by Andrews, Jo
The next morning he came into her workroom, moving slowly and with care. His hair was damp, so she guessed he had showered, and he was wearing his usual black tee and jeans, though his feet were bare.
“You shouldn’t have taken off my shackles,” he said, frowning.
“You didn’t need them.”
“It wasn’t a good idea.”
She frowned right back at him. “Don’t know whether your taking a shower was a good idea, either. Should you be up? You don’t seem strong enough.”
“Bit shaky on my feet,” he admitted ruefully. “But Doc did say I could shuffle around today. Can I watch?”
“Sure. Sit down before you fall down.”
He reached for one of the wooden kitchen chairs that were scattered around the room and set it down opposite her at the small adjustable table that held her wheel. Hands on the table, he started to sit down, then stopped abruptly.
“Can I put my weight on this or will that damage something?”
“No, it’s strong enough, even for your weight.” She gave him a considering glance. “You look lean, but when Doc and I had to heave you up onto that bed, you were a lot heavier than I expected. Is that a Shifter thing?”
He smiled faintly. “Yeah. Bones and muscles are a little more dense. But unlike the tigers, lions, bears and such, my human weight is pretty close to my leopard weight. It’s different for them. When they shift to human, most of their body mass goes off into a kind of limbo. Necessary, since male lions average around four hundred pounds and tigers five. Some of the bears can even go over a thousand.”
She watched him put his weight on his hands on the table. He eased himself down onto the chair, using his arms rather than his stomach muscles.
“You’re still hurting on the inside,” she commented, sponging dry the interior of the last of her bowls. She cut it free with a double-twisted wire and set the bowl on the shelf beside the others.
“Yeah. It’ll take another day or so, I guess.” He looked at the bowls lined up on the shelf. “Those are beautiful. Very tactile.”
Sierra smiled. “Thank you. Had to fill this order.”
“What do you do with them now?”
“They’re still greenware at the moment. I’ve got to wait for them to dry, then I’ll glaze and fire them.”
“How do you make one? Will you show me?”
“If you like.” She lowered the wheel table a little bit. “How about I throw a vase?”
“Okay.”
She wetted her hands in the bowl she had ready beside the wheel, then reached for some clay that was standing ready. She gave it a quick knead to remove any remaining air bubbles, then dropped it on the wheel-head and started the wheel rotating.
“This is called centering,” she said, pressing the rough ball of clay downward and inward until it achieved perfect rotational symmetry. “I had the hardest time mastering it.”
He watched with interest as she made a hollow in the ball of clay, then drew the clay upward as the wheel spun. The sides of the vase rose, its form taking shape so fluidly that it seemed the vase were growing by itself rather than being molded by her hands.
“Like magic,” he murmured.
She laughed. “You should talk. Changing the way you do, now that’s magic. Want to try?”
He recoiled. “I’ll ruin it!”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re just playing. Dip your hands in that slurry.”
He obeyed, covering his hands with the mixture of clay and water in the bowl, then tilted an amused eyebrow at her. “Like playing with mud as a kid.”
Sierra grinned. “A lot like that. Okay, now put your hands over mine.”
He did so hesitantly. His hands overlapped hers all around, their calloused palms broad and rectangular, their fingers long and sensitive.
“See how the shape changes with the pressure?”
“Yeah.” His face was intent, absorbed. She could see his pleasure. It touched her oddly.
Between their hands the clay whirled, cool, wet and slippery. She slid her hands away until only he was molding the clay. Under his uncertain touch, the vase abruptly twisted and distorted.
He snatched his hands back. “Now I’ve spoiled it!”
“No such thing.” She pressed the clay down again into an amorphous mass, then coaxed it back upward. “Try again.”
She interlinked their fingers, guiding him. The vase took form, its shape different from the first.
He noticed that. “It’s not the same.”
“Doesn’t have to be. That’s what I like about pottery. It’s never exactly the same.”
“Your bowls are,” he objected, starting to glance toward the shelves, then stopping himself, his intent gaze never leaving the vase they were working on, just in case he made a mistake.
“No, they just look the same. There are differences. They might be unnoticeable, but they’re there. Can’t make something exactly the same unless you’re a machine.”
“Every piece unique.”
“Exactly. That looks good, I think.” She drew their interlinked fingers away and turned off the wheel. The vase spun to a stop. “Want to keep it? I could fire it for you. Your first piece of pottery.”
It wasn’t a masterpiece. But it wasn’t a bad vase.
“We made it together.” He had a strange look on his face as he studied it. “Yeah, I’d like to keep it.”
“Okay.”
“That was an experience. Thank you.” He glanced down at his clay-covered hands, then rubbed them together, the clay slipping and oozing around his fingers. “It’s very sensual.”
“Guess it is.” She avoided his eyes. “Messy, though. You can wash up over there.”
“Thanks.”
Ian rose stiffly, putting his weight on the heels of his hands on the wheel table. The table was splashed all over with clay already, so he knew he wouldn’t mess it up any more than it already was. He was unsteady. He was burning, and it wasn’t just the last of the fever. It was Sierra.
