More Than Skin Deep (Shifter Shield Book 3)

by Margo Bond Collins

  “What are you having? Would I like it so much?”

  Shadow opened her eyes and smiled, unsurprised to see the owner of the voice was the man who had been stalking her around the room. His voice was low and deep, his accent almost musical.

  Tilting her head back, she regarded him. He stood about two inches too close for someone she didn’t know. Close enough to be flirtatious, not so near as to make a lone woman anxious. His dark brown eyes absorbed the light, reflecting nothing but liquid color back at her. A dimple flashed in only one cheek when he grinned at her. “Well? Do you plan to tell me?”

  Tilting her head to one side, Shadow glanced up at him from under her lashes. He didn’t tower over her. Oddly, she had expected him to—something about him made him seem bigger than he actually was, up close. “Gin and tonic,” she said. “Nothing special.”

  “Not special? I do not believe it. All that you touch must become special.” A half step closer allowed him to lean one elbow on the bar. Muscles in his arm bunched and flowed along his arm and up under the sleeve of his gray T-shirt. Shadow had to stop herself from reaching out to slide one finger along the smooth skin of his bicep.

  At the mere thought of touching him, heat pooled low in her belly.

  Oh, yes. This one would do nicely.

  Waving one finger in a lazy circle to encompass all his associates in the room, she asked, “You guys on some sort of team?”

  That single dimple flashed again. “Something like that.”

  “I like your accent. Where are you from?”

  “Most of us are originally from Botswana, in Africa, though many of us live here in the United States now.”

  “Soccer?” Taking another long sip through the straw, she watched him watching her.

  “You mean football?”

  With a shrug, she let the glass clink to the bar and hooked a barstool with one ankle to pull it closer to her. Hitching herself up onto it, she leaned forward enough to let the cleavage of her shirt fall open a tiny bit. Letting her voice go throaty, she asked, “Does it matter what we call it, as long as we agree on the rules?”

  “No. I do not think it matters at all,” he breathed, stepping fully into her personal space, closing the distance between them.

  * * *

  Jeremiah pulled up short of actually touching the beautiful woman in front of him, though she had all but invited him to do so every time she looked at him. Even though he had immediately established that she was human, he inhaled her scent a second time—her individual perfume of a lightly floral scented soap overlaying the smells of night air, something like rain on fresh-turned earth, and clean sweat over something that was pure woman igniting a heat inside him like nothing else he had experienced before.

  I should at least learn her name.

  Even if every inch of him strained toward her, urging him to clasp her to him now. His cock had hardened instantly at the way she dropped her voice when she mentioned playing by the rules. From the way she leaned toward him now, one hand reaching out to rest on the center of his chest, she felt the same way.

  What he wanted to do was shift his hand enough to bring out his claws and shred her clothes until they were no longer in his way. Then he would pick her up, wrap her delicate legs around his waist, and drive into her with every ounce of power he had.

  He wanted to lose himself in her.

  But he knew better.

  Humans couldn’t take a shifter’s full strength—even if he could come up with some excuse for suddenly growing panty-shredding claws at the end of his hands.

  Jeremiah stifled a grin at the thought.

  No. He would maintain control, even if everything about her called out to him to let go of his carefully cultivated restraint. Drawing in yet another deep breath, this one designed to help hold back his inner beast, he gently curled one white-blond lock of hair around his index finger. “What are you called?”

  “Shadow.” Her voice came out in a rasp.

  The artificial light of the bar glinted off the golden highlights wrapped around his fingertip. “Such a dark name for someone so fair.” He trailed his other hand down the side of her face, watching the play of light on the dark skin of his hand contrasted against her pale, soft cheek. She tilted her head to give him access to her neck, as well.

  “And yours?” Her wolf-bright eyes regarded him through half-closed lids.

  “Jeremiah.”

  “Such a formal name. Biblical, right?”

  He nodded. “A prophet who warned that King Nebuchadnezzar was coming to destroy the land of Judah.”

  She smiled. “Sounds ...” the pause between her words drew out for a long moment, before she finally said, with a slow, sultry smile, “like we could come up with a better activity for the evening.”

  With that, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers, stretching up on the barstool so that her breasts pressed against his chest. As her lips met his with an almost electric spark, he felt his inner hyena chuckle with a happiness he didn’t often feel—the two sides of his personality, beast and man, for once in perfect accord.

  * * *

  That first kiss in the bar had been almost intoxicating, even without the drinks. Shadow had intended to dive into him, to taste every part of Jeremiah that she could reach within the first few seconds. But the instant his mouth had touched hers, it had been like everything around her had slowed down. She could feel the warmth of his lips pressing against hers, the coolness of the air rushing into his mouth as he drew in a breath, the gentle pressure of his tongue flicking against the seam of her lips, urging her to open her mouth.

  That pressure became more demanding within seconds, and when she relaxed her lips against his, Jeremiah’s tongue all but dove into her mouth as he swept her up into his arms to hold her body against his.

