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Motel was just a cozy little getaway...
    Thinking she must be out of her ever-loving mind, Eric pulled into the lot—not because he planned on leaving her there, but simply because he wanted to be able to focus on the argument they were about to have without the distraction of driving. He was just slowing down to pull into a parking space, when the sign for the building next door caught his eye. It was a women’s shelter, and he suddenly realized why Chelsea had chosen this particular establishment. She had no intention of getting a room at the creepy, sleep-with-a-knife-under-your-pillow motel, because she planned on staying at the shelter.
    Like hell, he thought, knowing that too many things could go wrong with her half-baked plan. What if they didn’t have room for her, or turned her away? She’d be left in the middle of Wesley with no car, no money and no goddamn place to go.
    “Screw this,” he muttered, gunning the gas. As he steered out of the parking lot and back onto the rain-slick road, she twisted in her seat, grabbing his forearm. It was the first time she’d touched his skin and his breath hissed through his teeth from the piercing jolt of awareness. It burst through him like a freaking detonation.
    “What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice sharp. “Turn around and take me back there!”
    He worked his jaw, ready for the argument that had already arrived, and so desperate for a cigarette he could have begged for one. “Forget it, Chelsea. I’m not leaving you there.”
    “You have to,” she snapped, her anger coming through loud and clear.
    Slanting her a hard look, Eric shook his head. “Save your breath screaming about it, because it isn’t gonna happen. I’ll find a decent place and get you a room. It won’t be fancy in this part of town, but at least you won’t be sharing the bed with a family of roaches...or worse.”
    “No way,” she breathed out, pulling away from him, until she was huddled back against the passenger-side door. He knew from her scent that she wasn’t afraid of him, but there was no doubt she was burning with bitter-edged fury. It pulsed from her small body in a hot, jagged wave. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ll stay wherever the hell I please. And I can pay for my own damn room!”
    “No, you can’t.” The words were graveled and thick, his jaw so tight he had to force the words out past his frustration. “I know what you were planning. You were going to stay at that shelter back there, and I’m not letting that happen.”
    From the corner of his eye, Eric watched her send him a look that would have withered a lesser man. “It doesn’t matter what I was going to do, because it isn’t any of your business.”
    “It is now,” he said with a harsh sigh, taking one hand from the wheel to rub at the knots of tension in the back of his neck, “whether you want it to be or not. So you can take the gun you stashed in your bag and hold it on me if you want to. Go ahead, if it’ll make you feel better. But I’m not going to back down about this.”
    “You arrogant bastard,” she seethed in a choked voice, the angry, electric pulses of her rage slamming against him, filling the interior of the truck. It made her scent thicker...richer, till he was damn near ready to howl from this unusual craving he had for her. “Just who in the hell do you think you are?”
    “I’m the man who’s trying to keep your crazy little ass in one piece, no matter how determined you are to put it in danger.”
    “That’s insane!” she burst out. “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
    Was he? It certainly felt like it. This whole night felt like a certain kind of madness. If she’d been his destined life mate, then yeah, he could see getting this worked up over her. But she wasn’t. Hell, she wasn’t even a Lycan.
    Instead, she was something soft and breakable, and Eric shuddered. He might be his father’s son, but he did not get off on hatred or