Her fingers against his. Her hands so small and delicate and yet so strong within his. Her breath soft and sweet against his face. The scent of her hair as they had leaned their heads together over the vase. She was wearing some kind of light perfume that was floral and spicy at the same time. Not the usual, nothing he recognized, but it suited her. Beneath that, he could smell her own scent, fresh and clean. He wanted to bury his face in her neck and just breathe her in.
He wanted to feel her skin against his, all over. Wanted to know the inner shape of her mouth, how her tongue would feel sliding and twisting about his. Wanted to cup those perfectly shaped breasts, taste her flesh. Cover that slender body with his, lose himself in her.
He wanted… He wanted… Too much.
He was walking around in a permanent state of semi-arousal, his balls aching. Her scent filled the house. He couldn’t get away from it, couldn’t stop responding to it. He was much too aware of her, of her presence so close to him, moving around her studio, sleeping in her bedroom next to his, showering this morning.
God, what a visual the sound of that shower had given him! What she might look like, twisting and turning under the spray, the water running over the supple lines of her body, her lovely breasts lifting as she raised her hands to push back the wet fall of her wonderful hair.
If she had been a Shifter, he would have said something, done something. Lord, if she had been any other human female, he might even have given in to temptation. But this was Sierra and she was afraid of him.
She had never been afraid of him before. Not his Mouse. She’s always given as good as she got.
But now he could see the tension in her body as she moved about, clearing up the work room. And she was constantly wearing those long-sleeved tees he had never seen her in before, covering herself up, showing the least amount of skin possible. It must be because now she knew what he was. The cat. The monster. The alien thing. That probably horrified and disgusted her.
He had
to get away. Had to stay away from her and let her forget the strangeness of what he was.
“Let me go back to the ranch,” he almost begged Doc when that stern custodian turned up to check on him that afternoon.
“You’re still healing,” said Doc immovably. “Don’t care if you can walk around now. There’s still a few internal organs that aren’t functioning at max yet. The job’s not done and it won’t ever be done if you go home and start working. And don’t even try to say you won’t. I know you, boy. Something will happen you think only you can deal with and you’ll be right out there pushing yourself. If you don’t know about it, you won’t get yourself all worked up.”
“I’ll rest. I swear.”
“Yeah, right.” Doc gave him a scathing glance, then looked over to where Sierra was coming into the living room after changing the sheets on Ian’s bed. “Would you believe him, Sierra?”
“No,” said Sierra. She desperately wanted Ian out of her house, but Doc was right. All alpha males were the same and Ian was prime alpha male. There was no way he’d laze around twiddling his thumbs if there was something that had to be done. Without someone to sit on him, he’d get into trouble in no time, and with both of his brothers gone there was no one to stop him, since he was the boss.
“Don’t you want me out of your hair?” Ian flung at her. “I’m an inconvenience.”
“It’s only for a couple of days more.” She shrugged. “No big.”
He ran a hand over his face, looking almost desperate. “It is for me.”
“I should feel insulted,” she said lightly. “You keep this up and I will.”
“You’re cutting your own throat,” he muttered under his breath.
“Are you still worrying about turning into the leopard? You won’t hurt me.”
“There’s ways and ways of hurting.” He leaned back on the sofa and groaned. “Most of which I’m going through right now.”
Which didn’t make any sense at all.
Nor did the way he suddenly vanished into his room, holing up in there with a couple of fat Tom Clancy novels and hardly ever coming out for the next two days. Doc still had him on liquids, though they were thick soups and eggnogs now. He’d take the mug or bowl from her and shut the door in her face.
“Once Doc allows real food, I’m outta here,” he growled.
Sierra was really starting to feel insulted. She scowled at him.
“You’re acting like I’ve got leprosy or something!” she snapped.
He gave her a wild-eyed look, then disappeared back into the guest room and slammed the door. She almost kicked it, stopped herself just in time and stomped away.
She couldn’t understand him. She’d thought they were beginning to become friends. For heaven’s sake, he was the one who had wanted them to be friends. But now he was acting as if he couldn’t stand to be around her. It hurt.
Coming out of her bedroom the next morning, she saw that his door was open. But he wasn’t in his room when she glanced in. She found him in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge and staring wistfully at its contents.
“What are you doing?” Sierra put her arm out straight between him and the fridge. He moved back automatically and she was able to shut the door. “Doc hasn’t said you can eat solid food yet.”
“If he doesn’t give the okay today, I’m gonna rip his throat out. I’m starving!”
“There’s gratitude for you.”
“I’d be more grateful if I had a full belly.”
“Go hunt a deer, then,” she mocked. “But I don’t think you’re up for that.”
His eyes lit. “Oh, I’m up for that.”
She grabbed him as he turned toward the back door. “Don’t you dare! Not ’til Doc says so!”
He went rigidly still in her grasp. She hurriedly let him go, flushing.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t touch me, Mouse. It’s not safe.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Ian said on a harsh breath.
He could see by the darkening of those wide eyes that he had hurt her feelings. He hadn’t meant to, but when she had put her arms about him like that… God!
