by Lynde Lakes
****
Ignoring burning muscles and sensing evil lurked nearby, Hugh ran toward the hills with one thought in mind—find Tigra. When he’d caught the scent of mustiness coming from the west and tiger to the north, he’d turned north into the brush-covered hills. Obviously Tigra had spent so much time with her pets she smelled like them. It wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, he found it quite enticing. The enticing smell grew stronger. Was one of the tigers loose and slipping through the shadows? Perhaps for safety sake and the ability to run faster, I should morph.
Desperation and concern rushed the body-racking process and in seconds he’d made the transition.
You can’t outrun me now, Tigra. The wind ruffled his coat as he poured on the speed, covering about a half mile in seconds.
When the scent of the tiger almost overpowered him he knew he was close. Very close. With his intensified wolf hearing, he heard the snap of a twig.
He froze when he caught sight of a beautiful Bengal tiger slinking through the shadowy brush. Oh this is bad. A loose tiger was a danger to the community and after all the so called accidents on the circus grounds at the L.A. performance, an escape like this could close down the whole operation for good. What should I do? And where the hell is Tigra?
Before his eyes, the orange and black feral creature with the beautiful catlike face was morphing into…oh, my God! It was Tigra! Nude.
Hugh let his gaze slide slowly over the lovely Queen of Tigers from head to toe, noticing every luscious inch: round firm breasts, slender waist, curving hips, and slender bare ankles. He forced away his lust. There were important things to consider, like had she caught his scent? Perhaps, even seen him?
It wasn’t likely. I must Morph back to my human form before she catches sight of me.
****
Tigra froze at the sight of the black wolf moving silently through the overgrown thicket. She’d been safer as a tiger. The fine hairs at her neck prickled. In her human form she had no chance of outrunning a wolf. Oh, no. I left my knife, stake, and silver cross with my clothes! She ducked deeper into the bushes and prayed her scent wouldn’t give her away.
Although it was dark and shadowy, with her superior eyesight, she could easily view the beast. It was a healthy-looking wolf with striking and startling bold, silvery high-sheen markings that appeared to extend from its neck all the way along the spine and was somehow interspersed in its black coat.
She continued to watch it, afraid to move, fearing even the slightest ripple of the bushes would attract its attention. It stopped abruptly in the shadows. She saw the glint of fangs. The animal rose up on its hind feet. It was clearly a male wolf. He was over six-foot tall. He issued a low, throaty growl, and then the hulking, terrifying alpha wolf was changing into a man! A nude man!
His taut, tanned hide hugged corded muscles. Her heart raced in preparation to fight. While she tried to gather her spinning thoughts, and as though nothing unusual had happened, he strode through the looming shadows and underbrush, his nude body glistening like sweat-kissed steel. She took in the muscled legs, his young tree trunk waist and great washboard abs. A terrifying tiny thrill shot through her.
Then she saw his face. “Hugh! What are you? Her heart pounded. She cleared her dry throat. “I mean what are you doing here? And where are your clothes?”
“When you left the Circus, that high-wire guy, Skully, was following you. And since I don’t quite trust the guy, I followed you, too.”
“I didn’t see him.” But she had caught a whiff of a male and something musty. A mystifying surge of gratitude rose in her. With effort, she forced a tough tone. “Thanks for your concern, but I can take care of myself.”
“Probably, but even so, you’re crazy roaming around the hills alone, especially while naked as a jay-bird.”
Her face flamed. She edged closer to the bush where her clothes, the stake, and her silver cross were hidden. She and reached down and snatched up the garments, holding them tightly in front of her like a shield. She wished she could slip her silver cross out of the zipper pocket of her sweats and slip it on. The stake was in another pocket. Maybe she could ease it out.
He just watched her. The stillness about him unnerved the hell out of her. Strips of darkness fell across his solemn face, accenting more deeply his strong lupine contours.
She steeled herself and brashly looked him up and down. His towering height and impressive breadth made her feel so small and… so exposed. “What about you?”
