by Gem Sivad
Thomas stepped to the side of the house and shed his clothes. Once naked, there was no such thing as letting the jaguar have control. Without waiting for him to prepare a carry pack, Sunny shifted and took to the trees, traveling rapidly through the thick woods until he reached Hess land.
Thomas knew when they arrived. Sunny’s last jump brought him against an invisible wall of power that burned the skin off his muzzle. The jaguar snorted and shook his head. Thomas took the moment to seize control.
Dammit. She must have left early for work. We’ll have to wait. He could have retraced his path through the trees back to Buchanan property. But remembering the wrongness he’d felt there, he remained in cat form and dozed in a tree.
He hadn’t realized how fractured his two-sided nature had become until the healing magic of Miz’s home unsnarled the twisted threads between beast and man. At ease with each other for the first time in weeks, they listened for the sound that would announce her return.
Instead of the purr of an approaching Harley, though, thunder rumbled in the distance. Then the sky directly overhead developed dark clouds and a light drizzle began to fall.
By noon, the wind had increased, ushering in a full-blown storm. At first cat had man enjoyed the elemental force; but when the few remaining leaves were soaked, even the bark of the tree oozed water, and the willow perch was slippery and uncomfortable, fun time had ended.
Inside the jaguar’s soaked pelt, Thomas shivered, grimly aware that the clock was ticking. He had to get Miz and return to DC.
Thomas glared from baleful cat’s eyes at the house where Missouri Hess had herself barricaded, lurking behind one of her damned protection spells she called wards. He couldn’t cross into her yard, so he was stuck in the willow tree waiting for her to relent and let him in.
Mate. The jaguar roared his claim. Thomas felt a throb of pain, as if someone had kicked him in the head. Miz was tuned in, all right.
Besides her property wards keeping him out of her body, she had her shields in place keeping him out of her head. Every time the damned beast touched Miz’s thoughts, she mind-slammed Thomas. Between the cat’s rage and his mate’s mental kick-boxing, Thomas was a mess.
The jaguar rumbled his fury. Thomas agreed. They wanted in, dammit. The beast wanted Miz because he recognized her on some primal level beyond Thomas’s domain. But Thomas wanted her for all the right reasons. For a moment he allowed himself to recall the bliss of holding her in his arms.
Savoring the memory was almost worth the thump as she landed a mental strike. But the pain kicked Thomas back into reality. He needed to get back to DC. Shep Buchanan, with all of the information he carried in his brain, had been compromised. Half of the men in their unit were already considering killing their leader.
It was just a matter of time before more agreed. Thomas couldn’t protect his friend forever. He had to find a way to rescue his sub-agency Special Forces commander. Currently Shep was staring at a wall in a guarded room, his mind somewhere in la-la land.
The pacing anxiety of the jaguar had finally forced Thomas back to Miz. Even if she let him in, they wouldn’t have time… His beast prowled restlessly, anxious to bind her to them. Half the time images of two jaguars playing together danced in Thomas’s head. Impossible, his human brain said. Mine, the jaguar growled.
He shuddered trying to get a grip as the will of his beast threatened to obliterate his human side. Instead of uniting them, meeting their mate had widened the chasm between beast and man.
Before he’d met Miz, Thomas had enjoyed the company of many women. After Miz, no one else would do. The cat had chosen his mate and left Thomas to deal with the complications. He couldn’t stay in the boondocks with her and she wouldn’t leave the state. Now he was back and the witch wouldn’t let him in.
The cat said Miz was in danger. Thomas didn’t know if her talents had been discovered and he couldn’t stay here to protect her if she’d been outed. Like it or not, Miz was returning to DC with him today.
Miz was a healer. She was also a lethal weapon in the wrong hands. She possessed the gift of truth-saying. Thomas knew for a fact she could get in a man’s head and make him tell everything he knew or thought he knew. She’d done it to him.
The jaguar chuffed impatiently. She is the mate. They were supposed to be in her mind and she in theirs. It was Thomas’s fault the connection was gone. He’d broken the mind link with Miz, afraid to take a chance that someone might take over his brain too.
