by Maya Banks
Her hand slid over the pillow. “I will miss you,” she whispered as if Hunter lay there next to her.
Reluctantly she rose and glanced out the window. Dawn was still a few hours away. If she were fortunate, she would be able to leave before Hunter and Jericho awakened. It would be easier that way, and she wouldn’t have to offer further explanation or answer their probing questions.
She peeled away the shirt and the sweats and laid them carefully over the bed. Then with a shiver, she turned to go.
Her feet slid soundlessly across the floor with the stealth of the cougar. When she reached the living room, she spared a quick glance at the couch where Hunter slept. Then she turned to look in the direction of Jericho’s bedroom.
“I will come back,” she whispered.
Soundlessly she hurried to the back door and eased it open. In seconds she was through the screen door of the porch, and the bitter cold engulfed her. She stepped into the snow, wincing as the wet slush stung her feet.
She braced herself and struggled through the drifts until she was away from the house. Then she turned her face upward, eyes closed, to embrace the shift.
Chapter Seven
A week. It had been an entire week since they’d awakened to find Kaya gone. It had become habit to look out the window every time he passed. Some ingrained hope that she’d show up again.
Jericho shook his head and started to turn away when he saw the mountain lion appear from the trees on the right side of the cabin. He watched for a moment as the cat approached on stealthy feet. She was cautious, stopping every few feet to sniff the air.
“Your stray is back,” he said dryly.
“My stray?”
Jericho turned to look at Hunter who was propped on the couch with a book.
“Your cougar pet. She’s back.”
Hunter immediately set his book down and got up from the couch. He went to the door and opened it, and Jericho let out a groan. Not again.
“You’re insane. Tell me you aren’t going to let her back in here. She’s not injured anymore, and I doubt she’s going to just waltz in here like a damn house cat.”
The cougar increased her pace up the walkway and stopped just outside the door. Then she slowly stuck her head inside and peered at Jericho.
“Or maybe she will,” Jericho murmured.
The cat padded in, her head going back and forth as she cautiously surveyed her surroundings. Hunter closed the door and she immediately went into a crouch, a low hiss sounding as she turned in the direction of the noise.
“Easy, girl,” Hunter soothed.
“And we thought Kaya was crazy.”
Hunter ignored Jericho and reached with a tentative hand to pet the cougar. Before Jericho could tell him what a dumbass he was for attempting something so stupid, the cat turned her head into his touch and rubbed affectionately over his palm.
“I’ll be damned if that cat doesn’t like you.”
Hunter’s lips twisted in a sardonic smile as he continued to rub her ears. To Jericho’s surprise, she left Hunter and ambled over to where he stood.
She sniffed delicately at his pants and then rubbed her jowls over his leg.
“Guess maybe she likes you too,” Hunter said in amusement.
Jericho reached down to touch the top of her head. When she didn’t react, he let his fingers slide through her fur. She turned her muzzle up, and her eyes closed in contentment.
“Think she was someone’s pet or that someone raised her?” Jericho asked. He could think of no other reason for her tameness. Mountain lions were badass fuckers.
“Could be.”
The cat gave Jericho one more rub and then turned and walked toward the fireplace. She circled once on the rug in front and then settled down with an indelicate plop. She stretched out and regarded both men with lazy contentment.
Jericho made a sound of surprise. “I’ll be damned.”
Hunter shrugged and returned to the couch to pick up his book. “Guess she’ll be staying awhile.”
Unexpected anger pricked Jericho. “You know it’s sad that you’re more open to having a damn cougar in here than a defenseless woman obviously in need of help.”
Hunter put down his book and pinned Jericho with his stare. “She’s human. People come with whole different sets of problems than an animal does. The cat won’t stay. Cougars are solitary creatures. Besides, I tried to get Kaya to stay.”
The cat lifted her head and perked her ears up as she surveyed both men. She looked keenly interested, and Jericho was almost tempted to hush the conversation. How absurd was that? He shook his head and headed for the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. The way things had been going around here, he was almost hoping to get called away.
