Here There Be Tigers (33 page)

“
What steps?”

“
I’m not privy to their plans,” Max
said sardonically. “I just know there is a plan.”

“
Fine.” Mitch sighed and leaned
forward, his forearms resting on his thighs. “We’ll leave Gregory’s
group alone so long as they leave us alone. We concentrate on
Petrov. Draw him out. A trap?”

“
You’re not using Nila as bait?” Max
asked.

“
Of course not, asshole.” Mitch
threw a pillow at Max, who swatted it away and grinned. “We plan a
diversion. Make him think Nila is somewhere she’s not. And then we
take him down.”

“
What did you have in mind?” Alexis
asked.

Mitch outlined the plan that had been taking
shape over the last few hours. With their help, he hoped to have
Petrov out of the picture and Nila safe in the next forty-eight
hours. Then he would fly her, her father, and her grandmother to
someplace romantic and marry Nila before any of the other tigers
got any ideas.

He finally understood the frustration Max had
gone through during the two years he had to run after Irina. And
his rushed marriage once they’d conceived. There was nothing like a
little possessiveness to make a man move fast to ensure the woman
he loved couldn’t get away.

By the time Mitch returned to Max’s room to get
Nila, it was well into the early morning hours. Both women were
asleep, so Mitch scooped Nila off the bed and carried her back to
their room. Victor silently escorted them to the door, signed
goodnight, and waited outside until the lock turn before continuing
past to his own room.

As Mitch settled Nila onto their bed, he felt a
wave of gratitude for his friends. They were the only people he
could trust now. And he was going to need their support in the
coming weeks.

Running his fingers down Nila’s cheek, he was
tempted to wake her, to tell her their plans. And to see if he
could get her naked again. Having her in a spare set of Alexis’
clothes was infinitely better than having the stink of other males
on her. But he liked her naked best.

He had to remind himself, she wasn’t actually a
full blooded tiger in the middle of estrous. She wouldn’t have the
stamina or energy. And she’d been through hell the last few days.
She needed sleep.

He curled around her, pulling her tight to him
as he laid down beside her. She sighed and snuggled deeper into his
arms. His chest ached with tenderness and a contentment that went
to his very soul. Just holding her made him feel better, settled.
Stronger.

In the morning, he promised himself, he’d wake
her with his mouth and his hands and make sure she came before she
realized the sun was up. For now, he was happy to sleep beside her
and savor this feeling of contentment for as long as he was
allowed.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE

Nila wrapped a towel around her as she climbed
out of the shower she’d shared with Mitch. “Tell me again how this
is going to lure Petrov away from me and not get you killed in the
process?”

“
Nila…”

“
Don’t ‘Nila’ me, buddy. You’re
talking about going up against a homicidal madman with only Max and
Alexis on your side.” She held up a hand. “And don’t even start on
leaving Victor behind to protect me and Irina. I still think you’ll
need him more than we will.”

“
There’s no way Max will leave Irina
unprotected now.”

“
Then we come up with another plan
that doesn’t leave you isolated at Max’s cabin completely
outnumbered by Petrov’s tigers.”

“
So far, Petrov has only had five
with him. Max, Alexis and I are more than a match for
them.”

“
Five against three doesn’t sound
like odds in your favor.”

Mitch pulled her close. Her body still hummed
from the lovely way he’d woken her up, yet she wanted him again,
badly. She was tempted to unwrap the towel around his waist and use
his still-damp body as a distraction from the day ahead. This crazy
need to take him again and again had to be the estrous. If this
turned out to be how she felt around him all the time, they were
going to have a hard time staying out of bed long enough to make a
living.

If they had a future.

“
Alexis is a former Tracker,” Mitch
said. “She trains Trackers. She is literally legendary for her
fighting skills. And Max and I have been kicking tiger ass together
since we were kids.” His arms tightened in a hug. “You said
yourself you can’t stay in hiding forever.”

She scowled at having her own words thrown back
in her face. “Yeah, but my idea was to negotiate with Petrov, not
try to ambush him.”

“
And you think you’d have better
luck negotiating with a madman than I’ll have trapping
him?”

Huffing out a breath, she focused on his chin
so she’d stop being tempted by his mouth while trying to
concentrate. Unfortunately, for some really odd reason, even his
chin turned her on. “Fine. Negotiation wasn’t ever really an
option. But this… At least let me go with you. What better bait
than to actually have me there?”

He was shaking his head before she’d finished
her sentence. “Already discussed and rejected. None of us want you
anywhere near Petrov.”

“
You’re sure the Trackers are no
longer an option? I mean, it’s their job right?”

“
And so far, they haven’t been very
successful doing that job. I don’t know what’s happened, but we
can’t rely on anyone else anymore.”

“
I hate this. I really really hate
this.”

“
The situation or the
plan?”

“
You know I hate the situation. The
only good thing about all this was meeting you.”

He smiled, that slow, seductive smile of his,
and her heart did a funny little dance against her ribs.

“
But,” she said, keeping her
hormones in check a few moments longer, “I was talking specifically
about the plan. I don’t like it. I don’t like you risking your life
for me.” She frowned. “Any more than you already have, that
is.”

“
I don’t want you being in danger
when there’s something I can do about it,” he countered. “And I can
take care of Petrov.” He brushed the back of his hand down her
cheek, then tucked one finger under her chin and lifted her face so
she had to meet his gaze. “I am very motivated to get him out of
the picture. Trust me.”

“
You know I trust you, Mitch. But
trusting your strength and trusting the universe not to throw a
wrench in the whole mess are two different things.”

