by Terry Spear
She looked around again, wondering where Maya was.
Connor had Kat’s shirt off before she was ready, and then he worked on her pants. He hadn’t let her put on her boots before they left the hut, so he didn’t have to mess with pulling them off. As soon as her pants joined her shirt on the rock floor, she expected him to hold her hand as she moved under the waterfall. But he leaned in close as a lover and unfastened her bra! As if he was used to unfastening women’s bras—easily, no hesitation, no fumbling.
So maybe he wasn’t so shy with women after all. Just around her… for some inexplicable reason. She would have told him that she didn’t need to remove all her clothes. That she could have cleaned up nicely wearing her leopard panties and bra. She hadn’t expected him to strip her bare. But here she was, still clinging to his waist and naked as the day she had come into the world.
“Still okay?” he asked.
“I’m okay,” she said, sounding a lot shier than she wanted to.
Again, the elusive smile.
“All right. Next step. I’m going to get the shampoo and body wash, and I’m going to walk you over there to get it, so just hold on.”
What had happened to Maya that she couldn’t have helped?
Kat did as he said while he gripped her arm and moved them slowly over the slippery rock floor, the wet moss feeling like squishy velvet beneath her bare feet. Her heart in her throat, she began to slip. Connor held her tightly against his hard body, like a pillar of strength, keeping her on her feet.
Then he grabbed the bottles of soap and walked her slowly back to the falls.
A roar she barely heard beyond the waterfall reached her ears. She stared at the rushing water but couldn’t see through it.
“Maya sent one of the cats to watch over us and make sure we don’t have any unwelcome visitors,” he explained.
That’s where Maya had gone.
“Did you hear her roar?” he suddenly asked.
Concern and wariness etched his voice, warning her that knowing the truth was important to him.
“I thought I did. Although the roar of the waterfall nearly drowns everything else out. But still, the jaguar’s roar sounded different.” Which, come to think of it, she thought was odd. She hadn’t had to shout to Connor to be heard. Although initially he had spoken next to her ear so that she could hear him, he hadn’t done so the rest of the time he had been speaking with her, and she had heard him.
Now he was looking at her differently. She couldn’t say how, exactly. But it was as if he was looking at her with new eyes—as if she had changed in his estimation somehow. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“Hold on to me,” he said, his voice low.
She clung to his waist as he pulled her into the falls and doused her in the water. Every silky drop felt wondrous, and she wanted to shout her pleasure as the water ran over her face, her shoulders, and her breasts and then all the way down to her toes.
He smiled at her, and she luxuriated in the feeling of the water sluicing over her bare skin.
But then he pulled her out from under the shower of water, long before she was done with the exhilarating experience. He smiled again, seeming to understand her disappointment, and began to soap her hair. Oh. At first she was annoyed with his controlling nature, but this—oh… my… God—was heaven.
The soap smelled divine, like oranges—fresh and citrusy and sweet.
No man had ever washed her hair, and if the feel of the waterfall rushing over her body had given her a new high, this did even more so.
He was gentle, careful not to pull or snag her hair, which had to be horribly tangled from her sleeping and tossing and turning on it and not being able to wash it for several days. In fact, she had to look like a total mess.
That brought a fresh flush of heat to her cheeks and throat and chest.
But Connor didn’t seem to notice as he concentrated on soaping up her hair, massaging the scalp, and caressing her with a gentle tenderness. She didn’t know when it happened, but the next thing she knew, she had moved in closer to him. Her body pressed against his, trying to cling to him like one of the vines wrapped around the trees beyond the falls. Her bones were melting.
She figured once they were done, she would have to return to the hut and sleep for a while because she was feeling so relaxed and worn-out all over again.
“Can you manage all right?” he asked again, moving her away from him a little bit.
“Yes,” she whispered. Not sure she could, wanting to hold him tight and never let go, when she had never been a clinging vine in her life.
“I’ll try to do this quickly,” he reassured her.
Do what quickly? she wanted to ask.
But he was already taking the body wash, which smelled like tangy tangerines and just as sweet as the shampoo, and spreading it over her. He washed every inch of her, including the less sensitive parts that felt sensitive with his large hands moving over them and the very sensitive parts that swelled with eagerness at his touch.
She shouldn’t have loved what he was doing to her, should have treated this as purely a clinical task that he was performing. Yet she couldn’t help wanting this to be the real deal—making love under the waterfall in the Amazon rain forest while the colorful birds of paradise serenaded them from overhead. The mosslike emerald-green velvet carpeted their private shower, and living plants and ancient stone served as the walls. The waterfall itself was a shower curtain and shower all in one.
He was acting as though he didn’t notice that her nipples were rigid and the nub between her legs was swollen as he washed her thoroughly there, too, that her breathing was becoming raggedly aroused, her heart beat pumping harder… but he had to have noticed.
Then she noticed something else. She swore she could hear his heart beating more loudly, faster, his breathing just as ragged.
His gaze shifted to her eyes, and she wondered if her eyes looked as insanely aroused as the rest of her felt. His eyes darkened.
