Soulless(89)

“That depends.” Lord Maccon lay passive in her arms. On full-moon night in human form, he was dependent upon her ability and her whim for his sanity. It did not sit well with an Alpha. All the choices were hers, including this one. “Have you decided which you prefer?”

“They did ask for my cooperation,” she informed him coyly. Miss Tarabotti was enjoying having the upper hand over Lord Maccon.

The earl looked worried. “And?”

Alexia had never even contemplated Mr. Siemons's offer as a real possibility. Yet Lord Maccon was looking at her as though she had actually had a choice. How could she explain to the earl that, quite apart from anything else—including their constant arguments—he had her complete loyalty? She could not—not without having to admit, to herself or him, why that might be the case.

“Let us simply say,” she said at last, “that I prefer your methods.”

Lord Maccon went perfectly still. A gleam entered his beautiful tawny eyes. “Is that so? Which ones?” Miss Tarabotti pinched him for such blatant innuendo. It did not matter where she pinched, as the earl was a bare canvas of pinchability.

“Ow!” said the Alpha, looking pained. “What was that for?”

“May I remind you we are in grave danger? I have managed to acquire for us, at most, an hour of grace time.”

“How on earth did you finagle that?” he asked, rubbing the place she had just pinched.

Alexia smiled. “Luckily, your files on me did not report everything. I simply told Mr. Siemons my preternatural powers took an hour to activate.”

“And they threw you into this cell with me anyway?” Lord Maccon was not pleased in the least by this bit of information.

“Did I not just say that I preferred your methods? Now you know why.” Alexia twitched uncomfortably. She was getting a cramp in one of her shoulders. Lord Maccon's torso was rather too large to have one's arms wrapped around for an extended period of time, especially when one was lying on a hard wooden floor. Not that she was about to complain, mind you.

Her evident discomfort made the earl ask, in all seriousness, “I did not hurt you, did I?”

Miss Tarabotti cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean, when I attacked you just now, in wolf form? We werewolves do not remember much that happens during the full moon, you see. It is all embarrassingly instinctual,” he admitted.

Miss Tarabotti patted him reassuringly. “I think you realized, almost despite yourself, that it was me you nearly killed.”

“I smelled you,” he admitted gruffly. “It sparked off a whole different set of instincts. I do remember being very confused, but not much else.”

“What kind of different instincts?” Miss Tarabotti asked archly. She knew she was treading dangerous ground, but for some reason she could not resist encouraging him. She wanted to hear him say it. She wondered at what time she had become such a hardened flirt. Well, she reasoned, one must get something from one’s mother’s side of the family.

“Mmm. The reproductive variety.” The earl began to nibble her neck with wholly concentrated interest.

Miss Tarabotti's innards turned toward a feel of mashed potatoes. Fighting her own urge to nibble back, she pinched him again, harder this time.

“Ow! Stop that!” He left off nibbling and glared at her. It was a funny thing to see such an expression of wounded dignity on the face of such an enormous and highly dangerous man—even if he was naked.

Alexia said practically, “We have no time for such monkeyshines. We must determine a way out of this predicament. We have to rescue Lord Akeldama, and we absolutely must close this wretched club down. Your amorous intentions are not currently part of the agenda.”

“Is there a way they might become so, in the not-too-distant future?” Lord Maccon asked meekly, shifting against her in a manner that ensured she realized the nibbling had affected his outsides just as much as her insides. Alexia was partly shocked, partly intrigued by the idea that as he was naked, she might actually get to see what he looked like. She had seen sketches of the nude male, of course, for purely technical purposes. She was given to wonder if werewolves were anatomically bigger in certain areas. Of course, she was touching Lord Maccon, so such supernatural traits ought rightly to be canceled out, but in the interest of scientific curiosity, she shifted her lower body away from him a handbreadth and peeked downward. She was thwarted by the material of her own skirt wadded between them.

Taking her movement as withdrawal rather than curiosity, the earl pulled her back against him possessively. He slid one leg between her two, trying to shift multiple skirts and petticoats out of his way.