Secrets

by Lynn Crandall

  Gently, he moved her legs open and she complied without any hesitation. He kissed her femininity, waves of pleasure rippling from him.

  She grabbed his head and pulled his face to her lips, exclaiming, “Casey, I’m going insane.” Her voice sounded throaty, breathless, but she was past trying to restrain herself. And she knew she wanted nothing more than to be with him, no holding back. She wanted him inside her.

  He took a second for protection, then returned to her as though no time passed. A powerful shudder shook his body as he pressed against her, exploring her exterior feminine parts with his male counterparts. She wriggled unabashedly. A growl grumbled up from his chest. A glimpse of his raw nature echoed through her sensually. He pressed again, tantalizing her as she thrashed and whimpered.

  The vigor of his desire drove her as she sensed him reaching the moment they both wanted. He entered her slowly, methodically.

  “I want to make it last,” he whispered in her ear.

  A smile lit in her heart. “You’re driving me to the point of no return,” she managed to whisper back. “You feel so good.”

  He pulled back and thrust harder. Michelle arched her back and trembled. “Casey,” she whispered hoarsely.

  He thrust again. “Michelle.” He thrust deep, his eyes closed. His climax mirrored hers, like two beating hearts, they trembled and hollered together.

  Casey brushed Michelle’s lips with a delicate kiss. “You okay?” he whispered.

  Michelle smiled, her eyes still closed. “Yes.”

  Spent, content, she rolled from underneath him and snuggled under his arm. He tucked the sheet around her and kissed the top of her head.

  He rolled sleepy eyes at her and smiled. “It’s too early for bed.” His lids dropped.

  “I’ll make us dinner,” Michelle offered but didn’t move. She wanted to hold this moment in her heart forever. Yes, it was sex and she was completely satisfied. But it was more. Casey had been himself with her. The intimate connection they’d introduced had blossomed. The special gift he’d given her bathed her in something she never wanted to go away.

  She reached for him and kissed him gently, reverently. He lingered a moment, but restlessness stirred in him.

  “I love you.”

  She smiled, wondering. “Are you leaving?” She could ask him to stay as he’d promised. But the urgency hammering from him let her know he needed to take care of things.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll arrange for someone else to keep watch.” He pulled on his clothes and stared down at her. “There are things only I can do.”

  She sat up in bed and pulled her knees up to her chest. “I understand. Take care of yourself.”

  He bent to kiss her, igniting a glow inside her once again. “You, too. I’ll answer all your questions soon.”

  She watched him walk down the hall, pausing to rub the willing heads of several of her cats. “You’re about to have company,” he called to her.

  Chapter Nine

  Casey changed into tight-fitting dark clothes and waited in his car until he saw Asher drive his car down the road into the field next to Michelle’s house. He climbed out, knowing leaving his car here and jogging to his next destination made the most sense.

  Asher walked toward him, so he waited, tapping his fingers against the roof of the car.

  “You need me to take care of your girlfriend, huh? Happy to, Case.” Asher laced his words with innuendo. His charm came naturally, but left a bad taste in Casey’s mouth.

  “I’m not talking about a visit or some kind of Asher-designed interaction,” he growled. “This is business. I expect you to watch without being detected and take action only if harm shows up.”

  “Sure. I know. All business tonight. But don’t think it escaped me that you didn’t deny Michelle is your girlfriend.”

  Casey stared at him, silently. The bobcat could slither and slink with the best of them. His golden yellow eyes were keen, of course, and he had uncanny agility. His intellect was equally keen, an attribute that was useful in his line of work as a sportswriter and made him an asset to the colony. As a pure, Asher was prone to giving Casey a hard time. It was an arrogance that made Asher a pure pain in the butt.

  But Asher knew when to submit to his leader. “Sure. I understand.”

  Casey slung his small bag of tools over his shoulder and took off for the building next door. As a were-cat, Casey could take the two blocks stretch on foot to the building in minutes. In his dark clothing and on foot, he could slip through the darkness without detection.

