Clawed, Pounced, Mauled the Complete Trilogy

by Kym Dillon

"Do that again," he growled. "Please."

  The please was almost tacked on, but it was there, and Marnie decided that it had to count for something. Reflexively, she dug her nails into his shoulders again, making him growl. There was something satisfying about the gesture. It was almost as if she was testing him, trying to find out if he was strong enough, tough enough, and she blushed at the thought.

  "I.. I think I want you naked again," she whispered, and Jax purred right next to her ear, sending shivers through her body. The heat that had been pooling in her belly was spooling out to cover all of her, and if Marnie thought about it too much, she was sure that she would be overwhelmed.

  "My god, but you are a demanding little thing, aren't you? Put your clothes on, take them off..."

  He shook his head with mock despair, but before Marnie could protest her innocence, he rose to stand above her.

  She might have been the one making the request, but she was the one who felt conquered. From his superior height, Jax looked down at her, a slight smirk on his face.

  Not so far from the tiger like this, she thought absently. He had the same bright light in his green eyes, the same playful stance.

  "All right, the lady wants me naked..."

  Jax had a beautiful body, and from the slightly smug look on his face, he knew it. He didn't strip for her, exactly, but he took his time removing the clothes from his frame, stepping out of them with a grace that was positively feline

  When he was naked in front of her, Marnie found herself gasping a little. Her eyes had immediately flown to the wounds that she had treated but they were mostly healed now, a testament to his otherworldly powers. Beyond the scarring, however, Jax was absolutely gorgeous. His skin was bronzed without any hint of a tan line, and his shaggy brown hair had just the slightest hint of curl to it, making her want to twist her fingers through the strands. When he smiled, his teeth were white and sharp, and she licked her lips, unthinking.

  Finally, her eyes dropped down to his erection, standing straight and proud between his legs. Almost tentatively, she reached out for it, stroking it gently with a cupped palm before taking a firmer grasp. Jax grunted when she rolled her fingers along the length before circling the heavy head. He was silent for a few moments as she explored his body, but when her strokes became firmer, more assured, he pulled her hand back.

  "Don't you... I mean..."

  Jax laughed, and there was such a sensual heat in his eyes that all of her complaints rolled away.

  "Another time I'll let you play as you wish," he promised her. "Right now, though, I would rather not embarrass myself like a teenage boy getting touched for the first time..."

  Surely she could not have had such an effect on him she thought, but then he was raising her to her feet. Clumsily her hands reached for her clothes. She might not be able to strip as beautifully as Jax had, but she would try.

  Before she could so much as unfasten a button, however, Jax got there first. He took two great fistfuls of her shirt in his hands, and with a negligent strength, he tore it straight from her shoulders.

  "Oh!"

  Her only warning that he wasn't done was a grin that seemed far sharper than it had been before, and then he was reaching for her trousers. He knelt to take care of her shoes and socks, and with the same nonchalant strength, he ripped her bra and her panties from her as well.

  Instinctively, Marnie's hands came up to cover her nakedness, but Jax took her firmly by the wrists.

  "No," he said, his voice more a growl than it had been before. "No, not when I want to see you..."

  "Oh god," Marnie moaned, but she knew that she was not just blushing from embarrassment.

  Jax's green gaze swept over her, almost something that she could feel. Men had looked at her for most of her life, but she was not certain that anyone had ever looked at her like this, as if she was both a meal to be consumed and a territory to be protected and prized.

  Marnie cried out briefly as Jax crushed her to his chest. For a moment, she was acutely aware of the differences of their bodies, the hair that covered him so rough against her smooth skin, his muscles so hard against her, but then it all dissolved into a feeling of deep heat as his mouth claimed hers again. This time his tongue claimed her with a passion that felt as if it would burn her, and she whimpered, clinging to him. His hands swept down her back to rest on her plump rear, squeezing just enough to make her squeak.

  "Beautiful as the first sunshine over the plains," he said, and she could hear the slightly ragged edge to his tone. It was hard to believe that she had provoked such a reaction in a man so gorgeous, but his member pressed against her thigh told her it was true.

  Marnie wasn't sure how they got back on the floor, but then they were, the tile cool against her back, the man rising hot over her. There was a part of her that cried out in shock at what she was doing, making love with a man she had met the night before, but there was something deeper inside her that knew that that this was simply fated. It felt far too good to be wrong.

  Jax pinned her to the cool tile floor, and he explored every part of her without hesitation or shame. It was as if he could not get enough of her scent or her touch. He kissed her mouth until it felt red and swollen, and then she whimpered as he ran his tongue down the line of her throat to her breasts. She had never thought that her breasts were anything special, but there was something so careful and awed about the way that Jax touched that she could tell that he did not agree. As he palmed one gently, he suckled on the nipple of the opposite, pulling gently until it was dark and erect. Marnie had never felt herself so excited by someone playing with her breasts, and when he moved down to her belly, she had to fight a moan of disappointment.

