by A. C. Arthur
She shivered with the memory.
“All the while he talked his hand rubbed over my bare shoulder. I’d already taken off my dress and now wore just my slip and my tights. I didn’t like how his hand felt on my shoulder, but I didn’t move because he hated having to tell me things twice. Always yelled that I was the most hardheaded of his daughters.”
Eli had gone completely still. Nivea didn’t look up at his face again, just kept staring off at nothing in particular. But she could feel how rigid he was even though his arms stayed wrapped around her. His anger was palpable and she hated that with each word she said, it continued to heighten. All she knew was that she had to get this out now, or she’d never be able to tell him. How would they build a future with something like this between them?
“He touched my shoulders then, and eventually removed the slip from my body. It seems he was right about one thing, I was his most stubborn and hard-to-control daughter. I questioned everything he was doing. I even told him I was pretty sure it was wrong. But he didn’t stop, not until I was naked. He touched me everywhere that night just with his hands, and then told me to go to bed.”
“Stop,” Eli said then, touching a finger to her lips. “Just stop before I leave this room to find where he is and break his fucking neck.”
Nivea shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she mumbled over his fingers, until she finally lifted her hand to move them. “I knew it was wrong but I let him do it because he said if I did he wouldn’t touch Amina and Serene. For years I accepted that as the excuse to endure all that nastiness. Then when I was older, when I turned seventeen, I found the files. I saw the tattoo and I knew I had him. I could make him stop, I could keep him from touching my sisters, I could get out, and I did. I confronted him about the papers I’d found in his office and threatened to go straight to the Elders if he didn’t let me go. I’d tried running away before but they always found me and when they did it … he … was worse.” She paused, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “I made him promise to let me go and not come after me and to not touch my sisters because I knew they would never leave. He wanted my word that I would never speak of those papers or tell my sisters what had happened. I knew it was making a deal with the devil, but I didn’t think I had any other choice. I had to get out of there and I did. Eli, I got out and I healed and I’m not a victim anymore.”
“I never thought you were a victim,” he told her earnestly. “You’re the strongest, most sensible shifter I know. Never in my wildest dreams would the word victim be associated with you.”
And just like that, all the pain and misery Nivea had endured all those years of her childhood slipped away. She’d had other men in her life. It had been a part of her personal therapy, to become comfortable around men, to be able to talk to them and allow them to touch her, when she gave permission only. And she’d passed that test with flying colors, her hatred for her father seeming to give her even more strength to move forward. The knowledge that her sisters would forever be safe from his touch was even more of a reward. But Eli was different. Everything about him, right down to the way she’d finally ended up in his bed, was different and uncalculated and unplanned. She’d wanted him, yes, but she had no misconceptions about the fact that when they came together it would be because Eli made it happen. His concession had always been important to her, and now his honesty had released the grip around her heart.
Nivea let go of the breath that felt as if she’d been holding it forever. She stared down at her hands in her lap, then up at Eli.
“He thinks I told Rome and Nick about what he’s doing. I promised I wouldn’t. And he promised never to touch my sisters.”
“They’re adults now,” Eli countered.
“But they’re still under his thumb, still within his reach and I just don’t trust him.”
“What about your mother?”
She sucked in another breath. “She’s so brainwashed by him. She’ll never leave or betray him. Not even for her own child.”
Eli did something else that shocked her, as if she hadn’t experienced enough surprises for one day. He touched his fingers softly to the line of her jaw, tracing all the way around, then going slowly down her neck. It was a butterfly-soft touch that immediately silenced her words, but ramped up the beat of her heart.
“You’re so much more than I ever expected,” he told her. “Probably more than they anticipated as well.”
Nivea didn’t know what to say to that and she didn’t know what to do. The cat inside, however, knew what it wanted. It seemed to communicate with Eli’s cat because his eyes shot up to hers in that moment, changing from their human green to cat gold. Heat immediately circled around them, wrapping them in the sweetest embrace she could have ever imagined.
