His Purrfect Mate (9 page)

“
Excuse me?” she gasped, looking around the room. Had he really just said that to her?

The chauffer had somehow, discreetly vanished.
She hadn’t even seen him leave.

“What’s my – really!
Is that what you think? I came here to discuss helping you catalogue your artwork! Do you expect me to just start taking my clothes off on the spot? Of all the arrogant, presumptuous-”

Kenneth held up an empty wine glass. “I was asking you what you want to drink.
Unless you had something else in mind.”

“
Oh,” she choked out. She could feel her cheeks flaming with embarrassment.  “Nothing. Water. I’ll have water.”  Clearly alcohol would be a bad idea at this point.

He smiled and produced a bottle of mineral water and a glass of ice cubes.  She
turned her back to him and made a big show of taking off her jacket and carefully hanging it over the back of her chair, just so she’d have something to do while he poured the water.

Why was it that she was able to
wrangle a classroom of unruly students into silence with one quirk of an eyebrow, but being around Kenneth for thirty seconds turned her into a babbling moron?

If she were forced to ad
mit it to herself, she felt oddly deflated to realize that he was not, in fact, propositioning her.

Of course he wasn’t.  One stolen kiss in a dark, moonlit garden meant nothing to a man like him.
He probably kissed a different woman morning, noon and night.

“Anyway,” she said, desperate to change the subject, “let’s set up some ground rules. I will work for you under the following conditions. First of all, I will not personally accept any payment from you, but the university would greatly benefit from the endowment that you promised them.”

“Of course.”

“I will work with you because I need to figure out what happened to my grandmother.   No other reason. Don’t think I came here for anything else.”

“
Certainly not.” His amused smile spoke volumes. “Of course, it’s not as if you’re here because we’re fated mates and you know that we belong together.”  He raised a questioning eyebrow.

Her cheeks heated
and that strange shiver of lust pulsed through her body again.  “That – that is ridiculous! You’re not implying that’s actually the case? My grandmother and your grandfather were fated mates. What are the odds that you and I would also be fated mates?”

“Fate is strange. And I work wit
h facts, not odds.  I have supper ready. I believe you are a fan of Italian food?”

How did he even know that?

Before she could answer, he turned and walked away, into the dining room. The hotel room had a living room, and a dining room. And a bedroom.  She could have tucked her entire house into this penthouse suite.

There was a massive
spread on the dining room table.  Bowls of pasta dripping with creamy sauce,  pasta drenched in rich red tomato sauce and sprinkled with fragrant parmesan, bowls of mussels swimming in garlic butter, platters full of antipasti, and plates of barely singed steak, which was a delicious delicacy for shifters.

“I’m not hungry,” she said, trying to suck the drool back into her mouth.  Her stomach growled in protest, a long, low rumble that she was sure could be heard outside on the street.

“I hate you very much,” she said, plopping herself down at the table.

“
I’m sure you do.  But you won’t hate this dinner.”  He began ladling pasta on to her plate, and she barely stifled a moan of pleasure. He didn’t stop until her plate was heaped high with samples of everything from the table, and then he sat down and served himself as well.

Chloe struggled not to be horribly self-conscious as she ate. Was she chewing too loudly? Did the women that Kenneth dated even eat, at all? From the pictures she’d seen of him online, he was attracted to bony, glamorous
skeletors with impeccably blow-dried hair.

“Enjoying the dinner?”

She chewed and swallowed a bite of garlicy bow-tie pasta.  

“My compliments to the chef.
  By the way,” she said, “There was a man named Alfonse, at the party, who now seems to be following me.  He claims he’s representing some clients who have an interest in my grandmother and that artwork.   He also seemed to know something about you.”

“Is that a
fact. Such as?”  She could swear Kenneth’s eyes had suddenly taken on a green glow.

“Well, basically…he said you couldn’t be trusted.  He said that everything that you do, you have your own agenda.”

At the mention of Alfonse, Kenneth had set his fork down and now he radiated tension like a stretched wire.  “Everybody has their own agenda. What else did he say?”

“That was about it. I couldn’t help but think
that it has something to do with those art thefts.  Suddenly you’re interested in me, he’s interested in me…”

Kenneth’s eyes definitely were glowing green.  As if he
were green with envy.

“He’s i
nterested in you how?” he asked, with a polite smile that resembled that of a cat about to pounce.

“Purely on a business level,” she said, irritated.  He had no call to be acting jealous of her.

“I see,” he replied coolly.

“So, what news do you have for me?”

