by E A Price
She broke from the kiss and screamed. He was big, almost too big, but she wanted him, more than anything in the world. He thrust inside her until he was fully seated and held still. Her body reflexively shuddered around him, growing accustomed to his size.
Marcus cupped her face. “Are you alright?” he demanded hoarsely.
She looked into his eyes to see they had shifted to the blackness of his beast. He looked even more predatory than before; a shiver of excited fear pulsed through her and she nodded as her own eyes dissolved to the orange of her panda.
His mouth met hers as he began driving himself in and out, taking her with rough, hard jabs. She threw her arms around his neck and clutched him to her. He broke from her mouth and nestled his head into her shoulder as their flesh slapped together.
She felt her body quickly heating and reaching toward another release. She began shaking, and he sped up his movements, crashing inside her.
“Oh, god…” she moaned as he unrelentingly rubbed against her sweet spot. It was too much; the pleasure was almost unbearable. She tensed and cried out as she climaxed, and ecstasy poured through her body. Seconds later he held himself inside her and exploded with an almost deafening roar.
They clung to one another, barely able to speak. When they finally recovered, they resumed their shower, and Marcus had her raise her hands above her and ordered her to hold still again. This time she decided to move…
They weren’t certain how long they spent in the shower, but by the time they finished, their skin was kind of pruney, and they doubted it had done very much good for the environment.
Of course, now, she’d turned into a silly little school girl. She couldn’t even look at him without dissolving into a fit of giggles. She knew being with him would feel great, but she had no idea how great. He naturally returned to his normal, calm façade, but she knew the truth. Inside was a wild beast just dying to get out. Hmmm, maybe she should have dated snakes in school. Her panda yowled at her. Okay, they couldn’t possibly have compared to him, and she definitely didn’t see a future of dating anyone but Marcus, but it seemed like a lost opportunity.
They’d dressed and set off for work together. Thankfully, Marcus kept a change of clothes in his car. He tended to shift and destroy them quite often.
A small fly in the ointment had been the phone message Myron left on her machine. He was the one calling when they were making their way into the shower. Boy, was she glad she didn’t stop to answer!
She had, however, made the mistake of listening to the message when they were about ready to leave. Marcus hadn’t been thrilled hearing about how sorry Myron was, and how he missed her and how he would like to talk to her.
She erased the message immediately of course, and was thoroughly peeved that Marcus’ mood had turned a little sour. But he tried not to let her see it.
However, other than that, there was a more pressing matter. When they were leaving, Marcus had made noises about them going in separate cars. She pouted and said it was because he was embarrassed. He shut her up with a kiss and said it was only because he might have to duck out to chase down a skip and leave her stranded. In particular, he was silently raging about an elusive camel shifter.
But when Ling came to get in her car she saw that two of her tires had been slashed. She assumed that, feeling jealous, Robert had done it. It wasn’t really his style, but he hadn’t looked happy when she slammed the door on him.
Marcus was furious and wanted to hunt Robert down and throttle him. Ling felt a quivering in her sex and said they absolutely had to go before she dragged him back into her bedroom and demanded he ravish her. He liked the sound of that, and his ire started to fade. She calmed him down about Robert and was adamant that she would handle it.
Ling was annoyed at what Robert had done, but she was in too good of a mood to let it bother her. She’d caught herself a sexy snake, and she couldn’t give two hoots about what her childish ex-husband had done. She’d call a mechanic, get it fixed and send him the bill. Simple.
When they arrived at work, their good moods diminished on finding Mia in tears and Logan snarling mad. The previous night, someone had broken into Mia’s apartment; they smashed all her mirrors and stole her jewelry. Luckily, whoever it was, had gone by the time she arrived home, and Logan was with her, making sure she was safe
Ling encompassed Mia into a hug and made soothing noises. Marcus tried to calm the pacing bear shifter.
“Do you think it could have been the python?” ground out the irate bear shifter.
