by Unknown
“Tarik?” she shouted.
God, if that wasn’t Tarik, she was in some deep shit.
The bear stopped pacing. It sat on its rump and tipped its head. Couldn’t say she’d ever seen a bear at the zoo do that.
No, that was Tarik all right. He’d saved her. How had he known she was in danger? How had he known where to find her? Was that other guy, Joe, really going to take her to a doctor or had something far worse been planned for her?
What the fuck was going on?
So many questions. The only one who had answers was unable to speak at the moment. Even though he was resting, he looked uneasy, confused. She wasn’t sure if she should approach him like before or not.
Fairly certain he wouldn’t hurt her like he had Joe, she decided to give it a try. But he didn’t let her get near. Whenever she took a step forward, he took two back.
“Tarik, I don’t understand.” This time when she walked toward him he didn’t back away. “What’s bothering you? What’s happening?” She stopped a few feet from him. He was so huge. A beautiful creature. The only place she’d been so close to a bear had been at the zoo. And at least four inches of plexi-glass had stood between her and the animal’s claws and teeth. Regardless, she wasn’t afraid. Not at all.
“Won’t you change back? Tell me what to do next? I’m so confused. What did that man want with me?”
He raised up on his hind legs, towering over her by nearly three feet. His hot breath huffed in her face.
The instinct to turn tail and run buzzed through her like a jolt of electricity but she remained still. Watching his face, she raised a hand and stroked the thick fur coating his stomach. “Tarik, please come back to me.”
She could feel his skin rippling under her hand, even through the thick fur. A moment later, he was a man again. A naked, shivering man. A man with sad puppy eyes.
“You need to leave here,” he whispered. “You need to leave now. They know your name.”
“Who’s they?”
“Omega.” His expression was an odd mix of emotions, too many to read clearly.
“This, your problem, has something to do with your work? They know what? That you’re changing into a bear?”
“Yes, they know. They did it to me.” He lifted her palm to his mouth and kissed it. “I can’t tell you more. I don’t know any more. Besides it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re safe. You need to go home, get away from here.”
“That’s not going to happen as long as the strike is still going on. The flights out of Anchorage have all been cancelled.”
“Where’s your truck?” He was starting to shiver harder. Although it was warm by Alaska’s standards, somewhere in the upper 50’s, it was still pretty chilly to be running around in one’s birthday suit.
“You’re cold. I can get something for you to wear in my hotel room.”
His fingers wrapped around her wrist as tight and unyielding as steel bands. He pulled her flush against him. She had more than a suspicion he hadn’t done that to block the chilly northerly wind. “No. You shouldn’t go back in there.”
She tipped her head up to look him in the eye. It wasn’t easy, but she managed to speak, “All of my stuff’s in there, including the keys to my rental.”
He grunted but released her. A bummer! “Fine. But I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t think Joe’s in any condition to get in our way. He looked pretty bad off. I think he’s still alive, but barely.”
Tarik’s expression darkened. “Yeah.” After a moment, he nodded. “Okay. Let’s go. But you must be careful.”
“I’ll go in through the main entrance and let you into the building through the side door. My room is only a few feet from the door. Hopefully no one’ll see you.” Her face warmed. “Not that you don’t look absolutely fabu—”
For the first time in too long, his lips curled into that naughty smile. “No need to explain. And speaking of looks, you…you look damn good yourself. So good that I want to…” He took a step back. “No, I shouldn’t.”
A little quiver raced through her body. “Shouldn’t what?”
He gripped the back of her head with one hand, tangling his fingers in the hair at her nape. With a sharp yank, he dragged her against him. “This.” He slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her to boneless-ness.
She literally drooped against him, relying on his other arm to support her as she kissed him back. Their tongues stroked and mated. Their breaths mixed. She moaned. He growled. She wished they were back at the cabin, in front of the fireplace, naked. At least he was naked. That was a mighty fine start.