In that moment Nivea decided not to wait. She leaned into him, lowering her lids just a bit as she stared down at his mouth. He lunged before she could complete her mission, his lips crashing against hers. Their tongues touched instantly, circling in an age-old dance that never ceased to get her blood pumping. He had a hand to her back and the one still at her neck, pulling her closer as he practically devoured her.
Nivea arched into his embrace, loving the feeling of his power raining over her. She felt like she was about to be taken, but liberated at the same time. The anticipation was too strong, her heart pounding mercilessly in her chest, her pussy throbbing with expectation. She wrapped her arms around his neck, immediately pulling him closer, opening her mouth wider to him. When his hand slid down lower to cup her breast, squeezing until she arched and gasped, Nivea’s entire world shifted.
Feeling as if she were caught in a funnel, breathless and air bound, Nivea wondered what would happen when she landed. Would she confess her love to this shifter, putting herself and her heart on the line for him to do with as he pleased, or would she somehow keep the control she’d worked so hard to maintain?
Questions dissipated when he dragged his mouth from hers to clamp down on her nipple, his tongue soaking through the T-shirt and bra she wore. Her head fell back as she gave him all the access he wanted. Sharp teeth ripped at the shirt until it was in shreds, hanging off her arms. The bra snapped, the sound echoing throughout the room alongside that of Eli’s muffled growl. It all seemed so fast and so fevered, but he wasn’t rushing as his tongue lathed over her bared skin, flattening over her nipple, then licking up and down the curve of each breast.
She wanted to scream out his name, to declare that every part of her belonged to him, but Nivea held firm. She gasped and quivered in his arms but she did not speak, did not believe that she could just yet.
“I can’t get enough,” she heard him mumble. “I’m never going to get enough of you.”
His tone sounded troubled as if his words were true, but he hated that it was so. Nivea didn’t hate it. She loved hearing those words, loved knowing that he was drowning in all that was between them the same as she was.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she admitted, her own sharpened teeth biting into her lip before she gasped again. “I’m right here with you, Eli.”
He seemed to ignore her words, otherwise preoccupied with sucking as much of her breast into his mouth as he could. The feeling sent a rush of desire shooting straight to her pussy. Dampness filled her pants and she squirmed, letting the crotch of her underwear and the mission blues she still wore rub against her aching clit.
Still holding her tightly at the back, Eli used his other hand to rip the belt and buckle of her pants free. A part of her thought she’d be visiting the commissary for a replacement uniform in the morning, but she just didn’t give a damn. Instead, she opened her legs in anticipation of his touch, which came almost instantaneously. He yanked at the thin wisp of cloth that served as underwear, tossing the material aside.
Then he was there, his fingers parting her swollen folds, slipping slowly into the wetness and sending shivers up and down her body. With one arm she held firmly to Eli’s shoulders, hoping it helpe
d her stay upright but almost certain it was more his strong hold that kept her from falling onto the floor. With her other hand she cupped her bare breast, loving the feel of the weight of it in her palm. There was something slickly erotic about her own hands on her body and the immediate pleasure spikes that came from the motion. While Eli continued his exploration of her tender folds, moving up to toy with her clit, then back, so far back he rimmed her with a quick, damp digit, she squeezed her breast harder, letting the turgid nipple roll between the tips of her fingers just as Eli had done before.
Her tongue licked along her bottom lip, and Eli slipped two thick fingers into her dripping center. Nivea tried to open her legs wider to take him in deeper, but her pants hindered that movement.
“I got you,” she heard him say. “I know what you need, baby, I know.”
