Framing Felipe, page 5
him.”
“You don’t like anyone,” Sarah responded.
“I like the ones who don’t talk back.”
“Like I said.” Now Sarah laughed in earnest. Typical Tamara. It’d been a running joke
amongst the Shrews. All of the Shrews were opinionated—that was part of their individual
constitutions, even before that research study whacked them out. But of them all, Tamara
had been born with the loosest filter. If something was on her mind, she said it. She held
nothing back. Maybe it was a side effect of her atypical upbringing in Romania, or maybe it
was just the way her brain was wired. She didn’t like being rebutted, which made her fairly
rude as far as receptionists went, but she was damned good at strategizing. That’s why
Dana kept her around. She planned to get the surly blonde off the phones as soon as they
found an applicant they trusted enough to be let in on their secret. Doc had someone in
mind.
“What did I miss while I was out tracking Mr. Castillo?”
“Well…” Tamara put her combat boot-‐shod feet up on the dashboard and crossed her
legs at the ankles. “We got some sketchy intelligence. Heard the bears have formed a loose
alliance with some other group who hold a grudge against the cats. That’s all we know. We
asked Billy who else could possibly be angry with them and he played coy, the idiot.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and slowed the pick-‐up so she could concentrate on steering
around the hidden booby trap. It wasn’t much of an obstacle, truth be told, but if an
unwelcome party wasn’t aware of it, they’d find their front tires stuck in deep ruts right
beneath a couple of surveillance cameras.
She glanced into the rear-‐view mirror and found Felipe’s expression had shifted from
one of bemusement to one of interest. Apparently, this discussion fascinated him. She
raised an eyebrow.
He winked.
FRAMING FELIPE – 29 – Holley Trent
She returned her attention to the path. “I’ll make Billy talk. Hate working with half-‐
assed information. I’m not going to keep sticking my neck out for these fur balls if they’re
not going to do us the solid of filling us in on the full back-‐story.”
Tamara blew out a breath. “Good luck. Both Dana and Patrick have issued enough
threats to the guy he should have pissed himself. I mean, good threats. I wrote some of
them down for later.”
“Qué coño…” Felipe murmured.
The Shrews ignored his distress.
Tam continued. “He just stood there with his usual dumb expression and said he didn’t
know anything. Is true he’s stupid, but he knows something.”
Sarah’s gut agreed. “I really do hope we’re picking the right side in this conflict,” she
mumbled. The familiarity of the sentiment weighed heavily on her.
When she’d enlisted in the Marines, she was the sort of recruit who thought she and
her fellow soldiers were doing some good. “Good” was hard to gauge when so much of what
she saw was a lot of scared little kids and women with that all-‐too-‐familiar look of terror in
their eyes: the one that comes from being not-‐quite-‐resigned, but too frightened and too
ignorant to improve their situation.
“What choice do we have now? Patrick is a cat, whether he wants to be or not. Patrick
is Dana’s, and we do what Dana says.”
Sarah cut her narrowed gaze sideways at Tamara, and her passenger put up her hands.
“That didn’t come out right. If Dana says jump, I jump. I trust her. She doesn’t make
mistakes.”
Sarah relaxed into her seat a bit and blew out the annoyance she’d been holding in. A
lot of what Tamara said was lost in translation, but Sarah was particularly sensitive when it
came to perceived slights against Dana. Dana knew her better than anyone. She was her
best friend, and Sarah upheld her gospel because she trusted her implicitly. Dana wasn’t
just “boss lady.” She was the wisest person Sarah knew.
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel as they neared the top of the path. “Who
all is at the house right now?”
“Just Patrick and some of the cats he hired to work on the expansion construction.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 30 – Holley Trent
“That’s good,” Sarah said absently, even as the house came into her view. There were a
few shirtless men atop the roof of the cabin’s addition, swinging hammers and rolling
underlayment into place.
Tamara debarked and headed straight for the new wing, where she snapped some
orders at the dawdling men.
Sarah shook her head and sighed as she pulled the key from the ignition.
Felipe leaned into the gap between the front seats and wrapped his large hand around
her forearm.
She stared down at it, not really annoyed, but still feeling a bit proprietary about her
personal space.
He asked in Spanish, “You are sure this is the best place for me?”