  As he reached the line of trees that protected the large building from prying eyes, he crouched low and sped across the lawn, keeping an eye on the surveillance cameras placed at various corners. When he reached the building, he crawled between the brick walls and the low bushes that lined the building.

  But walls were no obstacle for him. He squinted and opened his sight to what there was to see behind the walls. Clinging close to the exterior of the building, he scanned while walking the perimeter.

  The brisk autumn breeze whispered across his face and he raised his nose to pick up all the scents he could. The more intel he gathered the sicker he felt in his gut. He had to get inside to be sure, but he already had a pretty comprehensive picture of what this building was about. He felt dirty just being near it, but he had to get inside.

  He placed his tool bag on the ground, unzipped it, and pulled out his glass cutter. Earlier, he’d hacked into the building’s security system and knew he was up against a pretty stringent system. Quietly and swiftly, he picked a window that he could unlock from the inside and would give him a large enough opening to drop inside. He went to work, silently cutting a circle, then removing it with a suction tool, and carefully moved his hand inside to unlock the window, then pushed it open.

  No time to waste, he had to disengage the alarm from the mainframe computer. With that done, he crept to the room he’d seen from outside.

  Down the hall, to the left, then a right. The whole building fuzzied his mind. It stunk of ill intentions and evil.

  He reached the door he wanted, pulled in a deep gulp of air, and let it out slowly.

  He heard feet coming his way and saw behind the corner wall two people in lab coats. He cracked open the door and crept inside, searching around for a place to hide. His senses screaming, he ignored everything around him but the door he knew opened to a closet. He quickly pulled it open, stepped inside, then pulled the door closed behind him.

  He breathed a sigh when he saw through the closet door that he’d just made it into hiding before the two lab coats entered the big room. The room was lined with cages and filled with cats.

  As the coats walked from cage to cage, they filled water and food dishes. From his hiding place Casey counted twenty cats. All ages, all breeds. He could sense free floating confusion and anger from the cats. When the cage door on one young cat was opened he hissed and growled and hit the coat who’d tried to pick him up.

  “Come on. They’re fed and watered. Let’s weigh them and get this over with,” one coat said to the other.

  “Go ahead, you try with this one. He’s always the tough one.”

  “Grab him by the back of the neck and weigh him,” the other coat gritted out. “Tomorrow it gets serious here and some of these cats are going to be really angry tomorrow night.”

  “The drug works that fast?”

  “They’re upping the dose. Something about moving faster because of the deaths. Something went wrong.”

  “What’s gone wrong?”

  “I don’t know. No one tells me anything. It’s safer that way, anyway. Keep that in mind,” said the coat who seemed to be in charge. “You’ll live longer.”

  The two men turned off the lights as they walked out the door. Casey listened as their feet walked away, went through a door, and took some stairs to another door. He didn’t hear them after that door closed, but he waited in the closet.

  From the room came small cat vocals. Littl
e meows from kittens. Low, throaty meows from adult cats. Distress sounds, to his ears. Anger swept through him, raising his pulse, gritting his teeth. He balled both fists, controlling his fierce reaction to the plight of these innocent cats. If he had his way he’d sweep them all, all twenty of them, up in his arms and take them away from this hostile atmosphere.

  His fingers twitched. He could open all the doors and let the cats run free. That would throw a wrench into things, I bet.

  But first he had to find out more specifically about this place and its goings on, especially about the deaths the coats discussed. Didn’t that take precedence?

  Instinctively, he put his hand to his heart and bowed his head, thinking. The coats had referred to something happening tomorrow that would affect the cats. How could he step into the room and look into the cats’ faces and leave them behind?

  He pulled in a deep breath and let it out heavily. He had to leave them behind. This was not a rescue mission, it was a mission to learn more about William Carter’s plans for the cats and Michelle’s property.

  Casey gathered his emotions and slipped out of the closet. It sure would be great to be telepathic right now, like Asia. Being of like species will have to do.