He broke the kiss much too soon. “Let’s go, before Omega sends someone else. I’m sure they know something’s happened to Joe by now.” He held her until she had her feet back under herself and her knees had regained their strength.
“Yeah.” Her head kind of floaty and light, her feet skipping along the surface of the asphalt parking lot, she walked back into the hotel. It wasn’t easy, considering she was still in space-mode from that amazing kiss, but she tried to pay attention to who was nearby as she went back to her room. The door was still slightly ajar, thankfully, since she hadn’t had the chance to grab her keycard before being thrown over Joe’s shoulders and hauled outside like a sack of trash.
It didn’t look like anyone else had been in the room. Everything was where she’d left it. She dashed out to the corridor, and after listening for a moment to make sure no one would be coming down the hallway in the next few seconds, opened the door leading to the parking lot to let Tarik inside.
She pointed at room 113 and he nodded, preceding her. She handed him a blanket—giving the guy something to cover up his very scrumptious body was becoming a tradition. He smiled a thanks and wrapped it toga style around his form.
He said nothing while she ran around, throwing her clothes, shoes and cosmetics into her luggage. She left the keycard on the table next to the door when they left. Tarik, being one hundred percent gentleman, carried her heavy suitcases to the door.
When they stepped outside, they both halted mid-stride. The big white van was gone. Joe was gone too.
“How?” she asked.
“Where’d you park?”
“Around back.”
“Wait here for a few seconds. I’ll make some kind of noise if someone’s waiting to ambush us.” Still carting her luggage, Tarik jogged to the end of the building and peered around the corner. Evidently he didn’t see anything because he dashed around the corner and out of her line of sight. Fearful she was being watched or followed, she looked back over her shoulder. No one was there. Her nerves jumpy, she broke into a full run after Tarik. As she rounded the corner, she saw he had already put her suitcases in the backseat and was sitting behind the steering wheel. His uncovered arm jutted from the open driver’s-side window. She handed him the keys then ran around the rear of the vehicle and climbed into the passenger seat.
While buckling her seatbelt, she turned to him. “Do you think Joe’s still alive?”
“Don’t know. Don’t want to know.” He shifted the vehicle into reverse and punched the gas, backing out of the parking spot, then jammed it into first and popped the clutch, setting the truck lurching forward, wheels squealing.
Hands on the dashboard, arms locked, she looked over her shoulder several times. Would a big white van pull out of some hidden parking spot somewhere?
Didn’t happen.
“Whose name is the cabin rented under?” Tarik asked as he pulled the truck out onto the two-lane road that headed north, out of Anchorage.
“Katie’s. Why?”
“Good. We’ll head back there. For now. Until I can figure out what our next move will be. It’s not likely they’ll find us, as long as we keep the truck hidden—”
“Uh. I’m no pro at this running from bad guys stuff, but I think that might be a bad move. They tried to kidnap me. So they know we were together. Reallllly together, if you get my drift.”
>
“Good point. Man, my mind is not working tonight. Think, think, think. We need somewhere safe. And some supplies. I think it might be worth it to swing by there and grab a few things. If we’re careful. They’re probably assuming that would be the last place we’d go now.”
“I hope you’re right.” A part of her put up a silent cheer at the thought of going back to the isolated cabin with Tarik. The other part, the one that was heartbreak-phobic didn’t care for the idea. Yes, she supposed that part was the one she should be listening to.
But it was so darn difficult! There were so many things going on there—men trying to kidnap her, a severe case of like melting her brain…how was she ever going to make an intelligent decision with those kinds of pressures piling on her shoulders? Sloping and weak, they lacked the required weight-bearing capacity. Normally they buckled under stresses a whole lot lighter than this.
The like thing was particularly weighty. Despite Tarik’s bizarre problem, or maybe because of it, she genuinely liked him. He was different from any man she’d ever met before. He was complicated. Intriguing. The kind of guy who had a lot going on under the surface. She had a feeling it would take her a long time to figure him out. A part of her wanted to take up that challenge, to discover all his secrets. His wants. His fears.