  Shadow hadn’t considered soccer a sport to particularly build up one’s strength, but his arms banded around her more intensely than she had anticipated, wrapping her to him like silk-covered iron. His chest, too, pressed against her with a pressure and a force she hadn’t anticipated—but she welcomed it.

  It had been a long time since she had found anyone who could match her in bed; most of the men she picked up after a hunt were either inherently too soft, or unwilling to engage in the kinds of sex-games that allowed them to play rough.

  Invariably, the ones who wanted to play the kinds of games she did wanted to take it too far—they wanted to believe that they could control her.

  That would never happen.

  All too often, she ended up hurting the man she picked up, either inadvertently or because she needed to put him back in his place.

  With this man, though, she suspected she might have found a match. Pressing her entire body against his, she pulled her lips away from his enough to say against his mouth, “Do you have somewhere we can go?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am, I do,” he rasped out in that sing-song accent of his.

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  Outside, the air was thick and warm—autumn in the Deep South didn’t cool things down much.

  For once, Shadow was glad of it.

  She kissed up and down Jeremiah’s neck, hanging from him as they left the bar. “You have someplace nearby?” she murmured into his ear, licking along the shell of it in between words.

  “On the river,” he replied, pointing at the hotel district less than a block away.

  Moments later, she let out a low whistle as they entered the lobby of the Hyatt and she caught sight of the glass elevators sweeping people up to the tiers of floors above. “College soccer must be more lucrative than I thought,” she said, raising an eyebrow as she glanced at Jeremiah.

  Erik would have told her to hold her tongue, to practice fitting in with those around her. “A Scyld,” he was fond of saying, “is all but invisible, in the world but not of it.”

  Tonight, though,
Shadow was not a Scyld—or, if she was (“be always vigilant,” Erik would have scolded), she was a Scyld without a mission, at least for one night.

  Without a killing mission, anyway, she corrected herself. She definitely had a mission—and it was to get this hot man up to his room as soon as possible and throw herself at him.

  Her companion didn’t seem to mind her gawking at the hotel lobby. He simply laughed, a funny whooping sound that was also bright and happy, and wrapped one arm around her waist to tug her toward the elevators.

  Apparently, he had a mission, too.

  In the elevator, Jeremiah pressed Shadow against the glass, grasping her hands in his and sliding them up the wall behind her. His kiss was deep and hard, and she could feel every inch of him pushing her back flat. If she had been either shy or afraid of heights, she might have disliked the move.

  As it was, it added even more intensity to his touch.

  When the elevator doors opened behind him, he swept her up into his arms, and Shadow wrapped her legs around his hips.

  Damn, he’s strong.

  She hooked her ankles together behind his back and claimed his mouth for another kiss as he carried her down the hall. At the door to his room, he propped her against the doorframe, and she kissed up and down his neck as he reached into his wallet for the card-key.

  When the door opened, he threw both the key and the wallet onto the nearest flat surface and beelined for the bed.

  Once there, she unhooked her ankles and slid down his body, allowing his cock, hard underneath his jeans, to catch the edge of her skirt and pull it up as she slid her satin panties down along its fabric-covered length. The contact sent a tremor through her, and she could feel herself grow damp enough to begin to soak through the satin.

  His hands skimmed up her outer thighs to her hips, helping the skirt ride up farther. He stepped closer, pushing one leg between her thighs and angling to move her onto the bed, but she ducked out of his grasp and spun around behind him, holding on to one hand and turning him to face her. He echoed her laugh as she pushed against his chest, backing him up until the bed bumped against the underside of his knees.

  Time to see if he really could keep up.

  Shadow gave another shove—not hard, but not exactly gentle, either—and he sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Good boy,” she murmured. “Aren’t you the obedient one?”

  His laughter this time was full-throated, and she found she liked the sound. “You have no idea,” he said.

  “Then maybe I should find out.”

  “Oh, yes.” His voice grew gravelly with desire. “Please, please do.”

  Chapter 3

  Shadow crossed her arms in front of her body, grasped the hem of her skirt, already at her waist, and pulled the short dress up and over her head. Holding it out to one side, she gave it a slight flourish before she dropped it on the floor.

  Inside his jeans, Jeremiah’s cock, already hard, strained against his pants. He could feel droplets of moisture from the head seeping into the fabric as he watched this beautiful, commanding woman strip for him.

  All too often, he had found, human women in America were too soft for him. They wanted him to take charge, but were not willing to match his intensity. Worse, they were not willing to tell him what they wanted. He was not weak, but he was a hyena-shifter, and hyena women controlled their families and their clans. He knew some hyena males who had taken human mates, but he had always thought there must be something wrong with them. He had never truly seen the appeal of it.

  Until now.

  This woman, with her demanding mouth and determined hands—he could imagine taking her for more than a night’s playmate.

  Slow down, Jeremiah, he reminded himself. See how the rest of the night goes, first.

  The long, pale length of her body was almost all muscle, with its few soft curves outlined in black satin as she reached down to untie her heavy boots and step out of them.

  Part of him knew that most men would be more attracted to a woman wearing these satin scraps with high heels—but heels did nothing other than make a woman wobble. He was convinced the focus on high-heeled shoes was part of the human world’s attempt to make women weak.