“Well, I now know why there’s the sudden interest in this artwork.  It was only recently that it resurfaced; before that, my family wasn’t even aware that it existed.   About six months ago, there was an earthquake that damaged our house in Italy, and when they were assessing the damage, they found a sealed off and hidden room there, with a collection of artwork in it. It was the Sumerian artwork.”

“Didn’t your grandfather originally bring it back here to his house in New York?”

“Yes, but if your grandmother was trying to steal it from him, it makes sense that he’d ship it overseas and hide it.” Kenneth scooped up a bite of raspberry mousse from a silver bowl, and held it out to her. “Try a bite. I insist.”

She let him slide the spoon into her mouth and
swallowed the bite of mousse. Sweet raspberry heaven caressed her tongue and slid down her throat like silk. Before she could stop herself, she let out a little whimper of pleasure.

Kenneth had her pinned her chair with his gaze. Now his eyes were blue again.

“You like?” he purred.

A wave of heat washed over her, and her panties went damp.  She felt as if jolts of electricity were shooting down her nerve endings.

“Not bad,” she choked out.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak for a second.

“Artwork,” she managed, finally.

“Yes, the dessert is a work of art.”

“No. Your artwork. You were telling me about the artwork.”

“Anyway,” Kenneth continued, “
There was no indication as to why the room had been sealed off or what he was trying to hide.  The artwork was taken out and put on display.  It was divided up between my house in Italy and my house in France.   A magazine did a feature on my art collection, which included pictures of those new pieces.    It was after the magazine came out that the thefts of the artwork occurred. I have a very large collection of artwork, which my family has been collecting from all over the world for decades, and I’d barely paid any notice when this new collection surfaced. But clearly, this artwork is very important not just to your grandmother but to many others, and we need to find out why. Here, try another bite.”

He scooped up another bite of mousse and held the spoon to her lips.  Despite herself, she found her lips parting and she closed her mouth around the spoon and slowly pulled away, as the sweet raspberry foam melted on to her tongue.

He watched her intently, his eyes glowing.  He was reveling in the pleasure that he’d just given her.

That
hot, sensual feeling jolted through her body again, and if he’d leaned forward to kiss her, she would have been powerless to stop him.  Desire sizzled through her nerves and synapses, and she felt faint. How could she survive an entire plane ride sitting next to this man, much less spending days and days under the same roof with him?

She pushed her chair back and stood up quickly.  She needed to get out of her before she embarrassed herself even further.  If he kept spoon feeding her mousse, she was likely to orgasm right there at the table. 

“I could…I could probably just looked at photographs of the artwork, and-”

“No, this is too important.  You can miss a lot if you’re just looking at a photograph. You’ll need to come to my house in Italy; I’ve moved all of the remaining artwork in the collection there, where it’s under guard.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “This trip will be s
trictly professional. You’re not blackmailing me into having sex with you.”

“Blackmailing? My dear, when it happens, I assure you, it wil
l be because you want it to.” He winked at her, stood up, and walked away, chuckling at her muttered curses.

The country of
Turak

Bobbi and Pixie were sitting in what was left of a little next to their hotel, drinking tea and
dipping flat pieces of bread into a bowl of unsweetened yogurt made from goat’s milk.  The store front of the café had been destroyed by a mortar, and sunlight streamed through holes in the roof.  The café’s sign, which had once read “The Date Tree”, had been mostly destroyed, and now only the letters “ee” were left.

“
Ee” indeed, Bobbi thought.

On the street, children scavenged
through rubble and played in the enormous craters that had been left behind by the shells that rained from the sky.

Bobbi and Pixie
were dressed modestly, as usual, with their head scarfs and billowing, ankle length, figure concealing dress.

“Seriously, seeing the look on Heath’s face as we pulled away…that was like Christmas morning.” Bobbi felt a warm glow sweep over her just thinking about it.

She suspected that Heath and Jax would think long and hard before they tried to pull a fast one on her again.  She was a master at extracting revenge – and sticking them with the task of babysitting the prince was far better revenge than just punching Jax in the face or kicking her brother in the family jewels.  She was absolutely sure Jax would have preferred a beat-down – especially after the list of instructions they’d given the Prince.

“Better than
any Christmas I ever had. Then again, the only present I ever got on Christmas was whatever I could pick from the pockets of my mother’s latest trick. I did get some pretty decent swag, now that I think of it.” Pixie sighed happily.  “Ahh, memories.  Of course, I had to be long gone by the time they woke up. And not come home till New Year’s.”

“I’m getting all misty-eyed just thinking about it,” Bobbi said.
“That story should be on a Hallmark card.”

