by Terry Spear
Melissa tried several stores but came up empty. After more than an hour, she walked inside another small store and nearly had a seizure. Two men dressed in park ranger uniforms were buying some items. She hoped she didn’t look as worried about seeing them as she felt.
She searched everywhere for something she could use as litter boxes and finally found a couple of plastic tubs for storing stuff. She bought both, just in case one cat wouldn’t use the same “litter box” as the other.
One of the rangers was buying chips and magazines while talking to the clerk, mentioning about gunfire in the park but being unable to reach the site fast enough to catch anyone. That had her listening. No details. They were only searching for any evidence that someone had been shot.
The other ranger was looking at cold medications. He grabbed a couple of packages and headed for the checkout counter.
Melissa picked up some more milk, not sure how much the cubs would drink. She kept trying to think of what else she might need. Milk, litter box, four milk bottles, and a couple of towels to let them sleep on. That was it.
The rangers left, and she paid for her purchases and drove back to the cabana.
She tried calling Huntley, but there was no answer. She could envision the cubs not drinking much of the milk, stepping into it, spilling it, and then making puddles on the tile floor. So maybe he was cleaning up after them. She smiled a little, glad she had this job instead, though she worried again if he was feeling all right.
When she finally arrived at the cabana, she saw toucans snacking on the papaya trees near the deck, and spider and howler monkeys making a ruckus in some trees farther away. The scent of orchids perfumed the air as she made her way up the steps. She hurried inside with her supplies. She was about to call out to Huntley to let him know it was just her when she saw him on the floral couch sound asleep, the cubs curled up on his stomach and watching her.
“The two of you have made a buddy, I see.” She put the milk in the fridge, then left the cabana to get some sand from the beach for each of the litter boxes. Exhausted, she didn’t think she’d manage to climb the steep wooden steps to their place again. She was glad Martin had chosen this cabana because it had such a nice view of the ocean and more privacy—and sand for litter boxes.
She finally managed to get in through the back door with the two containers of sand. No one had budged from the couch.
She fixed up the sandboxes in the bathroom and then used a towel to create a bed for the cubs. She took her shower, then threw on a tank top and shorts and walked into the living room, almost wanting to leave everyone where they were because they all looked so angelic. Well, Huntley did. The cats were watching her, like any wild animals would that were wary of their surroundings. The cubs could make a mess of things if they decided to jump off Huntley’s stomach and do some exploring on their own while she and Huntley slept.
And she needed to feed them. She filled two baby bottles with milk and then warmed them. Then she set the bottles down on the coffee table, took one of the cubs, sat down on a chair, and began to coax her to drink from the bottle. It was not as easy as Melissa had thought it would be. The cub wasn’t sure how to get the milk out of the bottle and was gumming the nipple. Then she finally figured it out and began to suck. The other was watching from Huntley’s stomach. She was much mellower, really sweet, with blue-gray eyes that were a touch browner. Sweetpea, Melissa would nickname her.
When the first cub had finished nearly all of the bottle, Melissa did what Huntley’s mother suggested. She put the cub over her shoulder and stroked her back, then patted her. The jaguar finally burped and Melissa smiled. Okay, so that wasn’t so hard.
Then she took the cub into the bathroom to use the litter box. Her fur was a brighter gold than Sweetpea’s, so she thought Goldie would suit her. She had darker lines under her eyes and whiter fur fringing the inside of her ears, but otherwise the cubs’ markings were very similar. The pattern on top of their head was different, however. More of circular pattern like a halo on Sweetpea’s head. Goldie’s pattern was narrower.
First, Goldie just sniffed at the smells of the sea on the sand in the box, then she used the box. Thankfully, felines were so much easier to litter train—at four weeks old or even younger—than human babies were to potty train. Melissa carried Goldie back to Huntley and let her curl up on his stomach again. Then Melissa fed Sweetpea.
After that one finished feeding and Melissa burped her, she carried them under each arm as she talked to them. “Time for your new bedroom. Litter boxes for the two of you. And your bed.” She set them on their towel bed and they curled up together, their blue eyes watching her.
“Nighty-night,” she said, closing the door. It might be daytime, but for her, it was way past time to sleep.
She thought about waking Huntley so he could go to bed with her, but she didn’t want to wake him in case he couldn’t get back to sleep afterward. When she entered the bedroom, she found him in bed, waiting for her and smiling.
“I didn’t expect you to be in here,” she said. “How did you all do with one another?”
“They made a real mess with the milk and both puddled on the kitchen floor.”
Smiling, she shook her head.
“And if you smell milk on them, it’s because they both took a couple of nosedives into the saucer of milk. Were we ever that little?”
She laughed, pulled the covers aside, and climbed into bed with him. “I’m sure we were. But we probably always had our mother’s milk when we needed it, and I guess bottles when that wasn’t a viable option. We didn’t have to resort to drinking out of a bowl.”
“I guess we’re getting submerged in a quick study of Jaguar Shifter Parenting 101. Did you get bottles?” He pulled her against him and she smelled tropical spice on him. He had to have taken a shower while she was gone.
