by Lia Connor
He looked up at Shanda, and she almost lost her grip on her gun. “Shit,” she said again with a gasp.
She’d seen this man before.
In her dreams, with the wolves.
Be damned.
Chapter Three
“So. You know him?”
Hunter stood by the side of the closet, displaying his captive casually as a hunter would show off a mounted buck’s rack. From his stance, idly propped against the wall, arms crossed and head back, eyes flat and dispassionate, no one would have thought he gave a damn.
Shanda wondered if he did and was hiding it, or if he really, truly didn’t. The thought sent an unwanted shiver down her spine. Finding Dashika was one thing. Did she really want to go on tangling with a man capable of this?
The bound Native American watched Shanda with an air of placid patience. No wiggling to get loose, no trying to talk to her through the gag. He didn’t plead for his life, his safety, or his freedom. Damn if the man didn’t seem content to just sit there and take what came.
She couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Shanda.” Hunter spoke flatly, but she knew him well enough to know he was warning her she’d better start talking. “Do you know this man?”
If she started talking about dreams of running with wolves and mystery men, Hunter would think she’d gone nuts. “No,” Shanda lied, swallowing hard.
“Sure about that?”
“Never seen him before in my life.” Shanda stepped back. The captive didn’t display any surprise or make a protest. Well, why should he? After all, he couldn’t be the man out of her dreams. Things like that didn’t happen. Just a good look-alike and nothing more.
Even though, looking at him, she could all but feel those strong arms wrapped around her and his sensual lips sucking on her nipples…
Shanda crossed her arms over her perking breasts and shook her head. Denied him three times, hadn’t she? “This guy’s a stranger to me. So. Why’s he here?”
The question was a challenge, but she wanted to know -- needed to -- and Hunter wouldn’t have been impressed if she’d backed down like she was afraid and didn’t take the initiative. You didn’t question his decisions, but he liked it when you were part of the process.
Stone-cold, Shanda thought. Maybe a killer. Some say yes, some say no. Ruthless as hell, for sure. He sure didn’t mind trussing this poor guy up like a Christmas turkey and stuffing him in a near-airless hole.
Hunter ran his blank look up and down her body. Her sensitive pussy, fresh from its hard fucking, began to get all excited under the weight of his stare. Damn him and the way she reacted to his gaze despite her reservations about him. He turned her on easy as flipping a switch.
Bastard probably knew as much, too. Oh, he’d promised he wasn’t playing her, but he had his hands on all her strings.
Hunter shifted a fraction, his version of a measuring stance, as if he suspected her to be lying. Not something you did with Hunter, not if you wanted to save your own skin. If his gun weren’t on the floor and out of reach, Shanda would have looked to her own weapon.
He didn’t make a move though, neither threatening nor pacifying. “Not one of your friends, not someone you’ve worked with, and you’ve never even run into him on the street. Maybe you met back before I found you?” he pressed.
Shanda shook her head -- and kept her finger on the trigger though she aimed her gun away from both the Native and Hunter. “None of the above. What’s his story?”
Hunter glanced at the man. “I believe it’s all about you,” he said noncommittally. “Got word that someone was on your trail. Sniffing after your tracks. Watching your apartment. Scoping you out. Now why, I asked myself, would someone be taking such an interest? Maybe you’ve gotten too close to something he wants hidden, so he figured to shut you up.”
Shanda’s mouth went dry. “He was stalking me?”
“Pretty damn well, too. He’s got the moves to tell me he’s done this before. Knows all the tricks about sticking to the shadows and being patient, watching your every move.”
Shanda eyed the patient Native, trying to shake off her growing arousal, her imagined memories of how the dream version had caught and held her, making her feel small but leaving her the power she’d fought for. Damn, he was a good replica. Made her uneasy. “Who told you all this?”
Hunter raised one shoulder carelessly. “I have my sources. Same ones I ordered to catch this guy and bring him in. I did specify alive, of course. I -- we -- are going to want him to answer some questions.”
