Silence that Sizzles (3 page)

“I’m staying at The Carlisle.” It was a swank hotel that was beyond her normal budget, but she was trying not stay in the usual places. “I’m staying under a different name and paid cash for both my airfare and the hotel. I haven’t used my credit cards since I left. I was hoping that they wouldn’t find me.”

“If they want you found, they already know where you are. I don’t mean to scare you, but it sounds like you’ve stepped into something that you shouldn’t have.”

“I went into this with my eyes wide open, Kyle. I knew what I was getting into by working with Oak Tree. I just didn’t know that it was this…”

Kyle looked at her like she was crazy. She didn’t like it. “Are you kidding? You can’t say you knew what you were getting into and then absolve yourself of what you found. You’re still part of the machine, whether you were knowingly doing the research or not.”

Kelly could feel the anger bubbling up inside of her again. It was like she was listening to her father berating her for her choices in life. She was done with that. She stood up. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“So what kind of help did you have in mind, exactly?”

“I want to give the files to the media and expose the truth of what Oak Tree is doing. Hopefully, by doing that, they’ll suffer the consequences, and I’ll be left alone.” Kelly had never imagined herself an evangelical standing for something she believed in. But there had been something about seeing the pictures that had been in the file that changed her forever. The images would haunt her dreams.  Although she had tried to maintain a doctor’s reserve and not get emotionally involved when she thought about it, it had been difficult not to. A perfect example of allowing herself to get emotionally involved in her work despite her better judgment was standing in front of her.

“You’re not gonna stay at the Carlisle. It’s not safe. You’ll stay with me.”

“So you’ll help me?”

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you. Right now, you aren’t safe. We need to keep you safe until we figure out what we’re going to do next.”

“It’s my plan, and I’m going to do it regardless of what you think. I was hoping you might have some contacts for me. Beyond that, I’m not your problem.”

Kyle stepped towards her, and she took a step back. She was tall, but he was taller. He had a menacing look on his face that she couldn’t read. “You will stay here in this office until I’m done with work for the night. Then you’re coming with me back to my place. We won’t discuss this again.”

Kyle strode out the door. Kelly moved after him and then realized too late that the door was locked. She banged on the door with the palm of her hand, but there was no answer. She saw another door on the other side of the room and scurried towards it. She tried turning the knob, but it was locked too.

She was shocked and angry. He had locked her in a room like she was a child. She sat back down in one of the chairs with a huff. If Kyle thought that he was going to be able to treat her that way and get away with it, he certainly had another thing coming.

The rest of the night went by in a blur. Kyle went through the motions, but his mind was still locked in the office with Kelly. He knew that she was going to be pissed that he locked her in. But it was for her own protection. Now that he had even a small sense of what the score was, there was no way he was going to let her out of his sight.

Kyle had grown up in a military family. He had watched and listened to the deals going on between his father and his father’s counterparts when they thought they were alone. He enjoyed the thrill of sneaking out of his bed to eavesdrop on their meetings in his father’s office. What he had heard had frequently scared the shit out of him.

The fact that the door was usually cracked led him to believe that his father knew that he had been listening. General Albert Frost had not been kind or easy on his eldest son. It was as if there was a mold that he felt Kyle was supposed to fit, and Kyle never had. Until his transition, he had been a sickly child, prone to all sorts of the usual ailments. By the time of his first phase, it was as if his father had given up on him.

Kyle had gone into the military after finishing prep school anyway, still searching for his father’s approval. It was approval that had never come. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken to his father. He spoke to his mother, Eloise, on random occasions, and he always heard the heavy sadness in her voice that they didn’t stay in touch the way she’d always hoped they would. Kyle would gently remind her that that had been his father’s doing. It had been General Frost’s deciding vote that led to his dishonorable discharge from the Army.

Kyle caught Sophie’s wave to come over to her just as the club was closing at 3am. He cursed under his breath. He had gone out of his way to avoid Sophie since his discussion with Kelly.

“So that friend of yours is upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Is she up there willingly?” Once again, Sophie’s intuition was spot on. That was one of the reasons that Kyle frequently thought about firing her. She was simply too good for her own good. His silence stretched across the distance between them. Sophie raised an eyebrow at him. “She’s human, you know.”

“I am aware.”

“She doesn’t understand our ways.”

Kyle looked at her in surprise. “She understands our ways better than almost any human possibly could. That was part of her job.”

“You knew her from before, then?”

Sophie knew that he despised talking about the time in his life when he was in the service. Unfortunately for him, that was the largest portion of his adult life. She danced around it simply calling it “Before” but he knew what she meant.

“I did. She was one of the doctors they brought in to supposedly keep us all healthy.”

“So you don’t trust her?”

“I trust her as much as I’d trust anyone,” Kyle said after a thoughtful pause. “Like I said, for a human, she understands us better than you think.

“She might think she understands us looking at us from the outside, but all of that gets blown to shit when it becomes the insider’s view. I’m not sure what she means to you, but you’re overprotective, overbearing nature is showing. Which also probably means that now that you have her, you aren’t planning to let her go anytime soon.”

Sophie’s intuitive words hit their mark. He didn’t plan on letting Kelly go until he could be sure she was safe. “Overbearing, huh? You don’t know what you’re talking about. She asked for some help, and I’m giving it to her. It’s as simple as that.”

Sophie shook her head with a small smile. “So you haven’t admitted it to yourself yet either. The sooner you do that, the sooner this can all blow over and hopefully not blow up in your face. I’m guessing by the number of times she pushed the intercom to get somebody’s attention down at the bar that she’s not happy about being up there. And, of course, you didn’t tell her why you locked her in. The caveman approach is so effective.”

