Walk on the Striped Side (2 page)

“I do?” Elena murmured suddenly
shakily. Her inner alarms were blaring.
Danger. Danger. Danger
. It took
everything she had not too slowly slide her hand back and put it on the butt of
her own weapon holstered on her hip.

“Yes you do. You see, I’d much
rather be here with you.”

Did he just purr that? “And why
would you rather be here with me?” A louder rumble seemed to come from the
vicinity of his chest. What the hell
was
that noise?

“I’d rather be here with you
because I don’t do spoiled, whiny, superficial, bleached out teenagers. What I
do like are mature brunettes who think they know it all. And I like them,” He
paused for a second and another loud rumble sounded, “because after I break
them in with a well-deserved spanking, make them see that they’re not as big
and bad as they think they are, they end up knowing that they’ll never meet anyone
like me ever again. Because unlike all the men they may have had before me, I
do, in fact, know what to do with a woman’s body. And anyone they have after me
will pale in comparison to what I gave them. I like knowing that I took a woman
who isn’t a naive little virgin to bed and debauched her to such a ridiculous
degree that she’ll know she’s now just a bit dirty, but in such a delicious
way. I like to ruin grown women you see. They’re more of a challenge. Would you
like a demonstration?”

Elena was damn near panting now.
Man, that voice of his was practically a purr that seemed to resonate all the
way through her body until it was buzzing through her girly parts. It was such
an amazing feeling that she was considering giving him a new nickname.
The
Talking Vibrator
. Her own breath was coming in small, rapid pants now, and
suddenly she realized that she’d not been this turned in a long, long time.
What in the hell was it about this man that was pushing all her buttons? WAIT.
It didn’t matter what it was about him that sent her libido into a frenzy. She
couldn’t have him. He was forbidden fruit for a couple of different reasons.

First of all, she was investigating
him on behalf of the Major General. Second of all… well, the first reason was
all she needed. But just as Elena was about to open her mouth and tell him no,
she didn’t want a demonstration, she wanted a confession, he did something that
shocked the shit out of her.

He took in a long exaggerated
inhale, nostrils flaring much like that lion she likened him too earlier, and
then his tongue came out to lick his lips like he was savoring something
extravagantly tasty. “Damn you smell good all pissed off and turned on.”

That. Fried. Her. Brain. Dozens of
images of him using that tongue to actually taste her overloaded her mind. If
she’d thought she’d been turned on before, now she was practically on the edge
of an orgasm from just looking, listening, and daydreaming about the man. Her
mouth went dry, making speech next to impossible. She had to get her act
together though. There was no way she could let this pushy, arrogan- her inner
rant ended as Ivanov closed the distance between the two of them. Leaning over
the desk, with his hands braced on either side of hers on the desk top, he
placed his nose at the base of her neck. She felt him inhale again as he ran
that nose up the length of her neck until she felt a rough, wet swipe of his
tongue on the spot below her ear.

Holy shit. Her will power took a
hike along with her common sense. He pulled back from her and settled back into
his chair on his side of the desk with what seemed to be forced constraint. His
knuckles were actually white from the force he was using to dig his fingertips
into the desk top in front of him. There were small lines around his mouth and
eyes as if he were actually strained somehow. Working up the nerve to tell the
sexiest man she’d ever met, that she wanted him to use that tongue on every
inch of her body, she nervously licked her dry bottom lip. She saw the moment
his eyes zeroed in on the tip of her tongue. Watching it rapturously as she
swiped it slowly over her lip, and then his head shot back up to look in her
eyes before he lunged. Not moved in smoothly or suavely, but freakin’
lunged
at her
.

Expecting his lips to crash into hers
any second, Elena closed her eyes. Anticipating what would hopefully be a kiss
that rocked her entire world. If she was going to give in to temptation, and
risk getting herself in trouble fraternizing with another soldier above her
rank, this had better be the best kiss of her entire life. She waited.

Nothing
.

She waited some more. She kept her
lips slightly pursed while her entire body was tingling in anticipation of his
touch. Where the hell was the touch of those lips anyways? Opening her eyes
back up she found Master Sergeant Ivanov across the room, at least ten feet
from the desk, and her, being held back by a man she’d never seen before.