She spent the entire trip out to the cabin telling herself why that was such a bad idea even considering starting a relationship with Tarik. There was no way she’d ever live out in the boonies. If it took longer than ten minutes to reach the nearest mall, it was too rural.
Not to mention the cold!
Living in Michigan, she’d seen her share of snow. There were some years when the state didn’t dig its way out of the dreaded white stuff until the end of April. Spring was cold and soggy at best. Fall was a mixed bag of hot, humid weather and frigid cold. Her energy levels dipped in the winter when daylight was brief.
She needed sunlight. Living in a place where three months of the year it was dark was out of the question. No way.
Which made the possibility of a long-term thing with Tarik all but impossible. He lived in Alaska. He worked in Alaska. And she assumed there was no way he’d leave Alaska.
Sooner or later he’d get this thing with Omega straightened out and he’d go back to whatever he was doing before he’d found out he was a part-time grizzly bear. Besides, it wasn’t like he could roam around her subdivision in bear-mode without calling attention to himself. Wasn’t every day there were bears trotting around suburbia. Some moron would probably shoot him or have him hauled to the zoo. And then she’d have to go there to visit him.
Not much of a life, no matter how she looked at it. Poor guy.
When she was a kid, she loved watching The Incredible Hulk. But she always felt sorry for Bill Bixby at the end. He usually made friends with someone but had to leave them behind and move on. Even at eight years old, she could see how terribly lonely his life must have been.
“No welcoming party. Better hurry, though. I have an idea.” Tarik parked the truck behind the cabin, out of sight of what little traffic made it down the rutted, barely passable dirt road leading from the main road at least a half-mile back. When he shut off the engine, he turned to look at her. “You’ve been quiet. Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”
“I’m fine. Just thinking. There’s a lot to think about, you know.”
He nodded. “Let’s get inside. Then we can talk about some things.” He shut the door after she climbed to the ground—those trucks were not made for short, curvy girls with legs the length of your average junior high-school student.
Before she had turned around, he was heading around the side of the cabin. He went for the gun first, checked to see if it was loaded then went on a hunt for the bullets. He found a box in one of the kitchen cupboards. “Ah, here we go. I knew the ammo had to be here somewhere.” He put the gun and bullets on the table then went to the refrigerator.
“What’re you going to do with the gun? You’re not going to shoot anyone? Are you? I mean, for some reason it’s kind of okay for you to do that bear-whooping-ass thing when we’re in danger, but shooting people…” She let the words trail off. This was for real! People were chasing her. And someone could end up shot. That someone could even be her, if they weren’t careful.
“I’m taking it as a precaution.” Still staring into the fridge, he grimaced. “I see we’re going to need to stock up on a few things before we head out of town.”
“What’s wrong with what I bought? Can’t we take this stuff?”
He frowned. “Soy milk? And what’s this?” He pulled a prepackaged meal out of the tiny freezer. “Lean Cuisine? First, I won’t touch soy milk. If it doesn’t come out of a ranging animal, it’s unnatural.” He tossed the Creamy Basil Chicken dinner into the freezer and slammed the door. “And these meals wouldn’t satisfy a guy half my size. The portions aren’t big enough for a child.”
“Well they’re big enough for me.” That sounded wrong.
He grinned as he scooped up the gun and headed for the door. “Let’s go.”
Her face warmed. She followed him outside, grateful for the chill on her stinging cheeks. “You know what I mean.”
“Sure I do.”
If she could’ve, she would’ve put money on the fact that he brushed his side against hers on purpose as he opened her door. He sauntered around the vehicle, opened his door, set the gun on the floor behind his seat and climbed in.
“A buddy of mine is out of town for a few days,” he explained while driving the truck back down the long, winding road. “We’ll stay at his place for the night. Hopefully no one at Omega knows I have a key. He doesn’t work with me, so no one should know who he is or that he’s gone.” He draped an arm over her shoulder. His fingertips traced little circles on the nape of her neck. “We’ll be comfy-cozy.”
