by Anya Breton
“I couldn’t have found Kari so quickly without you.”
Oh, that. Dion didn’t tell her he would have looked for her sister without their deal if he’d known about the kidnapping ahead of time. The confession would piss her off, especially since he’d already claimed two thirds of his payment. Instead, he nodded for her. “You’re welcome.”
“So.” She shifted her weight onto one hip. “I guess this is…goodbye.”
Dion swallowed down a choke. “Goodbye?” he echoed in disbelief. “How do you figure?”
“Well…” Samantha’s cheeks flushed pink again. “I just thought…now that we’ve had sex in public…and you said not to worry about the furniture…”
The skin stretched tight on the top half of his face as he stared. Dion spent several incredulous seconds in silence.
She wasn’t screwing with him. She honestly thought she’d satisfied their deal. And she’d meant to ditch him immediately after.
Doubt flickered within him. Had he misread her? Had the sex only been payment for services rendered? But her arousal hadn’t been faked, nor had the orgasm that had throbbed around him.
Still, goodbye? Goodbye? No.
When her eyes shot wide, he understood the growl he’d heard came from him. She took a step back from his desk as if she knew he could easily pounce on her regardless of the wood blocking him. He had half a mind to do it too, but that would be odious of him.
Fuck. Just when he’d thought he was making progress dispelling his bad reputation in her eyes, she had to go and do something like this.
Dion could do the chivalrous thing—he could accept that she’d completed her part of the agreement and let her go. Part of him shouted to do it. That part reasoned, if he behaved magnanimously perhaps she’d come back all on her own.
But that part of him hadn’t gotten him where he was today.
“My office with the door open isn’t public.” He tried not to wince when her eyes narrowed into fine lines that echoed the press of her lips.
Her voice went arctic. “Your office with the window open, lights on and the door wide where the entire restaurant could hear us also doesn’t count as a room with the windows open and the lights off.”
“‘Public’ requires being in open view,” he retorted even though he should simply shut up. “That’s part of the definition of the word. We weren’t in public view in my private office.”
Samantha threw up her arms in disgust. “You really are as odious as I thought.”
The little witch made a move to stomp out in a huff but Dion was having none of that. Speed courtesy of the virus running through his veins had him catching her before she reached the corridor. He curled his arms around her, immediately cupping the breasts he’d fed on minutes earlier. Her breath caught in her throat.
“You don’t get the last word,” he snarled into her ear. “Not in my restaurant.”
Dion shifted a few inches back in an effort to hide the thickening of his dick from her. She couldn’t discover that simply holding her like this aroused him. Samantha definitely couldn’t learn he liked when she made him angry.
However, the spicy aroma that tickled his nose implied she was every bit as aroused as he was. He might have grinned if he wasn’t so furious.
“I found your sister for you,” he reminded her in a low pitch. “When no one else would lift a finger, I personally scoured the city, visiting every known spellweaver and some unknowns until I found her. And then I asked my pack member to watch over her until we were sure he’d been working alone. All I asked for in return was for you to give me what you wanted to give me anyway.”
“I didn’t want to fuck you in your office with the door open.” The snapped emphasis and high-pitched protest smacked of a falsehood.
He hadn’t needed the sour scent of a lie too. But it was there. Dion pointed out the obvious rather than call her on the lie. “You could have closed the door, sweetheart.”
“I thought it would count as public!” Samantha’s exclamation carried no sour scent despite her continued high pitch.
He should let her off the hook. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do. The continued spice of her arousal made him unreasonable. “It doesn’t count as public,” he told her clearly. “But I’ll be more than happy to fuck you in my office as many times as you need to work up to a public fuck.”
“You make me sick.”
Dion laughed in her ear. Her shiver brought a smile to his lips when he might have scowled. That hadn’t been fear. It had been desire. The proof was in the pungent scent of arousal filling his office and in the way she leaned in to him rather than away. Her desire nearly drowned out the sour aroma of her newest lie.
“Samantha,” he crooned softly against her hair. “You can’t lie to a weretiger. You can’t hide your arousal from me. I meant what I said—you’ll beg me to fuck you in public. And when you do, our agreement will be satisfied regardless of whether or not I take you up on the offer.”
He relaxed his arms and then stepped back. She hadn’t understood the full meaning of his words before she stumbled out of his office into the corridor. If she had, she probably would have hit him. Dion focused on the clicking of her heels against the plank floor until he heard what he’d been waiting for.
“What? Asshole.” Her quiet hiss echoed back through the corridor.
Clearly she’d worked it out.
Dion smirked despite his foul mood.
* * * * *
Like he was going to refuse her if she demanded sex.
Sam slammed the car door as hard as she could in the parking lot of his stupid restaurant. A cracking sound in the frame drew her nose into a worried crinkle.
Damn. What if she’d broken something?
It would be his fault. She’d make him pay for it.
But…
Sam slumped against the bucket seat. The whole reason she’d come to this part of town in the first place was because he’d already paid for furniture that he hadn’t destroyed.
Was consistency too much to ask for in a weretiger gangster? Couldn’t he be evil all the time? Instead of just some of the time?
