Dark Panther (BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance)

by Shuler, Tara

  “Oh, Logan,” Lucy breathed. “They’re beautiful!”

  Logan slipped quietly onto the log beside her and said, “Not as beautiful as you.”

  Lucy’s lips parted, and she sucked in a breath. Her eyes shifted toward her feet, and then nervously in his general direction without making eye contact.

  “Logan, I…”

  He pressed two fingers to her chin, interrupting her. He pulled her chin so that she faced him, but she averted her eyes away from his gaze.

  “Look at me,” he ordered.

  She shook her head.

  “Look at me,” he pleaded, and there was so much emotion in his voice she couldn’t help but turn her eyes toward his.

  “I never thought I would see you again,” he said.

  “Again?” she asked.

  “You don’t remember me,” he said, dropping his hand to his lap and turning his eyes downward. “I hoped you would in time.”

  “There is something familiar about you,” she admitted. “I just can’t place it.”

  “I couldn’t either, at first,” he said. “And when I remembered I debated even mentioning it. It was so very long ago.”

  “Tell me,” she pleaded.

  “It was so long ago I barely remember it myself,” he said. “We were just kids. You were camping with your family in these very woods.”

  “Oh, I remember that,” she said, her recollection slowly returning. “I got lost in the woods for a couple of days. I was so scared. I was only… four or five years old? It was before my parents started mistreating me… when things were still happy.”

  Lucy’s lip quivered faintly.

  “Do you remember who found you?” he asked.

  Her brow furrowed, and she squinted into the sun. She had been so young she’d almost forgotten that trip entirely. Who… then she realized.

  “It was a little boy,” she said. “A little boy with dark hair and these crazy blue…” she paused, looking into his eyes, and she added breathlessly, “eyes.”

  Logan nodded.

  “It was you!” she cried. “But how did you remember me?”

  “Your scent,” he said. “I could never forget that scent. The moment I first smelled you back then, I had this intense feeling that I’d known you all my life.”

  “I remember you found me crying and you took me by the hand and told me everything was going to be alright,” she said, her lip trembling. “You took me back to my parents and promised you’d never forget me.”

  “And I never did,” he said. “But you forgot me.”

  “No!” she gasped. “I didn’t really. I forgot the trip, but not you. I’ve always had this… emptiness inside me. I could never explain it. But you said when you smelled me you felt you’d known me all your life. I felt that, too! I didn’t smell you, of course. But when I looked into those blue eyes… I just knew.”

  The next moments were a blur. Her eyes closed the moment his warm lips touched hers. His breath was blazing hot on her face, a startling contrast to the morning air that had blushed her cheeks a rosy hue.

  His arms, strong yet gentle, wrapped her in a comforting embrace. Her lips parted, allowing his tongue to mingle with hers. His kiss tasted like the forest, earthy and woody, with a hint of something primal, like the blood of his prey.

  For a moment, she thought of pulling away from him. She hadn’t had a shower, or washed her hair, or even brushed her teeth in far too long, but the passion in his kiss let her know he either didn’t notice her lack of hygiene or he didn’t care.

  His hand moved up to caress her cheek. Then he grabbed her face and pulled her closer to him, sliding his hand back to tangle his fingers in her hair. He gripped her hair so tightly it made her squeal with discomfort, yet it somehow excited her through its rough wildness. Her hands rested on his biceps.

  His lips left hers, kissing across her cheek to her ear. His breath in her ear sent shivers down her spine, and her fingernails dug into the flesh of his biceps in response.

  Logan nibbled his way down her neck, stopping to suck on the fleshy area where her shoulder met her neck. She released a little “mew” in response, and a low, guttural growl came from deep within his throat.

  Lucy grasped the bottom of his shirt and pulled. He lifted his arms and let her remove it, and she tossed it onto a nearby bush. Her eyes traveled down to his flesh, and her heart jumped at the sight of the many wounds that mottled his skin.

