Instead of turning a light on so she could read the magazine, she continued to stare out into the Carolina night and enjoy the couch. Before she knew it, she was out cold.
Nik shook his head and trotted back home. If his brothers wanted to chase rabbits like a couple of cubs that was on them. He had a warm bed waiting for him and the delicious smell of Angelina Santiago to keep him company. Much better than rabbit.
The three of them had done a complete sweep of the area first, and his markings were still strong. Any that weren’t, he refreshed. As he approached the house he saw that his study door stood open. He knew he left it closed.
He burst into a full-out run, coming to a sliding, crashing stop when he saw Angelina asleep on his couch. She must have woken up after he put her down for the night. She’d showered and wore a T-shirt. He padded closer to her to make sure she was okay, and she suddenly moved in her sleep. Her T-shirt rode up a bit. Enough for him to see she wore no panties.
His big tiger head crashed to the floor, his paws covering his eyes. What is this woman trying to do to me?
Angie woke when she heard cardinals singing outside the study doors. Still slightly dark out, she realized she’d slept the rest of the night in Nik’s study. She wanted to be out of there before he woke up since she was half naked. She tried to move and realized something pinned the entire lower half of her body to the couch.
She took a second to let her eyes become accustomed to the lightening darkness and propped herself up on her elbows to look down the length of her body. That’s when she saw him. His huge tiger head resting on her lower abdomen. His giant forearms spread across her legs, pinning her to the spot. The rest of his furry body comfortably situated between her thighs and across the couch.
She figured this could be the one thing that pushed her back into therapy.
Nik’s eyes slowly opened. He looked around the room, then his big head turned to look at her. His gold eyes blinked.
Too weird. Too weird. Too weird. Even for her.
As she tried to scramble out from under him, he shifted. Back to human. Suddenly she had Nik the man between her legs. And now she didn’t want to go anywhere.
His arms tightened around her thighs, holding her in place. Apparently he didn’t want her going anywhere either.
His head dipped down and he nuzzled her exposed sex. He glanced back at her, watching to see her reaction. She didn’t move. Or breathe. Or do anything, but grasp her bottom lip lightly between her teeth. Of course the hillbilly didn’t need much more than that.
His head lowered again and Angie realized she held her breath. What if Nik just gave the appearance of being a hottie in bed? She had that happen before. The guy who taught her how to water ski promised to make her legs shake. She ended up walking out halfway through it. What if Nik were the same? What if he bored her senseless? She refused to fake it. Faking it was not in her DNA. Then what? Would he throw her out? Beg her not to tell? What if…what if…holymotherfuckingshit!
Her elbows went out from under her and she dropped back onto the couch. His tongue took another long swipe and Angie’s toes curled. The tip of his tongue flicked her clit, but thankfully his big arms were still holding her down, otherwise she would have flipped right off the couch. He didn’t concentrate on that though, but a mere tease of what was to come. Instead, he took his time exploring every inch of her pussy with that rough, flat tongue of his. Even sliding inside her and fucking her with it.
No. She wouldn’t be faking anything this morning. She wouldn’t have to.
Nik adjusted her legs so they rested on his shoulders and he moved up a bit, lifting her ass, giving him deeper access into her body. His hands reached under, gripping her cheeks as Angie reached up and gripped the arm of the couch. She arched her back and he continued tongue fucking her, while his fingers squeezed her ass.
Her head fell back, her body arched even more, while Nik returned to her clit, rubbing it with the flat of his tongue. Her hands released their grip on the couch and, instead, dug into Nik’s thick hair.
Angie’s entire body began to shake, and she knew she probably ripped hairs from his head as her orgasm ripped through her. Swiftly followed by this long, low purring sound she’d never made before.
Nik growled in response and kept right on going. Working his tongue around again until her shoulders left the couch and her entire body clenched violently, clasping him tightly to her. Any other man might have gotten his neck broken but, instead, Nik purred, stretching out her orgasm for what seemed like forever.
She finally couldn’t take anymore, but unable to actually form coherent words or thoughts, she yanked on his hair to get him to back off. His wet, grinning face rose from her lap and she knew she’d never seen anything so beautiful before.
Nik pulled himself out from the grip of her legs, nipping the inside of her thigh before dragging himself up her body until they were face to face. He hovered over her for a bit, his arms on either side of her. After a moment, he leaned his head down to kiss her.
Angie moaned into his mouth, her own taste giving her one last shudder. After he thoroughly and slowly explored the inside of her mouth, he pulled back, his smile still as wide as before.
“Mornin’, sugar.” He kissed her nose, then slid off her, and walked out.
Angie pushed herself up on her elbows, staring at the door he’d just left through.
For less than a split second she wondered again if maybe he didn’t want her. But she saw that bobbing cock bouncing out the door, harder than a plank of wood. She didn’t believe for a second he wasn’t ready to fuck her.
