by Nara Malone
“I know you’re mad at him, Allie. I know there are many things not to like about Eddie. But there is one very big thing to love about him—you.”
“He wasn’t my father.”
“And yet he raised you. And he raised you knowing you weren’t human. Can you imagine how he felt the first time you shifted? That simple act demolished everything he believed about reality. A smaller man might have demolished you.”
“I earned my keep.”
“You did and you do. He raised a smart, fiercely independent young woman. You will always find a way to land on your feet. In that respect, you are your father’s daughter. And he was your father in all the ways that count.”
“He wasn’t a good guy, Marcus.”
“I know. It’s still okay for you to love him and grieve for him.”
She sniffed. Her eyes burned. “It hurts less if I stay mad.”
Marcus pushed her hair back from her face. “Sweetheart.”
She tried to push his hands away. “Don’t.”
“Shh.” He cupped one hand around the back of her neck, used the other to stroke her hair.
A tear escaped. He would turn her to a puddle if she let him keep going.
“You miss him,” Marcus said. “You have to feel it to get past it.”
“I hate him,” she insisted and several more tears ran down her cheeks.
He urged her toward his shoulder, but she wouldn’t go there.
“It was my fault,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to get past that. If I had listened to Jake, waited until you could go with me, you could have stopped him. You would have known what to say.”
“The way I hear it, Eddie took a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach to your lovers. My powers of recovery may be exceptional, but they’ve been heavily taxed since I met you.”
She swiped at runaway tears with her shirtsleeve. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault. I doubt you would have learned as much from Eddie if I had gone along. And while I would have tried to stop him from shooting himself in the head, I would have helped him die. He was way past curable from what Jake told me. I think he might have killed himself sooner, but he was just holding on until he was sure you’d be fine on your own.”
Marcus kissed her cheeks. Caught fresh tears on his tongue.
“Stop,” she said, putting her hand over his mouth. Pushing him back.
“You can cry in front of me, Allie.”
“It’s weak.”
“It’s beautiful and brave to share tears with someone you love.”
“I can’t. Don’t you get it? I can’t.” She grabbed for anger as if it were a life jacket. “I have to hold something together. All that’s left is me.”
“I have you. I won’t let you come apart.”
She knew she should resist, but the shoulder he was offering was broad, and the heart he trusted in her hands so generous and loving. Her arms went around his neck and she found his lips. He didn’t pull back from her kisses even though tears spilled from a well that felt bottomless. He kissed her back.
“Make love to me,” she murmured between kisses. “Make me feel something good.”
He carried her upstairs to his bed.
He had a king’s bed, as big as the future he’d handed her when he explained she would live centuries and not decades. He tossed back the comforter and laid her down on white linen. The canvas where they could start painting that future.
The last time they’d made love, she’d thought he was an ordinary guy with a flair for drama. Now she could appreciate how understated he’d been. It was as if she’d made a date with a guy who drove a taxi and discovered later he was the president. And all those “friends” that magically materialized to help him—his secret service agents.
The last time they made love, he’d broken laws of physics and biology to be with her when she needed him. That shouldn’t surprise her. Marcus drew exclusively from a law book of the heart. Do what’s right, even when it’s wrong. Do what’s kindest, even when it hurts. Do the impossible, even if it isolates you.
The last time they’d made love, Marcus had been a man. Now she knew what lurked beneath his skin, what drove the feral side of their couplings. She knew what had happened until now was tame and controlled compared to what could be. What would be.
This was the first time they would make love in a bed. The first time they would make love. Everything else had been training, rituals. Fucking.
He was standing beside the bed when she looked up into those silver eyes of his, contemplated the leopard lurking behind that gleam. A hungry leopard.
She licked dry lips. Wondered if he could taste her fear in the air.
He sat beside her on the bed, unbuttoned the oversized flannel shirt she wore, taking his time, planting a moist kiss on her skin, moving lower as the sides of the shirt parted.
“I’ve been waiting to meet the real you, Allie. I’m sorry I slept through your coming out.”
“I’m not really sure how I did that. I don’t know how to make that happen.”
“That’s okay.”
Relieved he didn’t expect her to shift on the spot, she sat up so he could help her slip out of her shirt.
Then he said, “I know how to make it happen.”
Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t swallow.
He untied the drawstring on her sweatpants. She raised her hips. He pulled. She was naked. More naked than she’d ever been. From the skin out, nothing had changed. From the skin in, he knew more about her than she did.
He kissed her while his fingers worked the buttons of his shirt. Tossed it away while he licked a straight line down her belly. He stopped before he got to the good part. Looked up at her.
One thing hadn’t changed. Marcus was still a tease.
He grinned his wickedest grin and stood up to peel off his jeans. “I’ve been waiting to see what happens when the Allie who likes to fade into the shadows comes out to play instead. When the she-cat comes prowling. I hear she’s magnificent.”
He pushed his briefs down his legs. Watching him move, hearing him speak in low, hypnotic tones, stirred heat in her belly. This time when she licked her lips her mouth was watering.
“This time you’re in charge, Allie. You call the shots. Take what you want. Take me how you want.”