“I’m keeping an eye on her. It’s for her own good. Why else do you think I’d locked her in?” Kyle asked suspiciously.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t be for any reason like you found your mate.”

The statement hit him like a punch in the gut. Mate. It was a word that he never thought would apply to his life. Yes, he had met Kelly all those years ago. Yes, he had felt sensations that he hadn’t felt before or since for a woman. There was even more danger for Kelly in that word when it applied to her and Kyle.

“She’s in trouble, and she needs help. That’s all I’m doing,” he reiterated. Kyle spun on his heel and walked away before Sophie could see the truth in his eyes.

The business with mates and fate was always something that had rubbed him the wrong way when it came to the matter of accepting his true nature. He was a shifter. He had an animal side to him that he kept tightly locked down, but at the end of the day, he couldn’t ignore the impulses and desires that came from that side of him. They were one and the same, and yet he fought against it with every fiber of his being.

He had been to countless therapists and psychologists over the years at his father’s request. They had all wanted him to simply accept who he was and what he was. But Kyle couldn’t help but feel that there was something else the matter with him. It was the reason that he tormented himself so harshly about what happened that fateful night his senior year of prep school. It was the reason he had thrown himself into service for his country even though he wasn’t even sure that he believed in the leadership that ran it. It was the reason that he had taken up the bloodsport of shifter fighting, even though he knew that at any point in time he could wind up dead. It was the reason that he allowed himself to be dishonorably discharged for distributing illegal narcotics despite the fact that he didn’t think he was in the wrong. He had simply been giving some of his own prescribed medicine to other soldiers in his squad that were also suffering from PTSD. Whatever had happened to him over the course of his fifteen-year career in the Army, it had changed him in some way that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

He felt a rush of anger thinking about the woman locked in his office. He was finally settling with the idea that his life was what it was; as unfulfilling and listless as it was. He was successful too until Kelly had barged back into it.

He trudged up the steps to the office slowly. He couldn’t hear anything coming from the room, even when he put his ear to the door. He unlocked the door as quietly as he could and opened it. He didn’t immediately see her. His heart skipped a beat as he thought perhaps she had escaped him after all. But then he saw the waves of hair streaming across the fabric of the couch. He slowly made his way across the room. She was sleeping on the couch. It was after 3 in the morning. She had been left in there for several hours. He recalled that she had looked exhausted.

He watched her sleep for several moments despite knowing the fact that that was a little creepy. She looked serene in her sleep. His eyes feasted on her in a way that he had never felt comfortable doing while she was conscious. He’d been so careful not to show any interest in her, although he had been insanely attracted to her. His eyes moved down the planes of her face admiring the way that her hair fell over her shoulders. Her breath rose and fell in her chest and an ample chest it was. He admired her curves as his hand reached out and just lightly skimmed the air above the sloping arch of her hip. Her legs were long; another feature he had always admired. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to feel her next to him again.

It took everything in him to block out the memories of those several hours in the foxhole while they had been waiting for the all clear sign the night of the drone attack years ago. He remembered thinking during that time that he had died and gone to heaven. For four perfect hours, he had held the woman of his dreams in his arms. They had never said a word. There was just their breath and the feeling of touching another human being knowing that at any moment you might not make it through. It has been glorious despite the fact that it had been terrifying.

Kelly shifted on the couch, and Kyle took a step away. Her eyes fluttered open, and then her gaze focused on him. She sat up quickly. “Where am I?”

Kyle hunkered down on his heels as he stared at her. The distance between them felt like an ocean. “You’re in my office at the Urban Dwellers dance club. Remember?”

The sleepiness was gone from her eyes immediately. Oh yes, she remembered. “I can’t believe you locked me in here. If you just asked me to stay, I would have stayed.” Her voice was taut with agitation.

Kyle didn’t want to argue with her. “It’s late. We should go. We can get your things in the morning from your hotel.”

“I’m not a soldier. I don’t take orders from you.” Kelly sat up and crossed her arms over her chest. Even though she looked pissed as hell, she was still the loveliest thing he had ever seen.

Kyle took another tack. “You’re the one who came to me remember? If you want my help, you’ll do as I say.” The words came out much more harshly than Kyle wanted, but he needed her to understand. She had pulled him into her sphere, and now they were both going to have to deal with the consequences.

“If you had just asked, I would have said yes.”

For some reason, that seemed to be important for him to acknowledge this. Kyle didn’t understand why. Normally he’d just throw her over his shoulder and to hell with the consequences. But he wanted to please her. He wanted to please her in so many ways so that she would want to stay.

“If you are amenable to the idea, Ms. Malone, I would like you to return with me to my home. In the morning, I would like to take you to your hotel to retrieve your belongings. For the duration of your stay in Copper City, assuming you are still amenable to the idea, I would like you to continue to stay with me in my home.”

A small smile spread across Kelly’s face. “Now was that so hard? Thank you, Mr. Frost. I appreciate your kind offer, and I accept.”

There was something that fluttered in Kyle’s chest at her words. He wanted to kill Sophie for saying the words of his reality out loud, because that meant that he was going to have to deal with the truth of the situation sooner or later. This woman was his mate. He knew it surely as he knew his own name. But he had to take things slow with her. She was human, and Sophie was right. Kelly might think that she understood the ways of the shifter world, but she didn’t. He hoped that he could make her see that maybe she could try; that there was something at the end of the road worth traveling it for.

Where the fuck had that idea come from? He was thinking crazy now. He was definitely going to have schedule an appointment with his therapist. He needed more drugs. More drugs, more booze, or more something. He wasn’t cut out to be anybody’s mate. He knew that better than anyone. But still with Kelly looking at him that way, there was something that shifted inside of him. He knew that it was his bear. His bear was going to have its say one way or another. When it came to the matter of their mate, the bear would refuse to be ignored.