Feral gray eyes, blazing with wolf-like ferocity, held hers. She felt his power and her own vulnerability. His expression grew stony again. “Forget me.” He grabbed her arm with animal swiftness. She’d almost had the stake out of the pocket and it fell to the ground. He looked down at it and then back to her. “Vampire hunting?” When he bent, picked it up, and handed it back to her, his grip on her arm tightened.
She fought to ignore the heat ignited within her at his intensified hold. Way too aware of his nudity, she tried not to look down again. And failed. He was magnificent. And a werewolf! she reminded herself. Oh, God. I’m in real trouble here. As far as she knew, she’d never known a Lycanthrope before. Even now she could feel his gaze on her, intense and unwavering, but she resisted the urge to look up and meet it again. The loss of control she'd felt in those brief, endless moments of contact had been as unexpected and frightening as it was inexplicable. She wasn't eager to repeat the experience. But the small stubborn core of her demanding control over herself and her surroundings pricked at her without mercy. With a soft curse on an indrawn breath, she looked up. Her uncontrollable gaze traveled over the strong, sharply cut lines of his jaw, but it wasn't until she reached his eyes that she felt the full impact of his intensity. His eyes shone with their own inner light. They burned—they burned on hers. Her breath caught in her throat. He was staring at her, and returning her daring scrutiny.
“I saw you morph,” he growled. “You’re a tiger shifter.” He raked his midnight black hair. “When I put you in the cage during the performance you didn’t change places with a tiger! You changed into one! Then you stalked me and scared the hell out of me.”
“So?” She hated the tremor in her voice and the mesmerizing effect of his glinting, thickly-lashed eyes. “You’re a werewolf!”
“Then you saw me morph, too? What are you going to do about it?” He tightened his jaw.
She lifted her chin. The night chill nipped at her bare skin. She wrapped her arms around herself. “It depends. What are you going to do?”
“There’s a hot spring just ahead that is a corollary from the Arrowhead Springs. Let’s go there, warm up, and figure this out.”
“First, let me get dressed.”
“Later. You won’t want to get your clothes wet.”
She wondered why that sounded so reasonable. Running through the hills naked with him was totally insane. And on so many levels—dangerous. He was a werewolf for heaven’s sake.
Chapter Twelve
Struggling for control, Tigra breathed in the crisp wee-hours air, savoring the myriad scents of the late night. Before it ended she planned to know more about her mysterious werewolf assistant. They ran for about a half mile across the brush-covered hillside at matched marathon-speed and ended up at a clearing. A steamy pool lay ahead, dark and daunting. As though Hugh had hypnotized her into doing his bidding, Tigra tucked her clothes under a bush and allowed him to lead her into the shadowy, swirling and steaming waters. While the wind echoed eerily around them, he paused and stared down at her. His feral gray eyes blazed with wolf-like ferocity. His expression grew stony, yet she wasn’t afraid as much as she was fascinated.
She was aware of the steam moistening her face and locks of damp hair clinging to her cheeks. Hugh brushed the strands away and in the process, his thumb grazed her collarbone. The intimate gesture caused her breathing to go shallow. Her breasts went taut with expectation. She knew the minute she looked up into his intense, seducing eyes it was a wrong move. He held
her gaze while he lowered his head toward her.
The slowness of his movements added an impatient and instinctive tiger lust to her rising passion. The beat of Hugh’s heart throbbing against her bare breasts accelerated the hot, wet wildness rising in her. She almost had an orgasm when his hot body tensed against hers as if his blood was starting to boil. He touched her nipples so lightly she wasn’t even sure she hadn’t imagined it. Then, he slipped his hand down into the water to the curve of her hips and caressed her bare thighs. With all the determination she could gather, she pushed against his muscled chest, fighting the pulsing, the heat, he’d stirred in her. He stared into her face, then bent and kissed her again. Not with feral hunger, but gently, respectfully. Suddenly, it felt deceptively safe and she wanted to immerse herself in the sweet non-threatening waves.
