Silence that Sizzles (9 page)

Kelly got into the car and looked at the tall building as the car pulled away. Her life was changing; she just wasn’t quite sure yet if it was for the better or not.

Kyle spent the afternoon in administrative hell. Every time he turned around, someone was standing there wanting to ask him a question about something to do with the gala. Since it was being hosted in the ballroom attached the club, everything related to it fell under his purview. Kyle still wasn’t sure about the whole idea. What he liked even less was that Eric had decided that Kyle would give the welcome address, on behalf of the Urban Dwellers, of course.

Kyle was the only one of the trio who was a veteran himself, but Kyle didn’t like that Eric was using his veteran status as a way to get more PR for the company. But he supposed as long as the money did end up benefiting veteran care and not going into the secret bank accounts of the Urban Dwellers, he could stomach it; at least for one evening.

“So have you been practicing your speech?” Sophie appeared next to him. She had a clipboard that was covered with notes. She took over selecting the different wines available at the bar when Thea was out of town. Sophie didn’t seem to mind, though. When it came to the club and everything associated with it, there wasn’t much that Sophie didn’t like to do, it seemed. Kyle wondered if she ever slept.

That reminded Kyle that he did have something else he needed to ask her. “Hey, you’re a girl.”

Sophie looked at him with chagrin. She put her hand on her hip as she glared at him. “We prefer the term women, Kyle. And thanks so much for noticing.”

Kyle would have to have been a eunuch not to notice. Today, Sophie was wearing a red bustier top paired with tight, black faded denim jeans. With her three-inch spiked heels, he had no idea how she could walk straight much less stand up straight. But she was ever the professional. It didn’t matter if it was a fight night or just getting the club ready for the night, Sophie was always dressed to impress.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“Okay, so you’ve figured out after two years that I’m a member of the female gender. What is it you need?”

Kyle felt awkward asking for this kind of favor. It just wasn’t something that he ever thought that he’d have to ask Sophie to do for him. “Could you take Kelly shopping? She doesn’t have a dress for the gala tonight.”

Now a sly grin crossed Sophie’s face. “Oh, I see. You have a date then? Guess that means I have to find my own.”

Kyle felt a flash of panic. Sophie had always been his back-up date for those kinds of things, but he had never guessed that he might offend her by not taking her. Then he caught her starting to laugh. He realized she was giving him a hard time. Sometimes dealing with bullets and bombs was better than trying to navigate the questions and inquiries into his personal life from his best friends. He knew that Eric would have questions about Kelly too, especially given his territorial behavior toward her during their meeting.

“I didn’t figure you’d mind. Especially with the way you’ve been making eyes at the DJ.” DJ Elvin was the newest sensation at the club. Kyle had heard rumors that he and Sophie had started getting a bit closer than normal. He knew that Sophie was probably just going through her latest flavor of the month. If there was one thing that he knew about Sophie, it was that she had no intention of settling down anytime soon. She was so different from other shifter women. He figured that was why they got along so well.

“I guess I can take your lady friend out for a dress shopping excursion. But that means that you’re gonna have to do something for me.”

Kyle knew he wouldn’t get off easy by asking Sophie for a favor. She was known for her negotiation skills. There was clearly something she wanted, and she probably had been waiting and biding her time until she could use it to her advantage just like she was now.

“What do you want?” He had a feeling that he might get the shorter end of the stick in the deal. Helping Kelly find a dress would be the easy part.

“I want you to ask Eric about making me a full partner in the club.”

Kyle raised an eyebrow. This was a discussion the two of them had had multiple times over the last year. It wasn’t that he didn’t think that she was capable of it. But there was a thing between the three men that they had agreed on many years ago. The Urban Dwellers had always been the three of them. It had nothing to do with Sophie’s competency or her ability to lead. In fact, there were many times when Kyle thought she would be a better club manager than he was.

“Sophie, we’ve already gone through this. You know what Eric will say.” Eric was the real roadblock. He thought that Tony probably wouldn’t mind. Tony had commented more than once about the outstanding sales that he saw coming from Sophie’s part of the bar. They had a monthly meeting where they went over all of the profit and loss statements for all of their businesses. That was the thing. The public only knew about the legal parts of their business. There were several others that were more profitable but not ones that they could talk about. If they were to allow Sophie to be a partner, these types of things would come to light. He didn’t want to involve Sophie any further than he needed to. He didn’t want to expose her to those activities and make her a knowing party to it.