So what the hell is he waiting for? And exactly how much longer could she hold out?
Groaning, she turned over and buried her head into the couch cushions. Then she screamed.
Chapter Twelve
The phone rang again, and Angie reached over, snatching it off the side table. She would have to change that ring. After getting two orgasms pumped out of her, she’d gone back to bed, and she found her phone ring damn annoying at eleven in the morning.
She flipped it open and, without lifting her head from her wonderfully firm pillow, answered.
“Yeah?”
“Hey. Hey. I’ve got her. Hi, baby.”
Angie sat bolt upright in the bed. Now she was wide awake.
“Mom?”
“Yes. Hi. I’ve got your father here, too.”
Okay, what the hell was happening? First this morning’s antics with Nik and now this.
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. But I was going through my day planner this morning trying to find where I’d stuck some notes when I noticed that we missed your birthday. So we wanted to call and wish you a happy birthday.”
Angie closed her eyes. “My birthday? That was three months ago.”
“Well, better late than never.”
Angie would prefer never. She didn’t know why, but no call at all would have been easier than these months or even years later calls that both her parents insisted on. Could they truly be trying to prove they somehow cared?
She already knew they didn’t care. Not about her. Both of them being archeologists, maybe if they had to dig her up in the Sudan, they’d care a little more.
Yet caring about humans just wasn’t in their nature. It never had been.
She felt herself go icy all over. Her heart hardening against the pain. Her heart hardening in general. Before she learned how to do this, she used to do the stupidest shit. It amazed her every day both Sara and Miki stuck around during those ugly times in junior high and high school. Those two women, mere girls at the time, washed the blood out of her hair, put antiseptic over her cuts and bruises, and hid any evidence. They kept reminding her they were her family now and that they loved her even as they pried the blood-covered two-by-four out of her hands.
“So,” her mother struggled with conversation, “how’s it been going?”
What should she tell her? Well, my best fr
iend’s a shapeshifter and my other best friend is in love with one and having his baby. Plus a pack of hyenas tried to kill me. And who knows what the hell the lions are doing. And I’m temporarily living with a tiger who seems to have the hots for me. And you?
She didn’t, however, want to talk to her mother. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to hang up the phone either.
“Fine,” she finally got out.
“Anyway, there was one other thing.”
She should have known better. There had to be a reason her parents suddenly called her out of the blue.
“What do you want, Mother?”
“I merely needed some information on your grandmother’s estate.”
“You know I don’t deal with that. Uncle Ernesto’s handling everything. Has been for years.” Her grandmother had given Angie a good portion of her money when Angie graduated college. The old woman knew then her daughter and son-in-law would make it difficult for her granddaughter. Universities didn’t pay much and it cost a lot to keep some of their digs going. When her grandmother died, the will gave control over to Angie’s uncle who still lived in Brazil, but Angie already had her money and never expected any more.
“You’re much better with him than I am.”
“He’s your brother.”
“Yes. But he enjoys speaking to you.”
“What are you asking from me, mother?”
“Well—”
Angie jumped a little when big fingers gently pried the phone from her hands. She looked up to see Nik staring down at her.
“This, sugar, is called the power of the hang up.” He closed the phone with a snap. “Now, how about some breakfast?”
She didn’t say much, even as she followed him down to the kitchen. But she wouldn’t let him near her either. She shied away from his touch worse than when she first arrived. Damn parents. He’d gotten so far with her and they’d pushed him back about twenty feet. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear what happened just that morning with her groaning and coming like an express train never took place. But he knew it had. His head still hurt from where she’d ripped hair out of it.
Hell, how do parents forget their kid’s birthday? Maybe a father, but a mother? Didn’t she have to push Angie out of her? Usually women remembered that stuff, and most never let a body forget it. At least his mother never did. Especially when she found guilt such an effective method of getting what she wanted from him and his brothers.
His parents always celebrated their kids’ birthdays together, too. One of the few things they willingly did as a couple. From the party he had with a cowboy theme, to the party the twins had involving a clown they scared to death and chased into the woods because it was fun to watch him scream, his parents made sure each and every one of their children felt loved and protected.
The tiger females who raised their kids on their own made sure their children understood this. No matter how many daddies were involved.
Now he understood why these two women Angie kept talking about were so important to her. They were the only family she really had. Even a pack of dogs as kin was better than those people she’d been talking to.
While she ate, he went back to her room and retrieved her phone. He ran through her phone book until he found what he wanted. He pressed the Talk button and waited.
After three rings, “It’s fuckin’ eight in the morning so this better be fuckin’ good.”
Good God.
“Uh…is this Miki?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Nik. Nikolai Vorislav. I have Angie.”
“Oh, yeah. The hillbilly kidnapper. She’s okay, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. Yeah. She’s fine.”
“Then what do you want, Jethro?”
