Chased Mate: Cybermates Page 4

  I shut my laptop, tossed it on the couch next to me, and glanced again at the voicemail notification on my phone. Sinking back into the cushions, I groaned. Men like Martin Fink were my reality, not bad boys like Flynn Bennett.

  Martin had been nice, if I could overlook the dullness and the creepy vibe. Maybe I hadn’t given him enough of a chance. He’d worn corduroy trousers and a cable knit cardigan on our date—with elbow patches. I wondered what Flynn would wear on a date. Not with me, of course! No, not on a date with me, but in general, if he was on date, what would the felon-turned-garage-mechanic, who looked like a badass biker, wear? Something scorchingly sexy, no doubt—leather, denim, and bulging muscles.

  I let my head fall back. Didn’t matter what he wore. Flynn Bennett would be released from the hospital and I would never see him again. Sunkissed Key was small, but it was big enough that you could be born on the island and spend your whole life there without know someone else who’d also grown up on the island. I’d never go back to the long-term care ward. And I’d make a concerted effort never to think about the man ever again. Right, Arden, good luck with that.

  I was beyond grateful that he was finally awake. I’d prayed for it to happen so many times. I was truly overjoyed. Truly.

  Why did I feel such an incredible sense of loss?... Because I was selfish, that was why! And because that kiss, even though it was just lip to lip, no tongue action, had been the most exciting kiss I’d ever experienced. As the kiss replayed in my mind, my body flushed and I slapped my hands over my eyes and thought about glaciers and icebergs and frozen tundra. Anything to cool off from the heated frenzy that thoughts of Flynn Bennett put me in.

  When my cell rang, I had this irrational thought that maybe Flynn was calling. Maybe the hospital had given him my number.

  One glance at my phone and my heart sank. Martin Fink. I let it go to voicemail.

  5

  Arden

  I was a day and a half into my withdrawal from Flynn. Three times already, I’d found myself standing at the elevators prepared to make the trek to long-term care. Each time, when I realized that the routine I’d followed for so many months had come to an end, I felt a twinge of sorrow over my loss. Which made me feel like a complete selfish ass. The man finally woke up. I should have been over the moon, right?

  As I stepped out of the doors of Sunkissed Key Medical Center to head home for the evening, I felt older than my thirty years. When I looked up, I almost had a heart attack. Flynn Bennett was leaning against the side of my car. His arms were crossed and his brow was creased, and he looked sexy as hell. Me, on the other hand, I startled hard, clenched my fist and squeezed the key fob in my hand. That set off the panic alarm for my car which startled me even more. I jumped and reflexively flung the keys into the air, only to have them hit me in the face on the way back down, despite the fact that I tried to dodge them by leaning forward and throwing out my left leg and my right arm for balance. Needless to say, it wasn’t my most graceful moment. On the upside, I may have discovered a new yoga pose.

  A few seconds later, the alarm shut off, and Flynn’s black boots came into view. My keys rested on his outstretched palm.

  What could I do but brush my hair out of my eyes, straighten my spine, and pretend the whole thing never happened?

  I plucked the keys from his hand, inadvertently brushing my fingertips against his skin and sending flutters racing through me.

  “You okay?”

  Oh, Jesus. If there was a god of deep, husky voices, he’d certainly blessed Flynn Bennett. Talk about visions of smoky jazz bars and tinkling piano keys. Goosebumps—full body goosebumps.

  He was speaking to me. I bit my lip and looked up at him. The man had been breathtaking while horizontal and in a coma, but now that he was awake, alert, and animated, he was so much more. Towering above me a good ten or so inches, he stared down with a crooked grin. His dark brown eyes crinkled at the corners, and he had a sexy dusting of beard growth. He was five-alarm-blazingly hot.

  My brain fizzled out. I couldn’t think. “Are you going to cut your hair?”

  His deep chuckle tingled all the way down to my toes. “Do you want me to?”

  “No.” I bit my lip harder and swayed. Flynn reached out and took my forearms. His touch burned through my scrubs and I knew my face was beet red.

