by E A Price
“You think someone’s after me?”
Roberto shrugged nonchalantly, but he couldn’t hide the tension in his shoulders. The two males may not get on, but that didn’t mean he wanted Antonio gunned down. “Or your mate. Keep her close.”
Antonio snarled. Because convincing her to stay wasn’t already hard enough.
Thirteen
“About damn time!” cried Hester, stamping her foot.
Hester had donned a loose fitting shirt and some sweat pants, and thankfully the other males had taken a moment to cover up. He found them in the guesthouse kitchen. Everyone was there – all the new females and their respective jaguar mates/kidnappers.
Sadie, the flashy redhead, appeared to be concocting something chocolatey and delicious smelling. She blinked when she saw him before stifling a smirk. Laurel giggled and buried her head in her hands while Mary turned tomato red.
“You couldn’t put a pair of pants on?” asked Diego, glaring at him.
Antonio ignored him. No, he couldn’t. He didn’t waste a moment from talking to his prime to rushing to make sure Hester was okay.
She looked fine if a little steamed. Which if his experience with her was anything to go by, it was her go-to expression. Her cheeks were rosy apple red, and her full lips were pursed as her blue eyes darkened. She was gorgeous when she was angry.
Fuck, he hoped whoever did this was shooting at him. He’d prefer to be in danger than have her in danger.
“Okay,” chimed in Sadie, “you are going to have to cover up because, seriously, it’s all I can look at.”
Sadie grabbed a hand towel and eyed it critically. “Actually, I think this will be too small.” She waggled her eyebrows and Hester huffed.
Lorenzo snarled and stalked out the room, returning moments later with a bath towel, tossing it at Antonio.
“What did Prime say?” demanded Hester impatient and irritated by the interruptions of the others.
“Just that we need to be careful,” he lied. “He’ll talk to the chief tomorrow.”
Hester eyed him and wrinkled her nose. She could tell he was lying.
Sadie let out a sound of disgust. “That’s it? Some whackjob with a gun could have hit one of the kids, and he’s going to talk to the sheriff. Where’s all the brutal shifter justice I always hear about on the news?” She continued mumbling, and they distinctly heard the word ‘pussies’.
“Kidnapped and shot at within one week. Life doesn’t get any better than this,” murmured Mary.
“Nobody’s getting shot!” growled Tomas.
Mary flinched at his outburst, and the male looked like he was going to move to her, to comfort her, but he merely scowled and clenched his fists.
“We are actually safe here, aren’t we?” ventured Laurel.
“Just… stay in the house tonight,” replied Antonio, not taking his eyes off Hester.
Her eyes had turned gold, and her lips were pursed. She wanted to say something, but she was waiting.
“We have to be out on patrol in a few hours, we should get some rest,” declared Diego. He looked at Laurel expectantly but whatever he was waiting for, didn’t happen. She smiled vaguely, and he sighed, shepherding an angry Tomas and grumpy Lorenzo out the door.
Sadie pulled a pan of brownies out of the oven, and his beast virtually drooled. “We were planning on just watching a movie and eating brownies anyway, so I guess this doesn’t change our plans. Want to join us?”
“Sure,” replied Antonio with an easy smile.
“Not you,” snickered Sadie. “I meant Hester. You’re still the enemy.”
Antonio chuckled. “Duly noted.”
“Sounds good,” said Hester, “I’ll join you in a second.”
Sadie shrugged and the three humans left to settle into the living room.
Alone at last, Hester hissed, “You’re lying.”
Antonio dropped the bath towel. Her breathing hitched ever so slightly, and he noticed a reddening of her cheeks.
“Stop that,” she ordered.
His eyebrows raised in comic innocence. “Stop what?”
“Stop trying to distract me, it’s… it’s not going to work.” Her eyes rolled to the ceiling to avoid looking at him, and she worried her lip.
She was peeved about what happened, and probably even more peeved by the fact that Antonio was holding back information, but she couldn’t help her natural arousal.
