Clawed, Pounced, Mauled the Complete Trilogy

by Kym Dillon

  "Ah, the old 'too good for them all' dilemma," Stephanie said. Noah nodded.

  "More or less. She didn't mind so much. She had her work, and she had her family. She might have been without a husband all her life, and she supposed that that would not be so bad. However, and here's that but you were thinking about, one day she was walking along her favorite river, following it far north into the mountains.

  "When she was walking amidst the gray peaks, she met a man unlike any she had ever seen before. His skin was the flat black of obsidian where hers was a deep brown, and where her hair hung to her waist in a thousand delicate braids, his hair was shaved altogether. Moreover, she could tell that this man was powerful, and she asked him who he was.

  "He made himself known to her as the master of the mountains, who occasionally made the mountains dance for his amusement, which is where we get earthquakes from. He was the one who reached up to gather moonlight and to sprinkle it on top of the mountains all white and cold. His name was Dak, and she had never seen anyone so beautiful.

  "As will happen, the two powerful people fell in love, and soon enough the entire world knew it. The mountains danced so that even the plains shook. The rivers ran so fast that they overflowed their banks. I suppose you can guess what they were doing," Noah added with a small laugh, squeezing her a little more tightly in his arms. Stephanie would not have considered herself very shy about much, but something about the way that Noah said that made her blush to the roots of her hair.

  "Of course, their people became angry with what they were doing, but they could not stop. The passion had taken them so powerfully that they could do nothing but love one another. Finally, they were seized. They had done so much damage because of their passion that they were exiled. They were thrown up to the sky, sitting in front of their own fires and never to touch again. Those stars, that's where they sit to this day."

  "Oh, how terrible," Stephanie said, resisting the urge to hide her face in Noah's shoulder. She hated the idea of the two lovers being separated like that, never to touch, never to feel each other again, even if they had made the rivers flood and the mountains dance."

  Noah rubbed her back comfortingly, as if she was a child distressed by a frightening dream.

  "Well, the thing about fires is that they go out," he continued. "As long as the fires burn, Dak and Kiya must sit gazing upon one another. But the ancient people quickly realized that those stars are not always visible. These days, we know that something revolves across earth's sky to break up our line of sight for those particular stars. I looked it up once. So, on days when their fires are out, Kiya and Dak are together again. Those days, this area is prone to floods and to earthquakes or so it is said, and you know the lovers are together again."

  Stephanie was silent a long time, and when she spoke again, she sighed a little.

  "Is it strange that I hope that it was worth it?" she asked. "I know that earthquakes and floods kill people, destroy the land. But for a passion like that... what would a passion like that be?"

  "It must be a very grand thing indeed," Noah said, and he laid a gentle kiss on her forehead.

  4

  They stayed upon the rise for hours, and afterward, Stephanie could barely remember what they talked about. There was something timeless about that night, and it felt as if she told him everything there was to tell. She told him about her childhood in Texas, about how wild and lonely it had been. She told him about med school, and other solid things, but other things were hazier.

  Somehow, Noah teased out things she hadn't even thought she had known. He learned about how desperately sad she was during medical school, how it felt as if the only thing she had going for her was her smarts. She talked about the other residents falling into a cycle of hook ups and break ups throughout the four years and how she had looked at that and realized that it was really the last thing in the world she wanted for herself.

  "I don't know," she said finally, standing up. "I feel like I came all the way to Tanzania to... to find out who I really am, and I still don't know."

  Noah looked at her with some surprise.

  "How strange," he marveled. "I feel like I know who you are."

  Stephanie raised an eyebrow.

  "And who am I, exactly?" she asked.

  "A beautiful, passionate woman who could make the rivers run their banks if she wished to," he said with a smile. "A woman who could make a man move the mountains."

  Stephanie laughed, not hurt, not flattered, but genuinely disbelieving.

  "I thought you were listening when I spoke, but were you gazing at the stars instead? I'm pretty sure that anyone listening to my little stories would know that they weren't really about a woman who was in any way passionate."

  "I disagree," said Noah, and instead of arguing with her, he drew her in for a kiss.

  Oh, Stephanie thought, and then she lost herself to the desire that whirled around her.

  This kiss was even more potent than the one from the night before. This one grabbed her up like a whirlwind, whipping her up into the air and not letting her get her feet again. She felt as if she was being blown far off course, and that the only thing that mattered was Noah and hanging on to him. He was the only stable point in all of this, and she clung to him. She tilted her face up to kiss him more thoroughly, and she found him plundering her mouth. his tongue slipped halfway between her lips, drew back, and then plunged in again, and she gasped.

  She was clinging to him, digging her nails into his impossibly broad shoulders. She could feel his muscles bunch before he bent slightly. He scooped her up with his hands under her thighs, and then she was pinned against a tree again, held in place while he took his time kissing her.

  "God, the way you make me feel," Noah growled, and there was that strange trick of the light again, the one that turned his eyes to gold. This time she couldn't bear to stop him. Instead, she tangled her hands in his long hair and dragged him in for another kiss.

  It was only when he slid his hand down her thigh that Stephanie managed to awaken from her stupor.