The cougar lay quietly as the fire burned down in the hearth, leaving brightly glowing embers. Outside, snow had begun to fall again, drifting downward in slow spirals. She was glad to be inside on this day. The warmth from the fire seeped into her body.
She listened to the two men talk with interest. When their conversation once again turned to Kaya, her ears moved forward again though she didn’t move her head.
They argued and bickered, but the clear message was that they were genuinely worried about her. Of course they couldn’t understand that she was safe and well cared for even if her existence was sparse.
The more she listened, the guiltier she felt. She should never have revealed herself to them—not that she’d intended to, but she shouldn’t have taken the chance.
She licked the injured paw as she remembered the pain that drove her to seek them out. Why? For comfort? The cold, the loneliness that had been her constant companion for so long had overwhelmed her until she’d found herself staggering through the snow to the cabin that so fascinated her.
“I’m worried about her,” Jericho said quietly. “No matter what she says, she’s out there alone. How can she survive? Hell, she left the clothes we gave her. She’s probably frozen to death.”
Hunter sighed, but his expression was one of concern as well. “We looked for her, Jericho. We tracked her until the footprints disappeared. She obviously doesn’t want to be found.”
But I do.
The rejection of his assessment came bubbling upward in a rush of grief and long-held sadness.
I don’t want to be left behind. I’m tired of being alone.
She closed her eyes. Could she trust these two men? No. She could never let them know her secret. But she could return to them as Kaya so they would know she was all right.
Worry nagged at her. It wasn’t smart of her to reveal herself again. But she longed for them in a way she didn’t understand. She thought that by returning as the cougar, she would be satisfied as she had in the past. But no longer was she happy with brief glimpses, a few words overheard here and there. Not now that she’d touched them. Felt their hands on her skin in human form. She craved it with frightening intensity.
If she left now, she could return before dark fell, before the temperatures dropped even lower.
Heaving herself upward, she prowled over to where Hunter sat on the couch. He regarded her warily until she rubbed her head along his leg. She let him pet her for a moment before backing away. Then she headed toward Jericho and offered him the same affection.
After allowing him to stroke her ears, she stalked to the door and paced back and forth, her tail swishing.
“Had enough, girl?” Hunter murmured as he got up from the couch.
He walked over and opened the door. Cold air burst over her, ruffling her fur. With one glance back at the two men who watched her, she loped away, disappearing into the trees.
Hunter had taken up Jericho’s post by the window. Why, he wasn’t sure. Jericho was the worrier, the pacer. Hunter preferred a warm fire and a good book and shutting out the world around him.
When he looked up, he was certain he’d imagined the scene before him. There was no fucking way it could be. He blinked and leaned forward, his hand against the
frosty pane.
“Holy Mother of God.”
He turned and ran for the door, grabbing one of the afghans from a nearby chair.
“Hunter, what the hell?” Jericho hollered after him.
Hunter plunged into the snow, racing toward Kaya who stood at the edge of the trees, naked and trembling, her arms braced around her frame as she tried to keep warm.
She looked at him with frightened eyes when he grabbed her and yanked the blanket around her.
“I’m not going to hurt you, damn it,” he growled.
Not waiting for her response, he swept her into his arms and charged back toward the cabin. Jericho was at the door, his jaw tight.
Hunter shouldered past him and lowered Kaya to the floor in front of the fire.
“I’m all right, Hunter,” she said in a small voice. “Just a little cold.”
Jericho exploded. “A little cold?”
Hunter looked up. “Keep your cool, man.”
Jericho shook his head. “What are you thinking, woman? Have you lost your mind? What the hell were you doing out there naked? Goddamn it.” He dropped to his knees beside her and tore the blanket open.
“Jericho, what the hell?”
“Are you hurt?” Jericho demanded, ignoring Hunter’s reprimand.
