When I finally caught my breath again, I took his face between my palms and kissed him long and slow. "I think we both needed that."

His grin was that of a man who knows a job has been well done. "Yeah. Though I have to admit, it was a little too fast for my liking."

I grinned. "Fast can be good."

He raised a hand, and gently thumbed away a trickle of sweat from my cheek. "Fast was very good."

"So, you feeling up to answering a few questions now?"

"I think I could manage one or two." He parked his butt on the table beside mine. "What do you want to know?"

"What do you know about Mrs. Hunt?"

"She's a snobby old fart who does a marvelous job for her chosen charities." He studied me for a moment, then said, "Why?"

I hesitated. How much could I tell him? How much should I tell him? "Her name cropped up in an investigation," I hedged. "I've just been sent up here to check her out."

"By whom?"

Oh, crap. Still, if we were going to get involved, he'd have to know sooner or later who I worked for. "The Directorate."

"You're a guardian?" Disbelief edged his voice.

I laughed. "No, just a liaison. But we're short staffed at the mo, so I get to do the unimportant stuff, like follow leads that probably go nowhere."

"What was the lead?"

"That she was involved in some funds going missing." The lie slipped easily off my tongue, and part of me felt guilty about it.

Though the more worrying thing was the fact that only part of me felt guilty about it.

"How is missing money connected with a Directorate investigation? The mob you work for only go after killers, don't they?"

"Generally." I shrugged. "I do what I'm told. Makes life there a whole lot easier."

And if Jack heard me saying that, he'd laugh his head off. Doing what I was told had never been a priority of mine.

He frowned. "She's from an old money family, and takes pride in her charity work. I can't imagine her wanting to jeopardize either her family's standing or her own in the wider community by becoming involved in anything nefarious."

"So you haven't noticed anything odd about her behavior over the last few months?"

"No." He hesitated. "Although she did miss several charity events a few months back. The general said she was üi."

"You didn't believe him?"

"We're talking about a woman who dragged herself out of hospital after an appendix operation to attend one of her pet events."

"Did you talk to any of her friends about it?"

"'One. Not that I was concerned or anything." He shrugged. "Apparently, she refused to see anyone for at least three weeks. Her friends were quite concerned."

"Did they speculate why?"

"Plastic surgery gone wrong. The general beat her up. Her new nails dropped off and she was mortified with shame."

I raised my eyebrows and he grinned. "Okay, I made that last one up."

"So, once the three weeks was up, she acted same as normal?"

"As far as I noticed, yeah."

"What about her scent?"

He raised an eyebrow. "What about it?"

"Did it change any after her three-week stint of seclusion?"

He hesitated. "Sort of. It got sharper. More distinct."

"In what way?"

He shrugged again. "I really wasn't paying that much attention to the old cow, trust me."

Great. No clue to sate my confusion in that answer. So were my memories totally scrambled, or were they giving me bits of the bigger picture? One I couldn't yet understand? Maybe Mrs. Hunt had been there. Maybe she enjoyed watching her husband taking other women. She didn't exactly look the voyeur type, but these days, you couldn't judge a book by its dowdy cover.

Yet her scent was exactly what I remembered smelling in that room, and it was also the scent of someone in my past. But two people couldn't have the exact same scent. A spoor was as individual as fingerprints or eyes. No two were ever exactly the same.

So why did I remember her scent and not her husband's, if indeed he was there? What the hell was going on?

"What about her husband? Anything odd happen with him over the last few months?"

He shook his head. "Wouldn't know. The general doesn't always get involved with the charities. He's on base a lot, apparently."

"With a wife that looks like that, who can blame him?" I muttered.

Kellen grinned. "That's why a man should pick his woman carefully. He has to live with his choice for the rest of his life."

"Humans don't."

"Humans don't do a lot of things—which is why I'm glad I was born a wolf."

I smiled. "So how come you're here tonight?"

He shrugged. "It's my building, and my dad is one of the sponsors. I'm here representing both parties."

"Not at the moment, you're not."

He placed an arm over my shoulder, and slid me closer. "At the moment, the only thing I'm representing is self-interest."

"Well, I'm here on work's time, and I really should be going back downstairs." But I didn't get up, didn't pull away. It felt too good being close to him.

"You've only been gone half an hour or so. No one important will have missed you yet."

Quinn would have—but I had a feeling that was who Kellen meant when he said "no one important."

His lips met mine and thought went south, not returning until a good hour later. By the time I did make it back down to the main ballroom, meals were being served. Energy caressed my mind, a tingling warmth that curled through my soul. Quinn, wanting me to open the psychic door and talk to him.

Which was not something I wanted to risk given what I'd just been doing. I didn't need the hassle he'd undoubtedly throw my way. So I ignored him and made my way back to our table, sitting down and picking up the napkin like nothing at all had happened.

"Where have you been?" His voice was short. Annoyed.

"Out scouting around."

"Scouting where?"

"Oh, here and there." I resisted the urge to say it was none of his business and took a sip of wine. "What do you know about Mrs. Hunt?"

He glanced around. "We cannot have this conversation here." His voice was little more than a stroke of sound. "There's too many ears."

"So why not just touch their minds and tell them all to ignore us?"

"The room is full of psychic-deadeners, in case you hadn't noticed."

I hadn't, but then, I rarely used my telepathic skills so there was nothing unusual in that. "Since when have psychic-deadeners worried you?"

"They don't, but they do stop you from chatting back."

Which I would have thought he'd actually enjoy. Still, we did need to talk about Mrs. Hunt, so we'd have to do so with the very link Quinn had tried to use moments ago. While the deadeners meant normal telepathic channels wouldn't work, the bond we'd created worked in a whole different area of the brain, and owed its existence to the fact we'd once shared blood.

With a slight grimace, I imagined that psychic door in my mind and threw it open. It was certainly easier to do than the first few times I'd tried.

Why do you ask about Mrs. Hunt? he asked immediately.

His mind-voice was as rich and as sexy as his regular voice, flowing through every corner of my being like a hot summer breeze.

I found the scent I remembered, only it belonged to Mrs. Hunt. And Mrs. Hunt's scent is very similar to the scent of a man from my past.

Then you must have the wrong scent. No two persons have the same scent. Besides, it was a man who abused you in the center, not a woman.

Don't you think I'm more than aware of that fact? I thanked the waitress as she placed an entree plate in front of me, and picked up my knife and fork. I'm just telling you what my senses ate telling me. I can't help it if it's not making sense.