Juneau Heat

  Juneau Heat

  Copyright © February 2013, Tressie Lockwood

  Cover art designed by Mina Carter © February 2013

  ISBN 978-1-937394-85-1

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Amira Press

  Charlotte, NC

  www.amirapress.com

  Chapter One

  “Well?” Birk said, and Shiya took him in. Big, broad shoulders, and a powerful chest, tall and sexy in his jeans and jacket with hiking boots. He stood beside her table, leaning on it with both hands flat like he expected her to raise her chin and kiss those very delicious-looking lips. She stared into his eyes—dreamy blue eyes that did things to her insides and shortened her breath. His rugged jaw had been shaved clean, which she appreciated, and he smelled incredible. The entire package topped with overlong dirty-blond hair melted her to her core. This was a veterinarian? Seriously?

  “Well what?” She cast him an expectant look. If he wanted a hello kiss, he better do the initiating—this time. Her belly had done flip-flops the entire flight out here from San Diego, and while it thrilled her to death to be in Juneau, Alaska, the reason she’d come did not produce calm self-assurance. She licked her lips, and he followed the movement of her tongue with such an expression of lust in his gaze, he might as well have met it with his own tongue.

  A sudden urge to flee came over Shiya, but she resisted. She had something to prove to herself and to her family. Still, who the hell knew he would be this enigmatic in real life? Skype had lied to her. She almost laughed at her mental joke, and he moved to sit down.

  “There you are, the little playmate I’ve enjoyed for the last two months.”

  “It’s good to see you in real life, Birk.” She glanced around at the pub, taking in the interesting atmosphere. Sawdust covered the floor, and deer heads hung on the wall. The light fixtures that looked like a ring of lanterns from the Old West illuminated the room just enough to see. The piano player on a raised platform belted out lively tunes and called a greeting each time someone entered the building. “This place is awesome. I’m glad you chose it.”

  Birk touched the tips of her fingers, and electricity rose through her hands, up her arms, and down to her nether regions. She turned her attention back to him and made the excuse of needing to push her glasses up to pull away from him. The very fact that her stupid eyes had itched to no end before she came pissed her off. She’d intended to wear contacts and look her best, but that was the first fail. A sexy dress and some slinky high heels went down the drain right after it. Early fall was supposed to still be warm in Juneau, but today had turned cold. She had opted for a gray sweater dress with a deep, loose neckline to show off the swell of her breasts, paired with thigh-high boots. Where she went wrong with the clothing and the contacts, she determined she would make up in attitude.

  Shiya unzipped her jacket and pulled it off her shoulders. Birk popped up from his seat and came around to help her. The brush of his big hands over her arms sent chills chasing each other down her spine. She uncrossed her legs and recrossed them the other way while he arranged her jacket over the back of her chair.

  “Would you like something to drink?” he offered when he sat.

  “What do they have?”

  “Whatever you want.” He made it sound like he was the one organizing everything with the sweep of his hand, as if the manager would rush out to fulfill her wish if she requested something not on the menu. Were all shifters this way? Did they make women sweat to be taken?

  Okay, Shiya, chill out, girl. You’re here to seduce, not to jump into bed. Remember that.

  When she first volunteered to take this one, her dad and her brother had looked at her like she’d lost her mind. After all, she was the researcher, the person assigned to gather available information, chase down leads over the phone, or get a name and pass on what she learned to those who were skilled for fieldwork. Shiya spent her life behind a computer screen. This was not her, but when she’d almost accidentally carried on a flirtation with Birk over Skype, well, she couldn’t let one of her sisters take this, could she? After all, her simple job consisted of winning Birk’s trust and getting him to confirm his shifter status. No more, no less.

  “How about hot apple cider?” she suggested. “That seems like it will hit the spot.”

  Birk nodded and placed the order, along with what they called Alaskan Amber for himself. Beer, she noted, when his drink arrived. Shiya sipped hers.

  “You’re quiet,” Birk said. “We teased each other late into the night online.” He leaned toward her, and her breath caught in her throat. “Not that I’m complaining. I mean, my computer screen didn’t do you justice. I knew you were beautiful, but I’m blown away by the real thing.”

  She lowered her lashes and toyed with her mug. “Thank you.” When she looked up again, she tilted her head to the side and met his gaze with a flirtatious one of her own. “You’re pretty sexy yourself.”

  “I do feel a bit cheated.”

  She touched the stark black rim of her glasses. “What do you mean?”

  Birk’s brows lowered, and he rubbed his chin. “I believe you promised me a kiss, and I haven’t gotten one.”

  She chuckled. That’s why he’d stood over her, saying well. “We can’t have you disappointed, now can we?”

  Shiya leaned forward. Even her sisters kissed their quarries. She could do no less than that. A chaste kiss, enough to entice but keep the distance between them. Just before their lips met, a cleared throat and the thunk of a jar landing on the table interrupted. Shiya drew away from Birk and turned to look into the weathered face of woman whose age she couldn’t determine with all the wrinkles, the scraggly black hair, and the rumpled, worn clothing.

  “Devil’s club juice,” the old woman announced, and she held up two fingers as if that meant something.

