Right. Like I’d be fine with a lobotomy. She forced a tremulous smile and hoped he couldn’t read the lie in her eyes.
Agent Hilliard sighed and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Sienna. We’re a hard group to get involved with. Most humans have no idea what we are. If we do get sexually involved with your kind, we just end up looking like commitment-phobic bastards.”
Your kind. It was so odd to hear it phrased that way. But she could understand what he was saying. In fact it’s exactly the impression Warrick had left on her. Not so much the bastard part—well, until lately—but definitely a commitment-phobe who’d seemed to go through his share of women.
“Shit, Donovan’s gonna kill me if he finds out we had this talk,” Hilliard muttered with a shake of his head. “I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
“No. I appreciate the talk. Actually, it was a good reminder that I need to keep my feet firmly grounded.”
She knew she wasn’t supposed to trust anyone really, but every one of her instincts screamed that Agent Hilliard wasn’t anything but a nice guy and a dedicated agent. She glanced up at him curiously.
“What’s your first name, Agent Hilliard?”
The agent grinned, flashing white teeth against his dark skin. “Darrius.”
“Well,” she forced a tremulous smile and stood on her tiptoes to brush a kiss across his cheek, “Thank you for the pep talk, Darrius. I really did appreciate it.”
Warrick stood from where he crouched by one of the drugged shifters and shoved a hand through his hair. His gaze darted back to the house for what must’ve been the tenth time in the last hour.
Sienna was in there. Alone with Hilliard, and had been for most of the day. The thought of the two of them spending so much time together sent a restlessness through him that put him on edge. Made his skin itch and his muscles tense. He didn’t much care for the idea of Sienna alone with any guy this long. But it was worse knowing she was with Hilliard—a born-and-bred flirt.
He paced down to the end of the barn where Quinton was just finishing up collecting blood samples.
“You seen Larson around?”
“Took off for town about an hour ago with Rafferty,” Quinton muttered, setting the vials into some kind of lunch-box-looking thing. “Why, what’s going on?”
“I was thinking maybe I should go back to the house and relieve Hilliard for a bit. He could probably use a break.”
Quinton grunted and shook his head. “I’m sure Hilliard is doing just fine.”
Irritation pricked and Warrick’s mouth tightened. “Either way, I think I should go up there to replace him.”
Placing the last vial of blood into the box, Quinton zipped it up and stood. “You know what I think, Donovan? That you should stop letting a slip of a human girl lead you around by your dick.”