ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Tiger Tamed (Tiger Shifter BBW Pregnancy Romance) (Contemporary Paranormal Alpha Male Romance) (11 page)

He then handed the folder to me for me to skim all the facts. Birthday: January 6, 1979, 10 years older than her sister, Chloe. Single, never married. Lost both parents in a car accident when she was 18, Chloe was 8. I smiled thanks to John. He was always there for me. I knew Hamilton didn’t mean to get on my nerves. God bless him but he had the misfortune of being born annoying.

“We have a few leads but the sister wants to meet with us,” Hamilton said.

I turned to him one eyebrow raised. I don’t meet the family. They’re always some kind of emotion I can’t make time for. Sad, angry, manic, whatever, it was all a distraction and a holdup to me finding their loved ones.

“No,” I said, before turning back to the computer to close out the file from the night before. My team had been in search of a forger. He made half a million off some billionaires who barely noticed the difference. Still, we caught him. It was pretty easy with my nose. His smell was on all the paints.

“We have to. I already scheduled the appointment.” He glanced at his watch, before smirking. “She should be here in, oh, say five minutes.” He sat in his chair, spun himself around before crossing both legs on his desk. He seemed rather proud of himself, eyes closed, relaxing and contemplating his achievement. What was he so proud of?

There was a sharp knock on our office window pane. “Hello?” A voice tentatively called out.

“Come in,” Hamilton said, standing to greet our visitor.

Chloe. Lewis. The moment I saw her, I knew I would never forget that name.

“Hi,” she said, void of any shyness. She jutted her arm out awkwardly before pushing the black square glasses up her nose. Her shirt was clinging to her as if it was painted on. I imagined my hands on her breasts and guessed they would be a handful. Her skinny jeans were an oxymoron, clingy to a body that no one would call skinny. 

“Please have a seat,” John said. 

She didn’t move. “Who’s in charge?” she asked, looking around. I imagined what we looked like from her perspective. There was Hamilton, tall, dark and what women called handsome, only when he kept his mouth closed, leaning against his desk. Anthony in his white buttoned shirt, piercing her with a brown-eyed stare. John with his green eyes and blond hair in a ponytail and me, black eyes, black hair, black boots, black leather jacket, black soul, trying to ignore the inevitable.

“That would be that one,” John indicated, putting his thumb back towards me.

She approached me, no hesitation in her step. “I need you to help me,” She said, a few steps short of my personal space. I wish she hadn’t done that. She smelled just like honey. Adrenaline and something else, maybe lust coursed through me. I wanted to take her and I knew I didn’t care where or who would be watching. There she was, my mate. They say if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. I spent the better part of my life looking for her. I’ve moved several times, only settling down in Minnesota out of respect for my pack.

I raised an eyebrow, indicating she should go on, and crossed my legs. Boners don’t exactly scream professional.

“Wow. Talker this one.” She said to no one in particular, though we all heard her. “I’m being stalked and I’m pretty sure it’s by the same man who killed my sister.”

I have to say it is not often I am stunned to words. “How do you know that?”

“Know what? That I’m being stalked or he killed my sister? You should be more specific.” Something was off about this girl. She wasn’t weird. She was sexy but, what’s the word I’m looking for? Unfiltered.

“Both,” I said, catching Hamilton in my side eye poised to take notes. That’s why he was my info guy. He knew how to find, keep and hide information.

“Her diary.”

“You don’t strike me as the diary reading kind of woman.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of man to care where information comes from as long as you have it.”

She had me there. I tilted my head.

“I’m not. I’m the hacking kind.” She said.

I still wasn’t following but, in my opinion, we had all night.

“My sister had an online diary. I hacked it,
then
read it.” She emphasized then as if it was important to note the reading happened after the hacking. “As for the stalker, I also hacked the security system in our apartment building and the apartment beside ours. There is a man who for the past month has been following me from work and to my apartment. When I’m at work, he follows other tenants inside to do what I assume is surveillance or recon on my apartment. He was also seen in the video the last night I saw my sister. I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Neither did I.

“Can you show us?” I asked.

