The Jaguar's Romance Read online

  “Yes!” Her shout echoed off the walls as Oscar pulled all the way out, and slammed back inside. Her fingers dug into his hips, urging his faster tempo. Her legs wrapped around him. She levered herself around him, dragging more sweet ecstasy from every pump.

  Beneath them, the trunk scooted across the floor inch by inch. Sally held on tight, tighter. Oscar’s dick plowed into her faster and faster, becoming a drum roll. An atomic bomb went off inside her. Sally sank her teeth into his shoulder. Oscar didn’t relent. Washed in crashing wave after wave of carnality, Sally let out a scream into his flesh before all sense was lost in a blinding white light behind her eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  Iwalani stood at the back door of the bar as Sally and Oscar made their way up the path. Under the lawyer’s gaze, conflicting emotions tangled in Sally’s head. The first was shame. Jeeze, when had she become such a slut? She was boinking this guy the first day she met him. Oddly, the other was pride. If she was going to boink any guy the first day she met him, this one was a god, a demon and a sex machine all rolled into one.

  Good choice, Sally.

  “So, you took my advice and got a room.”

  Or maybe not. “I, uh…”

  “Where have you two been?” the lawyer asked.

  Oscar gave Iwalani a quizzical look Sally couldn’t read. Blushing from head to toe, she studied the ground as the attorney spoke.

  “My guy in the police lab says they found only your fingerprints on your phone, Sally. There weren’t any signs of cloning or hacking. In court we can say the phone wasn’t in your possession at the time of the text.”

  Sally swallowed. “In court? But the cops will have to say I didn’t have my phone on me.”

  “The deputies will have to verify that your phone was in your apartment when they contacted you. On the other hand, there’s no way to verify your whereabouts at the time of the text. It’s the only real evidence they have, and because they took it from you before reading you your rights, I’ll file to suppress it. If the judge agrees with me, the DA will probably drop the case.”

  Oscar’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and walked out of earshot to answer.

  The word probably stuck in Sally’s craw. “But?”

  “Frankly, the cops don’t have anyone else who looks good for this. That usually means they’ll sink their teeth into you and figure another way to screw you.” Iwalani pursed her lips and raised her brows. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”

  “No, I can’t. I’m working a case,” Oscar said into his phone. Sally normally wouldn’t have picked up his conversation, but her bear had emerged from her subconscious and listened in.

  She tried to focus on the attorney’s words. “So even if the judge throws out the text, the DA might still prosecute me?”

  The lawyer frowned in sympathy. “I’m afraid so. It would be a stupid move, and nearly impossible to convict. But no one ever accused our district attorney of being smart.”

  “I can’t. I’m working.” Sally eavesdropped on Oscar, and heard him giggle. “Madre de dios, you know I can’t resist that.”

  Sally’s bear growled. Was he talking to some girl ten minutes after engaging in the best sex of Sally’s life? Darn it to heck, he was too far away for her to overhear the voice on the phone. She noticed Iwalani staring at her.

  “So what do we do?” Sally tried to pick up the thread.

  “For now, we just have to sit tight. Hopefully, Oscar will get a line on the asshole who’s really after Thorn,” Iwalani said.

  Sally was going to mention finding the photograph, but Oscar’s discussion threw her off.

  “The Maritime Club, eight p.m. tomorrow. It’s a date.”

  Focus!

  “I’m sure Oscar will find something,” Sally said. Even to her own ears, the words lacked confidence. The Maritime Club—where the heck was that?

  Oscar hung up and approached. “You were saying?”

  “That you’re a professional, and that you’ll get Sally off the hook. Although usually professional means not boffing your client.” Iwalani folded her arms.

  “Ah, but mi sirenita, you are my client. Sally is your client.” He put his arm around Sally, but she shrugged it off.

  “I have to get going. The bar opens in half an hour.”

  Oscar smiled. “Excelente. I’ve had quite a thirsty day.”

  Iwalani rolled her eyes at Oscar and studied Sally. “Well, first you might want to tame your sex hair a little. And fix your smeared makeup. And button your shirt the right way.”

