Page 27 of Tiger Bitten

“I’ve seen so many documentaries on this.”

Mars pulled a face. “Okay, well you probably need to watch less of those. No, I don’t have a girlfriend or a wife or kids. Where are you?” he asked, trying to peek around where her body was taking up most of the frame. She’d already removed her wedding make-up and false eyelashes and looked so different from earlier. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything though, God bless that man.

“I’m in my bedroom.”

“Show me. What does it look like?”

“Well, you could’ve literally had the tour earlier, but you did the kiss and run move, like a weirdo.”

“It’s not good for me to go in your territory. Smells too much like you in there.”

“Currently it smells like watermelon scented fabric spray. It was delivered today and I went crazy with it. The smell is giving me a headache.”

Mars snorted. “Your Cat is going to hate you for that.”

Ren gave off a nervous laugh. “Yeah. So probably it’s a good time for me to tell you something too, before we travel together.”

“You’re animal has trouble in confined spaces?” he guessed.

“Umm. How about you go first so I can formulate what I want to say and how I want to say it.”

“Right. So, you know how I keep mentioning a Rabbit?” he asked. Why did he sound nervous right now?

“Yeah.”

Mars looked up at something over the phone, and a slight frown took his face as he froze. He shook his head and continued. “Well since you don’t know what it is, I have been putting off telling you so I can just have some time to figure this all out. But that’s really dangerous and selfish of me to do…” He looked up again and froze, eyes staring straight ahead. “Hey, let me call you back,” he growled, standing.

“What’s happening?”

He was striding through a masculine-looking bedroom into a hallway. “I’ll call you back.” But now there was a snarl in his voice and he sounded pissed.

“Mars—”

Click. The screen went dark.

A snake of worry slithered through her gut. Something was happening at his house, but it was really late at night. No one should be there this late.

Ren turned the ring volume up and set the phone on her bed and paced the room, chewing on her thumbnail and watching for the phone to light up.

A minute drifted by. And then another. She grabbed the phone and texted him, You good? Send.

Three more minutes drifted by and she called him.

No answer.

She didn’t know where he lived, so she was stuck like this, waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting some more.

Something big was happening. Every instinct in her body told her so, but what could she do? She had no guess where Mars lived.

Are you okay? she texted again.

But an entire hour passed, and still…no answer.

Chapter Eight