Tigre

by Cara Bristol

  Then she did an about-face, marched over to him, and grabbed the sack. She extracted the shoes and panties and shoved the underwear into her uniform pants pocket. The ones she had on were soaked. She’d change in the locker room. She shoved the bag, her shredded dress and ruined bra—he’d sliced through the lace between the cups—into a nearby trash can.

  Swinging her strappy heels, she affected a nonchalant stroll and entered the station.

  Several citizens stood in the lobby. The sergeant was occupied talking to a woman through the glass, affording Kat an opportunity to steal away without being noticed. She jutted her chin at a clerk who buzzed opened the door.

  She was almost home free when the sergeant called out, “Hey, Kat!”

  She cringed, but donned her best nonreactive expression. “Yeah?”

  The gray-haired grandfatherly sergeant had logged forty years on the force. A few months from retirement, he was short-timing it by working the desk. He winked. “No worries. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!”

  She still could hear him laughing through the locked door as she fled to the locker room. As soon as I get home, I’m researching how to get this marriage annulled!

  * * * *

  So much for apologies! Tigre watched Kat scurry into the station. His best intentions had flown out the window when he saw her again. A formerly vague sense of guilt had grown, and, upon awakening this morning, he was convinced he had taken advantage of her. He hadn’t intended to; he’d been as feverish as she had been, but at least he’d had an inkling of what was happening, although he hadn’t been strong enough to fight it.

  Nobody could advise him how to handle this. His ’Topian brothers didn’t experience feral fever because they weren’t Saberian, and he didn’t know anyone else of his species. A few Saberians had come to Earth with Mysk, but they lived in an enclave in Alaska.

  He should have tried harder to keep a clear head, to warn her.

  So, he’d used her clothing as an excuse to see her again and apologize. Except, once he’d laid eyes on her, all he could focus on was how good she smelled and looked, and how alive he felt to be with her. He’d missed her yesterday, when they were apart, and realized then he was fully bonded to her. He was glad she was his genmate and wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Within minutes of seeing her, the libidinous burn ignited again, slow at first then skyrocketing. His cock was rock hard; his balls ached. He had a hunch desire would not abate until they took care of it the way he’d suggested.

  Unfortunately, she seemed adamant about never seeing him again. Genetics had bonded them for life, but that didn’t mean they were a couple. If they had been, the fever would have brought them closer together. Instead, it had pushed them further apart, caused Kat to like him less, not more.

  If her lust got out of control, would she contact him? Because of her investigation involving Inferno, he assumed she knew they both resided at the farmhouse. Would she call? He admired her spirit and fire. He would never wish for a submissive, meek female. But, right now, he wished Kat was a little less stubborn.

  Striding away from the station, he surreptitiously adjusted himself to make himself more comfortable. He unbuttoned another fastener on his shirt and shoved up the sleeves. He was sweating now, a side effect of the fever.

  What if she didn’t surrender? What if she didn’t call him? What if she tried to fix the problem…with somebody else? White-hot jealousy surged through him, and he bit off a roar. Don’t assume the worst. That’s what Psy would counsel.

  Thrashing his tail, Tigre stomped down the block. He retrieved the hidden hover scooter, hopped on, and zoomed home.

  Chapter Six

  After feeding Amanda Blake, Kat settled on the sofa with her laptop. Her fingers hesitated on the keys while she analyzed her reluctance to push forward. The marriage wasn’t real. Legal, maybe, but not real. Get on with it! She typed into the search engine, How to get an annulment in Idaho. A free legal information site popped up.

  Amanda Blake leaped onto the couch and insinuated herself onto Kat’s lap, her tail tickling Kat’s nose. “Sorry, kitty, I need to read this. It’s important.” She stroked the cat’s sleek fur and gently pushed her off her lap.

  The cat rubbed her face against the screen as Kat perused the checklist of possible grounds for annulment. “Is one spouse legally married to another?” she read aloud to the cat to assuage her guilt for ignoring her. “Not that I know of.” She had no reason to believe Tigre had a wife hidden somewhere.