The stranger was largely built,
showcased by his olive green Army t-shirt was stretched tight across his broad shoulders,
but still smaller than Ivanov. It was a miracle the
unknown
soldier
was able to hold back the struggling Master Sergeant at all.
With sandy blond hair that was so thick and lush, falling almost to his
shoulders, it could be described as a manly mane, and unnerving chocolate brown
eyes that seemed out of place in context to the rest of his appearance. He was
both beauty and a beast. Beautiful because Elena had never seen anything like
him with his golden tan skin, matching hair, and a body that was clearly built
better than any body builder she’d ever seen except for perhaps Ivanov’s. Beast
because of the four ghastly scars, which looked like claw marks, that went from
the top of his forehead down to his jaw on the left side of his face.

The man was hissing something in
tones too low for Elena to hear at the man he was restraining, trying to settle
him down. Her lust fizzled out as she watched the strange show in front of her,
and curiosity surged instead. She’d almost be willing to hand Ivanov’s duty
weapon over to him if she could find out whatever it was that the stranger said
to him that seconds later put that weird look on his face as he still stood
staring at her.

What the fuck was going on here?

***

Gage

“Get your shit together before
you expose yourself! Do you
want
a death sentence for letting the woman
see that you can be orange, fluffy and cute like a kitten?”

Like a bucket of ice cold water had
been dumped over his head, he stopped struggling with his friend and fellow
teammate and reason started to return for Gage. Jesus. Tyson was right. He’d
almost flipped his shit in front of Demos and taken her. Granted, she seemed to
be willing, but he’d been so out of it that there was no telling what he would
have done to the woman. Kissed her? Hell yes. Flipped her onto her stomach,
pulled her up on her knees with her shoulders pinned to the floor, slipped her
pants over her ass and shoved inside of her till she could feel him in her
tonsils? More than likely. Which was bad, because who knew if anyone was back
here with them in one of those offices with the doors shut? But what made it
all worse was that Gage couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t have really fucked
it all up and let some of his beast out in some way. His claws or canines could
have made an appearance, and his eyes changed color with strong emotions. Like
what he was feeling right now. Mind boggling lust. If he’d given into that
desire to take her like the animal he really was, and someone had seen
something, he’d be a dead man walking.
Fuck
.

Gage leaned his head back against
the wall, closed his eyes so he was no longer looking at the woman he wanted to
screw seven ways from Sunday, and took a deep breath to calm himself.

“You cool now dipshit?” Tyson
asked.

Clearing the lump from his throat
Gage rasped one word. “Yeah.”

“This is my fault so I’ll take care
of it. You just stay right against this wall behind me and don’t move until
it’s time for us to leave.”

Gage wanted to ask his friend why
he thought the fact that he’d officially flipped his shit was somehow his fault
but couldn’t manage more than deep slow breaths in and out. The sooner he got
out of this building, off base, and on his way home, the better. He’d met a
potential mate or two over his lifetime, but no one that had caused this kind
of reaction. This was just ludicrous.

He heard Tyson talking in low tones
to Demos, but was still a little too out of it to understand what was being
said. His sensitive hearing picked up the dial tone of a phone before the beeps
of buttons being pushed to dial a number. He didn’t bother to open his eyes and
see what was going on. Tyson would take care of the situation as he said he
would. The man had never failed to have his back in the hundred or so years
that he’d known him, Gage didn’t really expect him to let him down now.

With the surge of adrenaline
running through his body, and battling his tiger who was still fighting to
break free of its human shell, Gage damn near felt buzzed in the head. He
wasn’t sure how much time was passing as he stood there getting his shit
together, but eventually the sound of Demos’ raised voice cut through and
penetrated his brain.

“Do you have any idea how much
trouble you could have gotten him into? You Special Forces guys all think
you’re all so special and above everybody else, but I swear to God that if you
ever pull some shit like this on my base again I’ll throw you in the brig so
fast your head will spin.  Right after I kick you in the nuts for all the
trouble you’ve caused me. Here’s Ivanov’s gun. Take it and go. I don’t ever
want to see your faces again.”

