Big Bad Bite (17 page)

She was wishing Adam was there.

Now wasn’t that a scary realization to her
inner, overly independent,
I-am-woman-who-will-never-need-a-man-so-hear-me-roar, feminine
badass self?

The sudden addition of Goliath’s smell had
her turning her head back to face the living room, only to find the
cause of the annoying smell to be standing less than four feet from
her. The shock of seeing him so close without having heard him
moving damn near made her shit herself. Of course, since she wasn’t
wearing pants she should be more worried about the mess that would
make on Goliath’s floor. He probably wouldn’t appreciate that.

The smug smile on his face let her know he
was well aware that he had unnerved her with his sneaky cat
routine, and enjoyed the hell out of ruffling her fur. He held out
a bundle of clothing towards her mouth.

“Here you go sweetheart. If you’ll take the
clothes, then head down that hall, the guest bathroom is the first
door on the left.”

Jenna grabbed the bundle gingerly with her
teeth before turning left towards the hall just past the living
room. Following the light-footed giant’s instructions, she found
that there was indeed a door ajar to a decent sized bathroom
featuring a toilet, sink, and an over the sink mirror that she
could use. Walking into the bathroom, she used her head to shut the
door before she placed the bundle of clothing on the floor and
started the process of shifting back to her human form.

The moment she stood on two feet again, naked
as a jaybird, she let loose a sneeze that could have blown another
person’s body over with its intensity. Who knew she’d be allergic
to cats? It might not seem ridiculous if she’d been allergic to
Mrs. Boggmeyer’s fifteen pound tuxedo tom cat, but to be allergic
to a feline shifter instead? Well that just seemed to defy the
definition of bizarre. Of course, for all intents and purposes,
Jenna’s existence defied the definition of bizarre, so why should
she be surprised?

After blowing her nose into some toilet
paper, she unfolded the bundle of clothes only to stop short at the
contents. Staring in a state of what she could only describe as
horrified fascination at the black spandex mini skirt paired with a
golden orange tank top that had an exaggerated tiger stripe pattern
down the front of it. Guess that was the overwhelming evidence she
needed, combined with the Russian nesting dolls in the living room,
to know for sure that she was clearly dealing with a tiger shifter.
With jerky, angry movements, she dressed in the small bits of
fabric that some other woman had called clothing. Thankfully, Jenna
ran on the small side so the tank top was a tad loose and fell down
to her curvy hips instead of the intended target of the waistline.
Which was a supreme blessing considering the teeny, tiny skirt,
even when pulled indecently low on her waist, barely seemed to
cover her ass, which she had a considerable amount of. Matter of
fact, looking at herself in the mirror, she loathed to actually
call it a mini skirt. It was comparable to shiny black plastic wrap
sealed to her skin two inches below her belly button and dropping
just inches past the vee of her thighs while clinging to her every
curve in between.

She’d dealt with a lot of bullshit being a
petite woman working in the testosterone minefield known as law
enforcement, but this outfit was worse than the ones her co-workers
had picked out for her when she went undercover as a hooker! If
this whole debacle had been a science experiment on comparing
similarities of the males between humans and her kind, she would
have had a clear answer. Apparently it didn’t matter if you were
human or
Other
, all men were dogs. Hell, at this point, if
aliens landed in front of the house she’d bet it would only be
because they still thought ‘earth girls were easy’, and that would
just prove they were dogs too.

The worst part about this entire scenario?
There wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. If a human man had
pulled this stunt, she would have beaten him bloody. If Kent had
done this to her, she would have used every last molecule of her
telekinetic power to pick him up and throw his body into something
hard, like a tree. If Adam had handed her this outfit, she would
have shifted and bitten such an enormous chunk out of his ass he
wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week without wincing in reminder
of how not to fuck with her. But, was she lucky enough to have one
of those situations? No, of course not. No, with her enormously
shitty luck she had to land one of the few people on the planet
that she couldn’t out-fight physically, mentally, or even
supernaturally. No, she got this ridiculous outfit from one of the
few beings that she knew without a shadow of a doubt, she could not
fuck with for fear he would get mad and turn her into his own kitty
scratching post.

