“I’m sure I could stand a lot of excitement, especially with you, Zoe Bright,” he said as he cracked a lobster claw in his bare hands.
She smirked at him and then popped a piece of lobster in her mouth. She groaned and licked her lips. “This is delicious. You were right.”
“I’m right about a lot of things,” he said.
“Such as?” she said, taking another sip of wine.
“Stick around, and you’ll find out.”
They continued eating their lobster, with their taunting flirtation heavy between them. Rollo learned a bit more about Zoe’s childhood and that she had been poor growing up. Corey had been sending her money ever since he’d sold his first app, his first year of college. After she graduated high school, she’d had a living income from the money Corey sent her. After spending the majority of childhood in poverty in a small Midwestern town, all Zoe Bright wanted was to get out of there and see the world.
Rollo could tell that she felt inferior to her brother because of his genius and the fact that he was the kind of person that everyone revered. She on the other hand, had never been academic or particularly ‘talented’ at anything. That’s the way she described herself anyway.
Rollo could tell there was a glowing fire deep inside Zoe that burned like an inferno and filled her with internal strength beyond anything he’d ever seen before. He wanted to warm himself in the glow of her burning soul. If he could just get close enough. If she would just let him in.
But Rollo knew that Zoe was a criminal. The evidence was still circumstantial, but it all added up. If he had even one piece of physical evidence, he would arrest her right here and now. He would have no choice. But until he found the evidence, he would have to continue playing this alluringly sexy game with her.
When they finished their meal, Rollo paid and left a large tip before he and Zoe got up from the table. He led her out onto the big patio that looked out over the lake, and they stood against the railing, watching the last rays of the sun disappear behind the mountains.
“I’ve never seen a place as beautiful as Fate Mountain,” Rollo mused.
“I’ve been all over the world, but I know exactly what you mean. I wish I could stay here.”
“Why can’t you stay here?” he asked.
Zoe looked up at him anxiously and grabbed his arm, yanking him down the patio and away from the dining room entrance.
Chapter 7
Dima was here!
Zoe yanked Rollo away from the window the moment she saw Dima and his henchmen walk through the open doors into the dining room. Dima wasn’t supposed to be here yet. She had three more days until their delivery drop. What the hell was he doing in the lodge?
Was he following her? Was he angry?
People tended to get shot in the head when Dima was angry. Zoe’s heart beat a mile a minute as she dragged Rollo away from the dining room windows. She couldn’t let Dima see her. She couldn’t let Rollo see Dima. She couldn’t let anybody see anybody.
Thinking fast, she tried to come up with an excuse for why she dragged him all the way around the back side of the lodge and down the stairs toward the lake. It was dusk now and the porch and path lights around the lodge had already flickered to life.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked in a husky voice.
She had ahold of his forearm, but he grabbed her hand and forced her to hold it. She continued to lead him by the hand down the path towards the forest.
She had been to the lodge several times and knew the grounds fairly well. As a shifter, she had a kind of sixth sense for directions and remembered exactly which way to go. After a few minutes they were standing under the cover of ponderosa pine mixed with Douglas fir along a secluded path. The cool air from the lake swept down the path and goosebumps rose along her exposed arms.
Rollo held onto her hand and moved closer, sniffing the air.
“Zoe,” he whispered in her ear, his body growing closer by the second.
His hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her soft curves against his muscled flesh. She gasped, looking up at him as the moon rose overhead.
“Rollo,” she said, pushing against his chest.
“We’re both shifters, Zoe. There’s no reason to beat around the bush,” he said, pushing his erection against her throbbing sex. She groaned, wanting him so much deeper.
“I’m not ready for this,” she breathed.
“Why did you bring me out here?”
“I needed some air.”
“I don’t believe you,” he growled.
She didn’t think before she pressed her lips against his. A jolt of electric pleasure shot through her core and exploded in her brain, tightening her nipples into hard little buds. She groaned, tasting his tongue as it flicked between her lips. The liquid heat of their kiss washed over her skin, and she was enraptured by his touch. His hands roved her body, cupping her ass and pulling her against his stiff erection. She felt herself gush with need as their kiss deepened.
Rollo slid his hand along her thigh and under the hem of her dress, pushing upward until his fingers slid across the damp cloth between her legs. She shuddered, his fingers igniting the deep need, buried inside her. His fingers slipped under her panties, pushing through her wet folds until he pressed against her swollen clit. Zoe gripped the lapels of Rollo’s suit jacket, wanting him so much closer. His deft fingers worked her body, showing her exactly what he wanted.
Her pleasure built as Rollo kissed her harder. His fingers slid inside her, caressing her g-spot as his thumb focused on her tight bud. Zoe leaned her head back as she felt the flood of release rising over her. She moaned in the moonlight soaked forest and an owl hooted in reply. As she came, she felt her connection to Rollo solidifying. The invisible cords that bound them, strengthened with each throbbing contraction of her sex.
Rollo kissed her neck, moving his hands over her ass once more as he pressed his erection against her stomach. She knew he wanted her. She knew he wanted to claim her.