  Quietly, he walked the rows of cages, whispering hope and encouragement to the little captive creatures.

  “I’ll be back to get you out, very soon.” He held the truth of his words strong and steady until the room quieted.

  The floor he sought next was up three flights of stairs. He took them swiftly, then quietly crept to another room that held fewer cats and a line of computers. He strode immediately to the cages, planning to assure them he’d protect them. But two steps toward them he stopped. He almost doubled over with nausea, hitting his stomach hard. I have to do better than this. Man up, Casey!

  He stepped closer to the cages. Two held adult cats that hissed and spit at him. He stared into their eyes and couldn’t find their personalities, souls, anything that made them who they had once been. They were more than just angry feral cats. Their amber eyes burned with hatred. And they could barely stand on deformed legs. And enormously long claws curled menacingly from their feet.

  Looking at the two twisted and deformed cats made Casey’s gut ache.

  He turned his attention to the other two caged cats and caught his breath. “Madeline.”

  The furry gray cat crouched low in the cage and peered up at him with sleepy eyes. Drugged. As a feral, Madeline would typically be too afraid to act subdued on her own while he stood so close. The cat sitting in the cage next to her looked equally sedated.

  Casey knew he had little time to gather enough information to bring a light on the research being conducted here, so he settled for a cursory search into cupboards, along counter tops, and inside drawers. He snapped photos of as many things as he could, then shoved his cell phone back into his pocket.

  His brain jammed with images of vials of blood and curious liquids, meters and machines, and more, he turned back to Michelle’s feral cat. “Change of plans, Madeline.” His eyes on the other three cats, he spoke softly. “I’ll be back.”

  He pulled Madeline carefully from the cage and gently placed her in his tool bag, then zipped it almost completely closed. A quick scan of outside the room told him the coats weren’t around, so he threaded through the hallways and stairs until he reached the first floor room where he’d entered the building. Hoping against hope that Madeline would remain still, he reached through the window and set her on the ground, then climbed through it himself.

  Sprinting toward his car, the sense of foreboding lifted incrementally with each step that took him farther from the Carter building.

  He peeked inside the bag as he reached his car and saw Madeline sleeping. While that made things easier for him, it twisted around in his gut, cutting like barbed wire. It was unnatural behavior for Madeline. She needed immediate attention.

  He drove into the main street, and punched in Lara’s phone number.

  • • •

  Michelle locked her back door, dumped her purse and bag into the passenger seat in her car, and slipped behind the wheel and headed to work.

  Even though Carter’s threat sent chills racing throughout her body, damned if she’d let it deter her from living her life.

  A lazy yawn stretched across her face. Memories of lovemaking with Casey last night fluttered sweetly in her heart. His mixture of tenderness and ferocity sent her to a place of unbelievable ecstasy. The thought of it even now made her heart skip erratically.

  Soberness settled over her remembering him standing in front of her, sharing his secret self, the beautiful body of a lynx. It’d made a whopper of a surprise, and prompted questions about what else she didn’t know about life. The wonder of what life could be welled inside her and lightened her steps as she walked into Aegar Investigations.

  She checked the clock and smiled. She’d actually made it to work early.

  A few minutes later, with the coffee brewing, Michelle looked up from her desk as Sterling and Lacey walked in.

  Sterling lowered her head a bit and peered at her. “Michelle?”

  Lacey giggled. “That clock must be wrong, my dear.” Then she sniffed the air. “Coffee? You sweet child.” Lacey grabbed a mug and filled it, then held it to her nose. “Mmmm.”

  Michelle chuckled. “Maybe I’ll start a new trend. Be early to work and have coffee already made when you arrive.” She smiled.

  “You know we’re just teasing you, right?” Sterling slanted her head and smiled at Michelle. “You’re the best office manager slash cat rescue owner I’ve ever known.”

  Michelle beamed. “Thank you.”