While he’d been gone, she’d obviously been busy strengthening her mental shields. Now when he tried to reach her, she’d figured out how to block his thoughts. She’d beamed one clear message to him though. Kiss-off.
The night before she’d tortured him, pulling her curtains wide as she worked out. He’d watched her pummel her punching bag. Then she’d tried to kick to death the black, life-sized, body-man dummy she’d added to her equipment. It was about Thomas’s height and when she’d landed her jarring shots to head and groin, he’d known he was her imaginary target.
She was pissed. No doubt about it. It didn’t help any that Thomas’s beast agreed with Miz. He’d left Bitter Creek Holler, assuring Miz over a month ago he’d be back within the week. He’d been wrong. Now he was up a tree trying to negotiate entrance back into her world.
Chapter Five
Shit. Shit. Shit. Miz paced from one side of her living room to the other, stopping every once in a while to peer outside. The damned cat was in the tree again and Mother Nature had sent a storm. Lightning crashed and thunder rolled, making the earth shudder under the force of the ever-nearer strikes.
I will not invite that idiot inside. A picture of the wet jaguar crouching on a slippery willow limb suddenly flashed in her mind. Thomas Hunter was up a tree and he could stay there.
Go away. We met in midsummer, solved a crime together, boinked like animals—which you are, sort of—you came, I came, you left. End of romance.
“Serves you right,” Miz muttered aloud. She didn’t know whether she blamed herself or him. She knew better than counting on anyone. She looked at the storm outside where sheets of water pelted across her yard in a rolling tide. He left, he didn’t call, we’re done.
Jerking a blanket around her shoulders, she stomped to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Suddenly, a wash of pleasure shivered through her. Like an addict given a tiny taste of the forbidden, Miz felt the essence of Thomas as he wrapped her in an incorporeal embrace.
Oh. My. God. She put passion in the mental punch she landed on his thick, metaphysical, skull. Stay out of my head.
She was pleased to see that her hand was steady as she poured the usual liberal amount of creamer into the brew and stirred.
I’m cool. I can handle this. She sipped her coffee, leaning over the kitchen sink to get a better view. I can’t see the cat at all. I hope he’s…
Overhead lightning flashed, splitting the air with a clash and boom as it struck the ground close by. The wind picked up speed and the willow tree trembled under the assault.
A yowl of desperate misery shamed her. What can it hurt? I’ll just…
Before she finished her thought, a splash of gold leapt from the tree and the next moment as she peered through the window, Thomas stood looking hopefully at her from across the yard. Naked Thomas.
Reluctantly Miz unlocked the ward, watching it shimmer and come down to allow him entry into her territory. In two leaps he was on the porch. She held the door open and the blanket waiting, ready to wrap it around his shoulders and cover his nakedness from her view. She grimaced at his forlorn appearance and stepped away from him.
I won’t be seduced senseless this time. Of course, Thomas immediately had to test that theory. He pulled her into a real embrace this time, wrapping her in the blanket and molding her to his wet skin.
She glared, trying to ignore the tantalizingly thick length pressed against her belly.
“I’m hungry for you,” Thomas growled as he trailed kisses fr
om her jaw to her throat, melting her bones and heating her core to lava.
Miz heard truth in every groaned word, but that didn’t mean she’d forgive him.
“Shouldn’t a gone traipsing off to parts unknown then, Sunny.” But her words were a needy moan, not the indifferent drawl she’d intended, and her head automatically tilted, giving him better access to the sensitive spot joining her shoulder and neck.
She was reminded that her absentee lover was both man and jaguar when a razor-like claw sliced through her tanktop, and sharp teeth pierced her skin.
Primal need flooded her body; but lust warred with anger and anger won.
“Gone six weeks, not a peep to be heard after the first five, and now you think to stroll back in. I don’t think so, boyo,” Miz snarled.
She shrugged out of Thomas’s arms, her tattered bra and tank framing her heaving breasts.