Not giving her a chance to respond, Jericho laid her back and ran his big hands over her slim body. Hunter turned away from the sight of her pale flesh all but glowing underneath Jericho’s caress.
He wanted to be the one touching her, and yet he had no cause.
Kaya stared up at Jericho inquisitively. “Jericho, why are you so angry?”
Jericho’s mouth fell open. “Angry? Angry? I’m furious! Are you trying to kill yourself?”
She was honestly puzzled over why Jericho was spitting nails. Hunter watched the confusion simmer in her eyes, and his own grew. Something wasn’t right here. More than the obvious of her bizarre behavior.
“Could I…could I have some clothes?”
She stared earnestly up at both men, her arms clutched around her body to shield her nudity. Which seemed pretty damn odd when you considered that she seemed to spend her life cavorting about in the nude.
Jericho rose, his face still drawn in anger—and worry. “You stay here and make damn sure she doesn’t go anywhere,” he ordered Hunter.
Hunter’s eyebrows rose at Jericho’s tone. Jericho stalked away, and Kaya’s troubled gaze followed him.
“You can’t be surprised that we’re angry,” Hunter offered in a soft voice.
Kaya turned to him, and for a moment he was lost in the sheer beauty of her eyes. He’d looked into those eyes earlier. He sucked in his breath at how alike she and his cougar pet were.
“I did not mean to make you angry.”
“Kaya,” he began, “what were you doing out in the snow with no clothing?”
“I had no clothes,” she said simply.
Hunter shook his head in absolute confusion. He was ready to beat his skull on the floor.
“We gave you clothes when you were here, and you left them. Why?”
Her gaze dropped. “They were not mine to keep, and I did not want them to be ruined.”
“Ruined? How would they get ruined?”
She looked away, turning her face and resting it on the arms laid over her knees. Jericho stomped back into the room with the same shirt and sweats she’d worn before.
“Put these on,” Jericho directed. “Then I’ll make some hot chocolate. Are you hungry?”
She hesitated a fraction, looking first at Hunter and then Jericho. “I would like something to eat, yes.”
“Have you eaten since you left here?” Hunter asked bluntly.
“Y-yes.”
He didn’t believe her. You only had to look at how slight she was to know food wasn’t in abundance wherever she lived. He looked at Jericho in silent surrender. No matter what, she wasn’t leaving again.
Chapter Eight
Kaya stepped into the living room after a trip to the bathroom to see both men sitting. Waiting. Hunter was on the couch, and Jericho was in a chair adjacent. They’d built the fire back up, and it licked warmly at the logs that had been added.
She walked around the couch, feeling the eyes of both men on her. Hunter wasn’t reading his book. It lay to the side, page-down to mark his spot.
Without waiting for an invitation, she carefully got onto the couch next to Hunter. Drawn by his warmth, by his comforting scent, she crawled close and snuggled underneath his arm. He stiffened all over in surprise, but he didn’t push her away.
Slowly his arm lowered until it curved around her, holding her against his side. She laid her head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.
“Hunter?”
“Yes, Kaya?” His chest rumbled against her ear.
“Why don’t you like me?”
He went very still beneath her. She couldn’t even feel his breath. His fingers that had been lazily making their way up and down her arm froze at her elbow.
For a moment, she thought he would lie and deny his obvious discomfort and conflict. But then his chest seemed to cave in as his breath expelled once more.
“You remind me of someone I lost,” he said simply.
She sat up so that she could look him in the eye. There was sadness there. A flash of grief. She ran her fingers through his light brown, muddy blond hair. They trailed over his temple and then traced his cheekbone ending close to his mouth. “I’m sorry. I should not have come here. I don’t wish to cause you pain.”
He caught her hand as if to pry it away, but instead he simply held it there close to his mouth. And then he kissed the tip of her index finger. Just one light brush that sent a shiver quaking over her entire body.
“You’re not causing me pain, Kaya. As Jericho has told me, it’s time to let go of the past.”
