by Nara Malone
She ran here so often she could probably do it blindfolded without stumbling, run it in her sleep. Considering how little sleep she’d had, this run might prove that claim.
As she crossed the first mile mark and rounded a bend, the throb in her head flared and she stumbled. Bending over, she paused, hands on knees, eyes closed, slowing her breath. The pulsing didn’t vanish but lingered, a steady tapping. Maybe she should see a doctor. She straightened and considered turning back.
A prickling awareness wiped the thought from her mind. A man waited ahead, one leg casually crossed in front of the other, a shoulder leaning against a tree. His black denim jacket hung open, framing a red shirt her hands itched to touch, a bright flash of color in the rain-grayed world.
He stood just a few feet away, sheltered by a gnarled oak, right where the bridge crossed the creek and led to a picnic area. He appeared to be waiting just for her. But it had to be a mistake. There was no one, had never been anyone, who was just for her. This silver-eyed, dark-haired stranger held himself like an exotic prince, waiting for a princess maybe—definitely not for Allie the ad writer.
He smiled and it was like a sunrise breaking through her gloom. His gaze traveled her body, reigniting the fire she’d been trying to drown. The journey stopped right at her bellybutton where it peeked between the edge of her shorts and the top of the tee that didn’t quite cover her there.
Her eyes fixed on his shirt again. She could feel its heat beckoning like hot coals in a fire, inviting her to warm her hands. She could taste that color, a burn like Red Hots melting on her tongue. She swallowed. The sensation in her head rose to a humming, nudging her to go to him, to lose herself in that bold stare. She put her fingertips to the spot again, wondering if she might be having some sort of breakdown. His eyes sparked with pleasure at the reaction, but his tone was serious when he spoke.
“You have two choices, sweetheart, you can turn around and run back the way you came and I won’t try to stop you. Or you can come to me, reach for the mystery, have what you are aching for.”
If he had struck a match to her, he couldn’t have lit her any faster.
“But if you come to me, I’m not going to stop at a kiss. I’m not going to stop at all until it pleases me.”
This was not a morning to face down temptation. If only he felt like a stranger, then she might have a chance, but he felt so familiar, like coming home. Common sense told her to run. Security lay in the other direction, returning to flatline dull days lining up one after the other. What price would she pay to feel alive, live dangerously for a few minutes? There was no one here to take him from her. No one to stop her from exploring the forbidden, not this time. One taste and she’d drop back into her role as a polite, conservative wallflower. It was a dangerous choice. All the more reason.
The greatest threats from a man were injury or death. She’d known how to read those kinds of threats in a man before she was old enough to read a book. She could see no intent to harm. No evil. He looked at her as if he’d discovered something precious. A warmth seemed to reach from his eyes into her soul, drawing her closer. She made her choice.
The red cloth shimmered with an aura of passion, dared her to press her body to it. The thought sent her blood zinging through her veins. There was something there, something irresistible. His eyes spoke promises she could feel. Her feet wouldn’t let her turn away, but took the risk. Took one step. Then the next. Her lips burned with a need to glide over his jawline, explore planes and angles with kisses and nips. Her heart hammered so loud he had to hear it even over the rain.
True to his word, he didn’t move an inch until she was right there in front of him, reaching to press her hands to the shirt, feel its heat, prove he was real. Her palms sighed with pleasure, like the fabric was a meal to be savored. His strong fingers closed around her wrist then, not painfully but with the finality of a manacle, reminding her that he’d said he wouldn’t let her go until he had what he wanted.
“Good girl,” he whispered, soothing away the little trill of fear that rose with his touch, stroking her face with the backs of his fingers. Her body sang like chimes in the wind, notes shivering down her spine.
“I won’t stop at a kiss,” he said. “But you can start with one. Make it sweet.”
She rose obediently to her toes, finding his lips, feeling them firm, parting under hers. He ordered and demanded with such a low, seductive tone. If he’d told her to go rob the jewelry store, in just the same way, it would have seemed a good idea.