Zoe couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than the exact same thing. Pulling away from him was like ripping off her own limb. But she had to do it. Getting involved with Rollo now, with Dima already here in Fate Mountain would be an inexcusable mistake.
She’d only brought him out here to get away. Rollo couldn’t know she was connected to Dimitri Ivanov. She had to keep her involvement a secret from him just like the theft of the jewels and all of the other mistakes she’d made over the last three years. She stepped back from Rollo, her head in a daze and her body alive and calling out for more.
“Where are you going, little kitty?” he asked in a low, husky voice.
“I told you, Rollo, I’m not ready for this,” she said.
“You kissed me. I’m beginning to think you’re just a selfish lover,” he teased.
She leaned back into him, his scent filling her senses. She could not get enough of him. If he were to pick her up and take her now, she could not resist him. Part of her wished he would do it.
“I’m anything but a selfish lover,” she purred. “But you are going to have to be patient if you want to find out just how giving I really am.”
“When you put it that way, I guess I can let you go. For now,” he growled in her ear.
She stepped away, giggling nervously. She didn’t want him to let her go now or ever. But she knew that’s what had to happen for everyone’s safety. If Zoe ever wanted to be free of Dima, and the repercussions of what she had done, she had to keep her involvement with the Russian mafia a secret from Rollo.
He was the police commander. If he knew anything about what she had done, he’d throw her in jail and throw away the key.
Wouldn’t he?
Of course he would. He was a law enforcement officer, and he had the responsibility to uphold the law. And technically, Zoe was a criminal. There was no getting away from that fact. She had broken the law numerous times, and she would do it again if she had to, in order to buy her freedom from
Dima once and for all.
Maybe, just maybe, if she could ever pay off her debt to Dimitri Ivanov, she could start her life over again with Rollo. She would have to keep her past a secret from him for the rest of their lives, but that was a price she was willing to pay for true love.
The spark between them was new, but Zoe could tell that in time it would grow into a raging inferno. Rollo was everything she had ever wanted. If only she could have him.
“Will you drive me home?” she asked.
“I will,” he said with obvious reluctance.
He took her hand gently in his, covering her with his warmth. They walked quietly through the moonlit forest until they came back to the parking lot where his SUV was parked. He opened the door and helped her inside. She’d just taken a half mile hike in a pair of Louboutin pumps, and her calves were killing her. Zoe might be a shifter, but that didn’t make hiking in heels any easier. Next time she ran off into the forest with Rollo, she hoped they would both be naked.
She couldn’t get the image of her and Rollo running naked through the forest, out of her head the entire trip back to the Bright Institute for Shifters. When Rollo parked in front of the dormitory and opened the door to help her out of the car, they stood in the orange glow of the halogen street lamps above the parking lot.
In the silence of the night, they looked into each other’s eyes. She had not expected this evening to go this way. No, that was a lie. Zoe was a shifter, and she knew exactly what Rollo meant to her. She would be lying to herself if she couldn’t admit that she knew exactly where the night would go.
And now she was trapped. She hadn’t wanted to meet him for this very reason. She was physically and emotionally bonded to him already. She wanted him with every muscle, every nerve, every layer of her soul. He excited something inside her that she couldn’t express in human words. Her jaguar would not quit moaning and groaning, and constantly showed her images of Rollo sinking himself deep inside her softness.
He leaned into her and pressed a gentle kiss against her lips before he drew way.
“This was the best date I’ve ever had,” Rollo said.
“You have very low standards,” Zoe teased.
“On the contrary, I have extremely high standards. The only one I want is my fated mate. And that is you. Any date with you is the best date. The next one will be better than the last. I guarantee it,” he said in a seductive voice.
Zoe knew exactly what he was talking about. They both knew it, and they both wanted it. She knew that his grizzly was driving him mad, insisting that he sink his teeth deep inside her neck and claim her as his own.
Her jaguar wanted exactly the same thing. The animal drive inside a female shifter was exactly the same as that inside a male shifter. She wanted to claim him too. She wanted to ride his cock and slash his chest with her claws as he thrust himself inside her. She wanted to feel their mutual release as they tasted each other’s blood.
“Oh God,” Zoe muttered, reaching up on her tiptoes to kiss Rollo one more time before she pulled away and started toward the stairs.
“Good night,” he said behind her. “Until next time.”
She turned back to him, his body silhouetted by the lamplight behind him. “Until next time,” she breathed.
Zoe trotted up the steps to the dormitory of the Bright Institute for Shifters and slipped inside, her heart pounding like a maniac beating a drum. Confusion thrashed and her mind felt fragmented between her need for Rollo and her need to stay away from him.
Zoe had always been an independent, confident woman. And she didn’t intend to let that change one little bit. But Rollo did something to her that made her want to allow him to protect her. It made her want to tell him all her secrets.
But if she did, she could compromise it all. After their first kiss she knew now that, more than anything, she wanted to be with him forever. But she couldn’t allow herself to have it yet. Not with the threat of Dimitri Ivanov hanging over her head. She had to deal with him once and for all and finally be free before she could have Rollo and claim him as her own.
