by Vivi Andrews
Ava had never felt more invisible.
Chapter Two
Landon opened the driver’s side door of the jeep and tossed her across the stick shift into the passenger seat. He’d all but thrown her into the car, but she didn’t make a single sound of complaint. She curled into the far seat, more cat than woman, and he jumped in after her, slamming the door harder than necessary and barking, “Seatbelt.”
What the hell had she been thinking walking into a place like that dressed the way she was? Acting like everything she had was up for grabs. Smelling like…fuck. The scent of her from half a room away had his cock standing up for duty. Sitting in the cab, the air around them smelled heavily of her. It was scrambling his brain. That was his only excuse for the fact that he had nearly shifted in the middle of the bar—in public—just for the satisfaction of ripping out that cowboy’s innards.
Landon revved the engine to life and slammed it into gear. Gravel sprayed up, pinging against nearby cars, as he tore out of the parking lot. She clutched at the doorframe as he took the corner too fast. The jeep rocked, the left-side wheels nearly lifting off the ground, but instead of easing up, Landon’s foot slammed down on the accelerator. Tires screeched and jolted as they found purchase on the asphalt of the county road and the jeep shot forward like a rocket, passing eighty miles per hour as the abused engine screamed.
She didn’t make a sound.
Landon was still spoiling for a fight, his blood up higher than it had ever been outside of the challenge circle. His claws kept springing out, his usual, rigid control of the animal inside him beyond him in his current state. His body wanted to shift and go to battle, not to hunt but to fight for his territory, protect his pride. He needed the violence. And barring that, he needed to snarl at someone, verbally rip into someone until his claws no longer itched to fillet the cowboy who had stood too close to her.
Beside him in the passenger seat, Ava’s calm mocked him. A silent challenge.
“What the fuck were you doing?”
She started at his tone, instinctively shying against the door. Her fear, subtle though it was, only served to enrage him further. Then she spoke and her words disabused him of the notion that she was afraid of him.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she snapped, her voice brittle as she stared straight ahead out the window.
“Think again, sweetheart. As far as you’re concerned, I’m judge, jury and executioner. So start talking.”
She shifted against the door again and Landon took a deep breath, thinking to reassure himself that there was no tang of fear in her scent, but instead his head was swamped by a rush of heat. His hands tightened convulsively on the steering wheel. There was no fear in her scent. Only lust, thick and heady. He’d thought it would diminish once he got her away from her cowboy toy, but the close proximity inside the jeep made her scent even stronger. He was drowning in it. And hard enough to pound spikes.
“You’re not talking…” he growled, the promise of a threat creeping into his voice.
“I could declare myself a nomad,” she said defiantly. “Then you wouldn’t have any rights over me.”
Landon laughed sharply, incapable of actual humor in his current state, but bitterly amused. “Shall I call your brothers or would you rather tell them you’ve decided to go off the reservation yourself?”
She hissed a curse under her breath.
“I don’t hear an explanation, Ava.”
She turned to him sharply, blinking in surprise. “You know my name?”
“Of course I know your name,” he snapped, made defensive by the fact that he wouldn’t have known it if the cowboy hadn’t said it in front of him. He’d known she was one of his pride by the scent of her and a vague sense of familiarity, but twenty minutes ago he wouldn’t have known her from Eve among the lionesses in his pride.
He’d only known to dangle her brothers over her as a threat because he’d heard those brothers, four of his most effective enforcers, talking about their kid sister more than once. “Little Ava” was nothing like her hulking brothers. She was tiny, almost frail for a lioness. She couldn’t possibly be fully grown, could she? Though in that outfit, she looked plenty grown-up.
“Your brothers are going to have kittens when they see you dressed like that.”
“I just wanted to have a good time. Is that against the law?”
“Yes.” The answer shot out of his mouth before his brain caught up. Technically, fun was not illegal either among the humans or the pride, but Landon would happily fabricate a law if it kept her ass out of that bar for the rest of her natural life.