If he did he wouldn’t be taking so damned long to give it to her. But Nivea was soon silenced when Eli’s fingers moved quicker, pressing deeper, drawing her essence out to drip over her folds, creating a slapping sound that echoed in her ears. She pumped into his hand fervently, grasping her breast with vigor as the climb to bliss had begun. She could see the end, could envision herself slipping right over that cliff of satiated relief. She wanted to run there, to not miss a step to getting there and grabbing every ounce of what promised to be a pleasurable release. Eli said he understood but she was almost sure he couldn’t possibly know, when his fingers slipped quickly from her center, back to her anus where he pressed certainly until her sphincter was breached and she gasped with relief.
The moment was now.
Her vision was blurry, her breaths racing to break free. The cat inside had long since roared its way to submission and now there was only this. The feel of him filling her there, so tight and yet so deliciously sweet. She wanted more, needed … needed …
He pulled out, pressed back in, spreading his two fingers as wide as he could inside her passageway and Nivea couldn’t stand it a moment longer. She screamed out his name, or was that a roar that sounded like his name? She had no idea, all she knew was that her body was being transformed, all that she’d known and ever experienced was in the past. This, right here, this deep-seated pleasure was the here and now and she was loving every minute of it!
* * *
The cat would not be ignored. The urge to take her, to own her, so far unheeded was now inevitable. Eli moved off the bed, carrying Nivea with him before letting her feet touch the floor. She looked spent, her cat’s eyes slanted and slightly blurry. Her chest heaved and for a moment his mouth watered with the thought of tasting her delicious breasts once more. But he was determined not to be distracted, not this time. The shreds of her shirt slipped from her arms as she moved them, her bra doing the same. Her pants and panties were partly down and Eli made quick work of pulling them completely off, getting stuck on her boots but yanking them free as well.
When she looked up at him, her lips wet from her licking them, eyes hooded from the release that had just overtaken her, he thought about tossing her onto the bed and slipping inside her wet pussy as soon as possible. But the cat wouldn’t let that be. It pawed at him, pressing insistently against every part of him, including his mind, that he’d been trying to keep the animal clear of.
It was too late.
That realization had him moving, yanking his shirt over his head, toeing off his own boots, hating when they were stuck because of the tight laces. Once they were off, his pants and boxers were finally freed and he was once again in front of her.
Nivea Cannon.
The guard that had taunted him with her compact body and resilience. She was smart and pretty and vicious on the battlefield—everything, he thought with a start. Nivea Cannon was everything to him.
With a growl that started deep in his gut, rumbling forward until it ripped right past his vocal cords, Eli grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her away from him.
“Eli?” She’d whispered his name but he didn’t reply.
He couldn’t.
Words would not do. They would not explain all that was soaring through his system at the moment. And most importantly, they wouldn’t change a damned thing.
His dick was so hard it hurt. The incessant throbbing, the burning need had him sliding his hand down Nivea’s spine, pushing her gently until her palms flattened on the bed.
He leaned forward, one hand gripping his thick length, and kissed her vertebrae, moving up one at a time, letting his tongue swirl in moist circles, coming back down again until he was dropping heated kisses over her upturned ass.
“On your knees,” he whispered over her smooth flesh. “I want you on your knees.”
Never in his life would Eli have described Nivea as obedient, but she moved without a word, planting both her knees on his bed, spreading her legs so wide the plumpness of her folds and every drop of moistness between her legs was visible. His mouth watered, his nostrils flaring as the cat enjoyed the scent of their mating.
Closing his eyes, Eli stepped forward. He held the tip of his dick to her, moved up and down, coating himself with her essence. She wiggled back against him and he purred. Her ass was perfect, the way she was arching her back and extending it out to him, offering him the world. The entire fucking world, he thought, right here before him.
He couldn’t resist. How could he have ever considered resisting?
His fingers had spread her wide for him, the remnants of her release having dripped all over until it was as wet on the tight pucker of her anus as on her pussy. He wanted her here, wanted to claim, to conquer, and for once in his life, to just be.