  Birk said words she didn’t quite catch, but the woman focused on Shiya.

  “Um, thanks, but I don’t need—”

  “For when tired. Brew it myself.” The woman tapped the bottle. She brought a pouch from her pocket and held it up. “Caribou leaf salve.” She patted her chest, and Shiya wondered if the salve was meant to grow the boobs, but her breasts were a good size if she did say so herself. The old woman explained. “Heal wound from bear claw.”

  Shiya flinched. “I don’t think I’ll be mauled by a bear anytime soon, but thanks.”

  “Bad woman. You bad woman!”

  The finger pointed in Shiya’s face pissed her off. “Because I won’t buy your products? I’m sorry, Nana, but I don’t need it!”

  “No Nana. No Nana,” the old woman almost shouted.

  A deep voice called something out in another language, and the old woman went silent, although her eyes snapped with resentment as she stared at Shiya. Grateful for whoever had gotten her to stop the harassment, Shiya peered past the woman and had to tilt her head way back at the man who strode up to their table. Mercy!

  He stood at least six foot five or six, and had Birk by a good three or four inches. His midnight-black hair and dark eyes, paired with a chiseled jawline and massive build, gave off an air of danger. All that would be more than enough to make a woman either throw herself into his arms or run in the opposite direction, knowing she was in over her head. What added to this sexy Native American man was the tattoo of a knife on the right side of his muscular neck.

  Shiya watched as he conversed with the old woman. While neither spoke in English, she could tell he chastised her in a firm but respectful manner. After a few minutes, the woman eyed Shiya and then spun on her booted feet and m
arched out of the pub in an obvious funk.

  “I apologize for my grandmother,” the big man said to her.

  Shiya waved her hand. “It’s fine. No harm done.”

  When Birk spoke, she realized he’d also spoken to the woman in the language the man used, but he seemed to know but a few words, and the old woman had ignored him. “Shiya, this is my friend Kotori Munro. I mentioned him a few times while we talked.”

  “This is Kotori?” For some reason, she had always pictured a small man. Birk had told her Kotori was attacked a few years back by a wolf. He had a scar on his throat, an injury that almost took his life, but instead took his voice, until his grandmother’s potions healed him. Maybe she should have bought that salve and devil juice, or whatever she’d called it. Shiya took him in, blown away by how attractive he was, especially with the tattoo on Kotori’s neck, which covered the scar.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she murmured, still intimidated by this man’s size. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  He nodded and dragged up a chair from another table. She guessed the apology was the extent of what she would get for now.

  “Shiya and I were discussing when and where we would stop playing with each other and get to what really interests us,” Birk told Kotori.

  “Oh were we?” Shiya shook her head at his boldness, and all her nervousness drifted away. What if she did? No one had to know. She hadn’t told her dad or her siblings about talking to Birk so much online, and it wouldn’t be like she were veering off from her job. She’d fast-forward it.

  “She may look prim and proper, my friend, but under those cute glasses, our Shiya is a tigress waiting to get loose.”

  She waggled a finger at Birk. “Listen, you, you’re going to get me in trouble.”

  “With who?” Kotori cut in.

  She hesitated and then forced a smile. “With my morals.”

  Birk threw his head back laughing. “Your morals did not complain when I strip-danced for you on camera.”

  “You call that dancing?” She wrinkled her nose at him and then stuck out her tongue. “Besides, I wasn’t the one doing it.”

  “You could be.” His voice dropped low, and he reached for her fingers to hold in his warm grasp. Her heart hammered in her chest. “For me . . . and for Kotori.”

  Her eyes widened. She retrieved her hand and held both up. “Hold on, what? Are you kidding, Birk? We both knew we might, you know, see what happens, but we never discussed a . . . a . . .”

  Man, was she being a prude now. Her sisters had juggled boyfriends countless times and dared any of the guys to complain about it. Of course, she didn’t know if all were intimate relationships, but still, the girls took it in stride. Not only was Shiya venturing into territory unheard of scoping out shifters, she was being offered a ménage à trois with two of them?

  These were monsters, nonhumans that would rip out a throat just as soon as look at a person. They lived by their own code, their own rules, and damn anyone who got in their way. At least, that’s how she’d been raised to view them. She’d begun to question that view when she met and started talking to Birk.

  “You’re not for this craziness, are you?” she asked Kotori. “Sharing a woman?”

  Kotori pinned her with his unreadable stare, and she couldn’t figure out what went through his head. Then she shifted positions under his scrutiny, and the neckline of her dress moved to reveal more of one breast than the other. A bit of the aqua silk bra she wore peeked out, and Kotori’s gaze lighted on it. The closed regard turned to desire in a heartbeat, but her reaction wasn’t the same with him as with Birk. Kotori frightened her, more for his sheer size, and she got off on the fear.

  “We have shared before,” Kotori said.

  “I don’t know how to feel about that.” She looked from one to the other and shook herself. “Listen, I don’t know either of you well—Birk somewhat and Kotori not at all. I didn’t come to Juneau to pick up men.”