Gage finally opened his eyes to
look at the pretty brunette as she glared at the bigger man in front of her
like she wished she could take a frying pan to his head. It would have been
hysterical to him if her last words hadn’t pissed him off for what should be no
reason at all.

She didn’t want to see him ever
again?

Good
. Because he didn’t need
to take a chance with the disaster that she could become to him if he ever got
her alone. He didn’t need to sink balls deep inside some human he couldn’t
claim as his own without the fear of breaking her in the process. He was better
off waiting for the next potential mate that came along.

CHAPTER-TWO

June 2011

Elena

She loved her job, but sometimes
this shit was ridiculous. It was damn near midnight and here she was driving to
the edges of the Fort Bragg Army base to investigate an anonymous call about
vandalism. If she got there and found some dumb grunts spray painting she was
going flip out, maybe kick them in the junk after she hand cuffed them, and
then haul their asses down to the station and call their COs. To think she’d
just come back from deployment in Afghanistan, where her unit had patrolled
through roads and cities with constant vigilance for terrorists and suicide
bombers, to this was kind of surreal. Now she was dealing with knuckleheads who
probably needed a good swat upside their heads and a solid dressing down from
their superiors. The difference between where Elena had been a couple of months
ago, and where she was now, almost made her head spin.

She pulled her car off the paved
road and onto a level dirt road that led to a large abandoned building. She
wasn’t sure how old the building was, but she knew it used to be where some of the
mechanics worked on the vehicles used on base. It hadn’t been used in years
except for the occasional training exercise on how to clear a structure in a
hostile environment. The building itself basically butted up against some of
the woods the Special Forces units also utilized for training exercises, so
overall, it made for a pretty creepy scene to look at as she parked the car
about fifty feet away from the structure.

As Elena quietly exited her vehicle
she heard raised voices followed by a loud crash coming from somewhere inside.
Her right hand went to the hood of her holster, snapping it open so that she
could quickly and easily clear her pistol if she had to. With quick, silent
steps she hurried up to the front door that was cracked open a few inches and
braced herself against the wall beside it. With the toe of her boot she pushed
the door open a few more inches and craned her neck around so that she could
take a peek through the larger opening. What she saw next made her left eye
twitch. A sure symbol that her patience had been shot to shit.

 Kicking the door open in
annoyance, Elena stomped forward until she stood less than ten feet from a
small group of eight large, burly men covered in muddy BDUs. All of them were
in various stages of wrestling with someone else. Four of those men were
grappling on the floor. Arms and legs tangled around their opponent’s bodies as
they tried to pin their victims to the cold, hard concrete slab beneath them.
As she watched the mayhem in front of her, one soldier put the man he was
tussling with in a kneebar. She grimaced as the man who now had his knee
hyperextended grunted in pain before tapping out.

As she took a slower, closer look
around the room, some of Elena’s annoyance slipped away as she admired all the
delicious male specimens. Finding this was definitely better than finding some
bored punks spray painting the place, but it still wasn’t worth leaving her
post. Why couldn’t she have found them in a mud pit wearing nothing but their
skivvies? Instead, they had to drag her ass out of the station in the middle of
the night to break up their testosterone fest without giving her anything that
would have made it worth the trip. Given the right circumstances, such as the
aforementioned preferred slippery, mud covered naked body parts, this could
have easily been fantasy material for a solid decade. Why did men always have
to ruin a good thing?

Movement on the peripheral of her
vision caught her attention. Another soldier stood a few feet off to the side
from the four men tangled on the floor, with a sixth man firmly placed in a
headlock. His victim punched him in the stomach a couple of times in quick
succession, before grabbing his captor’s wrist, twisting it to break free from
the arm that had held him immobile. Elena finally looked over to the last pair
fighting in the room and locked her eyes onto the back of the head of the man
who seemed to be turning into the bane of her existence.

Master Sergeant Ivanov.