Awesome.

Shaking her head in disgust, Jenna stomped
back into the living room where the two despicable men in question
sipped bottled beers and chatted quietly. Goliath heard her coming
towards them andturned his head to watch her progress with the kind
of rapt fascination she’d seen your average domestic house cat
watch the mouse it was toying with. Which summed it up in two words
for her: highly unnerving.

Kent tipped his beer back for a healthy swig
before looking from their host to her, then promptly choked and
sprayed beer all over himself. Mustering up all of the bravado she
could manage, Jenna marched right up to Goliath, tipped her head
back to keep contact with his eyes, and planted her pointer finger
in his chest like she wasn’t terrified he could bat her around like
an oversized cat toy.

“I’m sure you thought it was amusing to dress
me up like some skanky streetwalker buddy, but I’ll have you know
that if you ever try to pull anything like this again with me, I’m
going to break out my rifle and start hunting for a new rug to put
on my Mama’s floors. You got me?”

Kent’s head was bouncing back and forth so
fast, with his mouth opening and closing like a fish, that she
thought he was having some kind of epileptic seizure. Or maybe he
was trying to do his best impression of a large mouth bass on meth,
she wasn’t sure. What she was sure of though, was that the amused
look in the tiger shifter’s eyes vanished and she was probably
seconds away from becoming that scratching post she’d thought about
earlier. His brows snapped down and he lowered his face until they
were nose to nose. Moving backwards was out of the question. It
would just be a sign of weakness, and showing weakness to a guy
like this was probably the same as throwing chum in shark infested
waters right before you jumped in for a swim.

A deep growl rumbled from his chest and she
could actually feel the vibrations of it resonate in hers. “Those
skanky streetwalker clothes are my sister’s.”

Oops.

Jenna had heard of the phrase, ‘Open mouth,
insert foot’, but who knew that you could say something so
obnoxious that it was the verbal equivalent of deep-throating the
rubber sole of your shoes?

That pointer finger she’d so bravely pressed
into the hard wall of his chest started to slowly ease away.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough. One minute she was trying to
figure out how to redeem herself in the tiger’s eyes without
looking like a total asshat, the next minute she found herself spun
around and locked in the hard prison of his arms with his chest
pressed against the length of her back. Her hands were manacled to
her sides; arms crossed one over the other, with his giant claw
tipped hands holding her wrists tightly against her own body. She
felt his head lower so that his teeth grazed her ear just before he
spoke again.

“This is why I don’t like to deal with
wayward little pups. They need too much training to knock all of
that arrogance out of them. I promise you though, my little
mongrel, if you ever talk to me like that again I’ll give you the
spanking you so deserve, and I may not use a rolled up newspaper to
do it. Now, do
you
get
me
?”

This was one of those times in life that no
matter how bad being put in your place sucked, and it sucked like
giant sized donkey balls, you accepted it. One of those survival
skills you needed to have if you were going to make it in a world
of big bad beasts that didn’t need to go bump in the night because
they could chew you up and spit you out anytime of the day. She’d
have to submit to the tiger shifter’s dominance for now, admit that
he could actually spank her, at least figuratively if not
literally, if he wanted to. That didn’t mean that she wouldn’t work
towards the day she could be the badder beast between the two of
them, just to take the bigger bite out of his annoying hide.

“You can let me go now. I thought you were
trying to get your cheap kicks while you could since this outfit
has less material than the clothes I wore during my last undercover
job posing as a prostitute. I promise not to insult your sister’s
fashion sense anymore if you keep your paws off me. We’ll call it
even from there, okay?”

He snorted in amusement, “I think I’ll keep
the newspaper idea in mind just in case.” The moment he released
his hold on her she sprung away from him to stand next to Kent.

She waved her hand in the air in frustration,
“Can we just get on with doing what we came here to do?” Propping
her fists on her hips, she glared at the two men.

