by Gem Sivad
Yesterday, as soon as he’d arrived at Shep Buchanan’s cabin, Thomas had shed his clothes and shifted to jaguar. It was only a short distance through the woods to Miz’s place and he’d taken to the trees to travel faster. When she’d ridden up the hill on her Harley, the jaguar reiterated his claim, roaring loud enough to be heard over the engine.
Mate. Thomas felt a throb of pain, as if someone had kicked him in the head. Miz was tuned in, all right.
Besides her property wards keeping him out of her home and body, she had her mental shields in place keeping him out of her head. Every time the damn beast touched Miz’s thoughts, she mind-slammed Thomas. Between the cat’s rage and his mate’s mental kickboxing, Thomas was a mess.
The jaguar rumbled his fury. Thomas agreed. They wanted in, dammit. The beast wanted Miz because he recognized her on some primal level beyond Thomas’ domain. But Thomas wanted her for all the right reasons. For a moment he allowed himself to recall the bliss of sinking into Miz as her healing heat pulsed around him.
Savoring the memory was almost worth the thump as she landed a mental strike. But the pain kicked Thomas back into reality. He needed to get back to DC. Shep Buchanan, with all of the information he carried in his brain, had been compromised. Half of the men in their unit were already considering killing their leader.
It was just a matter of time before more agreed. Thomas couldn’t protect his friend forever. He had to find a way to rescue his Special Forces sub-agency commander. Currently Shep was staring at a wall in a guarded room, his mind somewhere in la-la land.
The pacing anxiety of the jaguar had finally forced Thomas back to Miz. Even if she let him in, they wouldn’t have time… His beast prowled restlessly, anxious to bind her to them. Half the time images of two jaguars playing together danced in Thomas’ head. Impossible, his human brain said. Mine, the jaguar growled.
He shuddered, trying to get a grip. Recently, the will of his beast threatened to obliterate his human side. The whole Miz quandary was an example.
Before he’d met Miz, Thomas had enjoyed the company of many women. After Miz, no one else would do. The cat had chosen his mate and left Thomas to deal with the complications. He couldn’t stay in the boondocks with her and she wouldn’t leave the state. Now he was back and the witch wouldn’t let him in.
The cat said Miz was in danger. Thomas didn’t know if her talents had been discovered and he couldn’t stay here to protect her if she’d been outed. Like it or not, Miz was returning to DC with him today.
Miz was a healer. She was also a lethal weapon in the wrong hands. She possessed the gift of truth-saying. Thomas knew for a fact she could get in a man’s head and make him tell everything he knew or thought he knew. She’d done it to him.
The jaguar chuffed impatiently. She was the mate. They were supposed to be in her mind and she in theirs. It was Thomas’ fault the connection was gone. He’d broken the mind link with Miz, afraid to take a chance that someone might take over his brain too.
While he’d been gone, she’d obviously been busy strengthening her mental shields. Now when he tried to reach her, she’d figured out how to block his thoughts. She’d beamed one clear message to him though. Kiss off.
The night before she’d tortured him, pulling her curtains wide as she worked out. He’d watched her pummel her punching bag. Then she’d tried to kick to death the black, life-sized dummy she’d added to her equipment. It was about Thomas’ height and when she’d landed her jarring shots to head and groin, he’d known he was her imaginary target.
She was pissed. No doubt about it. It didn’t help any that Thomas’ beast agreed with Miz. He’d left Bitter Creek Holler, assuring Miz a month ago he’d be back within the week. He’d been wrong. Now he was up a tree trying to negotiate entrance back into her world.
Early this morning the cloudy sky had released a light drizzle, wetting the October leaves and making his willow perch slippery and uncomfortable. Then the wind had increased, ushering in a full-blown storm. At first the cat had enjoyed the elemental force but fun time was over. Inside the jaguar’s soaked pelt, Thomas shivered. The clock was ticking.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Miz paced from one side of her living room to the other, stopping every once in a while to peer outside. The damn cat was in the tree again and Mother Nature had sent a storm. Lightning crashed and thunder rolled, making the earth shudder under the force of the ever-nearer strikes.
