Hotter After Midnight (Midnight #1)(28)
Author: Cynthia Eden

And after a night of dreaming about him, she’d wanted more, too.

But Colin had turned away from her, grabbed a handful of clothes from his closet, then disappeared.

He’d taken her home less than thirty minutes later, and after he’d done a thorough check of her house, he’d left her.

He’d kissed her, then he’d left her. A hard, swift kiss that she could still feel.

“So this is where the magic happens, huh?” He wasn’t lying on the couch, but sitting up, hands draped over his knees.

“I don’t necessarily think of it as magic,” she said carefully. Magic was a word generally reserved for the Other. They had magical powers. She was just a human who had a high psychic sensitivity to the Other.

“Umm.” He cocked his head to the side. “Tell me about them.”

“Them?”

“The Other.” His eyes never left hers. “I realized last night that I know damn little about”—a brief hesitation, then—“my kind. And that lack of knowledge could get me into some serious shit.”

Ah, yes, it could. “You’ve known others like yourself before, of course?” She’d figured it’d be better if they started with something he knew. They could begin with shifters and then build from there.

“I’ve met a few others. Haven’t exactly had deep meaningful conversations with ’em, if you know what I mean. And I’ve seen some vamps, a few demons—”

“What?” The pen she’d absently picked up fell from her fingers. Haven’t exactly had deep meaningful conversations? He made it sound as if other shifters were as foreign to him as vampires. “But your parents—”

“They died when I was a couple of months old.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him, as if it were just some random event that had happened long ago and didn’t have any meaning to him now. “I got put in foster care after that.”

Her breath rushed out in a fast expulsion. “What did you think was happening the first time you changed?” To shift without someone around for guidance, God, it must have been a nightmare.

He turned his head. Gazed out the window. “I thought I was dying.”

Emily said nothing. Just waited.

“My bones snapped, twisted.” His lips thinned. “Do you know what it’s like to hear the crunch of your own bones?”

No, she didn’t. “B-but I didn’t think the change was painful.” She’d been told it sometimes felt like a mild sunburn spreading through a person’s body.

“The first time it is. Damn painful. Like your insides are exploding. Everything reshapes, transforms. My nails changed first, grew into claws. Then my teeth—they got sharper, longer. Then the fur grew.” Colin stopped, shaking his head. He looked back at her, and she could see the painful shadows of his past in the depths of his eyes. “I tried to call for help, but by that time I didn’t have a human’s voice anymore.”

“Once you’d changed, how did you feel then?”

“Like a freak.”

Emily grabbed her pad, began jotting notes by rote. Traumatic first shift. No knowledge of his kind.

“I was an animal.” His jaw clenched tight. “I didn’t know what the hell had happened to me or how the hell I was going to change back. And for a while I thought…”

Her pen was poised over the pad. “What did you think?”

His eyes narrowed, dropped to the pen and paper. “I’m not one of your patients, Doc. I don’t need an analysis.”

Her fingers tightened around the cool metal base of the ballpoint pen. “I thought you might want to talk about—”

“About what? My screwed-up childhood? The ten foster homes I lived in? The first time I changed into a damn animal and thought I was going insane?”

Actually, yes. The pen scribbled across the pad. Feared insanity. Serious hostility issues.

“Emily.”

She froze. Lifted her head to stare at him.

Colin rose and stalked toward her. He leaned over her desk, bracing his hands on the old wood. “I don’t need you to poke around in my past and figure out why—” For a moment, his gaze dropped to the pad and his lips tightened as he said, “I’ve got hostility issues.”

She decided it would be best not to point out right then that he was definitely exhibiting said hostility issues. So she tried to be tactful. “Some people think the key to a successful future is facing a painful past.”

“Then those people are f**king idiots. A painful past needs to be shoved in a cold, dark grave and left to rot.”

Well, that was one perspective. Very carefully, Emily placed her pen down. “I shouldn’t have started to—” She broke off, clearing her throat, and realized that she was embarrassed.

Slipping into psychologist mode was second nature to her. And Colin’s pain, it had just called out to her. She licked her lips, tried again, “I shouldn’t—”

“Shouldn’t have started screwing with my head?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t screwing with your head, as you so kindly put it.”

“Lady, you make a living screwing with people’s minds.” He leaned forward another inch.

She didn’t like the way he was towering over her. Asserting his dominance. Showing that he was the big, strong detective and she was the psychologist who needed to mind her own business.

Her own temper began to spark. Emily shoved to her feet. “I was trying to help you, Gyth. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re carrying around a hell of a lot of baggage.” And rage. Lots of rage.

She placed her hands deliberately on the table and leaned into him. Close enough to kiss. Or hit. And she was very tempted to do both.

Colin stared back at her, those crystal blue eyes of his glinting with emotion. “I told you about my past because I was talking to you, Emily Drake. Not the Monster Doctor.”

Understanding filled her. “It’s hard for me to stop being the Monster Doctor.” Her voice was softer. She’d been working with the Other for so long, trying to heal their minds, and she’d nearly forgotten how to turn off the doctor.

“We’re way off topic,” he muttered, and stepped back, rolling his shoulders. “I didn’t come here to drag up my shitty childhood.”

Emily licked her lips and realized that she’d very nearly screwed things up with Colin. She needed to think more like a woman with him and less like a psychologist. “Right. Sorry.” And she was. Sorry that she’d pressured him, sorry that she’d tried to make him into a patient.