“Not interested, Sunny. It’s been quiet times here. I’ve got no excess energy to dump and I won’t be needing your services.” She lied. She was hotter than a she-cat in heat, but by damn she was a hell of a lot madder.
Had he bothered to keep in touch, he’d know that she’d been swamped fixing injuries during September. Two wolves had almost killed each other in a fight, a white-tailed deer had broken a leg, assorted female shifter problems had presented themselves and those were only a few examples of the first aid she’d provided since Wyatt had revealed her ability to the pack.
Unfortunately for her, the fastest way to shed the effects of laying-on-hands was a long, prolonged bout of sex. With Thomas gone, she’d abstained, and abstained, and abstained—even when she’d had offers to help her out.
Right now, with the residual magic from all those healings pulsing inside her, Miz figured she contained enough elemental wattage to light up the state. And the antidote for her carnal overload stood ready to assist—and then leave again.
Absolutely, frigging, no. Her punching bag could take the workout. The relief Thomas offered cost too much. He was an untrustworthy ass. Their midsummer romance had been nothing more than a smoke screen. Thomas had been in Bitter Creek Holler on a mission.
It turned out that local-boy-makes-good Buchanan—the same Buchanan who currently had a noxious weed growing in his yard—was Thomas’s boss and part of the sub-agency of the NSA.
Thomas had stayed in the area long enough to confirm the existence of the local werewolf pack, destroy all of Miz’s illusions about the people she thought she knew, and fuck her into mellow oblivion.
He’d actually made her believe in that thing he called mating. She’d just begun getting used to having him in her bed at night. He was hot, he gave her a steady supply of what she needed, and for the first time in her life, she felt almost normal. Go figure that it would be with a man who turned furry every once in a while.
Maybe it was her own fault he’d left her behind. He’d asked her to go with him but she couldn’t. Not wanting to reveal one more Hess oddity to him, she’d not explained why when she’d said ‘no’.
When he’d accepted her refusal without argument and waltzed in with gifts and a goodbye she’d been stunned and feeling stupid—she’d felt dumber still when he didn’t come back and ended their mind link.
It had shocked her into realizing how insidious her dependence on him had become. She’d tried to reach his thoughts and run into barricades he’d erected, separating them. She’d tried to call him on her cell phone and her number had been blocked.
It seemed like a pretty clear message to her. Nevertheless, she’d compulsively touched his mind again and again like probing a sore tooth with her tongue. Thomas was apparently gone, but the cat had begun visiting her dreams.
She’d wakened one morning exhausted as if she’d been running. She’d been left with the clear memory of chasing a man into the trees. It got weirder.
One night she had a nightmare about shifting into a cat herself. She’d fallen out of bed, clutching the blanket in a stranglehold. It had been so real, she’d hurried to inspect herself in the mirror. No fangs, no fur.
Cursed with enough creepy shit in her life, Miz decided she didn’t need more and closed her side of the link tight. Now here he was ready to screw with her life again. Heat pulsed in her core.
Maybe—just once more. She wanted him so bad her teeth ached.
“Let me explain.” He uttered the words all men say when they begin their lame-ass excuses.
Fuck you and fuck the horse you rode in on, Miz mentally sneered. Big mistake. Thomas took advantage of the opening and that fast, the devil invaded her mind.
Your punching bag will gather dust. The only workout equipment you need is attached to me. I’m trustworthy. And we’re mated so all my services come free.
Backing up, Miz fumbled for the mental off switch that would tune him out at the same time she tried to work a little magic to zip his real lips closed. Neither maneuver worked.
“This is yours.” The cretin held his shaft in his hand, pumping it up and down and chastising her at the same time. He was so frigging gorgeous, drool collected in her mouth.
“I told you when I left that I had an assignment.” He shouldn’t have reminded her.
“I’ll be gone a week, tops,” she repeated the words he’d said when he’d left. Miz scowled.
“Shit happened.”
“And you shut the connection between us and didn’t even call to let me know shit happened because…?”
