Outfoxed: A Zodiac Shifters Paranormal Romance: Gemini

by Melissa Snark

  "Do what?" Silver grew guarded, assuming she meant their whole brief but contentious history. Agitation ate at him. He had wronged her. He owed her an apology—and more.

  "Help that kid after he lied to you." She gestured toward the teenagers.

  "Maybe he didn't lie to me. Here you are."

  "Yeah, he did. He didn't see me. And..." She snorted. "Angel wings my ass."

  "I mentioned your ass, too." Silver flashed a quick grin, but she didn't return it. He sighed. "You didn't fall out of heaven?"

  "Wow... Does anyone actually fall for that corny line?" Her mask slipped just a bit. Beneath her coy flirtation, his fox bristled with repressed anger. Her beautiful face set into hard lines, and her jaws clenched.

  "I help street kids because I've been where he's at." Remorse ate at him. He would gladly spend the next month making amends. He'd worship her with his hands, his mouth, and his voice. Just being in her presence inspired his muse. Gladly he'd write and sing songs in her tribute, praising her in poetic verse set to melodious music.

  "A teenage male prostitute?" She arched her eyebrows, which were slightly irregular so they lifted at competing angles. The imperfection enhanced her natural beauty all that much more.

  A spontaneous smile split his mouth. "Homeless."

  "Why?"

  "It was better than staying at home."

  Silence, then she said, "You took something from me. I want it back."

  "I don't have it on hand." He held up open hands, so it was a technical truth.

  "You'll understand if I don't believe you." Her gaze glowed—a bright flash—and her statement ended on a growl.

  "Yeah." He grimaced. "Go ahead. Search me." He spread his arms, granting her implicit permission to pat him down.

  "I will." She patted down the outside of his trench coat first, moving around him as she checked his pockets. He stayed still, obliging her, and enjoyed every second of her proximity. She removed a pack of guitar strings, his pick case, two sixteen-inch drumsticks, condoms, and various other miscellanies from his pocket. After a cursory inspection she returned everything except a small knife which she pocketed.

  "You don't need to do that. I'm not dangerous."

  "I do... and you are." Her sultry laugh tingled the base of his spine right where his tail would sprout, scoring a bullseye on the lick spot. A rumble erupted from deep in his throat. Oh yeah, baby...

  Perhaps as an afterthought, she extracted his cell phone from her pocket and dropped it into his coat with a friendly pat. "This is yours."

  "Thanks." Silver mentally tensed when her hands passed over the hidden pocket in his coat lining where he'd stashed the box. It required a monumental effort, but he managed to remain relaxed while she patted him down. He offered up a quick mental prayer to Coyote that the illusion would hold.

  It did.

  She reached under his coat to pat down his behind and spent an undo amount of time massaging his ass. Way more than was warranted by the unlikely possibility of a hidden weapon in his skintight leather pants. She dug in hard with her fingernails as though hoping to leave half-moon indentations in his skin.

  A groan built in his chest and escaped him. "I confess. I have a loaded weapon in the front of my pants."

  "Is that so? Guess I'd better check."

  His fox came to stand before him again. She was the perfect height—only a couple inches shorter than him. Her long legs just went on forever, and all he could imagine was how tightly they'd wrap around his waist. They were made to fit together. She reached for him, pushing aside the front halves of his trench coat.

  Silver damn near leapt out of his skin in excitement. He raised his arms again, letting her past his guard. With quick, clever hands, she patted him down, stroking his chest through his cotton shirt. Desire quickened his body—he trembled beneath her touch—and at last he dropped his gaze to steal a glimpse.

  She wore a fitted coat with a hemline that reached her knees. The deep V neckline exposed an alluring expanse of flawless tanned skin and just the hint of cleavage. He couldn't tell whether she had on anything else beneath it. Just the possibility stirred his imagination. Titillation got him by the throat like a garrote. When she stepped in close enough that her warmth radiated across his skin, a lynch mob pretty much hauled his balls onto the gallows.