He saw Sophie tapping her toe. She was irritated. “I’m gonna make this simple for you, Kyle. If you guys don’t let me in, I’ll go off and start my own club, and then we will be competitors. You’d much rather have me on your side than against you.”

It wasn’t the first time that Sophie had voiced this particular threat. But Kyle was starting to see that she was becoming more serious every time she said it. He was starting to put a few other things together as well. He had heard that Sophie contacted one of the Urban Dwellers real estate agents recently. He just figured she was looking for a new place to live. Now he wasn’t so sure. Then there was the fact that she was cozying up to their DJ. If she left, she probably would end up taking half the staff with her too. He realized he was in a precarious situation, despite their friendship. He had to do something to diffuse the situation. But it was going to require talking to Eric, which was not something that Kyle looked forward to doing anyways.

“Let me talk to Eric again. He’s being difficult, but I’ll try.” In all actuality, Kyle hadn’t even broached the topic with Eric yet. He had been trying to avoid the conversation altogether. He had a feeling that Sophie also knew that.

Sophie tossed the clipboard at him. “Here, you can take care of the rest of the wine order for today. Apparently, I have some shopping to do.” Kyle watched her as she walked away. He saw the looks of appreciation on the male staff members faces as they watched her walk away too. Sophie didn’t so much walk as she sashayed. It was curious to him, but for as long as he had known Sophie, he hadn’t felt the slightest bit of romantic interest toward her. Of course, he met her after he already knew Kelly. He had heard that once you met the person that you thought could be your mate, all of the rest of the people in the world failed to be attractive.

Mate. There was that word again. He had to stop thinking about Kelly as his mate. She wasn’t going to want anything to do with him. She thought of him like a biology experiment, just like she said earlier. He knew that he was being slightly unfair. It was her work after all. But he didn’t like the way that she sometimes looked at him with the same expression as when she was looking at something under a microscope.

Until he figured out her situation, he decided he was going to keep his hands off. That was what he would tell her. They didn’t need to confuse the situation. He had a feeling, though, it was going to be easier said than done.

Kyle had just gotten back into the swing of things with the ordering and staffing and all of the other questions for everything that needed to be done for the gala when he saw Eric crossing the darkened club towards him. Eric had a look on his face that told Kyle he didn’t want to hear whatever Eric was going to tell him. Kyle gave him a short nod, and Eric shook his hand.

“You always seem to know where to find the piles of shit to step in, don’t you? You really stepped in it this time,” Eric said ruefully. Kyle felt the first tendrils of doubt and fear. He knew that the stuff with Kelly was bad. But he didn’t know how bad. He guessed by the expression on Eric’s face that it was even worse than he thought. “Tell me.”

“Well, your new girlfriend had quite the little operation going there. I had to strong-arm at least five people to even figure out what her official title was. She was running some type of top-secret lab at Oak Tree for the last four years. She was promoted pretty quickly, and it sounds like there’s a lot of stuff coming out of there that was all kinds of questionable.”

Kyle had no idea what to make of this. Kelly had said that her research was somewhat on the edge, but he couldn’t believe that she would actually have something to do with the vaccine that she had told him about. “The pharmaceutical companies have always had an interest in us. You know that as well as I do.”

“But to go this far? To go to the point where they’re trying to find a vaccine to cure shifterism? That’s beyond even anything I thought that they would think was possible. And it looks like your girlfriend was smack dab in the middle of it.”

“Kelly didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“All I know is I couldn’t get anything else out of them. They are scared shitless. It didn’t matter how much money I threw at them; they still weren’t talking anything beyond that. That tells me that this goes far beyond the pharmaceutical company. If I had to guess, I would say the government was involved.”

“Of course, the government is involved. It was probably the one that came up with the idea to begin with.” It was part of the rub. Kyle had dedicated fifteen years of his life to serving a country that he didn’t think even wanted him. That was part of the problem. You sign up to serve and protect, but who was serving and protecting his kind? It was part of the reason that he, Eric, and Tony had dreamed up the Urban Dwellers to begin with. He had signed his name in blood years ago. And now, somehow it felt like the rooster was coming home to roost.

