She pressed the sweet curve of her ass into his cock, arching along his body until her arms lifted over her to wrap around the back of his head, thrusting her breasts forward with the motion. Rhys groaned.
“I need you.”
He understood. She needed to reconnect, needed to feel her mate with her, protecting her, cherishing her.
Rhys couldn’t deny that need. Not when he needed her just as badly. His arms circled her body, a firm, satiny breast filling his palm. She panted as her nipple tightened, budding to push hungrily into his palm. Burying his face into her neck, he sucked and lipped, twirling his tongue over sensitive skin and the beat of her pulse. She shivered in answer.
He loved the smoothness of her skin, the wild taste, like a sun-heated field of summer grass. The image of her without a care, dozing in the sunshine on her back, filled his mind. It disturbed him that someone was trying to take that away from her.
She pushed into him, an insistence in the message. The worry of yesterday slipped away for the right now.
With a breast in his hand, he kneaded the softness, rubbing over the taut nipple in languid circles, heightening her anticipation. Low gasps of pleasure filled the bedroom. Morning light brightened everything, but there was nothing outside, nothing beyond the woman in his arms. Caressing her, he glided a hand over her ribs and hip to rise to the top of her spine.
Pinching lightly at her breast, he stroked her spine and she gasped, arching into both sensations. Mira was like no other woman, reacted like no one else. Loved like no one else. His cock throbbed harder as her moans and purrs increased.
Grasping her neck tenderly between his teeth, he held her for a split second, and she shivered like she’d been doused with ice water. The bite wasn’t to hurt, but a communication with her cat, that she was loved, his. Her fingers bent, clawing at the bedding in reaction. Her heart pounded beneath his hand.
“Rhys.” She moaned through his name.
Rolling her to her back, he rose over her, claiming her lips. The heat of her skin singed him, the silky softness brushing along his length where he half-covered her, sparking awareness through every nerve. Full and yearning, her breasts pressed into his chest. He couldn’t stop touching her, needing to reacquaint himself with her, roaming over her from her shoulder to her waist, stroking lightly with his thumb over her stomach. Her lips were berry sweet, each kiss lingering, creating a demand for more.
Licking at her lips, she opened for him, inviting him to taste her. A shudder stole over him when she captured his tongue between her teeth, sucking on it the way he knew her mouth would feel on his cock. He groaned at the picture, at the need she created. Harsh breaths filled his chest as sensations flared over him. Nerves flared up and down his body where they touched one another, electricity arcing as though they fed each other’s desire and energy.
Slipping downward between her thighs with a questing hand, he drifted his fingers through the tight curls over her slit, pulling and teasing at the crisp hair until she writhed, wanting.
Moisture coated his finger when he slipped between the plump folds, spiking his needs to another level. He wanted inside of her, needed her body accepting him. Rhys shuddered, fighting his own desires to sink into the woman beneath him.
A whimper then another escaped from her as he rubbed over the nub of her clit. Lifting from her hungry mouth, he licked his lips, wanted to taste everywhere, to have her on his tongue. She bucked under his teasing, his finger stroking, then pausing, urging her, then making her wait. Rhys latched onto her nipple, thrusting two fingers into her hot pussy. She wailed, jerking. The insistent tug of her fingers in his hair drove him into her body again. She grasped at him as he pleasured her, thrusting in and rubbing with each stroke.
Rhys swirled over her nipple, sucking it into his mouth to let her go with a subtle pop. Fingernails scraped where she clung, silently begging for more, for anything.
Shifting his attention upward, he licked beneath her jaw, dropping kisses. Almost as though he were marking her, he ran his tongue down her neck, laving at her pulse, wrenching a moan from her quivering lips. “Come for me, Mira,” he rasped. He groaned when the first flutter of her pending orgasm tightened down on his fingers. “Yesss.” He couldn’t look away. Lost in the throes of her release, she was beautiful to him.
Her body pushed into him and arched, her release washing over her. Watching her reach her pleasure was divine, the way her mouth parted, the way she fell into the whirlpool of ecstasy. Slick with her juice, he slid his hand free, bringing his fingers up to suck them clean. “God, you taste so good.”
Hot and gleaming, her eyes opened for him. Dropping a kiss to her lips, he angled down the bed until he lay between her thighs. “Gorgeous,” he breathed, his fingertip tracing the seam of her wet folds. Shivers flowed over her skin at the merest caress. “Fucking sexy.”
She gasped, whether it was because of his touch or his words, Rhys didn’t care. He throbbed painfully, dying to fill her, to feel her clenching down with the tide of desire flowing through her veins. If she were any other woman, he probably would have by now, wanting his own release before he could ache anymore. But for Mira, her pleasure, her bliss, letting her soar, was more important to him.
Her cry echoed through the room when he licked the sheen from her pinked flesh, a single deliberate swipe over sensitive, plumped labia. A blown breath teased her and she trembled beneath his fingers. Then, like a gift, he opened her with his fingers, loving the glistening proof of her hunger and arousal, passion that he made her feel.