“Of course it—”
Was it? All of a sudden, she wasn’t so sure. Felipe was an outsider—a neutral party. His
very proximity to the mess would force him to take sides or else. If there was fighting, he
couldn’t not be seen as a cat ally…unless he presented himself as a hostage.
Tell him the truth?
She stabbed her seatbelt release button and fixed her gaze on his worried gray one.
Yes. Truth. He wasn’t the one who asked for help. Fabian had done that. And maybe
Felipe didn’t want the kind of help the Shrews could offer.
“I’m not so sure,” she said. She let the seatbelt whir into its track and wrapped her
fingers around the metal door handle. “I need to check in with my boss. Give me an hour
and we’ll figure out something else. If you want to go, I’ll get you back on the road.”
“You’re not going to argue with me?”
She was too damned tired to argue. Six weeks undercover straight into this mess.
“No.” She opened the door and jumped down.
Felipe caught up to her quickly, and slung his backpack onto his shoulders as they
climbed the porch.
She waved at the cats she recognized on the roof, pausing briefly to assess the one who
was unfamiliar. He looked down at her, spit out the nails he’d been holding between his lips
and said, “Well, hello, there, gorgeous. Swear to God, there’re some fine women around
here.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 31 – Holley Trent
“Ew.” She gave chuckling Felipe’s hand a yank and pulled him across the threshold into
the cabin’s living room.
Women vastly outnumbered men in the were-‐mountain lion group, so Sarah knew
most of the men, at least by sight. She’d asked Patrick why the birth rate in the group was
so disproportionate. He’d said it wasn’t. Males and females were born at about equal rates.
The problem was when they got older.
Sarah had wanted to compel Patrick to elaborate, but he was her friend and she didn’t
use psychic shit on her friends. He’d left her with a bit of information to chew on, though.
He’d said, “I expect Dana to be it for me forever, but if that’s not the case, I’d never hook up
with a cat. I value my life too much.” And he’d walked away, leaving Sarah to ponder his
meaning.
One of the Shrews had left her laptop open on the coffee table, so while Felipe studied
the room’s charming decor, Sarah brought up the messaging screen and typed in a note for
Dana.
Checking in. Thought you’d be here.
When Dana didn’t respond within a minute, Sarah loped into the kitchen. She did a
silent cheer upon spying the fridge’s contents. There were definite perks to working for a
woman whose sweetie was a pub owner. Patrick had stocked Sarah’s favorite beer. None of
the other Shrews would touch it. It was too dark. Too bitter. It was a bit early to be hitting
the sauce, though, so she grabbed a couple of bottled waters and carried them to the living
room.
She handed one bottle to Felipe, who accepted it with a nod.
Dana had replied by then.
Sorry, S. We have a bit of a problem. Got a report about a mauled cat at a nearby
hospital. Billy said it’s one of the older girls. She’s not going to heal instantaneously
like the young ones do, but we still need to examine her wounds before they close up.
Maybe we can figure out what we’re dealing with. Anyway, we have to get her out of
here before they insist on taking blood or running tests.
“Shit.” She closed the laptop lid and raked her hands through her hair. If she never saw
the inside of a hospital again it’d be too soon. She’d seen enough of them when she came
home burned, and then as she recovered from what that research study did to her. Good
thing Doc’s clinic was in an office park and not a hospital. The flashbacks were a beast.
FRAMING FELIPE – 32 – Holley Trent
Felipe sank onto the cushion next to her and uncapped his bottle.
She allowed herself a moment of distraction, watching the bobbing of his Adam’s apple
as he swallowed sip after sip of water. Her eyes tracked upward to his chin, now shadowed
with a bit of dark blond stubble, and then the pink of his moist lips.
She must have stared too long, because he leaned in close and grazed those enviable
lips across hers once more. She sat stunned, inhaling the spiciness of his natural scent,
feeling sleeping things in her body awaken and unfurl. His mouth tracked lower, finding the
edge of her jaw and then his warm tongue lashed against the sensitive flesh on the
underside of her neck.
She giggled and leaned back. “Quit it . ”
His chuckle was throaty and mischievous as he leaned his left elbow against the sofa
top and stared down at her. “You say stop, but the way your breath sounds is more like not
now.” His grin was downright predatory, and she found herself leaning into it. Eager to
touch it.