  "No..." she whispered, and Noah froze.

  "Stop?" he asked, his breath ragged. Something inside her warmed at the idea that he was so attuned to her needs. If she had told him to stop, she knew that he would have, something that she didn't expect from all men.

  "No, just... not here. Not out in the open."

  She wasn't sure where to go. Her own tent was in the center of camp, and if she brought a handsome stranger back to share it with her, it would have been scandalous, not to mention dangerous to Noah because of the quarantine.

  Noah was nodding, however.

  "I will take you back to my place," he said. "It's not far."

  He swiftly led her into the jungle, and less than fifteen minutes later, they came to a camp that was cunningly hidden in a grove of trees. Someone could have passed within ten feet of it and not seen it there. There was a tent, a raised larder for food, a fire pit and various pieces of equipment around, but Noah and Stephanie only cared about the tent.

  "You sure this is what you want?" Noah asked, and this close to him, he seemed enormous, far too large for the world, let alone a tent.

  "Yes, yes," Stephanie breathed. "I have never been more certain about anything in my life..."

  The tent was large enough to stand in, and there was a narrow cot at one end. Stephanie started for the cot, but Noah stopped her.

  "Wait, let me..."

  In confusion, she allowed him to turn her so that she was facing him. Instead of kissing her again, however, he reached for her clothes. For such a large man, he had a gentle touch. He removed her clothes with the utmost care, as if he were revealing something precious. Each garment was laid over the chair next to the tent flap. He worked diligently, pausing every few moments to kiss a patch of revealed skin or to nuzzle her belly. It came to Stephanie somehow that he was learning her, getting her scent and reveling in it. If someone had described it to her, she might have found it vaguely
off putting, but right now, with Noah's breath tickling her body and his warm mouth raising goosebumps all over her skin, she couldn't resist moaning out loud. The sound that Noah made when she moaned was somewhere between a laugh and a needy groan.

  "God, and you think that you are not a passionate woman," he said shaking his head.

  "I want to see you naked as well," she said, surprising herself with her own boldness. "Please."

  Noah paused for a moment, and then quickly and efficiently, he stripped himself to the skin. There was no shyness or hesitation. In the darkness, she could somehow still sense him, sense the shape and bulk of him as she ran her hands blindly along his body. There was something wonderful about learning about him like this. She needed to feel him under her hands. She lifted one hand to trace along his jaw, and when the pads of her fingers touched his lips, she could feel how warm his breath was.

  Stephanie gasped when he drew her fingers into his mouth, suckling on them gently. She had kissed him, but this was something different. There was a savage sensuality to the way he sucked on her fingers, and even with that simple contact, she felt as if she might faint.

  He pulled back with a soft laugh that was nearly a growl, and then she was the one yelping as he swept her up in his arms. He carried her the few steps to the bed, and then he laid her down on it, his movements surprisingly tender.

  "It should be a king-sized bed in the finest hotel in Johannesburg," he said regretfully. "It will be someday but for now, this will have to do."

  She started to say that it didn’t matter to her at all, but then he came down on top of her, his weight crushing her pleasantly into the mattress as he held himself up on his elbows.

  She hissed with pleasure as she felt him on top of her. There was something ridiculously sensual about having her skin against the skin of this man, this near-stranger who seemed to know her better than anyone else did. She could feel the differences in their bodies, and it only made her hotter. Where she was smooth and soft, he was hairy and hard, where she was small, he seemed large enough to fill the sky. However, the differences only aroused her farther, and acting on some ancient instinct, she lifted her legs and slid them along his hips and thighs. The motion made Noah growl above her, and he pressed his face into the crook of her neck.

  "God, you have no idea what you do to me," he said, and then he was kissing his way down her body. He traced a line of pure liquid fire down her throat and then to her breasts. She had a moment to worry that her curves were too scant for this man, who could surely have as many women as he wanted, but then he was sucking at one taut nipple while working the other one with his fingertips, and she didn't give a good goddamn. All that mattered was that he continued touching her, using his body to make her feel good.

  Between licks and kisses, he was murmuring soft words, words that made chills run up and down her spine when she heard them. He was calling her beautiful, sexy, perfect, and the words opened up something in her soul that she had longed for for so long. She realized in a hazy way that she had always wanted to be seen and now, in this strange place and time, this man was seeing her.

  "I want to devour you," he groaned, and when his fingers found her soft entrance, she might have let him do just that.

  Stephanie was usually shyer about letting her lovers do this, but his skilled fingers accepted no shyness or reticence. He slid his fingertips along her slit until she was moaning and wet. He periodically slid his fingertips just inside her entrance, but he didn't press them in until she was whimpering on the cot, her hands fisting by her sides, her head tossing to and fro on the flat pillow.

  "Oh please, I need you," Stephanie whispered, and she was only answered by a soft chuckle.

  "You might think that you do," he said. "Believe me, you don't yet."

  He dragged the wetness of her entrance up to her clit, and she gasped as electricity shot through her body. The sensations were so powerful that she almost wanted to tear away from him, but it felt so good that she knew that she couldn't do that. Instead, she held herself still, and as his strokes became more assured, her legs fell open. She thought of how she must look spread open on his bed like this, wild and desperate for his touch, but she couldn't stop herself from whimpering his name over and over again.