He shifted, turning quickly so she was between him and the tree, cutting off any chance to change her mind and run. He held her face between his hands, and her own hands felt small and fragile against the breadth of his. He kissed his desire into her. Her mind grappled to reassert caution, but her thoughts slipped away, formless as water spilling through fingers. He didn’t stop kissing until she stopped thinking, until the rigidity in her muscles softened, until she kissed him back.
He tasted like spring rain.
His hands were warm through her soggy shirt, his fingers curved under her chilled breasts, his thumbs stroking over the tops. Thumbs and fingers came together, squeezing until she squirmed. His lips and tongue moved over her neck, tracing the line of her collarbone, a warm, sensual touch that made her whimper. He split the worn cotton with a sharp twist. The ripping sound jolted her. Her shirt split down the center, parting to offer her breasts. A wave of fear welled in her belly. A wash of desire trickled between her thighs. She glanced down the puddled path. He pressed her tighter against the tree.
“You had your chance,” he whispered. “It’s the last I’m willing to give you for a while.”
Marcus ran his thumbs over rain-studded skin at the edge of her bra. He needed to reel himself in. He’d been trying for the last few hours to keep the inner beast leashed. He’d only meant to come close enough to touch her dreams, thinking then her guard might be down. Few humans had the skill to shield their thoughts from him as completely as Allie. But it hadn’t been hard to track her down a few days after she’d taken Hella. She had routines he could set his watch by. It hadn’t been long before she was back in the park for another run and he’d followed her home. But Hella wasn’t in Allie’s apartment, nor had he managed to get any information regarding Hella in repeated visits to Allie’s office. Numerous suggestions and influences hadn’t penetrated Allie’s mental blockade.
The erotic suggestions he’d sent winging into her dreams had penetrated, stirred her needs, but it had opened no more than her body to him. A body soft, yielding. Her excitement evident to his Pantherian senses. The quick beat of her heart, the welcoming scent of female ready for a male.
A firm tug at the zipper on her running bra accomplished nothing, so he did away with that impediment in the same way he’d dispensed with the shirt. Her escalating arousal had her back arching, intensified the scent of desire. Her eyes went wide and pupils narrowed. He had her full attention now.
Ripe breasts springing free to fill his palms had his attention.
Prim, shell-pink nipples begged to be licked. She held her breath when he dipped his head to do just that. Flesh tightening under his tongue had his teeth automatically closing around the hard little nub. The soft sound she made in her throat was so mew-like he was tempted to toss her over his shoulder, head back to his truck and keep her. Unfortunately, he was fairly certain that practice had been outlawed in this country a couple of centuries ago.
Sex at dawn in a public park probably wasn’t legal either.
There were only so many laws he was willing to follow.
He licked her other nipple and her throaty response set his cock twitching.
Breathe, he reminded her when he lifted his head to inhale mist-laden air. She rubbed her cheek against the soft fabric of his shirt, a gesture so feline that his fingers were in her hair dragging her back before he realized what he was doing. She wasn’t intimidated, her fingers fumbling with his buttons, clutching at his shirt
, but she didn’t have the strength to tear it from him. One button popped free and fell.
He yearned for the feel of those long, sexy fingers raking over his chest, the sting of her nails digging in, as if a lost part of him could be restored by her touch. If he gave in to that yearning, control of the situation would be irretrievable.
Fuck if he wasn’t close to forgetting any part of him was human.
Her hands were above her head and he pushed them back and held them against cold, moss-slicked bark. He gave in to the catlike urge to rub against her, a full-body glide that trapped her between his teasing hips and the hard wall of the oak tree. But he was the one trapped, the one controlled by attraction stronger than he’d anticipated.
She moaned, pressing her hips forward to meet him, rubbing her breasts over his shirt as if it were a drug she could drink in through her pores. He released one of her hands. “Drop your shorts.” The command came out harsher than he’d meant it.