I will not invite that idiot inside. A picture suddenly flashed in her mind of the wet jaguar crouching on a slippery willow limb. Tough shit! Thomas Hunter was up a tree and he could stay there. Forget him, Miz. You met in midsummer, solved a crime together, boinked like animals—which he is, sort of—you came, he came, he left. End of romance.
“Serves you right,” Miz snarled. She didn’t know whether she blamed herself or him. She knew better than counting on anyone. She looked at the storm outside where sheets of water pelted across her yard in a rolling tide. He left, he didn’t call, we’re done.
Jerking a blanket around her shoulders, she stomped to the kitchen to see if the coffee was ready. Suddenly, a wash of pleasure shivered through her as she felt the essence of Thomas penetrate her body and melt her core.
Oh. My. God. She put passion in the mental punch she landed on his metaphysical, thick skull. Stay out of my head.
She was pleased to see that her hand was steady as she poured the usual liberal amount of creamer into the brew and stirred. I’m cool. I can handle this. She sipped her coffee, leaning over the kitchen sink to get a better view. I can’t see the cat at all. I hope he’s…
Overhead lightning flashed, splitting the air with a crash and boom as it struck the ground close by. The wind picked up speed and the willow tree trembled under the assault.
A yowl of desperate misery shamed her. What can it hurt? I’ll just…
Before she finished her thought, a splash of gold leapt from the tree and the next moment as she peered through the window, Thomas stood looking hopefully at her from across the yard. Naked Thomas.
Reluctantly Miz unlocked the ward, watching it shimmer and come down to allow him entry into her territory. In two leaps he was on the porch. She held the door open and the blanket waiting, ready to wrap it around his shoulders and cover his nakedness from her view. She grimaced at his forlorn appearance and stepped away from him.
I won’t be seduced senseless this time. Of course, Thomas immediately had to test that theory. He pulled her into his embrace, wrapping her in the blanket and molding her to his wet skin at the same time his aroused cock fit snugly against her belly.
“I’m hungry for you,” he growled against her neck as he nipped his way to her jaw and lips. Miz felt the truth of every groaned word he uttered.
“Shouldn’t a gone traipsing off to parts unknown then, Sunny,” she drawled, trying to sound indifferent. But she tipped her head, excited by the way his lips explored the point between her shoulder and neck.
She thought she was prepared for the sensation but when his teeth pierced her skin, shock waves of primal need jolted in her core. Reminding her he was jaguar as well as man, he sliced a razor-sharp claw through her top, leaving her tee and bra nothing but tattered remnants framing her heaving breasts.
“Not interested, Sunny. It’s been quiet times here. I’ve got no excess energy to dump and I won’t be needing your services.” Evidently her inability to lie didn’t extend to Thomas because she’d just told four whoppers in a row. Maybe it was because, though she was as horny as a she-cat in heat, by damn she was a hell of a lot madder.
The jerk didn’t need to know that her libido was in full swing, making Miz want to jump his bones. She’d been swamped fixing injuries during September. Two wolves had almost killed each other in a fight, a white-tailed deer had broken a leg, assorted female shifter problems had presented themselves and those were only a few examples of the first aid she’d provided since Wyatt had revealed her ability to the pack.
Unfortunately
for her, the fastest way to shed the effects of laying on of hands was a long, prolonged bout of fucking. With Thomas gone, she’d abstained, and abstained, and abstained—even when she could have used the lumber rep hanging around to dampen her libido.
Right now, with the residual magic from all those healings pulsing inside her, Miz figured she contained enough elemental wattage to light up the state. And the antidote for her carnal overload—a thick, black cock attached to Thomas—stood ready to assist and then leave again.
Hell no. Her punching bag could take the workout. The relief Thomas offered cost too much. He was an untrustworthy ass. Their midsummer romance had been nothing more than a smoke screen for his mission. Thomas had stayed in the area long enough to confirm the existence of the local werewolf pack, destroy all of Miz’s illusions about the people she thought she knew, and fuck her into mellow oblivion.