  She could smell her own arousal, and that certainly meant that he could as well. Instead of nuzzling her between the legs, however, he skirted that soft and needing area, instead choosing to work his way down to her hips and her thighs. Marnie would have said that there was nothing much to feel there, but she was wrong again as he worked over every inch of her, kissing and caressing by turns. When he stroked the backs of her knees, she nearly yelped, but then with a firm pressure, he moved the sensation from ticklish to downright sensuous.

  "God, I can't... I can't take much more," she whimpered, and Jax's laugh was a ragged thing.

  "I think that if I can take it you can," he teased, but he shifted up, pressing her knees apart.

  Despite her eagerness, Marnie couldn't help shutting her eyes tightly. There was something so intimate about this, about being observed while she was twisting with pleasure. She couldn't stop herself from whimpering as he ran a gentle hand along her inner thigh, stopping just short of the humid heat between her legs.

  "So beautiful," he murmured. "You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, I swear, Marnie."

  She gasped when one finger pressed inside her depths. There was a moment of sting as it had been some time since she had been touched like that, but then it resolved into a sweet pressure that made her hips buck up to his touch.

  She expected Jax to come on top of her now, but obviously he had other ideas in mind. He eased two fingers inside her, but it was only to gather some of her wanting wetness, dragging it up to her clit. The moisture eased his motions there, allowing him to slide the pads of his fingers quickly and firmly against her most sensitive skin.

  The heat that was collecting low in her belly began to spool out as it felt as if every muscle in her body tightened. Marnie found that her body was shaking with need and desire, her hands clenched into tight fists and her heels pressed hard into the floor. She was shaking and groaning, and she knew that she would not be able to hold out for long.

  Her eyes flew open as the pleasure peaked, and she looked straight up into Jax's eyes, and then she gave herself up to the pleasure. She arched up into his hand, her entire body trembling. Somehow at the last minute, she managed to cover her own mouth with her hand, stopping her from shouting down the laboratory trailer.

  "Oh god, oh
my god," she whispered from behind her closed hand. Jax leaned in.

  "Say my name," he said intently. "I want to hear my name on your lips..."

  "Jax," Marnie murmured obediently, her voice hushed from her orgasm, and he growled deep in his throat.

  In a single motion, he had pulled his hand away and come to rest on top of her. His body pressed down between her sprawled thighs, and she could feel his hard cock moving against her slippery skin.

  "Tell me you want me," he growled, and there was something desperate in his gaze that called to her as nothing else ever had.

  "Jax, I want you, god I want you..." she groaned, and struck by inspiration, she reached up and ran her nails down his back. She did it harder than she thought she would have dared, and he groaned with a desire that shook his frame.

  "I can't resist you," he muttered, and then he thrust, entering her with one single motion.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Marnie had wondered if she would be too sensitive or too sore after he had brought her to such an uproarious climax. Now she knew that there was only pleasure to be found in Jax's thrusts, only an echo of her own climax chasing after.

  He moved over her like a man determined to possess her. At first his thrusts were slow and steady, but she could feel his control pulling away with each motion. With every moment that went by, he was growing more and more frantic, his thrusts sharper and harder, less controlled.

  "I want you, Jax," she heard herself saying, "I want you, I want you, please don't stop, Jax...!"

  On her last repetition of his name, Jax thrust himself into her one last time, filling her with the essence of his release. His deep groan echoed in her ears, and his full weight slumped down over her. For a moment, he was simply still, and then he tilted his head to one side, kissing her sweetly, as if he weren't still joined with her.

  "I have never known a woman like you," he said solemnly.

  "Have you known many women, then?" Marnie asked, trying to tease a little. She tried not to think of Jax with other women; the idea was startlingly painful.

  "Some," he said with a shrug, "but you leave them all behind."

  He pulled away from her carefully, and as she watched, he rose to go to the sink.

  He had spent some time in the desert, Marnie realized. He lightly damped a cloth to clean himself, and he returned with a towel for her, but his motions were spare and careful, using only the water that they needed.

  There was something absurdly touching about the way he knelt to clean her, something reverent in his eyes. It was a simple act, nothing compared to the intimacy of what they had done before, but there was something profound about it. Marnie felt close to Jax in a way that she had never felt close to anyone before. Was this what Jessica and Marcus had, the bonding that Jax had spoken about?

  A stray thought flickered through her mind, and though she tried to dismiss it, it hovered like a worrying mosquito, looking for a way in. Jax could tell that something was wrong. She tried not to stiffen, but then he was touching her face, turning her to face him.

  “What is it?” he asked, concern in his gaze. It occurred to her suddenly that he must feel tuned in to her emotions, even if he did not know what they signified. She thought about trying to evade him, lie, perhaps, but she had the idea that he would be able to detect that too.

  “I think you're lying to me,” she murmured. “I think... I'm afraid that you are not telling me the full truth. I don't understand how or why I can tell... but I can.”

  The look that Jax gave her was startled at first and then thoughtful. She wondered if he would simply dismiss her, but then he reached down to touch her face with the barest tips of his fingers.

  “All right. All right. But first, we should get dressed. This is not a conversation I'd like to have naked, that's for sure.”