“He fight back?” Shanda kind of doubted it. The Native didn’t have a scratch on him.
“Nope.” Hunter looked utterly bored, but Shanda knew him well enough to interpret the tiny line between his eyebrows as a sign he was running over game plans and strategy and was just a little bit curious, too. “Boys say when they had him surrounded, he went along meek as a little lamb.”
“Did he say anything?” The Native’s quiet was beginning to disturb her, especially paired with the heat in his eyes. As if he’d seen her naked. Like he wanted to finish what the version in her dream had started.
God, if it weren’t flat-out nuts she’d swear they were the same guy. Shanda felt a spear of arousal in her lower belly as the Native gazed intently at her. Looked at Shanda as if he knew her.
But he couldn’t. Couldn’t.
Hunter raised a hand and started examining his fingernails. “Quiet, isn’t he? You know, when a man’s spilling everything he knows, he figures he’s got nothing left to lose. Someone keeps quiet, they have things to hide and they’ll go through hell before they let a word slip.”
Shanda’s nerves went on high alert. “You think he knows something about Dashika?”
“Could be. If that were the case, someone sent him or he came on his own to make sure you didn’t cause any more fuss.” Hunter cast her an empty look. “We stripped him down, as you can see, and the man had some wicked-looking knives hidden every place you could think. Just the kind of thing you’d use to slit a throat.”
Hunter was goading Shanda, she knew he was, but now her temper was up higher than her arousal. She raised her gun and took aim at the man on his knees. “Take off his gag.”
That got her a raised eyebrow. “You sure?”
“I want to hear what he has to say for himself.”
“He didn’t talk earlier.”
“Maybe not.” The Native looked at her expectantly. “I still want to try.”
“Your funeral.”
“Funeral. Yeah. What would you do with him if he did turn out to be as dangerous as you think?”
Hunter flicked a glance at her. “Do you really want to know?”
Shanda hesitated, then shook her head. She didn’t.
“All right, then.” Hunter reached toward the man and tugged his gag free. The Native rolled his jaw a few times but didn’t spit, swallowing against a throat so dry that the sound made Shanda wince.
Hunter nudged him. “Going to be more polite to the lady?”
Shanda didn’t give the bound man a chance to speak first. With her gun pointed at his forehead, she let loose with the anger of a woman facing her stalker, fueled by that damn sexual excitement which kept on building and building under his hot -- no, lusty -- gaze.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes in fury. “Going to set your sights on me? Like I’d just roll over and give up when you made your move?”
The Native shook his head. “I knew you would be a tough one.” Double damn if he didn’t have that same sexy voice as her dream man, a perfect match, deep and husky. “Not a lady to be trifled with. I watched you to learn as much as I could, not because I meant you any harm.”
“Someone send you after me?” Shanda jerked her gun a little. The Native didn’t even flinch. God, he had balls. A pretty nice cock to match, too.
No. Wait. Get a hold of yourself, girl. Keep it on track.
“Yes, someone sent
me.” The Native’s answer was simple, no guile and no shame either.
“Who?”
“I cannot tell you, not yet. I regret this.” He did look remorseful. “But you must believe I would never have hurt you. The knives were for my own protection and personal use. My life would have been forfeit had I harmed a single hair on your body.”
“Now why doesn’t that convince me?” Shanda scoffed. The more she looked at this Native, the longer their eyes met, the harder her legs shook. Vivid images from her wolf dreams assaulted her, making her want nothing more than to climb in, tear his bonds loose, and jump him like a horny dog. “Let me try it one more time, and this time you better answer me. Who sent you?”
“I really cannot say yet. Forgive me. But I can give you this much… the one who told me to come did not say how beautiful you were.”
Hunter’s hand flickered out, almost too fast to see, and nailed the man’s mouth, knocking his head to one side.
