“Have you ever done that?” she asked. “Changed the value of something you had to accept?”
“Sure.”
Her heart stuttered. “When?”
He didn’t answer right away, seemed to be mulling something over in his head. Then he glanced past her to the road they’d just traveled, and scrubbed a hand over his face. “When my father died.”
It was something she’d known about, had heard about, but they hadn’t been close enough to talk about back then. She hoped they were now. Or getting there. She fought the urge to reach for his hand. She didn’t want to do anything to stop him from opening up to her, being vulnerable. “How did you amplify that? Or change its value?”
With a tight exhale, his gaze slid back to meet hers. “I got to have two families.”
It took her all of five seconds to glean his meaning, but it made her gut ache. His family was Aristide, maybe even her. And he’d crossed a line he hadn’t wanted to cross. “I understand.”
“Do you?” he asked, his eyes now piercing in the light of the late afternoon sun. “Because I really need you to.”
Before Mal could answer, the rumbling sounds of a car coming up the dirt path rent the air. It was coming fast toward them, into the parking lot, kicking up a shitload of dust. Her Hunter instincts kicking into high gear, Mal grabbed Xavier’s hand, and took off for the shelter of the trees down near the swamp.
Silently, they watched the car slide into a parking space and stop with a sputter and a groan. When the door opened and a woman got out, Mal turned to Xavier and whispered, “She look familiar? From any of the shop pictures on the drive?”
He shook his head.
She pressed him. “You sure? There had to have been a ton of film.”
He turned and gave her a lopsided grin. “I have a photographic memory, Beautiful.”
Her heart freaking swooned, and she uttered dryly, “Of course you do.”
He laughed softly. “It’s a damn inconvenience. Every inch of your body…” He tapped his temple. “All up here and never going away.”
“Good.” It was her turn to grin now.
He motioned for her to follow. “Come.”
“You have the cabin number, right?”
“I think so,” he said, following the water, keeping to the shadows, the shade. “If I can remember it.”
She gave him a playful push, laughing softly. At which he growled, and yanked her to his side. But as they drew closer to the cabins, they quieted, moving swiftly, listening, eyes wary as they passed the rustic dwellings, their screened porches overlooking the cypress swamp, now tinted peach in the light of the late-afternoon sun.
“Are we breaking and entering?” she asked, wiping sweat from her brow. “Or just lying in wait to grab the guy?”
He turned his gaze on her. “That’s the Hunters way, isn’t it, Amalie? No talk, all action.”
“Not this Hunter,” she said in a hushed voice as they approached the rear of the cabin. “I like talk. Lots of it. In my ear is good. Against my mouth even better.”
With a soft snarl, he whirled around and caught her up in his arms. His ice blue eyes narrowed with heat. “Don’t make me regret bringing you.”
“Oh, you won’t.” With a crooked smile, she pulled away from him. “I have the nose after all.”
“The nose, the eyes, the mouth, the ass…”
She glanced back and winked at him, then darted away, quick and quiet, to the side door of the cabin. She was there only a few seconds, when Xavier came up behind her, whispered in her ear, “Well?”
She shivered. In the ninety-plus degree weather, she actually shivered. “No one’s in there.”
“No body heat.”
She glanced over her shoulder and grinned. “No body heat and no heartbeat. Should we wait inside?”
He shook his head. “Maybe in another cabin close by. Maybe in the trees.”
She looked up at the massive cypress overhead. “If only I could access my puma,” she whispered. “I hate that we can’t shift outside the Wildlands. It’s so inconvenient.” Then her eyes slid down to meet his and she added, “And that pussy of mine really knows how to dig in her nails and climb.”
Her suggestive tone and words had Xavier’s nostrils flaring, and he took her hand and led her away from the cabin and back toward the swamp. “I think we’ll stay out of the trees for today,” he grumbled. “Come, Female.”
CHAPTER 8
“Liar!”