  "No, you're blessedly perfect, but you are not ready yet..."

  "Then make me ready," she cried finally, because if she could gain the relief he promised her with every stroke of his fingers, she thought that she might break down and weep.

  It was as if Noah had been waiting for her words. In a moment, he had dragged her down so that her feet were on the floor. His hands were hooked under her knees, spreading them apart, and he was kissing his way up her thigh as if he were voracious with need. Stephanie had just a moment to brace herself for what he was doing, and then his mouth was between her legs, laving the most sensitive parts of her with a tongue that felt too skilled to be real. The time for teasing was past, apparently, and Noah's lips and tongue and teeth drove her up and up until she was clawing at his bare shoulders, tugging at his mane of thick soft hair.

  "Oh god, oh god!" she cried. "Please, please, I need you, please..."

  With one savage stroke of his tongue, the pleasure skyrocketed through her body. She threw her head back, her hair whipping across her face like fronds of seaweed in a storm. Her back arched hard, and she knew that she was shouting because she could hear the echo of her voice through the camp. She was electrified with a kind of pleasure that she had never felt before, and it raked over her body in waves, making her shudder over and over again.

  It was not until she relaxed that Noah stood up. For a moment, he looked down on her as if he were some god that had touched her with a hell-bent need for him. Then, he came down on her again, nearly cocooning her. She wondered for a moment that the cot didn't break underneath him, and then he was pressing a knee between her legs, spreading her open. She gave a moment to think of a condom, but then he was kissing her again. He was too hot, too good to allow for any kind of thought, and throwing caution to the winds, she started kissing him again. She could taste herself on him, and that excited her all over again in a way that she didn't expect.

  "Oh god," she groaned when she felt his hard cock pressed intimately against her. "God, how big are you?"

  She could more sense than see Noah grinning above her.

  "I will be so slow, so careful with you, perfect one," he murmured, and she knew that in that moment, she had no choice but to surrender to him. Everything inside her was telling her that this was the man she needed, the one that she had always needed. Willingly, she parted her legs for him, and this time, it was his turn to groan.

  He didn't take her right away. Instead he slid his cock along her slit teasingly, coating it in her wetness, making her shiver at the last sparks of her climax died inside her.

  When she felt the blunt tip of his member pressed against her, she had a moment of awe. She could feel how big he was, and for a moment, she almost tensed up. Then he gave her a kiss that was more gentle than sensual, and she knew that he would never force anything...

  He slid inside her slowly, pausing every few seconds to give her time to adjust. She needed it. It had been some time since her last lover, and he wasn’t nearly as large. It felt almost as if she was being impaled for a moment, and then there was nothing but pleasure as he pushed fully inside her. She gasped a little, her head dropping back on the pillow, but there was a low pulse of pleasure deep inside her that made her sigh with bliss.

  "Stephanie? Stephanie, are you all right?"

  "Yes," she whispered. "Oh yes."`

  She could feel the moment when Noah's control started to break. His movements became less assured, less steady. There was a stutter to it, and she could hear his breath grow harsh and fast. He dipped his head down, burying it in the crook of her neck before biting her lightly there.

  "God, what I wouldn't give to bite you as hard as I want to," he growled, and though there was a part of he
r that said clearly how much she wanted that, she held still. Something about the way he spoke awoke a deep longing in her, one that she couldn't quite understand.

  Stephanie thought that after her explosive climax from before, she would be spent, but to her shock, as Noah's movements quickened, she could feel herself rise again. Her body was rising up to meet his, her mouth opened in a string of long cries, and that passion that never seemed to go dormant between them awakened again, making her cry out.

  She held on to him as tightly as she could, meeting his eager thrusts. All that mattered was his powerful body pushing into hers and her own frenzied response to him. She was lost in a hot, red place where they were the only two things that mattered. Everything else faded away into the distance, and she could finally breathe.

  Noah's words had faded off until they were only a deep growl, and she could feel the vibrations all the way through her. He moved over her as if she were a piece of territory he was claiming, and she groaned with need and desperation.

  "Please, please," she heard herself say. "I need you so much, so much, you're..."

  He grabbed on to her tightly, and then he was thrusting into her even harder. She felt as if she might break apart, and then eyes wide, her body finally gave in. The pleasure lit her up like a lantern. Shaking, wailing, she clung to him as she swelled into a climax. With a deep roar of approval, Noah thrust into her one last time. She could feel the warm, wet life he pushed inside her, just one more mark of his passion. As a doctor, Stephanie knew that she should be worried about that, but right now, all that mattered was the pleasure that was pulsing between them. She could feel his body trembling for a moment before he collapsed on her, making her groan.

  Noah lay over her for several long minutes, kissing her neck lazily. They were both recovering from their climaxes, and in that moment, Stephanie could feel herself utterly content. It was a strange feeling for a woman who had spent her entire life chasing one goal or another. She felt as if some missing puzzle piece had fallen into place.