Like a Cat in Heat
by Lilith T. Bell
***
“Are you sure you want to stay out here? It’s awful dangerous for a woman by herself, with this big storm coming and all.”
I snatched the key out of the old man’s hands and resisted the urge to yell at him. He was fussing and trying to be helpful, but between his good-intentioned sexism and the hormones screaming through my bloodstream, I was fairly certain he wouldn’t survive if he stuck around any longer.
“Yes, I’m sure. Thank you.” I flashed him a tight smile and just about bodily shoved him out the cabin door before I shut and locked it.
Alone at last, I sank down to the floor and just laid on the wood there for a moment, my eyes closed, breathing a bit unsteady. I’d been traveling through Oregon when I’d felt the first stirrings of the season come upon me. Usually, it came closer to February. A Christmas heat was unexpected and annoying. If I got pregnant, I knew I’d have some relief during the pregnancy and while lactating, but all of the male werecats I’d known were assholes and I had no desire to raise their children. Being a solitary species, us cats didn’t have the benefits of a pack structure influencing our breeding like with wolves. Once in winter and then a milder heat in summer had been hitting me year after year since I’d turned eighteen.
A cabin out on Mount Hood during a sudden snow storm was perfect. No one could get to me and I couldn’t get to anyone else. I’d be in agony, but it was safer this way. Both for me and for any stupid human male that crossed my path. Feline shifter females were violent when aroused and it only became worse when we were in heat. To ensure I didn’t go tearing anyone’s throat out when fucking, I’d had to insist on all my past lovers tying me up.
They thought I was submissive. They really had no idea.
The sound of a wolf howling in the distance pulled me back to the world around me. They’d been reintroduced in Idaho from Canada a few years back and their population had been growing as they spread to neighboring states. Unlike the feline or rodent shifters who preferred to live close to humanity, the lycanthropes tended to stick close to their wild relatives. When real wolves were almost wiped out by humans, so were the wolf shifters. It was possible their population was growing alongside their animal counterparts, though.
I got up from the floor and picked up my bags of groceries to take them into the kitchen. I put the carton of milk and salmon away first, then made myself a sandwich before I put the rest away. If the storm was as bad as everyone was predicting, the food would have to keep me for the next eight days, until I was sure my heat was over. In my animal form, I could hunt and feed myself just fine during summer, but most of my prey would be harder to get in the middle of a snow storm.
The cabin had propane heat, but the fireplace looked particularly inviting. The idea of curling up on the bearskin rug in front of it was really appealing. Once I had the fire going, I stretched out on the rug, squirming and arching my back. I felt cooped up after driving all day and groaned as I felt joints pop. Using my feet, I kicked off both of my boots and then pulled my socks off with my toes. My leather jacket was feeling uncomfortably warm next to the fire, so I unzipped that and slid it off as well.
My hands immediately smoothed down the front of my body, cupping my breasts through my shirt. Masturbation wouldn’t satisfy me during my season, but it could take some of the edge off, at least. My thumbs caught my nipples, pinching them between my thumbs and the sides of my hands. I took a shaky breath as I teased myself. The longer I drew it out, the calmer I could get after I came. A quick orgasm would only leave me in a frenzy and I’d have to masturbate for hours just to get a little peace.
One hand slid down my body to rub myself through my pants slowly, my hips gyrating up to my own touch. Just as my other hand was moving under my shirt, I heard a howl again. Close this time. Very close.
And it didn’t come from a wolf’s throat.
I picked my head up to look toward the window beside the door. The snow had started to drift down slowly in big, fat flakes, but the storm hadn’t picked up much steam yet. On my back on the floor, I couldn’t see much more than the tree line and sky, so got up into a crouch, then rose to my feet. As soon as I was standing, my eyes locked with those of the man outside. He was walking up the narrow drive to the cabin and currently alongside my car.