“Hunter!” Shanda protested without thinking, like it was instinct or something. Like she had some kind of vested interest in this Native.
“What?” Hunter wiped his hand on the leg of his sweats. He betrayed nothing in the quiet way he asked, “Do you have a problem, Shanda?”
“Break his jaw and he can’t tell us much of anything, can he?” Shanda fired back. Funny how it felt good, almost right, to defend the Native. Maybe it was all the times his double had held her in her dreams, sexy as sin and touching her in a way that set her body on fire…
“We are the same, you know.” The Native had recovered from Hunter’s blow as if the punch had never landed. Only a slight trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth was proof he’d been touched. He held Shanda with his gaze as he murmured: “I am the one whom you have seen in your dreams, beautiful Shanda. The ones where you run with wolves. You have never told anyone about these visions, have you?”
“Shut up.” Shanda steadied her grip on her gun. “Shut up right now.”
“I have no more to say yet except this: you do know me, Shanda. We have… met… more than once.” His expression turned wicked. “I have felt the curves of your body melting sweetly into mine, and yearned for the day when I could touch you in the flesh. Do not lie. You have wanted the same thing.”
“Don’t you go there,” Shanda warned.
“Thought you said you didn’t know him,” Hunter observed, casual as you please.
“I don’t.”
“Really? He seems to know an awful lot about you. Dreams, now, those are pretty personal. Besides, he’s said it himself, there are things he’s not telling us now.” Hunter leaned in, presumably to look at the Native.
The Native returned Hunter’s look with an equally level, unrevealing stare.
They held still for a moment before Hunter shrugged, shoulders moving like he was trying to shake off a spider crawling over his neck. “Okay, Shanda, your call. What do we do with him now?”
“Me?” she protested. “Why’s this my decision?”
“I don’t believe you when you say you don’t know him.”
Shit.
“He’s something to you,” Hunter went on. “So what do you want to happen to him? Call the cops with a tip about a stalker? I wouldn’t advise it. He has his own story to tell about what we did. Turn him loose? Maybe you’d like that. Let him go wandering around again. But then, who says he’s telling the truth when he claims he won’t hurt you? Could be he’ll find another knife and put it to good use.” He shrugged faintly. “Or I could end him right here, right now.”
“You’d kill him?” Shanda blurted, appalled.
“You think I’m a killer?” Hunter returned without blinking. “We play our games, Shanda, but do you think I’ve got murder in me?”
Damn. Damn. Damn. Shanda felt like Hunter did. And, God help her, she couldn’t bear the thought of this proud Native -- who had not been in her dreams, had not, had not, had not, could not have, no matter how he came to know of them -- being put down.
“Don’t kill him,” she said after a pause.
“Then what do you want me to do?”
The Native cleared his throat. “You are wise not to trust me. But I think it is time you know I am not so easily killed, or forced to go where I do not want. I let myself be brought here because I knew you would come. Now, I have no reason to be bound.”
With one flex of his wrists, he popped the rope tying them together. Strong rope it should have taken a sharp knife to cut.
“Shit!” Shanda took a step back. Hunter stood up straighter, hands loose at his side, ready for a swing.
The Native grinned at her. He brought his hands out from behind his back and flexed his arms, stretching until they heard the pop of his joints. “Do you begin to see?” He jerked his legs, snapping the ankle bindings easy as thread, then stood with the easy grace of a deer.
Shanda twitched. The man’s liquid grace and the way his muscles bulged as he moved were making her hot, damn it. Lips swelled with hunger for a kiss, breasts tingled in need of being kneaded and pinched, stomach rippled for want of heated fingers caressing her curves, and pussy ached to be filled. Not by Hunter. By him.
Her hands slipped on the butt of the gun she held when the Native flexed, casually displaying the kind of power that would make anyone go weak in the knees. His lean, corded muscles stretched, displaying several old scars -- knife fights? Animal bites? Oh, no, he wasn’t a man who’d bow to anyone unless he had something up his sleeve.
