His lips slid over and covered hers. A needy sound escaped her at the firm press of his lips. Sense and reason flew right out the window. Hands threaded in hair, lips meshed hard and tongues glided against each other. They were like animals eating at each other, trying to get as close together as possible by the mouth. She folded her body against him, a needy moan rumbling from her as his arms swept across her back and crushed her to him. The seatbelt, the stupid seatbelt held her back, kept her from climbing into his lap and rubbing her core against him. She needed him, here and now.

She pulled back, breathing hard and then they both dove at each other. His hand wound up under her skirt, bare skin meeting bare skin. Only his touch made her hotter; she spread her legs and when he pushed her panties to the side and touched her, she worked faster. She tugged at his pants, cursing very loud how much she hated his fucking belt, then released the zipper just as his finger plunged inside her.

She melted into the seat as pleasure engulfed her like a blast of sunshine. He started pumping, breathing hard, and apparently, unable to wait for her, buried his face in her neck to lavish wet sucking kisses there. Oh God, she was going to come, just from that.

“Mmm,” she moaned just as a piercing screech slammed her so fast and hard back into reality that she only had one second to look in the rearview mirror to the car coming.

The crash came hard, fast. Everything exploded. The loud grinding sound of metal crushing metal pierced her ears. Time slowed. She couldn’t hear anything after that, only a slight high-pitched ringing as she was jerked forward in her seat. Her face nearly slammed into the airbag just as it exploded, blowing hard against her face and shooting her head back into the seat. Her head bounced, her brain swishing around hard form the jolt. It didn’t stop. She felt the momentum. The big SUV surging forward. Somehow, she managed to loll her head to the left to see the window gone, bits of glass covering the console and hood. The sharp shards flew back inside at her as the car’s momentum pushed faster. Then it stopped.

She blinked at the empty seat next to her. Brayden was gone. She couldn’t think much more than that. She knew she should move, unbuckle her seatbelt and go help Brayden, but everything felt sluggish.

She blinked and it seemed to take forever for her eyes to open back up again. Black and gray spots dotted her vision. She thought she whispered his name. Thought she reached for her seatbelt but felt a sharp stab and stopped, then the squeal of peeling tires registered, but it sounded soft and faraway. A hard jolt smashed into the car again and she was flung forward again in her seat, even harder than before.

Her ribs screamed in pain as the seatbelt jerked on her hard to keep her in place. Her face bounced off the already deployed airbag and her head slammed back so hard into the seat everything went black. She didn’t even have to time to call out his name again.

Vanessa’s eyes shot open and confusion quickly dawned. She was in a room that put Brayden’s house to shame. She was on a canopied sleigh bed with white gauzy curtains hanging in beautiful arches from each corner. The walls held works of art that looked old in their aged wooden frames.

A massive wooden hutch sat against the far wall with an assortment of the matching furniture along the walls. It looked expensive; it looked rich. Where the hell was she?

“Brayden?” she called out, only to find her voice a mere croak of sound.

Then, the pain registered in a flash. Her hand flew to her throat and found the skin rough and scratchy like sandpaper. She winced as she prodded it then tossed back the covers and slowly stood. A rush of blood flowed through her straight to her legs. She stood wobbling at first, then with growing strength. She walked across the room on a plush middle-eastern looking rug to the door. Some parts of it, especially near the corners, were thread-barren and worn out in color, but the overall pattern and vivid red, blues, and tans, still looked beautiful. She had to stop halfway across the room and lean heavily against a rocking chair for support. Breathing was hard and each breath pinched her ribs where the seatbelt had been. She didn’t want to look, but she’d bet she had a nasty bruise covering her waist where the belt had been.

Footsteps came, closing in on the door, then it opened and confusion set in. “What are you doing here?”

The older pack healer from her Kategan cousins’ pack smiled big. Her blonde hair hung loose and curling around her shoulders. She looked so vibrant and happy. “I live here, honey.”

Vanessa scrubbed a hand across her forehead trying to make her brain work. She remembered the car accident, then that was it. “What happened? Where’s Brayden?”

“Here, sit down first, then we’ll talk. You really shouldn’t be out of bed yet.”

Her legs felt so weak that she let Christine lead her back to the bed and put her in it like a child. After she settled, she leveled her gaze on the older pack healer. “Okay, spill.”

Christine smiled and pulled a bag out from beneath the side table next to the bed. She pulled out a jar with some kind of wet gunk inside that made Vanessa’s nose curl even though couldn’t smell it yet. It just looked nasty.

“You’re at Dmetri’s and my place. Brayden brought you here.”

“Is he okay?” she blurted out.

Christine’s saucy wink instantly made her tense shoulders relax. She wouldn’t wink if it was bad, right? “He’s fine. You took the brunt of it. He had some cuts, but he’ll heal fast. Even faster, if he’d of let me put my salve on him. Oh well, men, you know? Anywho, good to see you, Vanessa. Though it’d be nice to actually see you when you weren’t hurt for once.” She laughed at her own joke, then gently tugged Vanessa’s shirt up.

Vanessa lifted her back off the bed so she could tug it up past her bra. She looked down and grimaced. Nasty barely covered how awful her stomach looked. She had a black and purple bruise that went from her right ribcage down to her left hip from where the seatbelt had been. The thing looked radioactive or something, because surrounding that nasty dark line was even more colors—all an assortment of ugly ones in dark yellows and sunburn reds and garish blues.

Christine fingered some of the goop on her hand then rubbed it across her stomach. “This’ll help, trust me. And don’t worry, it doesn’t stink.” She gave Vanessa a pointed look then laughed. “I know that’s what most people think when they see it. But really, it’s a mixture of herbs with some petroleum jelly; my own concoction! The jelly helps it to glide and stay on. I even added a touch of mint just so it’d smell kind of nice.”

Vanessa sniffed and still winced. “Smells like Vapor Rub.”

Christine shrugged. “Would you rather it smell as bad as you thought it would?”

“Hell, no,” she muttered.

That done, Christine went into the adjoining bathroom to wash her hands then came out drying them on a dark brown towel. “Brayden went to interview some lady or something, I don’t know. Said he’d be back soon.”

“Oh.” She tried to hide her disappointment, but she must have failed, because Christine’s face instantly drooped with a frown. She came and sat on the bed next to her.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

What was wrong? Hell, she wasn’t even sure yet. What she did know was that she didn’t like waking up in a strange place without him. She didn’t like not being able to see his injuries for herself, and she really didn’t like that he left without waiting for her to wake up so he could at least fill her in on what happened.

“Nothing.” She forced a tight smile. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

Christine gasped and her eyes widened as if something important just dawned on her. “You and him...” She didn’t say the words, but instead made crude moaning and kissing sounds as her eyes rolled to the back of her head.