  “Was one of the spouses underage?” She snorted. “Uh, no. Definitely not.”

  “Was one of the spouses physically unable to enter into the marriage?” She glanced at the cat. “Suffice it to say, we are both able-bodied and physically healthy.” Tigre exceptionally so. Amanda Blake didn’t need to know the marriage had been consummated repeatedly. Some secrets didn’t need to be shared with the cat.

  “Did one spouse force the other one to marry?” She sighed. “No to that one, too.” In all honesty, she couldn’t say Tigre had forced her.

  “Did one spouse use fraud or deceit to trick the other into marrying?”

  Attempting to sit on Kat’s lap, Amanda Blake stepped on the keyboard and closed out the website.

  “Darn it! Don’t do that!” She hugged the cat and set her on the floor.

  “Meow?”

  “I have to do this. It’s important. Our future is at stake. Yours, too.”

  With a flick of her tail and a snooty lift of her nose, Amanda Blake strolled away.

  Kat logged onto the website again and found where she’d left off. Did one spouse use fraud or deceit to trick the other into marrying? She reread the question silently so Amanda Blake wouldn’t get the mistaken impression she was talking to her. Did infecting her with feral fever count as trickery? She truly didn’t think he’d done so intentionally. She had a pretty good bullshit detector, and she believed the infection had been accidental. No deceit.

  However…was one spouse of unsound mind? Bingo! Even drunk, she never would have said, “I do” if she hadn’t been under the influence of feral fever, which had made her insanely horny and possibly temporarily crazy.

  She scrolled to the information on what to do next. Obtaining an annulment required filing a petition with the county stating the grounds. Would the law accept feral fever as an excuse? She had a hunch being rendered stupid by alien pheromones wasn’t a recognized mental illness.

  But if it was, would that make matters worse? She interacted with the public in often tense situations. She carried a firearm. What if going on public record as being mentally incompetent derailed her career? Would higher-ups boot her from the department?

  She chewed on a fingernail. Better think about this before making any more drastic, sudden moves. One stupid life-altering decision is enough for the week. Maybe divorce would be the better way to go. At the very least, she should seek legal advice from an attorney. He or she could advise her how to untangle herself with a minimum of fuss and damage to her career. Her self-respect was a lost cause at this point. She did a quick search for local divorce attorneys, bookmarked some websites then shut the laptop lid.

  As she set the computer on the coffee table, her hand bumped her swollen, achy breasts, the nipples as tight as beads. Seeing Tigre again had gotten her wet, and she’d stayed that way. Finishing her police reports and then running five miles on the gym treadmill after work had done nothing to alleviate the uncomfortable, distracting arousal. Probably he had been exuding those alien pheromones again, and she was suffering from a resurgence of feral fever like a Kat in heat.

  So not funny. Neither was his insinuation they remedy the situation with more sex. Not going to happen! Went there, did that, got the wedding ring. Figuratively speaking. They’d sealed their vows with a deep, wet kiss but no ring.

  Not that she wanted one. Of course she didn’t. The haste in which the ceremony had occurred hadn’t offered a chance
to get anything, not a dress, not a bouquet of flowers, not a ring. Who needed a wedding band for a fake marriage? She studied her naked finger and closed her hand into a fist. However, luck—bad luck—had been on their side. Even “quickie” Vegas weddings required a marriage license. Casinos never closed, but the Marriage License Bureau did.

  Alas, a guest of the jilted bride worked at the bureau and happened to still be at the Wedding Belles and Beaus Chapel when they had staggered in. So they got a license, got married, and then rushed upstairs and consummated it. Over and over.

  There would be no further consummation of the bogus marriage. Arousal didn’t last forever. It would eventually subside. It had to. All she had to do was give it time and avoid Tigre like the plague.