“Yeah, and once they got the hang of it, they drank a lot. Good thing your mother told us what to do. We would have been starving them.”
He began stroking Melissa’s shoulder and she wanted to purr. “They’re cute. I didn’t ever think I’d be saying that about a couple of cubs while on a mission,” he said.
“They’re cute, all right. But if they start raking their claws down the couch or urinating where they ought not to, not so cute.” And worse, if somehow any of their neighbors caught sight of them, Melissa and Huntley would be in big trouble. “We have to ensure they don’t get into any of the windows and peek out. Probably no one would see them, since we are a distance from the beach and have the vegetation all around us. But we often have squirrel or howler monkeys swinging on the balcony, and I can just see someone glancing up with a telephoto lenses, taking pictures of the cute monkeys, then seeing the jaguar cubs clawing at the glass to get to the cute monkeys.”
He chuckled and ran his hand through her hair.
“Are you really okay?” she asked, still concerned.
“Yeah, feeling much, much better. Just still tired. How long were you gone?”
“Two hours. No place close by had baby bottles. It’s a good thing all we have to worry about for now is taking care of the two cubs—and not getting caught.” Then she closed her eyes, luxuriated in the feel of his hot, hard, virile body, and hoped the cubs would be all right on their own so that Huntley could cash in on his rain check.
But only after they had a good, long catnap.
Chapter 10
Snuggled against Huntley’s warm, hard body, Melissa was dreaming about running through the rainforest in her human form, half knowing it was a dream when she heard a baby cry out. Still drowsy, she was annoyed that anyone in the area had a baby and that the cabana’s walls were so paper thin that she could hear that baby cry.
She took that thought into the rainforest as she drifted back into her dream, now as a jaguar leaping into a shark-filled river. She was paddling across the water as quickly as she c
ould when she felt a hand brushing her arm. She opened her eyes and looked up to see Huntley smiling at her.
“Headache all gone?” she whispered, not quite ready to join the living. A soft rain pattered on the roof, and she was enjoying being wrapped up in Huntley’s arms like this. She wondered how she’d feel if she began really dating him and he had to be on a mission with another female agent. She’d be jealous. Funny, she’d never given a thought to Oliver working with other women or going to office parties thrown by his workplace when she was out of the country. Then again, she’d never considered that he might be interested in his next-door neighbor. But with Huntley, she was quite certain she would be jealous.
It was dark out and when she glanced at the clock, she saw that it was two in the morning. Good. They had slept for six hours.
“Headache’s all gone,” Huntley said, his voice already sounding husky.
She thought that if she could wake up mornings like this, she’d be raring to go. As long as she had a solid amount of sleep during that time.
His hand slipped under her shirt and caressed her bare skin. She smiled and licked his nipple. He was starting to lift her top off when she heard a baby cry out, and then another. And then silence.
“Ohmigod, the cubs,” she said, realizing that the baby’s cry she’d heard earlier was not from a neighbor’s cabana, but their own.
She threw off their covers, fearing the worst. If the cub’s mother had died, the woman would shift into her human form. Melissa scrambled to get out of bed.
Huntley was right behind her as they rushed down the hall to the bathroom. The babies were quiet as she carefully opened the door, not wanting to hit them with the door if either had managed to get near it. She flipped on the light and saw two blue-eyed cubs staring back at her—and then they snarled as if she’d scared them.
Confused about what she thought she’d heard, Melissa crouched down to greet them. “You did hear babies crying, didn’t you? Human babies?” she asked Huntley. She wondered if she’d only imagined it.
The cubs were all over her, trying to get her attention and growling in their cute little cub way.
“I thought I did. Maybe they just sounded like babies.” He crouched down next to her, and they began to climb all over him, excited to see him too.
“No, I don’t think so.” She was sure of it, in fact. “Make sure they used the litter boxes. I’ll warm up some milk for them.”
“All right.”
She was about to leave him when he rose and took her in his arms and kissed her thoroughly as one of the cubs scratched at the sand in the litter box. “We have unfinished business to take care of after this,” Huntley said.
She smiled. She could really get used to this. She kissed him back. “It’s a deal.”
Then she hurried off to get the baby bottles ready so she and Huntley could put the kids back to sleep and return to more pleasurable adult pursuits.
She had just finished warming the bottles when she heard a ruckus in the living room. She grabbed the bottles and left the kitchen to find Huntley on the floor with the two cubs. He was pulling one of their towels around as they pounced and dug their claws into it, growling as he dragged them around.
“Don’t wake them up too much,” she warned.
“I’m wearing them out,” he said, winking at her.
“I sure hope so.” But she wasn’t certain that would work. Wouldn’t they be all excited and keyed up and not be able to sleep?
When the cubs saw her with the milk bottles, they instantly knew what that meant. Both ran to her and clawed at her bare legs.
“Hey, manners,” she said to the cubs.
Huntley quickly scooped Goldie up and took a bottle from Melissa, then sat down on the couch. Melissa lifted the other cub into her arms and sat on the chair and began feeding her.
It was fun watching the cubs drink from the bottles, knowing that she and Huntley were taking care of them in the best possible manner.
