Oh, my God. The human side cackled inside the cat’s head enough that a sneeze burst from their nose.
Zeke hung upside down from a tree not far from her den. Thick rope wrapped around his ankle and suspended him five feet above the ground like a giant cat toy. This in itself was funny, but the man was stark naked. Not a single shred of cloth hid anything. Muscles bunched and clenched as he fought to find purchase on something. All the struggling accentuated his beautiful body, and the small glimmer of moonlight cast him in a wonderful light. Sweat gleamed like tiny lights. A purr of appreciation rumbled in her chest. Even the bobcat could see their mate’s allure in human form.
Of course Amie wanted to keep looking at his cock, a thing of beauty. He was semi hard, probably from the exertion, but it didn’t matter the reason. She wanted to feel him again, deep inside her. The cat wasn’t convinced.
“Stop ogling me, kitty. Get me down please.”
The bobcat wanted to pounce at him, lick him from head to toe, and swipe at his hands like a supersized toy. She had no desire to get him out of the tree. What fun was there in that? With him down he’d want to talk and talking was the farthest thing from either of their minds. The kitty wanted to play.
Chapter Nineteen
Amie couldn’t believe what she was seeing through her cat’s eyes. Was she dreaming? Because who in their lifetime would see a man who was blindingly naked, gorgeous, scrumptious, lickable… They licked their lips. Right. Even for shifters the spectacle in front of her was something unique.
So what was a cat shifter to do?
Completely ignore her mate and take the time to clean herself. That’s what any self-respecting feline would do. Sure, she did it to torture him, and sure every lick tilted her head so she could see her mate in all his glorious nakedness, but who wouldn’t want to view such yumminess? She might be pissed at him, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to ogle him. And tease him.
Actually, as she listened intently to him getting more and more agitated, she realized that she wasn’t angry with him. It was the situation, and his unerring way of finding her even when she’d wanted to sulk. Days of living by themselves had given both sides time to think through their actions and, if Amie was forced—by torture of course—to admit it, she’d run without cause. Skip was going to fix things, but she’d been so sure that she was at fault and was the one that needed to pay for the troubles that she’d turned into one of those people she most hated. Martyrs.
Ugh.
So, as the hours ticked on, the human side had come to grips with reality, which was, she’d run from her pack, her Alpha, and her mate for no real reason. But the cat side, the one still driving no matter how much Amie tried to coerce the feline, wasn’t so sure it was wrong to run. They’d caused their mate near-fatal wounds and had been the reason the pack was in turmoil.
“Stop ignoring me, Amie. You are in big trouble. And I’m getting light headed. You don’t want me passing out do you?” Zeke’s strong words tapered off into a silly, boyish whine. He even tried giving her puppy eyes, but he was spinning slowly on the rope.
Lifting her head from the patch on her front leg she’d been concentrating on, she blinked slowly at the slowly rotating loveliness above her. The tattoos shone a little more brightly as the moon peeked through the trees for a moment.
Oh, I want to lick those.
The bobcat purred loudly in appreciation and agreement. Neither of them had enough time with his body to find each line and color decorating his skin. Zeke was a masterpiece, and the moonlight seemed to be caressing what was theirs.
“I’m nearly crying here and you aren’t even listening to me.” He pouted.
She snorted and caught a small smile from him before he rotated around again and his face was in shadow. Sure, he was milking this as much as she was trying to tease him. What was funny is that he had to be cold. So why wasn’t he cutting himself free? Or was he really stuck?
Her cat eyes couldn’t see true colors at night, but the flushing in his face was evident as were the goose bumps. Neither human nor feline wanted him to be harmed. Sure, it was fun watching him dangle there if he was safe, but if their mate was really hurting or uncomfortable Amie didn’t think she could handle knowing he was there and they could get him free.
“Amie, I really am getting light headed.”
You need to let me free so I can get him down.
The conversation was more animalistic, but the bobcat side wasn’t so sure. He needed to be rescued, but she didn’t want to give up control. The image was of being caged. A mew of discontent escaped their lips. Fear filtered between the place that connected them.
