Outfoxed by Love (Kodiak Point Book 2) (6 page)

Jan’s
been with other men.

The air practically whooshed from him at Jan’s admission
. The revelation hit Boris harder than a well-aimed fist to his gut. In the years he’d fought to ignore her, to pretend he didn’t feel the same attraction, he’d assumed so much. Assumed for example that she did wait on him and him alone. Assumed she didn’t look at or touch another. But as her words filtered, jealously burned, bright and hot. “As if I care who you’re dating.”
Tell me who and I’ll strangle him with my bare hands.

“
Dating?” She laughed. “I don’t know if I’d call it that.”

“
Seeing someone stead then.”

“I’m not
seeing anyone at all. Haven’t for a while.” She shrugged. “As a woman, I have needs and I’m not ashamed to satisfy them with whoever’s handy. Sometimes I’ll keep him around for a while if he’s good. Other times, I just take what he offers then move on.”

He
might need help picking his jaw off the floor. “You’ve been sleeping around?”

“Not really sleeping. Oh
, don’t tell me you’re shocked. What did you expect? You made it clear for years I was mistaken about you. Did you really think I’d stay a spinster forever? Or that I’d really spend all my time mooning over the picture I have of you?”

Startled, he said, “You have a picture of me?”

“Yes I do but don’t change the subject. I have a healthy sexual appetite, and the fact you refuse to satisfy it doesn’t mean I went hungry. Besides, don’t tell me you are purer than newly fallen snow. I hear you’re quite the lady’s man when you go into the city with your buddies.”

She heard about that? Heat suffused his cheeks, a heat he’d not felt in years.
Surely not embarrassment? What did he have to feel ashamed about? It wasn’t as if he owed her anything. And yet, he still found himself defending his actions. “That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because I’m a man.” Yeah. He went there. But, in his defense, he didn’t grunt or scratch when he said it.

Didn’t matter.
She acted as if he did. A disdainful snort scrunched her perfect features, and damn her if she still wasn’t gorgeous.

“You’re a
prehistoric cave moose, and I’m done having you judge me. If you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do.” She turned her back on him, dismissing him.

As if there was anything better than doing
him.

Good thing he didn’t say that aloud. Even in his head, it screamed sexual innuendo.

Unsure of a reply, he should have fled, but that smacked too much of letting her win, given she’d tossed the last words.

So he stood there, trying to think of something clever to say that didn’t scream
, “I’m a dick”. Probably too late.

He tracked her with
his gaze as Jan went to the filing cabinet in the corner of the room and bent over. Her ass thrust into the air, her dress slacks hugging the rounded curve of her buttocks, fixating him. Rousing him.

Unfair!
How dare she play dirty and tease him like that?

Boris
couldn’t have said how he ended up across the room behind her. All he knew was, when Jan straightened and whirled with a gasp, she stood in his space, close enough for him to smell her sweet perfume.

H
e couldn’t resist.

With less
-than-gentle hands, he grabbed her about the waist and hoisted her to his lips.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice low and husky.

“Getting the last word in,” he murmured against her mouth. Then he took her lips, branding them with a kiss, determined to erase the memories of those who’d touched them before.

She’s mine.

For once, he didn’t refute the claim. For once, he reveled in the thought. Allowed it to override common sense.

He pressed her closer, molding her body to his
, every sweet curve, curves he’d dreamed of. As his lips devoured hers, he forgot his reasons for staying away or even the fact he’d begun the embrace to get even.

Until she bit him.

With a curse, he pulled back. “What the fuck was that for?”

“I never gave you permission to kiss me,” was her prim reply.

“Since when do I have to ask?”

“
Since I decided you’re right, you’re not the man for me. Now, if you’ll unhand me, I have work to do.”

He almost echoed the mournful mental bellow of his moose as
he released her, her warmth fleeing as she stepped away.

For a moment, he almost reached out to tuck her back.
Almost. In that moment, he might have done something foolish had she given him the slightest encouragement.

She didn’t. In fact, s
he didn’t deign to look at him or address him as she returned to her desk. The vixen dismissed him in spite of the fact her lips were full and red from their embrace. She ignored him as if he couldn’t scent the perfume of her arousal.

She desires me and yet she pushed me away.

Exactly what he wanted, so why did it piss him off?

With a grumbled curse,
Boris spun on a heel and left. Forget the reason why he’d come to the office in the first place. He couldn’t stay another minute. Not if he wanted to retain what little sanity he had left.

Ha.
Too late.
It was obvious he wasn’t working with a full deck, or he would have never kissed her in the first place. Or second. Heck, if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up with a hat-trick.

Not if I can avoid her.

And he did. Boris stayed away from the tempting vixen. He volunteered for all the patrols guarding the clan from rogue intrusions. Accompanied as many truck runs into the city as he could. He stayed well away from the vixen, all under the guise of helping the clan out. In reality, he was hiding.

Yeah, he hid, mostly
from his own feelings, but he was also protecting Jan … from him.

His dreams took on a frightening twist. The nightmares of the time he
’d spent while in the ‘tender’ care of his captors overseas now featured Jan. Jan in their clutches. Jan screaming in pain and terror. A Jan he couldn’t save, just like he couldn’t save so many of his friends and fellow soldiers.