He had his buddy, the one who had
damn near put him into a lot of hot water with the gun fiasco last year, pinned
up against the wall with a forearm to the throat. Elena watched as Ivanov’s
friend’s lips moved, and figured the man was taunting him with something
ridiculous. Her guess seemed to be right, because before she could blink,
Ivanov had slammed the man’s head against the wall. The force in which Ivanov’s
friend’s head hit the wall actually shook the sheetrock, and put a nice sized
hole in it to boot. She should have stopped everything then and there, but the
hole from Ivanov’s victim’s head drew her eyes to some rather odd marks on the
wall. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say they were claw marks from a
bear. Raking deeply downwards for a section of about three feet. But that was
impossible because Elena wasn’t aware of any bears on base. Her feet started to
move in Ivanov’s direction, compelled to take a closer look at those ragged
marks on the wall. The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up in true
radar form, as if trying to warn her that something was off about those marks.
She never made it to her destination though.

Three steps in her legs were swept
out from under her, and Elena was unexpectedly covered with not just one man’s
body, but two of them. Two of those idiots that had been wrestling around on
the floor had managed to take her down with them in their brawl. Not liking
being pinned down by the two oblivious fighting men, she did what any woman
would do when suddenly pissed off at a man. She kneed the first one she could
reach as hard as she could in the nuts. He roared out in pain and rolled off of
her.

The loudness and intensity of the
injured man’s angry sound surprised her. Should a man be able to yell that
loudly? Elena had never heard anything like it. Sensing the new danger, his
wrestling partner tried to roll off of Elena, from where he had been lying on
his laid back on top of her, but didn’t move quickly enough. Her fist flew out
and connected with the vulnerable area of his throat, causing a strangled yelp
of pain to escape from him.

As her second victim clutched his
throat, gasping and gurgling, she pushed him off of her and got back to her
feet. When she looked up, it was to the realization that now all eyes in the
room were on her. Including the pair of exotically green and gold ones
belonging to that annoying bastard Ivanov. He was watching her in his own
subtle version of shock. Or at least she was guessing that was what the cocked
left eyebrow and slightly widened eyes meant. From the way one side of his
mouth started to slide up, she could guess it also might mean amusement. He was
kind of hard to read.

Elena put her hands on her hips and
ignored him as he took her in from head to toe. Making somewhat lengthy delayed
intervals to stare at the apex of her thighs and then her chest. When his eyes
finally made it back to her face, the slight surprise had yet to melt from his
face. Which annoyed her. Had the man never seen a woman kick a guy’s ass
before? Only now, as she glowered back at him, there seemed to be something
more lingering in his eyes. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say those
golden yellow rings around his pupils were growing larger. Becoming almost
molten with some kind of heated promise. And what his eyes were smoldering at
her with caused Elena to feel torn between wanting him and wanting to punch him
in the face for it.

Desire.

***

Gage

Had he really considered her
weak and breakable before?

Gage stood there, practically
shaking with lust and violence. Lust because he’d just watched the human woman that
nature had determined was a potential mate for him temporarily incapacitate two
feline shifters from Tyson’s pride. Of course, the two had deserved it. They’d
just bodily taken her down to the floor during their little disagreement.
Apparently that had pissed her off enough to take action against them though.

The violence he was feeling, now
that was what bothered him most. He’d already been holding onto a tenuous leash
on his inner animal after having to subdue Tyson when the man had started to
lose control of himself. Not that he blamed Tyson for that. The mission they’d
just come off of, a recon of an old dilapidated hospital for the criminally
insane in Norway, where they’d found a big heaping pile of nothing. Well,
nothing but old scents that proved their targets had been there, and the smell
of some kind of chemical in the air too. Probably some kind of drug to keep the
individuals they were looking for incapacitated. The knowledge that Gage and
Tyson’s team had finally been so close to where their targets were being held,
and yet still too late to save them, had ended in nothing but pain and
frustration for the Lion. Which was understandable since Tyson was looking for
kidnapped members of his pride. Including his brother.

