A Tiger's Bride (A Lion's Pride Book 4) (10 page)

If a tiger could look surprised, then Dmitri’s did. She couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess the fact I was wearing your clothes made you not smell me coming. Too funny.”

His blue eyes didn’t appear amused.

And a few seconds later, neither was she.

A very naked Dmitri confronted her. How delightfully awesome. Slabs of muscle layered his arms and impressively wide chest. His torso narrowed at his hips, and he had a very interesting V that led down to—

Oh my. She averted her gaze and suddenly realized he was talking to her.

“Did you hear a word of what I just said?”

Should she lie? “No.” Then perhaps it was the cold, or the fact that she’d almost died, a few times, but she blurted out the reason why. “I was distracted by your body.”

His chest puffed out, and she noted the fur on it. Almost, she touched it.

“While your distraction is understandable, and appreciated, for future reference, I must point out that sneaking up on a predator of my caliber is foolhardy and dangerous. Don’t do that again. I could have accidentally hurt you.”

She snorted. “While I might not be as tough as my sister, I assure you I am not a delicate flower.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes. You. Are.” He glared at her.

She clamped her lips tight. Exactly why did she argue? She beamed. “Yes. I. Am.”

Funny how agreeing with him brought such a look of astonishment to his face. “Little kitten, you are constantly surprising me.”

“That’s good, I hope.”

“The best.” He took a step closer, and how he could stand there naked, in a freezing cold cave, and still emit heat baffled her. She drifted toward him, the warmth of his body a gravitational pull, the smoky interest in his eyes a blood-warming promise, the buzz in her pocket an unwelcome distraction.

“Why are the pants you gave me vibrating?” she asked, looking down at her thigh.

“Damn. I forgot I stuffed my phone in there.”

He groped her, not with erotic intent, alas, but on a quest for a cellphone that he pulled from the pocket with a triumphant aha, just as it stopped its buzz.

“The signal is weak, and my battery is low,” he noted, holding it aloft and peering at it. “I am surprised we have any signal in this cave.”

Teena would wager there usually wasn’t any signal, but since Murphy was determined to have her expire a virgin, it didn’t surprise her that he’d bent the rules and let the call interrupt.

What did shock her was that Dmitri headed back to the mouth of the cave and stood out on the ledge, naked in the buffeting wind.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling home, of course. I’ve only got one bar, but hopefully it is enough to—Sasha! My favorite sister. Yes, yes, I know you are my only sister, but that doesn’t mean you’re not my favorite.” He paced the small ledge as he spoke, his hands moving with as much animation as his face.

“Why am I talking in English? Because, for one, we are both fluent in it, and secondly, I am not alone, and it would be rude to converse in Russian.” He bobbed his head side to side. “No, I am not in enemy hands, being tortured, nor am I drunk.” His brows shot up. “I resent that. I only ever rolled in that field of catnip once. I learned my lesson.”

While Teena could only hear one side of the conversation, Dmitri’s replies made it easy to imagine. “Yes, I know my plane dropped off the radar. I was in it when it crashed.” He winced. “I’m obviously alive and surprisingly unhurt. I think my new wife is good luck.”

Wow, did he ever have a skewed idea when it came to chance.

A squeal made him pull the phone from his ear. When it died down, he put it back to continue his conversation.

“Oh, did I forget to tell you about my wedding? It was a lovely, intimate affair. No, there were no guns involved.” He grinned and winked at Teena. “Just drugs. But you’ll be glad to know that she’s fully conscious now and has yet to demand a divorce or make herself a widow. I think she likes me.”

Teena couldn’t help but giggle. It was true. She did like him. He was nuts. Impulsive. Totally sexy.
All mine.

“So, before you start haranguing me again like a fish wife in the market—I do so know what a fish wife is. Just because I don’t shop in the market doesn’t mean I’m not knowledgeable.” He went silent and rolled his eyes as a stream of words that she couldn’t make out burst from the phone.

“Sasha, you need to listen for a moment. I don’t know how long my phone will survive. I need you to come find me.” He paused to listen. “What do you mean where? I am right here.” He snickered at the rush of words that came from the phone. When it slowed down, he spoke again. “If I knew where here was, I wouldn’t be lost. Yes, I know I’m a smartass. What can I say? I was blessed with both the looks and intelligence in our family.”

Screech!
His sister didn’t take that one quietly.

Dmitri grinned, quite pleased with himself. “Sasha, enough of this chattering. I have to go. I think I see a bear. Or is that a lion? Rawr. No, I’m not kidding. My wife is a lion. And if you triangulate my cell signal and come fetch us, you can meet her before Mother gets her claws into her. Bye, little sister.”

He hung up on her mid sentence and then tucked the phone on a rocky shelf at the cave entrance, probably to ensure the best possible signal for their rescuers.

She decided she shouldn’t point out the flaws with him leaving it there. Given her history, they could expect a bird snatching it, a strong gust of wind carrying it, or a sudden earthquake sending it tumbling to smash on the rocks.

No need to destroy his optimism yet. If they did actually get rescued, he’d have plenty of time to regret getting hitched to her and to discover just how widespread her ill luck could get.

It took a special kind of man to ignore the way things constantly went wrong around her.

“Now that help is on the way”—he turned to her and clapped his hands together—“how about we get a fire going and begin the task of warming my bride?”

She could think of many ways to warm her. Not all them required actual fire.

“Let me fetch some wood.”