Or his… whatever… because, no sleeves. Just long, strong arms that her mind insisted were the selfsame ones who’d held her tight while he cupped her pussy and teased her nipples.
Fuck, was she going crazy or something?
“Put your gun down,” the Native said, waving his hand.
The weapon slipped out of Shanda’s suddenly nerveless fingers to clatter on the floor. Double shit!
Their former captive stepped out of the closet, giving Hunter a push that looked almost casual but knocked him flat on his ass. Shanda stood frozen, her mind telling her to run but her body disobeying.
“Good girl,” the Native crooned, taking her by the forearms. “Stand still for me, Shanda. I have done this in our visions, but I want to taste you here in the real world.”
He lowered his long, hawklike nose to her neck and drew in a deep breath. The warmth of his skin made Shanda shudder. Made her want to raise one leg and hook it over his hip, inviting him on in. God, she’d never been so horny from so little.
“Mmm.” The Native nuzzled Shanda’s skin, even the small tease sending her into thrills of illicit anticipation she couldn’t scold herself out of. He withdrew, humming in what sounded like satisfaction. “The scents match. You are indeed the one I was sent to seek. Shanda and no other.”
Shanda struggled for what remained of her control. “Sent by who?” she tried to bark, embarrassed when her voice came out as a shaky whisper.
“Who do you think?” The Native smiled at Shanda, a comforting lover’s smile, and brushed his thumb along her cheek. “My queen, Dashika, of course. Who else?”
Chapter Four
Dashika had sent this man? Shanda stared at him, searching his face for any hint he might be lying. She saw nothing but honesty. “Why?” she whispered.
“Not yet. Move!” The Native pushed Shanda to the side. Because while Hunter was down, he was not out. Shanda had seen the way he could move, and she wasn’t surprised when he shook his head to clear the cobwebs and lunged back to his feet, grabbing the Native American in a choke-hold.
For all the good it did him. He might as well have just tried to bring down a marble statue set in concrete. The Native American sighed. “Have we not had enough of this?”
“Shanda, my gun,” Hunter ordered.
“Shanda, leave the gun where it lies,” the Native said calmly.
Shanda found herself unable to move. “What -- what are you doing to me?”
“Nothing I am not forced to, to preserve my
tough old hide. Do you mind? I find it hard to speak when you are compressing my windpipe.” He shrugged Hunter off, sending the paler man staggering back a couple of paces. “There, much better.”
“You fucker.” Hunter took on an expression at last, not much, but enough to make Shanda quiver. Hunter was furious, and she’d never been witness to what that man could or would do in a temper. He shoved his hand beneath his shirt. Shanda heard the sound of tape ripping.
Hunter came out with a small revolver, and his hands didn’t shake or drop the weapon when he pointed it. “Sit down,” he commanded, deceptively calm. “Sit down or by whatever you consider sacred I will put a bullet between your eyes.”
The Native tilted his head thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “I believe you have the strength of will to try. Very well, I will sit. Have you a chair?”
“Floor’s good enough for you.” Hunter jerked his gun to indicate a patch of the dirty linoleum. “Sit.”
“Hey,” Shanda protested. “You saying I don’t have Hunter’s kind of willpower?”
The Native gave her a smile. “You have your own strength, Shanda, and rest assured I have a healthy respect for that. But you are not like this man. You walk the edge; you do not live there.” He crouched instead of sitting ass to the floor, legs coiled under him. The man could jump up and strike any time he pleased, poised in that manner.
Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “I told you to sit.”
“I am down.” The Native shrugged. “Take this or leave it.”
“You’re not afraid of what this can do to you?” Hunter’s gun hand never wavered. “You’re either too brave for your own good, or too stupid to know your life’s on the line.”
The Native said nothing. Hunter stared him down, the kind of look Shanda knew would send bigger, beefier men screaming for their mommas, but their former prisoner didn’t budge.