  * * * *

  Matt guided the cruiser along the twisting country road flanked by thick woods. “It doesn’t surprise me they got burglarized living in the boondocks like this.”

  “Are you trying to hit every pothole?” Kat ground her teeth. Every bump caused arousal to pulsate; driving over gravel was like riding a fricking vibrator. Four days had passed since she’d seen Tigre, and, rather than lessen, the lust had intensified. Her concentration was shot; sex cravings consumed her brain. Masturbation only exacerbated the problem. Her body desired Tigre, and only Tigre would do. More than a simple sexual itch, the lust was akin to a full-body case of poison ivy. Or an addiction.

  She opened the window to get some air. The scent of lavender wafted in on a cooling breeze. A pornographic image of her and Tigre rolling around naked in a field of lavender flashed through her mind. “Fuck,” she muttered and rolled up the window.

  The woods thinned, and fields of fragrant purple flowers came into view on the left. In a better mood, she would have appreciated the charming white gazebo set among the flowers. She’d never been to Lavender Bliss Farm but had heard good things about it.

  The owner had reported a break-in. Over the past few months, there’d been a string of burglaries of homes in remote or rural locations. This was the third burglary of a country home they’d responded to this week.

  The road curved around to the far end of the field where a small house overlooked the lavender field. Matt pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. She leaped out and slammed the door.

  “What’s gotten into you?” He eyed her.

  “Nothing. What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been grouchy and short-tempered for days.”

  She scowled. “Just because I asked you to avoid the potholes—”

  “Ever since you went to Vegas, you’ve been testy as hell. What happened out there?”

  “Nothing happened out there.” She averted her gaze from his probing stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She stalked toward the house. “You wanna chitchat, or should we do our jobs?”

  “Do you think you can?” he shot back.

  A sarcastic retort balanced on the tip of her tongue, but she stifled it, realizing he was right. The sexual preoccupation had begun affecting her work. She had to pull her shit together and act like a professional. She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a little…out of sorts.”

  He nodded. “Apology accepted. If you decide you want to unload, I’m here.”

  “Thanks.” She stepped onto the porch and rang the doorbell. No way would she confess she’d gotten married and now suffered from an alien-induced sex addiction.

  The door was flung open by a pretty, thirty-something brunette.

  “I’m Sgt. Kelley with the sheriff’s department. This is Deputy Matt Jeffries. You reported a break-in?”

  The woman’s eyes widened for a moment. “Yes! I’m Kevanne Girardi. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

  Kat frowned at the odd comment. When something bad happened, crime victims welcomed the arrival of the police, but no one expressed their relief quite that way.

  She and Matt stepped over the threshold. A remodel of the half-century old house appeared to be underway, judging from the sawhorses, new molding around the windows and doors, and the floor sanded to bare wood. It was also obvious the house had been burglarized and vandalized—unless the couple themselves had sliced open the sofa cushions and flung the stuffing around the room and swept everything from the tables onto the floor.

  “We were out of town for a few days, and when we got home—this is what we found.” A familiar-appearing, tall blond man stood out of the worst of the mess, shaking his head.

  “My husband, Cam,” Kevanne introduced.

  Kat studied him with narrowed eyes. Where did she know him from?

  “Did either of you touch anything?” Matt asked.

  Kevanne shook her head. “No. We were afraid of disturbing the crime scene.”

  Most victims and witnesses weren’t that smart. She surveyed the room. “So they ripped up the sofa and dumped everything off the tables? Anything else done in here?”

  Cam pointed to a pool of varnish splashed on the dining room floor. “They did that.” It would bug the hell out of her until she remembered why he seemed familiar.

  Kevanne moved closer to her husband, and he put his arm over her shoulders, hugging her close. “Why would someone trash our home?” she asked. “I can understand the motive behind robbery, but why tear up our sofa?”

  “A lot of people hide valuables in sofa cushions,” she explained. As well as drugs, guns, and anything else they didn’t want someone to find.