“All I know is I don’t trust what she’s telling us. Everything that I’ve been told says that she knew exactly what she was doing. She probably just had some kind of disagreement with her boss and got all flighty. Probably threatened to blackmail them. I don’t think that you should take this as seriously as you are.”

“I saw her hotel room. It was ransacked.”

“People do that kind of thing of all the time. You never thought for a single moment that maybe she was here to get intel on us for Oak Tree?”

That thought had never crossed Kyle’s mind. It had never crossed his mind because he wanted to trust Kelly. But the way that Eric was talking, he didn’t know what to think now.

“For now, I say we should be done with this. Send her packing and let her figure her own shit out.”

“I wouldn’t have come to you if I had thought that you’d act like this,” Kyle said. “I don’t believe for a second that Kelly had anything to do with this.”

Eric’s face grew stony. “If she stays here, she could bring a shit storm down on our heads, whether she’s involved in it or not. And quite frankly, I don’t believe she’s not. She’s here to find out something about us. She’s here to fuck with us, and if something happens, Kyle, that will be your fault.”

All of a sudden it had turned into an argument about his loyalty, and Kyle was flabbergasted and pissed. “What have I ever done but everything that I needed to do to protect us?” He knew that his words hit Eric like a punch in the gut. Because it wasn’t just what they were talking about at that moment. The loyalty between the three Urban Dwellers went back further than that. It went back to the reason that they were tied together, bound together with a chain around them at the bottom of the ocean kind of together for the rest of their lives. They had a secret that no one else knew, and it would always stay that way. He couldn’t believe that Eric would question his integrity.

“I think you should leave.”  He realized, that if he was going to help Kelly from this point forward, he was going to be on his own. Eric couldn’t be trusted.

“It’s my club too. I’m here for the benefit. You can stay on your end of the room, and I’ll stay on mine. But if you think you can kick me out of my own fucking bar, you’ve got another thing coming.” Eric stomped away.

It was just like Eric to have a flair for the dramatic. Perhaps that was part of the reason that he and Sophie didn’t make it as a couple. They both should have been theater majors instead of studying business.

Kyle was thoroughly disgusted with the course of the conversation, but he couldn’t deny that he needed to know if Eric was right or not. That meant that he had to talk to Kelly. He didn’t want to upset the evening, though. It would be their first formal date, and he wanted it to be perfect. Until he got his answers, it didn’t make sense for him to get upset about it.

He picked up the list that Sophie had left for him and turned his attention back to his work.

Kelly stared at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t believe it was her looking back from the mirror’s reflection. She turned one way slowly and then the other way. The dress was beautiful. It’s electric blue color would catch anyone’s attention. It was overlaid with a thin gauzy fabric of sparkly material. And if the color wasn’t enough, the amount of cleavage she had on display would surely get anyone’s attention. She was glad that she more than filled the top out, but she wasn’t sure that she wanted to expose so much of herself. She wasn’t used to wearing attire like this at all. There was a part of her that wished for her lab coat, but on the other hand, she wondered what Kyle would think if he saw her in this dress. It’s what she thought after she had tried on every dress so far.

“Damn girl, you look fucking fantastic.” Kelly caught a glimpse of Sophie standing up behind her watching her in the mirror. The other woman smiled at her with appreciation.

Kelly turned around. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

“Fuck no,” Sophie said. “Kyle is gonna lose his marbles when he sees you in that dress.”

The vote of confidence made Kelly feel more secure. She trusted Sophie’s judgment. Sophie seemed like the type of woman who was always on point when it came to the latest fashion.

“It makes me happy that Kyle asked me to go to this benefit with him, but he also keeps insisting that it’s too dangerous for me out there. It’s like he can’t make up his mind.”

“That’s a man for you,” Sophie said. She sat back down on the couch inside the elegant boutique that she had insisted they visit. Kelly had been grateful that Sophie had been willing to go dress shopping with her. She hadn’t relished the idea of trying on dress after dress in front of Kyle. That was even if he would have wanted to go with her, which he hadn’t volunteered to do.