  "You're in great shape..." Her fingernails dug into his abs, assessing the firm muscle, only an inch above his leather pants. She treated him as though he was a prime steer up at auction, but for the life of him, he didn't mind in the least.

  "Thanks." He stifled a groan but refrained from offering some stupid lie about working out. As a relatively lazy coyote—typical of his breed—he owed his sublime physique entirely to being a shape changer, not power lifting or steroids.

  "For a musician." She kneaded him, catlike, teased him with the promise of her pat down continuing on to the swollen bulge in the front of his pants... or the danger of being gutted should she shift her hands to claws.

  The danger hooked him like an addict.

  He snickered. "What's your name?"

  She hesitated for a fraction of a second and spat the word out. "Vixen."

  "It suits you." But from the way she said it, as though it were an unfamiliar word, he didn't believe it was her real name. Silver hesitated, suppressing the impulse to reach for her, because he wasn't sure his advances would be welcome. Vixen might very well be screwing with him out of anger—revenge for what he'd done—or maybe her arousal was real. Trouble was, he couldn't tell. Between her being in heat and his own compulsive arousal, his honed instincts for reading people were failing him. She had one of the best poker faces he'd ever seen.

  "Ursula seemed to think so. I called her on your phone and we had a nice little chat. She's such a sweet lady. How is it she associates with the likes of you?"

  He winced. "I'm not a bad guy."

  "Yeah. You are." She gripped his hips and tugged him toward her. An obliging moan tore from his throat, and he rocked toward her. At last, her hands slipped lower. She found the metal button at the top of his fly and tapped her fingernail against it.

  "That's how you found me?"

  "Yeah." She looked him straight in the eyes. "I've already searched your room. The box wasn't there."

  "I went straight to the performance. I was late."

  Her gaze hooded—she considered him from beneath lowered lids. "I figured that out too. Eventually. Sooo..."

  "Would you believe me if I told you it's stashed in the front of my pants?"

  She stared at him but then, finally, he got past her guard. She succumbed to a rich, mellow laugh. "No. You already confessed that's a loaded weapon."

  "Shoot," he said, snapping his fingers. "It was worth a try."

  She grew serious again. "You didn't have a whole lot of time or opportunity to stash it. It has to be in your car or the club."

  "Or I handed it off to my fence."

  Anger accentuated the angular aspects of her face. She hissed and snapped, "If you have, then I'm as good as dead."

  He inhaled, breathing through his parted lips to draw air across the scent gland in the roof of his mouth, but her pheromones were too damn thick. To save his life, he couldn't have said whether she was lying to him—which left him with only his gut. And his instincts said she was telling the truth. Fun and games were great while they lasted, but this had just gotten serious.

  "Who wants to hurt you?" A growl reverberated in his chest. He tensed, in the grip of furious aggression. He would kill to protect her—die to defend her. The intensity hit him like a shock wave.

  When he tensed, she bristled—she probably perceived him as the immediate threat. She grabbed tight hold of the waistband of his pants and got in his face. "That's none of your damn business."

  "I'm making it my business." He raised his hands, reaching for her shoulders, and opened his mouth to offer reassurances, but the unforgiving muzzle of a pistol shoved into his ribcage. He froze with his arms raised.r />
  "I need that box. My grandmother's life is at stake and so is mine. You need to believe me when I say this—I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to." His fox locked gazes with him, and he caught a glimpse into her soul, which was brimming with fear and desperation.

  "I believe you." Silver fell into her. Right then and there, he made a silent vow. He'd save her—from herself, and anything or anyone threatening her. "I'll trade you for it."

  "You're seriously trying to barter?" she asked in an incredulous tone.

  "I have to barter—it's in my blood." He mustered a lopsided smile. Despite her threats, he didn't believe she would shoot him. She might be a thief, but she wasn't a cold-blooded killer.

  Vixen's thin sigh signaled her capitulation. "Okay, what do you want?"

  "Your real name. Give me that and I'll give you the box." He lowered his arms, reaching for his pocket, but stopped when she jabbed him with the gun.

  Her mouth worked, and then she dipped her chin. "Fine. It's Hannah." This time, her words actually had the ring of truth.

