Tiger Bound Read online

  He flinched. She reached for his hand, but he stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Get some sleep, Deja. I will be back for you in the morning to take you home.”

  “You can stay at my place. Brenda has an extra set of keys for emergencies. I want to know you’re sleeping in a warm bed and you’re comfortable and safe.”

  “I’m fine.” He dared a glance at her and fought a strange instinct within that seemed to instruct him to claim her, whatever that meant. “I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.” He left the hospital room and walked out into the night, more alone than he ever thought he could be, because now he had to give up the person who was his entire world.

  Chapter Seven

  Deja sat across from Heath while he drove her home. She’d tried a couple times to touch him, but each time he found a reason to be out of reach. While she could only imagine what he must be going though, it hurt to be rejected when she loved him so much. Not for one minute did her feelings change or did she rethink being with him after she found out all that Tate said was true. Sure, seeing him that night had scared the crap out of her. Who wouldn’t be afraid?

  When she’d come out of her fog and sucked in air, her throat burned as if someone had lit a match to it, and then she heard the growl like that of an animal. She’d struggled to her elbow, and all she could do was watch in horror. The man drove a knife into Heath’s side, and if her throat weren’t raw, she would have cried out. They struggled, and when Heath rolled and landed on top of the man, in the glow from the fire she saw the hawkish nose and bulbous eyes and knew it was the same guy from the boutique in town. Then she’d focused on Heath.

  His skin had grown pale, almost white, with a shimmer of dark streaks on his cheeks. His eyes glowed in the firelight, and his teeth sharpened to points, the canines on the top and the bottom longer than the rest. When Heath spoke, she scarcely recognized his voice, as deep and harsh as it sounded. Nervousness raced over her at his obvious anger, but then when he snapped the man’s neck with little more than a tug, she thought she would faint again. Still, this was Heath, and she remembered the devastation in his eyes when he lost his dad. She would not turn away when he needed her the most. She’d called his name and thrown herself into his arms, but just like now she had felt him slipping away.

  They pulled into the short drive in front of her house. She rented the first floor while another woman rented the second. Deja liked the place even though it was a bit on the old side and small. At least she could walk to work since she lived in town and save gas. Of course, she’d loved Heath’s house and imagined he would hate staying in her tiny place while he had his rebuilt. Insurance would cover it, so he didn’t have to worry.

  When they were inside, she took the few short steps to the kitchen. “You want something to eat? I know you’ve been running around and not even thinking about it. How is your side? Do you want me to clean it and change the bandages?” She resisted making the suggestion for him to see a doctor. How could he?

  “Deja.”

  “Yes?” Her fingers spasmed, and she hid them in a dishtowel.

  “Come and sit down. I think we need to talk.”

  Her heart raced, but she did as he asked. “My throat is still raw. I think I have some ice cream in the freezer. You might want some too.”

  “Shh,” he said, and she gritted her teeth, not from anger but from anguish.

  “Heath.”

  “Deja, listen to me.”

  He strode over and led her to the couch in her joke of a living room. Her place might as well be one big room, sectioned off with paper-thin walls to look like an actual apartment. Never before had it felt like it was closing in on her, making it hard to catch her breath.

  “Buck has been missing for about a week and a half.”

  She started, not expecting him to say that. She had no love for Buck, but neither did she wish him ill. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean one day he didn’t come to work.” He tugged at his nose and then rested his elbows on his knees. When it seemed to cause him pain, he sat back. She almost commented, but his expression kept her quiet. “The sheriff’s office contacted me this morning. They found his truck, with him in it, in the lake.”

  Deja gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth. “Oh no, I’m so sorry, Heath. Did they say what happened? Maybe he’d been drinking too much. They need to crack down on people more after they’ve been sucking them down at the bar. I don’t know how many of them have knocked down Brenda’s homemade jams and jellies sign because they can’t keep their vehicles on the road. She’s thinking about just leaving it down.”

  Heath rubbed his neck. She knew he was agitated when he did that, so she kept quiet. “There wasn’t enough alcohol in his system to end up in the lake, and even if there was, he knew how to hold his liquor.”

  “You think that guy killed him, don’t you?”

  He nodded.

  Deja clutched her hands together and dipped her head to close her eyes. This entire situation was a nightmare, and even in her wildest dreams, she couldn’t have come up with the scenario.

  “Listen to me carefully, Deja, without interrupting. Can you do that?”

  She licked her lips. “Yes.”

  “I’m leaving town. I’m going to get answers and find out who my real dad is. I want to know what I am, who Spiderweb is, and what their objective is. Most importantly, I think it would be safer for you if I leave, so they don’t hurt you again coming after me.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Deja stood up. “You’re not leaving me, Heath. I know you’re hurting, damn it, but so am I. We just decided to be together, and I’m not losing that.”

  He rose as well and grasped her shoulders. He shook her, making her head flop about until she looked at him. She’d never seen his anger so close to the surface. Not that she thought he would hurt her, but the way he behaved told her he’d already begun to change.

  “Do you realize there can be no more us?”

  She gasped. “Why not? I know you still want me.”

  “I don’t know what I want.”