She glanced around.  The tile o
n the floor was baked clay, inscribed with beautiful designs.  There were small palm trees in the corner in terra cotta planters.  Outside the sun was as blue as the Mediterranean, without a cloud in sight. “This place is like Café Apocolypse.  It’s a shame, because it’s such a beautiful city…what’s left of it.”

The
café’s owner, Mamoud, walked over to them on slippered feet. He also owned the hotel, which currently was crowded with refugees whose homes had been shelled.  Pixie and Bobbi had snagged one of the last rooms and had spent the night sharing a single narrow bed.  

Mamoud
was a human who looked to be in his forties, with salt and pepper hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and a perpetually mournful, resigned air. “Would you like some more tea?” he asked them.

“No, thank you,” Bobbi said. “We’re heading out in a minute.  Tell me
, Mamoud, what is this war about? I looked around online, asked all over the place, and nobody seems to know.”

“It is all about power,”
Mamoud said.  “The leader of our country died of old age. He had two sons. He meant for the older son to take over.  The younger son, General Zar, was sent away to Europe long ago, to a, how do you say it, mental institution.  When his father died, he returned here and now he is fighting for power.  He is a madman.  It will not go well for Turak if he is the winner.” He said it in a resigned, philosophical tone. “Still, we do what we have to do to survive.” He stood there expectantly.

Pixie raised an eyebrow. “Like what?” she asked.

“We sell whatever there is to sell. Food.  Information…” he heaved a heavy sigh.

Pixie and Bobbi glanced at each other.

“What kind of information?” Bobbi asked.

“Oh, there are many kinds of information for sale. For instance, whenever there are foreigners appearing in town
at a time like this, people become curious. They ask questions.” He paused again, expectantly.

Bobbi sighed.  Her purse lay on the table.
Tyler had given them a stack of Rili, the currency of Turak, before they left Playa Linda.

“Has anyone been asking about us?” she asked, sliding out a hundred
rili bill next to the twenty she had already laid next to their plate of bread.

“Oh, yes, of course. The local
police, and several men from America who were most unpleasant.  They were very cheap and did not tip well at all. I told them that I would have to make inquiries and get back to them.”

“They were asking about us?” Bobbi ask
ed, sliding another hundred Rili bill out of her purse. “What did they want to know?”

“Who you were and what you were doing here.
If you were working for an organization called Shifters, Incorporated. What your plans are during the day. I told them nothing, of course,” he said, with a virtuous look.

If they’d tipped him better, he’d have told them everything, Bobbi thought sourly.

They had already hired Mamoud’s cousin to drive them around the city. It would be best if he didn’t feel compelled to share their destination with whoever was following them.

Bobbi slid another bill out of her purse.

“Do you know who they work for?”

“They claim they work for a company looking to drill for oil here, but I believe that they lie,” he said.

“If they ask again, we are freelance journalists covering the war,” she told him.  “Thank you for a  delicious breakfast.”

He bowed deeply
, and the money vanished into the pocket of his robe. “May the sun eternally shine on you and all your descendants,” he said, as they got up to leave.

“You’ve got to admire him,” Pixie said. “He’s quite the shakedown artist.”

Bobbi snorted her contempt. “No,
you’ve
got to admire him,” she said. “I’ve got to be annoyed that I have to hand out bribes right and left in this corrupt country just to keep from being killed.”

“Yeah, that was a
Rili expensive breakfast, wasn’t it?”

“Stop.
Just stop.”

Pixie cackled happily. “Sorry, I know. It’s
Rili annoying when I do that.”

Outside the cafe
, Mamoud’s cousin, a teenaged girl named Mayameen, had just pulled up in a bullet-pocked taxi.  They’d hired her to ferry them around town for the duration of their stay.  Turak was one of the rare Middle Eastern countries which allowed women to drive.

They were headed for the El-Debar residence, which would bring them dangerously close to a section of town where the two warring factions were going at it with a vengeance, but fortunately,
Mayameen knew the streets as intimately as the lines on her hand.  They were paying her well for it.

They’d only been driving for about ten
minutes when Mayameen glanced at something in her rear-view window. “It appears that you are very popular. We have company,” she said.

“Yes, somebody does appear to be following us.”
Bobbi glancing irritably behind them.

The dark car
behind them had tinted windows, and slunk a few hundred feet behind them, copying their every turn.

“Hang on,”
Mayameen yelled happily. “Fasten your seatbelts! This is my favorite part of the job!”

She
turned the car towards the distant sound of gunfire.

Soon,
the sound of gunfire was much closer, and they were weaving through streets where guerillas crouched behind flaming vehicles and fired at each other from doorways and across the streets. 

“Are you crazy?” Bobbi shouted. “You’re taking us right through the war
zone!”