Yeah, he wasn’t immune to her, although she didn’t want to get too close just to see how his body was reacting to him touching hers.
Ha! She didn’t need to. One look at his water-soaked clothes, and she could see just what she was doing to his body.
Time to rinse and get back to the hut before they did anything they would both regret.
She began to take a step toward the water, slipped, and stopped, and his arm moved around her to steady her. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but the next thing she knew, they were kissing under the waterfall. The soap suds had been washed away, leaving her body squeaky clean and smelling like a medley of oranges and tangerines.
His arms wrapped tight around her, holding her against him in a hard embrace. Every muscle group outlined by his wet clothing was pressed indecently against her naked body. And damn if she didn’t want him inside her now!
His kiss was so passionate, so feral, that she knew it was only the beginning.
Chapter 10
Connor couldn’t deny how much he wanted Kat. He loved that although she had to know he didn’t want her to visit, Kat had stood up to him to make his sister happy. And he couldn’t deny he was glad to see that his sister and Kat really seemed to hit it off. He had been worried about how melancholy Maya had seemed lately because the two of them only had each other.
When he had nursed Kat back to health, he hadn’t been able to help how much he had desired her, but until now, he hadn’t thought he could risk giving in to the way he felt about her. As a jaguar-shifter, he knew one-night stands were the only way he could keep from falling for a woman and wanting her forever when he knew he could never have her that way. Because Kat had been in his care, he couldn’t think of her as a one-night stand. And now…
He pressed his lips against Kat’s again, while her arms wrapped around his waist as if she would collapse from his kissing her at any moment. She hesitated at first. And then she was kissing him back as if she couldn’t get enough of him,
purring like a cat would and smelling like a cat—like a jaguar cat—along with the fragrant scent of oranges from the shampoo and her mouth tasting of the sweet pineapple that she’d had for breakfast. Her soft, heated body—but not from the fever this time—pressed tightly against him, against an arousal that he couldn’t have kept in check if he had wanted to. The feel of her made him want more of her than was safe.
But could he want her forever? Exclusively?
Male jaguars had larger territorial boundaries than females, overlapping more than one female’s boundaries. And a male would service each of the females, not just one. Even though he was a jaguar-shifter and his human half fought against the notion of straying, Connor had never found a woman he was the least bit interested in staying with forever. And he wasn’t sure he could keep his jaguar half in check if he did take a mate.
Now everything was different. Kat didn’t know what she was in for, and he couldn’t let her go and deal with her changed state on her own. Living alone would be too dangerous for her. If anyone were to discover the truth about her, the danger would be too great for any of them.
As Kat’s tongue stroked Connor’s, he shifted his hands to her buttocks and cupped them, pulling her even harder against his body. He wanted sex with her, and she seemed to want the same of him. Now. But he couldn’t follow through. Not until she understood what she had become and could live with it and with knowing he meant to make her his own.
If another male jaguar-shifter happened upon them, Connor sure as hell wasn’t going to give him a chance to make Kat his.
He growled with feral desire and rampant need. He wanted her. Damn it. Forget about courtship or dating rituals.
The jungle was teeming with life—from the larger kind like his own to the miniscule forms no one could see with the naked eye.
Wild and untamed, like he felt.
But he pulled away from her before he gave in to his animal instincts. Even though she seemed more than willing, he couldn’t. Not yet.
“I’d better get you back to the hut,” he said, his voice husky and ragged with need.
“My clothes…” Kat said when he scooped her up into his arms, as if he was going to haul her back through the jungle naked.
His other head might have been thinking for him, but he did remember he needed to help her dress.
“I’ll help you with your clothes and carry you back to the hut. You need to get your strength back.” He hoped now that she had some of their cat genes, she would heal more quickly, but then again, they wouldn’t help unless she ate better to regain her strength.
She was still way too weak as he assisted her into her panties and then her bra. He should have thought to bring a towel. Both of them were soaking wet. And nothing dried easily in the muggy jungle.
She clung to him as he helped her into her pants, the rock floor slippery and her own weakness hampering their efforts. By the time they were done, she looked ready to collapse.
“You need to eat more,” he said, worried about her, as he lifted her into his arms.
“At least my appetite is coming back,” she said and sounded cheery, although tired.
Here he was, working on ravishing her beside the waterfall with no thought to her physical stamina. He shook his head at himself. He wanted her. And the way she had kissed him back, he knew she wanted him. But what would happen when she learned what he truly was? And what she had become?
He wondered if Kat had turned all the way. Could she shape-shift? If she could, would she do so at the worst of times, having no control over it? Because he and Maya had been born shifters, they could change at will. No moon dictated their shifting, like in werewolf lore. Their natural instinct to hunt during dawn and dusk normally made them want to shift at that time. Still, they usually only shifted when they were visiting the jungle or when they felt the urge while swimming at night at the small lake on their property.
He hadn’t a clue what would happen to Kat regarding her need to shift. Then another thought occurred to him. What if she couldn’t shape-shift at all? What if he planted his seed in her, and it didn’t take root? That as a nonshifter turned, she would be unable to conceive a shifter child?