What wasn’t understandable was the
fact that most of the violence Gage was feeling wasn’t towards Tyson’s
inability to keep his Lion leashed. No, it was due to seeing Sergeant Demos
pinned under two much larger male shifter bodies. He’d instantly wanted to beat
both of the men on top of her senseless. His tiger roaring inside his head,
needing to send the message that he was the only man allowed to pin her down.
Preferably while he was inside of her.

Damn these mating instincts! They
were driving him certifiable. It’d been so long since he’d last seen her that
he’d started to doubt his initial reaction when meeting her before. But now, as
every raw animalistic instinct he had was screaming at him that there’d been no
mistake the first time. Sergeant Demos was prime mate material. He wouldn’t
change his mind though. He absolutely would
not
take the feeble human as
a mate. They died too soon and were way too easy to kill. That left him with
two options. Either tell his team that he had to take a leave of absence so he
could stay away from the mouthwatering woman. Or fuck this overwhelming need he
had for her right out of his system. And since Gage refused to leave a teammate
in hard times, like right now when Tyson needed him, his decision was made for
him.

Yup. He was going to lure the
little human into bed. To use and abuse that tempting little body of hers that
still needed to be fattened up a little. Did the woman not eat at all? Shaking
his head to himself, he decided not to concentrate on that. No, all he needed
to concentrate on was that he was going to have her as many times in as many
ways as he had to, to get her out of his system. By the time he was done, she
would be a sated, begging, crying mess, screaming out his name better than a
high paid porn actress on the set of an orgy. And after he exhausted her ass
into a state of sleep that might look more like a coma, he’d walk away from her
for good.

Gage pondered the best way to get
the difficult woman where he wanted her. Which was the nearest flat surface in
lieu of a bed. He debated whether he should try the ridiculous human practices
of dating her, or if he should just throw her over his shoulder like any other
shifter would do. The problem with carrying her off over his shoulder was that
she might misconstrue it as an attempt of kidnapping. He barely held in his
snort of disgust over that thought. As if he would ever have to kidnap
somebody! Women fell all over themselves for the chance to be with him. This
woman was just unnecessarily difficult.

He really didn’t want to have to
lower himself to the disgusting practice of a date to get her in bed. It was
ridiculous. And unnecessary. Not to mention that he had better things to do
with his spare time. So there had to be a way around all of that. So while Gage
stood there, trying to figure out how he could get Sergeant Demos out of her
BDUs and naked as fast as possible, he watched as the woman in question went
from mad to damn near psychotic. The angrier she got, the more the subtle
fragrance belonging to her got spicier. Richer. Like exotic chocolates with red
chilies in them. Which only turned him on more. Causing his cock to lengthen
and press rather uncomfortably against the zipper in his pants. Somewhere in
the back of his mind, as he watched her face turn an interesting shade of red,
he knew it wasn’t quite natural that he kept getting turned on every time she
got pissed off. The truth was, at the moment, he could care less about how
weird that was. And the fact that he didn’t care at all, well
that
should have been his hint that walking away from her wasn’t going to be that
easy after all.

***

Elena

“
Have you idiots lost your damn
mind?
”

Okay, it was safe to say her
tentative leash on her temper had snapped. Which wasn’t unheard of per se, but she
tried really damn hard after that last trip to the anger management counselor
not to flip her shit and give in to the urge to beat the snot out of people.
These eight morons though, they made her want to start throwing hooks and
uppercuts like a desperate boxer fighting for a championship title.

“Problem Sergeant Demos?” Ivanov’s
deep baritone was the only one to respond.

Did he just really ask her if she
had a problem? She felt the muscle underneath her left eye twitch again. The small
movement did not go by unnoticed by Master Sergeant Ivanov, who smirked at the
small sign of her current mood. Which her youngest sister Delta lovingly
labeled: DEFCON PSYCHO. Only Ivanov had no idea just how accurate the
description of psycho could be for Elena when she well and truly lost it. And
that was because the last time Elena had gone DEFCON PSYCHO was when she was
seventeen and her oldest sister Chloe had come home with a good sized bruise on
her cheek from her then boyfriend Jimmy Butowski. Thank God juvenile records
were sealed by the courts. Otherwise the Army would have never let her in.