Lashing at her clit, his tongue flicked and tasted, teased and swirled. He played with the taut nub of nerves, rolling it beneath his tongue, tugging it between his lips, loving her body. Delving deep into her with his tongue, he suckled on heated flesh, lavishing her with long licks, purposely stroking her with the tip then the flat of his tongue, driving her crazy with the dual sensation. Drawing her open, he stabbed into her heat with his tongue, catching the sweet silk of her orgasm, drinking the building cream as it slipped onto his tongue. Her whimpers grew louder, her body rocking, demanding, shaking with the need to burst apart with her orgasm. Groaning, he wanted to taste her completely. She ground into him, pleading. Relentlessly, he attacked, tasting and licking.
With a keening sound, she shouted his name. On the edge.
Before it had faded, he filled her dripping slit with his fingers, pumping into her until she exploded, her flavor coating his hand and his tongue. He murmured his pleasure, sipping at damp skin, teasing her as tiny quakes floated down her frame to reach him. Bliss had never tasted so good.
Relinquishing his position, he crawled up her body, dropping open-mouth kisses on heated skin on the way.
“Amazing,” he whispered, brushing a gentle feather-light kiss to her pouty, swollen lips. “No one like you, baby.”
Hovering over her, the tip of his engorged shaft poised at her entrance. With exquisite slowness to feel every shudder and gasp, he entered her, one heart wrenching beat at a time, until he filled her, felt her body adjusting to his size. He ground his teeth together as her body clenched and pulsed around him with the aftershocks of her previous orgasm. A hiss slipped from him, hardening to a growl when she tilted her pelvis, rocking into him. He drove in a little deeper. Rhys swallowed his shout, trails of lava winding down his spine.
His patience thinned. She was tempting him beyond endurance, her body undulating against his with her hands enflaming him with unrelenting caresses. Nails scored his shoulders, dragging over his chest. Before he could resist, his body answered, rising and thrusting deep. She gasped, her head snapping back into the pillow. The slim column of her throat pulsed, her blood rushing to match his.
“More,” she pleaded, her voice raw.
Rhys couldn’t hold himself back any longer, rising and pumping into her welcoming body, filling her with every inch until he met her pelvic bone. Leaning to reach her, he licked the pale creaminess of her throat, absorbing her shudder as her b
ody ignited. Gasps burned through his lungs as he thrust, heat settling into his body, escalating with each taste of her skin, with each pulse of her body surrounding him.
Her sheath tightened, her pending orgasm riding high on the wave between them. Bracing his hands, he stared down at her, lost in her euphoria of pleasure. Heavy-lidded blue eyes, plump lips, her flushed face, lost in the sensations they shared.
He felt it every time he made love to her, the connection, another tightening to the bond they shared. Two souls who completed each other to make one.
In this moment, he never doubted he’d found the right woman.
Electricity raced up and down his spine as her cries rose to a new pitch. Rhys closed his eyes. Each motion was natural, every stroke filling her sent a sheet of fire through his blood. Then her body hit the cliff and exploded, sweet cream that knocked his concentration out of the water. Heat swamped him, tightening his body and with a shout, he came, pulsing to fill her, reared back and taut, grinding to soak up every shock as she propelled herself through the tidal wave of her orgasm.
Gasping, he caught himself on his elbows, her hot breath blowing past his ear while shivers rolled down her body, striking along sensitive nerves. Gradually, the lights on his eyelids faded. The roar of his blood against his ears drifted away. The slick feel of her under him made him want to slink against her, wind himself all around her, wanting to feel her softness on every inch of his heated flesh.
Fingers delved lightly through his damp hair.
“I love you,” he breathed, sorry that sleep was tugging him down when all he wanted was to touch her more.
“I love you too, Rhys. With all my heart.”
Satisfied and limp with pleasure and exhaustion, he slipped from above her, curling along her side once more. Almost by rote, she shifted to her side, spooning into his chest, long breaths quickly sending them both to sleep.
Chapter Three
Mira watched his sleeping form with unblinking eyes. Steady breaths made his chest and shoulders rise and fall. She’d only recently realized she liked to watch him when he was this relaxed. He was a hard worker, constantly doing something at the house, or concentrating on something at work. His mind rarely slowed down, except for sleep. All that energy kept his lean body trim. His own version of weightlifting kept him toned. She licked her lips.
Rhys was a walking god. Dark brown hair and luscious eyes, he was always able to make her heart race. Even sitting in the chair across the room by the window, simply watching him sleep, he drove her crazy to be near him. Their relationship hadn’t started out on the best foot, but they’d somehow managed to survive each other. The first thing she’d wanted to do was run, then kill him and then run had become an option, because he’d discovered her secrets. How quickly she found out he was a man who was worthy of her secrets.
Burying her sigh in the crook of her arm where it rested on her lifted knee, she let her gaze wander to stare out the window again. It was afternoon. He was due back at work the next day. Their weekend away at his grandfather’s cabin in the Catskills was a total disaster.