His cheetah was stubborn and determined to fight him, but her beautiful body, her natural instincts, betrayed her.
“What did Prime really say?”
He stared down at her body for almost a minute before she finally grumbled, “What are you staring at?”
“You. I’ve seen you naked twice and I still haven’t had the chance to enjoy it. If I stare hard enough, I can imagine what you look like with no clothes on.”
“Well, I hope you have a good imagination because there’s no way you’ll ever see me naked again!”
Antonio grinned at her. “Bet you would have also said that yesterday after I kidnapped you and yet, here we are.”
“Ugh. You insufferable, egotistical…”
Antonio held up a hand before she could really get going. She was a walking thesaurus when roused. “I know, I know. But look, Prime has the situation handled.”
“Handled?” Hester snorted. “Someone was shooting at us, Antonio. It wasn’t random.”
Antonio winced. He had hoped she hadn’t noticed that. Clearly, Hester could read his reaction because she laughed mirthlessly. “Didn’t think I’d notice that all the bullet holes were right where my head should have been if you hadn’t thrown me to the ground?”
“They might have been after me.”
“What? Like one of the previous women you kidnapped had come back for vengeance?”
Antonio gave her a puzzled look, and he could tell by the way she clamped her lips together that she hadn’t actually meant to say that. Was her jealousy aroused by the thought that she might not have been the first woman to arouse his kidnapping urges?
“You are my one and only kidnappee,” he reassured her.
“So who hates you? I mean, other than me – because I loathe you.”
“Mmmm hmmmm, I can tell.” He pointedly stared at her chest. A dick move, maybe, but the longer he watched, the more heaving it did and the harder her nipples became. Her body certainly didn’t loathe him.
Hester let out a growl, and reluctantly, he raised his eyes. “Honestly, I can’t think of anyone who really wants me dead. It was probably just drunk hunters, or maybe shifter-haters. There’re plenty enough of them in the world.” Or so he’d seen on TV; the local town was friendly to the jaguar leap. Probably because the people in the town had been there for a few generations just as the jaguars had – they knew about shifters before the rest of the supernatural world came out of the dark and weird closet.
“What if it was someone after me?”
“No one knows you’re here.”
“I don’t mean that it was someone from Los Lobos, I mean, someone who doesn’t want me here.”
Antonio scoffed at the idea. “Everyone wants you to be here.”
“Everyone except Valentina,” she muttered sullenly.
Antonio ticked. Okay, that part was true, but did he really see Valentina finding a hunting rifle and taking pot shots at Hester? Not really, he didn’t give the vapid young jaguar enough credit to be that motivated.
Hester scowled at the fact that he didn’t deny it right away. “Did she want to be kidnapped by you?”
There were a lot of answers to give to that one. Instead, he went for, “No comment.” Hester didn’t need to know about Valentina’s previous lusty overtures.
“Mmmm hmmmm. I can see I’ve hit a skanky nerve.”
“Look, Hessie…”
She hissed, and some of his former humor returned.
“Hessie,” he insisted, snagging her hand – even though she tried her best to escape his grasp, “t
here is nothing going on with Valentina, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she muttered.
He dragged her hand to his mouth and kissed each of her knuckles. His jaguar alternately mewled and snarled. He’d waited years to find the right woman; there was no way he was losing her to some demented shooter or to a female jaguar who had her sights on him. No. Way.
*
Antonio stomped home, ignoring his annoyed jaguar. Yeah, Hester didn’t exactly respond to his overtures, and she soon kicked him out on his ass. If he had actually expected Hester to soften and allow him some leeway, he would have been sorely disappointed. But that just wasn’t the cheetah he kidnapped. He knew she was going to be pissy and stubborn, and hell didn’t he just love to see her riled. The stomping was all on account of his blue balls.
