Karen Kelley - The Jaguar Prince

She took a deep breath. She always hated going inside his office. It wasn’t that she disliked him. Okay, maybe she did. He was superficial and pretentious, nothing like his father. If it made him look good, then he was happy, no matter whose toes he stepped on along the way.

She opened the door and walked in. Mr. Campbell was seated at his desk. The office was done in dark, rich wood—only the best, of course, but it was rather like walking into a cave. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she saw the man who sat across from Mr. Campbell. From the back, he looked familiar. Dark hair brushed his shoulders, he wore a deep green shirt and dark slacks.

“Callie, come in, come in. I want you to meet Rogar Valkyir, you’ll be giving him a private tour of the grounds. Mr. Valkyir, this is Callie Jordon.”

Rogar stood, then slowly turned.

She tried to swallow, but couldn’t. She choked instead. Rogar quickly poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on Mr. Campbell’s desk, then handed it to her. She gulped half of it down as she pulled her thoughts together.

“Are you okay, Ms. Jordon?” Rogar’s words were soft and silky, like a caress.

“Fine, thank you very much. I swallowed wrong.”

“Miss Jordon.” Rogar bowed slightly.

“Mr. Valkyir.” She said between gritted teeth. She didn’t know what the hell his game was, but she was damned well tired of playing!

“Callie is probably the one person who knows everything about the animals we have at the zoo,” Mr. Campbell continued as though the temperature in the room hadn’t suddenly dropped ten degrees. “He especially wants to see the big cats. I’d like for you to give him anything he wants.” He didn’t smile, he beamed.

“I’m anxious to see the park,” Rogar said. “Are you ready?”

No, she wasn’t, damn it! How the hell had he maneuvered his way in here and gotten Mr. Campbell to bend over backward and arrange for a private showing? And where did he get the new clothes? His clothes cost way more than the twenty dollars she’d given him. She had an awful feeling that she’d had the wool pulled over her eyes. Fury did not begin to describe the emotion she felt right now.

Don’t make a scene, she told herself. “Yes, of course, Mr. Valkyir.”

“Rogar, please.”

Her blood pressure shot up a couple more notches. “Rogar.” She smiled sweetly, trying not to bare her teeth.

Before she reached the door, he was there, opening it for her. The guy moved fast. Yeah, right, he definitely had some fast moves. Like convincing her he could change into a jaguar. Correction, almost convincing her. She hadn’t realized getting laid had taken on this degree of finesse. The guy was a master at it. And to think she had almost fallen into his trap. God, she was such a moron.

“What are you thinking?” he asked as they walked toward the covered carport where they kept the zoo vehicles.

She wondered if his sexy accent was even real. And that name, Rogar Valkyir. It had to be phony, too.

She glanced his way, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t want to know.”

He put a hand out to stop her. She could feel his strength, his heat, through the cotton of her shirt. Against her will, tingles of awareness rippled over her.

“Yes, I do want to know. You look angry. Have I done something wrong?”

She snorted. “Angry? Angry doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling.” She jerked out of his grasp, which wasn’t difficult since his hold had been light.

“Then I will try to make it better. Just tell me what I need to do, anything at all, and I will do it for you.” He smiled and for a moment she was lost.

She quickly cleared her mind. “You’re going to be my hero, huh?” She drew in a shaky breath. He had the looks of a hero.

“Is that what you want? A hero?” His voice caressed her.

She aimed her thoughts down another road. “If you want to do something, tell Mr. Campbell you’ve changed your mind about the private tour, then go back where you came from. I don’t need a hero, nor do I believe you’re an alien either. Good line, though. It almost worked.”

“Line?”

“Yeah, so you could have…sex…with me.” She looked away as heat rose up her face.

“You think that was what I was trying to do?”

Her spine stiffened. “Weren’t you?”

“Everything I told you was the truth.”

“Sorry, I’m not buying it this time.” She opened the Jeep’s door and climbed in on the driver’s side. “If you’re going, get in.” She turned the key, not waiting to see what he would do. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him climb inside.

This was going to be a very long day.

She smiled to herself.

And she was going to make it just as boring and painful for him as he would be making it for her. She was going to hit every speed bump, take him past the area where the refuse was dumped…

He was going to be so sorry he showed up today.

“That’s where the monkeys are kept. Did you want to get out and look at them, too?” Everywhere Callie had taken Rogar, he’d insisted they stop and get out. He was only wasting his time because she’d made sure her answers were curt, and she refused to talk about anything except the animals.

There was no way she would lose her job if Rogar complained. What could he tell Mr. Campbell? Only that she’d pointed out the different animals, and given him details about them, which is exactly what she was supposed to do.

“Are you going to be mad at me for the rest of your life?” he asked, rather than telling her whether or not he wanted to get out.

“Yes.” Okay, her smile might look a little snarly, but showing teeth counted as being friendly. Right?

She thought of something that had been bothering her. “And I want my twenty dollars back, too.” She eyed his expensive clothes, trying not to look at the cut or how well they fit his muscled body, but rather the quality of the material, which wasn’t easy. “Twenty dollars might not seem like a lot to you. For me, it means gas and lunch all week.”

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. Her mouth dropped open. There had to be at least a couple of thousand there. When he handed her a twenty, she pursed her lips to keep from saying something she probably wouldn’t regret, and grabbed it out of his hand.

“Did you want to get out and look at the monkeys?” She kept her gaze forward.

“No, I want to see the big cats.”

She shifted into Drive, and took off, only slowing when she left a little rubber in her wake. By the time she had gotten to the area where the cats were kept, she was a little calmer.

Why should she let Rogar get to her? It wasn’t as though she would ever have to see him again. And she would refuse another private tour if he was the one paying for it.

“We’ll have to walk from here,” she said as she parked close to the bridge. “We only have one jaguar right now, Sheba. The lion and her cub are a little farther away.”

He didn’t say anything, only climbed out. They walked across the bridge, and once more, she inhaled the scent of jasmine and ginger, and once again, she began to relax.

She also remembered the last time she had been here. The black jaguar had to be a pet of Rogar’s, and he’d done a switch of some kind. Okay, maybe she did envy him for that. What would it feel like to be able to get that close to a wild animal? Everything she’d been taught in college, everything that had been drummed into her head, had leaned toward caution when working around the bigger cats. No one seemed to have told Rogar, though.

She still hadn’t quite figured out how he’d gotten the cat in and out of her house, but he’d probably rigged it while she slept, and then moved the jaguar after she’d fainted. There was no other explanation, except that he was an alien who could change form, and she wasn’t buying into that again.