She nodded once, hard and before I could move, invaded my personal space. Leaning over my shoulder, I could easily see her cleavage. Her body was radiating heat. I looked close, seeing the freckles on her collarbone. It looked like a small constellation. I decided her blurred fingers were a safer view, lest I got caught being a perv.

“There,” she said, leaning back. My computer had several windows open, playing footage of apartment buildings, foliage and cars.

“Where is he?” again, she was in my personal space, adjusting play speeds and then pausing them all to show different angles of his face.

“There,” She repeated.

Hamilton perked up, “how did you do that?”

She turned, taking him in, “hacked.”

He nodded with glee, “I heard you but which program? Is it open sourced?”

“Where’s your computer,” she asked.

“Right here,” he said sliding over for her to see. Without asking for permission, she logged into his computer and did something that caused a series of zeroes and ones to flood the screen.

“Give it ten. It’ll finish uploading.” She said before turning back to me. “I don’t know his name. I’ve never seen him before and I’ve already tried hacking the Pentagon, their stuff is airtight.”

John just shook his head. His moral compass was above hacking or anything that involved not asking for permission, which was ironic, given that we kill the bad guys for a living. There was a moment of silence and an unspoken command to wait for my signal. As I said, I was not keen on family members but this one was in trouble. She also was a sexy, intelligent, thick woman that made my dick twitch. Of course, I had to keep her around, if not to solve her problem, then to solve mine. I never said I was a good man. I’m an alpha and the leader of a pack, that doesn't make me the selfless kind.  I found my mate, I wasn’t about to let her go.

“Hamilton, Intel, run the schematics and facial recognition. John set a room in the fortress and” I was cut off by Chloe’s laughter. She was bent over, hands on her knees, breast jiggling with no shame, laughing.

“Do I amuse you, Ms. Lewis?”

She snorted. Her personality was completely unbridled and instead of angering me, it relieved me.

“Yeah. Who the hell lives in a place called The Fortress? You ain’t Superman.” She took a deep breath and righted herself up to stand with her arms folded. This woman was getting under my skin, a hard feat to accomplish and yet the facts were apparent. I stood and strode to her before I could tell my feet, bad idea. She was about 5’7, tall for a woman and shorter than my 6’3 frame. I bent so we were eye to eye.

“You damn right I ain’t nobody’s Superman and you for damn sure ain’t nobody’s damsel in distress.”

She gasped, and we were so close I felt the air shift over my lips. The tension was palpable and she never took her eyes off me. I suddenly felt like falling into her, and my dick was on board with that notion. I stood, erecting myself completely, and in guise, readjusted my manhood.

“John, Fortress. Anthony, get Ms. Lewis a meal.” Everyone jumped to their commands, no questions were necessary. I glanced again at her sweet heart-shaped face. “Are you allergic to anything?” I asked with a less firm tone. She let herself down into my chair.

“Nope.”

And so it was. The lion fell in love with the lamb or something stupid that meant I shouldn’t be doing this but I knew I had no plans to stop.

***Chloe***

          You ever met a whirlwind? I did. He was built like a bear, tall, brawny and had one hell of a roar. It was the sexiest thing this nerd has ever seen. Ian Blackwood of Blackwood Investigations and Security. If I was unsure I was in the right place, I was sure now. We sat side by side, in silence. It felt like we were alone though the man he called Hamilton was hard at work across the room. There were only the clicks of keys and this indescribable tension between Ian and me. He was working, pretending to ignore me. But I saw the stolen glances he took. I don’t have proper people skills. My sister used to joke she dropped me too many times on the head. Regardless, I was blatantly staring at him, etching each detail in my memory. He was a cacophony of hard lines. Flat forehead with bushy eyebrows and eyes that could shoot lasers. His nose was a dramatic drop down with a slight upturn at the end. Even his mouth was set in hard lines, as if he never smiled.

“Do you ever smile?” it was random. I am random. I don’t care.

He didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure if he was a shy or truly just a mysterious figure, who used his words wisely.

“Hamilton, does Ian ever smile?” I yelled across the room. He turned to me, a lopsided grin, he reminded me of a puppy. “Yea. Especially when it comes to food.”