Eli pressed forward, the tip of his dick moving past her rim. He clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and let his head lull back. He gave her a moment to adjust to the feel of him back there, the promise of what was to come. Then he pressed forward, loving the tight sheathing around his length. He felt like she was squeezing the life out of him, taking him for every last drop of breath he had.
Wait, wasn’t he supposed to be claiming her?
With a vicious shake of his head, Eli pulled out slightly, then thrust in with more pressure than before. She hissed, he saw her fingers clenching in the comforter, and then she backed up on him. He licked his lips, his hands going to her hips where he held firm. His hips began to move then, thrusting in, pulling out, matching her speed and velocity.
All the dark Eli had seen when he’d closed his eyes up until this point dissipated. Now, there was only light, and in that light was a cat. Nivea’s cat. She was waiting for him as if she’d always expected he would come.
Come.
Come.
The word echoed in his mind even as he stroked her harder and harder. She was so freakin’ wet, her excitement building all over again, her ass cheeks smacking back against his groin, his strokes went deep and long and made him feel like he was being milked of every hidden emotion he possessed. When his entire body had begun to shake, the cat’s shift running along the base of his spine, Eli couldn’t hold on any longer. His fingers dug into her skin the moment she whispered, “Come for me, companheiro. Vena para mi, por favor. Por favor.”
He hadn’t needed her words, but damn, they sounded good. With her voice, as her ass pressed back against him, her walls so tight around him, the release was sucked straight from his cock, along with the breath from his lungs.
* * *
Later that night Eli lay with Nivea stretched out so that half her body was across his, the other on the bed. They’d been sweaty from their last round of lovemaking but now the air had chilled his skin. But he didn’t dare move. His eyes closed even though the last thing he wanted to do was sleep. His body was acutely aware of hers and Eli wanted her again and again. He had no idea what the morning would bring for either of them so he’d wanted the night to last … forever.
But his eyes did finally close and the dream did eventually suck him in again.
He was back in the Sierra Leone rain forest, standing in front of Acacia’s hut once
again. Ezra hadn’t wanted to come and on the outside, Eli had acted as if he agreed with his twin. But on the inside, this had been exactly where he wanted to be. Dagar’s potion was supposed to curb this hunger, to make them need her less so that they could finish the training they’d come here for and not embarrass their grandfather any further. Acacia had betrayed them. She’d taken them in and fucked both of them senseless, making them believe that the pleasure was mutual, when in actuality all she had been doing was using the jaguar twins to get back at her father for taking the other jaguar she’d loved, her true mate, from her.
Ezra was livid. Eli was too, but for an entirely different reason. He still wanted her, a part of him believing he could still claim her. So he and Ezra had followed Acacia’s minions when they’d come to collect them. They’d entered her hut knowing what they would find. Acacia was naked, her beautifully tanned skin glowing in the candles’ illumination. She’d wanted them and hell, Eli had wanted her. He was sure she’d read his mind. Ezra had immediately lashed out and she’d had him bound to the wall. But Eli, he’d remained calm, ready. She’d had him lie on the marble slab that he was used to. She loved having him there and he enjoyed it immensely. So when she climbed on top of him, lowering herself down onto his dick, Eli had almost instantaneously come. Yet, there was something different. The way she looked down at him, the scent in the air, the sound of the crickets chirping loudly from outside the hut … something that even to this day he wasn’t entirely sure of.
Acacia had just rotated her hips on his dick, sucking him deep into her pussy. Then she’d reached back and the next thing Eli saw was her arm arching over him, the glint of the knife she held in her hand clear as day.
Ezra roared, ripped free of his shackles, and grabbed Acacia by the back of her neck. At Eli’s angry growl his twin dropped Acacia to the floor. But in seconds her minions were on them and the next thing Eli knew, he’d shifted and he was killing them. Murdering them all, including Acacia. Only minutes ago, he and Ezra had walked into the hut with three other shifters. Now, the two cats paced around the dead carcasses of three shifters, blood and flesh littering the ground, the acrid stench rising quickly in the air.