  Some were small, circular scars that were pale and appeared to be the size of a cigarette. Others were deep gashes or streaks in shades of blush and crimson. These looked like they could have come from a belt, a switch, or a whip. Her fingers brushed gingerly across one particularly nasty scar.

  She suddenly felt ashamed. For so many years she’d complained at every opportunity about her past and her treatment by her parents. She hadn’t stopped for a moment to think that someone else might have it worse than she.

  She had been starved, yes. She’d been slapped on occasion, and certainly called horrible names at every possible opportunity. And she’d been abandoned at an orphanage when she was young. But she’d never been through anything that left scars all over her body.

  Logan shied away from her touch as though he thought his scars hideous, but Lucy reached out and pulled him to her, resting her head on his shoulder and tracing the scars on his back with her fingers. His muscles tensed, and he flinched at her touch.

  “Stop it,” she whispered firmly. “You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m just not used to human touch,” he said. “I’ve been on my own for so very long.”

  Her lips touched against his shoulder, and he flinched again, but his muscles finally relaxed. She climbed to her knees and kissed all along his shoulders and his neck. His muscles twitched occasionally, but he began to grow more comfortable with her.

  She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed his lips. He grabbed her and pulled her into his lap, squeezing her as though he might never let her go.

  He nuzzled his nose in her hair, breathing her scent in deeply, and he whispered, “Please don’t leave me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she responded quickly.

  “You’ll go back to your old life,” he said. “You’ll go back to your old friends, your old job…”

  “You don’t get it,” she interrupted him. “I have nothing back where I come from. No family, no true friends. My job sucks. My apartment is crap. There’s no reason to go back, and…”

  Her voice trailed off, and Logan prodded her, “And?”

  “And every reason to stay,” she said softly.

  “You would stay here… way out in the middle of nowhere in a filthy cave… for me?” he asked.

  “Your cave is hardly filthy,” she argued. “It’s very neatly kept. It’s quite cozy, really.”

  “It needs a woman’s touch,” he shrugged.

  “Perhaps,” she agreed with a little grin. “But we can soon rectify that.”

  “Even more so, I need a woman’s touch,” he said.

  “You have it,” she whispered, her fingers sliding down his chest and around his waist to hug him close.

  His hands cupped her face gently, and he pulled her to him. His lips closed over hers, and she closed her eyes and tasted his kiss fully. His tongue dipped inside her mouth, tasting her, and then his lips enveloped hers before puling away. Then he kissed her once more for good measure.

  His hands grasped her shirt, lifting it over her head and dropping it onto the ground. He fumbled with her bra, having been so long away from people that he had no idea how it worked. Soon, he figured it out, and he slipped it slowly down her shoulders. She shrugged it off.

  He eyed her hungrily, licking his lips like a predator stalking his prey. His hands cupped her breasts gently, pushing them together. He bent his head and kissed all around her breasts, licking her nipples lightly before taking one between his lips and sucking it.

  Lucy leaned back onto the log and found i
t pleasantly comfortable. It was covered with a plush layer of fluffy moss. Logan climbed on top of her and spread her legs apart with his muscular thighs. He bent over her, planting kisses all up and down her curvaceous frame.

  He ran his tongue up her stomach, stopping at the base of her throat to plant gentle kisses in the little depression between her collarbones. She could feel his hardness against her inner thigh, and she shifted her hips to pull him against her.

  Logan thrust himself against her, and she gasped with excitement. She wanted him inside her… no… she needed him inside her. She grabbed the waistband of her pants and underwear and pushed them off, wiggling out of them and allowing them to fall off the end of the log. He slipped quickly out of his own pants, and he stood before her with his muscles rippling and his manhood standing at attention.

  “Take me,” she begged him. “Take me now!”

  “Gladly,” he growled.

  He mounted her, gripping his shaft and positioning the head at her opening. She was dripping wet, and she could feel her wetness dripping down her bottom and onto the log underneath her.

