Phantom Warriors: Linx (8 page)

Linx's
big body melted over hers and his warm spicy scent filled her nostrils. He took
a deep breath and his chest rumbled in what could only be described as a loud
purr.

"Mine."
He gently kissed the side of her neck.

Tabby's
heart jumped. It was one thing for someone to cry out in the heat of passion.
It was quite another for them to say endearments after the fact. What had she
gotten herself into? She, Tabby Shelley, had just had unprotected sex with a
stranger. She'd obviously lost her mind. Or maybe it was the stress of dealing
with Sergei and Taylor? Whatever the reason, she needed some serious questions
answered, but they'd have to wait until they got out of here. "We'd better
hurry. We’ve already been here too long."

*
* * * *

Linx
reluctantly slipped out of her. He didn't want to. Already he could feel his
body twitching as it slowly came back to life. In another few minutes, he'd be
ready to take her again.

Tabby
shimmied out from beneath him. She picked up her underwear. Frowned,
then
dropped it back onto the ground. She climbed onto the
stage to get her clothes and dressed quickly. Linx noticed she didn't look at
him.

Again,
not the response he was used to getting from most women after he’d made love to
them. But Tabby wasn't like most women. She was stubborn, obstinate…and
adorable.
The kind of woman that would make a good
mate
.

The
word didn't bring panic like it used to.
Odd, that.
He
eyed Tabby closely. Was she? Could she be? There’d be plenty of time to find
out the answer once they finished their mission.

He
hadn't removed his clothing, so it took but a moment for him to once again be
fully dressed. Tabby still wouldn't meet his gaze as she switched on the
flashlight and made her way across the club.

"His
office is back here somewhere." She didn’t check to see if he'd followed.

Linx
didn't care for the change in her demeanor. He could sense her pulling away.
And that was something he could not allow. Linx had no intention of letting
Tabby go. Not until he knew for sure. The sooner she understood that, the
better.

* * * * *

Chapter Six

Sergei’s office turned
out to be nothing like the gaudy club. It was neat, organized, and empty of
anything incriminating. Tabby had searched the place twice, even going so far
as to knock on all the walls and the floor to see if there were any hidden
compartments. Other than a Glock and a shotgun, which weren’t illegal, there
was nothing that could be used against him.

“We have to go,” Linx
said.

“I know. Just let me
look through the filing cabinet one more time,” Tabby said.

Linx stopped her before
she could open the drawer. “You’ve already searched it twice. There is nothing
here.”

Angry tears filled her
eyes. “There has to be. I know he’s dirty. I know it.”

Linx’s expression
softened and he caressed her face. “You’re right, but he is smart enough not to
get caught so easily. We’ll have to think of something else.”

“Like what?” Tabby
slumped down into Sergei’s chair. “I thought for sure that he was hiding
something here.”

“We could always kidnap
your sister.” He grinned at her.

“Then what?” A lone
tear slipped down her cheek before Tabby could scrub it away. “There will be
nowhere on Earth that we could hide.”

Linx gave her a strange
look that Tabby couldn’t begin to decipher. “I may be able to help in that
regard.”

“Oh yeah, you have a
Bond villain hideout that we can use?” she asked.

“No, but I have
something far better. I know of a place where Sergei would never look, could
never find,” he said.

Tabby wished that
magical location truly existed, but she was a realist. “Sergei and his network have
eyes everywhere. It’s the nature of their business.”

Linx stared at her. “Not
everywhere,” he said, but didn’t expand upon his answer.

They put everything
back in place, until it looked as if they’d never been here. “Let’s get out of
here.” Tabby glared at the empty office. For the first time, she was worried
that there was no way to defeat him.

*
* * * *

"Boss, you'd
better come see this," Boris said.

Sergei
Belovich
rose from his booth and followed his bodyguard to
the back of the club. "What is it?"

Boris pointed at the
back doorknob. "Viktor brought this to my attention after his daily walk
around."

Sergei leaned over and
looked at the knob. There was no mistaking the scratches on the door or what
they meant. "Has anything been taken?"

"Doesn't look like
it," Boris said. "I'm about to check the video now."

Sergei glanced at him
and back at the door. Those marks showed the signs of an amateur, but he'd been
in this business too long to take anything for granted. It’s why he’d recently
installed the recording system. "Let me know what you find."

"
Da
, boss," Boris said.

Sergei strolled back to
his booth and ordered another drink. The music in the club changed and Taylor
came strutting out on stage. He sat back and sipped his whiskey as she took to
the pole like she was born for it. Her lean hips swayed as she performed a bump
and grind just for him. Sergei felt his shaft begin to harden. If the club
wasn't
busy, he'd take her right here in the booth, when she
finished her dance. Taylor would let him. It was one of the things he liked
about her.

Boris came tearing out
of the back office, his eyes wide and sweat pouring off his face. He wheezed,
then
took a gasping breath.

Sergei sat up
straighter. "What's the matter?"

"The tape."
He heaved another breath. "You're never going to believe what's on the
tape."

Sergei surged to his
feet, Taylor already forgotten. He followed Boris into the back office and sat,
rolling his chair over to the video screen.

"Watch this."
Boris hit play. “You won’t believe it. I still don’t trust my eyes.”

A man appeared on the
screen,
who
seemed to blend with the shadows. He stood
in the darkness next to someone else,
then
he dropped
down off the stage and took a seat. A woman came forward a minute later and
touched the pole. "Is that
..?
"

"Just keep
watching," Boris said.