I’m sorry. I know you feel trapped.
“Hey. Hello. Dangling here with my tidbits showing?”
Amie would have rolled her eyes, because at the moment he said that he thrust his well endowed pelvis forward so she didn’t miss the semi-hard cock hanging against his belly. The girls were sure he would’ve waggled said organ if he’d been able.
A combined snort and mew sounded much like a hairball being choked up. Not a dignified vocalization at all, but neither really cared. The man was exactly what they needed, even when suspended from a branch. A moment of clarity brought both sides together in a single thought.
Need our mate.
The cat relented so fast that Amie was a little discombobulated for a second as she lay, naked and in human form, on the leaf-covered ground. No pain, no prolonged shift this time. The transition had been nearly seamless. A wave of understanding and thanks flowed between the cat and human halves. Amie grinned against her bare arm.
“Babe. A hand please.”
“Shut up, I’m communing with my cat.”
“I understand how wonderful that is, but I really can’t get down and the feeling in my toes is gone. Can you get me down?”
Lifting her head from the ground felt strange. Being in cat form gave her a compact head, thick neck and her skull sat differently on her spine. Human form was so much bigger, ganglier, and more difficult to move around in a coordinated fashion. She chuckled. The feeling was close to being drunk.
A giggle burst from her chest when her human eyes finally settled on her mate’s form. With more vivid color vision he was splotchy and not so pleasantly colored from being hung upside down for so long. His face was red, almost a deep purple. His legs were so white they looked like marble.
“You’re a mess.” It slipped from her mouth before she could stop it. But once it was out there she laughed. “You really are.”
“Thank you oh so much Miss Kittycat. Can we laugh at me later?”
Still grinning she caught his eye. “Only if you admit to how you really got up there.”
*****
Busted.
If Zeke was a proud guy he’d never have gotten into this position, but at this point he was willing to do anything. And right then ‘anything’ was allowing his brother to pull him into a tree by his ankle and then run away laughing maniacally, whooping like a loon, while Zeke waited for his mate to wake and save him. But now, as she lay on the ground laughing at him, his pride wasn’t making it easier to be good. Because the moment Amie found out he’d worked to have himself strung up like some sort of sick piñata for her pity… Well, things wouldn’t go well for him after that.
“What do you mean? My asshole of a brother tricked me and here I am hanging around like a goose in a butcher’s window.” He tried to infuse his words with enough indignation and anger to mask the slight lie. From the smirk on her beautiful face he hadn’t done a good enough job. Shit.
“Oh? So the mighty Zekiel Marrow—great and wonderful tracker of the Coyote Bluff pack—didn’t realize that his brother had set a trap? Because you had to have come to this place in coyote form, I mean, otherwise you would have had to stride through the woods completely buck nekkid. Which means your goof of a brother somehow masked his scent. The same scent you told me just the other day while discussing your sibling that you could a
lways smell. That your dearest brother had tried, and failed, to mask said smell but you, oh awesomest of awesome, didn’t have any trouble finding?”
Holy fuck. Zeke had completely forgotten having that conversation with her. He was in so much trouble.
“Um, yeah, well.” He sighed. Lie? Tell the truth? The grin she aimed at him made up his mind. “It was all Pete’s idea. I was going to sit outside this den and sing to you, trying to entice you to come out and cuddle, but Pete thought something like this would work better. It’s all his fault. I just went along with it.”
Amie laughed, the sound honest and full of mirth. “Throwing him under the bus because he’s not here? Classic. Just classic. So, what was the point? Entice me to cut you down because you are so fucking gorgeous? Have my way with you?”
Maybe it was all the blood pooling in his heads, or the fact that he’d missed his mate more than anyone should ever have to miss anyone, but the banter was enough to bring tears to his eyes. “He deserves us to get him back together. Can you imagine how bad we can be together?”
