“I don’t foresee any problems, kitty-cat. Follow me at a distance. Pick me up about a half mile past where I drop the Pathfinder off. Just watch the odometer and keep driving, and then pull over at the first good spot after you hit the half mile mark — or just before it, if you know there won’t be another opportunity for a while. Kill the lights and engine. Make sure the driver’s door is unlocked. Take the keys with you to the back, have a seat, and wait for me. When I get in, toss the keys so they land in the passenger seat, and stay in the back out of sight. Two people in baseball caps look suspicious.”
I gave her another kiss on the cheek. “It’s going to be fine. We dump the Pathfinder and go to my place. One of my brothers will incinerate the bags and clean the van.” Inside and out, but she didn’t need the details. I touched under her chin. “Emotion is something you can’t afford just yet. Let the tiger come forward a little more. Focus on your surroundings. There’ll be plenty of time for the luxury of emotions later.”
She pulled a breath in, blew it out, and nodded. Her scent evened out. The cat was stronger, the woman there, but no longer terrified.
“Sorry. I’m good,” she told me, and her brown eyes told me she could do this. For the first time, I realized she wore contacts. Cat shifters shouldn’t need contacts, but I couldn’t dwell on it just then. I needed to focus on finishing this without attracting attention.
“Follow at a distance,” she continued, “drive past where you stop, and wait. Escape if I have to. Yellow or green gas station. Hide. The MC will find me.”
“Good enough.” I started to leave, but I had to give a final reminder. “Hand to your face. Bill of the cap down. Bored. Tired. Not hiding.”
“Stealth. The tiger’s good at that. Let’s go already.”
I grinned, double-checked to make sure the knit cap covered me below the hairline, pushed the door in until the automated system caught and closed it quietly, and made my way to the Pathfinder.
Besides having no textiles inside, the van has no interior lights, it has a switch to turn off all exterior lights, and it has an add-on so the doors close automatically without making a sound. It’s one of the most popular models, so it doesn’t stand out. This makes it the perfect vehicle for doing illegal things, but it also means the driver is always suspected of doing something illegal when pulled over. Officially, we use it as a chase van. The sweetbutts follow the bikes in it on road trips, and we keep a ton of bike parts and tools organized in the back. If we’re camping, then that equipment is kept in the back, too.
I needed to stay on point while I drove across town — aware of security cameras so I could look away, conscious of staying away from traffic cams, which meant taking lesser used roads. In the back of my mind, I kept wondering why Kitty had called me instead of Bobcat or Mad Dog. Did she trust me more? Did I dare hope?
I parked the Pathfinder in a parking space to the side of a cheap, rundown apartment building smack dab in the middle of gang territory, put the keyring on the dash, and walked away from the vehicle with my hands in my pockets. Kitty’s apartment hadn’t been the first these guys had robbed tonight, because there was already a large flat-screen television, a laptop, and a gaming console in the back.
My gaze stayed on my feet, my hearing fine-tuned to make sure no one came close to me. Also, to make sure I didn’t hear someone racking a gun, or flipping the safety off. I walked to the narrow band of trees behind the apartments, followed them until I was behind neighboring apartments, walked towards the street, and saw the van parked up the road. Perfect.
Thankfully, I had no issues driving to the bike shop. A bay door pulled up as we pulled onto the lot. I killed the lights on the van, drove in, and the door closed behind me. No lights were on in the shop.
“Any problems?” Gears asked.
“No. Two bags for the incinerator, plus our clothes, and a full clean on the van. Inside and out.”
“I have two generic helmets on a client’s bike just outside the door. Ride it to the clubhouse, and someone will bring it back in a few hours. Helmets stay on until you’re inside. We’ll get Kitty home tomorrow without anyone knowing she was here. I need the burner you used. It gets incinerated too.”
I’d put it into a signal blocking sleeve before we left Kitty’s apartment. The GPS was disabled on it, but it could still be triangulated down to about a mile using cell towers.
I walked to the back of the van with the bag from the passenger floorboard, sat beside Kitty, put the bag on the floor between us, and started disrobing, shirt first, which went straight into the bag. “Clothes and shoes go in the bag before you exit the van. We’ll walk straight to the showers, get clean, put sweats on, and then ride to the clubhouse. You’ll have to see my apartment another time.”
She sighed, but pulled her clothes off without arguing.
And I had to work hard to keep from sporting a hard-on. I see her damned-near naked all the fucking time, but it took everything in me to keep from letting her know how badly I wanted to sink into her.
But then I breathed in and caught a whiff of longing from her. Not lust. Longing. She wanted comforting. It was only there a second, and then I scented the tiger. That was fine. I was happy she could hide behind the animal when she needed to.
I stepped out of the van, completely nude, and lifted her into my arms.
“I can walk.”
“I’m aware. I’m also sure you can shower by yourself, but I don’t intend to let you do that either.”
The bike shop has a large, communal shower in a locker room. The building was repurposed from a giant workout club, and we chose to keep one of the locker rooms intact. The other had been turned into a bike-wash room.
Kitty
I figured he’d turn the shower into sex, but he didn’t. He washed my hair. He washed my feet. He washed everything in between, but he didn’t focus on anything sexual. He just washed me.
I started crying when he conditioned my hair, and he pulled me to him and held me. “Crying is good, after the night you’ve had. You held it together and did what was necessary. I’m so proud of you.” His baritone voice rumbled and vibrated through my entire body. It always did, but naked in the shower with the water all around us, it felt intimate more than sexual.
My tears came harder, and harder, until I needed to blow my nose. He didn’t hurry me or rush me. He just held me. Eventually, he rinsed the conditioner from my hair, turned the water off, and sat on a dressing bench with me in his lap.
Squatch is huge. I’ve never asked him how big he is. If I had to guess, I’d say 6’7” and around three hundred pounds, but he isn’t fat. His nickname is short for Sasquatch. His hair is long, and before he shaved it off in my apartment, his beard was trimmed but still a touch scraggly. Most nights his hair is in a ponytail or under a little knit cap, but when it isn’t, you can easily see how he got his name. I’m 5’7”, so I’m not exactly small, but I feel tiny around him. After not feeling safe all night, in this moment, I knew nothing would hurt me.
When my tears finally slowed, I turned in his lap and wrapped my legs around him. He held me tight, chest to chest, but lifted my pussy up, away from his dick, which hadn’t grown hard.