BlindHeat (30 page)

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 could 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 turned 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.

His cock bumped her wet slit. Her pussy drooled desire. She
squirmed. His paws yanked her hips back against him and he drove inside. She
yowled.

He drew back again and it sent slivers of sensation shooting
through her, had her muscles contracting around him, a burning pleasure that
made her scream again.

He started pumping her, catching her ruff between his teeth
to keep the force of it from driving her along the ground as they fucked. Quick
jabs, turned to slow, driving thrusts, and the sensation radiated like a
thousand lines shooting out from a point. Sharp laser lines of fiery pleasure
shot through her belly. Delicious electric pleasure moved out to the roots of
fur, down to the tips of her claws. Pressure built. Her head fell back and his
teeth clamped tighter. Her breath came in quick pants, laser lines were
expanding and contracting like threads of lightning and her pussy tightened.
Tightened. Tightened. Tighter. Tighter. Until his scream joined hers. Until it
seemed that more than his cock penetrated. The essence of Marcus penetrated
her. He was coming, his cock jerking inside her, filling her.