Dear Aer. Her legs were still wobbling from how good he could be.
Sam’s cheeks went hot in shame when she recalled how he’d stripped her in his office in front of the open door and she’d done nothing to stop him. That had been public! At least as public as she was willing to get.
And yet…
She jabbed the key into the ignition so she could get across the city and away from him as fast as legally possible before her thoughts took her down a road she didn’t want to go.
Chapter Twelve
The weretiger minion was the second-to-last person Sam wanted to see when she stepped into the living room holding a large specialty pizza. But there Kevin was, chatting with her sister in his freshly laundered clothes, on the new sofa, as if they were old friends. That couldn’t be good.
Kari tilted her head at Sam in a move that smacked of disappointment. “You’re hiring twenty-nine-year-old weretigers as interns now?”
Okay, so it wasn’t the best of lies but she’d been exhausted when she thought it up. “Um…”
Her sister spared her another lie by blurting out, “He told me.”
Sam dearly hoped he hadn’t told her everything. She couldn’t bear the shame if Kari learned what she’d agreed to do.
“What I want to know is why you didn’t.” Kari’s mutinous expression didn’t help Sam’s temper.
Sam managed to speak in a blank tone when she replied, “I thought you’d try to ditch him if you knew he was watching you.”
Kari’s eyes darted to the Gamma and then away before he noticed. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you think I’m too stifling.”
“You can be,” Kari quickly agreed. “But I was kidnapped. I’d be stupid not to let someone protect me.”
The doe-eyed batting of her sister’s lashes at Kevin made Sam’s jaw clench
tightly. She would have growled if her sister hadn’t said something uncharacteristic.
Kari had said Sam could be stifling. Each time the topic came up in the past, her sister unequivocally announced that Sam smothered her. Often Kari combined the proclamation with a heap of colorful phrases like “suffocating agony aunt” and “sibling vise grip”.
What prompted the change? And why had she stayed in the house all Sunday? Sam hoped to Aer it had nothing to do with the guy on the sofa.
“I got pizza,” she declared, changing the subject.
“I figured.”
Sam turned to the weretiger. “Kevin? Want some pizza?”
“If you’ll have enough,” he said in his polite way.
“We’ll have enough,” Kari assured him as she popped to her feet. She grabbed the box out of Sam’s hands so she could set it on the new coffee table before sprinting to the kitchen. “I’ll get plates.”
Sam opened her mouth to warn the gangster’s minion away from her sister. She clamped her lips shut. He’d been so nice and he hadn’t noted the mooning looks Kari sent him. But she’d have to keep an eye on the situation.
However, she did take the time to ask something nearly as important. “What did you tell her?”
Kevin had a ready answer. “That you asked my Alpha for help locating your missing sister and he told me to watch over her in case she’s still in danger.”
She eyed the timid set to his features for signs of the truth. Was that all he’d said? Did he not know what she’d agreed to do to secure his Alpha’s assistance? Sam dearly hoped not. Kari returned with plates before Sam could ask anything else.
With pizza to distract them, it was time to try to forget about a certain hot Alpha.
* * * * *
The metallic spring of a toaster popping and the savory scent of fresh coffee roused Sam on Monday morning. Considering her sister only set foot in the kitchen to grab cans of pop and leftover slices of pizza, the weretiger must have invaded. She drew on her bathrobe to investigate what had made him help himself to their bread and coffee grounds after days of barely accepting things offered him.
Instead of finding Kevin at the small appliance, Sam found Kari. Her sister was fully dressed and sported a fine layer of makeup on her pretty face. The girl had even found time to carefully arrange her hair before starting the pot dripping.
Was Kari sick? Had the spellweaver taken more than magic? What could possibly explain Kari waking early instead of rushing to school as usual?
The sight of the weretiger Gamma nibbling on buttered toast at the kitchen table brought Sam to a halt. Sam’s gaze shifted from him to her sister and then back.
Oh Aer.
Much as she’d done last night, Sam opened her mouth to protest what might be a bad, bad idea. Again, nothing came out. This time because Kari had ditched school on Friday. Today, Kari was dressed and ready to leave.
Was her little sister actually going back to school? Did Sam dare ask her?
“Does it ever go away?” Kari asked from the counter.
“What?” came Kevin’s response.
“The bite mark of mates? Does it ever, like, heal?”
Sam flattened against the wall to avoid being seen until she learned what had started this conversation. Was this more than a schoolgirl crush?
“Not that I’ve ever seen.”
“How does it work?”
The Gamma coughed on his next bite of toast. He cleared his throat twice before setting the crisp slice on his plate. “The male bites his intended during…uh…well…”
“Sex?” Kari offered when the guy continued to stammer.
Kevin coughed again. “Yes.”
“Can it be Healed by a Healer?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve always been told a mark is for life. The whole point is to mark the Were as off limits to others.”
“So it’s kind of like our Brand.”
“Your what?”
Her feet stumbled backward and then Kari exclaimed, “Sam! I made coffee. How do you take yours?”
She’d been found out. No sense hiding against the wall any longer. “Milk and sugar,” Sam replied, simply to see if her sister would fix her a cup.