Because of her. She winced, toying with the rolled seam edge of the chair cushion between her fingers. How had they known to set the net? Rhys was right. What was the chance that a cheetah would be found in the mountains?
In this form, unless she needed blood, she was undetectable. She bled red, the same as a human, only her blood never lost its red oxygenated color. She didn’t have a blue vein in her body anywhere. So maybe she wasn’t exactly like a human, but whoever noticed had to be damned close to catch the difference.
Except for Rhys, no one ever had been.
Felids were home schooled or tutored, because they couldn’t pass the blood work needed for public schools. They didn’t need the vaccinations because of their immunity, so that was another strike against them, though none had ever been infected by the many ailments that seemed to plague mankind. Fitting in had never been easy, regardless.
There weren’t only the public aversions, but the cat needed to run. That was essential. A cat with cabin fever grew cranky and hard to control. Mature Felids could control the cat easier, but it still wasn’t a pleasant experience for the Felid, or anyone they were cooped up with.
That was why Rhys had taken her north. Since admitting to their bond and letting the relationship happen, she’d been pacing the townhouse for weeks. His grandfather’s cabin should have been perfect, a long way out of the city. Secluded. Unknown. But someone had known.
Then a thought occurred to her. Something he’d said…only them, not with the family. He was right. Who knew the two of them were going there for the weekend? No one else in his family knew her secrets. He’d glossed over a lot of her background and childhood with his mother, refusing to divulge anything she wouldn’t say on her own. Rubbing her chin on her knee, she knew she loved him for that alone.
The world outside the window was mostly quiet. The suburb where his townhome was located was well out of the inner city. Birds flew from tree to tree, chirping and discussing their moment to moment. Squirrels raced up and down large elms and oaks, their brown tails fluffy banners of their passing.
A tiger trotting down the sidewalk would create havoc and terror, she was sure of it, though the idea of doing it still brought a smile to her, just because it would be interesting to say the least.
Her brow scrunched as she tried to sift through memories and possibilities. Had someone discovered what she was, what they were, and were hunting for them, like Rhys feared? She wasn’t sure how many Felids still existed, only the five from her home pod. She knew there had been over a hundred on the initial mission sent to Earth, but beyond that, much of what had been was lost to memory. To help the younger generations integrate easier, the elders had even ceased using their own language. As different as a sponge to a turnip, the Felids had managed to hide among the humanoid race, though their biology and anamorphic ability set them apart irrefutably.
Laying a cheek on the crook of her arm, she wished she had answers to what had spurred yesterday morning’s capture. Maybe it was simply because she was a cheetah caught in the Catskills. Though the net had to have been set well in advance. Was she a catch that had caught them by surprise? What else had they expected to trap? And why by the cabin? Mira rubbed her face trying to replay yesterday morning. She was going to get a headache trying to understand what had happened. The longer her mind ran in circles, the tighter that circle shrunk, giving her no answers. Maybe she wasn’t the only one using the area for a running ground and had been captured instead of another Felid.
Or maybe they were just cruel, heartless poachers really only out for whatever was caught in their net.
She must have made their jaws drop, she thought. Either way, now that someone knew there were cheetahs in the Catskills, people would be combing the range looking for more—or just for her.
A sigh drew her attention to the conked out man lying on his side on their bed. Considering the day before, the long night and that morning, he was probably exhausted. She hoped someday to have children with him. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible either, as previous couples had discovered. Their humanoid DNA was close enough to merge and essentially create a hybrid, but the Felid remained dominant. She hoped their species never lost that uniqueness. She could imagine children with his solid shoulders and his eyes. Cloud gray and brown, like winter bark.
Mira followed his hand when it appeared from beneath the sheet at his hips. His fingers spread and wove down his chest to linger over his flat stomach. Her pulse hitched, and she was unable to look away. Flicking upward, his eyes were still shut. She wondered if he were asleep, or if he knew she was watching every single motion he made.
Compelled to follow that wicked hand, she watched as it drifted over his pecs to inch beneath the sheet edge, where the noticeable bulge created by his erection was impossible to miss.
“You’re evil,” she teased him, knowing without a doubt he was awake, an
d was aware of her captivation.
“No, I’m trying to be tempting,” he told her. “I’m all alone in this bed.” His lips stopped moving to form a slight pout.
Mira rolled her eyes then giggled. “You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Then you shouldn’t have gotten out of bed.” He rose to hold his head up on a flat palm, smiling gently, the warmth in his gaze reaching out to her. He patted the bed. “Really. I sleep better with you here.”
Admiring his form, she rose and sauntered to the edge of the bed. “Really? Sleep? Since when have we ever just slept in that bed?”
His chuckle was deep, though shameless. “Good point.” His brow tightened, as though he were thinking hard. “Well there was the one night…” He trailed off. “No, that wasn’t it, either.” Rhys’s mouth popped open then shut, like a gasping fish.
Mira grabbed her pillow and smacked him, laughing. “See?”
His fingers captured her wrist and tugged, pulling her to splay over his chest as he flattened to the bed. “Can I help it if it’s just too hard to resist you?”
Caged Page 2
