Seduction's Shift (9 page)

With a start Nick realized his cat had been waiting, too, in a predatory stance since the second they’d stepped into the forest. It had known she was here, known that they would reunite like this, and dared Nick to stop it. He had no qualms there: He would never stop wanting her, especially after tasting her this way. Her scent permeated his senses, and he thought he’d die right here between her legs with her dripping her essence into his mouth.

Pulling out of her he focused on her clit, circled the tightened bud with his tongue, then sucked it completely into his mouth. She shivered, convulsed, then purred her pleasure, his name a whisper on her lips.

His dick ached, almost screamed with need, and Nick reluctantly pulled his mouth away from her. He was about to replace his mouth with his length and pound into her mercilessly, but she stared up at him. He caught the wicked gleam in her now golden eyes and chuckled. “You want some?” he asked, his fingers stroking his length again.

“I want some,” she said propping herself up once more. “Now.”

“Your wish is my command” was Nick’s ready reply.

He shifted above her, holding his dick and directing its tip at her mouth. The temptress had the audacity to lick her lips, wetting them generously and soliciting a bead of excitement at the tip of his dick. She laughed, throaty and confident, then extended her tongue, swiping that clouded bead of moisture into her mouth.

Nick was not in the mood to be teased. If she wanted him she was going to get him, all of him. With a thrust he touched his tip to her lips. She pouted and he pressed further.

“Open up, you tease,” he taunted her, loving this jaunting little game of need they played. He hadn’t played with a woman in years.

She pursed her lips into a sucking position and let only the tip of him inside. There she worked him, sucking the engorged head with enthusiasm. He tasted like heaven, like ten times heaven. Ary’s entire body shivered with need. Extending her tongue, she licked the underside of his length. He gasped, cupping the back of her head and pushing her farther.

With tremendous strength Ary resisted sucking him in completely, instead licking at the tightened sack, pulling him into her mouth and releasing him when his body tensed over her. Only when he was trembling did she open her mouth to take him inside and when she did, she came.

It was an explosion, a long-held explosion of need and desire and hunger that racked through her body like an earthquake. Her mouth quivered with him inside, and it took her a moment to gain her bearings before she could start to suck him deep. He pumped into her mouth and Ary took each stroke with care and eroticism. Her hands cupped his taut buttocks and pulled him in deeper.

“Fuck!” he bellowed, and she sucked harder and harder.

When he throbbed in her mouth and she thought he would come, Ary pulled back, letting his ready length flop between her lips. She’d waited what seemed like forever. Nick always kept her waiting and she despised him for that. Hated that she still wanted him this way but wasn’t inclined to deny herself or her cat this delectable pleasure.

“Take me, now,” she gasped, falling to lie on her back, opening herself to him once more.

“Definitely” was his deep moaning reply.

He speared into her center and thrust deep. She gasped, lifted her hips, and accepted him completely. Thick and hot and long, he filled her until she thought she would burst. Her legs were lifted and propped on his shoulders as he went deeper, pulling out and pushing in. Her nails stung as they scraped against the damp rock beneath her; sharp teeth bit into her lips when she struggled not to scream.

“Sweet. Sweet,” he murmured over and over, rotating his hips, stroking her lovingly.

But it wasn’t love.

Like a neon light in the dark, lust-filled recess of her mind, the realization blinked on and off. A vivid reminder of her biggest heartbreak.

“Only you,” he whispered as he leaned forward, finding her ear.

Ary tried to hold on to those words, to let them douse the flame of that neon reminder. It felt so good, so real. His motions pushed her to a glorious precipice, one she’d never been able to reach on her own. She wanted to go there, to fall over that cliff of pleasure one more time. And so everything else was pushed from her mind. She moved her hips, matching his strokes, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him close so that the connection wouldn’t be broken too soon.

He pulled out of her then and she gasped, wanting to tell him to stay but being too out of breath to come up with the words. It didn’t matter because before she could speak he’d lifted her and turned her so that she was on her stomach. With a strong pull he had her on her knees and was spreading her buttocks, slipping his length into her from behind. Then she screamed with the force of his thrust, the depth and the intense pleasure rushing through her body coming out in the high-pitched sound.