Marcus gave him a grim look as his snake cracked his jaws. “Perhaps; Detective Leeman told me he had broken his parole and had left his mother’s house. Nobody knows where he is.”
“Fuck!” yelled Logan.
“Get Jackson and hunt him down. When you find him, call the cops. Don’t hurt him and don’t try and drag him back yourself, technically he isn’t one of our bounties.”
The bear roared in objection. He wanted to rip the head off the fucker! Marcus stood his ground and gave Logan a powerful look. After a few moments, the bear finally backed down, and everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief. Logan sullenly started calling Jackson.
Mia sniffled. “Did you have any luck finding Norman yet?”
“No,” he said tersely.
Ling clicked her fingers. “We should go and see my psychic. She could help.”
Mia and Logan raised their eyebrows, waiting for Marcus to shoot that suggestion down, disdainfully. Over the years, Zara had often touted a number of her psychic friends for help, and Marcus had been none-too-gentle in telling her exactly what he thought of psychics. He knew there were some psychics and witches in the world that did have visions, but they weren’t generally easy to control and couldn’t be generated at a moment’s notice. Not to mention, they tended to be indecipherable.
The people who advertised themselves as psychics usually just guessed, and made random, opaque predictions that could apply to dozens of people. He used a psychic once, and only once, and ended up chasing all the way up to Canada for a skip that was actually living in the apartment block next to his. He had vowed never again. But, how was he supposed to say no to the excited look on Ling’s face?
“Well, I…”
Ling fluttered her eyelashes at him, and he was sunk.
“Well, I guess we could give it a try.”
Logan and Mia looked at him like he’d gone mad, but soon realized the reason for his behavior when Ling planted a huge kiss on his lips.
Logan smirked and nodded at Marcus who gave him a death glare in return. “Jackson; the python; now!”
The bear sobered. “He’s on his way, and Carly’s going to stay and guard Mia.”
Mia sagged at that news. Yes, she loved Carly, but not so much within those four walls. It was going to be a grueling day.
Ling, however, giggled at the news. “Why? Wasn’t Kevin Costner available?”
Marcus took her hand and led her out the agency. He told Logan to keep him in the loop and, reluctantly, went to visit Ling’s psychic.
Chapter Thirteen
“I see a voman, a panda sheefter…”
Marcus tapped his foot impatiently. “Of course you see her; she’s sat right in front of you!”
Ling shushed him and encouraged Madame Valeria to continue. Marcus rolled his eyes and looked around the room. The setup was even cheaper than Madame Valeria’s fake accent. She claimed to be Romany gypsy, but Marcus guessed she grew up on the east side.
He held back a sneeze. The amount of incense she was using was truly phenomenal. Maybe she used so much to make her clients woozy so they couldn’t focus on the fact that she’s a phony.
“I see a new man in your life…”
Marcus grunted in annoyance. They came into the store holding hands and spent ten minutes before that making out in his car. She could hardly fail to notice that they were together!
Valeria flipped over another tarot card and nodded knowingly.
“He ees making you veeery happy…”
Ling squealed in delight, almost bouncing off her chair. “Isn’t she good?”
Marcus nodded automatically. Wasn’t she just observant?
“But bevare! He carries with heem baggage, emotional baggage. He vill need to get over ze hurt of ze past in order to fully geeve heemself to you.”
Marcus scowled at her, and his snake snapped his jaws. Ugh! How much longer do they have to hang around and listen to this moron murder vowels?!
Ling squeezed his thigh, and he felt a smidge of calm. “Actually, Madam, we came to see if you could give us any help on the cases Marcus is working on.”
Valeria closed her eyes. “Yes, I know. Vhat are these cases?”
“Don’t you already know?” asked Marcus impatiently.
Ling ignored him. “He’s trying to find a camel shifter and a python shifter.”
Valeria pursed her lips and turned over a few more cards, muttering to herself. “Ze camel is vith hees own kind and ze python is vith hees new family. Zat is all I can say.”