“
This is the best way to lose somebody!  They’d have to be crazy to follow us through here!” Mayameen banked sharply, throwing them both to the side as two wheels lifted off the ground.

Yes, they would, Bobbi thought, clinging to the seat for dear life.

“Don’t worry, the windows are bulletproof!” Mayameen called out.

“What about the rest of the car?” Pixie yelled.

“Oh, I do not know. Look, we’ve lost them! You see, this is why I am the best at my job! Tell all of your friends!”

A few more minutes of dodging and weaving, and they shot out of the tangle of streets onto an empty highway.

“I might puke,” Bobbi observed, as her stomach settled back into place.

“That was awesome! That should be an amusement park ride!” Pixie whooped as they accelerated away.

“Would this amusement park ride come with real bullets?” Bobbi wondered.

“Of course!  Where would be the fun, otherwise?”

“I’m thinking the liability insurance
at that amusement park would be pretty high.  Oh, crap.” She looked behind her.

“What?”

“An angry mob overturned the car that was following us. Now they’re pulling them out of the car…kicking them and beating them…god damn it. Hold on. Mayameen, go back.”

“What?” Pixie squealed indignantly.  “Screw them! Let them die!”

“First we find out who they are. Then they can die.”

Mayameen
made a quick u-turn and they headed back.  She accelerated towards the angry crowd, who scattered and fled, leaving two men lying curled up in the street.  Then she slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt only feet from where the men lay.

Pixie and Bobbi jumped from the car, and dragged the men, who were moaning and clutching their stomachs, into the car. 
Blood ran from their noses and their split lips. Their eyes were already swelling, and they’d sport impressive shiners by the next day.

Mayameen
turned and accelerated out of the neighborhood again, swerving as she dodged the huge craters that had been punched in the road by mortar fire.

Bobbi
Leveled a fierce glare at him. “Who the hell are you and why are you following us?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he said, reaching
inside his jacket for the gun that he had holstered there.  Bobbi shifted on the spot, and lunged for his throat, snarling and snapping. He fell back on the seat, screaming.

She raked open his pocket with her claws, and pulled out his wallet with her fangs.

Then she shifted back to human form, with the shreds of her clothing dangling over her body and barely covering her.

“We can slow down this car and I can let you out on the side of the road, or we can speed up this car and I can boot you out at a hundred miles an hour.  The ambulances
in this city have stopped running and the hospitals are on generator power, and they’re out of antibiotics and painkillers, which would make compound fractures a joy to treat.” She smiled at them and half shifted, just her face this time, coyote snout extending outwards, and snapped at his throat again before returning to human form.

“Pick number two! I’m begging you!
I want to see if you bounce!” Pixie sang out.

“What do you want?” the man muttered sullenly.

“You assholes were the ones following us. What did you want?” Bobbi demanded.

“Maybe we were just looking for a good time. You both look like easy lays,” the man sneered.

Bobbi let out a snarl and tore a chunk of flesh from his shoulder, and spit it out on the car seat. The man screamed, clutching at his bleeding shoulder, and his companion made a move as if to grab his gun.

Bobbi turned towards him,
lips wrinkling back from her snout to reveal her bloodied fangs, and he froze.

“We’re with Hammersmith! We’re trying to track down some god-damned statues that your boss stole from our client! And you’re in serious violation of international law, god damn it!” the man screamed, pressing hard on his bleeding shoulder. “When we get back to the states, I swear to God…”

“You’ll do nothing, because whatever I do here would have to be prosecuted here, and all of the courts are shut down.  You’re going to want to get some antibiotics. Maybe a series of rabies shots. I can’t remember the last time I was vaccinated. Mayameen, stop and let them out.”

“Do we
have to?” Pixie groused. “I wanted to see if they could tuck and roll.”

“Yes,
god damn it!” Bobbi barked. “They stink, and I want them out of here. And this asshole’s bleeding all over the seat.”

Mayameen
slowed down and then halted. The man closest to the car door leaped out, swearing.

“I swear, it is unbelievable how many outfits I go through,” Bobbi said, fishing through a bag of spare clothing she’d bought with her.

“It must get expensive,” Pixie observed, as
Mayameen weaved around potholes and chunks of asphalt.

“If I were an entrepreneur, I’d design a line of clothing for shifters,” she said. “Clothing that wouldn’t shred to pieces every damned time I shift. I’m tired of flashing my boobs all over town.”

“That could work. Shifters are what, ten percent of the overall population in the U.S.?
Forty percent in some areas? You’d have a big customer base. Me, I’m sticking with my amusement park idea. It’ll make millions.”