“Please,” she begged. Yes, pathetically, she was begging him to make her come, to bring her glorious relief. “Please.” No matter how degrading it was she said it again and again.

He pumped her mercilessly, holding her hips to keep her in place. She bucked back against him, loving the sound of their joining echoing throughout the cave. It lasted forever, and then not long enough. They screamed together … no, it was more like a symphony of roaring, two cats joined, forever intertwined. Whatever, it was amazing.

And when their breathing had returned to normal it was over. Again.

Chapter 9

“Where are you going?” Nick asked when she’d stood and walked across the stone floor.

“You were famous for your exit last time. I’ll take the lead this go-round,” she snapped, then dove through the curtain of water, splashing into the creek below.

Cursing, Nick followed, reaching the shore just in time to grab his clothes, cuff them under his arm, then stop her just as she was stepping into her dress. “You don’t go anywhere alone,” he gritted. Taking advantage of the seconds he had while she dressed, he hurriedly stepped into his own pants and shoes.

“I don’t need a babysitter. I live here, remember?”

She was angry, her amber eyes flaring at him. Her scent, while still intoxicating, was lighter, like a crisp winter’s breeze.

“While I’m here, I’m your shadow. Deal with it,” he told her.

“Go to hell!” Drops of water dampened his shirt as she spun around, her hair flailing behind her.

Her strides were surprisingly long for a woman nearly a foot shorter than him, but Nick kept up. She knew the forest much better than he did, stepping over poisonous snakes before he’d even seen them, ducking beneath roped vines, pushing them so they’d sway right in his face. At that he’d cursed, but let her keep her mad on for a while longer. She’d been through a lot; she was definitely entitled to unwind the way she saw fit. He’d hoped their little tryst at the waterfall would have been enough. Obviously not.

“Sabar’s not going to stop looking for you if you have something he wants,” he said when they were walking through a clearing with owl monkeys conversing above.

“I don’t have anything that parasite wants.” She didn’t turn to him, just kept on walking.

“What’s this damiana drug he gave you? What does it do?”

“It gives you a big-ass headache” was her tart reply.

“Is that what it’s supposed to do?”

She jumped down a small incline, twigs cracking beneath her. “Damiana is from the turnera leaf. It’s mainly used to treat high blood pressure.”

“And?” Because what she said didn’t sound all that appealing. He wondered what Sabar would want with the drug if all it did was regulate blood pressure. “Lucas said it was poison.”

She sighed. “If it’s not purified before use, it can be toxic. It’s also an aphrodisiac. It can induce euphoria.”

Now it was starting to make sense. “He can sell that in the States and make a shitload of money with it.” Even though the effects sounded a lot like ecstasy, which was already a huge part of the drug market, Nick knew there was always room for something newer and better where drugs were concerned.

“I don’t know what he can do in the States. I don’t live there, remember?”

The way she said “remember” gave the impression she was holding some type of grudge. Nick didn’t know what to say or do about that.

“Can he get the leaf readily here without you?”

“Of course he can, that’s why he gave it to me.” She stopped walking suddenly. “Yuri taught me the purification process. It takes the poison from the leaf so it doesn’t enter the bloodstream. I have the poison in me but I’m fine, except for the headache. That’s strange.”

She gasped.

Nick came right up behind her, grabbing her by the arm. “What is it?”

“He gave me damiana, boiled like a tea,” she said, not looking at him. “But I didn’t get sexually aroused or feel remotely euphoric.”

The sound of him gritting his teeth was extremely loud. “What did you feel?”

She looked up at him, hating the words in her head. “Anger, that’s what I felt. A raw, fierce anger that made me uncontrollable.” She gasped then sank to her knees fighting to gulp air.

Nick went down with her, wrapping his arms around her. “It’s okay. It’s finished. He won’t touch you again. Understand? I won’t let him touch you again.”

She shook her head as he rubbed her back. The forest seemed smaller all of a sudden, as if its walls were closing in on her. Panic speared through her as she remembered Sabar striking her, the feel of something snapping deep inside her as he did. It was like he’d flipped a switch and she’d immediately reacted. Jose had been in her line of sight and she’d attacked without further thought or provocation.

