Six months ago
Zara strode into the strip club. It was called Feathers. Meh. In her line of work, she’d been worse places. The bouncer had made a concerted effort to keep her out, but now he was too busy rolling around on the ground cupping his balls.
She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the printed photo of her bounty. Helga Larsen - charged with blackmail. Evidently, her usual modus operandi was to seduce a male, drug him, get her partner to take risqué photos of the two of them together and then threaten to tell the unlucky man’s wife or partner or boss if they didn’t pay up. Quite a lucrative little sideline until one of the men turned out to be an undercover cop. After she had been arrested, a few men had sheepishly come forward to admit what she had done to them. Now she was set to go on trial, but having missed her court date, Zara was now dispatched to find her and bring her in, kicking and screaming if necessary.
She had started with Helga’s apartment, but no one was there. Now she was trying Helga’s place of work. Apparently, she was one of their top dancers. No wonder. The platinum blonde lynx shifter was lithe yet booby and had a very sultry face with a big pouty mouth. Dancing at the club was also where she had met all her victims.
Zara didn’t really care about any of that. Her only concern was getting the lynx back to the cops for her trial, and when she did, Zara would get her cut of the bond money, and she would be able to treat herself to cat food and a new pair of running shoes. The cat food was for her cat, Sebastian. She didn’t secretly eat it, even if it did sometimes look more appetizing than the green goop she was currently drinking on her smoothie diet.
She peered around the dimly lit club. There were a few dancers on stage, but not the one she was looking for.
“Can I help you with something?” purred a voice behind her.
Her body automatically shivered at the gravelly tone, and she whipped around to find a huge male grinning at her. She took a few moments to gaze at his huge body, marveling at the way he managed to fill such a tight t-shirt. It was bordering on obscene the way he almost bulged out of it.
“I, ah,” she cleared her throat feeling an unusual twittering inside her. She never got nervous around men so what was with this guy?
“I’m actually looking for someone.”
“Me?” he asked, his smile widening showing off a pair of dimples. If it weren’t for his huge, killer body, she’d swear he was cute and harmless. But there was no way he was harmless.
Zara gave herself an inner kick, and some of her backbone snapped back into place. Hard considering the rest of her was melting. “Really? That was super cheesy.”
He chuckled, and it was a warm, rich sound that made her sex twinge. Traitor.
“Actually, I’m looking for one of your dancers.”
He flickered slightly in what she thought was disappointment. But why would he be disappointed about that?
“Why?”
Zara hesitated. When she admitted what she did for a living, it often made people clam up and obstruct her. Some people got pissed when she tried to drag their employees away. But as he stared at her, towering over her, and she lost herself in those huge brown eyes she wanted to tell him everything.
“Actually, she skipped on her bail.”
His huge brow creased slightly. “You’re a bounty hunter?”
“Well, we go by many names. Bail enforcement agents, recovery agents, bail agents, bail recovery agents, skip tracers…”
She steeled herself for laughter or disbelief, but his frown just deepened.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It has its moments,” she said nonchalantly.
“I’m not sure I approve.”
Zara let out a burst of laughter. “You’re kidding, right?”
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“You don’t know me,” she giggled, surprising herself that she was actually amused and a little touched by his reaction.
“I don’t know you yet.”
He waggled his eyebrows and Zara snorted. Of all the arrogant bozos…
*
Zara peeked over the top of the covers. She shivered with embarrassment. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t the kind of thing she did.
She could count the number of men she had slept with on her right hand – a low number mostly due to the antics of her mother and grandmother. But, she didn’t meet a guy and immediately jump into bed with him. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t immediate - it took at least six hours to go from meeting to the bed jumping part. But still, she was surprised at herself. A little embarrassed by how little coercion it had taken on his part. But, regretful? No, not really.
Zara froze as he made his way into the bedroom. Him. The one that made her forget all the bad things her female relations had ever drilled into her about men. The one who could make her quiver at a thousand paces.
