Here Kitty, Kitty! (8 page)

“You all right, Sugar?”

“Yes.”  She brushed non-existent dirt off her dress.  “And stop calling me sugar.”

“Naw.”

“Naw?”

He shrugged, “Naw.”  He smiled at her.  “Besides, ain’t you sweet as sugar?”

She snorted, “Naw.”

Aleksei suddenly appeared on the other side of the railing.  “Ya gotta come with us.”

Startled, Angie jumped back.  “Are there stairs or something next to this fuckin’ balcony?”

“Naw,” both brothers answered.

She leaned over the railing, giving Nik an amazing look at those legs. 
Damn, girl
.  “Then how…”

“It’s our hind legs.  Tigers can jump really far,” Aleksei offered.

“Really?”  She bit her lip.  “You must have amazing thighs.”

What the hell did the woman think she was doing?  Flirting with
both
his brothers.  And completely ignoring
him
!

Aleksei stared at her, completely lost.  “They’re not bad.”

“Interesting.”

Alek leaned in closer and all Nik wanted to do was toss the man’s ass off his balcony. 
Why is he on my territory anyway? 
“Ignore Ban.  Just come with us.”

“I’d love to.  I do love a good party.”  She glanced at Nik.  “And I think I have just the dress.”

Nik barely bit back a snarl, “Only one?”

She shrugged innocently.

“Great.”  Aleksei grinned.  “Well, I better take care of Ban’s big fat head.  I still hear him whimpering.”

“I ain’t whimperin’,” Ban yelled from the patio.

Aleksei winked at Angie, “Yes he is.”

She gave a wave of her hand.  “Do what you must, Hillbilly.  But I want my baseball back.”

She headed back into her room.  Aleksei leaned in close to his brother.  “Man,” he whispered.  “That woman is hot.  And I think she likes me.”

“I think she likes anyone dumb enough to be controlled by her.”

“You mean like you, Mr. Twenty Grand Man?”

Nik glared at his brother, slapped his hand over the man’s face, and shoved him off the balcony.

“That wasn’t funny,” Alek yelled back once he landed.

Nik leaned over the railing.  “Yes it was.”

***

Angie placed her newly purchased clothes in the chest of drawers as Nik walked back into the room.  He closed the balcony doors and she almost screamed at him to open them back up.  She finally had to face it, the man made her nervous.  And closing her off in a room with him wasn’t really helping.

He picked up the bat she had laying on her bed.  “And what do you expect to do with this?”

Kill you in your sleep?

“Pretty little thing like you.  What?  You gonna beat up the big, bad hyenas with it?”

She carefully smoothed out a chemise she’d placed in the drawer, and turned to face the hillbilly, closing the drawer with her backside.  She folded her arms in front of her chest and silently regarded the man for several moments.

“Is there a problem, Hillbilly?”

“If you keep calling me hillbilly there will be.”

She stepped away from the dresser, “Oh, I’m sorry.  Do you prefer redneck or Jethro or…?”

“You could use my name.”

“I sure could.  But I choose not to.”

Anger flashed across his face, but it quickly disappeared.  Replaced by a slow, easy smile that almost had her melting at his feet.  “I wonder what it would take to get you to say my name.”

Uh-oh. 
“Don’t go gettin’ any funky ideas, Hillbilly.”  Especially since she had so many of her own.

He dropped the bat back on the bed.  “Like what exactly?”  When she didn’t answer, he walked toward her.  “I asked you a question, Sugar.”

“I’m not playing this game with you.”

He stopped right in front of her, gently taking a lock of her hair and twining it around his big index finger.

“I don’t play games.  I’m a real sore loser.”

He stared at the hair he had wrapped around his forefinger, his thumb smoothing it against his skin.  It took Angie a second to realize he’d stepped even closer to her.  She wanted to take a step back, but if she did he’d end up yanking her hair.  And she didn’t want to look like she was trying to run away from him.

When, exactly, did she lose control of this situation anyway?

Freakin’ cats!

“Damn, girl, you sure are pretty.”

Well, at least he didn’t try and bore her with “beautiful.”  Men said that crap to her all the time, but they wouldn’t know beauty if it came up and kicked them in the nuts.  Miki, who they all but ignored, was beautiful because if the girl set her mind to it, she could destroy
the universe. 
And Sara went beyond beautiful with her strength.  The woman had lived in pain and with that fucking bitch Lynnette for years and not only survived but kept her soul. 
They
were beautiful.

Angie had a really great sense of style, amazing friends, and absolutely no delusions about herself.  Or anyone else for that matter.

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Not really.”  He continued to wrap her hair around his finger until his hand rested close to her cheek.

He had her trapped with the tall dresser at her back and her hair wrapped around his hand.  She had to lean her head back to get a good look at him.  The hillbilly towered over her.  The man was big.  Huge.  Conall-sized.  Just a little leaner.

She cleared her throat, trying her best to maintain a bit of pseudo-calm.  Of course, she didn’t feel calm.  But she didn’t feel scared either.  She didn’t know what she felt except extreme panic and a growing wetness between her legs that very few men had been able to get out of her without their hands or mouth on certain parts of her anatomy.  And that sound.  What the fuck was that sound?

Thump.  Thump.  Thump
.

Ever since he took hold of her hair, she kept hearing that damn sound.

Good God.  That was her!  That thumping noise was coming from between her legs.  Was her clit supposed to sound that loud pounding against her panties?  And could the hillbilly hear it?  This could get seriously embarrassing.

“Look, Hillbilly.”  She looked for a way around him, but he wouldn’t move and he seemed in no hurry to release her hair.  “If I’m gonna stay here, maybe we should get a few things straight.”

He leaned in suddenly.  His grip tightening on her hair.  And, man, but did that feel good.  He put his nose right against her neck. 
Is the man smelling me?
  “What exactly would those few things be, Sugar?”