No! This is insane; he’s using hypnosis on me. She pushed him away.
He stopped all movement. Then, it seemed with great effort, he started moving again, taking them into deeper water. “Relax.” He drew her out until the water just covered her nipples.
As the dark steamy waters swirled around his muscled abdomen, she raised her gaze and stared at his shadowy muscular chest, wondering where the source of light was coming from that made the skin glisten in the darkness like phosphorous. The warm water had a relaxing effect while his relentless hold on her arm was wildly stirring.
He drew her close and said, “Out here in the middle of the pool, if we whisper the sound won’t carry to the edge and we’ll have complete privacy. We’re just a whispering couple, skinny-dipping.” His voice had lowered, and the velvet warmth of those words slid over her, caressing her, seducing her. “What are we going to do about our secrets?” he asked.
His breath feathered off her face. She cleared her throat but couldn’t speak. Like an idiot, she just shook her head.
His masculine scent and steam wrapped around her like vaporous, misty chains. He pressed closer and she felt his thigh muscles contract. Damn him. He exuded this raw, hard-edged sensuality that made thinking rationally impossible. Strips of darkness fell across his solemn face, accenting more deeply his strong lupine contours.
His prolonged stare unnerved her as much as her awareness that they were alone nude in this steaming pool with their bodies touching where they curved into each other. Lingering feral instincts overpowered her sanity again, and certain now she was under some kind of hypnotic spell, she nevertheless allowed herself to relax into Hugh’s solid, warm embrace. He pressed even closer. Her passion rose and to her horror, her excitement went from simmering desire to boiling lust. She wanted him. Now!
What am I thinking—doing? This man is a werewolf and I’m a tiger. Both of us are cursed. But now that we know one another’s secrets we must come to an agreement and face that we need each other. But, what if he’s the one killing all those women?
She wanted to blame the Tiger who was so much a part of her for the lust, but she knew it was her own passions he’d aroused. She stroked her lips. It was as if Hugh had unleashed a wildness she had waited since birth for him to bring to life. And she ached for him to finish the seduction and then massage her passion passages to life again and again.
But that wasn’t all going on here. A persistent pounding from her heart warned her feelings went beyond desire. Her growing concern for him was so strong that no matter how much he irritated her, the caring failed to fade. He’s dangerous to me on so many levels. Very, very dangerous. But I can’t accept he’s a killer. It would be easier to resist him if I could. Clinging to the needing each other excuse for not pulling away, she looked up at his etched face; he’d set his shadowed square jaw in determination.
What did his unyielding expression mean? Determined to do what?
While her mind spun in confusion, he bent and when his lips touched hers, she melted into the insanely captivating kiss. She fought the turbulent electricity. No! No! I mustn’t let this happen. But as if her brain and her limbs were disconnected, her arms of their own volition pulled him closer. His back was warm, moist, and taut under her palms and fingertips. His lips were firm against hers, his mouth slightly open and moist. He sought her tongue. As though bewitched, she entangled it with his, while floating under the seductive power of his hands touching her shoulders, her breasts, her hips. Fire flooded her veins and roared out of control, taking possession of her. His heat and the heat of the steaming pool swirled around her, seeping into her bones, spreading new waves of heat through her until every inch of flesh was on fire.
“This is madness,” she whispered between crazed kisses.
Abruptly, he pulled back. His eyes glinted in the darkness from an unknown source of light. Earlier that day, in the bright afternoon sun, those eyes had been a silvery gray. A warm friendly safe silvery gray.
He shook his head as though to clear it and stared at her, looking as dazed as she was by what had passed between them. “We better talk.” He moved back several steps. “At a distance.”
Their gazes locked. She swallowed. “Yes. And more precisely, I think we should get out of this pool and get dressed. Whose crazy idea was this anyway?”