She snorted, unimpressed by his heavy-handed answer. “My, my. Aren’t we king of the double standard?” she purred, the sarcasm coating her words like molasses. “And what were you doing at such a notorious meat market, my liege?”
Landon hissed, spinning the wheel to take the turn onto the ranch road and nearly throwing the jeep into the ditch in the process. He got a little yelp of surprise out of her this time, but she quickly contained herself, silent and stoic as the jeep bounced painfully along the rutted dirt track.
She was right. He had gone to the Bar Nothing to find a nice, malleable human piece of ass and get laid. Ever since he’d won the challenge to take over the Alpha position in the pride three months ago, every lioness on the ranch had been waving her tail under his nose, angling to get her paws on the position of his mate. The female he picked would lead the Hunt. She would rule the pack in his absence and preside over the other females. She would be the strongest, the fastest. The best genetic material to pass on to his cubs.
He knew he needed to pick soon. The pride was unstable without an Alpha female in place as his mate. But he wasn’t ready to choose just yet. He and his sister had been nomads before he had challenged for control of the Three Rocks Pride. He didn’t know the pack and its social undercurrents as well as he needed to before he elevated one of the lionesses to be his mate.
He’d slept with a few of them—he was a cat, after all, and there was only so much teasing he could take—but he’d been careful not to lead any of them to believe that their efforts in his bed had pushed them to the front of the line for his consort. Tonight, he’d just wanted to relax. A simple, easy romp with a woman who didn’t have political gain on her mind. Just sex. No obeisance to the big strong Alpha, and no machinations to become his queen.
Ava had shot his plans for the evening straight to hell.
“No response?” the assassin in question purred acidly. “Afraid you’ll have to apologize for dragging me out of there?”
“I’m not the one who’s going to be sorry if you don’t stop baiting me, little girl.”
She didn’t back down from the threat. Her body angled toward him on the seat and she snarled, “If you can go out looking for a piece of ass whenever you feel like it, then so can I.”
Landon slammed his foot down on the brake pedal. The jeep fishtailed and the brakes shrieked, bouncing and jolting them to a sudden stop. He cut the engine and crawled across the stick shift, caging her between his arms and the door. He loomed over her, his animal nature lapping up the flash of wariness in her pale gray eyes.
“Did you honestly think some human would be able to satisfy you?” he growled low, pressing in on her with his heat.
Her eyes widened, the expression in them suddenly raw and vulnerable, exposed.
“You should have just come to me if you needed to be fucked.”
Anger burned away the vulnerability in her eyes. “Fuck you, you arrogant prick.”
Landon laughed darkly. “All you had to do was ask.”
Chapter Three
He slammed his mouth down on hers, ready to force her lips apart, but she opened for him willingly, hungrily. He jerked her hips across the seat toward him and her legs fell open. Landon fitted his hips into the invitation of her wide spread thighs and ground his aching cock against her clit, the friction making them both growl.
He
plunged his tongue into her mouth, driven by lust and lust-fogged purpose. He needed to intimidate her into retracting, apologizing, something. The drive to make her submit was overpowering, but not as strong as his other motive. He would make her forget the puny human. He would drive every other man from her thoughts, banishing them with his body, claiming her wholly as his own.
Ava arched beneath him, her small hands fisting in his shirt and ripping it cleanly down the center. She hummed her pleasure into his mouth and her back bowed again, rubbing her breasts against his now-naked chest, her nipples hard little points through the thin fabric of her top. Landon yanked her shirt down to her waist and took one perfectly formed breast in his hand.
She was small, so much smaller than the other lionesses, but her breast filled his hand perfectly, the hard nub of the nipple teasing at his palm as he plumped the warm flesh. When he lightly pinched her nipple, she broke away from his mouth with a hiss, her hips pressing up, grinding against him mindlessly.