He awoke from those ghastly nightmares clicking
an imaginary gun, a cold and clammy sweat bathing his body. No matter his desire for her, he couldn’t subject her to this. Jan deserved a man less broken. A man she could sleep with at night.
A better man than me.

Altruism sucked.

His mission to avoid the perturbing vixen was going well until one Saturday, when she should have been anywhere but the office. As he left Reid’s inner sanctum, he practically ran her over.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped, caught off guard and not liking it one bit. His racing heart had little to do with
shock but everything to do with her. He quenched his need for her, a thirst that almost drove him insane, by taking in her appearance.

Dressed casually in jeans and a clingy sweater, even at her most relaxed, Jan exuded elegance.
It was hard to reconcile the current Jan with the feisty vixen he’d encountered in the wild a few weeks back. There were times he wondered if he’d imagined the rougher, more capable Jan.

“
What do you mean, what am I doing here? I work here.”

“It’s the weekend
,” he pointed out.

“And we have a shipment scheduled to arrive. I
wanted to be on hand since Gary’s home sick and unable to itemize the stock.”

How delicious and perfect she looked, her smell still so utterly tantalizing. He wanted to rub his face in the silky softness of her hair.
Butt his head against her in affection. Claim those pink—

A mental shake freed him from the direction of those thoughts, and he dropped his gaze
, lest he get mesmerized by her again. But it wasn’t her eyes that snared him but a bulge at her side, hidden by her top.

What’s this?

Without thinking or asking, he reached out to lift her shirt for a peek.

She slapped at his hand
. “Excuse me, but what do you think you’re doing?”

S
hocked at her action, he withdrew his hand and said, “You slapped me.”

“It’s usually the correct response when a guy tries to cop a feel.”

“I wasn’t copping a feel.”

“Says the guy who was trying to stick his hand up my shirt.
Count yourself lucky I left my knife in my coat, or you might have lost some fingers.” She said it with a smile, but surely she didn’t mean it.

Did she?

Jan threatening bodily harm. It shouldn’t have been a turn-on, and yet, as with everything else about her, it was. He tried to keep his mind on track. “Is that a gun you’re hiding under there?”

“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate
, instead completing his action, raising her sweater high enough to show him the supple fabric holster strapped against her skin, the butt of a pistol peeking from it.

Say what you would, but a woman wearing a gun was sexy
, and Jan sporting one, nestled against her creamy skin? Boris swallowed hard.

One good thing about his ridiculous obsession with Jan?
He was saving a ton of money lately with all the cold showers he was taking. “Why are you wearing a gun?”

“Because
, despite the lack of recent attacks, a girl can never be too safe.”

“I’ve never seen you wear one before.”

She shrugged. “It depends on my outfit. Some accommodate it without ruining the line. With other ensembles, it’s better to have the gun in my purse. Given there’s not a lot of folk around on a Saturday, I thought it best to keep it handy. You never know when you might have to shoot a varmint.”

And yes, she stared right at him as she said it.

“Good idea.”

“I’m so glad you approve,” was her sarcastic reply.

“I guess I should go.” He said it; he just didn’t move.

“You should.” She didn’t move either.

In silence they regarded each other, a taut standoff that could explode if not treated with care. It figured she’d be the one to pull the pin holding his emotional grenade in check.

She didn’t say a word
; she didn’t have to. Her lips curved into a knowing smirk, one that said, ‘I know you want me, you yellow-bellied moose’.

D
amn her, he did. And damn her, he couldn’t stop himself from a sudden need to wipe that smirk away, and what better way than with his mouth?

So much for keeping his distance.
He yanked her into his arms and plastered his lips against hers, a man starved for her touch and feeding the hunger only she could sate.

A kiss.
Only a kiss. The most deadly kiss he’d ever known.

Once again, reason, excuses, everything got swept away in the taste of her.
The feel of her. His need for this vixen.

If only she would protest his manhandling of her. Or push him away.
Something. Anything to stop him, because Boris was too weak to resist. The rebels and their torturous methods could have taken lessons from Jan because she killed him, not with violence or pain but gentleness and acceptance.

His hands, gripping her waist
, skimmed upward, sliding under the hem of her shirt, the silky smoothness of her skin like cashmere against his calloused fingertips. The hitch of her breath was surely the sexiest sound on this earth.

He reveled in the embrace. How he’d missed and longed for this closeness. How he’d missed her witty repartee, her scent, her—

The opening of a door provided the rude awakening and reminder they were in a public place, doing things he’d vowed never to do, not even in private.

He separated from her
as rapidly as possible, but not quick enough to miss the mirth-filled gaze of Reid, his alpha.

“Should I come back later?” Reid asked with an arched brow.

Before Boris could reply, Jan did. “No. We were done here. Boris was just leaving.”

I am
?

Yeah, he was.
But not because she said so. He had other things to do. Important things he was sure to recall once he unscrambled his flustered mind. “I’ll see you later.” He didn’t specify who because he might have lied and said Reid, when in reality the one he wanted to see was Jan.

Yes, I’d love to see her.
Naked and in my bed.

Thank fuck for the cold temperature outside
. It helped to cool his ardor as he emerged from the building. Standing in front of the company headquarters, he took a few deep, calming breaths.

What the fuck happened to me in there?

Was he doomed to kiss the damned woman every time he went near her? If that was the case, he’d really have to work harder on avoiding her.