The woman started to
sway seductively, doing a striptease to rival the pros. But that wasn't what
surprised Sergei the most. No, it was what the woman did next that had his
eyebrows disappearing beneath his hairline.

"She's fucking
him," Boris said.

"I can see that!"
Ms. Prim, neat, and proper was really a hellcat underneath. Sergei should've
known. It was always the righteous ones who had something to hide. "Can
you get the image cleaned up? I want a clear shot of her face."

"
Da
, boss."

"
Horohsho
!”
Good.
Sergei sat back and grinned as the
woman rode the man. “I want the cleaned up copy of the video back here by
three. Send the boys to pick up Tabitha Shelley. She has some explaining to
do."

Boris left.

Sergei continued to
watch the video. He was just about to turn it off, when the man looked up at
the camera. His eyes glowed red like twin coals stoked in a fire. Cold washed
over Sergei. It had to be a trick of the low lighting or the recording
equipment. Human eyes didn't glow like that. Only predators and evil glowed
like that. He thought about Boris's earlier rants about the man being inhuman.
He'd dismissed it as superstition, but something had spooked his bodyguard.

As Sergei stared at the
screen, he finally understood why.

* * * * *

Tabby finished up her
shift at the library. Fortunately, it had been a busy day thanks to a rush of
students in to study for their midterms. She'd been grateful for the chaos. It
kept her mind off what had occurred last night. Between breaking into the club
and becoming an exhibitionist, she'd sunk to a new low.

She still couldn't
believe that she'd stripped for a total stranger and then had sex with said
stranger. At the time, it had felt so natural, like Linx wasn’t a stranger at
all, but in the cold light of day, the situation seemed like something else
entirely.

Tabby wasn't a reckless
person. She didn't do reckless things. She knew she was damn lucky that Linx
was disease free. He’d been affronted when she’d asked…until he saw how much
the answer meant to her. Maybe digging Taylor out of so many binds had finally
caused her to snap. That might explain some of her behavior last night, but not
all.

The sun blinded her as
she walked to her car. She'd left Linx sleeping in his hotel room this morning
and went to work. He’d insisted that she stay last night and she’d obliged, not
wanting to go home to her broken front door.

Tabby knew she was a
coward for sneaking out, but she just couldn't bring herself to face him. She
was too embarrassed. She was still trying to come to grips with how she felt
about Linx and this new unexpected side of herself, when Tabby ran into Alexei Vazov
and Viktor Galdin. This time there was no getting away.

* * * * *

Linx awoke to a cold
bed. Tabby was gone. He'd known it before he opened his eyes. Her sweet scent
was already fading, which meant she'd been gone for a while. He rolled over and
groaned, throwing his arm over his eyes to ward off the sunlight.

Last night had been...
unexpected
. He hadn't really been
looking for anything other than a distraction. Tabby had certainly provided that
and more. Even now he wanted her—and not just for sex. Though he wanted
that, too. His little Tabby cat had somehow sunk her claws into his skin and
there was no getting her out.

His lips twitched at
the irony of finding a woman who didn’t really want anything to do with him.
Linx closed his eyes. If he concentrated, he could still see Tabby prancing
across the stage and swinging around the pole. When she'd crawled toward him on
her knees, it had been his undoing. It had taken every fiber of his being to
not lunge for her.

She'd surprised him
again, when she'd straddled his thighs and demanded his cock. When a woman does
that, a sane man doesn’t say no. Linx was Phantom enough to give her what she
wanted. He just hadn't expected to get caught in the process.

Linx was honest enough with
himself to know that he hadn't really tried to get away. He smiled and reached
for her pillow. He pulled it to his face and inhaled. Her scent was still
there, lingering like a pleasant dream.

He wondered what she
was doing. Where had she gone? Was she thinking about him, too?

His stomach growled.
Linx was hungry. Once he devoured Tabby again, they could decide where to go
eat.

* * * * *

Alexei and Viktor drove
Tabby to the club and parked around back. Alexei pulled out a cellphone and
made a quick call. A minute later the back door opened. Boris gave her an odd
look,
then
stepped aside so they could enter.

They escorted her to
the same office she and Linx had searched. Tabby's stomach dropped and it
became difficult to breathe, when she saw Sergei sitting behind his desk
grinning like a boa in a mouse nest.

"Tabitha, Tabitha,
Tabitha, you are a woman filled with surprises," Sergei said.

Someone whimpered.
Tabby turned to see her sister, Taylor sitting in the corner. Her makeup was
running down her face and there were signs of a bruise starting to form on her
cheek. She rushed forward, only to be stopped short by Viktor.

Tabby straightened and
faced Sergei. "What did you do to her?"

He didn't answer.
Instead, he kept his attention on a video screen. "You know, when I came
into work today my men told me that someone had tried to break into the club. I
didn't think much of it, until I saw the video."

Tabby felt the blood
drain from her face. "What video?"

He hit play. Tabby saw herself
walk out onto the stage and within minutes begin to dance. Linx sat in the
front row of seats, watching.

Sergei glanced her way,
before his gaze slid back to the screen. "I had no idea that you were so
talented. I suppose it runs in the family, right?"

Taylor sniffled.
"You should've left it alone, Tab."

"With moves like
these, it makes me think I picked the wrong sister to work at my
establishment," Sergei said. "Had I known you wanted to dance so
badly, I would've given you an audition.” He pointed at the screen. “Maybe I
can have him watch again. He really brings it out of you.”