Landon gently scraped teeth too sharp to be human down the side of her neck, nibbling down across her chest and drawing the peak of one small breast into his mouth, careful not to pierce her soft skin. Ava moaned, her hands tangling in his hair, gripping so tight it hurt, but he didn’t spare a thought for the slight pain. His attention remained fixed on her delicate, perfectly formed body, laid out before him like a feast.
He sucked and licked at one breast, the wet warmth and sandpaper roughness of his tongue wringing short piercing cries from her lips and spasmodic thrusts of her hips against his. He turned his attention to her other breast, to begin the process all over again. Her cries became his name and something in the tone of her voice cranked up the dial on his need for her. His control became a memory.
Landon growled, his claws tearing at her jeans. He needed her naked. Now. But though the denim shredded, it did not melt away and the tattered ribbons of her clothing still bound her. She made an alarmed noise in her throat and Landon’s head snapped up to meet her eyes. He was too desperate to be ashamed of his frenzy, but he managed to grunt, “Did I hurt you?”
Ava blinked at him, her clear gray eyes fogged over with want. “No…yes…” She shook her head as if trying to clear it and reached out a hand to him, almost as if she would stroke his face, but instead she ran a fingernail across his nipple. “You startled me.”
Landon blinked at her uncomprehendingly. There was not enough blood flowing to his brain to work out what she wanted him to do. “Stop?”
She laughed and his cock jumped like a puppet on a string. “No. More.”
Thank you, God. Crying defeat for the moment on the wreck he’d made of her jeans, Landon attacked the fastenings on his own. He struggled with them, his hands refusing to stay in full-human form long enough to work the button fly.
Ava brushed his hands away. “Let me.” The backs of her fingers rubbing against his shaft as she slowly, carefully worked the buttons was a new kind of torture in itself. Landon braced his hands on the seat and closed his eyes, determined to let her work and not fall on her like a ravening beast until she had freed his cock. Then he could be an animal. He just had to hang onto humanity for a few more seconds.
She shoved his jeans and underwear down over his hips. As soon as it was free, his cock sprang up, pointing due north like a fucking compass. Landon hissed as Ava wrapped her small soft hand around it.
Lights exploded in his brain. Landon wondered idly if he was having a seizure as Ava’s hand worked slowly down to the base of his shaft, giving him a little squeeze and then a slow, tugging pull up his shaft to the head. He was going to die. That much was clear. But what a way to go.
He let her have two more torturous strokes before closing his hand around her wrist and squeezing gently. “Enough.” His voice didn’t sound human, which was fine by him. He didn’t feel particularly human.
She released his cock, but he didn’t release her wrist. He pulled her hand away from him, pinning it against the seat near her head. He lowered himself to take her mouth again as his free hand probed between the shredded remains of her jeans, seeking the source of the musky moisture between her thighs. He brushed one spot and her entire body jolted. Bingo.
Landon eased her—amazingly still intact—panties aside and pushed one finger inside her slick heat. Her hips pushed up against his hand and moisture swamped his finger. He worked his mouth against hers as he worked a second finger inside her, stretching her. She was so tight. Her pussy was going to feel like a goddamn vise on his cock.
Landon released her mouth as he removed his fingers, pressing his face against her neck to breathe in the intoxicating scent of her as he positioned himself between her legs.
“What’s that sound?” Her voice was breathless.
Landon stiffened, trying to hear beyond the blood rushing in his ears. It took him a moment to identify the tinny ring-tone rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, his sister’s idea of a great joke. “Shit. It’s Zoe. She wouldn’t call unless it’s an emergency.”
She’d better not have. He was about fifteen seconds away from the fucking promised land. If someone wasn’t dying, someone was about to be.
He found his cell phone in the pocket of his jeans, tangled near his knees. “What?”
“Ava’s missing!”
Landon blinked, startled by the depth of panic in Zoe’s voice. He wasn’t aware his sister had formed any strong attachments since their arrival in the pride three months ago, but her concern for Ava was unfeigned.