“Excuse me?” Xavier didn’t spare her a glance, though he wanted to. Shit, he always wanted to. After all, she looked hot. Jeans, tank, smooth, tanned skin with a light sheen of sweat. His tongue twitched inside his mouth at the image, at the yearning to taste her salty skin. But he had to set his position, make sure he could see if and when someone returned to that cabin.
“You said no trees, and look at this,” she said behind him.
Crouched inside the shelter of a massive fallen cypress, Xavier shrugged. “No climbing was needed.” He narrowed his eyes at the screened porch a couple hundred yards away. “We’re protected here. We can see everything, and no one can see us.”
“We could be protected inside one of those cabins bracketing our camera owner.”
Xavier glanced over his shoulder. Damn, she looked beautiful. Edible. “You looking for some comfort on this mission, Hunter?” he asked.
Her lips twitched. “No,” she returned haughtily, the leaves of the cypress overhead traveling back and forth across her back. “I’m just saying there are options…”
“Like carpet and walls and indoor plumbing?”
She shook her head. “You’re such a guy.”
“Damn right,” he said, then growled softly. “Wait, what does that mean?”
She laughed. “With what you have between your legs, you don’t need indoor plumbing. Us females…well, let’s just say it’s an awkward act without it. Out of our fur, at any rate. ”
He laughed with her. “I can ask if there are any vacancies here. Hell, maybe I’ll just kick out some nice couple celebrating their mating night if it would please you.”
She sobered suddenly, and her expression went soft, sensual. Even her tone was far more tantalizing than teasing. “You want to please me?”
Christ, she made him insane. His hands curled into fists, and a low, husky growl exited his throat. “Don’t act so surprised, Hunter. I may be a closed book when it comes to sharing feelings and all that sappy bullshit, but don’t pretend you don’t know how affected I am by you. How my body twitches and hardens and sweats every fucking moment you’re around. Pleasing you?” He laughed darkly. “It’s on my mind constantly.”
Her breathing quickened, making her cheeks flush and her spectacular chest rise and fall.
“Well, you’re not the only one,” she said, her eyes pinned to his.
“What do you mean?”
A slow, sexy grin played about her lips. “Pleasing me is on my mind constantly, too.”
“You!” With a fierce growl, Xavier forgot everything—where he was, why he was there—and leapt on top of her, forcing her to her back on the soft moss. Snarling down at her, he rasped, “You…Dammit…You…”
She gazed up at him, breathing so hard, she could hardly get the word, “What?” out of her mouth.
“You make me crazy,” he growled.
She raked her hands up his chest. “Good.”
“You make me hungry,” he continued, his eyes narrowed slits as he ground his hips, his hard cock, against her sex.
“Finally,” she uttered, grinning, her hands moving down, over his stomach toward his hips.
He groaned, knowing where she was headed. “You make me…God, Amalie…”
“What, Xavier? Tell me. Please, tell me.”
“You make me so fucking happy.”
The words were out of his mouth before he could take them back. Not that he wanted to. They were true. He’d never felt anything close to this with anyone. He wanted her. No
t just a night—or three—of hot, mindless fucking. No. He wanted her.
Amalie’s hands froze near his hipbones and her eyes searched his. Within their incredible green depths, he saw her heart. Saw how she felt about him. How she’d always felt about him. And if he wasn’t mistaken, he saw his own heart reflected there, too.
Suddenly, her face broke with a grin, and she whispered, “By the way, I don’t think anyone would be having their mating night here.”
“Why not?” he asked, his hands cupping her face. Her soft, beautiful face.
“It’s just not very romantic. The swamp, the bugs.”
He ran his thumb across her lower lip. “You sure you’re a Hunter, Amalie?”
Her soft, sexy laughter went straight to his dick. “All I’m saying is that when you mate, or marry as the humans say, you want that first night to be special.”
His expression grew serious and he leaned down and kissed her lower lip. “No bugs?” he whispered.