She shivered. “I’m sure we will.”
* * * *
They drove about a half-hour, down winding roads that cut through pine forests. A bumpy rutted driveway—didn’t anyone in Alaska have a paved drive?—led to a cabin that was almost identical on the outside to the one she’d rented with Katie.
Tarik parked the truck behind the building and hauled Abby’s luggage and the gun up to the front door. After unlocking the door—no small feat with his arms loaded—he pushed it open for her.
The cabin’s inside looked almost exactly the same as well. Butt ugly furniture and all.
Did everyone in Alaska decorate their homes in Rustic Tacky?
Tarik set her suitcases next to the bed and headed to the fireplace. The view from behind as he bent over to pick up some firewood was interesting, considering what he was wearing. He tossed a couple of logs into the fireplace then wadded up some paper and lit a brilliant blaze with a long wooden matchstick.
Made it look so easy. It had taken her at least a half-dozen tries before her fire had grown beyond a measly flicker.
Show off.
“We’ll have to be careful when we head down to the store, not call too much attention to ourselves,” he said as he poked at the fire with a long metal hooky thingy.
Not call attention to themselves? That was going to be interesting, considering he was still wearing the toga he’d fashioned out of the hotel blanket. If that didn’t get someone’s attention, she didn’t know what would.
“I don’t want to go to Max’s Place,” he continued, standing directly in front of her for a moment before continuing back to the kitchen. He filled one of those old coffeepots with water and spooned some grounds into the little basket that sat at the top. Once he had the coffee started, he headed back in her direction. He sure was a busy bee. A sexy busy bee. “Max is a friend of mine. If any of Omega’s guys ask him about me, they’d know I was still in the area.” He sat down in a chair. “Come here.” He punctuated his words with a come-hither eyebrow wag and pat on his thigh.
It took all of three steps to put her front and center before him. Like she expected, he
grabbed her waist and pulled, until she was comfy cozy on his lap. More than her cheeks warmed and it was hard to remember what they’d been talking about. A very curious unseen protuberance was poking her bottom through the blanket and her clothes. “Okay, maybe going to the store isn’t such a good idea. How far away from here do you live?” She fanned her face. Was it getting stuffy in there or what?
He buried his nose in the crook between her neck and shoulder. “My place is back by your rental. Why?”
Battling a case of goose bumps, she tipped her head and scrunched up her shoulder. Why? Yes, that was a good question. What had they been talking about? Oh. Yeah. “You were going to get yourself some clothes, weren’t you?” She leaned back a bit, taking her neck out of the line of fire and motioned up and down his body with an index finger. “I’d think a guy dressed like Julius Caesar might stand out in a place like this. The only thing you’re missing is the olive branches or whatever those things were on his head.”
He screwed his perfect mouth into a playful scowl. “Funny.” One of his hands took a little tour of her body, starting at her waist and ending up under her shirt, cupping her breast through her bra.
Oh, what a naughty hand. Naughty in the nicest sense.
Her head dropped back and her eyelids fell over her eyes. She felt her nipple hardening, thanks to his gentle caresses. “If you went there—uh, I mean to your house—you could grab yourself some canned food or whatever it is you eat.” She had no idea how she’d managed to string together so many words, considering her head was spinning and her body was planning a party for the arrival of one hunky guest.
“I’m thinking there’s probably another guy named “Joe” sitting at my place waiting for me to come home so he can escort me back to my prison cell in the basement of Omega’s headquarters.”
That last part sobered her up a smidge. They’d held him prisoner? What was going on? “They were going to lock you up? Why?”
“So I couldn’t do this.” He removed his hand from her breast, cupped her chin and kissed the daylights out of her. His tongue did all those naughty, yummy things his tongue had a tendency to do. It flirted with hers then got all serious, plunging in and out and getting bossy. In response, she kissed him back. Wasn’t any way she could do anything but that.