  Marnie turned away from him as she dressed, suddenly feeling unaccountably shy. She felt as if he had stripped her bare somehow, something that she would be feeling even after the marks he had given her had faded away. When she was dressed again, her clothes hanging slightly awkwardly as she held them together, she turned to face Jax. Fully dressed, he leaned back against the counter with what looked like a large silver chalice in his hands.

  From the moment she laid eyes on it, Marnie could tell that there was something unique about it, something profoundly special. Instinctively, she started to reach for it, and then she remembered herself. It didn't belong to her. It made no sense at all that she should long for it this way, but she did.

  "What is it?" she asked, her voice hushed, and Jax smiled a little. It was as if he sensed the reverence in her tone, understood it and perhaps even forgave it.

  "It's... it is ancient, and it is powerful, that much we know for sure," he said, his voice a soft rumble. "Marcus and I retreived it together while we were doing some excavations in Nairobi. Things are heating up there, politically speaking, and we wanted to give it a once over before we might not be able to get back in."

  Marnie stared at him, scandalized.

  "Are you... you and Marcus are treasure hunters!" she said accusingly, and he looked startled.

  "That's not the term that I would use for us," he said with a wince, "though I know that there are many that would be happy to call us that and worse. At the end of the day, we're agents for the Shifter Council. We work to make sure that dangerous artifacts that originally belonged to shifters do not fall into the wrong hands."

  He turned the silver cup over in his hands, lost in thought for a moment.

  "This one... from what we can tell, it has a history fraught with tragedy. It was created very far away from here. There are records that date it back to the first century AD or so, and reports place it variously in Jerusalem, Rome and what was once Carthage. It is a magical item made by shifter hands, and at some point, it disappeared."

  "Who took it?" asked Marnie, enthralled by the stretch of history in front of her. She blushed when she realized that Jax likely had no better idea than she did, but he only smiled at her.

  "Very good question. Ownership over such items is often contested, to say the least. It disappeared, and from what we can tell, it was hidden deep. Marcus and I found it mostly by chance, and we probably wouldn't have gotten away with it if a friend of ours hadn't been around to offer us up some muscle when we were getting away."

  Jax shook his head.

  "It's a long story. Anyway, we got it, and we managed to stir up something of a hornets' nest. The hyenas that I mentioned before, there's a chance that they're on my and Marcus's trail. They'll stop at nothing to get the chalice."

  "So, can't you just give it to them?" asked Marnie, gazing at the silver cup again. It was beautiful and ancient and no doubt important, but surely it wasn't worth a life?

  Jax smiled thinly.

  "Trust me, if it was just a hunk of ancient silver, I would have handed it over whistling, no matter how historically important it is. However, the legends around this beauty tell us it's something else."

  Marnie waited. She knew that she was being told secrets that she should not be told. Simply hearing what Jax was saying might be enough to be damning at some point down the line. However, if he would tell her, she wanted to hear. She wanted to know that he trusted her. In the end, Jax did.

  "It's an artifact of intense power," he said finally. "It can enhance the power of a shifter, make them stronger, faster, tougher. Legend has it that it brought victory to more than one warlord, allowing him to take over vast tracts of territory before he was stopped. The Shifter Council wants this artifact safely ensconced in their vaults, which means that it cannot fall into the wrong hands."

  Marnie nodded. The words that he said rang true. He was perhaps a man that was skilled at lying, but somehow, she was certain he would not lie to her.

  "That's a lot to take in," she said softly, and he nodded.

  "You believe me, though," he said, and it wasn't a question.

  Marnie sighed a little as she nodded.

/>   "Completely."

  7

  Marnie set her tests to run through the night, and then feeling like a schoolgirl playing hooky, she allowed Jax to lead her out over the plain.

  "You're not completely healed, are you?" she asked on their walk out into the dimming savannah. Jax's pace was steady, but she could see that there was a slight pallor over his face.

  He grinned at her.

  "You are entirely too sharp for your own good, little sunshine," he teased. "Unfortunately, you are right. I'm not quite in fighting form, not yet. I wish I could heal faster, but I simply don't have it in me."

  "Still, it is amazing," she said, shyly reaching out to run her hand over his chest. "Wounds like that would have killed a human."

  "It almost killed me," he said with a casual nonchalance that she did not like. "I think the fact that I've been holding the chalice all this time may have had something to do with it."

  She thought about his words, and then Jax shrugged.

  "Or it could be that I am just that hard to kill," he said. "My kind are notoriously tough."

  He took her to a small deserted lean-to in the tall grass. It was likely a place where the village children played during the day, but now they had all been called home, the ones that were not stricken with the mysterious sickness. Marnie knew that she was doing everything she could to help with it, but she wasn’t able to stop the brief pang of guilt.

  "I could be doing more," she said, and Jax tilted his head at her, looking oddly catlike.

  "Can you be doing it right now?" he asked, and when she shook her head, his grin flashed sharp in the dying light.

  "Then you will stay here with me until you can do more," he said, and he pulled her down onto the bed of soft cut grass under the lean-to. There was a little shelter there, not much, but it felt like a world all their own, a perfect slice of a heaven that no one had a right to expect.

  "There's no future or past here," Jax whispered. "Just the two of us. Let’s have this pleasure in a place that is surrounded by pain..."