“It would have put you in danger.” Thomas’s voice dropped to a muted growl somewhere between human and beast. It was apparent that he had his own issues. Brown eyes changed to the color of aged whisky as man and jaguar fought for supremacy.
“Figure out who’s piloting today,” she told him snidely. “Then go away.” She fought the thrall as beast eyes won the struggle and held her gaze.
Too weird. The jaguar rumbled, the low sound vibrating in Thomas’s chest. She was pretty damned sure the cat was as furious about her being locked out as Miz.
“I’m playing for Team Thomas,” she muttered, reminding the animal inside her once lover she wasn’t interested in pursuing his acquaintance.
Even before Thomas, and his furry other self, had gone, she’d pretended that jaguar and man were separate entities. That way she could deal. Admitting that she’d taken a lover who sometimes turned into a big frigging cat had been beyond her.
One day he’d shifted to beast form and preened in front of her, coaxing her to pet the jaguar and make friends. Reluctantly she’d obeyed. The three-hundred-pound cat had purred and rubbed against her as if she were catnip. It had been a toss-up whether Miz remained frozen or ran screaming from his affection.
Thomas had shifted back to man before her feet had caught up with her brain. He’d been at his persuasive best, assuring her that eventually she’d get accustomed to his other half.
I’m everything you could want—lover, protector, pet, he’d told her. Miz snorted, reminding herself how that thinking had turned out.
Be cool. He doesn’t need to know how much it hurt. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming back here after disappearing for a month.” She glared at him, her mouth refusing to listen to her brain.
“Did you use my presents while I was gone?”
“I put them in the closet and forgot about them—just like I forgot about you.” She gave him her best you are a jackass look.
Thomas had pulled out the stops giving her gifts on his way out the door. A new pair of cowboy boots, finer than she’d ever seen—she’d wanted to slide her feet in them the moment she’d set eyes on the turquoise and peach tooled leather. She hadn’t. They were still in the closet, virgin footwear.
The nightie had been nice too. Thin and soft, she knew without even touching it how the silk would feel against her nipples.
She’d stuffed it in a corner of her drawer out of sight, ready to model it when he returned. Hah. Funny how things turned out. He’d cut off communications and she’d thrown it in the trash. Actually,
she’d tossed it, retrieved it, thrown it away again, and finally given in to her masochistic side, draping it over a hangar in her closet to remind her why Thomas was taboo from here on out.
“I need you.” He narrowed the distance between them.
Is that right? She didn’t have to make a mind connection to greet the damned cat. The sound of his purring filled the kitchen.
“Stop that.” Her order fizzled as Thomas nuzzled her neck again, this time lavishing kisses there.
“You missed me, too,” Thomas said, his usual sexy baritone dropping to a guttural growl.
She swallowed back a moan, torn between running like hell and pouncing on him.
It’s just the burn he’s feeling. She knew it was her carnal heat pouring into the air that had him hard and ready. She wished it wasn’t so. It would have been nice to have someone want her for herself instead of being turned-on by the pheromones she beamed.
Thomas snarled and snapped his teeth at her. She jerked back. What the frigging hell was that?
He held her gaze and shoved her sweats down. She let him, assuring herself that since she was barefoot, it would be easy to step free of the material and kick him senseless.
He picked her up and her traitorous thighs wrapped around his waist.
Okay, one last time. He’s a master at this. I need it. Afterward I’ll tell him to get lost. She was so wet and ready for him, he slid to her core with one thrust.
Miz tried to concentrate on burning her excess power. That’s what this was about. Strictly medicinal, not enjoyment, just a needed remedy for her carnal overload.
But, ohmygod—how could I have forgotten the feel of his skin? She pressed her mouth against his shoulder and licked his sweat. He tasted good, salty and sweet at the same time.
His thick length stretched her, making her whimper with pleasure as her body clasped him tight. He made her crazy. She wanted to suck the marrow from his bones and layer herself in his scent. She tried to stifle the pitiful sound of her need.