But the order yielded another breathy moan. Her eyelids drifted up and he recognized the quick flash of desire. She liked being told what to do. To test her he took it to the next level, twisting her hair in his hand, drawing her head back to expose her neck, the way a hunter exposed prey. His teeth grazed her jaw, then nipped her bottom lip while he murmured, “Do it now.”
Trembling fingers fumbled with the snap, worked the zipper down. Soaked denim slid down her legs to her ankles.
He rewarded her with a slow kiss, parting her lips with his tongue, thrusting in and out until her arms were around his neck and she was leaning back against the tree for support. When he broke the connection she looked up into his eyes for a moment, then quickly dropped her gaze.
“Step out and spread your legs wide for me.” He nipped her ear, hard. She obeyed. Roughly, his fingers pushed between her thighs, plunged inside her, and her muscles squeezed him, greedy for more. Juices soaked his fingers, drizzled over the back of his hand. Fuck, she smelled like heaven.
“Oh you are beautiful. So perfect. Perfectly ready to be taken.” His nose bumped hers playfully. “Aren’t you?”
He tried to hold her gaze, but her attention skittered away. She’d barely glanced at his face in past encounters, but this was different. This time she wouldn’t escape his probing so easily. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to turn her attention back to him, waiting until her eyes met his. The connection barely there, as if she’d pulled lead-lined shades down behind those windows to her soul. “Aren’t you?” he repeated, hoping to break through her defenses by shocking her. “Aren’t you ready for fucking?”
“Y-y-y—” She broke off, her gaze skidding away and returning with a boldness he hadn’t expected. “Yes.”
He rewarded with another deep kiss—Pantherian style—lips and tongues connected, breaths syncing, life energy entwined. The ridge of his cock rode the cleft of her pussy, scraping back and forth right over her clit.
What he hadn’t counted on was his vibration rising. He couldn’t hold off a shift much longer. He wanted to take her, wild and unrestrained, driving into her over and over until he broke through the barrier she maintained between his thoughts and hers. How? How did she keep such control when he had next to none left?
He went still and she squirmed against him. She opened her legs wider, rubbed over the ridge of cloth covering his zipper.
“You want that?” he growled. She nodded. “Take it out.”
She wrestled his belt open, then the button, and at last the zipper hissed down. Her fingers dipped under the elastic band to find warm flesh. Her fingers curled around his shaft while her other hand forced his briefs and jeans down. He leaned his full weight against her, trapping her head against his chest, her shoulders and back firm against the oak’s bark. His cock thickened more in her grip, despite her awkward attempt to pleasure him.
Everything, every step, had demanded she be responsible for the surrender she offered. There would be no mistaking that this was indeed what she wanted. And there was no mistaking that she was more willing than worldly.
Shaking, she tried to urge him to fuck her. The tip of his shaft pressed throbbing and sticky against the cool silkiness of her stomach. Pre-cum seeped from his cock over her fingers, his male scent freed to feed her craving as much as her scent drove his. Her primal nature was off the leash, but her thoughts seemed more impenetrable. What was happening to her? To him?
He put his hand over hers, stilling it. He hauled his self-control back from the edge she’d driven him to. “Breathe,” he said.
His fingers thrust deep in her pussy and withdrew, rougher than he meant to be, but determined to win the battle of wills. He watched her face. Pleasure flared, expanding her pupils, and vanished in a flash. Almost there. Almost. He continued to fuck her slowly, his fingers where his cock should be, held her there at the edge of the beginning. Waiting for something. She arched, trying to ride his fingers faster. He could guess at her thoughts—What did he want? What would it take to please him? He couldn’t touch her true thoughts, confirm the guess.
“Look at me,” he whispered. “Look in my eyes, feel me, be with me.”
She did look at him and he had the uneasy sensation that it was as if she were seeing him for the first time, not as in seeing him more clearly than she had in previous encounters, but more as if this was the first encounter.