  “At least the couch wasn’t new.” Her shoulders slumped. “Not like the TV.”

  “They took your TV?”

  “Yeah. We bought it a month ago. They also stole my computers.”

  “Any idea how they got in?” Matt asked.

  “They broke a window in the kitchen.” Cam beckoned.

  They followed him and Kevanne into the other room. Broken glass lay scattered on the yellowed linoleum. The windowpane in the door had been smashed.

  “We’ll have the house dusted for prints, but I have a hunch we won’t find anything,” Kat said. The MO appeared the same as in the other home invasions. Isolated, remote location, entry in the rear of the house, shredded sofa. No prints had been detected in any of the other burglaries.

  Kevanne grabbed a sheet of paper from the counter and handed it to Kat. “While we were waiting for you to arrive, Cam and I combed through the house and made a list of what’s missing. There might be more stuff”—her shoulders slumped—“but this is what we came up with so far.”

  “Tablet computer, laptop, printer/scanner, 42-inch TV, change jar, Coach handbag,” she read aloud for Matt’s benefit. Typical. Burglars liked electronics, cash, jewelry, designer clothing and accessories, and guns—items easily sold. Drugs, too, of course. Both the illegal and the prescription kind. “No firearms?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “No jewelry missing?”

  “I didn’t bother to check because there’s only two pieces I care about, and I had them both with me—my grandmother’s pendant, which isn’t valuable, and my wedding ring.” Kevanne twisted a huge sparkler on her left hand. Her husband had gone all out. The diamond alone accounted for half of the value of everything on her list.

  I didn’t get any ring when I got married!

  What the hell? The sudden jealousy couldn’t be more off base, given the bogus nature of the wedding and the fact that the marriage would be nullified anyway as soon as she could get it done. She wasn’t procrastinating, not at all. She just hadn’t had time.

  Avoiding her bare ring finger, Kat pretended to scan the list again. “Any idea how much money was in the change jar?” she asked.

  “A couple hundred bucks maybe? Not a lot.”

  That was fortunate. There was a possibility the other items could be recovered if the thieves had hocked them, but cash would be gone forever.

  Kevanne hugged herself. “I feel so…violated. Somebody broke into our home, our sanctuary.”

  Cam pulled her close, an
d she shot him a grateful smile. The love between them was palpable, and Kat almost felt like she was spying on an intimate moment. Envy and longing fluttered in the pit of her stomach. She wanted what they had.

  Being a police officer, helping people, and making the community a safer place to live filled her with satisfaction and pride, but she still yearned for a life partner, one special person to stand by her side through good and bad—the way Cam and Kevanne were doing for each other.

  Instead, thanks to the feral fever, she’d gotten a one-night stand and a fake marriage.

  She averted her gaze from the two lovebirds. “Okay if we look around?” she asked.

  “Of course. Go anywhere you’d like.” Kevanne nodded.

  She and Matt searched the property. The bungalow was a tiny two-bedroom one-bath, one bedroom used as an office, the other as the master. There was a rack on the wall where the TV had been removed. Drawers were pulled out and ransacked. She peeked into the bathroom medicine cabinet, noting the usual over-the-counter meds but no prescription ones. She jotted a mental note to ask Kevanne about missing drugs.

  They photographed the broken glass, the vandalism and mess, and then went to check the exterior. They took pictures of the damage from the outside, called forensics to come dust for prints then returned inside.

  “I think we’ve got everything we need. If you discover anything else missing or think of something important, you can contact me or Deputy Jeffries.” Kat handed Kevanne her card, and Matt passed out his. “Do you have a list like the one you gave us? You should notify your insurance company of the theft.”

  “I jotted it down.” She nodded before twisting her mouth. “I could have copied your list on my printer, but they stole it.”

  “What are the chances we’ll get our stuff back?” Cam rubbed the nape of his neck, the gesture triggering Kat’s memory of where she’d seen him—on the highway billboard advertising Argent as a great place to visit. He was the man on the billboard!