  Lacey looked over the rim of her mug at Michelle, sipping coffee. Michelle let another smile escape.

  “You’re very happy this morning.” Lacey studied her. “Do you have good news about your property?”

  Michelle frowned. “No. It’s worse. While you two were out of town William Carter stopped by and made some threats.”

  Sterling’s mouth dropped open. “Threats?! What did he say?”

  Michelle summarized the encounter and included Casey’s promise to help. “Casey believes the whole mess is William Carter’s doing and that ultimately his plan to take my house will fall through.”

  “That son of a bitch. This time Carter has gone too far.” Lacey remained quietly staring at Michelle, while Sterling pounded her fist on the desk. “There’s got to be something big in Carter’s plans. You know we’re here for you.”

  Michelle wriggled under Lacey’s scrutiny. She couldn’t share her secrets, but it was hard to ignore them bubbling up and threatening to escape her lips.

  “It’s great that Casey is investigating.” Lacey grinned. “He’s skilled at it. Right?”

  Michelle whacked her palm to her forehead. “I can’t keep anything from you. I am happy today, despite my dire circumstances. Casey and I … we’ve, well … ”

  “Hooked up.” Lacey finished her sentence, beaming.

  Sterling’s eyes widened. “How did I miss that?” She wrapped her arms around Michelle. “So he’s watching over you?” Sterling winked.

  “He is.” Michelle dropped her gaze, unable to suppress a smile.

  “And you’re okay with that, sweetie?” Lacey lifted an eyebrow.

  Sterling opened her arms wide and glared at her sister. “Lacey, I’d say she’s more than okay with Casey’s closeness. She’s practically glowing.”

  “Yes, she is. I’m happy for you. You deserve happiness and love with someone wonderful—Casey.”

  Michelle breathed in a deep breath, then released it slowly. She wrapped a lock of hair around a finger and pursed her lips. “He is wonderful. I’ve known that for some time. The problem has been me. But so far I’m able to be close with him and not freak out. Maybe he’s even good for me. Maybe I’ll fully get my life back.”

  “You’ve worked hard at reclaiming it. You know what they say, what goes around comes around
. You’ve worked on your issues and lived a caring life; the good is coming around for you.” Lacey patted her on her shoulder.

  Her kind words and support sifted through the darkness and the fears like soft snowflakes on a cold ground. “Once I get past this stupid William Carter problem, I might actually believe you.”

  The phone rang and Michelle answered while Sterling and Lacey walked into their private office. It was a potential client. Michelle took down the man’s information, then put him on hold to pass it on to the sisters.

  Fortunately, the business had survived a slump during the past six months and now the sisters’ schedule kept them very busy and the company in the black. Michelle’s heart warmed just thinking of her good fortune to work for two strong, kind women.

  With monthly reports to generate, Michelle had plenty to do, too. She set aside the sticky business with Carter and opened the Excel spreadsheet she needed to begin. Numbers and formulas were her “thing,” and it was easy for her to become engrossed in cells, rows, and numbers. It felt concrete, productive, and structurally sound compared to much of the rest of her life.

  She glanced up at the clock and realized, in between phone calls, she’d been working on reports for almost two hours. She turned toward the window overlooking the downtown streets and let herself linger on unprovoked thoughts of Casey. Casey, the delicious man who could change into a lynx. She’d seen him shift and it had seemed so easy and smooth. So second nature. What actually was second nature to him, she wondered. There were all those questions left unanswered last night. Delicious sensations of kissing his lips, caressing his skin, and losing control in his arms shimmied through her. These were sensations she would like more of. A smile from inside landed on her face.

  From on top of her desk came the sound of her cell phone vibrating. “Hi, Casey.” Michelle couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice.

  “Hey, beautiful. Sorry I had to leave last night, but I had work to do.”

  “I understand.” Geez, I’m practically cooing. “Thanks for the note.”

  Silence on the other end filled the space between them. Finally, Casey spoke. “You didn’t stay home.”