“Thank you, Madame,” said Ling as she passed over some money.
Valeria quickly snapped it up and hid it in one of the many folds of her voluminous, and multi-colored garment.
“A hundred dollars!” exclaimed Marcus, “what a rip-off!”
Ling took his hand and started leading him out the door.
“Vait!” called Valeria. She turned over another card; it was titled ‘The Serpent.’ She placed her hand over it and paled. “Do not blame Ling for what your vife did to you, trust that Ling vill not hurt you.”
Marcus harrumphed at her and got the two of them outside and back into his car as fast as he could.
He looked at Ling, curiously. “Does that woman really help you?”
Ling shrugged. “It’s cheaper than real therapy, and after my divorce she helped me get over Robert.”
He snorted. “How did she do that?”
Ling scooted over and kissed the corner of his mouth. “She told me I’d meet a handsome, tough, sexy shifter, and that he’d be perfect for me.”
“Lucky guess,” he murmured huskily.
“Or it was meant to be,” she purred.
She gave him a chaste kiss on the lips before shifting back to the passenger seat, much to Marcus’ disappointment.
She gave him a small smile. “So what now, snake eyes?”
“Well, beautiful, I need to check in with Logan and Mia, but I think I’m gonna make another attempt at finding that camel shifter. Starting to piss me off now.”
He had explained who the python was and why he might be targeting Mia on the car ride. Ling was a little concerned for his safety, but he waved away her worries.
“Don’t you wanna catch the python yourself?” she asked nervously.
It was the question he’d been asking himself, over and over. If the python had tried to hurt Mia, then yes, he’d be all for hunting the fucker down and beating him to death. But, breaking into her apartment… he just didn’t know. Why would he go to the trouble of breaking in and smashing all her mirrors? It seemed so unlike the python. From prison, he’d wrote about how he was going to beat Marcus, how he was going to cut Marcus and so on. But there were never any recriminations about going after his family members, and the letters had stopped after a while anyway. Marcus assumed the python had gotten over it. He feared if he did go after the python, it would only make matters worse.
“I think Jackson and Logan can handle it.”
Ling and her panda sighed in relief. She guessed he was safer chasing Norman. “I’ll come too.”
Marcus hesitated, and Ling pouted at him. “It’s not that I don’t want you to come,” his snake was rumbling adamantly that he wanted to spend every second of every day with her. “It’s just that I don’t want to put you in danger.”
She laced her fingers with his and fluttered her eyelashes prettily. “Well, I’ll have my big, strong, snake shifter to protect me, won’t I?”
“That is true.” He sighed, almost losing himself in her big brown eyes. “Fine, what’s the worst that can happen?”
“Mmmm, that’s the spirit!”
*
Marcus called and checked up on Mia; she was fine, other than the fact that Carly was driving her crazy. Jackson and Logan hadn’t made any progress in finding the python, but they were steadily making their way around his old associates.
Marcus and Ling had spent hours scouring around the camel’s usual haunts, but he seemed to be avoiding them. They settled on staking out the camel’s aunt. They had no idea if Norman was close to his aunt or not, but decided it was worth a shot. Other than his mom and grandma, she was the only other family member Norman had in Playa Lunar, and he didn’t seem to have any close friends.
They picked up some snacks for the car, donuts and cherry soda again. Ling was adamant that she wouldn’t eat another brownie in her life.
She nibbled on a donut as she avidly watched the aunt’s house.
He looked at her in concern. “You should eat more; we’ve barely had anything all day.”
It was true they had skipped breakfast; they had something much more fun to do. Then at lunch, they had grabbed a Lunar burger in between dashing between places the camel usually hung out.
Ling fidgeted. “I was kind of thinking it wouldn’t hurt to lose a few pounds.”
She could feel his fierce gaze burning into her as she focused on the house. “Why would you think that?” he asked firmly.