  His words could not be a sharper slap in the face. Her eyes burned, but she would not let him see her cry. “Oh so because I’m human, I’m not good enough?”

  “You know better than that,” he snarled. “You’re staying here where I know you will be safe. I’m going to put my ranch up for sale. It will go cheaper than it’s worth because of the house being gone, but it will be a good deal for someone, so I don’t have to worry. For the time being, Mack will care for the cattle until I can sell them off too. The management company will arrange everything.”

  “You already thought of it all, huh? That’s why you were late picking me up from the hospital?”

  “Deja.”

  “Don’t even say it, Heath. I can see you’re determined to dump me, calling it protecting me when it’s more about you running scared.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “Do I?” She glared at him, but he released her shoulders and turned away. He cracked his neck, and it was as if the calm descended once more. Heath had made up his mind, and she would not change it. She lowered her gaze to the floor, wanting nothing beyond curling up in her bed and pretending none of this happened. “Are you coming back?”

  He drew her into his arms. She raised her chin, and his mouth came down on hers. Deja clung to him, tangling her fingers in his shirtfront. She pressed tight as she could to his length, imprinting his scent and the feel of his hard-muscled body onto her mind. When he released her, it was too soon. His steps echoed on the bare wooden floor, and the front door opened and closed behind him.

  Deja waited for half an hour and then left her apartment. She walked the few blocks to the bank and stepped inside to wait for a teller. When her turn came, she moved to the window. “Hey, Cathy, I guess you know my ID was destroyed in that fire.”

  “Aw, sugar, I’m so sorry.”
Cathy made a noise of sympathy. “I know you, Deja. I’m sure the boss has no problem allowing you to make a withdrawal any time you want.”

  “Thank you.” Deja swallowed the emotions choking her. “In that case, I want to withdraw it all. I think I’m going to be out of town for awhile.”

  * * * *

  Deja flounced into her apartment and slammed the door closed. “Lousy, pole up his ass, thinks he’s better than everybody else because he handles money bank manager!” Just because she wanted to close her account, he had to act like he didn’t know who the hell she was and insisted she had to wait to get her ID to close the account. “‘Because if I let you do it, Ms. Clark, everyone would want to bypass the guidelines. Then where would we be?’ I don’t care where he’d be, but I need to get out of here now! Such a jerk.”

  She sniffed and stomped to her bedroom to begin packing. That task was the least she could do in preparation of leaving. Heath had gone already, and he didn’t know she would follow. She only prayed he would leave a clue in Logan City if he moved on to some other place before she got there. Then again, maybe all the answers he sought would be in Nevada, and she could convince him to come home.

  After her things were packed, she sat down at her computer and pulled up the screen where she’d learned about the location of Logan City. The site was one of America’s ghost towns in Nevada. Northwest of Hiko, Nevada, the city was twelve miles up the canyon, and from the page she pulled up on the internet, only two buildings remained on the site. She didn’t care what it said, though. She would fly there and see for herself. Heath would have done the same.

  Deja mentally went over all other aspects of her life that needed wrapping up. The little it entailed depressed her, but then she’d always dreamed of marrying Heath and starting the big family both of them dreamed of one day enjoying. Deja’s mother had died in childbirth, and she had no siblings, just as Heath had none. They both wanted at least four kids. They’d discussed it countless times while they never admitted they wanted them together. How did his being a shape-shifter change that, she wondered. Could he even make children? Was it safe? She shivered as she looked down at her stomach and imagining something like the alien tearing its way out. “Okay, Deja, get a grip, girl. I’m sure it’s not even like that.”

  Watching TV and stuffing her face with ice cream did not take away the sense of loss with Heath gone. When she could stand it no longer, she turned off all the lights and fell into bed to think about Heath. Even as the memory of his touch sliced through her heart, it comforted her too. Maybe if she recalled the night they made love, she could get through until she saw him again.

  That night, Heath had pulled out of her and carried her to his room. They stood beside his bed touching, exploring one another. She shivered with each brush of his skin or his fingertips. This was the yearning that consumed her each day she spent in his presence, and at last it belonged to her. He belonged to her.

  “I want to suck your dick,” she had told him, and his eyes seemed to glow in his excitement at the suggestion. She suppressed a smile when he played the role of the gentleman.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to. I like it.”

  He frowned then, his lips thinning into a straight line. “We’re not discussing how many men you did that to.”

  “None,” she assured him for his peace of mind, and she knew he understood that’s why she said it. Heath got it that she was no virgin, but every man wanted to be his woman’s first. She would be that for Heath.

  “Heath.”

  Remembering him the way he was that night, she sighed on her bed and fingered her pussy. She went through the sequence in her mind of all they had done, and she tried to hear his voice, smell his manly scent, and feel what it had been like to have his hands on her body.

  “Heath’s dick in my mouth,” she whispered to the empty room.

  “Maybe I should wash your come off of it first,” he’d suggested.

  “No. It will turn you on more if you know I’m eating my own juices off of you.” She sank slowly to her knees and cast a heavy-lidded look up at him. Her lips still together, she stuck her tongue out and laved his tip. Heath hissed between his teeth and caressed her cheek. She moaned and gave him another lick, this one longer, starting at the base of his hardening cock and continuing up until she arrived at the head again. She stuck her tongue into the hole in the cap and wiggled. Heath dropped a string of expletives.