The younger girl twirled to the cabinet. There, she tugged out one of the larger mugs. She merrily filled the thing with dark liquid that didn’t look quite right.
Moments later Sam had a steaming mug of coffee while her sister eagerly waited for her to try it. The scent implied it was too strong for her tastes. Still, Sam brought the mug to her lips for a sip. She forced a smile for her sister because it was the thought that counted.
“Thanks,” Sam told her.
Pleased with the response, Kari swiveled toward the backpack on the floor. “I have to work right after school. I’ll be home at, like, quarter to ten because I have to close.”
Sam didn’t know what else to say but, “Okay.” And, “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Kari was off with her bag over her shoulder seconds later. She paused in the corridor to ask, “Coming, Kevin?”
The weretiger shot Sam a flustered smile. “I said I’d give her a ride.”
Though the discussion about marks was worrisome, there were worse people for Kari to get a ride from. Sam lifted her shoulders in a shrug for him and then set about pouring in enough milk and sugar to salvage the coffee. It was going to be a long day but at least she didn’t have to worry about her sister’s safety.
* * * * *
Dion had never thought himself a stalker but peering out of an alley across the street to watch Samantha haul giant plastic boxes into a hotel made him reconsider. He’d meant to have a word with her regarding Kevin returning to his usual duties. But when he spotted her in a black pencil skirt and white dress shirt, his dick had gone rigid.
He’d forever associate the combination with one of the hottest fucks he’d ever experienced. So his allegedly well-meaning visit quickly devolved into lusty fantasizing.
His feet started him forward until his brain drew him back. Dion had to get it together. He wasn’t going to corner her in a private room so she’d have no reason to protest. No, it was her turn to initiate. And unless she did, Dion would simply use the time to remind her of what she was missing.
He surged across the busy street with the intention of helping her with the largest of her plastic transport boxes. She emerged from the building after depositing her latest load when he stepped up to the minivan. She stumbled on her next step and her lips parted invitingly. She’d spotted him.
Dion’s dick twitched in demand. Yes, he knew. He too wanted to shove his tongue in her mouth.
The desire to fuck her faded slightly when myriad emotions played through her expressive eyes. The first, he thought, was swift desire that brought her lids down into a bedroom look. An irritated narrowing soon replaced her lusty gaze. Finally, her features widened into something a lot like concern.
“Is everything okay?” she asked without moving any closer. “Did something happen to Kari?”
The first thing she thought upon seeing him was her sister?
No, she’d thought of sex first. He’d seen it in her eyes. And if he’d had proximity, he might have caught the scent of her desire.
“Your sister was fine the last I heard,” Dion replied. “That’s why I’m here.”
The witch’s forehead crinkled. “You came because my sister is fine?”
He’d come because he hadn’t been able to sleep for three days without fucking his hand and wishing it was her hot, tight passage. Dion, of course, didn’t admit that.
Instead he gestured at the gray box inside her minivan. “Can I help you carry this in?”
Her answer was a wary, “Why?”
Because he wanted her to ask him to fuck her. Anywhere. It didn’t matter if it was in public. And he thought she might do it if he could get her alone inside the hotel.
What he said aloud was, “It looks heavy.”
She eyed him with suspi
cion, nearly as much as when she’d turned up at his restaurant, desperate for help finding her sister. And then she spoke the same words. “What’s it going to cost me?”
It was like a fist to the gut.
But then he deserved it, didn’t he? He would have found her sister for her without their agreement. She simply didn’t know it.
Dion lifted himself stiffly upright. “I did come to talk about your sister. We can’t do that here on the street.” He gestured at the minivan. “You can either struggle to bring your box in all on your own just to prove you’re an independent female who needs no man, or you can let me take it for you. No strings attached.”
She cast a dubious eye over his relaxed jeans and short-sleeved shirt and then relented with a small nod. “It goes into the conference suite to the right of the door. I’ll take the van around to the parking lot and be right in.”
He lifted the box with ease so she could lock up the back. Dion’s nose perked up at the scent of something Italian and cheesy. In all the desire Sam sparked, he’d almost forgotten the reason he tried to lure her in the first place.
Sam was a brilliant cook. Her mouthwatering food had been his first introduction to her. He had his first taste at a party she catered but hadn’t been able to attend. Then he’d seen her and known he had to have her.
Food was a salve for his soul. It was the reason he’d opened a restaurant in the first place. More than ever, he wanted Sam working for him.
Dion set the transport case on the long banquet table, beside the other cases. The suite bustled with employees setting up tables and unfolding chairs, as well as with decorators stringing streamers and banners. An image of Sam nude atop a spread of crumpled streamers flashed in his mind, drawing his balls tight.
And then she was there, carrying a metal basket filled with tiny tubs of butter and another that held large silver serving spoons. Simply the sight of her moving with professional confidence made something inside him ache—a strange, nonsexual ache he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced.
Sam set the baskets on the table and then drew out a slim phone from the back pocket of her tight skirt. She glanced at the time. “I have a few minutes until they bring out the chafing dishes.”