Her panda grumbled at her, but Ling really wasn’t sure how to answer that. When he went to the bathroom earlier, she borrowed his phone to call Carly. He didn’t mind her doing that, but what she hadn’t told him was that she accidentally-on-purpose had a look through his photos. Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have, but she was kind of planning on taking a sexy selfie of herself and setting it as his wallpaper. She thought he’d like it. However, flicking through the photos, she found a number of saved, old photos of a tall, skinny blonde. She hazarded that the blonde was an ex-girlfriend or his late wife.
The woman was in sharp contrast to her own short, curvy body. She wondered if Marcus was a little disappointed in her, and maybe wished she were a little taller or skinnier. Unlike Carly, she hadn’t spent her life trying out faddy diets or grueling exercise regimes. She’d always been at peace with her larger shape. Until now. Now it was imperative that Marcus like every single part of her.
Ling chewed on her cheek. “I am a little on the heavy side.”
Marcus placed a hand on her thigh. “You’re beautiful, why would you want to change?”
“But don’t you wish I was…”
“No, you’re perfect,” he told her firmly and began rubbing his hand up and down her leg. “Do you wish I was a little different? Do you wish I was bigger and…”
Her cheeks flushed bright red. “No! You’re plenty big enough for me!”
“I actually meant taller, but thank you.” His snake preened at her answer, and, seeing her shiver, he allowed his fingers to stray further up her leg. Ling let out a gasp as he stroked her panty-covered slit.
Marcus leaned over and smothered kisses over her neck, lightly nipping the skin. “Keep watching the house,” he ordered.
“Mmmm hmmm.” Words were way too difficult at that moment.
Ling gripped the car seat, her tiny claws springing forth as his fingers pushed aside the flimsy material of her panties. He easily slid a long digit into her honey-drenched core while his thumb circled her tender clit.
She bit her lip, stifling her lusty moans. Her panda was delighted and started bouncing around in giddy joy.
He twirled his finger inside her, adding another and then another. Her body shuddered, and beads of sweat prickled her forehead with the effort of holding still. He sped up his movements, and his fingers curled inside her, deliciously worrying her sweet spot.
Her chest heaved, and her mouth opened as she struggled to breath against the onslaught of pleasur
e. He pushed his thumb against her clit hard, and she cried out as her orgasm burst inside her. He let out a rumbling roar and pushed his sharpened teeth into her neck. The twinge of pain faded into pleasure and sent shockwaves through her sensitive body. Her panda roared in satisfaction, and her inner muscles desperately clutched at him as she vibrated around him.
Marcus licked and sealed the wound before pulling her soft body into his arms. “So, was there any movement at the house?” he asked calmly.
“You bastard!” she murmured playfully, she would have slapped his arm but she was too darn satiated to move, “as if I could concentrate with you doing that to me!”
He let out a dirty chuckle. “True, perhaps we aren’t best suited to doing stake outs together. You’re very distracting.”
“Hmmm, guilty as charged. But from what I could tell, no one turned up or left.”
He caressed her breast, and she felt desire flutter in her womb. “We’ll give it a little while longer; then we’ll give up, and I’ll take you home and put you to bed.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she agreed dreamily.
Marcus kissed the top of her head. He knew he had a job to do, and he knew he had things to worry about, but sitting there with Ling in his arms, everything else just seemed so damn unimportant. There was nowhere else in the world he wanted to be.
*
They arrived back at Ling’s house quite late, and she was pleased to see her car had returned with two new tires. She’d paid extra for express service. Or at least, Robert would pay extra for express service.
As she led him to her house, she put an extra wiggle in her step, and she soon found his arms snaking their way around her body. She giggled as she wriggled her butt against his hard erection.
Marcus nipped on her earlobe. “Just you wait ‘til I get you inside.”
Ling bit her lip in anticipation as her panda yipped, and she fumbled with her house key.
They heard whoops behind them and Marcus spun round snarling. A group of teenage boys were cruising down her street on bicycles.