He stretched out beside her on the bed, hands at his sides. It was the way he held his head that undid her—baring his neck at a submissive angle that made it impossible not to press her lips to sweat-slicked skin. The scent and salty taste, the pure maleness of him, had her teeth sinking in. She watched his cock thicken from the corner of her eye, reveled in the richness of his moan.
She straddled him, rubbing her pussy along his belly. He wanted a she-cat. She sank her teeth into the rubbery nub of his nipple and made him hiss. She could play that role.
She moved back, rubbed her pussy along his cock.
“You want that?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed. Silver sparked.
“I want a direct answer,” she said, mimicking his imperious tones.
“Yes, I want that hot little pussy.” His stare made her hotter.
Reaching behind her back with one hand and between his parted legs, she could tease him, run one finger along the crack of his ass. His cheeks tightened reflexively when she did. That aristocratic stare was gone. He looked at her now with a mix of longing and something else…respect?
“What?” he asked.
She shook her head, rising up enough on her knees to take him in hand. The hand in front fisted around his cock. The one behind cupped his balls. The delicious glide of his cock through her fingers distracted them both for a moment. Then she pressed the head to her clit, using him to pleasure herself.
He grabbed fistfuls of the sheet, held himself rigid while she played.
A sense of power came back to her in that moment. There was always a way, a twist or a turn that would land her on her feet. A lift and tilt of her hips co
uld bury his cock inside her. But not yet. First she had to use him the way she wanted to use him, the way she’d needed to use him since that first day in the park. Popping the head of his dick inside her pussy and squeezing. Pulling out to torment. Holding him firmly while she moved her clit over the head in slow circles that took her to the edge. That had Marcus looking ready to drag her under him again.
“Do you want to come, Marcus?” she asked sweetly.
“No,” he growled.
“No?”
“It’s not what I want the most.”
“What do you want then?”
“I want to feel you come. All over my cock.”
Her hand went still. Their eyes locked.
“Ask for it,” she said. “Ask sweetly.”
“Please,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
She was ready, tilting her hips up, a slight turn to ease him in and slide him home. His hands went to her hips. He panted and she waited while he regained his composure. Until he begged with his eyes.
“Say my name, Marcus,” she whispered. “Say it when you come.”
She was pretty sure they heard him in Greyville.
* * * * *
He was on his side, Allie cuddled against his chest. Savoring. Perfect moments were rare. A spontaneous purr set her giggling.
“That tickles.” Her reciprocal purr ramped up in sync with his. He closed his eyes. He’d forgotten what this was like, if he’d ever truly known, the sweet peace of a shared purr. He held Allie tighter. Wished he could find a way to cure the wasting and ensure all Pantherian males could know the joy of holding a mate.
Not wanting to spend time on gloomy thoughts, he said to Allie, “You’ve progressed so much with the few lessons you’ve had. Already you can control a purr. And you managed to hold off a shift while we made love. That’s not easy. Not something I’ve been managing to do since I met you.
“That’s why you were always refusing to finish what you started?”
“Mmm. Holding off my own shift while trying to keep you earthbound was beyond me. The first time, in the park, I didn’t know what was going wrong. When you told me about your naked sleepwalking over dinner, that’s when I knew you had to be a shifter.”
“As much as I might wish to claim credit for mind-boggling power, I think that last shift cured me. I’ve spent nine years trying to be a normal person. I still want to be ordinary old Allie the ad writer. I don’t think I want to be a shifter.”
“There’s no such thing as ordinary, sweetheart. Everyone is more than they imagine they can be. Everyone is afraid to discover all they are.”
She sat up. Her agitation as palpable as if she were shifted and he was watching her fur rise.
“I’m not afraid.”
“Aren’t you? You think you’re ready for another lesson?” He hoped his eagerness wasn’t perceptible in his tone.
“More lessons? I can recognize people pretty well now. Wasn’t that the point?”
“The point was unity. The goal to make you whole. Now that I don’t have the fear of you accidently shifting yourself, the changes will come much faster. I think your biggest problem is that the two parts of who you are aren’t properly integrated. When you move through the world as human, you process it one way, when you move through it as animal, another. But when we mate, you are both, you slip past the bounds of bodies and become all that you are.”
She rolled away from him and bounded from the bed, looking ready to run. Hair tumbled around her shoulders, breasts jiggled. He was going hard again. She noticed.
“And I suppose the next lesson, like the ones before, is best taught with one of your sex rituals?”
He grinned at her. “Of course. What could be more healing, more unifying than the merging of masculine and feminine?”
She looked down at her toes, wiggled them. “I’m barely sexy as a female in human form, as a leopard…” She shook her head.
He chuckled. “Is that what’s bothering you? You don’t think you’re sexy?”
She shrugged.
He rose to circle her, made a low purring noise as he did. She slid a glance his way. The first hint of her arousal perfumed the air.
“Your beauty enslaves me,” he said.
She giggled.
“What?”
“I can’t imagine you as anyone’s servant.” She giggled again. Arrogant. The word floated up in his mind. Her first success at telepathy had to be that word.