  Sally closed her eyes. Aw, jeeze!

  “I believe we are pursuing a lead that will bear fruit, Iwalani” Oscar said. “First thing in the morning, we will pick up where we left off.”

  “I guess I should feel hopeful,” Iwalani said. “And I could use a drink myself.”

  Sally led the two of them into the bar, drew two beers, and rushed up to her apartment to put herself together. She thought about Oscar’s words. First thing in the morning. Was that so he could meet up with his other woman on the side later that night? Damn it, she should’ve known better than to fool around with a guy who fooled around.

  Still, there was a lot more to Oscar than a beautiful body and incredibly hot sex. Not that those two things weren’t pretty awesome. She didn’t think his kind words were just a ploy to get into her pants (although that had worked, hadn’t it?). He might come off as a cheater, but Sally didn’t believe he was a liar. She thought he really might be into her.

  At least, she sure hoped so. She was already falling for him in a huge way.

  ***

  Oscar found the one table in the room where he could drink comfortably. Iwalani sat beside him. She smirked at his choice of seat. “Typical Oscar León—eyes on the exits, back against the wall.”

  A single waitress—a twenty-something with a sweep of green hair—set up. Curiosity rose in him about her true hair color. Suppressing this, he faced the lawyer. “I do not have your unique senses, mi sirenita. My eyes are my insurance.”

  “Bullshit, Oscar. You’re just keeping tabs on the escape routes. I’d guess you’d be expecting a jealous husband or boyfriend at any given moment.”

  He waved the idea away. “I do not like to be penned in.” His words brought the unknown murderer to mind that had enslaved Sally to a life of a shifter against her will thrummed through him until his teeth ground together. That man should be killed on principle. His angry thoughts were interrupted.

  “You really think you’ve got a lead on our suspect?” Iwalani sipped her beer and made a face. “Domestic.”

  Oscar pursed his lips in thought, his eyes following the snug pants of the curvaceous waitress. “There is something going on here far beyond this evil man’s plan, some much larger scenario that I have not put a finger on yet.”

  Sally came down from her apartment, moving behind the bar. She talked with the waitress for a while before the doors were opened. Oscar’s eyes lingered on Sally, even though her eyes avoided his.

  “Something bigger than what? I got some of the lowdown from Felicity Malkin. This is some kind of infanticide beef.” Iwalani shook her head. “Mammals!”

  Oscar side-eyed her. “My understanding is that your people devour each other in the womb.”

  She knocked back the rest of her beer. “That’s just about food, no politics involved.”

  Mammals. The word echoed weirdly in his thoughts for a moment. “So far, infanticide is the working theory, but I do not believe the motive is purely biological.”

  “What, then?”

  Oscar finished his beer. “If I knew that, Iwalani, I could close this case.”

  The waitress sauntered over, hips switching hypnotically. She gave Oscar a big smile. “Pretty sharp duds for this place. Just to warn you, there’s this big lumberjack guy who comes in here, Thorn. He pretty much thinks of this table as his.”

  “Well, he is welcome to either join us, o él puede besar mi culo.” Oscar smiled back. />
  The waitress shifted her stance, cocking a coy hip. “Kiss your ass, huh? Oo, I like a tough guy. Can I get you another round?”

  Iwalani frowned at her pint glass. “Do you have something other than this domestic swill?”

  The waitress shook her head. “This is pretty much a Bud, Coors Light and Jack Daniels place.”

  “Can you mix a decent top shelf gin martini, very dry?”

  The waitress nodded. Oscar’s investigation of her full breasts revealed a name tag—Ava. “I’m sure Sally can. How about you, handsome?”

  “I will stick with the domestic swill, Ava. I am exceedingly charmed to make your acquaintance. We are friends of Sally. My name is Oscar León, and this is Iwalani Johnson.”

  “Wow, is that Hawaiian?” Although she asked about the attorney, her eyes remained on Oscar.

