Jaguar Pride (4 page)

***

When Huntley arrived, the Clawed and Dangerous Kitty Cat Club was not all that busy, since it was a Monday night. As the jungle rock music played inside and the scantily dressed dancers in leopard skin danced on platforms around poles, he took a seat at one of the empty tables. He glanced around the half-filled establishment at the mix of humans and jaguar shifters there. Telling the two apart was impossible unless he got close enough and could smell the scent of jaguar on the person, or saw the individual shift.

“Hell, brother, you got back!” Everett said, heading for Huntley's table and instantly brightening his brother's mood.

Huntley rose from his chair and gave Everett a brotherly hug. “Hell, I didn't think you'd be back this soon, either. I tried calling you.”

“Phone charger went out on me.” Everett took a seat across from Huntley.

“How was your mission?”

“Not good. Can't give you all the details here, but suffice it to say, two of the bad guys got away. Killed one, though. How about you?” Everett asked.

“Took down five, but one got away. Police are holding the five men.”

“Better result than we had. How's Melissa?”

“She's good.”

“Better than working with me?” Everett teased.

Huntley smiled. He liked working with his brother. They knew each other so well that he never had to second-guess Everett. Like many twins or triplets, they had that secret communication down pat. Melissa was an unknown commodity at times. He found working with her refreshing. More…complicated.

“I have to admit she's a damn good cook.”

Everett laughed. “I figured between you and Genista, you'd both starve to death. I never before knew a woman who hadn't ever used a microwave. Thought she'd burn down the house when she cooked with aluminum foil lining the glass pan, and fire and smoke started pouring out of the microwave that one time I went to your place for dinner. Your place smelled like smoke for weeks, not to mention the smoke alarm going off and nearly deafening us.”

Huntley chuckled. “Yeah. I'd nearly forgotten about that. And then the baked potato burst all over the floor when she poked the fork into it to take it out of the microwave.”

“Hell, yeah.”

Huntley smiled at the memory. “I think that was about the last time she cooked.”

Smiling, Everett nodded. “So I take it you're on break now?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Nah. Got another assignment. I'm off for the night. Tomorrow night I'm checking into a missing jaguar-shifter case. The man disappeared last year and no one could figure out what happened to him, so the case went cold. Martin wants me to look into it and see if I can get any new leads.”

“Good. I don't know what he has planned for me next. But I'm not going to worry about it.”

“What about joining Genista in Panama?” Everett asked.

Huntley snorted. “She called it quits with us. Walked out on me while I was gone.”

Everett stared at him in disbelief.

“Yeah, believe it. I wasn't sure there was anything there for us to build on, the way she'd been acting so distant the last few weeks, so it wasn't a complete surprise. Though I thought our work might be interfering too much, and I hoped we could get on track.”

“Well, crap on that. So sorry to hear it. But if it wasn't meant to be, I'm glad you got out of it this early in the game. What about Melissa?”

“Melissa? She's got a guy. Remember?”

“Ha! The life insurance salesman? Are you kidding? So how's that going for her?”

Not good, Huntley didn't think. But then what did he know? “How would I—”

“Speak of the devil.” Everett grinned, stood, and waved for someone to join them.

Huntley turned to see what “devil” his brother was referring to while a few more patrons walked into the club. Along with
Melissa.
No longer wearing khaki shorts and a cool shirt like she had for the jungle heat and humidity and the trip home, she was dressed to kill in a strapless dress, short on the leg, with high heels that would make great weapons and showed off her shapely tan legs, and she had a sweater slung over her arm. She glanced in Everett's direction and smiled. Then she saw Huntley, and her smile broadened.

That cheered him up a little.

“Maybe the guy she's with isn't working out for her either,” Everett said to Huntley.

“Or she's meeting him here after a while.” He really didn't believe it. Not the way Oliver had acted toward them when Huntley had dropped her off at their place. More likely, she was here to cool her heels after a fight with her boyfriend.

As soon as Melissa joined them, Everett got her a chair and pushed it in for her once she was seated. “Well, how's my favorite agent doing these days?”

“Get me a Singapore sling and I'll let you know.”

Everett raised his brows a little, smiling. He motioned to a server, then ordered the drink for her. “I'll have a beer,” Huntley said to the server.

Everett didn't order anything for himself.

“I didn't think you'd be home so early,” she said to Everett before Huntley could make a comment about Everett
forgetting
to order a drink. “I thought you were still on a mission,” she added.

“Nah, just got home a little while ago. Thought I'd pop in for a moment and see if anyone I knew was here, when I saw Huntley's car parked outside and wanted to ask him how the mission went. I didn't think I'd be back so soon either. Partial bust. Huntley was telling me that one of the guys you were after also got away from the two of you. Sorry to hear it,” Everett said.

“Yeah, so were we,” she said.

“Don't I know it. Well, I've got to go. Enjoy your drinks. Got to get packed. Leaving on another mission tomorrow,” Everett said, standing.