Chapter 8
Rollo let Zoe go for one reason only. He needed to see what she would do next. Rollo was the chief of police and had almost fifteen years of law enforcement and investigation experience. He was no fool. He had seen Dimitri Ivanov walk into the lodge. He’d smelled Zoe’s fear at the sight of him. Rollo had let her pull him away from the dining room window as soon as he realized that Ivanov was the central problem.
He returned to his SUV and immediately called Damien. Tech Bear answered the phone on the third ring with and anxious hello.
“Damien, I need you to do some research for me. I have new information on the jewel theft case. Find out if there is any connection between Zoe Bright and Dimitri Ivanov.”
“You suspect Zoe in this case?”
“I have a theory about what is going on here, and Zoe is part of it. I don’t have anything concrete yet. Just get me the information I need. And keep it quiet for now, Tech Bear,” Rollo said.
“On it, sir,” Damien said before he hung up the phone.
While he waited for Damien to return his call, he pulled out his cell phone and began researching Zoe himself. He looked up social media pages and scrolled through her feeds. He wanted to know what she had been doing before she arrived on Fate Mountain. Zoe had obviously been traveling for a long time, but where exactly had she been, just before arriving at the Bright Institute?
Rollo was disappointed to find that Zoe really wasn’t very active on social media and had only posted intermittently at best on her one social media page. In the timeframe he was most interested in, there was one picture of her in a bikini on what looked like a Mediterranean beach. He growled to himself, appreciating the sight of her curves under the bright blue sky. It only redoubled his determination to get to the bottom of her connection to Ivanov. Several minutes later, Damien called and Rollo answered.
“I’ve looked into Zoe Bright’s connection to Dimitri Ivanov. What I can find is that they were definitely in the south of France at the same time in the last three years. I’ve been able to trace several images of them together in what appears to be a romantic relationship.”
Rollo bristled at the thought of Zoe with a man like Ivanov. Or any man but him. He clenched his teeth and asked Damien to go on.
“It is unclear if Zoe Bright was ever involved with any criminal activity connected to Ivanov. I can’t find any criminal charges or any suggestion of criminal dealings in her past.”
“Thank you, Damien, that was exactly what I needed to know,” Rollo said.
“Anytime, sir,” Damien said.
Rollo was more convinced than ever that Zoe was the one who had broken into Caitlin Somerset’s mansion and stolen her jewels. What Rollo wasn’t convinced of was that Zoe was doing it on her own. He knew there had to be some other reason for his mate to be stealing jewels for a notorious mobster. She didn’t need the money because her brother had been financing her for years. Zoe might be a thrill seeker, but she wasn’t a bad person. She was not a thief at heart, and Rollo could feel that in his gut as clearly as any other thing he had ever known by instinct.
He had to protect her from Ivanov and from herself.
Rollo pulled out of the parking lot in front of the dormitory and circled around the back of the Bright Institute, parking on a ridge above the grounds. He took his binoculars out of his glove compartment. He knew something was up, and he doubted she’d be sleeping tonight. With Ivanov in town, she had to make a move. He was counting on it.
An hour later, his instinct proved to be correct. A dark figure emerged from the glass doors of the dormitory building and hurried down the steps into the parking lot. The tiny figure disappeared into the forest, but Rollo knew exactly who it was. He got back in his car, determined to cut her off at the pass.
Rollo drove down the road and turned onto the highway where he knew Zoe would soon emerge from the forest. He parked the car, turne
d off the headlights, and waited for long minutes, watching the stretch of highway in front of the Institute. Sure enough, a small figure crept from the woods not too long after.
Rollo turned on his SUV and flipped on his siren, catching her in his headlights. She stood up straight, her mouth dropping open. She abruptly turned and darted into the woods. Rollo jumped out of the car and took chase. He wasn’t going to let her get away. His strong legs heaved as he sprinted down the highway and dove into the forest. His heightened shifter eyesight could make out the form of her body darting between the tree trunks. Zoe was lithe and quick, but could not outrun him.
He caught up with her, grabbing her arm as she screamed to be let go. He forcefully twisted her around to face him in the darkness. His animal senses allowing him to see an infrared like picture of her face. She was panting and the waves of anxiety were rolling off of her as her heart crashed in her chest.
“Why are you chasing me, Rollo?” she said, feigning innocence.
“Zoe Bright, you are under arrest for grand theft and breaking and entering,” Rollo stated, turning her around and pressing her chest against a tree trunk.
“There has to be a mistake,” she whimpered.
He pulled her hands behind her back and cinched the metal handcuffs around her wrists.
“There’s no mistake, little kitty,” he said patting her down.
He felt a bulge in her jacket pocket and unzipped it, pulling out a velvet bag. It was tied with a drawstring which he quickly opened before dipping his hand inside. He felt the cool smooth surface of diamonds, pearls, and gold. It was exactly the same as the jewelry that had been taken from Caitlin Somerset.
“What do we have here?” Rollo said, shaking the bag of jewels near her ear.
“It’s not what you think,” she insisted.
“So why do you have Caitlin Somerset’s jewelry?” he asked.