Chapter 4 #2
Her hands went to his shoulders, encountering the soft leather of his jacket. It was smooth and buttery under her fingers, and it radiated the heat of the man beneath. She wanted it out of the way. She wanted to feel his skin, to run her hands over him and learn his contours and shapes.
She pushed at the leather, and it moved as he shrugged, helping her rid him of the jacket. First, one shoulder, then, the other was relieved of the jacket, and she was able to feel his warmth through the thin fabric of his shirt.
A sound registered, just barely, in the back of Shelly’s mind as Mark drew back slightly. She didn’t want his lips to leave hers and tried to follow, but he moved out of her reach, leaving her…yearning toward him.
And then, sanity returned.
What the hell had just happened?
The loud sound of a throat clearing finally penetrated her fogged brain. She slid away from Mark and moved to put a good five feet between them. Looking around, she saw Attila the Bodyguard eyeing them both with exasperation, his mouth in a tight, grim line.
“Lunch is ready and waiting in the kitchen,” Nick said in his gruff voice.
“I’ll be outside with the rest of the security detail.
Try to remember to eat, okay?” He stalked his way back to the front door and let himself out with one last significant look at his boss that Shelly found hard to interpret, though she suspected Nick wasn’t happy for some reason.
He probably didn’t like her as much as she didn’t like him. Fine with her. She didn’t have to put up with his bad attitude. If she took the job, she’d be working for Mark, not his rude friend. Right?
She tried to placate herself with that thought as she led the way into the kitchen.
She was curious to see what they’d brought.
Since Mark was some kind of big cat, did he eat raw meat or something equally repulsive?
She wanted to giggle nervously at that thought but kept silent as the wafting scents and aromas finally penetrated her senses.
It smelled like meat, but definitely not raw. No, this smelled more like some kind of roasted chicken with savory herbs. Her mouth started to water as she drew closer to the steaming platters Nick must’ve laid out for them.
“Wow.” She didn’t seem to be able to filter her thoughts or words around Mark. She’d have to work on that. She didn’t like sounding like a moron.
Mark didn’t hesitate. He went right over to the island that separated the kitchen from the dining space.
There were comfy stools on the dining room side of the island, and Nick had set the platters of food out on the service side.
There was a roasted chicken, as she had suspected, but also a dish of crisp green salad and a selection of vegetables.
All gourmet quality and as far from the rubber chicken of last night’s event as it was possible to get.
“This looks delicious,” she said, just staring at the platters of food. There was a lot there. “I just usually grab a bowl of cereal. This is way more elaborate than I can manage on my own. I’m not much of a cook.”
And now, she was babbling. Great. What was it about Mark Pepard that turned her into a ninny?
“I had my chef prepare this for us. She’s good with packing things up picnic style, because I move around a lot and eat on the go often.
She ends up catering most of my business meals.
” Mark grabbed a plate—something Nick had also laid out from the bags he’d brought in—and started filling it.
“Nick usually insists we bring our own food, since there was an incident a few years back with an attempt at poisoning me. I smelled the poison right off, so there was never any real danger, but Nick does worry that my enemies will find something I can’t detect.
He says it’s safer to just have Marie cook all my meals since she’s a trusted member of the Clan.
I don’t argue because I love her cooking. ”
The idea of Mark having enemies was real to Shelly after last night’s adventure, but it still appalled her to think someone had tried to poison him.
That just seemed…low, somehow. It was one thing to come after someone with a knife or a gun, face to face.
It was another to poison their food like some sort of ambush.
The sneakiness of it disgusted her, but she tried not to let her reaction show as she picked up the second plate Nick had set out.
“I can see why,” she answered his statement, firmly not saying the thoughts foremost in her mind this time. “This smells divine.”
Mark was everything charming and urbane while they shared the gourmet meal in her kitchen. He complimented the design of the open-concept floor plan she’d devised for this part of her home. He also proved that he’d done his homework overnight and learned more about her past projects and clientele.