  With one quick, sharp thrust, he entered her. He grabbed her legs and pushed them upward, holding onto the backs of her knees as leverage. He plunged deep inside her, filling her and hitting bottom, making her shout.

  In the distance, the doe and her fawn were alerted to the sudden loud noise and bounded silently into the cover of the forest.

  He began to thrust against her more rapidly. Her fingernails clawed at his arms, leaving red streaks in his flesh. She cried out with every thrust, and soon she was on the verge of total bliss.

  “Here it comes!” he growled passionately.

  “Me, too!” she gasped. “Ohhhhhhhh!”

  She screamed with pure orgasmic bliss, throwing her head back and moaning loudly. Her body trembled as orgasm swept over her, and she could hear him groaning like some wild, savage animal as he filled her with his seed.

  He collapsed atop her, heaving and struggling to catch his breath, and she wrapped his hair around her fingers, stroking it gently.

  The two of them slid off the log and onto the cool, leaf-padded ground. He rolled his arm out toward her, and she moved to snuggle against his body, using his shoulder for a pillow. He wrapped his arm around her, holding her breathless body close to his own.

  Chapter Five

  They still lay there silently enjoying each other’s company and listening to the gentle babbling of the creek until their quiet interlude was interrupted by the sudden jolting sound of a male voice behind them.

  “Black!” it shouted.

  Logan sprang into the air and, in a black blur, shifted instantaneously into a panther, landing nimbly on his four paws with a snarl on his muzzle.

  “Now, now, Black,” the man chuckled ominously. “No need for theatrics.”

  Lucy grabbed her clothing and tried to shield her body from the stranger she could not see. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible, hiding behind the log. She could hear the slow crunch of footsteps on the leaves as they approached.

  Logan snarled viciously as the man approached. His shrill cry sounded almost like the scream of a woman as it pierced the morning air. It sent chills down Lucy’s spine.

  The footsteps stopped behind the log, and the man leaned forward and peered down at her.

  “Well, well,” he said spitefully. “Who’s the fatty, Logan?”

  Logan sprang at the man, knocking him onto the ground. Lucy shrieked as soon as they made contact, and she covered her eyes with her shirt and cowered behind the log in terror.

  She could hear the ripping of flesh and the gnashing of teeth. Her eyes began to sting both from worry for Logan and from the embarrassment of a stranger seeing, and making terribly rude comments about, her body. Her cheeks flamed with anger and fear.

  Finally, Lucy summoned the courage to peek over the top of the log. She could clearly see two massive balls of fur curled together and rolling about, and the occasional glint of pearly white fangs or razor sharp claws tearing at flesh.

  The giant ball of fur rammed into the log and bounced over it, sending a jolt through Lucy upon impact. She screeched with surprise and fear, still clutching her clothes in front of her.

  As the ball rolled down the hill and splashed into the creek, Lucy summoned the courage to wriggle into her clothes. She jumped to her feet and, clutching a nearby tree to steady herself, she watched the pair as they wrestled.

  Finally, the hulking panther with a spot of auburn at his throat broke away and dashed, dripping, into the forest. Logan bristled, his fur standing on end, his teeth bared.

  “Who was that?” Lucy asked, her eyes wide.

  Logan stepped out of the water in human form, naked and with water droplets sliding down his skin. Bloody gashes dripped down his chest. Lucy raced to his side.

  “You’re hurt!” she gasped.

  “I’ll heal,” he shrugged.

  “Logan, who was that?” she repeated.

  “Dax Harper,” he spat as if the name tasted like bitter poison in his mouth. “And if he’s found me, the others aren’t far behind.”

  “Others? What are you talking about?” Lucy demanded.

  “There’s no time to explain,” Logan said. “We have to get back to the cave and pack. We have to leave.”

  “And go where?” she asked.

  “Anywhere but here.”

  TO BE CONTINUED…

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