Autumn's Blood: The Spirit Shifters, Book One by Marissa Farrar

palm, as though he was running a fever, but she knew he
wasn’t. She’d touched him before and he’d been burning hot
then.
    He lifted his face to her, the last
glow of yellow melting from the brown of his eyes.
    “I believe you,” she said. “I’m sorry
I didn’t before.”
    Unable to speak for the moment, he
simply nodded.
    She put out a hand and helped him to
his feet. Strangely, she no longer felt embarrassed about his
nudity, as though watching such an intense, painful, unbelievable
thing had somehow taken their intimacy to a new level.
    Instead of being embarrassed, she
reached out and placed her hands against his chest, the curve of
his pectorals, just above his small, dusky-brown nipples. She ran
her hands over his chest, his shoulders, down his arms, as though
her body needed to confirm what her brain was telling her—that he
was real.
    Suddenly, he reached up and caught her
wrists, stilling her hands.
    “Stop!” His voice came out hoarse and
he pushed her away, turning his body from her.
    She realized what she’d been doing.
“I’m sorry. I just needed to feel for myself that you’re
real.”
    He bent to retrieve his clothing,
pulling on his jeans and t-shirt. “I’m real.”

Chapter
Ten
     
     
    FROM SOMEWHERE IN the building, the
shrill ring of a phone cut through the air.
    Now fully dressed, Blake strode across
the apartment to where he had dumped his leather jacket. He fished
his cell phone from the pocket, the events of the past few minutes
played through his mind. How could he not be affected by Autumn’s
hands running over his body like that? He’d wanted to reach out and
free her hair from that prim and proper bun she wore, so the curls
fell down her back. He’d wanted to lock his hand in her tresses,
force her mouth to his, and kiss her hard. He’d wanted to scoop her
slender body against his and press his need against her flat
stomach.
    That was one problem with spending so
much time naked. Sometimes it was hard to hide exactly how you
felt.
    He hit the answer key and barked into
the slender phone. “Wolfcollar.”
    “Blake, it’s me.” His mind
clicked into gear. Haverly! “Dumas has already figured out that you’ve taken
off with Doctor Anderson. He doesn’t know the reason yet, but it
won’t take him long. His team is already going through the computer
records in the lab.”
    “Shit.” He glanced back over at
Autumn. She watched him with wide, worried eyes.
    “Did you destroy the samples
yet?”
    Blake thought of the slivers of glass,
still inside his jacket pocket. “Not properly, though I doubt
they’ll be in any state considering I’ve been running around with
them not even boxed.”
    “Burn them as soon as you can. We
don’t want Dumas getting hold of them and figuring out a way of
replicating whatever is in Doctor Anderson’s blood that was able to
cause the shift.”
    “Sure.” He strode into his kitchen.
“I’m doing it now.”
    He flicked on the gas burner and then
went and picked up his black leather jacket, delved in the pocket,
and pulled out the two slides.
    Autumn must have realized what he was
about to do. “No! Stop! I need those.”
    “Hang on,” he told Haverly, then
turned to Autumn. “These things are dangerous.”
    “But I might never be able to
replicate the experiment fully.”
    “Good.” He dropped both slides
facedown into the flames. Autumn stared, dismay written all over
her face.
    “Okay, it’s done,” he said, speaking
back into the phone. “Now what?”
    “You need to get the doctor somewhere
safe and get rid of this phone. They’re already—”
    His words were cut off as the sound of
shouting came in the background.
    “Hang on just one minute!” Haverly
yelled. Blake had the feeling he wasn’t talking to him. More shouts
echoed down the line and then came a crash, muffled scrapes,
banging, and more yelling.
    A sharp crack made Blake yank his head
away from the phone. “Shit!” He put the handset back to his