He took a deep breath. It was one thing to take insults from Angie, who made his cock hard from simply crossing and uncrossing her legs, but he wasn’t about to take it from some dog-loving bitch. “Her parents called today.”
“Why did they call?”
“I think to wish her a happy birthday.”
The pause lasted a good thirty seconds, then “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me? Her birthday was fuckin’ three months ago. I swear to God these people are fuckin’ idiots!”
Wow. What an interesting young lady. With such a colorful and loudly expressed vocabulary.
“Could you put her on?”
“Yeah. Hold on.”
He returned to the kitchen and handed Angie the phone. She looked at it with dread, like she expected it to be her parents again. Although he had a feeling she wouldn’t hear from them again for quite awhile.
She took the phone from his hand. “Yeah?” She scowled. Then she smiled in relief. “You’re such a bitch. I never said that. No I didn’t. No I didn’t. No. I did not.”
Nik shook his head and walked out of the kitchen. He expected her friend to soothe her, make her feel better. Not start a fight with her. But as Angie put her feet up on the table and barked, “You’re so full of shit, Kendrick!” he realized that was exactly what she needed.
Forty-five minutes of arguing over everything from whether Angie promised to call the night before or not, to the planned gift they arranged for Sara and whether Zach would play along, to Miki stating that if she had a boy she was naming him Bartholomew, went a long way in making Angie feel a part of something again.
“So basically you’re going to tattoo ‘kick me’ on his ass.”
“What does that mean?”
“You name a kid Bartholomew and you’re condemning him to a life of torture. You remember those days, don’t ya, Mik?”
“You sound like Conall.”
“Well at least one of you has some goddamn sense.”
Angie let out a breath. The tension and ice she’d felt after the call from her mother had been argued out.
“So, what made you call?”
“I didn’t. Tigger the hillbilly called me.”
Angie swung her legs off the table and sat up. “What? Why?” Christ, her nipples hardened at the mere mention of the man. Was that sort of thing even normal?
“I’m guessing he was worried about you. You can get pretty scary after one of those out-of-the-blue calls from your parents. Me and Sara used to call those your ‘episodes’. Of course, if he’s worried that means only one thing—”
“Shut up, Kendrick.”
“Someone’s in love.”
“Shut. up.”
“I haven’t had a chance to add shifters to The List. You could get him in under the wire.”
“Would you let it go?”
“I could…but where’s the fun in that?”
Angie sighed and ran her hand through her hair.
“So, Santiago…”
“What?”
“You like him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t dislike him.”
“Well, for you that’s almost marriage.”
“Very funny.” She wanted this conversation to stop. Now. “Look, could you put Zach on?”
A long pause followed that request. “Why?”
Angie let out an annoyed sniff. “Just put the man on, would you please?” Good a time as any to let someone at least remotely sane know about the proposed truce and the truth about Sara’s mother. Especially the truth about her mother. Sara never knew her mother, and her father had worshipped his mate. So all Sara ever heard were the good things about Kylie Redwolf. Finding out the woman and her lioness buddy went after hyena territory like Donald Trump with a little Gambino Mob family thrown in for color wouldn’t be easy to get across to her friend. They’d murdered that hyena, at least that was how it seemed. They weren’t human when they did it, but they’d hunted down and murdered the Matriarch of the Leucrotta Clan—and Dianne Leucrotta’s mother. Who killed the lion and who killed the wolf afterward, no one really knew. But Kylie Redwolf’s hunger for territory put her on that path and everything fell apart from there.
So Angie needed Zach’s perspective, his calm demean
or…
And his ability to physically hold Sara down when she snapped.
Angie found Nik’s note tacked to the inside of the front door.
Had to go into town for business. Try and stay out of trouble. My brothers are around somewhere, so you’re not alone. And please feel free to put on another pair of shorts for when I get home.
–Nik.
She smiled as she thought about Nik’s eyes on her last night at the party. He did seem to like her legs, especially when she wrapped them around his neck.
The knock at the front door caused her to jump back three feet. She took a deep breath. When did she become such a jumpy mess?
“Yeah?”
“It’s us, Angie.”
Well, now she had a Carolina “us” and a Texas and California “us”. How cool am I?
She opened the door to find Kisa there. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Nothin’.”
Angie stared at the woman. “You wanna go shoppin’, don’t ya?”
Kisa crinkled up her nose in an adorable way. “Yes, please.” She stepped back and motioned to Reena. “We brought Daddy’s pickup. The real big one.”
“Why?”
“For all the clothes!”
Angie grinned. “Of course.”
Nik never understood why his father insisted on doing business like this. Sitting in a restaurant and signing important contracts between orders of chitlins and pigs feet. What made this time worse…his father seemed to have an agenda.
“So, boy, are you taking good care of your little house pet?”
“Don’t call her that, she’s completely safe at my house, and I’m not having this conversation with you.”