“You just got here.” Huntley had never seen his brother go to the club and not have a drink before he left.

“Yeah, but you know how it is. If I rush tomorrow, I'm more likely to forget something really important. Besides, I need to take care of some stuff. Call you before I leave. Take care. And
enjoy
your leave.” Then Everett smiled and hurried off.

Huntley stared after him. His brother always did things at the last minute. He
never
packed a day ahead of time. Everett swore he forgot more things when he started early than when he packed right before rushing to the airport.

The server brought their drinks, and Huntley paid for them.

“Now I know why he was in such a rush to get out of here,” Melissa said, laughing. “He orders the drinks, and you pay for them.”

Huntley smiled, suspecting Everett had other reasons for leaving the two of them alone. “I'm kind of surprised to see you here. Is Oliver joining you later?” He sure as hell hoped not. He could really use this. Some nice downtime with a fun partner.

“No.” She let her breath out on a heavy sigh. “We called it quits tonight.”

That sort of shocked him. And pleased him. He felt relief—for her, because from what she'd told him, Huntley didn't feel the guy was perfect mate material for her. He'd figured they'd break up eventually, but not this quickly.

He bet it had something to do with Oliver's downright ugly attitude when she arrived home. He just couldn't imagine acting that way with a woman like Melissa.

“What happened?” He tried not to sound growly when he was ready to pummel the guy if he'd been violent with her. Though he reminded himself that Melissa could take care of herself and would most likely have knocked the guy out cold if he'd threatened her physically.

Lifting the cherry by the stem from her Singapore sling, Melissa slipped the red fruit between her teeth, still holding onto the stem with her fingers, and gave a little tug.

He swore he'd never seen anyone eat a piece of fruit like that. She made it look so…erotic. She finished the cherry and licked her lips, which had him staring at that sweet, kissable mouth of hers and wishing he'd been the one she'd come home to. They wouldn't be here. That was for certain.

She gave a little one-shoulder shrug. “His next-door neighbor walked down the hall wearing only a pair of boxers and wanted Oliver to tell me the truth about their relationship.”

Huntley frowned a little. “You have two neighbors, the little old lady on the left of his place and the”—his eyes widened—“the chef at the Italian restaurant downtown who grows his own organic vegetables?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Huntley's smile broadened. “Want to dance?”

Melissa looked a little startled that he'd ask. “I…don't think so. I wouldn't want Genista to get the wrong idea.”

Hell, he was so glad Melissa and Oliver were no longer together that he'd forgotten to mention his girlfriend calling it quits with him. “It's over between us. She moved out while I was in Costa Rica. I didn't even know until I called and she gave me the news from Panama.”

First, Melissa looked surprised. “You're kidding.” Then she shared that sunshiny smile with him that he loved so much: part minx, part sexy woman, and a whole lot fun. “What are we waiting for? Let's dance.”

She took his hand and pulled him toward the dance floor, and before he knew it, he was holding her close. He thought it was important to keep some distance at first, since they'd just lost their “roommates,” but then he didn't want to. He wanted this. And she seemed to need it too, as she swayed in his arms to the music. It didn't matter that the music was rock and better suited to dancing apart. Being close was the only way he wanted to be. And she seemed to want that too.

“I thought he believed you were actually
sleeping
with me, and that's why he was so annoyed-looking when I dropped you off at your place,” Huntley said, thinking of her naked and setting up the tent in the rainforest, and then putting on her tank top inside the tent. Just imagining her like that—and how she studied him when he was checking out the poachers' IDs naked, and her moving against him now to the steady jungle-rock beat—was turning him on.

“I told him we were. You know. In a tent. Not in the same sleeping bag. Can you imagine how hot and sweaty we would have been in that case? We would need to find a colder location to do that kind of work.”

He
was ready. To do a mission in a colder climate. But he thought that it wouldn't matter. That if they'd had the time and the inclination—and he was certain he'd have had that—they would have made love in the tropics and been two satisfied cats.

“But then I learned what was really bothering him, which had nothing to do with me or you or anyone else,” Melissa said. “If he's happy with Chad, I'm happy for him, though I still was shocked to see Chad there.”

He should give her a chance to get over the ex, Huntley told himself, but then he pulled her closer. “So, you've got some time off and I've got some time off. Do you want to do something together?”

“What do you have in mind?” She had settled her body right against his as if she felt comfortable there, like they'd always been this close, her arms encircling his neck, her green eyes bright with interest, her scent a combination of aroused she-cat, peaches and cream, and…intrigued.

The way she was rubbing up against him was making it difficult to think with his thoughtful head and not the other.

“A movie? Dinner out? Something completely out of the ordinary for us. No climbing trees, forging crocodile- or shark-infested waters, no dodging venomous snakes. Just something nice and relaxing and fun.” Or something a little hotter. Though he didn't want to pressure her into taking this too far, too fast and then have the whole thing blow up in their faces. He did enjoy working with her, and he didn't want to ruin a good thing.