She nodded, lifting her chin instinctively. “Preferably.”
He kissed her top lip, then swiped it gently with his tongue. “No swamp?”
“If one can help it,” she said breathlessly, her arms wrapping around his waist.
Heat surged up from her skin into his and he stifled a groan. “What if one can’t help it?”
Her eyes cut to his mouth and she licked her lips. “Xavier…”
“Because I don’t think I can help it. I don’t think I want to, Hunter.”
She smiled softly, sweetly. “That’s ‘Beautiful’ to you.”
“Yes, it is.” He kissed her, a kiss that conveyed his hunger and his need, but there was so much more. More he had to say. The one vital thing that would change everything between them. He pulled back and forced her gaze to lock with his. “I want you, Amalie.”
She arched her back and purred, “Then have me.”
His cock felt so hard it was painful. “It’s your first mating.”
“I know,” she thrust her hips up, ground her sex against him brazenly. “I want it to be with you. I’ve always wanted it to be with you.”
Pain and pleasure battled within him. “I want that too. Fuck…”
“Then take it,” she said harshly, desperately.
“Here? Now?”
“Do you care where we are?” she demanded. “Do you care who sees us right now?” She cursed. “Do you care if everything is put on hold for however long we need? However long it takes for this to happen between us?”
“Fuck no. Fuck. No.” His mouth was so dry. He needed her, her heat, her saliva, her cream. He didn’t give a shit about where they were, but he needed her to understand something. He needed her to know what he was asking of her. “Amalie, I won’t take it unless I can keep it.”
Her eyes widened, a flash of confusion moving through them. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” He rose up, his eyes pinned to hers, but his fingers moving to the waistband of her jeans. “I want you. But not for a night or three.” He flicked the button, eased down the zipper. “I want you always, forever, until the Wildlands are no longer filled with magic and we are dust that a new species calls their home.”
For a moment, all Xavier heard was her rapid breathing and the sounds of the water and the wind through the cypress.
“I love you, Amalie,” he said in a hoarse, desperate voice. “Fuck, Beautiful, I always have. I don’t care about anything or anyone. Not anymore—not ever.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, turning them a shocking leaf green in the light of fading sun.
“I love you, too,” she uttered. “But you know that. You’ve always known.”
He nodded. “Tell me,” he nearly begged. “Tell me before I die of longing. Tell me before I strip you bare and taste you, fuck you, claim you. Tell me I’m yours and you’re mine.”
“Are you sure?” she said as he pulled down her underwear and jeans and tossed them aside. “Forever is—”
“What I want more than anything in the world, Beautiful,” he said, easing her tank over her head and her bra from her shoulders. “There’s nothing, no one, who can stop this, can stop me from claiming you.” His eyes flipped up to lock on hers. “Except you.”
Shock barreled through Xavier as Amalie grasped both sides of his T-shirt and ripped it up the center. The sounded echoed across the bayou, but he barely heard it. Her words next drowned out everything else.
“Mate me, Xavier,” she said, her eyes flashing. “Mate me for life.”
She had the black fabric off his body in seconds and was working his jeans down his hips before he had time to register her movement. Once he did though, he was like a male possessed, growling, taking over, his jeans off and discarded, and his head between her thighs.
The liquid heat that hit his tongue made come leak from his cock. She tasted like heaven, like honey, and he licked her over and over, nothing gentle, nothing sweet. Fuck no. Right now, he just wanted to eat her. And if the way her hips were jacking up, pumping hungrily against his mouth, was any indicator, she liked his slight roughness, his need to consume her.
“Oh god, Xavier,” she said on a moan. “I can’t…it’s too much.”
Damn right. It was all too much. But so what? They both needed this, needed each other. More was good. More made her buck and groan. More made her pussy so wet and warm and soft, he couldn’t wait to get inside her.
Her fingers plunged into his hair, her nails digging into his scalp as he tongued her deep, then pulled out and suckled her clit.