At six-foot-four, he easily towered over her skinny, five-foot-seven frame. But it was the sheer breadth of him that was awe-inspiring. Surely, he had muscles that hadn’t even been discovered and named yet. With black buzzed hair, brown almost black eyes, and a chin that could cut diamonds, he perhaps would have looked more comfortable operating a tank rather than navigating this unforgivably frilly bedroom. Or maybe tramping through a rainforest, slashing at the vines, his bare chest glistening with sweat…
Zara gave herself a good mental shake. Those kinds of thoughts were what led her there in the first place.
He lumbered over to the bed. He wasn’t graceful – he had too many muscles for that. Gorilla shifters were not graceful, but the way he moved certainly had an effect on her. Maybe it was the way his muscles bunched and flexed with every tiny movement. Really, it was hypnotic.
Holt’s lips quirked. “Morning, sleepy head.”
His words dripped with smug satisfaction, and Zara’s fingers itched with the temptation to curl into a fist and plant themselves on his rugged face. Not a good idea. She liked his face the way it was, plus it would probably just result in her breaking a couple of fingers.
“Or should I say, afternoon?”
Zara’s eyes flicked to the honest-to-god cuckoo clock on the wall. Half two already.
“Crap on a cracker!”
Zara tried to scramble out of bed while keeping the sheet firmly wrapped around her. Not an easy feat, as she soon found out. Her foot caught in the sheet, and before anyone could yell ‘timber’, she was on her way down. Luckily, a pair of strong, warm hands ready to catch her were not too far away.
“Easy, baby.”
“Don’t call me baby,” she murmured, though without much heat.
It was hard to work up much fury when faced with, well, him. Zara tightened the sheet around herself and ignored the chuckle that sounded over her head.
“Would you prefer sweetie pie?”
Zara glared up at his amused face, and oh, he almost took her breath away. He wasn’t what anyone would consider conventionally handsome, his face too hard for that. There were those who would undoubtedly call him hard looking, or even intimidating, but there was something about him. Something that made her bones want to turn to jelly and had the rest of her quivering like pudding.
“No,” she murmured, without much annoyance.
“Honeybunch?”
The tension started seeping out of her. “Uh-uh.”
“Snookums?”
Zara giggled. “Definitely not.”
“Cookie?”
“Getting warmer,” she admitted, cringing at how soppy she sounded. “I have to go.”
Holt grasped her arms, rubbing his thumbs in circles. “Work?”
“Well… no.”
In truth, she didn’t have anywhere to be. It was just a gut reaction to waking up in a stranger’s bed, totally naked… in the afternoon. Not that strange anymore. She knew every inch of his body intimately after the previous evening. She almost made herself blush with that thought.
“You can stay if you want, angel.”
His voice came out rumbling and throaty. She should say no. Get out of there before she fell any further. She needed to be aloof. She was a strong, single witch and all men were idiots. She did not want or need one.
He leaned a couple of inches closer, and she took a heady whiff of his clean, masculine scent. “I’ll make pancakes.”
Stay strong.
“Okay,” she whimpered.
Wuss.
Holt chuckled and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, and a quick swat on her ass.
“Ready in five minutes,” he called before he started whistling an unforgivably cheerful tune for such an early hour… of the afternoon.
Usually a morning person, she generally went for a run every day before breakfast. A bit late for that now. Though, she supposed her antics during the previous evening might constitute a good workout.
Zara searched the room for her discarded clothes. She really hadn’t minded where they fell, and after a good root around she still couldn’t find her underwear. She shrugged and pulled on her clothes. Hanging loose around him wasn’t a huge problem. He’d already seen her girls unfettered anyway. Hell, he’d spent most of the night suckling and kneading them anyway. He was better acquainted with them than she was.
She stopped for a moment as she realized she had a couple of missed calls from her mom. Ugh. If her mom knew what she had been doing and with whom last night, she’d throw a fit of epic proportions. Not that her mother’s overreactions ever stopped her from doing anything. It had been a long time since Zara first realized that her mother was… well… crazy beans.