With so few females in the leap, unmated males went to the nearest town to try and quench their sexual urges. Some went every night, but Antonio limited his visits. He wasn’t exactly keen on liaisons that didn’t last past the night, and each time he went there his jaguar was just that little bit crabbier. Yeah, mating had been a long time coming for him, and given his last unsatisfying sexual encounter was nearly a year ago, he was virtually salivating at the thought of getting to the mating.
But, Hester wasn’t going to make this easy on him – she told him so regularly, and really, would he want her any other way?
No grumbled his jaguar loyally. Though another cold shower wasn’t exactly enticing.
He couldn’t really blame her for being pissy. Aside from the whole kidnapping thing - which he believed she was kind of-almost-maybe coming to terms with - someone had been shooting at her less than two hours ago.
Antonio hoped it was just some hunter who had lost their way, and clearly their mind. Hey, maybe they were drunk. Maybe when Roberto took the gun to the chief they would find him, rap him on the knuckles, scare the ever-loving hell out of him, tell him to stay away from the leap and that would be the end of it.
He hoped. The idea that someone didn’t want Hester there was not something he wanted to think about. Though he could think of one female, and possibly her mother, who would be happy if Hester just fell off the face of the earth. But surely they were with the prime when the shots started. Unless they were sporting some hitherto undisclosed superpowers, Antonio doubted they could have made it out the food hall and got to the location of the gun to start shooting in time.
But hey, look on the bright side – maybe someone was shooting at him! Much more preferable - though he wasn’t exactly sure of the reason. He was generally well liked, and there really weren’t many quarrels within the leap. Seemed like a bit of an overreaction to him taking the last piece of pineapple upside down cake. Still, if it was someone in the leap, he was sure Roberto would hunt them down. For all his faults, Roberto could be pretty damn tenacious.
Antonio let himself into his house, pausing at the refrigerator as he moved to grab a beer. What if someone was trying to hurt him because they knew what he’d done to Hester? Payback for kidnapping her. But then, the law was on their side – why not just call the cops and have him arrested. Killing him seemed a bit extreme. Still, might be best to have his wits about him. He replaced the beer and quietly made his way to bed.
He could already hear the rumbling snores of his brothers, and undoubtedly his hardworking mother would already be in bed.
Antonio let himself into his darkened room, instinctively growling at the scent that hit him. The lamp flickered to life, and Antonio’s growl turned throaty as he found Valentina sprawled on his bed sporting a smug smile and not much else.
Really? What had he ever done to deserve this?!
“Get out,” he hissed, mindful of his sleeping mother and siblings. The last thing he wanted was to see his mother embarrassed, or his brothers amused.
“You’re not serious?” Valentina smiled, completely ignoring him as damn usual. It was a strange smile, almost nervous and dare he say innocent.
“I am serious. How the hell did you get into my house?”
Valentina shrugged. “Through the window.”
Said like it was the most normal thing in the world to just climb into the bedroom of a man you’re not even dating and strip down onto his bed.
“You need to leave, and don’t you dare wake my mother.”
Valentina’s face crumpled slightly. “I don’t know why you’re being like this. I mean, it’s not like there’s anyone here to hear us.”
Antonio’s beast howled in exasperation. He came close to yelling and damn near had to bite his tongue off to stop himself. “You don’t know? I keep telling you I’m not interested.”
“Yeah, but…”
“I am never going to mate you. Ever. If we were the last two people on earth, we still wouldn’t mate. I am mating Hester. I chose Hester.”
Valentina frowned and thankfully pulled her knees up to her chest. “But she doesn’t even want to mate you.”
“Well…” She’s just playing hard to get insisted his beast, loyally. “Even if she doesn’t want to stay here, she’s it for me,” he concluded quietly. He realized that was true. She was his mate, and if she didn’t want him, then he guessed it was going to be a damn lonely future.
“Then why did you…” Valentina bared her fangs and angrily started pulling on her clothes, darting him resentful glances. “I can’t believe I was going to give you my virginity!”
Antonio was shocked enough by that to stare at her open-mouthed as she tore out of his room, past the interested faces of his brothers who had come to investigate where all the loud noise was coming from, and down out of his house.