  “Yes, and it means ‘bring me a dry top-shelf martini before I lose it.’” Iwalani smiled. The expression was disconcertingly frightening.

  Oscar watched Ava’s ass as she hurried away.

  “You’re playing with fire, León. Banging Sally and then flirting with her employee? That girl’s just barely got her bear in check.”

  “I suppose you’re right. What can I do? I have the soul of a cat.”

  Iwalani turned black eyes on him. “You can keep your soul in your pants right now. It’s bad enough that Sally might be locked up. We don’t need her going all angry, jealous bear in public.”

  The thought of Sally imprisoned struck him like flint on steel. “I will not allow that woman to be locked up.”

  “Then focus—with your brain, not your dick. Sally’s got no clan, no backup. If it gets out that the authorities have an out-of-control shifter locked up, what do you think will happen to her?”

  Oscar kept the rasping roar from his throat. Iwalani, as powerful and deadly a predator as she was, leaned away from the ferocity of his expression. “It is not going to happen.”

  Chapter Nine

  A second beer calmed him down, and, perhaps, Ava’s sudden aversion to their table He sighed. Así es la vida—such is life. Something odd happened as the bar filled with patrons that distracted him. He saw a table of four men leaning close and casting glances over their shoulders. A group of Asian men sat at another table, not speaking, their eyes in constant motion. A bunch of chubby guys with huge hipster beards sat at the bar, each occasionally popping up and darting looks around the room. Oscar took this in, noting that these groups were identically dressed in work clothes. The only people laughing and talking wore hiking clothes, ski jackets and hats, or hunter’s orange.

  “Do you notice anything strange about these patrons?” he asked Iwalani.

  She raised her brows at him, then focused on the crowd. The black of her irises took over the whites, and a crawling electrical sensation raised the hairs on the back of his neck. When her eyes returned to normal, she pouted in thought. “Lots of shifters in here. Wolf pack at that middle table, the Marino brothers, or cousins or something.”

  Oscar frowned at them. “They are the one’s building a house behind Thorn’s trailer.”

  Iwalani nodded to others. “Foxes over there, and I’m not sure about the guys at the bar, but they’re not predators.”

  “Castores.”

  “Of course you would recognize beavers.”

  Oscar rolled his eyes. “You do not find it bizarre, so many in this place? They are not tourists, but locals. Working men.”

  “I guess I never gave it much thought, but I do have an awful lot of shifter business coming from Ripple. But let’s face it, Portland, Oregon is Shifter City. It makes sense that some of us would move out into the wilderness.”

  Oscar drained his second beer. “It might make sense if these were only los lobos, only los zorros. But no, foxes and wolves and beavers, plus Thorn, a bear. Felicity, a cat, is building apartments here. They should not be gathering together.”

  “Why not? I mean, you sound kind of racist.”

  He was feeling the beer a little. “Is there such a thing as being species-ist? Predator and prey in such close proximity? It goes against instinct. But you know this place better than I, if you have clients here.”

  Iwalani nodded. “There are others. The men who own the general store are coyotes. The old couple who run the B&B are boars. You’re right, there’s a whole animal kingdom here. Do you think it has anything to do with this case?”

  Oscar shrugged. “Perhaps. But you mentioned a bed and breakfast—run by pigs?”

  “About a half-mile down the road.”

  “Well, then, if you’ll forgive me, I need to go to bed early. I will be very busy en la mañana.”

  “Early is fine.” Iwalani shot her eyes at Sally behind the bar. “Alone would be best.”

  Oscar stood, donning his trench coat and hat. When he tipped his fedora at Sally, she blushed and gave him a finger wave. ¡Madre de Dios! that girl made him crazy.

  Perhaps too crazy, he thought, getting into his car. He knew he was about two brief conversations away from banging Ava in the women’s bathroom. What had stopped him? Iwalani’s warning? No, no, he had no fear of Sally or her bear.

  Perhaps it was the lawyer’s advice to focus on the case. Freedom was life to Oscar, and to see it taken away stirred him to the core. Sally had been chained by this asshole invader and threatened with being caged by the law. He would see this case through, no matter what it took. After, he could explore his own freedom, and perhaps a few waitresses as well.