  “Damn it, Deja!”

  She paused, widening her eyes. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No, never.”

  Deja chuckled and took him between her lips. She sucked hard and let him slip out one slow inch at a time. “I can hardly suck you forever, baby. My mouth would be tired. I’ll try, though, because you’re like a lollipop.” She wrapped both hands around his cock and marveled that she could stack them and still have his cap uncovered. She teased it with the roof of her mouth, bit down without using her teeth. The noises she made with her mouth sent vibrations through him, and she knew by the way his breathing became ragged and fast that it got him off.

  She took him deep into her throat and reached between his legs to stroke his balls. They contracted and rose in her hand, and she teased the sensitive skin, alternating between focusing on his sac and his cock. The more she served him on her knees, the hotter he appeared to get. The rumble of his voice seemed more animalistic as he issued her a command to, “Keep going. Suck me faster, Deja. No, don’t take it out of your mouth. Take it deeper. Suck my cock!”

  Deja popped up to a sitting position when she thought of that. Heath changed at that point, almost as if he were a different person. At that moment, it wasn’t lovemaking but raw sex, and she did as he told her and went along for an incredible ride. Was it the tiger, she wondered. No other explanation fit from the way he acted. Just thinking of it had her body burning.

  “Now, stop,” he’d ordered. Deja didn’t want to. She wanted to bring him to a head and taste his come, but Heath followed his words by placing hands under her arms and hoisting her to her feet. He tossed her on the bed face down, and she twisted to look back at him. He came at her rubbing his cock, eyes set with consuming hunger in their depths. For some reason, she was nervous. She scrambled off the bed, but in a flash, he met her at the other side. She backed away from him, holding her hands up. “Heath?”

  He spun her to face the wall and gave her a shove. She caught herself with her hands, and he was on her, pressed tight and growling low in his throat. He licked her neck and nipped at her shoulder. His fingers dug into her arms until she cried out. “Your scent,” he snarled.

  “W-what?” she remembered asking.

  “Your scent,” he repeated. “I need to fuck you now. That scent is driving me insane. Spread your legs.”

  “Heath, aren’t you being a little rough?” Not that it didn’t turn her on. Of course it did. In fact, the aggression, the whole alpha attitude, got her so hot, come pooled in her pussy and dripped down.

  “This belongs to me.” He stabbed her sex with two thick fingers. She rolled up to her toes and gasped. He thrust them deep and pulled out, then went in again. “I take it any way and any time I want it. Now spread your legs before I do it for you.”

  Her teeth chattered, and her heart hammered in her chest. She thought she would faint as she struggled to get enough air in. She’d managed to get her legs apart only a foot or so before Heath hauled her off the floor and plunged in. She screamed, not from pain but from surprise and pleasure. He rammed into her in precise movements that judged in a fraction of a second how far he could go. His thick rod felt bigger than it had been in the living room, and the fact that he didn’t all fit inside meant he’d grown another inch or so. How was that possible?

  Deja clung to the wall the best she could, but the effort meant nothing. Heath’s strength increased tenfold as he held her around the waist with one arm and yanked her down onto his cock. She shut her eyes, mouth agape, and just f
elt. Invaded over and over with the shaft of the man she loved. His growls punctuated the night, and he didn’t stop for a long time. She whimpered as her orgasm came over her, and come flooded her channel. Heath didn’t pause. He murmured something each time he drove into her, and she listened to catch his word.

  “Mine,” he growled, and thundered into her. “Mine,” he said again, and thrust deeper.

  At that point, she couldn’t hold on any longer, and she fainted. Later, when she woke, she lay on the bed with Heath asleep at her side. At the time, she’d questioned whether she imagined the whole thing, but now alone in Oklahoma without him, she knew the truth. Heath’s tiger had surfaced during the time they made love and transformed the session into raw, hot—dangerous—sex.

  Deja stopped the movements of her hand over her clit, which she’d been massaging in tune to her memories. How did she feel about a man who was half tiger having sex with her? Was it wrong, and should he suppress that part when they made love? She had to wonder if he lost control even more if he would hurt her. The attitude he’d displayed turned her on, but what about that threat, that he’d open her legs if she didn’t do it herself? Her pussy creamed.

  “Stupid body, you don’t know what could have happened. Don’t get all worked up because he said it like that.” She chuckled in the darkness and pinched her clit. The tiny bud pulsed with need. She tugged and squeezed a bit harder, and a raging orgasm rushed over her core. She moaned his name, and her thighs trembled. When it ended, she lay still, thinking about him. As scary as it was because she never expected it, that time with Heath beat out every other with any lover, just as Heath wanted it to. No ordinary man would do. She would travel to Nevada and stay at his side whether he liked it or not. So he better get ready.

  The next morning, Deja rose from her bed and showered. She set her bags beside the door and walked to the post office. She’d already given her notice, but she wanted to talk to Brenda before she left. “Hey, you got a minute?” she asked her friend when she stuck her head in the door.