  Flynn stroked his thumb over my arm and stepped closer. “What happened yesterday?”

  That question shook me off of cloud nine and dumped me back down on earth. I pulled away from him and inched toward my car. “Oh, yeah, that.”

  “Yeah, that.” He followed me, step for step. The way he moved reminded me of an animal attempting to corner its prey. “How did we meet?”

  I tried to think of something, anything, to say that would make what I’d done sound better, but there just was no easy way out, and I wasn’t a liar. It was bad enough that I’d kissed him without his consent. I wasn’t about to add to my sins by lying about it. Turning to face him fully, I took a deep breath in. “Um. It’s embarrassing. For me, not you.”

  His face furrowed in confusion. “Now I really want to hear it.”

  Groaning, I turned and walked the rest of the way to my car. I dropped my bag inside, held onto the door, and just spit it all out. “I had a bad morning yesterday. My mother called nagging me about—well, it was a bad morning. I happened to be passing by your room, so I stopped to check on you. And there you were. And there I was. And I don’t know what came over me. I really don’t. I never should have done it. It wasn’t right…”

  “You happened to be passing my room?”

  What was it I told myself about not lying? “Well, okay, it wasn’t by chance. I came to your room to see you. I do that a lot. Did. I did that a lot.”

  “So, back to my question.”

  “I just…you were there.. and I…I…kissed you. Then you woke up and I’m so sorry. So very, very, sorry. Not the part about you waking up. I’m not sorry about that. That’s amazing, and I very happy for you. I just, well, I don’t know what came over me. I mean, sure, you’re hot and all, but it was more than that. I meant to kiss you on the cheek. I swear to you, I’ve never done that before—”

  “You think I’m hot?” There was that sexy half-grin again.

  “Oh, puh-leeze, you know you’re hot. Anyhow, I meant to kiss your cheek and when I bent over, I started to think of Sleeping Beauty and how Prince Charming kissed her awake and…it’s so stupid, but I just…I just…I kissed you.”

  “So, you’re my Prince Charming? Is that what I’m getting here?”

  “No. I mean, yeah, I guess. I kissed you and you woke up. That’s not the point, though. The point is that I am apologizing. What I did was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened.”

  He moved closer to me, his eyes darkening. “Sweetheart, don’t apologize for kissing me. For that, I consider myself a lucky man. And, just so we’re clear, from here on out, you have an open invitation to kiss me anytime, anywhere.”

  Those words combined with his deep, sensual voice sent shivers through me. He sounded a lot like Sam Elliott in Road House. I was thrilled he wasn’t upset, but I didn’t want him to think I went around kissing patients. I looked down at my feet. “It was a one-time thing, I can assure you. I mean, if I thought kissing comatose patients magically woke them up, I’d be doing it all over the place. But I don’t have any magical power—that I know of. I think it was coincidence. I kissed you at the same time you happened to wake up, and I’m so s—”

  “Sorry?”

  I looked up, way up, at him and nodded.

  “Tell you what. I think I know how to make us even.”

  Before I knew what he was doing, his arm was around my waist pulling me against his chest and his lips were descending over mine. I was thrown off balance, clutching his shirt in both fists, hanging on for dear life as my mind scrambled to catch up. Flynn Bennett. Flynn Bennett was kissing me!

  My lips parted with a moan and he took the opportunity
to dip his tongue inside and slide it against mine. He tasted like dark chocolate and maleness, a flavor that turned the blood in my veins to pure liquid fire. With his arms locked around me, he squeezed me tighter, molding me to his huge body. I felt the hard planes of his stomach, the firm muscles of his thighs, and I damn sure couldn’t ignore the hard length that was digging into my stomach. It felt huge. (I knew it would be.)

  He pulled his mouth away slightly, leaving only a breath between our lips, as he stared deeply into my eyes for several long moments. The deep brown of his irises looked golden almost, as if they were glowing. His hand caressed my cheek and he ran his thumb over my jaw. I felt the beating of his heart and the exhale of his breath and a low rumbling sound that came from his chest. Or maybe it was a buzzing from the back of his throat.