Green eyes. How many humans had green eyes? But his attention moved quickly past the color to the dark centers. It was like falling into deep space, slipping into a place inside him where everything was blocked out but his desire. A humming sensation filled the air around them—an energy emanating from her. If he could hold on, push her just a bit further…
Slowly, his fingers stirred magic, thumb sliding over her clit, fingers moving in and out of her pussy, stopping each time she closed her eyes, shifted her concentration, tried to escape his eyes probing her. He wanted to penetrate more than her body. Any resistance from her stopped the pleasure.
How long was it? It seemed they played tug-of-wills a year before her will parted, allowing his energy to merge with hers.
“Say my name when you come,” he growled. “I want to hear you come with my name on your lips.”
“I can’t,” she gasped. She was clinging to him. Both arms around his neck.
“Yes you can, sweetheart. You’re almost there. Let it happen. Come with my name on your lips.”
She whimpered, too caught up in sensation to argue, but he knew with unwavering certainty when he stared down into her eyes that she didn’t have a clue who he was. Her thoughts penetrated as clearly as if she’d shouted them.
I don’t know. I don’t. Did he tell me his name?
She tensed, fingernails digging into his chest. Her pussy clamped hard around his fingers. She’d stopped fighting him, her body trembling at the edge of orgasm. And his ability to resist her was hurtling toward the edge with her. His energy hummed upward toward a shift, carrying him away as if he were some green adolescent unable to control his hormones. Right at the brink—he pulled back. Not only pulled back, but out. Curling his fingers into a fist between her thighs, he fought the urge to plunge them back into her silken heat.
She sobbed, begged, fought. He didn’t blame her. Unyielding, he held her struggling in his arms, not giving in, not letting go. If he allowed her to come, he’d be gone with her. He didn’t know what impact his vanishing and reappearing as a leopard might have on one so young and inexperienced. He thought it a safe bet she wouldn’t find it romantic. He’d taken them both too close to the edge and there was no quick way to undo that. It took a few minutes before he could respond as a human, with words instead of a hiss or a growl. Softly he whispered for her to hush, stroking her hair and neck. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Soon…maybe, but not yet.”
He had his eyes closed, his jaw set. It hadn’t occurred to him that Allie wasn’t going to let him off that easy. It didn’t take much to snatch control from him. She dropped to her knees, nuzzled and nipped his belly, t
hen licked lower and took him in her mouth. He cried out, a deep guttural sound, more animal than human.
Again his fingers tightened in her hair, forcing her head back, the other hand grabbing her chin, but she kept her mouth around him. He could feel himself fading as humid warmth engulfed him. Going still, he absorbed all that was happening, remained connected by attaching his attention to the rain pouring through the trees like water in a fall, the roar of wind and water like the roar of an ocean. Her scent lingered, mixed with the mists and his male musk. Need roared in him, urging him to do whatever it took to have her.
Again he pulled back and this time she released his cock.
He leaned his forearm against the tree and rested his head there. His other hand was still curled in her hair so tight it had to hurt. “Not now. Not yet,” he said.
He didn’t have to force her to look at him. She tipped her head back to study his face. He didn’t need to read her mind to guess she wanted to hold his gaze for the same reasons he’d tried to capture hers, to probe his motives. She confirmed his suspicions.
“Why?” she asked.
He smiled. “You tempt me to do things neither of us is ready for.” His fingers loosened and he stroked her hair. “You should run back home.”
She begged with her eyes.
“What?” he asked.
Looking at the ground again, she sighed. He knew what she wanted. He needed to hear her say it.
“Look at me,” he demanded without knowing why. There was no point in pushing her now. He did anyway. “Look at me and tell me what you want.”
She lifted her head, swallowing. He clamped onto the truth with a determined stare and wrenched it from her.
“You. I want you to take me,” she mumbled, and it seemed once she started, the tight lock on what was proper slipped away and more words spilled out behind it. “I want you to fuck me so hard, so long, that I won’t forget.”