“You’re making me crazy,” she whispered, then gasped as he pressed his tongue against her and jerked his head up and down.
Xavier felt her violent shudder beneath his mouth, coming hard and intense against his tongue. His entire body went up in flames as her juices rushed him. He lapped at her, drank her up, but left enough wet heat to coat her pussy walls and make his thrust easy and pleasurable.
With one last possessive suckle to her swollen clit, he rose over her, catching his weight on his elbows, holding his position so they were face to face. Breathing heavily, her eyes filled with heat and deep desire, Amalie wrapped her legs around his waist, arched her back and brazenly and seductively licked him from chin to nose.
“Mmm,” she uttered, her eyes lifting to his. “I taste good on you.”
Xavier, the male, died.
While the animal within him flared to the surface of his skin and took hold, took control. His cock poised at her entrance, the head hard and wet with pre-come, he growled. “Mine.”
She nodded. “Yours.”
And he pushed inside her.
* * *
He was deep.
Breathstealingly deep.
Every thick, hard inch, was deliciously impaled inside her, all the way to her womb, and nothing—nothing—had ever felt so amazing. There was no pain, just a wondrous full feeling. God, they were truly made for each other. She’d known the first time she’d seen him. Too young to understand the bond, the connection, it had surfaced as a lust and a hope for the future.
But now, now as he started moving inside of her, claiming her with his body as he looked down into her eyes, connected with her, she understood the true symmetry of love. Him and Her. Even in their puma forms, they would know this bond, feel this bond.
“I love this,” he rasped, nipping at her lips as he thrust gently inside of her, getting her body ready for the intense, possessive thrusts to come.
After all, he was a Pantera male. They could fuck gently, of course. But it was only a matter of time before they went wild, attacked, demanded, their animal nature ruling their sex drive.
And being a Pantera female, Mal couldn’t wait.
“I love being inside of you,” he continued, dropping his head, taking one hard nipple into his mouth and suckling it deep. To her gasp, the rush of wet heat inside her pussy, he growled. “Kissing you, sucking your sweet, pink tits. Feeling you go tight and hot around my cock whenever I do.”
<
br /> His words, uttered against her breast, his breath teasing her wet nipple, made Mal feel like she was going to come again. She fought against it. She wanted to come with him this second time.
Then he look up and smiled. “And shit, Beautiful, I just love you.”
Mal didn’t know if it was the words, his voice, or how his ice blue eyes had melted into lazy, erotic pools of emotional blue, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her Hunter strength kicked in, and she pressed her hands to his hips, eased his cock out of her, and flipped to her belly.
“Fuck me now,” she demanded, coming up on her hands and knees. “Fuck me hard and deep until we both come. Outside, under the sky, near the bayou. This is how you should claim me, and how I should be taken. My pussy—both the one who purrs for you, and the one you’re looking at right now—need it.”
Xavier didn’t say a word. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe his animal was right there, hissing and snapping and snarling near the surface of his skin, just as hers was. But it was no more than a second before she felt him behind her, his thick, stone-hard cock pressed at her entrance.
His thrust wasn’t gentle this time.
Thank. Fucking. Christ.
He knew what she wanted, and he was giving it to her. Gripping her hips, he rode her hard, working her so deep she moaned and keened and circled her hips trying to feel him from every angle. Shock waves of pleasure moved through her. How could something so primal feel so good? So beyond amazing. She wanted to cry and scream and laugh and warn him to never stop. That as mates she would demand he fuck her every day and every night for the rest of her life. But she didn’t have the voice. He’d stripped her bare in too many ways to count.
And then she felt it. The thing—the amazing, magical thing she’d only heard about from her Pantera female friends. The sign of a true mating. She felt his claws against the skin of her hip, and as he pounded into her, and she stretched around him, he marked her. She cried out, from pain, from pleasure, and from the absolute wonder of having a long-realized dream come true.
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