He’d actually made her believe in that thing he called mating. She’d just begun getting used to having him in her bed at night. He was hot, he gave her a steady supply of what she needed, and for the first time in her life, she felt almost normal. Go figure that it would be with a man who turned furry every once in a while.
Maybe it was her own fault he’d left her behind. He’d asked her to go with him but she couldn’t. Besides which she hadn’t wanted to explain one more Hess oddity to him.
When he’d accepted her refusal without argument and waltzed in with gifts and a goodbye she’d been stunned and feeling stupid—she’d felt dumber still when he didn’t come back and ended their mind link.
It had shocked her into realizing how insidious her dependence on him had become. She’d tried to reach his thoughts and run into barricades he’d erected, separating them. She’d tried to call him on her cell phone and her number had been blocked.
It seemed like a pretty clear message to her. Nevertheless, she’d compulsively touched his mind again and again like probing a sore tooth with her tongue. Thomas was apparently gone, but the cat had begun visiting her dreams. She’d wakened one morning exhausted as if she’d been running. She’d been left with the clear memory of chasing a man into the trees. It got weirder.
One night she had a nightmare about shifting into a cat herself. She’d fallen out of bed, clutching the blanket in a stranglehold. It had been so real she’d hurried to inspect herself in the mirror. No fangs, no fur.
Cursed with enough creepy shit in her life, Miz decided she didn’t need more and closed her side of the link tight. Now here he was ready to screw with her life again. Heat pulsed in her core.
Maybe—just once more. She wanted him so bad her teeth ached.
“Let me explain.” He uttered the words all men say when they begin their lame-ass excuses.
Fuck you and fuck the horse you rode in on, Miz mentally sneered. Big mistake. Thomas took advantage of the opening and that fast, the devil invaded her mind.
Your punching bag will gather dust. The only workout equipment you need is attached to me. I’m trustworthy. And we’re mated so all my services come free.
Backing up, Miz fumbled for the mental off switch that would tune him out at the same time she tried to work a little magic to zip his real lips closed. Neither maneuver worked.
“This thick black cock is yours.” The cretin held his shaft in his hand, pumping it up and down and chastising her at the same time. He was so fucking gorgeous, drool collected in her mouth.
“I told you when I left that I had an assignment.” He shouldn’t have reminded her.
“I’ll be gone a week, tops,” she repeated the words he’d said when he’d left. Miz scowled.
“Shit happened.”
“And you shut the connection between us and didn’t even call to let me know shit happened because…?”
“It would have put you in danger.” Thomas’ voice dropped to a muted growl somewhere between human and beast. It was apparent that he had his own issues. Brown eyes changed to the color of aged whisky as man and jaguar fought for supremacy.
“Figure out who’s piloting today,” she told him snidely. “Then go away.” She fought the thrall but beast eyes won the struggle and held her gaze. She was pretty damn sure the cat was as furious as Miz that she’d been locked out. She felt weirder than shit siding with the jaguar against Thomas.
“I’m playing for Team Thomas,” she muttered, reminding the animal inside her once lover she wasn’t interested in being part of a threesome. Even before Thomas and his furry self had left for other lands, her aversion to animals had been a problem.
She admitted it. She was a bigot, a textbook example of zoophobia. As long as she’d pretended that Thomas was just a man, she could deal. Including the cat in the picture had been a lot harder.
One day he’d shifted to beast form and preened in front of her, coaxing her to pet the jaguar and make friends. Reluctantly she’d obeyed. The three-hundred-pound cat had purred and rubbed against her as if she were catnip. It had been a toss-up whether Miz remained frozen or ran screaming from his affection.
Thomas had shifted back to man before her feet had caught up with her brain. He’d been at his persuasive best, assuring her that eventually she’d get accustomed to his other half, that in fact he was everything a girl could want—lover, protector, pet. Miz snorted, reminding herself how that thinking had turned out.