“First off, stop smelling me!”

“Sorry.  It’s just…,” he took another sniff.  “You smell good enough to…”

“Don’t you dare say it.”

“…lick.”

Then he did.  Right across her jugular.  His tongue, warm and dry, pulling the skin of her neck as it rasped across it.

She almost dropped.  Right there.  Right at his giant, hillbilly feet.  But at the same time, her fight or flight response kicked in.  And she did the only thing she could think of.  She brought her knee up, aiming for his nuts.

But the fucker moved like lightning.  He grabbed her knee before it ever touched him.  His hand sliding around and up, lifting her leg.  He leaned his body against hers as he wrapped her leg tightly around his hip.

He did it so fast, she didn’t even realize what the hell had happened until his body pinned her against the dresser, the heavy wood banging against the wall behind it.

Thump.  Thump.  Thump
.

***

Nik knew he had to stop.  He knew he needed to back away and let her get on with her packing or unpacking or whatever the hell she had been doing when he walked in.  Then he would go outside as tiger and kill the first unlucky thing that came across his path.  Hopefully one of his brothers.

But he couldn’t.  He couldn’t walk away from her.  He never met a woman capable of making him this…
feral
before.  He considered himself out of control at the moment, at least by Vorislav standards.  But she really did smell good.  And she tasted even better.

Damn his brothers to hell and back!  Why the hell did they bring this vicious, foul-mouthed piece of ass into his home?  Yesterday his life had been going so well.  Quiet.  Simple.  With the occasional elk thrown in for good measure.

Now he was more than ten grand in the hole, had a healthy knot on his forehead, and he’d pinned some stranger up against his furniture while grinding his painfully hard erection into her amazingly hot crotch.  And, man, but did
that
feel good.

Her hands, still covered in scratches and scrapes from the day before, grabbed hold of his T-shirt.  But instead of pulling him in for the kiss he desperately wanted to give her, she shoved him away.

“Get the fuck offa me!”

Nik released her and her hair immediately.  He didn’t want to, but never in his life had he ever forced a woman to do anything she didn’t want to—and making his baby sister eat dirt just didn’t count—so he wasn’t about to start now.

Like an alley cat trapped under his couch, she hissed at him, “Don’t ever put your fuckin’ hands on me.  I don’t like to be touched.”

“Really?  Cause it
smells
like you didn’t mind much.”

***

Goddamn, motherfuckin’ shapeshifters!
  As far as Angie was concerned…they cheated!  Being able to smell fear, panic, pain, and now lust ripped away her ability to lie her Latina ass off.

And, to her growing rage, he was right.  She didn’t mind much.  For the first time ever, she didn’t mind being cornered.  By a lunatic hillbilly, no less.  A lunatic hillbilly who made her feel like she hadn’t had sex in a thousand years…and that this might be her one and only chance.

No, sex with the hillbilly wouldn’t be the problem.  Her lack of control would be the problem.  And she could see it in his eyes.  She’d never be able to control him.  Never be able to tell him what to do and just have him do it.  His brothers were easy.  A few complimentary words, a few glances from beneath her lashes, and she could lead them anywhere.  But not this one.

This was not some big kitty she could lead around by his cock.  This one was a big, mean, woman-eating tiger.  And she’d do well to keep her legs closed and her body off-limits.

Controlling men and sex were the only things she ever had going for her, she wasn’t about to give that up to this asshole.

No matter how badly she wanted him to push her onto all fours and fuck her from behind.

“You need to go now.”  She pushed herself away from the dresser.  His eyes narrowed at her sudden and brutally cold detachment as she scooped some folded clothes off the floor, pulled open the dresser drawer, and carefully placed them inside with the others.

“So it’s like that, is it?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder, “Like what?”

He shook his head, “You know, Sugar, if you wanna pretend what just happened didn’t…And that what we both felt, we didn’t.  Well, that’s on you.”

The bedroom door opened as he headed out.  “But we’ll both know that you’ll be lyin’ your pretty little ass off.”

Then he was gone.  The door closing quietly behind him.

Angie glanced down at her hands.  They were shaking.  Badly.  But not from fear.  She didn’t fear the man.  Not even close.

And for the first time ever, Angie regretted that she really hated being touched.

Chapt
er Five

Nik leaned against the kitchen counter.  His arms crossed in front of him as he watched the food on his stove top bubble and cook.  He could feel his face frowning.  He’d let some woman make him frown.  She also made him hard.  Unbelievably, painfully, mind-alteringly hard.  But the frowning definitely pissed him off more.

He didn’t let women get to him.  Why should he?  There were others.  More than enough to keep a man damn happy without attaching himself to just one.

Known for their brutality and solitary ways, most tiger females and males spent little time together except for the occasional vicious mating.

But the Vorislavs weren’t raised like other tigers.  Not with the father the good Lord cursed them with.  The rest of his kin didn’t even call his daddy eccentric.  They called him weird.  The less friendly ones called him a freak.  A freak among freaks.  And he was Nik’s sperm donor.

Nik knew he should never come home from hunting and find his siblings sitting in his kitchen.  Eating his food.  Drinking his beer and coffee.  And if they were, he shouldn’t let them live.  But he did.  The old man insisted on it since they were cubs.  He wanted a family from the very beginning and he did everything necessary to ensure that.  He prided himself on two things: surviving the Vietnam War and making sure that all his children were with the same female.

Nik understood the first.  But the last boggled his mind.  There were few, if any, tigers who only bred with one female in their lifetime.  Most of the tiger families consisted of half sisters and brothers.  But not his.  And it wasn’t that his mother didn’t want other males.  But if any got too close, his father made sure they never got too close to much of anything ever again.