His hair was golden brown and cut fairly short, but not quite short enough to tame it entirely. It stuck up in damp spikes as though he’d dragged his fingers through it to push away the snow. Worn jeans hugged muscular thighs, but his upper body was difficult to judge. I could see he was wearing a dark green t-shirt with an open flannel shirt over it and then a brown leather bomber jacket over that. Slung over one shoulder, he was carrying what looked like a duffel bag. Despite the fact that he was dressed like someone who lived almost entirely outdoors, his skin was unweathered. His face boyishly handsome—in a dangerous sort of way—though I’d guess he was around thirty. His lips looked full and soft, his nose finely chiseled. His square jaw added age and power to his face, tapering to a sculpted chin with an almost imperceptible dimple in it. From this distance, only a cat’s eyes could make out such a small detail. It was his eyes that really caught me, though. They were large and soulful, fringed by thick lashes a shade darker than his hair, with a hunger in them that made me ache to satisfy it.
They were also amber. An alpha wolf’s eyes.
I dropped down to a crouch again to break eye contact, my heart thundering in my ears. Shit. That hadn’t been a real wolf calling out to his pack. It was a shifter warning me that I’d stumbled into his territory.
There was a knock at the door. Restrained. Polite. The feline in me wanted to dash out a window and escape, but then I’d be outside during the storm and naked when I finally shifted back. There would be nothing stopping him from hunting me down either.
So I forced myself to get to my feet and pull open the door. The wolf stood there with a cocky grin that begged to be slapped off his face. The casual arrogance that surrounded him like an aura was far more offensive than bared teeth and snarls. All I had to do was look at him and see he didn’t consider me a real threat.
The scent of him was muted because of the cold, but that didn’t mask it entirely. The stench of dog should have disgusted me, but at the moment all that mattered was the male musk that made me weak in the knees. One of my hands curled around the edge of the door to give me something to grip. My nails bit into the wood as I leaned into it.
“I’m not hunting on your territory. I just needed somewhere to stay.” My words were said low and fast, gritted out through clenched teeth.
“I don’t think that’s all you need, sweetheart.” His voice was deep and there was a faint drawl to it that seemed out of place in Oregon. If the wolves were only just coming back to the area, though, who knew where they might be coming from? The look he was giving me made it clear that his nose had picked up my “need.”
“Fuck off.”
I didn’t care if it was his territory any longer. I flung the door to slam it shut. Instead of hearing the satisfying crack of wood striking wood, there was only a muffled thump. He’d stuck his hand in to catch the door and pushed it back open again before stepping inside, as casually as if he lived there. I took a step back from him, hissing a warning.
“Easy, kitten. I picked up your scent back at the grocery store.”
He shut the door behind him and set down the duffel bag before he continued walking toward me. For every step forward he took, I was taking another one backwards. He had shown no inclination toward violence, so I wasn’t worried about that. What did have me worried was exactly how badly I wanted him. Even in heat, I had some control over myself. The old man I h
ad rented the cabin from hadn’t tempted me. The trouble was that even if it was a wolf standing in front of me, all that mattered to my body was that he was the most gorgeous shifter I’d ever seen.
“I wasn’t leaving my scent there to pick up a fuck buddy. I was getting groceries.”
The wolf took another step forward and I tried to continue backing up, but I’d moved all the way to the opposite wall. His teeth flashed in a predator’s grin as he closed the distance between us. The feel of his body pressed to mine, pinning me to the wall, sent a shudder of hunger through me and I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from moaning. I could feel the heat of him against my hip and desperately wanted to feel him inside of me instead.
He ducked down, his lips brushing against my throat. When he spoke, there was the vibrato of a growl to it. “So consider me a bonus.”
I closed my eyes, hissing inward when I felt his teeth at my throat. He’d begun to nibble with skilled little scrapes of his teeth, hard enough to hurt for just a moment without leaving my skin stinging. My hands automatically went to his shoulders to grip him through his jacket, my hips shifting and rolling to press against him. He needed no cologne or aftershave. Just the basic male essence of his scent was enough to nearly shut down my brain.