  "Pretty." He noted how she withheld her last name, but at least it was something to go on and more than he'd had before. Like a knight on a quest, he had to earn the rest. Once she acquired the box, she would run with it. Obviously, she didn't want him being able to follow or find her again. No matter what, he had no intention of letting her get away, but if she did, he'd find her. He had contacts—and there couldn't be that many gorgeous fox-shifters in the Los Angeles area named Hannah.

  "Thanks. Now keep your side of the bargain."

  "I need to reach into my coat."

  "I already searched you. It's not on you." Doubt edged her tough front, only a sliver but enough to crack her façade.

  "I have a concealed pocket."

  "One hand—slowly. Keep the other raised."

  "All right." He eased his hand into the deep front pocket of his jacket and accessed the hidden opening through the lining. He withdrew the box and started to offer it to her.

  Hannah snatched it from his grasp. She dropped her gaze to perform a cursory inspection—long enough to assure herself it was the genuine article—and then she stashed it in her own coat.

  Reflexively, Silver brought his arms up to shield his face. While he refused to believe she'd kill him, he thought her perfectly capable of clonking him with her fist or the butt of the pistol. Cold sweat trickled down his back. He could only hope—pray—that she didn't shoot him in the leg.

  "Relax. I don't want to hurt you." Hannah snickered, obviously savoring his fear. Now that she had what she needed, she was definitely more relaxed. Gently, she nudged him with the pistol. "Let's take a walk."

  "Where are we going?" Tentatively, he lowered his guard. Curiosity piqued, his brief bout of anxiety receded. He warmed to her again. He'd been right about her. She wasn't callous or cruel, simply scared and vulnerable.

  A deliciously naughty little smile played on her full lips. "Back to your hotel room. You stole something else from me, too, Mr. Kissing Bandit. I intend to have my revenge... in spades."

  He gulped, throat working. His mouth was suddenly bone dry and his Adam's apple swollen like a plum. "You don't need a gun for that."

  "I know." She dropped the muzzle so it wasn't aimed at him, but the implicit threat remained. "But this is way more fun."

  Stunned, Silver blinked. Never mind his fleeting concern that he'd fallen straight past lust and into a fatal attraction. All bets were off. He'd just found the perfect woman.

  Chapter Six

  Unsurprisingly, Silver accompanied her back to his rented room without so much as a murmur of protest. If anything, the good ol' wily coyote strode along with a spring in his step and followed her directions with laughable enthusiasm. She couldn't imagine a better personification of "willing victim." Secretly, a part of her hoped he'd muster at least token resistance... for the sake of the game.

  Doubt dogged Hannah's every step for the two-block trip back to the trashy motel. Damn it, she couldn't afford this distraction. She should be on her way with her prize—on to the grim task of negotiating her grandmother's release from Balthazar Latimur's greedy clutches.

  "Are you in trouble?" Silver asked with uncanny insight, as though reading her mind. Except his perception wasn't preternatural; she had let too much slip already.

  Grimly, she vowed not to give him anything else. "It's none of your business."

  "It could be." He paused beneath a flickering street lamp.

  "No, it couldn't." She gestured with the pistol again for him to get moving, but it was an empty threat. Her brief resolve to shoot him had dissipated as soon as he'd surrendered the box. She wasn't going to hurt him. She didn't even want to anymore. In fact, the notion was rapidly becoming loathsome to her.

  He sighed and resumed walking. They passed through the motel's pothole-marked parking lot that reeked of motor oil and refuse. Silver took the lead up the stairs, ascending with deft confidence. She'd have been fooling herself to pretend even for a second that he didn't want to be there.

  "Are you a professional thief?" Silver asked, as though such was often the topic of small talk.

  "No, I'm actually a professional security consultant," Hannah said with a snort and hustled him along.

  She shouldn't be doing this, but double damn it, she needed this diversion. Like their wild cousins, fox-shifters entered estrus every winter. For six days, she suffered through the hormonal deluge of being in heat. Eventually it abated, only to resume again in a couple of weeks. Six days in—two weeks out. And so it went, all winter long, until she became pregnant. Since she refused to allow that, her life pretty much sucked until spring.