  While he expected a B&B run by swine to be a sty, he was delighted to find excellent food and accommodations. He would stay again if he needed to be out in the sticks much longer. For now, he wanted to put an end to this case as quickly as possible. Like the cat he was, he curled up in bed for fourteen hours of sleep.

  Returning to the old farmhouse in the morning, he found Sally in the oversized cellar. “Buenos días, Sally, you are up early for a bar owner.”

  Her face brightened as he approached, but her eyes shifted away. “I, uh, kinda don’t want to go to jail, so I thought I’d get moving on this.”

  “Have you uncovered anything new?” She was seated on the old trunk, and he took a place beside her. Oscar half-expected Sally to move away, but she did not. Still, she didn’t answer him.

  After several moments, the silence grew awkward. Oscar didn’t do awkward silences. He took her hand. Sally did not pull away, nor did she look at him.

  “We did it, you and me, yesterday.”

  Oscar gave her hand a squeeze. “I was there. It was quite exquisite.”

  Sally sighed and faced away. “You probably think I’m some kind of slut. But I’m not that kind of girl.”

  “You are not the kind of girl who is comfortable being as sexy as you are. I understand. There is a fear there, of your own sensuality. It has been my life’s goal to seduce beautiful women—”

  She quickly rose and paced away. “I’m not beautiful, I’m not sexy.”

  “I can no more change the way you feel about yourself than you can hide your sensuality. You are a desirable woman. To me, a most desirable woman.”

  “How do I know you aren’t saying these things to get into my pants?” Finally, she met his eyes. “Look, I’m not good with guys. That’s fine, I accept that. But when I do find a guy, I don’t want to be just one of his girlfriends.”

  A sense of amusement floated through Oscar, though he kept his features still. She was trying to let him down easy. This rebuff was a novel sensation for him. Very well. Sally could have it her way. At least, for the time being. “I understand. You experienced a moment of passion due to your extreme stress. It happens. You are in trouble, and we need to work together to get you out. ¿De acuerdo? Agreed?”

  Her eyes searched his for several heartbeats. Finally, her frame sagged, tension leaving her shoulders. “Yeah. I was just reading through the rest of the second diary.”

  Oscar was happy enough to see her relax for now. “Very well. I need to furthe
r examine these deeds and other documents. Something is not sitting right.”

  For the next several hours, Oscar poured over the paperwork. Occasionally, he used the camera or the calculator on his cell phone. Sally continued reading through the second diary. It was not long before they both came to the end of their study. Sally did so with a gasp.

  “What is it?”

  With a shaking hand, she held the leather book out to him. Oscar took it, his feline senses telling the story even before his human brain took in the details. The last quarter of the book was stuck together with a crumbling, rusty brown substance. Long-dried blood, his jaguar confirmed. Oscar saw black smudges on the facing page, and tiny burned holes in the paper. His cat scented the long-ago-spent gunpowder.

  From the floor, he lifted the death certificate, finding the date one day after the final entry in the diary. It was in essence, a suicide note of a single line:

  I cannot go on like this.

  Oscar set the diary on top of the trunk. “What was it that brought him to this state?”

  Hugging herself against shudders, Sally closed her eyes. “I’m not sure. He was cured of his disease, even though the doctors said he had only months to live. But his medical bills forced him to sell the orchard. Prohibition closed his bar. He was broke. But at the same time, he had a baby on the way, a woman he loved.”

  “But also a man who wished to kill him for taking the woman. And, as we see, this death was not so permanent.”

  “How can you fake your death with a gunshot to the head?”

  Oscar shrugged. “He was a shifter. Perhaps he knew the moon would revive him. You mention his illness—he may have had a doctor friend who signed the death certificate so that he might flee to a safer life with his woman and child. Whatever the means, this was not his end.”

  Sally closed her eyes and shook her head. “How does any of this help us? The cops aren’t going to believe any of this stuff. I hardly believe it myself.”