Until this point she’d been lying on the ground, looking up at him over her arm, but the moment she turned, sitting on the most perfect ass ever created to give him a glimpse of her full tits, he went from seeing stars from hanging upside down to seeing red with lust. An image, carnal and so inappropriate, surfaced. Something buzzed in his ear, might have been a bug, could have been a jet, but it didn’t matter. When the sliver of moonlight stroked all that milky skin his brain took a hiatus.
“Zeke… Dude you’re scaring me. Hello?”
“What?”
“You’re staring at my tits and not blinking, or talking, or responding. I was going to leave you up there a bit more, but perhaps you need to come down?”
“I need to come for sure.” The words left his mouth before he had time to stop them. A moment of silence filled the woods, then a second. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Yeah, obviously.”
She tilted her head, staring pointedly at the burgeoning hard on he was growing and, without any way to stop it or hide, she got the full show. Blood flowed there, happy to be gathering her attention. All those cells did a happy dance, and called to their friends. It took only moments for every last red blood cell to be crowded into his cock, just as happy to see Amie as his dick was. Every one of them waving at her from the upside down vantage point.
“Dude. Really?”
“What?” Zeke felt like he’d missed something, but he couldn’t really concentrate. The smell of her arousal floated on a small breeze. Her cheeks had blushed just as his had. But she still sat there, showing off her tight-nippled breasts in all their glory.
She just shook her head and rolled onto her hands and knees, momentarily giving him a whole new, potentially life changing sexual idea. But before he could even finish the fantasy she was on her feet, striding closer. Her boobs were bouncing slightly with the purposefulness of her movements, a determined gleam in her eyes.
“Um. what are you doing?”
Her silence worried him.
“Amie?”
When she’d finally found the knot Pete had worked on, the one that they’d decided to put high enough that she’d have to turn human to cut him down, she frowned for a moment. The grin that followed her scowl was evil, dangerous and scared the shit out of Zeke.
“Babe?”
With that she turned and showed off the hatchet she’d found wedged in the branches not far from the knot. “Yes, Snookums? Need something? I mean, you are at my mercy right? I’m thinking we need to, oh I don’t know, shave your chest… oh, or better yet, I’ve always wondered what a shaved scrotum would be like against my pussy. Want me to shave you? Hmm? This is the best height for something like that, and perfect positioning.”
Was she serious? Who knew? But Zeke was finally seeing this from her eyes, and it wasn’t a good thing for him that she was so smart…and vindictive.
“Come on. I needed you. I wanted to show you that whatever you thought had happened or would have happened had you stayed in Coyote Bluff was not true. I wanted to show you and your kitty that I can take care of you, that I want to. That I will make an awesome mate, and that I’m in it for the long haul. When you left me in the hospital I didn’t have time to explain anything, and I wanted time to be able to explain stuff. This was a stupid idea, okay? I get that, but when we talked about it this morning it made sense.”
*****
His rambling was so adorable. Sure, she could have gushed some sort of sappy forgiveness thing and begged for his as well for running away from her problems again, but what fun was there in that? This way she got to torture him just a little longer, and save herself a moment before having to spew all kinds of lovey crap that he’d hold against her forever. Not that she cared. She had her Zeke again. He’d come to save her from herself, and they were going to have some semblance of a happy ever after, hopefully with lots of hot monkey sex. Life was grand. Well, almost. Still strung up in the tree by an ankle and speaking faster now that she was grinning maniacally. Ooops.
“... and I did it all for you. I mean, if someone had waited for me to open my damn eyes all of this would have been fine. My signature was good enough to get Skip and Connor off their asses and here.”
Amie shook her head. “Wait. What signature?”
He gave her a weird look and then sighed. “I was trying to explain to you that all of this was my fault. You’d written a beautiful paragraph in one of your sketch books at the cabin. Remember? It was something about eternal love. Anyway, You’d doodled your name a million times and, by the way, I loved the ones where you drew Amie Marrow, so I signed my name under yours. It wasn’t our official agreement, but I agreed with all of the pieces you’d written. I do plan on loving you forever, in all situations and laying my life down for yours if needed.”