Once again, she took a page from her much dirtier-minded sister and let her gaze drop. She could almost hear Meena say, “Now that’s what I call some serious wood.” Indeed, her husband’s manparts seemed very happy to have her looking. To her wide-eyed gaze, his erection thickened, largely so.

Too large surely for… She peeked down at herself and blushed at his knowing chuckle.

“Fear not, little kitten. When the time comes, it will fit. Snugly. Perfectly.”

She swallowed.

He noticed, and was it possible for his smile to become even more devilish? “Stay here out of the wind while I fetch some kindling.”

“But you’re naked.”

“Then I best be quick.”

He was, darting down the rocky hillside with more agility than any human man possessed. He snapped off branches instead of foraging, their crack loud in the silent woods.

When he returned, after nearly making her heart stop as he precariously leaped and balanced on his poor bare feet, his arms laden with sticks, she said, “So how many parts are you going to lose to frostbite?”

He winked as he said, “I only have one blue body part, and it isn’t the cold threatening it.”

What a gift he owned for turning everything sexual. Or was it her reading innuendo into everything?

As he stacked branches at the cave entrance, she had to wonder if a fire was their smartest course. “Shouldn’t we worry about the guys who shot down our plane finding us via the smoke?”

“Worry? Never.”

“You think they’ll assume we died in the crash?”

“I hope not.”

“Excuse me?”

Dmitri paused in his placement of the sticks. He shot her a look, the hank of hair dropping over his brow managing to exude a wild elegance that ignored the fact he was kneeling naked in the freezing cold. “I am expecting them to come after us. I want them to. How else will I discover who has the nerve to attack me? How else will I retaliate?”

“But what if they outnumber us or have weapons?”

“A man likes a challenge. Now dig around in my pocket there, would you? I should have a keychain in there.

She located the cold metal and yanked it free. Dmitri took it from her as he strode past to the back of the cave. He returned with his arms cradled to hold a pile of crumbling leaves and brittle bones. He dumped them on his woodpile before he knelt again.

Dangling from his keychain was a cylinder. Wait, not a cylinder but a lighter.

Dmitri twisted the safety cap on the butane lighter and ignited it.

“You carry around a lighter? What for?” Most shifters had a healthy respect for fire. While most lived in civilized homes, some of their history had seen them fleeing before the voracious appetite of a flame. Because of this innate fear and respect of fire, most kept away from it.

Not Dmitri. He waved the flame over dried sticks, their surface damp with melting snow. “Aha, time for me to divulge a dirty secret. I used to smoke cigarettes when I was younger. It drove my mother nuts.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ew. Cigarettes smell.”

“Only to those who don’t smoke them.”

“Do you still smoke?”

“Not anymore.”

“You came to your senses about your health.”

He snorted. “No. I miss them every day. But I lost a damned bet to my mother, and she won’t allow a rematch.”

“What game did you play?”

“Tiger Is Coming, of course. I lay under that table we were playing at for almost two days trying to recover.”

“I can’t believe your mother outdrank you.”

“And soundly too. The woman was nursed on vodka.” Said with fond pride.

“Drinking has nothing to do with smoking, though, so I still don’t get why you keep a lighter around.”

“Because I also like to set things on fire.” He winked. “That’s something you’ll discover as soon as we manage to make it to a bed.”

“Why do we need a bed?”

“Because I will not take your virginity like some impatient youth on the floor of a dirty cave.”

Given the smells in the place, she could kind of see his point, but still, couldn’t he improvise? “What’s wrong with the wall?”

She’d wager it probably wasn’t often Dmitri was left speechless. Look at how cute he was with his jaw hanging open in disbelief.

“The wall is not a proper place to breach you the first time,” he finally sputtered.

“You know, in all the times my sister cursed and swore about you, she never mentioned the fact that you were a prude.”

“I am not a prude. Merely determined to make your first experience a memorable one.”

“And you don’t think having sex in a cave after having our plane shot down is memorable enough?” She arched a brow.

“No,” he growled.

He held his hands out to the flickering flame that struggled to burn the cold, and damp, wood.

Smoke curled from the pile, but given he’d made the fire at the entrance to the cave, it was sucked outside instead of in. What did radiate in was a feeble warmth.

Dumping the blankets from her shoulders, she placed them on the dirt-encrusted ground, sat, removed the sharp rock right under her left buttock, and then sat again.

Dmitri didn’t quite sit beside her. He sprawled on his back, head in her lap, and grinned. “Hello, little kitten.”

She frowned. “Hello?”

“Do you realize this is our honeymoon night?”

“No, it’s not. I slept through it on the flight over, remember? Needle. Ass. Snoring away.”

“That didn’t count. The honeymoon night is the first
conscious
night we spend together as a married couple.”

“And you just randomly decided this?”

“Not randomly. Quite deliberately.” How adorable his smug smile.

“So given this is our honeymoon night, does this mean you’ve given up on your whole needs-a-bed plan?”

“Only for certain parts. You know, there are other things we can do in preparation for the main event.”

“Really? Like what?” Virgin didn’t mean Teena couldn’t come up with some pretty good scenarios. Kissing, petting, skin-to-skin nakedness…

“We should get to know each other.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tell me about yourself. What is your favorite color?”

“Red.”

“Really? Mine is yellow, which I know seems quite odd, and yet I find it quite soothing.”

Who cared about her favorite color when all she wanted to know was what his lips tasted like.

I thought we already knew that answer.

Fine, she wanted a refresher.

“Are we really doing this?” she asked.

“Yes. And it’s your turn. Do you have a question?”

“How about how long do you figure before we make it to a bed?”