She was just out of the shower and she smelled of soap, shampoo and freshly clean, water-heated Sierra. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, didn’t need any, not with those naturally thick black lashes and softly pink mouth. He had heard her blow-drying her hair and it was falling about her face and shoulders in a rich, heavy, tumbling mass. She would look like that in bed.
His gut clenched at the thought. His cock stiffened.
Sierra took a hurried step backward, her hands rising involuntarily to thrust her hair back from where it was falling over her face. She must look a mess. Why was he staring at her like that? So fixedly, his pupils dilated so that his irises were only thin rings of blazing green and his eyes were a smoldering blackness of intensity and heat. She was falling into that darkness, drowning in it.
“Just once,” he muttered suddenly on a harsh rasp of breath.
Then his arms closed around her. Sierra found herself abruptly locked tight against him.
She gasped, caught up onto her toes, the length of her pressed against the length of him from breast to knee. God, the way he felt! The ripped muscles of his chest and stomach and lean hips powerful and urgent against her, bending her back over the steel bar of his arm.
He was aroused. She could feel it, feel him hard against her belly.
That mesmerizing face filled her vision. She felt the shudder of his breath against her lips. Then he kissed her, his hard mouth astonishingly soft and coaxing upon hers. His tongue ran over the seam of her lips from corner to corner, then teased under the upper one. Before she could stop herself, her lips parted and he was inside her mouth, tongue sliding and stroking against hers.
Like stepping into quicksand. In one blinding instant, she was sucked under, drowning in a rich, honeyed, dark sensuality. Her insides turned to molten lava. Her whole body thrilled and sang and melded to his under the lightning bolt of passion that flamed through her. Her bones went liquid, her knees turned to water and if it hadn’t been for his arms holding her up, she would have gone straight down to the tiled floor.
No one had ever kissed her like this before, with this much desire, this much intensity. Peter? It was suddenly clear that Peter hadn’t had a clue about passion. This was passion—this violent, demanding heat, flaring primal and imperative between them.
Her body strained against his, clinging to him, trying instinctively to meld with his. Her arms clenched fiercely around him, hands gripping, nails digging into his flesh.
He made a strange, agonized sound in his throat. Then he was just about eating her alive, his tongue searching out every corner of her mouth, devouring her. She kissed him back with equal urgency, helpless against the driving force of the overwhelming need storming through her, tongue thrusting against his, mouth sucking at his. They kissed and kissed, mouths twisting together, tearing apart briefly to snatch at breath, coming back desperately again and again, unable to stay apart.
He smelled of soap and musk and that unique particular underlying aroma that was Ian himself, his flesh, his being. She would never forget that scent now or the salty-sweet taste of his mouth or the way his heart was pounding as his chest pressed hard against hers and he bent her backward, his arms around her waist. Her own heart was pounding even more violently than his, feeling as if it was going to burst right through her rib cage. She found herself teetering on the tips of her toes, lifted almost entirely off the ground as if she weighed nothing, his casual, unthinking strength exciting her unbearably.
He took a step forward and she felt the kitchen counter strike her back. Then he was between her legs, leaning into the juncture of her thighs, his hips insistent against hers and his weight heavy upon her. She felt his cock—so hard and, oh my God, so big!—pressing demandingly against her crotch, igniting a powerful throbbing in her core. Her pussy cle
nched, her legs lifted without her volition, thighs closing tight about his hips, and her body rubbed and ground against his.
“Ohh!”
She couldn’t help the moan that came from deep inside her, heard him groan too, a harsh, rasping gasp hot against the hollow of her throat.
Her hands raked down his back, exploring the sinewy contours through the soft cotton of his tee, sliding down the indent of his spine, then rising again to grip the deep muscles of his shoulders. Her palms clung to him as if magnetized, stroking along his collarbones to shape his throat before slipping up the strong cords of his neck to let her fingers dig into his thick hair. He was a pleasure to touch. She had wondered for years what he would feel like in her arms. Now she knew. Amazing, wonderful…addictive.
She felt him shudder and flex as her hands ran over him. She liked that, liked feeling as though she had as much power over him as he had over her.
She was drunk on sensation, drunk on him, utterly unable to keep her body from straining and writhing against his. Couldn’t get enough of the taste of his mouth. Or the feel of his body, aroused and urgent, vibrating with intensity. Or the way his hands were moving sensuously, demandingly over her, caressing her face, thrusting through her hair, kneading down her back. They splayed across her butt and held her hard against the inciting rigidity of his cock, which was setting her whole body on fire even through two layers of denim. She was burning up with passion, losing herself in the devastating delight of the way he made her feel.
Oh my God! she thought with a jolt. What am I doing? This was Ian Raeder! The guy with the rep. The bane of her life. The man she had always considered her enemy.
She came back to herself, incredulous and appalled. Tore herself away, gasping and breathless. He was struggling for air as desperately as she was. They stared at each other, still caught in that net of dark fire, urgent need and insistent desire.
Oh God, what had she just done? What had just been unleashed between them?
“No!” she said violently. “No!”
And fled.