“I’m not arrogant. Didn’t I just prove how obedient I can be?”
She blinked, startled that the thought had gotten away from her. And then she giggled again. “Arrogantly obedient. You are the definition of arrogance,” she said.
He was annoyed with the opinion, but pleased with her progress. He snapped out to the shifting plane and planted himself in front of her again as male leopard, his long tail snapping back and forth like a whip. If he was correct, Allie only needed the presence of an animal to model her shift. He would start with one he knew she could do and when she was comfortable in that skin, introduce her to another. It would take time. He licked his lips. He was going to enjoy helping her learn. “You try it, sweetheart.” He purred. Sync your purr to mine and then let your energy rise.
Allie’s energy rose until she snapped out and back in as a leopard.
He was close behind.
In one leap, Allie sailed over the bed and Marcus. Dove between the balcony doors. It took him a moment to catch on. When she disappeared over the side of the balcony he realized the chase was on. She was racing for the river and he overtook her at the forest’s edge. The sun had set and the moon wasn’t up. Still, the darkness didn’t impede their progress. When he pounced she went down and then rolled onto her back, batting at him.
He bumped her nose with his, ignoring the playful swipes, letting a more serious intention creep in as he started to lick her face and then her neck, closing his eyes to savor. Had hundreds of years passed without the simple pleasure of licking a female’s fur? He moved down her belly and she stilled, the soft hypnotic sensation of his licking working like a drug to chase away her anxiety, her worries, her grief. He could feel the tension seep from her body, tension leaking from her muscles under the gentle, thorough attention from his tongue.
The scent of crushed grass mingled with male musk and magic, a hypnotic blend conjured by Marcus’ unique chemistry.
Frustration and confusion, twin bands that had squeezed her chest day and night, vanished under the attention of his tongue.
She was tempted to let go, lose herself in the repetitive swipe of his tongue through her fur, over her ears, down her neck. Lick. Lick. Lick.
She nipped his ear, hard, and hissed.
He paused in his licking, a feral gleam in his eye. Heat spread through her pussy, set her clit throbbing.
He dipped his head, licked along her belly. She squirmed and wriggled until she could reach his cock, testing the sensation of his fur against her tongue. It was incredibly pleasant, the glide of tongue and fur hypnotic. Mesmerizing.
Marcus acted mesmerized. Going still. Panting faster as she continued licking, her long tongue gliding over his balls. He went hard. He dripped. She took him in her mouth, licking. His cock against her tongue was an electric sensation, reminding her of candy she loved as a child, the kind that popped and snapped when she sprinkled it in her mouth. The look on his face was pure pleasure.
I love you,he said.The words whispered painlessly through her mind, no drilling, no scraping and jarring of nerves. Just as he’d promised, arousal led to a blending of her selves, a dropping of boundaries.
His tongue slid inside her, making her clench. She squirmed under him, and he moved so the weight of his body held her captive under him.
That delicious tongue of his fucked her, making her cry out each time it slid in. He found a spot deep inside, a spot that sent tremors jerking through her limbs, that had her arching her back and clawing at him while squeezing his devious tongue. Then he turn
ed it on her clit, a fast flick, flick. A licking that quickly drove her mindless, ripped full-throated leopard screams from her as she came.
When he drew back, she flipped over onto her belly, but before she could gather her weight onto her haunches and spring away, he covered her again, this time catching the back of her neck with his teeth.
Easy, sweetheart, he said, drawing her back against him, adjusting his body to hers. Easy. He licked the top of her head, her ears, then gathered the skin at her nape in his teeth again. Pleasure shivered through her. She closed her eyes, turned just enough that she could rub her cheek against his furred shoulder. She felt so small. Vulnerable and safe at once. It felt so perfectly right to be in his grasp. Terrifyingly right.
We have closed the circle of our meeting. Drawn from the beginning to the end. Our destinies are bound to the circle our steps cast.
Closed? What did he mean? Cast circles? Destinies? It all had the aura of black-robed figures dancing around a fire at night. She shivered again.
Her body was alive with sensation. She experienced the sensation of his weight pressing her to the ground in a way she had never felt touch before. Each individual cell of skin that connected with a cell of his skin seemed to light up, like lighting candles at an altar, one at a time, and she distinctly felt the pattern of ribs, the hot places outlined by the cold, so that she saw herself wrapped in him, white-hot against black in her mind. When he had her positioned, belly flat to the ground, sensations rippled out in waves as he pressed close and eased back, preparing her. She lifted her tail, turned her head so that she could watch his face when the first thrust came.
You want this. You want me.
She hadn’t known she wanted this animal thing they were about to do, had never considered wanting anything so radical, but the ache blooming in her was sharper, hotter than anything she’d ever felt for a man, and given that he had taken that up several notches in the short time she had known him, that was saying a lot.
She broke her own mental silence, relieved that the echo of her own thoughts didn’t throb and make her teeth ache. He nipped her shoulder. We’re just at the first step in this journey. We’ve been playing at the edge of very deep, and sometimes very dark, waters. This is the start, not a finish.