Nearly.
“I don’t fuck dogs,” I spat at him, using my grip on his shoulders to shove him away.
As far as I knew, there had never been any breeding between cat and wolf shifters. What little contact there had been before the wolves became so rare was usually hostile. Predators didn’t typically enjoy sharing range.
The mouse and ratkin bred together freely, but they were different from the cats or wolves. They were closer to humans and had an easier time breeding. There had been a few matings between feline and rodent shifters, though. The offspring had ended up being equally split between which parent they took after. Most attempted breedings between the feline shifters and humans didn’t take, or the pregnancies ended so early they weren’t noticed. Of the ones that lasted, half ended in miscarriage. If the mother was human, those miscarriages would often be fatal. The half that did make it to term would always take after the mother. No exceptions.
In theory, I could get pregnant by a werewolf. I was assuming that it would be like any other cross-shifter breeding and the offspring would have a fifty/fifty chance of taking after either one of us. That was what I was afraid of.
He stumbled back from me from the shove and cocked his head to the side with a look of canine confusion. “You want me,” he pointed out as he came closer again. My lips pulled back and I bared my teeth at him, but that didn’t dissuade him. He stopped just before our bodies touched, close enough for the heat of him to radiate onto my skin. “I can smell it.”
“I’m in heat. I’d get wet over a loaf of French bread,” I snapped. “I might want you, but I don’t want your pups.”
“I’ve never met a female shifter who wasn’t my mother or sister,” he commented, as if he hadn’t heard me at all. He reached out to let his fingers slide under my shirt, brushing my stomach. His fingertips still had a faint chill to them from being outside and it made my body clench in pained hunger. “In the old days, there’d be complex courtship between a male and female leading up to her heat, so they’d already be bonded by the time they mated. Then they’d start their pack from there.”
My eyelids fluttered, struggling to stay open as he stroked my belly with feather-soft touches. “Cats don’t court. We don’t usually keep mates, either.”
“You just breed and abandon one another?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Usually. We only really bond with our mothers and, occasionally, our siblings. I didn’t.”
His fingers were moving upward, drawing light circles as they went. When they reached the underside of one breast, teasing it through my bra, I finally gave in and shut my eyes with a shuddering sigh.
“Usually means ‘not always’,” he whispered. He had leaned in close enough that I could feel his breath teasing against my throat. One of his thumbs was dragging back and forth over my nipple through the silky fabric of my bra. My teeth were gritted to fight back all the pleasured sounds struggling to escape my throat. “If you did have my pup, I’d care for you both. I’d hunt for you. Protect you. Provide for you.”
From a human, it probably would have been a line. From a wolf, I knew it was the truth. It’s what every male lived for. To find a mate and provide for her and their pups. They would literally rather die than fail to care for their mates and offspring. From all I’d been told, they were obnoxiously devoted once they gave their loyalty.
“You don’t even know my name.” My voice was soft to my own ears. It was difficult to maintain aloofness with him so near. Especially when he began to kiss along my throat and I felt his thumb slip under the cup of my bra to tease my nipple directly. My hips automatically jerked forward and I whimpered. He took it as an invitation to press closer, his cock achingly hot and hard even through our layers of clothing.
“My name’s Dylan Collinee, what’s yours?” He chuckled against my throat, then nipped at my skin again, making me hiss.
“Fatima,” I breathed. “I’m not looking for a mate. I still don’t want kittens. I hate people. I like being alone. I don’t—”
My voice cut off abruptly when he placed a thumb over my lips. His other fingers cupped my chin, guiding my face upwards. I opened my eyes to find myself staring into his. Seeing his wolf eyes so close sent a sudden shiver through my body.
“I get it. You sound like a typical cat,” he teased quietly. “Now let me try to tame you.”