  Silver stopped in front of room twenty-six which, based on what her nose had revealed during her search of it, he shared with at least one other member of his band. It remained her fervent hope that his buddies would stay gone long enough.

  "My hotel keycard is in my front pocket." He cast a pointed look toward the oh-so-obvious strain against the lap of his pants. Then he glanced up and waited, his arms dangling loosely at his sides. His smile was an eager dare.

  Hannah stifled a groan but found the real difficulty was in fighting laughter. "It was in your trench when I searched you."

  "I must've moved it."

  "You can get it out."

  His eyes rounded to comical effect. "Here—in public?" He gasped as though scandalized, but his shaking sides betrayed him. "No, it's better if you do it."

  She hesitated. The paranoid voice in the back of her mind worried it was just a ruse to lure her close enough and distract her so he could grab the gun. Coyotes were sly and untrustworthy. The evidence, however, said otherwise. He might be a conniving conman, but his desire for her was real. Plus, he'd given up the box too easily. It led her to believe the thing didn't mean all that much to him.

  "Please?" He hooded his gaze—bedroom eyes. And his voice had that sultry resonance—the same as when he sang. His magnetism ensnared her, and left her wondering—was there such a thing as a male siren?

  A quiver ran through her. Without thinking, she stepped up to him. She aimed the muzzle of the pistol at the ground and cupped her other hand against his crotch. She applied a slight pressure, to entice rather than gratify, but firm enough so she could take his measure. What she found was more than satisfactory.

  With a soft moan, he bent toward her. His breath expelled across her lips, a savory aroma that spiked her hunger. Their lips feathered together in a tentative kiss and... he closed his eyes. A trivial little thing, but it quelled the last of her suspicion that he harbored duplicitous intent. No, the guy was exactly as he appeared—a simple, horny male—perfectly suited to her needs. She could use him and leave him without a shred of guilt or regret.

  Impatient, she wedged two fingers into the front pocket of his tight leather pants. Her sudden withdrawal elicited a murmur from him but she only smirked into the kiss. It took some digging but she secured a grip on the keycard and dug
it out. By unspoken consent, they broke apart. She passed Silver the keycard and derived a great deal of satisfaction from when he fumbled three times before he finally got the door open.

  When he rushed inside, Hannah hung back. It afforded her the opportunity to put some space between them. She shoved the door shut and put her back to it, aiming the pistol at him again.

  The shabby little room had two double beds with one nightstand between them, a crappy box television perched atop a plywood bureau, and a small table and chair set which served double duty as desk and dining area. It had a micro-sized attached bathroom which contained a sink, a toilet, and a shower. Open suitcases and instrument cases were strewn about the room. Thankfully, the curtains were already drawn.

  Silver stopped at the foot of the first bed and turned back to her. He took in their separation—and the gun. Dismay crossed his face before he hit vast disappointment. "Were you just screwing with me?"

  Strangely, she wanted to reassure him rather than mess with him further. "No. I mean yes, I am going to screw you but not like that. I want this, but it has to happen my way... by my rules."

  "I'm confused." He shrugged.

  "Hardly surprising. You are a guy."

  "Hilarious," he bit off.

  "First thing: get the handcuffs from the bass guitar case."

  Slack-jawed, he stared. A perceptible flush crept across his face. In turn, she found herself blushing, too, which was incredibly embarrassing.

  "What?" Hannah demanded.

  "It's just... a woman who knows a bass guitar from an acoustic. I didn't think you could get any more perfect."

  Heat washed over her. "That's sexist, assuming I can't play."

  "Can you?'

  "Well... no. But that doesn't make it any less sexist."

  "You're right. I'm sorry." He put on the fakest angelic face she'd ever had the misfortune to witness.

  "Will you just get the damn handcuffs—please?"

  "Yes, ma'am." With a cocky grin, he jumped to her command and returned with the restraints dangling from his index finger. The man was as smug as a frat boy returning from a successful panty raid.