That would be the end of his shifter line—and although it shouldn’t have mattered to him, deep down it did. He imagined that the primal animal in him wanted to leave his legacy behind.
But what if she had a human child who didn’t have the shifter genes? And that child learned Connor was a shifter? That his mother was, too?
Hell, Maya. They didn’t have a clue what might happen next.
* * *
Maya heard her brother and Kat coming out from behind the falls, so she shifted and rushed to dress. She hoped Connor had learned that Kat was one of them now, but as soon as he spied Maya, he shook his head, his expression ultra dark.
Normally, she knew just what her brother was telling her with his nonverbal communication, but this time she wasn’t sure.
She hurried to catch up to them as Connor carried Kat back to the hut.
“Do you feel better?” Maya asked, hopeful, but she could tell by the way Kat drooped in Connor’s arms that she was worn-out.
“Hmm,” Kat said, sounding dreamy and half asleep.
Maya sighed. Kat still wasn’t well enough. “Is she okay?” she asked her brother, hoping he would clue her in.
“She needs to eat more,” was all he would say.
Maya tried to get closer to Kat to see if she smelled like a feline, but all she could make out was Connor’s scent all over her, again, along with the fragrance of the shampoo and body wash. She would have to speak privately with Connor later.
When they finally reached the hut and climbed the steps, Connor tossed over his shoulder to Maya, “Fix her something to eat, will you, Maya, before she falls asleep?”
But the idea of a meal was already too late. As soon as he laid Kat down on the bed and Maya began to cook the tapir and plantains he had brought up earlier, Kat was sound asleep.
“Is she? One of us?” Maya whispered to Connor.
“Yeah, in part,” he growled. Mostly because he was so unsure whether Kat was fully turned or only partly. And what would either mean to all of them?
“How do you know?” she asked, her voice hushed as she cooked over the stove.
“She smells like a cat. But beyond that, we haven’t a clue, Maya.”
“Are you going to keep her?” she asked, hopeful.
“We have no choice. No matter what, even if she’s only partly turned…” He let his words trail off.
“You mean if she can’t shift?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. But we might not know that for some time. And what if in a year or two, all of a sudden she does?” He shook his head as he looked back at Kat’s sleeping form enclosed by the netting around the bed. “We couldn’t risk her being on her own.”
Good. If Kat wasn’t fully turned, sometime when Connor wasn’t around, Maya would nip Kat just enough to break the skin and finish the process. Hopefully.
“When should we leave?” Maya asked, ready to pack up now.
“She’s still not ready. And we have another problem.” He gave Maya a scathing look. “What if she shifts when we’re trying to get her home?”
“On the ferry,” Maya said softly. She could just imagine the passengers scrambling to jump overboard into the Amazon River, running away from the hungry jaguar to join the piranha.
“Even if we drove across the continent, it could be a problem if she shifted. We’d be in trouble if we were caught trying to take a jaguar into the United States because of the law against the interstate and foreign trade of exotic cats.”
“Oh,” Maya said, not having thought of that. “You think she won’t have any control over shifting?”
“I have no clue, Maya. None whatsoever. But I highly suspect that might be the case.”
“I’m sure she’ll be all right,” Maya said, hoping to God Kat would be, as she finished coo
king their lunch. She glanced at the bed. “Should we wake her?”
Maya would do anything to get Kat ready to leave the jungle and return with them as soon as possible. Taking care of Kat at home would be easier, wouldn’t it?
* * *
Smelling the jungle and listening to the rain pattering all around her, Kat moved stealthily through the forest on four paws. Four big cat paws. Jaguar cat paws.
She wanted to hunt, wanted to climb a tree, wanted to swim. But when she heard men coming toward her, all she thought of was self-preservation. She leaped into a tree and hid in the dense foliage, her golden coat with its black rosettes making her blend into the dappled shade of her surroundings.
A monkey screeched and Kat shot up in bed. Staring into the darkness, she could see Connor asleep on Maya’s bed while his sister slept soundly in the hammock on the porch.
Kat’s stomach rumbled. She had missed the meal again. She sighed. They must have let her sleep instead. But now she was starving. Had they left anything for her to eat?
She stared through the netting at Connor, his face so peaceful in sleep and almost angelic. The way he had kissed her at the falls hadn’t been the least bit angelic. She knew then that he had been fighting his own demons regarding seeing more of her.
She sighed. He was a master of mixed messages, but she was ready to take their relationship further.
Looking for the lantern and thinking it should be turned off since everyone was asleep, she glanced around the hut. But it wasn’t lit. She frowned. Why was the hut so well lit when… it wasn’t. Really. The night was still dark. So why could she see so well? Another hallucination?
She groaned, lay back down, and closed her eyes.
She couldn’t stop having the unbelievable dreams that had haunted her throughout the night. She thought maybe she’d been affected by the strange foods she had been eating, like the white meat of the tail of a crocodile—better that she ate him than he ate her—that tasted like a combination of chicken and white fish. Or the tapir she had eaten that tasted somewhat like beef. Or the plantain that tasted like a cross between potato chips and a banana.