She turned to Jericho. For a moment she’d forgotten his presence. He sat a few feet away studying her and Hunter with stark interest. There was hunger in his eyes. She’d seen that look in many of her predator kin.
She turned back to Hunter and curled into his body once more. “Touch me,” she pleaded softly.
Again his breath caught and held for a moment. His fingers once again trailed down her arm. Then he took her shoulders and pulled her down until her head was pillowed in his lap.
Like a ray of heated sunshine in the spring, his palm slid up her body, over the curve of her hip and to her shoulder.
She sighed with absolute pleasure. How wonderful his touch felt. He continued to stroke her, petting her as he’d done the cougar.
She wanted to shed her clothing and feel his hand on her bare skin. Flesh on flesh, human contact. She wanted no barriers. She twisted restlessly underneath his seeking fingers until he applied firm pressure to her hip.
“What’s wrong, Kaya?” he asked.
“My skin,” she whispered. “Touch my skin. I don’t like the clothing.”
He sucked in his breath. His legs tightened underneath her, and his groin stirred to life. She did affect him. Did he feel all the wild and breathless cravings that she did?
Slowly and carefully, his hand slid underneath her shirt to the smoothness of her back. His fingers danced like fire up her ribcage to the crease where her arm rested on her side. Flat down, his palm caressed and made tight circles over her shoulder blade and then traveled down her spine.
A moan, soft and needy, floated past her lips, mixing with the popping sounds of the fire.
Jericho watched from his perch on the chair, his hands curled into fists. His pulse pounded in his ears, hot, loud like a freight train. She was his. Not Hunter’s. And yet he watched with a helpless fascination as his friend opened himself to a woman for the first time since Rebeccah.
Rebeccah who had loved them both but hadn’t trusted them to love her back.
It was a sort of torture watching Kaya arch with pleasure under Hunter’s tentative but seeking touch. Jericho wante
d to be the one touching her. Such a strange, beautiful woman. Full of mystery. Her eyes a wash of an amber sunset.
Was she as fascinated with them as they were with her?
Hunter pushed her shirt higher, revealing more of her pale skin. His hands were gentle and coaxing, almost like he was soothing a wounded animal. She quieted and settled against his lap, calmed by the caresses.
Jericho knew the moment she surrendered to sleep. She gave a delicate little shudder and all the air escaped her in one long sigh. Still Hunter continued to stroke her skin. His gaze was locked on her face, and Jericho knew he had no idea how much tenderness shone in his eyes.
“Why does she remind you of Rebeccah?” Jericho asked quietly so as not to wake Kaya. Kaya was light, a study in burnished golds and liquid amber. A lot like the aspens in fall when the trees caught fire and lit up the earth. Rebeccah was dark yet vibrant, like a storm at midnight. The two women couldn’t be more unalike.
“Because she stirs me,” Hunter said simply.
And there it was. No woman had stirred him since Rebeccah. Jericho could relate. It wasn’t that another woman didn’t have the power. They just hadn’t given one the chance. Were they giving Kaya that chance?
“What are we going to do, Hunt?”
It was a simple question, and yet a wealth of meaning lay just below the surface.
Hunter met his gaze. “You want her.”
He wasn’t going to lie. “Yeah.”
“So do I.” Apparently neither was Hunter.
He blew out his breath. “Goddamn it, Hunter. We said we weren’t going this route again.”
“I know,” Hunter said calmly.
“There’s a damn lot we don’t know about her.”
Hunter nodded. “That’s true. It would seem we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“What if she doesn’t want to stay? She was pretty adamant before.”
“And yet she came back.”
“Like your cougar pet always seems to do,” Jericho said.
“She reminds me of her. Her hair and eyes. Her seeming need for solitude.”
Jericho rolled his eyes, but he could see why Hunter had said it.
“We’re going to have to be patient. I don’t know what it is about her, Jericho, but…” He trailed off as he touched her hair.
“How long?” Jericho asked. “What are we talking about here? A fling? Sex? Something more? We take off to parts unknown for weeks at a time.”