If I were in the mood, I would have already attacked him. The outfit showed off his tight, muscled physique. He knew how much I loved it when he wore tank tops. Freshly showered. Wearing something that totally turned me on. His green eyes were unusually mirthful tonight too. Yep, he definitely thought this was a booty call, and, if he played his cards right, it might turn into one.
But first, I needed answers.
“Which one of your parents is the infectious disease scientist?”
“Talking about parents really kills the mood.” He pouted as he sat on the foot of the bed.
“Well?”
“Neither. Mom is a forensic anthropologist, like Bones. My dad is a physicist. They study rare diseases, not infectious diseases. Big diff. Though, some rare diseases are highly contagious.” He removed his shoes, then his socks. “Why do you ask?”
“Would either of them know of any way to infect an inanimate object like a ward?”
He removed his tank top and tossed it aside, rendering me momentarily speechless as I stared at his beautiful body. Every muscle was so incredibly defined. Clay didn’t have a large frame like Bryan or Rob, but what he lacked in size, he more than made up for in other ways. And I wasn’t talking about a lack in size in every department. His manly bits were the perfect fit for my lady bits. We were a perfect fit.
And right now, he had my lady bits tingling.
“What’s on your mind, Montana?”
Right now? Or in general? Because both were the same answer: sex. But I needed… What did I need? Oh, right. Wards. “Cressida said the wards had a fever. I’m trying to figure out how an inanimate object can get sick.”
“That’s easy.” He unbuttoned his jean cutoffs and slowly lowered the zipper tooth by tooth, his sexy gaze dancing over me. “You sure this isn’t a bootie call?”
My attention dropped to his bulging groin, and I licked my lips. Damn him and his amazing, well, everything. “Inanimate objects, Clay. How do they catch the fever?”
He sat at the edge of the bed. “Did she say a fever? Or the fever?”
“I don’t know. The fever, I think. Does it make a difference?”
“Yeah, it totally makes a difference. A fever is what they’d say in her time if you felt warm. The fever is what they called it when you were sick, really sick, like you-weren’t-going-to-last-the-night kind of sick.”
“Oh, shit. That sounds bad.”
“They didn’t have any other words for it,” he explained. “Sick didn’t cut it. Diseased was more of a long-term illness. Virus wasn’t even around when she was alive.” He snapped his fingers and jumped off the bed. His cutoffs slid down his muscular legs and landed on the floor around his bare feet. He dropped his head. “Oops.”
“What? What is it?”
“I lost my pants.”
“You didn’t lose them. They’re just around your ankles.” And I was about to strangle him with a sock if he didn’t explain why he jumped up like that. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
His smile usually lit up the room. Right now, I was about to slap it from his charming face. When he waggled his eyebrows, I picked up one of my shoes and threw it at him. He laughed and brought his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. Jeez. Lower your weapons. I think she meant a virus.”
I lowered the other shoe in my hand. “Like a cold?”
“No. Like a computer virus.” He waited for me to get it. Nod enthusiastically. Throw him a parade. Something. Only, I didn’t get it, so he went on. “It’s code.”
“For what?”
“No, Montana. I mean it’s literally code. A computer virus is nothing more than code. It’s code attacking code. Whatever is infecting the wards has to be…” He shot me with a knowing look. “Another ward.”
Oh, shit my shorts.
“This has nothing to do with the ward I created,” I defended, though I wasn’t convinced and didn’t sound all that convincing either.
He called air and sent the shoe in my hand flying. It smacked against the wardrobe—the shoe, not my hand, an important distinction—and left a print. How was I going to explain that? It was five feet in the air. “You sure about that?”
Not even a little. “You heard what Leo said. It was a water ward.”
“If you say so. He never saw it. He’s only going by your description. Wards are finicky. One slight slip of the wrist and you’ve got yourself a counter ward.” He stepped out of his cutoffs. “Now, about that bootie call…”
“Get dressed.” That had to be it. I’d messed up and somehow created a counter ward.
He frowned and glanced down again. “That’s exactly the opposite of what I want to do.”
“Fine, go in your underwear.” I grabbed his arm to drag him out of the room with me.
“Go where?”
“We have to find the ward I created and destroy it. That’s got to be the virus attacking the barrier. Cressida is stuck in her human form because of it. I must have done it wrong or something.”
He stopped and pulled his arm free. “How long were you working on the ward before you actually created it?”
I stopped right along with him. “Working on it?”
“Yeah. All wards must be approved by a professor. I assume Professor Layden worked with you, right? What’s she got to say in all this?” When his question resulted in me blinking a rounded gaze several times, his frown deepened the lines around his eyes. “She did help you create the ward, right?”
“Not…exactly.”
“Don’t tell me you attempted to create one on your own.”
“I wasn’t on my own. My mom was with me.”
When he rolled his eyes, I wanted to poke them right out of his annoyingly carefree, handsome face. “Let me get this straight. You created