Pinching her brow helped stem the tears. That page he’d read was exactly how she felt for him, an outpouring through words she never thought she’d be able to actually say. For him to see it, with all the hearts and scribbling… made her feel slightly uneasy. Sure she loved him and was totally about being his mate, but giving him that much power over her heart? But the rest of her was elated and a dawning realization struck her. Her eyes zeroed in on his.
“We signed the agreement. Both of us, before the time it was required and before I left the cabin to find you.”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to be mated.”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes.”
“And I didn’t need to run.”
“No.”
She mentally chewed on that for a moment and then laughed. “Well, fuck.”
Turning to where the knot still kept her mate in the tree, she mustered all her strength and started hacking at the stupid rope.
“Wait. If you cut through—”
Before she could stop the last swing and figure out what the panic in Zeke’s voice meant she’d sliced through the last strands. A heavy thud and curse had her spinning. Finding him in a pile of limbs and leaves on the ground had her doubling over with laughter. “Sorry.”
“No you’re not.” The groan was pitiful.
Amie chuckled as she placed the hatchet behind the tree trunk, just in case he really was upset with being dumped on his head, and then walked slowly to him. “You’re right. I’m not. Well, I’m sort of sorry, but I figure that’s what you get for trying to trick me. Even if it was for my own good. Now, we can come up with something good to get Pete back and all will be well in the world.”
She didn’t have any warning. One instant Zeke was all naked and folded in on himself on the ground, the next she’d been tackled and lay, skin to scrumptious skin, under him. The startled girlie screech she’d made was horribly cliché, but it was the sound she’d made. As was the weak slap to his shoulder when her brain finally realized they weren’t standing anymore.
Sure, Amie should have been arguing about having him knock her down, or
given token complaints about the bump she probably would have on the back of her head, but in all honesty she loved the position and her body was fully into staying where she was as long as he got that wonderful cock of his inside her STAT. No long, drawn-out makeup sessions for her. Nope, she wanted dirty, gritty, dirt embedded in her ass-crack, sweaty sex.
And from the purring she was doing her kitty was all for it. Her mate had fed them, had come to be with them, made his own life suck for a while to win them back, and now overpowered her. She wanted to be fucked and fucked hard. They could get on with the soft and pretty sex later.
“Um, Amie, if you keep wiggling like that I’m not going to be able to control myself. Your sexy-as-sin body already had me primed.”
“Don’t. Just don’t hold back.” She ground her hips up against his stomach, punctuating her demand. “I need you. We need you. I’m sorry we were so stupid.”
Perhaps her words were distorted a little by the amount of licking she was doing on his skin, or the fact she was biting him a little in between licks. Either way he seemed confused and stilled above her.
“What?” He pushed his chest off her body and she nearly cried at the separation. Concern shone bright in the eyes she’d fallen in love with. He opened his mouth to say something sweet she was sure, but she stopped him by sliding her index finger between his lips. Moaning slightly when he instantly suckled it, swirling his tongue around the tip.
“Don’t think. Just love me. We can talk through the rest tomorrow, the day after, everyday of forever. Right now I need to feel you inside me. I, no, we need to feel the connection. Primal, animalistic. Let your coyote shine through.”
With her other hand she grabbed as much hair as she could on the back of his neck and pulled him down to her. When he went to kiss her, she grinned and shook her head, instead pulling her finger from his mouth with a loud, wet pop and tilting his head so she could lean up and kiss his neck. For shifters the neck was a sensitive and vulnerable place. Unless you trusted someone you didn’t give your throat to others. Zeke came to her lips so easily, and even moved his head farther back to give her more access. The urge to bite him, to taste him on her lips and seal the bond between them was riding her hard, but she fought it. She did bite into the flesh between his ear and shoulder hard enough to pull an inhuman howl from his lips. The fast thrust of his gorgeous cock against her hip had her grinning around his skin.
Switching Gears: Coyote Bluff Series Book 3 Page 17