His thumb slid away from my lips, stroking my cheek. Before I could protest further, his mouth covered mine. His lips stroked over mine with a skill that would put all of my previous lovers to shame. When I felt his tongue tease at the seam of my lips, I automatically parted them to it, then moaned softly at the feel of the slick muscle insinuating itself into my mouth. Even the taste of him was heady in a way no human had ever been. Was it always like this with another shifter, or was it just him?
My hands moved back to his shoulders, though they didn’t push him away this time. I dragged that jacket and the flannel shirt down his arms, leaving him in just the t-shirt. When my hands moved back up to rub over his chest, I felt ripples of muscle that had been far too well-disguised by the layers before. Unable to stop myself, my fingers curled, nails lengthening into claws, and I tore the thin cotton open.
Dylan broke the kiss off, jerking back from me to look at my face. “What the hell—”
One of my hands went to the back of his head to pull him into the kiss again. He groaned softly and pressed in close to me, our tongues meeting to dance over one another. My free hand slid over his now exposed chest, rubbing against those muscles. I traced their curves with my fingertips. As my fingers moved down, I let my claws scrape at his skin, leaving thin pink lines in their wake as they dragged down his stomach.
I felt his hand close around my wrist with all the force of an iron manacle, then slam my hand back up against the wall and hold it there. I growled into the kiss, squirming between him and the wall. He pressed closer, forcing me back against the wall until it hurt and I had no room left to struggle.
His free hand moved down between us to pop open the button on my pants, dragging my zipper down. The hand he hadn’t pinned left his hair to help him; I was frantic to get out of them now. I kicked them off, along with my panties, then reached out to hook my fingers under the waist of his jeans, gripping there and dragging his hips in closer.
“Fuck me,” I begged against his lips.
He wasted no time getting his jeans open. Our bodies were so close that I couldn’t even see his cock before he’d gripped my ass and pulled me up off the floor, then impaled me in a single brutal thrust. My head fell back against the wall, breaking the kiss, and I cried out. He felt huge inside of me, especially with how swollen and tight with need I was. My legs automatically wrapped around his w
aist to hold myself to him as my hips gyrated to him urgently. Dylan pushed forward harder, holding me against the wall with his body so he could release my ass. His free hand now snatched up my wrist and pushed it up against the wall with my other arm. Once he had both wrists held by one hand, he gripped my ass again, his hips drawing back.
His second thrust forward was just as hard and deep as the first and quickly followed up by a savage third and fourth. My body rolled between him and the wall, shuddering with pleasure. I’d always been so afraid of getting pregnant, I’d never dared risk fucking while I was in heat. Even without an orgasm, it was already more satisfying than any other sexual experience I had ever had. I knew most of that had to be him, though. No human would be as strong as he was. None of them could actually hold me down. None could pound into me the way he was now, so hard I wondered if we might crack the drywall. None had ever intoxicated me with their taste and scent.
“Yes,” I hissed. “Fuck me, Dylan. God, please.”
At the angle he was thrusting into me, my clit ground down on the base of his cock each time our bodies met, sending me writhing against the wall, my wrists jerking against his hold uselessly. I could feel his hand grip harder until I was sure I would bruise. I pulled with more fury, wanting that pain and those black and blue blossoms.
His lips found mine again, though there was a harsh edge to the kiss this time. His teeth pressed to my lips with the force of it before his tongue plundered my mouth. I growled softly, leaning forward into the kiss, returning it with equal fervor. My teeth eventually found their way into his bottom lip and I moaned as I tugged and sucked at it. After a moment he pulled his lip free and I tasted a hint of the coppery salt of blood as his lip scraped between my teeth.
Dylan ducked down to kiss and nuzzle at my throat and I mewled in pleasure as he found a particularly sensitive spot up near my ear. His tongue teased there, his hot breath chilling the damp skin, before he began biting. Just soft scrapes of his teeth at first, then harder. I whimpered, shuddering and feeling the tension in my body drawing tighter.
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