“So Kyle is finishing up the details for tonight?” Kelly didn’t want to out and out admit that she was eager to see him again.

“He is, and he’s got to figure it out on his own. It’s good for him.”

Kelly sensed that there was something she was missing. “He said you guys are friends. You sound mad at him.”

Sophie rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “I’ve been working for those jerks for three years. I’ve given them everything I’ve got, and all I want is for them to give me a shot. Kyle is the one who should be standing up for me, but he’s acting like a big pussy.”

That wasn’t a word Kelly would ever have associated with Kyle. “Why? What isn’t he doing?”

“Eric and I went out like three times right after I started. He was hot, and I was horny. It wasn’t a big deal. We both knew the score when it happened. We slept together, and it was done. But it’s like ever since then he can’t accept that I have the brains to go with the body. I’ve helped make the club what it is today. All I want is to be put in charge of the shifter fights and have a stake in the club. I understand hot and bothered men way better that those three do. I could triple their profits in less than three months flat.”

This was another topic that Kelly knew woefully little about. “I’m sure Kyle will say something. He was always good about recognizing the soldiers in his squad. He isn’t a jerk that way.”

“Right now, he’s sitting there twiddling his thumbs, and I’m still working behind the bar.”

“Why the shifter fights?” Kelly asked. Shifter fights were still something that Kelly didn’t understand. It seemed surreal that anyone would willingly expose themselves to that kind of violence.

Reading up on them when she had first heard about them, she assumed they was supposed to be like boxing or MMA fights. Kelly didn’t think so.

“As I looked across all of their businesses, the one where I think I can have the most impact is the fights. They’ve been running them the same way for years. They could use some sprucing up. I know that if I was able to turn that around and amp up the profits, they would have to make me a full partner.”

“But they are so violent,” Kelly said with a shudder. “The way that the men phase back and forth between their animal and human forms. The way they set out to hurt and maim each other with such brutal force. It’s terrifying.”

“Terrifying and electrifying,” Sophie said. “I get that it’s hard for you to understand, but at some point, even if you want to be here in the city, it starts to feel like the buildings are caving in on you. The fights help to remind you that there are places where you can be free, even if you aren’t unleashing your animal yourself.”

Kelly realized with a start that Sophie was a shifter. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before. “What kind of shifter are you?”

“Panther,” Sophie said.

“Why did you come to Copper City?”

“In my old clan, it’s like it was still the Dark Ages. Women had a role, and it was to serve the men. I always knew I was smarter than that, but I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted somewhere to belong, and that’s what I found when I found the Urban Dwellers.”

“So you’ve known Kyle this whole time?”

“Most of it,” Sophie said. “She’ll take the dress.” She waved the saleswoman over to them as Kelly continue to admire herself in the mirror. Between the cleavage and the high cut of the slit on her thigh, she knew that she was going to be either wildly uncomfortable or incredibly jacked up with arousal when she got around Kyle.

“So what’s going on with you in the big boss man?” Sophie finally lobbed the question that Kelly had been expecting all afternoon. Although Sophie had played coy about their girl’s date, at the end of the day, they both knew the score. There was a part of Kelly that had been initially jealous of Sophie’s position in Kyle’s life. Not to mention that Sophie was drop dead gorgeous. Her long blonde hair was perfectly coiffed in soft curls that fell around her shoulders. She was put together in a way that made it look like it probably took hours. Kelly didn’t have time for things like that, even if she thought about it. She worried about getting her hair done before the gala.

“He’s helping me out with a problem.” That was the truth of the matter. They had slept together, but so far there hadn’t been any further conversation on the matter. Other than he asked her in the most backasswards way on a date.

“Oh, is that all.” Sophie’s tone told Kelly that she didn’t believe her for a second.

“What else were you expecting?”

“It’s not my place to talk about it,” Sophie said.

That statement seemed random and yet not. Kelly understood Kyle’s friends being curious about her. She was curious about their relationship too. But the way that Sophie said her brief comment made it sound like there was something else going on that Kelly wasn’t recognizing. “Not your place to talk about what?” Her mind worked furiously as she went over all of the options.