  “Not quite even yet.”

  I melted into him as he kissed me again, slower this time, a teasing, thorough exploration of the corners of my mouth, my chin, my cupid’s bow. He ran his thumb over my bottom lip and my tongue darted out to taste his skin.

  “Fuck.” His mouth crashed over mine devouring me hungrily. Pressed against my car, pinned by his body, I clung to him weakly as he sucked, nibbled, and nipped my lips. His fingers wrapped themselves into my hair, angling my head to kiss me deeper. I moaned, weak-kneed while he peppered little biting kisses along my jaw and down my throat. His teeth dragged roughly across my skin, sending shivers shooting down to my clit. I twisted my hips against him, needing something more.

  “Come home with me.” His deep raspy voice was like pouring gasoline on my already raging bonfire.

  I was on the verge of saying yes—to anything, anything at all—when his cell phone rang loudly yanking me out of the lust-fog. My body stiffened against him, and I realized that we were standing in the parking lot of the medical center.

  He ignored his phone, but I pushed at his chest until he let me slip out of his grasp. I stepped to the side, out from between him and my car, and backed away a few steps, trying to put space between us. “I can’t. I mean, we hardly know each other and, well, yeah, you’re hot and all, but I’m just not into one night stands.”

  He made a face. “Who said anything about one night?”

  As we stared, unblinking, into each other’s eyes, I swear I felt my vagina clench. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Flynn Bennett was not the kind of man who could be described as safe or secure—or boring.

  Dangerous, maybe.

  Passionate, hell yeah. That kiss had made my toes curl.

  Flynn was an awesome fantasy, but he was just that—a fantasy. He and I didn’t add up. He might give me the ride of my life, but afterward, I was the one who would suffer. I was the one who would get hurt. And that was reality.

  His cell rang again, but he continued to ignore it, staring into my eyes as though he was waiting for an answer. I took one more step back, and Flynn lunged forward grabbing me and pulling me against his hard body, just as a car sped by.

  I gasped and let him hold me against him for a second longer. That car had almost hit me. Trembling, I took a moment to get my breathing under control before I pulled away from him.

  Flynn tried to stop me, but when I dove into my car, started it, and put it in gear, he had little choice. He stood watching as I closed the door and backed out. He continued to stand there watching as I sped off.

  On the short drive home, I replayed the whole scene in my head, trying to make sense of what the hell had just happened. By the time I pulled in my driveway, I was thoroughly regretting not taking Flynn up on his offer. Offers like that from guys like him to girls like me didn’t come around but once in a lifetime.

  After a glass of wine, a bubble bath, and another google search, I changed my mind. I was having a hard enough time dropping my Flynn Bennett obsession. The last thing I needed to do was exacerbate it by sleeping with the guy.

  I did the right thing—the only thing—to preserve my sanity.

  6

  Flynn

  I watched Arden pull out of the parking lot and forced myself not to chase her. She evidently needed to accept us in her own time and at her own pace. I knew she was as aroused as I was. It was obvious she didn’t know about mates, or she wouldn’t have fought the attraction like she did.

  It made me wonder if she knew about shifters at all. I’d estimate less than twenty percent of the population of the Florida Keys were aware that shifters existed. Arden was human, so it was plausible she was one of the eighty or so percent of the unawares. That meant she had no clue what was going on between us.

  A slow smile spread across my face. Arden was even better than I expected. I always thought that whoever invented scrubs must have set out to design the least flattering items of clothing in existence. I changed my mind. Arden made them look sexy as fuck. No way they could hide her plump, squeezable curves. The second I saw her crossing the parking lot, the blood in my body rushed to my cock so fast I got light-headed. Then, she opened her mouth.