Some of the things she’d worked on had been declared private—not for public discussion—by her clients, and Mark even knew about those.
His sources for information seemed to be top notch, and he even had photos of some of her more elaborate jobs on his phone.
He showed them to her as he referenced architectural points, and she realized he knew a lot more about design than she’d expected.
They could actually have a fairly high-level conversation about the nuts and bolts of her work.
He’d asked her about some of the calculations she’d made on certain structures, and she remembered vaguely hearing that he had some kind of engineering background.
Apparently, that hadn’t just been something to study in college, but rather, it seemed, a passion of his.
Huh. The billionaire playboy had hidden depths.
“Everyone I spoke to this morning sang your praises, and after looking more closely at your work and talking it over with you, I can see why,” Mark said as the technical side of the conversation wound down.
“I admit it was an impulse to ask you to do design work for me last night, but I’ve learned to trust my instincts, and after a little due diligence, I can see they led me in the right direction once again. ”
“Then, you were serious about hiring me?” She had thought about it all night long, wondering if maybe the claim hadn’t been some kind of ploy.
“I was serious when the offer was made, and I’m even more serious now.
I need a series of buildings planned for a new property I recently purchased.
It’s for the Clan. It will be built by, and for, my people, so their dual nature should be taken into consideration from the very beginning—in the design stage. ”
“You want me to create a number of buildings with people who can turn into big cats in mind?”
It sounded so ludicrous when she said it out loud, but she could no longer doubt the evidence she’d seen last night.
He’d been a cat. A jaguar. They came from South America, didn’t they?
She wasn’t sure what they called a person who could turn into a jaguar.
She’d never in a million years imagined such a thing could exist in the world she knew.
“Shifters,” he told her. “In general, anyone who can go from human to another form—usually an animal form—is called a shifter. Here in North America, and in Western Europe, they’re also known as were.”
“Ah. That explains the term werewolf, I guess.” She shook her head, barely believing she was having this conversation, but if Mark said it, she was pretty sure it was true. So far, he hadn’t lied to her in any way, and he had a reputation for being ruthlessly honest—a rarity among big businessmen.
“I’m Alpha of the Jaguar Clan. Most of my brethren have the tawny spotted coloring you might be familiar with, but I’m one of the few black jaguars in our Clan.
The spots are still there, just hard to see most of the time.
Makes me an excellent night stalker.” He didn’t sound boastful, just stating facts.
“Our origins are South America, so we have a slightly different style of government than some of the other big cat shifter species.”
“There are others?” she whispered, sipping the excellent wine he’d brought to serve with lunch.
“Many others. The lions have a king. The panthers have a queen they call the Nyx. The tigers have a white tiger as their king, whom they call the Tig’Ra.
There are others, but those are the few who are active in this region and are business associates of mine.
You might meet them at some point,” he added casually, as if her meeting shifter royalty was an everyday occurrence.
“As…Alpha…are you on par with those others who call themselves kings and queens?” she dared to ask.
He shrugged. “Probably. Like I said, we don’t use the same style of government as they do.
Our lineage and rules of conduct go back to the Mayan culture.
The panthers and tigers, at least, only trace their societal organization back to Renaissance Europe.
I’m not sure about the lions. They had some catastrophe in Africa that led to an Irish-American off-shoot of the family taking over the whole shebang a few years ago.
It’s all pretty complicated, and each of us tends to try to keep details of our affairs within our own Clans.
” He tossed back the rest of the wine in his glass.
“But, yeah, I lead all the jaguars. The ones that are left.” A sad expression passed over his handsome face.
“There used to be a lot more of us, but now…” He sighed and shook his head, dispelling the sorrow that had come to him.
“We’re rebuilding,” he stated firmly, his mood more positive.
“Which is why I’m creating a special place just for the Clan.
It’s what I’ve been working so hard to build.
And I want you to help me make it a reality. ”