Zara snorted. If she did return one of her calls, she’d be treated to a lecture about how all men are the scum of the earth, incapable of making a commitment to one woman, yadda, yadda, yadda. She’d heard it all before.
She wasn’t ready to start screaming it from the rooftops that she was in love or anything daft like that, but she had a good feeling about Holt. A feeling was slowly bubbling away in her stomach and threatening to grow and twist its way to her usually off-limits heart. She’d never had such a strong reaction to a man. It was insane and yet felt so right.
Perhaps this could work out. It was early days. Hell, she hadn’t even known him one day, but maybe… No, for now, she would just settle for pancakes and worry about that later - a lot later.
Zara pulled her clothes on and made her way to the kitchen. Not very easily. When he brought her home, she wasn’t paying much attention to the floor plan of his apartment. No, at that time she was investigating his chest… with her lips.
Feeling a nervous happiness, a small smile played on her lips as she found him sitting at his kitchen table. It was set for the two of them, though there was a depressing lack of pancakes on it, and that was nothing compared to the grim look on his face. Well, if last night was anything to go by, she knew how to turn that frown upside down. She moved towards him, wondering where she was going to kiss him first. She knew one area that he certainly enjoyed getting her lips on. But as he caught sight of her he grimaced. Okay, maybe not.
“Holt?”
Her train of happiness, which until that moment had been an unstoppable locomotive, stuttered slightly at the irritation in his eyes. He quickly looked away.
“You should leave.”
The train seriously started threatening to derail at that.
Maybe she heard him wrong. “I’m sorry?”
His shoulders hunched slightly. He looked enormous in his tiny kitchen. “Something’s come up,” he mumbled. “You should go.”
Zara frowned. “Something in the last five minutes?”
What could have suddenly changed in the time it took her to get dressed. This Holt seemed a million miles away from the man she met yesterday, hell even a million miles away from the guy she’d seen five minutes ago.
“Yes.”
“Oh… kay,” she said slowly. The train was wobbling dangerously, but she tried to hold on. She couldn’t expect him to be perfect one hundred percent of the time.
“Do you want to get together later or something?” she asked awkwardly and hesitantly.
Holt looked into her eyes. His dark orbs glittered, giving nothing away. She froze under that look, unable to move.
“Zara…”
The rumbling noise of a toilet flushing made her jump. She looked around. “Is someone here?”
A roommate she hoped pathetically. Never mind the train derailing, she was fast running out of track.
“No quilted paper?” asked a woman’s voice as she came into the room. “You know, I…”
She faltered on seeing Zara and raised an eyebrow at Holt. “One of your dancers? I swear you’re as bad as your brother.”
And the train was plummeting head first into the gorge.
Holt slowly rose to his feet. His face becoming more and more like stone. The woman was maybe an inch or so taller than Zara, with masses of long black hair and perfect, pale porcelain skin. Didn’t hurt that she couldn’t be more than twenty-one or twenty-two. Everything was so… perky at that age.
Zara looked to Holt, expecting some explanation. Sister? Cleaner? Realtor? Nope, he just looked back at her coolly, not explaining, not bothering to say anything at all.
“Look,” said the woman, “would you mind running along? I need to talk to Angus.”
Zara frowned for a moment before she realized that Angus was Holt’s first name. He had the decency to look mildly embarrassed about that. But it was her who was embarrassed - her who should be as well. She had met a man, jumped into his bed thinking they were starting something special and she didn’t even know his first name, never mind understanding whatever weird relationship he had going on with this young woman.
She let out a breath and closed her eyes, terrified that if she weren’t careful a tear would escape. When the danger passed, she gave one last fleeting look at Holt, but he said nothing. Instead, she grabbed her purse and left as quickly as humanly possible.
Damn him! He had made her fall for him and made her act in a way that she would never have before.
Even worse, he made her start thinking that maybe her mom was right – that all men are worthless.
Well, not again. Never again! She was never going to have anything to do with that damn gorilla shifter ever again!