I smiled, I could get used to him. Ian stood, commanding attention without words. “When you’re ready, print what you have and come home. We’re leaving.” He began walking to the door, without a second glance or word to me.

“Save me a slice. Scratch that, at least, 3, you know John eats like an animal.” He laughed at his own inside joke.

“Don’t I always?” Ian responded, the baritone licked up the inside of my thighs. What would it feel like for him to hum on my instrument? I bet he could play my own like I was made for him. While I was lost in my thoughts, Hamilton replied.

“You do. You do. That’s why you’re the boss.”

We were out the door and walking to a black Mercedes. Ian had long, fast strides and I had long legs but extra weight holding me back.

“Slow down jerk. This ain’t a race.”

“And what gives you that impression? Do you want to prolong the finding of your stalker and solving of your sister’s murder?” He slid into the front seat, such grace for a big hulking thing.

I climbed into the passenger side, pausing a moment to catch my breath. “I do but it can wait until tomorrow. And if you weren’t aware, it’s the gentlemanly thing to open doors for ladies.”

The Mercedes was a stick and Ian shifted effortlessly, merging us onto the almost empty highway. “I never professed to be a gentleman,” He said. So dark and moody.

“What’s your deal?” He didn’t respond but raised his eyebrow, which seemed to be his favorite expression replacing speech.

“What’s your problem?” I asked. “You got a stick up your ass or something? Seriously, you a man of little words or you just not speaking to me? I do something to ruin your day? I get it, I’m not the prettiest or the skinniest, but I am nice. I may be a nerd but I know things and I thought” Whoops, almost spilled a little too much there. No need to ramble and certainly, no need to tell him I thought we had a connection. This wasn’t The Bachelor, we just met each other.

“You are beautiful, no one asked you had to be the skinniest or all the other things you listed. You are intelligent, I would never pretend you weren’t. You did nothing, I’m just an asshole, a condition that seems to worsen with age.”

I sat there in shock. “Oh shit! Did you just make a joke?” I exclaimed. “And that was like what? Four sentences! Have you hit your quota for the day? I’m impressed.” Then he stunned me again, he laughed and it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. It was deep and full of joy. His eyes crinkled at the corners, the same place as my sister’s were when she used to laugh.

“I can talk, I just prefer to not. You have two eyes and one mouth Ms. Lewis. I think that was God telling us the importance of observation. I see all, even if I don’t mention it.”

I’m not sure where we went or when we got off the highway. But, we had been driving about 30 minutes without seeing another house. With no blinker or indication that there was another road, he turned down a dirt road. Again, there was nothing to see and the darkness concealed any small domiciles. In the distance, a large structure appeared, growing bigger in size as we drove closer. It was a juxtaposition of open wilderness with a skyscraper like building.

“Ahh, the fortress,” I said, “Home sweet home.”

No response. Oh well, it had been nice while it lasted.

We climbed out and he pressed a code into a huge iron fence. The unspoken message clear: keep out. Then he quickly punched in another code to open the door. The first floor was barren, an illusion as if no one lived here. We boarded the elevator and he pressed the number 9.

“The lunch hall is on the top floor,” He said as we rose in haste.

“Which floor is yours?” I asked happy to get his raised eyebrow in response. “I surmised I’m staying here. Right? That’s what you told John.”

“I told John to clean the fortress. There are things that need to be secured.”

“Would you like your own floor or a separate room?”

“What,” I said in fake awe. “You aren’t bossing me around. I actually get a choice?”

“You are not a prisoner Chloe.” His tone was subdued and tender.

“I would like to stay on your floor. I would feel safer.”

His eyes were soft and his fingers twitched at his side as if he were stopping himself from touching me. “My floor has no spare rooms, just a King sized bed.”

Was he telling the truth? Or finding an excuse to avoid me? It wouldn’t be the first time. No one wants to play with the nerd. “That’s fine.”

“Ok, dinner first,” he said. We were back to him dictating and me following.

The bell chimed and we stepped off into a huge room. To my left was a pool table, the middle held a wide screen on the wall, several couches and behind that was a kitchen similar to something I’ve seen on TV.