“It wasn’t such a bad idea.” His voice deepened and she thought she detected irony in his husky tone. “It made me see the extent of our problem goes far beyond keeping secrets.”
She touched her engorged lips, fully aware he referred to their over-powering attraction for one another and aware of the pool’s swirling heat between her legs and around her swollen breasts. She craved more touching—more of everything. What possessed her to want to ride the insane pleasure to its mysterious climax? And what possessed her to desire to do this wild, irrational thing with another cursed soul of a different species. Maybe the forbidden uniting was part of the lure. Thank God they’d stopped before their fervor escalated further out of control and she showed him the full range of her feral tiger passion. She closed her eyes, willing away the memories seducing her to finish what they started.
****
The silence and sense of guilt for seducing his boss was heavy on Hugh’s shoulders as they dressed hastily and headed back toward the circus grounds. If Tigra had any doubts he was hot for her, they were gone now. To his detriment, nothing could kill his nearly explosive physical reaction to her. They walked inches apart. He fought his desire to clasp her hand. Think man, think with your brain. Granted, he’d made huge blunders. But some good had come out of his mistakes. He’d achieved the goal he had when he left the circus grounds—he’d kept Tigra safe. Maybe not safe from him, but—He’d gotten way more than he’d bargained for, and, quite frankly, more then he’d been prepared to handle. Seeing Tigra’s beautiful nude body had sent him into a tailspin and made him crazy to seduce her at any cost. What man wouldn’t want to experience tiger passion once in his life? He’d heard about it, read about it, and had almost thrown caution to the wind and crossed the line. Her complying reactions suggested she was more than willing.
The pleasant thought disintegrated when three police units with their sirens blaring passed them along the road and turned west.
At least, the police weren’t heading for the circus.
His mind flicked back to his sizzling memory of them in the steamy pool. Thank God, he’d come to his senses and realized giving in to his lust would bring more complications, complications he wasn’t ready to handle. He had to keep reminding himself he wanted more than a crazed romp with a woman, and he wanted to keep his job at the circus.
He sighed. Already things have changed between us. We’re walking no more than six inches apart, with little conversation and probably revealing to outsiders little emotion. But I’m a knot of emotion inside. Is she?
He thought of her running through the woods alone. He admired her self-reliance. Since he was resurrected, he’d always striven to strengthen a strong sense of independence himself. But over the years he’d learned and come to appreciate the need for family and craved a sense of belonging. Tigra apparently had never had that
; unless you called the circus and Grandy her family. If she had someone who loved her to call on, she wouldn’t have had to wander around by herself. But maybe she liked being a loner. That was another reason he shouldn’t pursue and seduce her. He didn’t like the solitary life.
He glanced at her. The silence between them was getting to him. Although aggravated, he felt the need to say something. “I’ve noticed your strength, your tenaciousness, your strong will, and the way nothing stops you from your goal. While frustrating at times, I appreciate that about you.”
She laughed a screw you kind of laugh he wasn’t sure how to handle. Before he could think of words to repair his apparent verbal blunder, she shrugged and said, “Thanks, I think.”
His shoulders relaxed as the tense moment evaporated into the breeze.
Hugh looked up at more sirens. Two police units stopped at the circus entrance and the officers jumped the turnstile, looking eager to make an arrest. “I wonder what’s going on,” he said.
Her expression darkened. “Police around a circus always means trouble.”
When he walked Tigra back to her caravan the two police officers were there waiting. One was a bear of a man who looked like he loved double portions of tortilla’s smothered in salsa and cheese. “I’m Officer Gonzales,” he said with a curt Mexican accent. He didn’t bother to introduce his partner, but the name plate identified the man as Tanner. Tanner was dark- skinned with Indian high cheek bones and steady black pupils that stared out from deep eye sockets. He carried a lab kit.
Both men squinted and their narrowed eyes glinted as though they were experiencing deep rage.
Gonzales’ muddy gaze intensified and he barked, “Where have you two been since closing?” He poised to take notes.