“Much better than a bowl of milk, isn’t it, Dragon?” Huntley said, looking like he was the cub’s father.
Melissa raised her brows. “Dragon?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “She has the pattern of a dragon on her forehead.”
Melissa chuckled. “Goldie, because her fur is a brighter gold than the other’s. You can’t call a cute little female cub ‘Dragon.’”
He smiled at her. “And the other?”
She noticed he wasn’t venturing another name. “Sweetpea. She’s lots calmer and has a halo on her head.”
He laughed.
She wondered then if her father had ever fed her like this. “This is so much better. And this way we know how much each is really eating.”
“Agreed.”
After a moment of watching her own “baby” drink her milk, sucking away at the nipple, paws grasping the bottle as if she could hold it on her own, Melissa glanced at Huntley to see if Goldie was nearly finished.
He was watching Melissa and Sweetpea, and smiled when she caught his eye.
“You’re a natural at this,” he said, his voice full of admiration.
“You’re not so bad yourself. My first thought when you were playing with them was that they’d get so excited that we’d never get them back to bed. But now that their bellies are filling up, they’re looking drowsy, and I think you had the right idea.”
“Yeah. I never thought I might energize them by playing with them. Just wear them out. But we could try it your way next time—just keep them calm and sleepy and see if it works.”
She hoped they wouldn’t have a lot of next times. That Martin would come through for them and ensure that the cubs were safely on their way home soon to the States.
“Looks like they’re about ready to return to bed, don’t you think?” Huntley asked, looking hopeful.
Both had finished most of their bottled milk and were curling up to sleep on Melissa and Huntley’s laps. Melissa wanted to cuddle with Sweetpea for a little while longer, but when Huntley smiled at her as if knowing that was what she was thinking, she rose from the couch and carried her charge back to the bathroom.
Huntley had snagged the spare towel he’d used to play with them and added it to the other to make more of a bed. Luckily, as soon as they put the cubs on the bed, they sat down, looking up at them.
“Litter boxes need to be cleaned,” Melissa said, wrinkling her nose at them.
“I’ll take care of it before first light.”
“Good.” She would help, certainly, but if he didn’t mind, the job was all his. “I’ll join you in a second.” She brushed her teeth, and he nodded and closed the door.
She used the bathroom, then said, “Nighty-night,” to the cubs, who were watching her, their eyes half-lidded as they curled up against each other. They sure were cute. She closed the door and rejoined Huntley in bed. She just hoped the cubs would sleep long enough so that Huntley and she could finish what they’d started—but the reminder that the cubs had to have shifted into human babies weighed heavily on her mind.
As if knowing what she was thinking, Huntley said, “They’ll be all right.” He pulled her close. “The cubs and the mom and dad. Martin will make sure of it.”
She thought of Martin rescuing her and her sister when they were teens and prayed Huntley was right. Then he was kissing her, stroking her back, and trying to take her mind off their troubles that they could do nothing about.
And she was kissing him and rubbing against his erection, working him up and thinking—if it wasn’t for the serious problem with the cubs and their parents, she could deal with this part of the job in a heartbeat and love every minute of it.
Genista had to be crazy not to want this. Was Huntley hiding something from her? Something that had made Genista want to slip away without even talking it over with him first? Melissa liked her as a fellow agen
t but didn’t know anything about her personally.
She sighed, realizing she was overthinking this again, and went with the flow. She slipped her hand inside his boxers, wrapping her fingers around his erection, loving the feel of him in her grip, and sliding up and down over his rigid cock. She loved the way his eyes grew heated and he groaned with intense need.
His mouth was on hers then, claiming her, his hands cradling her face as he tasted her and she tasted him right back. So virile—hardness to her softness, spiciness to her sweetness, maleness to her femininity; his kisses hungry, penetrating, eager.
He reached down to pull up her tank top, forcing her to let go of his arousal. But he seemed too pumped to wait any longer and tossed her shirt. Then he slid her boxers down her thighs and stopped. Eagerly, he began rubbing her clit, arousing her and making her bud swell to his touch, the erotic sensation undoing her. His mouth was on hers as he maneuvered her onto her back and kissed her slowly and tenderly, while his fingers dipped into her wet sheath.
Now she groaned with intense need, wanting all of him penetrating her, the joining, and the heat and passion that were Huntley and her combined. He sensed when she was about to come, anticipated it, and provoked it with his skillful strokes. He was with her every step of the way, teasing her into ecstasy and pleasuring her like no man had ever done.
She felt the rising need building, then the sharp thrill of the climax as it hit, sending shards of pleasure streaking through her. Sinking into the mattress, she luxuriated in the feel of her inner core as it thrummed with pleasure. Before Huntley could do anything else, she jerked off his boxers and freed his cock. He quickly slid her own boxers the rest of the way down her legs until they were on the floor, and she and Huntley were skin to skin. Then he drove into her, not gently, but like a big male cat with a mission—wanting, craving this, having to have her. And she loved the sensation of knowing he needed and wanted her this badly. Just as much as she needed and wanted him.