Kent was wiping the remaining beer specks off
his chest that hadn’t yet absorbed into the fabric of his shirt..
He was also doing a super shitty job at hiding his amused grin at
her expense. She chose to ignore it rather than give into the urge
to punch him. The quicker they got on with the information hunt,
the faster she got back to her Uncle and to planning out their next
step.

Finally finished with cleaning off his shirt,
Kent looked up at their host. “Right, so Jenna I’d like to
introduce you to Gage Ivanov. As you’ve already figured out, Gage
here is a shifter, tiger to be exact. Between him, his no good
bruiser of a brother Alec, and his annoyingly highly guarded sister
Lulu, they hear about the majority of what’s going down in the
Other
community around here. If that weren’t enough to help
us out, well let’s just say that Gage has a particularly intriguing
job that includes some highly resourceful coworkers.”

Jenna cocked an eyebrow towards her partner
at his last comment. “We work on the SWAT team,” she shoved her
thumb in the domineering tiger’s direction, “and you say he’s the
one with the interesting job? Would either of you care to elaborate
about that?”

Kent looked to Gage, who had pursed his lips,
although it wasn’t so much in a serious thoughtful context, more
like an exaggerated ‘should-I-indulge-the-little-people’
afterthought. The tiger looked to Jenna with mischief dancing eyes
and proceeded to say something so insane, it shocked her
speechless.

“Would you be willing to become my personal
love slave for the next fifty years or so? For me to tell you about
my job I’d have to make sure that you were literally under my
thumb, and in my control in every way. That would probably be
enough time for certain things to become unclassified to make it
okay if you accidentally let my job description slip. I was
thinking about retiring somewhere around that time frame too. So
yeah, if you’ll be my little love slave, move into my home where
I’ll put cuffs, chains, and a collar on you, never let you leave
the house for the duration of your time served, and sever all
contact with anyone you know on the outside world, then I’ll tell
you. But only after you sign a contract that says you agree to be
my willing slave that I can use in any capacity that I desire,
since I would inevitably not only have to provide for you, but have
to take care of and train your crazy little ass too.” Ignoring
Jenna’s jaw dropped expression, Gage looked to Kent with an
expression of curiosity, “How many rolled up newspapers do you
think I’d need over the span of fifty years, Kent? After her tiny
temper tantrum earlier, I’m guessing that number would be on the
high side.”

She sputtered in indignation, “Forget it, Mr.
Kitty. You’re never coming near my ass with a rolled up newspaper.
I don’t care what you do for a damn living. I am curious though if
you have to handle any kind of weaponry while you do your job.
Cause you are bug-fuck nuts! If you get to handle a gun or
something like that, then I think whoever hired you out should be
put out of commission for allowing someone as crazy as you within a
thousand feet of even a bendable paper clip!”

Kent slapped his hand over her mouth to shut
her up, “Anyway, I came out here to see you, my ever so resourceful
good buddy, to ask about two things. One, have you or your siblings
heard anything about any out of town shifters coming into
Wilmington with the intent to cause trouble?”

When she couldn’t pry Kent’s hand off her
mouth, she did the only other thing she could think of. She bit
him. Her partner swore a blue streak so colorful; Jenna looked at
his bloody palm with a sense of pride. This all went on to be
ignored by the contemplative tiger.

Gage had crossed his arms over his chest
while stroking his chin with one hand in thought, “Well, I just got
back in town a week or so ago, so I haven’t heard anything like
that. Lulu stopped by the house just yesterday and didn’t mention
anything either. I haven’t seen Alec yet though. Tell me what’s
going on, and then I’ll decide if it’s worth tracking down my pain
in the ass brother to ask him about it.”

“You see the news about that hostage
situation the SWAT team just handled? The one with the three
senators?”

Gage stopped stroking his chin to nod his
head, “Yeah. You going to start preening like a peacock cause you
got your picture in the paper?” He jerked his head in Jenna’s
direction. “Cause I wouldn’t if I were you. I enjoyed her picture
much more.”