“Look, Kyle and I have been friends for a long time. I love the guy like he was a brother. But, like all men, he’s stubborn and a bit of a jackass, if he even recognizes what’s going on.”

Kelly got down off of the step. She walked closer to Sophie and looked at her quizzically. “What wouldn’t he recognize?” She was starting to feel a flutter of something in her stomach. She hadn’t had anyone else to talk to about what had been going on with Kyle. She hadn’t had time to hang out with girlfriends in several years. When she was younger, she’d always been quite solitary. The idea of being able to swap information about a man should’ve been something that was exciting, but it was something she was entirely unpracticed in. “I would love it if you would just tell me what you think is going on.”

Sophie sighed and closed the magazine in her hands and slapped it into her lap. “You mean like the fact that he thinks he’s mated to you?”

Kelly’s eyes widened. She had heard the word before. She intuitively understood what it meant for a shifter to be mated. But she had only heard of rare instances where a shifter mated with a human. “Mated? No. That’s not what’s going on between us.”

Sophie threw her hands up. “Of course not. Why would he look at you like that then? Why would he stalk you everywhere you go? Why would he be so concerned about a woman that he hasn’t seen in over four years?”

“Well, that’s the thing. If he thought I was his mate, why wouldn’t he have said something back then?” To Kelly, the idea of being Kyle’s mate was preposterous. Slightly intoxicating, but not possible. She started to wonder about all of her own feelings toward Kyle and their intensity since he had been back in her life.

“That’s not the way that it always works. That’s the romanticized version of it all, and it does happen from time to time. But a lot of the other times, it’s more like a slow burn. It’s somebody that you just can’t get out of your head. It probably borders on something like obsession for humans. But at the end of the day, when you meet your mate, that person becomes your entire world, and that is the way that Kyle looks at you. I’ve never seen him look at anyone like that before.”

“Shouldn’t we start with a date before we start talking about mating rituals?” Kelly said nervously.

Sophie threw her head back and laughed. “It sounds like you’re checking that box tonight. Oh, and don’t tell me that you and Kyle haven’t already engaged in some kind of mating ritual.”

Kelly flushed. Was it that obvious that she and Kyle had already slept together? She wasn’t even sure if they were in a relationship yet. Now she was having to justify it to someone else. She was so confused. It was like everything in her life had been thrown out of whack. She wasn’t ready for anything like this yet. She was still young and in her prime, and she was so focused on her work. She couldn’t think about settling down. Most of all, she couldn’t think about being someone’s mate.

“If it’s meant to be, you don’t have any choice in the matter, sweetie. You better start reconciling yourself to that fact.” Sophie pulled a nail file out of her purse and started to file her nails. She was acting completely nonchalant about the whole thing, which bothered Kelly a lot. Kelly sat down next to her on the couch. She was still stunned by the way the conversation had gone.

Sophie looked at her, and her expression softened. “Look, Kyle is my best friend. Clearly he’s got a thing for you. Whether it’s the whole mate thing or not, I don’t want to see him get hurt.” Sophie tapped her nail file at Kelly. “So whatever you’re going to do, do it fast will you? Don’t leave the poor guy hanging. He’s been through enough.”

Kelly got up and went into the dressing room. She needed a couple of minutes alone. She considered what Sophie had said. She didn’t want to hurt Kyle. It was all just moving so fast. Then she realized she needed to do what she did in all parts of her life where she had a question but didn’t have an answer. She needed to do research. She needed to collect data. At that point, she would be able to make a logical and informed decision. These types of decisions shouldn’t be made on emotion alone. Not in her world.

She grabbed a pen and paper out of her purse and sat down. She started to work up a list. The first thing that she listed was her hypothesis. She wrote it out and stared at the words.

I am Kyle’s mate.

She realized she didn’t even know what that meant. The shifter psychology and mythology was so mysterious. What they were willing to share with the general public was really only the information that wasn’t going to scare anyone. She needed to know more. Maybe this idea of a mate wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. Maybe it nothing more than a chosen person like a husband and wife. She definitely wasn’t ready to get married yet, but that idea scared her less than the idea of the mate business. So, she would collect some data, and then she would see if she agreed with Sophie’s assessment of the situation.