He walked to his door, still digesting Valentina’s words. Why she thought he felt more for her than he did he couldn’t imagine. Probably just some dumb crush, but he had no idea she was still a virgin. It actually shouldn’t be that surprising. While she may be flirty and teasing, he’d never heard of her either engaging in a relationship with an unmated male or visiting the local town - and given that gossip made its way through the leap like a tsunami, he would have heard. Knowing what he did made him feel uneasy. If he had known how innocent she was, he might have taken it easier on her. Maybe. Probably not. She was still a disobedient jaguar, and she needed to learn.
“Go to bed,” he hissed at his snickering brothers and as quietly as possible slammed his door. Then he opened it again to see his brothers desperately trying to hold back their mirth. “Not a word of this to anyone – on pain of death!”
Hey, technically he hadn’t done anything wrong – Valentina was as innocent as when she made her way into his bed. But somehow he didn’t exactly think that Hester would see things as clearly as he did, and he didn’t need to actively give her any more reasons not to want to stay.
Fourteen
Hester sucked on her third cup of coffee, and her cheetah let out a deflated, tired growl. Yeah, that inhuman monster Antonio woke her at the buttcrack of dawn again. Okay, so he brought waffles that had sprinkles in them, along with French vanilla cream and strawberries but… She forgot her point. She went back to thinking of the waffles again. He freely admitted that his mother made them, and Hester made a half-hearted joke about him being a mama’s boy again, but she was starting to give up on them. He was proud of the fact, and they didn’t have any effect. Plus, she was starting to fall a little in love with his mother. Could making sure his mother cooked for her on a regular basis be a foundation of mating Antonio? Antonio and heavenly waffles every day – not a bad combination.
She was veering into dangerous territory, and it was all because she was tired and full of delicious food. It was probably all part of his master plan she thought spitefully. He got her all hot and bothered with his sexy body, ensuring she spent all night dreaming of him and then plied her with delicious treats. Ooh, he was cunning, and she almost fell for it!
Hester looked up from her stack of paperwork to find Daniel staring at her yet again. She r
aised an eyebrow, and he pressed his lips together and quickly looked away.
After plying her with waffles, Antonio again insisted she get up and get dressed – as with the previous morning he picked out her thong, choosing a lacy purple affair. Then he brought her to the office to sort through more paperwork. She had a sneaking suspicion that he was going to expect her to do this for her entire vacation/period of being kidnapped. What’s a girl gotta do to get some downtime?
Daniel sure didn’t seem happy when she arrived, even trying to raise an objection with Antonio. That was wordlessly shot down with the smallest tic of an eyebrow. Her jaguar sure could be dominant when he wanted to be, made her shiver in a very pleasant kind of way. Not that he was her jaguar…
Hester licked her lips and started sifting through documents. The leap had acquired a lot of land over the years, most of the mountain where they lived. They owned a lot of land around the leap compound, probably to ensure that no one else settled too close and allowed them plenty of room for leap members to run and let loose. They did, however, own a few holiday homes in the surrounding area and hired them out to vacationers. Daniel was supposed to be the manager of the properties, while Antonio’s mother, Maria and a number of other leap females ensured that the houses were cleaned and well-maintained. However, it appeared from the paperwork that it was actually Maria who was handling most of the business for them. But probably Daniel taking the credit.
Perhaps he had too much on his plate and had to delegate she thought in a fit of strange charitableness. She watched as Daniel spent three minutes cleaning his ear with his pinky. Yeah, right, huffed her animal.
She needed to sort out which of the documents pertained to their lands, which belonged to the timber mill and which were for the properties they owned. Then she needed to get them into date order, and then she’d be looking at what exactly was missing.
Hester glanced around at the towering piles. Fffffff… fudge, how was she supposed to do that in less than two weeks? You can’t, chuckled her animal. Humph. Another of his plans to get her to stay? Or perhaps she was giving him too much credit for being sneaky.