  I was too old, too hardened, to get a hard-on for a random chick anymore, no matter how hot she was. But when Arden spoke, everything about her—her expression, her tone of voice, the nervous stutter—everything was sweet as sugar. She apologized for kissing me. Shiiit. As though I’d mind. That kind of thing was new to me. Everything about a woman like Arden was new to me. She was exciting. She made my pulse race and my blood run hot.

  I usually dated a trashier type of woman. It wasn’t that I was more attracted to that type, it was that they were more on my level. They had no qualms about fucking a guy with a criminal past. A guy who spent his days as a grease monkey fixing cars and his nights drinking beer and watching old Hollywood classics on Amazon Prime.

  I’d never been much of a hound dog when it came to chicks, anyway. But, a single man had needs and so did a single woman. I indulged in the occasional no-strings hook up once in a while, a “you scratch my itch, I’ll scratch yours” kind of thing. Not often. The older I got, the less enjoyable I found hooking up just for a sexual release.

  After kissing sweet Arden with the soft lips and sexy curves, those days were over. There were no other women. Any women I may have known carnally in the past were now a distant, faded memory.

  Arden was everything.

  It was just a matter of time before I told her what we were. Maybe I could show her first. Running a hand down my face, I laughed. It was probably best to put my life back together first.

  I hopped on my motorcycle and sat there for a minute, trying to will my dick to soften, otherwise it was going to be a mighty uncomfortable ride. My brain had melted about the same time my mate had stepped out of the front doors of the medical center. There was something I was supposed to be doing, though.

  Right on cue, my cell rang again and Simon’s name popped up on the caller ID. Grunting, I answered. “Yeah?”

  “I been try’na call. You’re late.”

  I hung up and started the bike. That’s what I had to do, meet fucking Simon. I’d known I was going to stop to see Arden first, though. I’d planned to blow Simon off if things went well with my mate, and I had really been hoping they would. Fucking Simon.

  He and I were business partners in a beverage distributorship we’d started years before. We weren’t exactly friends. His absence from the hospital while I’d been knocked out wasn’t a big surprise, but it did establish the fact that we would never be friends. We’d found each other after I got out of jail. The second time. I was still making my own liquor then, running it up north of the Keys. Simon had been looking for something to get involved in and he’d helped me turn the business legit. As a convicted felon, I’d found it nearly impossible to get licensing as a wholesale liquor distributor.

  That’s where Simon came in.

  We owned the distributorship jointly, and licensing was issued in his name. I’d spent years working on the liquor business while still running the shop. I’d worked my ass off, and it had paid off. My shop had steady business and the dis
tributorship had recently snowballed, with meetings in place for more distribution deals.

  All that was before the accident.

  I wasn’t sure how hard it was going to be to get my shop up and running again and get back to having a steady stream of clientele. And I had no idea what was going on with the distributorship. Simon damn well better have kept those meetings and held it together. I’d worked too damn hard…

  I sped down Main St., cutting a sharp left onto Palm St. and then a right onto Parrot Cove Rd. At the end of the street, on West Public Beach, was Bayfront Diner. I’d been going to the place on and off since I was a snot-nosed kid. Susie, the owner, had been in my life since I was barely old enough to see over the lunch counter. There were plenty of times back then when she’d slipped me a hot meal on the house, and plenty of times when, if she hadn’t, I’d have gone hungry.

  I parked and strolled inside, spotting Simon immediately in a corner at the back of the diner. I nodded to him, but went to find Susie first.

  A tiny Asian woman with thick glasses was at the counter ringing someone up. She looked up, spotted me and smiled politely. I sniffed the air surreptitiously. Polar bear. Not her, but she smelled like one of the polar bears that had recently relocated to the island. “Susie around?’

  She eyed me up and down, narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Nope. Can I help you?”

  Odd. Susie was always at her diner. If the place was open, Susie was here. Something wasn’t right. “Whadda ya’ mean she’s not here?”

  Her narrowed eyes flashed with stubbornness. “I mean just what I said. No. If there’s something you want, I’ll help you.” I tried not to laugh. She was about a hundred pounds soaking wet. I was probably three or four times her size, but she held her ground.