Opening her mouth, she flexed her jaw, remembering. “I killed a shifter.”

The words lingered in the evening noise of the forest.

“I’m a healer. I’m not a killer. And he was one of us.”

To her own ears, her voice sounded utterly defeated. She was a disgrace to her kind, no better than her father on some deranged level.

Nick grasped her chin, tilting her head until she was looking into his eyes.

“It wasn’t you. It was the drug,” he told her. “You are not a killer.”

It sounded good—just like being in his arms felt good, having him here felt good and sharing his kisses was the icing on the cake. But Ary didn’t believe him. She’d wanted Jose dead and she’d killed him. Sure, the unpurified damiana in her system had incited the rage, but she’d done the deed. That was the fact that sickened her.

*   *   *

As the group made their way back to the Gungi, Kalina walked alongside Ary while the guys stayed ahead of them. Every couple of steps either Rome or Nick would look back, as if either one or both of them thought she or Kalina would vanish into the forest. Ary could scent the
calor
between Rome and Kalina, not to mention the closeness the couple seemed to share on a human level. A part of her longed for that same type of connection—but another part acknowledged she might never have it.

“He wants to protect you,” Kalina said after they’d taken their time to cross a silent river that happened to be the home of more than one anaconda.

“I don’t need his protection,” she said defiantly. “I don’t want it.”

Kalina nodded as if she knew precisely what Ary meant. She was a very pretty woman with a decidedly city look to her. Maybe it was the short sassy cut of her hair, or the way she carried herself—as if she had inside knowledge of everything and everyone around her. Ary should hate her for that, but actually found it hard to since Kalina had been the nicest of the entire group to her since the rescue.

“You probably know them a lot better than I do,” Kalina continued. She had a calm voice, like she was constantly negotiating with whoever it was she was talking to. “But it seems they need to protect their women even if the women don’t necessarily need it.”

“I don’t know those three well, specifically. If you mean Shadow Shifters, yes, I guess you’re right. But it’s only the mated males that have that sort of streak,” Ary said.

Kalina was shaking her head, keeping up with Ary’s pace without problem. “Nick and X are pretty protective, and they aren’t mated. And for the record, I think it’s
all
females they aim to protect, with a special emphasis on the ones they mate.”

It sounded right to her, but Ary really didn’t want to talk about this. “I guess. I just don’t need it. I’ve been in the forest all my life. I know my way around here better than they do.”

“But they know Sabar better than you,” Kalina said with a sort of finality.

“That’s over. He won’t get anything from me and he knows it,” she responded. Still, Ary wasn’t so sure of that statement.

“It’s not over for him. Believe me, I know what it’s like to be on his radar. He stalked and kidnapped me, too.”

That was a surprise, and Ary couldn’t hide her shock. “Really? Is he a professional kidnapper?”

Kalina laughed. “He’s a killer, a sadistic, evil killer.”

Ary believed that statement undoubtingly. “I’m not going to help him create something that might hurt people. I’m a healer; it’s against everything I’ve been taught.”

“He won’t care. He doesn’t care about anyone or anything but himself.”

“I don’t understand that,” Ary said honestly. “Since I was a child I was taught how to save people, to take care of them. I can’t imagine not doing that.” Even after she’d killed a man.

“You would make a great doctor in the States,” Kalina said with a chuckle. “You’d be one of the few who actually cared about the patients versus the payments.”

Ary didn’t really know what she meant by that statement.
Curanderos
were not paid for their services; they were born to serve their tribe. Yet she’d secretly longed to study medicine formally and had thought about going to the States more than once. “He wouldn’t let me go.”

“Who wouldn’t let you go where?”

Kalina was asking the question before Ary realized she’d spoken aloud. Her father was just a short distance in front of them, and it wasn’t really her intention to talk about him.

Each time she thought about the respect she’d given Davi Serino and how he’d repaid her for said respect, Ary cringed. She wanted to strike out at something or someone because a father wasn’t supposed to betray his child or his people.