The hell is wrong with me? She scooted away, mumbling about presumptuous jerks and
opened the laptop lid to send Dana one last message.
Tell me where to poke and I’ll get you some information if you want. I left something
on the backburner in Carrboro, so I’ll be heading out soon.
That was code. Whenever a Shrew mentioned Carrboro—where none of them actually
lived—it meant, “Gotta move. I’ll check in later.” The case was getting more and more
complicated with each passing minute, and with the Shrews scattered all over the county
on were-‐cat business, they didn’t have their usual safety in numbers. Time to go code
orange. Dana would know Sarah had a plan…or at least an end goal.
Sarah closed out the computer programs and shut the lid of the laptop.
Felipe brought the water bottle back to his lips and eyed her with a lascivious glint.
“You’re thinking about sex,” she intuited, rolling her eyes. “At a time like this.”
“It’d be wonderful.”
“You sure about that?”
“I think you underestimate my creativity. Have you forgotten already I grew up in the
circus? My imagination puts you in some very delicious situations.” His eyes never left hers
FRAMING FELIPE – 33 – Holley Trent
as he set the bottle on the coffee table. His tongue smoothed over his bottom lip. She was
pretty sure it wasn’t an idle tic. He was trying to entice her, and given the way her heart
pounded and belly burned at his seductive maneuvers, it was working.
He leaned in close, slowly, and put his lips against her ear. His right arm snaked around
her front and drew her close—pressing her side against his hard chest. “You want to
experience flying without a net below?”
“Shit.” She swallowed, fairly certain she was translating his Spanish adequately. He
wanted to bone, and it kinda sounded fun.
“Perhaps I’ll bind your wrists and let you hang nude, waiting for me to act out my
whims. Touch you everywhere. Leave you breathless.”
“Never,” she said in a low voice, though that was just automatic. It was what she was
programmed to say to strange men, but really? She didn’t mind the idea of someone else
taking control for once, assuming that person had the skills to pleasure her without
instruction. He had to have the expertise to go along with that swagger. Sexy as they were,
words meant nothing.
He dragged the tip of his tongue up her lobe and nipped at the top.
A sharp exhalation of air left her lungs and her eyes widened even as she tried to pry
her body away from him.
His grip on her waist tightened, and the calloused palm of his other hand eased inside
the back of her shirt, abrading the skin there and sending delightful jolts down her spine.
“Yes, I think so,” he whispered. “You’ll do what I want and like it.”
She ran her tongue over dry lips and blinked several times, vision hazing from
incredulity or…what? She didn’t know. “What if I don’t?”
“I think I’ll figure out what you like.” His hand eased slowly around her ribcage, up to
the band of her bra. “And then I’ll make you like what I like.”
She drew in a breath, steadying herself, and thinking, He wouldn’t, though she’d dare
not move.
And he did. His large hand closed over her left breast, and his thumb’s pad made a
circuitous path over the fabric covering her areola.
Presumptuous bastard.
FRAMING FELIPE – 34 – Holley Trent
But she didn’t pull away. She wanted to see just how far he’d go—just how brazen he
was. And how dare he be so forward and yet so calm while she was burning up inside? She
could feel his heart beating against her right shoulder, and its drumming was steady and
even. He could have been at the symphony, for how slow it was.
“Why hasn’t anyone claimed you?” He peeled back the edge of her bra and freed her
breast, cupping it, fondling it. Now his breathing sped, too. It was just a bit, and if Sarah
hadn’t been paying attention she would never have heard it.
“I’m not a thing,” she said, tipping her chin toward the ceiling to allow his lips access to
the throbbing, hot pulse point of her neck. “No one can claim me.”
“Te llevaré.”
“I don’t think so. I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t think so. I think you’re missing certain…”
And up she went. His free hand burrowed under her rear and in a jerk, she was on his
lap feeling the dull stab of his erection.
“… equipment,” he finished.
Damn.
Just her luck, right? She’d thought it was a goddamned riot when Dana hooked up with
Patrick in the middle of a case. Sarah thought she’d never be susceptible to such a thing. She
was too independent and too aggressive. If she wanted a man, she could have had one. That
had never taken her much effort. Where the real effort came into play was what happened