  “You came for a mini vacation and to take pictures for your magazine,” Birk recalled. “Where is your camera?”

  Oh crap, she’d forgotten it in her room at the hotel. So much for the photographer cover, the excuse she’d used in the first place when she approached him on a forum for people interested in Alaska’s natural beauty. Back in her room, she’d spent several minutes looking for her camera, making herself late for meeting with Birk, only to find out she’d kicked the thing under the bed. She should have stayed behind the computer, where real life did not interfere.

  “I planned to come by and meet you first. Then shoot some pictures tomorrow,” she lied. “The two of you will show me around, won’t you?”

  “It would be our pleasure,” Birk quipped, and Kotori agreed.

  When her cell phone buzzed, she checked the display and frowned. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I need to use the little girls’ room.”

  They both stood, and she had to squeeze by Kotori to get out of the small area next to their table. Her ass brushed his thigh, and bolts of need shot through her core at how hard his leg was. Too bad he stretched high above her, because one could only imagine how big the goods hiding inside his pants were.

  After darting into the bathroom, she waved a hand at her face, trying to cool down. When that didn’t do it, she grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and patted her forehead and neck.

  “Cold as heck outside, but hot as hell in here with them,” she muttered to herself.

  The cell phone buzzed again, and then it rang. She frowned seeing Joe’s name on the display. She stabbed the connect button. “Why are you calling me, Joe?”

  “I needed to know you were okay.”

  “No, you didn’t, and you know not to call too.”

  He grunted. “Then answer my text.”

  She hung up on him.

  The thing about shifters she’d learned in the basic training all of them received was that they had advanced hearing. For Joe to call, he risked the operation because Birk or Kotori might overhear their conversation and know her real reason for coming to Juneau—or rather the official one. She still maintained wanting to meet Birk in person. Up until now, she had never met a shifter. She had talked to them on the Internet and on the phone in her information gathering, but it was her dad, her brother, her two sisters, and the men who worked for her dad who hunted the beasts and killed them.

  Chapter Two

  “Will she agree?” Kotori asked Birk.

  Birk grinned. He reared back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. A bit of adjustment in his pants had been necessary when he watched the beautiful Shiya rub her ass on his friend’s leg. Of course, he wished it were him. He would have managed to bend his knees to spoon that sexy roundness for all its worth. Kotori didn’t display his emotions, but he read the man with the ease of a twenty-odd-year friendship. Shiya turned Kotori on as much as she did Birk. If he knew women—and he did—she would give in.

  “Yes, she will.” He raised his beer to his mouth and downed half the contents in a few swigs. When he set it down, he wiped his lips with his thumb and forefinger. “What she doesn’t know is that we’re onto her. We know she’s the daughter of that hunter that’s been killing our kind for years.”

  “Why the ruse?”

  Birk switched his gaze from his beer to Kotori, knowing what his friend meant. “She’s playing her game because they want to be sure. Can’t risk thinking of themselves as murderers if they kill humans by mistake. We are going along with it because I want to draw the others in closer, especially her father.” Birk closed his hand into a fist, feeling the claws of the bear cut his palm. He blew a sharp breath through his nostrils and calmed himself. The nails went back to normal, and he watched as the skin knitted together.

  “To suggest we have sex with her . . .”

  Birk raised his brows. “You don’t want to?”

  Kotori said nothing. Birk already knew the answer to that question. His friend had a hard-on for the woman as much as he did. Birk had shar
ed with his friend about spending hours talking to Shiya. He knew he should reel her in and back off, but there had been something about her from the start.

  “She’s special,” he said and shut his eyes, bringing her curvy figure and sweet face to mind. The shoulder-length black hair she kept parted down the middle and bumped at the ends, the big brown eyes, and those glasses accentuated the bookworm he knew her to be, but even while he’d seen her body on the video camera, he had not grasped the scope of her luscious breasts, how small her waist was, packaged with a nice round ass he could ride, and long, sexy legs to wrap around him.

  Online he had been somewhat safe. He couldn’t smell the shampoo she used or the natural sweet scent of her skin compared with it. Worse, he couldn’t smell her want for two months. Each night when they signed off, he’d had to beat his cock until he came, but he remained unsatisfied. When she sat across from him, all plans, all thought, left. All he could think about was how fast he could get her into bed.

  Oh, she would say yes, because he would make sure of it.

  When Shiya returned, Birk stood up. He made no attempt to hide his reaction to her, and her gaze shot to his crotch. Her eyebrows rose, and he saw alarm in the chocolate depths of her eyes. He breathed in her desire at the sight of his tented pants. Seeing her shift her gaze away from him and over to Kotori’s pants front gave him great satisfaction as well. So, she was also open to a ménage. Good to know.

  “Let me help you,” he said and took her arm. He didn’t even try to step back as she passed by, but he managed to resist bending his knees. That would be too obvious with so many to witness. Still, she squeezed by him, and he let his hand slide lower, from her back to her ass, and he lingered there until she dropped into her seat.

  “You know you wrong, right?” She smirked at him.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You’re not going to give me a chance to get to know you. You’re going to try to seduce me right away.”