  No. Other than her size, everything about this woman shouted strength and power. She moved with poise and confidence. And as she stalked toward him in her bare feet and underwear, Jeremiah throbbed with desire.

  Tilting his head back to stare up the length of her as she came to stand over him, his breath catching in the back of his throat as she stopped only inches from him. He could feel the heat rolling off her body, smell her own desire, musky and raw, as the scent of it swirled around him.

  He chuckled for the sheer joy of having found her tonight.

  “Something funny?” she asked, tilting her head as she regarded him with those almost-white eyes.

  “I am only happy,” he replied, his smile still holding steady on his face.

  “Touch me,” she commanded, smiling in return.

  Jeremiah gently placed one forefinger directly between her breasts, right above the tiny black bow on her bra.

  Then he drew it down her chest, passing her waist and her bellybutton, and stopping at the top of her panties.

  “Like that?” he asked, a slight smile crooking the corner of his mouth.

  She didn’t answer him directly, but instead issued another order as she stepped back. “Take off your clothes.”

  Without breaking eye contact, he drew his shirt up over his head and dropped it on the floor, mimicking the gesture she had made when she dropped hers. He kicked off his shoes, shoving them under the bed with his heels. Then he stood up and unbuttoned his jeans, remembering to pull the condom out of his pocket and drop it on the bedside table before sliding the pants and boxers down his legs in one motion.

  Shadow stood and watched all this without changing expression, still with that evaluative look in her eyes. Her regard only made him harder.

  When he stood naked before her, cock jutting out in front of him, she tilted her head to one side, her gaze sliding up and down his entire body. A slight breeze from the air conditioner drew chill bumps up on his arms. His inner hyena wanted to whine and yip with his anxiety for her approval, but he shoved it down, focusing on the way her gaze narrowed when she saw his cock jump as she inspected him.

  “Oh, you like this,” she said, the tip of her pink tongue flicking out against the corner of her mouth, and Jeremiah’s breath left him in a rush.

  Taking a step forward, she pressed against the center of his chest with her palm, then kept pushing him backwards. Keeping her hand on his chest, she pressed him flat against the bed as she crawled onto the mattress, placing first one knee and then the other on either side of him.

  Taking his hands in hers, she slid his arms out to the sides, then used her knees to press his biceps into the bedding, effectively pinning him to the bed by kneeling on top of him, her satin-covered mound inches from his face.

  With her sex this close, the scent of her surrounded him, making him ache to slip his tongue inside her. Jeremiah was strong enough to lift her up, roll her under him, and he could tell from the glint in her eye that she knew it, too, but he liked this game she was playing.

  With the slightest lift of his head, he could just barely touch his tongue to the damp fabric. “Oh, not yet.” Shadow’s voice was throaty with desire, but she sat back on his chest, pulling the one part of her he most wanted to lick farther away. Jeremiah’s frustrated groan made her bare her teeth in a smile, and he moaned in complaint as she continued to lean backward, arching her back until her long, white-blond hair brushed against his penis.

  He would have said she couldn’t tease him any more from that position, but she tilted her head backwards and kept going until she could slide her face against his cock. The silken skin of her cheek nearly sent him over the edge.

  Dear God, this woman was flexible—and teas
ing the hell out of him. With one single, long, hot swipe of her tongue against him on the way up, she brought her torso to a sitting position again, the taught muscles of her abdomen rippling with the effort. Jeremiah trembled as he fought not to try to thrust against her—not only would it be ineffective, he suspected it might make her more likely to tease him rather than less.

  His breathing grew thick and heavy as he fought to lie perfectly still, waiting for her to tell him what to do next.

  “So, pretty boy,” Shadow said. “What do you want?”

  Jeremiah almost answered, “Whatever you do,” but he could sense that wasn’t the right answer. “To taste you,” he finally said.

  Fire blazed deep in her eyes, and with one hand, she tugged at her panties sharply. They gave with a tearing sound, and she tossed the ruined scrap of fabric aside. Sliding forward, she pressed her knees into the mattress beside his ears, settling her pussy firmly onto his mouth. With a deep sound of satisfaction, Jeremiah opened his lips to suck on her clit, rolling across it with his tongue as he used his newly freed hands to grab her ass and pull her down even more tightly against him.

  * * *

  The vibration of Jeremiah’s moan against her made Shadow even wetter than before, and she rocked gently against his mouth.

  Never had she met anyone who seemed to read exactly what she wanted as clearly as this man did. Nor had she ever found anyone so instantly ready to play the power games she enjoyed in bed. She wondered if he would be able to switch roles as easily.

  Maybe she would try to find out.

  Later.

  Right now, she planned to rock her dripping cunt across his lapping tongue until she came. He knew how to use that tongue, too, first making it broad and soft and rubbing it back and forth to match her own movements, then—at just the right moment, shoving it deep inside her and wrapping his arms around her thighs to pull her down snugly against him. When she was ready to scream with wanting him to touch her clit again, he slid his tongue back out and up to that spot that seemed to ache for his touch.