Be cool. He doesn’t need to know how much it hurt. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming back here after disappearing for a month.” She glared at him, her mouth refusing to listen to her brain.
“Did you use my presents while I was gone?”
“I put them in the closet and forgot about them—just like I forgot about you.” She gave him her best you are a jackass look.
Thomas had pulled out the stops giving her gifts on his way out the door. A new pair of cowboy boots, finer than she’d ever seen—she’d wanted to slide her feet in them the moment she’d set eyes on the dark leather decorated with tooled flowers. She hadn’t. They were still in the closet, virgin footwear.
The nightie had been nice too. Thin and soft, she knew without even touching it how the silk would feel against her nipples. She’d stuffed it in a corner of her drawer out of sight.
The big, black dildo was still in its box. She’d thrown it in the trash, then retrieved it, then thrown it away again, and finally agreed with her masochistic side to put it in her closet to remind her why Thomas was taboo from here on out.
“I need you.” He narrowed the distance between them. She didn’t have to make a mind connection to greet the damn cat. The sound of his purring filled the kitchen.
“Stop that.” Her order fizzled as Thomas nuzzled her neck again, this time lavishing kisses there.
“You can’t deny you missed me,” Thomas said, his usual sexy baritone dropping to a guttural growl.
The sound raised the temperature in her core to molten. She swallowed back a moan, torn between running like hell and fucking him senseless.
It’s just the burn he’s feeling. She knew it was the carnal heat she was pouring into the air that had him hard and ready. She wished it wasn’t so. It would have been nice to have someone want her for herself instead of being turned-on by the pheromones she beamed.
Thomas snarled and snapped his teeth at her. She jerked back. What the fuck was that?
He held her gaze and shoved her sweats down. She let him, assuring herself that since she was barefoot, it would be easy to step free of the material and kick him senseless.
He picked her up and her traitorous thighs wrapped around his waist as he hilted himself, his thick cock reaching for her core. Okay, one last time. He’s a master at this. I need it. Afterwards I’ll tell him to get lost.
Miz tried to concentrate on throwing off her excess power. That’s what this was about. Strictly medicinal, not enjoyment, just a needed remedy for her carnal overload.
But, ohmygod—how could I have forgotten the feel of his skin? She pressed her mouth against his shoulder and licked his sweat. He ta
sted good, salty and sweet at the same time.
His cock stretched her channel, pressing against her pussy walls. A whimper of pleasure escaped her lips. She tried to stifle the pitiful sound. He made her crazy. She wanted to suck the marrow from his bones and layer herself in his scent.
She clung to him, gasping as though he delivered oxygen to air-starved lungs. His hands trembled as he cupped her face and rained kisses over her brow, her eyes and finally settled again on her lips.
“God, baby, I’ve needed you so much,” he groaned, and she believed him. “Not again. We’ll not be separated again.” The words were snarled, a guttural promise as he leaned her against the wall, using the flat surface to hold her steady for his hammering thrusts.
The room filled with sizzling power as Thomas pistoned in and out of her. He was so strong he shifted her on his cock with ease, always finding the spot that gave her the most pleasure. She was so close, she… Blearily she blinked sweat from her eyes and gazed over his shoulder.
“Criminy, we’re about to blow the place,” she panted, raking her nails down his back to get his attention. He roared, she shuddered and held on as he strode to the door and threw it open.
“Oh sweet Jesus in the morning, do it now,” she begged.
Thomas sank his teeth into her neck at the same time he pressed his thumb against her clit.
Yesssss… She came. Power drained from her into the room, the porch and then her yard. A white glow illuminated the landscape, making the falling rain appear as silver drops glistening against autumn leaves coated in dark blood. Weird.
Miz didn’t have long to reflect on the picture when Thomas leaned her against the frame of the door and continued his jarring thrusts. She clutched the back of his head and tried to swallow his tongue as he kept his mouth sealed to hers and kissed her into her second orgasm. He didn’t stop fucking her even after the white light disappeared, the leaves were again black shadows and the rain became just drops of water splashing against the ground.