“I’ve got her.” At least, he’d been about to have her, a few seconds before Zoe had decided she needed rescuing. “I’m bringing her back to the ranch now.”
“Oh thank God,” Zoe whispered. “I’ll tell her brothers we can call off the search. Where was she? Is she okay?”
The mention of Ava’s brothers searching—Jesus, they wouldn’t search the ranch road, would they?—not to mention his sister’s barrage of questions, had the effect of a bucket of cold water. Landon shifted off Ava, ignoring the small sound of protest she made, and retreated back to his own seat. He braced himself against the door, as far away from her as he could get, and tried to tug up his jeans one-handed without much success.
“We’ll be back at the ranch in—” he glanced around, looking for a landmark through the darkness outside the jeep, “—five minutes. You can ask her all the questions you want, then.”
Ava groaned from the passenger seat, pulling herself into a more traditional seated position, rather than her I’m-about-to-have-my-brains-fucked-out-on-a-bucket-seat sprawl.
“But she’s okay?” Zoe pressed.
Landon looked at Ava out of the corner of his eye. She was a sight. Rumpled, sweaty, trying to get her top back into place over her breasts with her jeans in useless tatters from her upper-thighs to her waist. She looked gorgeous. Fan-fucking-tastic. “She’s fine. See you in five.”
He disconnected before Zoe could lob another question at him, mentally crossing his fingers that his ornery sister didn’t keep calling him back every five seconds until they arrived at the ranch. Although, given his current control—or lack thereof—that might not be a bad idea.
Dropping the phone, he yanked his jeans back up over his hips and tried to shove his uncooperative cock back inside. He winced as each button closed, but managed to keep his hands from half-morphing into claws long enough to get his jeans fastened. Thank God. If Ava laid one finger on his fly, he was a goner.
Shit, if her brothers ever found out he’d come about five seconds away from fucking their baby sister in the front seat of a jeep, he’d be lucky to see his next birthday.
Landon started the jeep and punched the gas pedal. The vehicle jumped forward obediently, punishing them with a rough ride the last three miles to the ranch.
They were closer to the main compound than Landon had thought—though, to be honest, he hadn’t been doing much thinking. Anyone out for a run tonight could have seen them, groping in the car like teenagers.
/> How had he let things get so far out of control? He’d never even noticed Ava Minor before tonight, but the second she’d walked into the bar, he’d wanted her. The scent of her, the way she pushed her ass back at him as she stood at the bar, the reckless challenge in her voice as she argued with him in the jeep, all of it seemed calculated to drive him wild.
The truth smacked him between the eyes, making him feel like a prize idiot for not realizing earlier. He should have realized it as soon as she walked into the bar, but his hormones had short-circuited his brain. It was so damn obvious.
Ava was in heat.
Chapter Four
She needed to say something. They couldn’t have been driving for more than a few seconds, but the oppressive silence coming from the driver’s seat made it feel like a millennia. He wouldn’t even look at her.
“I take it they discovered my absence,” Ava said, her tone a pathetic attempt at lightness.
Landon sounded about as light as a midnight hunt on the Serengeti. “Didn’t you even leave a fucking note so your brothers wouldn’t panic?”
Ava snorted. “Saying what exactly? ‘Gone to get some nookie. Back by noon.’ That’d go over real well.”
“Better than not saying anything at all,” he snapped. “They’re searching the ranch for you, Ava.”
Ava looked out the window, realizing they were on ranch land and had been for a while. In fact, they’d been on ranch land when they’d… “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
Ava tipped her chin defiantly. She wasn’t going to cower. She didn’t have anything to be ashamed of, dammit. “So what? I deserve to get out just as much as the next girl.”
“Ava.” Her name sound like a curse on his lips. “There are reasons why we do things the way we do,” he said as if explaining the facts of life to a simpleton and hanging onto this patience by the thinnest of threads.