With Genista, it was different. She was totally businesslike on missions, and he realized now that sex had been that way too. Just a way to satisfy an urge. But with Melissa, he felt…different. Maybe it was the way she was so playful with him and…well, interested. But he didn't want to hurt their work relationship.

“Hmm. Sounds a little quiet, but quiet can be a nice change of pace,” she said, her hands sliding down his shoulders.

“We can watch a wild action thriller.”

She chuckled.

“Is Oliver moving out of the condo, or are you?” Huntley asked, already taking this in a direction he shouldn't be thinking of. Her place or his, her choice.

She sighed. “Considering he paid for it, I'm moving.”

“Got a place to stay?” Huntley asked, his hopes instantly shooting to the moon that she might stay with him for a few days until she could find a place. And he could get to know her better in a strictly friends-with-
no
-benefits way. Though he wanted the benefits, even as he told himself to slow down. She was making it awfully hard to think of slowing down though, given the way her body was stroking his big-cat urges.

“I figured someone might put me up. I was going to ask my cousin, but he's out of the country for another couple of weeks. And my sister lives too far away.”

Trying not to sound like a much-too-eager cat and knowing he shouldn't be glad that she had no one else to stay with, he said, “If you want to stay at my place, you can crash there for as long as you need.”

“Hmm, I wouldn't want to impose.”

He quickly said, “No imposition at all. Now that Genista is gone, it feels kind of empty. I only need to mention one thing before you make a decision.” A really
big
thing to mention, and it might ruin the whole
she-cat staying with him
scenario.

She arched a brow.

“It's a studio apartment.” He was still hoping she'd say yes. On the other hand, he understood if she didn't, and it was really better if she
didn't
. For the both of them.

“As in…?”

“The sofa makes into a bed. No bedroom. One bath.”
Simple, honest, direct
. He almost wished he had a bedroom now, so he could have offered, at the very least, to let her sleep in his bed while he took the couch. Then again, he could say that she could use the bed and he'd sleep on the floor as a jaguar, but he really didn't want to. Not when he could be sleeping with her on the sofa bed.

Feeling as though he had to explain his reasoning for why he had such limited accommodations, he said, “I have it because I'm gone so much. I didn't have any need to get a bigger place.”

She pondered that for a few minutes. He realized how much he wanted her to stay, yet he understood how she might want to keep more distance. And sleeping in a bed together wouldn't allow them the distance they probably needed.

“We…would be sleeping in the same…bed,” she finally said.

“With the air conditioner on,” he quickly said.

She smiled.

“You can crash there. You can come and go as you please.”

She wasn't saying yes or no. The anticipation was killing him.

She finally sighed against his chest and he thought it could be a yes. Or…maybe not.

She nodded. “Okay, as long as you don't mind. I'll stay a couple of days until I find a place of my own.”

Hot damn,
yeah
! Hell, he hadn't been this excited when Genista moved in with him. That had to tell him something, didn't it?

Trying to sound perfectly businesslike and not like he wanted to pump his fist in victory, he said, “You're welcome to stay as long as you need. I'll enjoy the company until the next assignment.” And he would, if he could keep his body under control. He was losing the battle at the moment.

And she could tell. Her face was turned up to his, and she smiled a little. But it wasn't a sweet, innocent smile. Rather one that said she just might like some kitty-cat loving. Not that he thought they should go there…but if they did, he wouldn't object too strenuously.

“Have you eaten anything? I was too upset to eat anything earlier, but now I'm getting hungry,” she said, not making a move to pry herself loose from him and leave.

He wanted to continue dancing with her. Then again, the way she was getting him worked up, he wanted to take her home to bed.

“Are you cooking?” he asked. What he wouldn't give for another one of her home-cooked meals. “All I had was some popcorn.” He hadn't thought beyond having a couple of drinks at the club.

She laughed.

He didn't want her to believe that all he cared about was her cooking for him. “Or we can eat out. Your choice.”

“How about baked chicken and a homemade German potato salad, the recipe handed down by my family? I've been dying to have some ever since we got home. But it's no fun making it just for myself.”

“Sounds great to me. I can be a good kitchen assistant. We'll make a trip to the grocery store first. Want to dance some more?”

She sighed. “No, really, I'm just starving.”

“All right. Let's go.” In truth, Huntley hoped they could come back here and dance some more. Genista was a good dancer, but she liked to dance the faster dances, not holding him close like Melissa seemed to enjoy. Genista always said the slow dances made her too hot. But now he was thinking she didn't want the intimacy. Maybe tomorrow night he and Melissa could come back.

He liked getting close to her and smelling her sweet, intoxicating she-cat scent. He kept telling himself that he was just offering her a place to stay for now and that he shouldn't see this as anything more. But he realized just how much he'd missed having any real intimacy with a she-cat, and he needed some loving. Then again, Melissa needed his friendship. And he sure as hell didn't want to mess up a good thing with a fellow agent that he enjoyed working with on missions.