He pressed his lips to hers. The contact was
enough to start her pulse pounding all over again. Heat seeped
through her belly and tingled along her skin, sparking need and
hunger in her blood.

“
You’re doing this on purpose,” she
murmured against his mouth before kissing him again.

“
Yes. But not to distract you.” He
set his forehead against hers. “I intended that to be a comforting
gesture.”

“
Worked against you, though, didn’t
it?” She ground her hips against his full erection and chuckled at
his groan. “That’ll teach you.”

He lifted his head and cupped her face, taking
a deep breath. “We’ll do everything we can to keep the odds in our
favor. I promise. I fully intend on coming back to you.”

“
You better,” she said, then kissed
him, hoping to lose herself in his touch, to memorize his feel.
Fear drove her already simmering passion into full blown
desperation.

Both towels hit the floor at the same time and
then his hands were on her naked skin again. She ground herself
against him, sighing as his palms smoothed down her spine and
cupped her ass, pulling her up tight against his cock. She wrapped
a leg around his hip to get as close as she could.

Lifting her off her feet effortlessly, Mitch
carried her to the bed. She was so hungry to have him inside her,
she would have been happy with the bathroom counter. But once they
were sprawled on the mattress, she found her need to memorize every
inch of him, to touch and taste and savor, overrode everything
else. She needed to show him how much she loved him with her hands
and mouth. He answered with a slow seduction of his own.

They hunted out and explored each sensitive
spot—her waist, his lower abdomen, the inside of her elbow, the
palm of his hand. Unexpected places they’d been in too much of a
hurry to spend time on before were given focused attention. Slow
and passionate, building the need beyond anything Nila had ever
felt before, until her whole world was Mitch and the growing
tension in her core.

He brushed his lips against the inside of her
thigh, and her hips bucked as the tension moved into something more
insistent.

He licked his way from her thighs back up her
body, giving her clit only painfully brief attention before he
trailed his tongue along her hip bone and up the center of her
stomach. He paused at one breast, pulling hard at her nipple with
his lips. She moaned and buried her fingers in his hair, tugging
him up so she could kiss him.

He covered her, slid into her, and set her
tension free with a few steady strokes. She came hard and for a
long time as he continued an unrelenting rhythm that drew out her
release. He followed while she was still wracked by the shocks and
tremors of her orgasm. The feel of him shuddering in her arms made
her heart swell with a deeper satisfaction.

When he finally relaxed, she hugged him close,
burying her face against his neck and drawing in his scent. She
didn’t want to let him go. Her instincts warned her something was
wrong, and she’d always trusted those instincts. Without them, she
might have run from Mitch at the airport to find security people
who would not have been able to help her.

Now, those same instincts were telling her that
separating was a bad idea. They needed to stick together if they
were going to have a chance at taking care of Petrov.

The problem was she didn’t have a better plan.
Mitch was right. Something had to be done. Luring Petrov to Max’s
cabin was a reasonable idea.

If they had more tigers on their
side.

Maybe Mitch was right. Between Alexis’ skills
and his and Max’s, maybe the other tigers didn’t stand a chance.
Maybe five to three wasn’t as bad as it sounded. But if Petrov
rallied more than five tigers to his side…

For the first time in her life, she hoped her
instincts were wrong.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO

While Mitch and Max scouted the area around the
motel, checking for any sign of Petrov, Nila returned her borrowed
clothes to Alexis for a fresh set from Irina. Alexis put on the
clothes Nila had been wearing.

“
You’re sure they’ll be fooled by
the scent?” Nila asked. Again. Her always strong sense of smell
seemed to have heightened over the last week, but she still didn’t
have a tiger’s sensitivity to all the nuances.

“
Trust us,” Alexis said as she came
back from the bathroom, buttoning the top button on the jeans.
“These reek of your estrous cycle. This will be what the men smell.
If they had any female tigers with them, the trick wouldn’t work as
well. She’d sniff out the different female undertones as soon as
she got close enough. But the males are so driven by the estrous
scent, they’re much more likely to overlook the other tones and
textures from me until it’s too late.”

“
And by the time they figure it
out,” Irina said, “you and I will be far enough away they won’t be
able to backtrack and pick up your scent again.”

“
I’m not worried about them finding
me, at the moment, I’m worried about Alexis making herself a target
for a madman.”

Alexis smiled as she sat beside them on the
bed. She looked completely relaxed and not at all worried. “I am
extremely hard to kill, Nila.”

Irina put a hand on Nila’s leg to get her
attention. “Mitch told you what Alexis used to do for a living?
What she does now?”

“
Yes. But… How long has it been
since you were an active Tracker?” Nila asked.

“
Over twenty years now,” Alexis
answered. “But I’ve been training the Trackers since, which means
I’ve stayed in excellent shape. Don’t worry.”

“
Can I ask…,” Nila hesitated,
wondering how personal a question this was. “Since there are so few
females, I’m surprised the elders would allow you to do such a
risky job. Are there many female Trackers?”

“
None now. I was an exception. But I
had Elizaveta on my side. The rest of the elders didn’t stand a
chance against our combined determination.”

“
Mitch has said the Trackers are
like tiger police?”

“
Similar. Sort of a combination
police, bounty hunter, and enforcer. We make sure the laws are
upheld, and when they aren’t, we bring in the guilty to face the
elders’ justice.”

“
Did you know Mitch’s dad?” Nila’s
curiosity got the better of her more polite impulses.

“
I brought him in,” she said
quietly. “My first job after being confirmed as a Tracker.
Elizaveta sent me because she knew he’d come with me without a
fight. He always had a soft spot for women. And I was only nineteen
at the time. He didn’t see me as a threat, which made things
easier.”