Tiger Bound by Tressie Lockwood Page B

fire.”
    “Aw, sugar, I’m so sorry.” Cathy made a noise of sympathy. “I know you, Deja. I’m sure the boss has no problem allowing you to make a withdrawal any time you want.”
    “Thank you.” Deja swallowed the emotions choking her. “In that case, I want to withdraw it all. I think I’m going to be out of town for awhile.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Deja flounced into her apartment and slammed the door closed. “Lousy, pole up his ass, thinks he’s better than everybody else because he handles money bank manager!” Just because she wanted to close her account, he had to act like he didn’t know who the hell she was and insisted she had to wait to get her ID to close the account. “‘Because if I let you do it, Ms. Clark, everyone would want to bypass the guidelines. Then where would we be?’ I don’t care where he’d be, but I need to get out of here now! Such a jerk .”
    She sniffed and stomped to her bedroom to begin packing. That task was the least she could do in preparation of leaving. Heath had gone already, and he didn’t know she would follow. She only prayed he would leave a clue in Logan City if he moved on to some other place before she got there. Then again, maybe all the answers he sought would be in Nevada, and she could convince him to come home.
    After her things were packed, she sat down at her computer and pulled up the screen where she’d learned about the location of Logan City. The site was one of America’s ghost towns in Nevada. Northwest of Hiko, Nevada, the city was twelve miles up the canyon, and from the page she pulled up on the internet, only two buildings remained on the site. She didn’t care what it said, though. She would fly there and see for herself. Heath would have done the same.
    Deja mentally went over all other aspects of her life that needed wrapping up. The little it entailed depressed her, but then she’d always dreamed of marrying Heath and starting the big family both of them dreamed of one day enjoying. Deja’s mother had died in childbirth, and she had no siblings, just as Heath had none. They both wanted at least four kids. They’d discussed it countless times while they never admitted they wanted them together. How did his being a shape-shifter change that, she wondered. Could he even make children? Was it safe? She shivered as she looked down at her stomach and imagining something like the alien tearing its way out. “Okay, Deja, get a grip, girl. I’m sure it’s not even like that.”
    Watching TV and stuffing her face with ice cream did not take away the sense of loss with Heath gone. When she could stand it no longer, she turned off all the lights and fell into bed to think about Heath. Even as the memory of his touch sliced through her heart, it comforted her too. Maybe if she recalled the night they made love, she could get through until she saw him again.
    That night, Heath had pulled out of her and carried her to his room. They stood beside his bed touching, exploring one another. She shivered with each brush of his skin or his fingertips. This was the yearning that consumed her each day she spent in his presence, and at last it belonged to her. He belonged to her.
    “I want to suck your dick,” she had told him, and his eyes seemed to glow in his excitement at the suggestion. She suppressed a smile when he played the role of the gentleman.
     “You don’t have to do that.”
    “I want to. I like it.”
    He frowned then, his lips thinning into a straight line. “We’re not discussing how many men you did that to.”
    “None,” she assured him for his peace of mind, and she knew he understood that’s why she said it. Heath got it that she was no virgin, but every man wanted to be his woman’s first. She would be that for Heath.
    “ Heath .”
    Remembering him the way he was that night, she sighed on her bed and fingered her pussy. She went through the sequence in her mind of all they had done, and she tried to hear his voice, smell