Predator (7 page)

“Would you still be here if I had?”

He was right, damn it. The moment he’d shaken her hand and started in about how some four-legged beast had shown him what a handful of evil people were or had been doing, she would have thrown her “good-bye” over her shoulder as she hotfooted it away from a madman. The way he’d worked things out, leaving had become the last thing she could—or wanted—to do.

What was she doing nestling against him? Being turned on had gotten her in over her head. If she had the sense she’d been born with, she’d be demanding back her clothes and freedom. Once she had those essential trappings in place, she’d ask for proof of what he and Cougar Spirit had explored. Then she and Stark would formulate a plan, call in the authorities, watch the wheels of justice turn.

Only those wheels didn’t always turn.

Sometimes the bad guys won.

Chapter Seven

Stark’s arms provided a sensual cocoon for her to bury herself in. His strength reminded her of the differences between man and woman, and his cock pressing against her buttocks… How could she even think of moving from that firm and undeniable contact? He might have freed her legs, but she was still his prisoner, and she wasn’t sure she wanted it any other way.

How could being surrounded by a virtual stranger feel so good, so right? All right, so
good
didn’t scratch the surface. It was his fault—and hers for sleeping alone for so long. It was also a matter of having met a man unlike any she ever known before, one who believed in something he called Cougar Spirit. He’d made the decision to put mountains, valleys, creeks and lakes ahead of his own needs and desires.

He’s asking you to embrace his beliefs and values. To embrace a predator’s idea of justice.

To turn your back on your life.

Can you?

“A question.” She had to force the words and fight the press of his skin against hers. “If you saw that poacher right now, what would you do?”

Maybe she should have anticipated his silence. Perhaps she should have anticipated he would try to draw her even further into his world, values, and beliefs, but none of those things would have prepared her for a thumb on her right nipple or a callused palm covering her left.

“I’m not looking for a poacher,” he muttered, his breath sliding through the hair on the top of her head. “I’m holding you.”

Melting me’s more like it
. “I know you are.”

“And you’re letting me.”

“You think I could push you away? My hands are still tied.”

“Do you want me to free you?”

Free, she’d have back her life and body and thoughts. Free, she’d have to make the decision whether to stay or leave. “No, not yet.”

He muttered and against all reason, she rested the back of her head on his chest. His erection pressed against her buttocks. “When I first saw you—Cougar had guided me to you—I nearly went crazy trying to decide how to approach you, or if I should. Then—I’m not sure I should be telling you this.”

Even with the heated current caused by his hands making her breasts and more throb, she nodded. “Stark, we’ve already shared more than most people do in a lifetime.”

His mouth touched the top of her head. “In essence, I asked Cougar what he’d do if he was me. His response was to—it was as if I was floating above him as he approached a female cougar.”

“Was she in heat?”

“What?”

She took a deep breath, not because she needed to, but expanding her lungs increased the contact between them. How bold he was with her body, as if he had every right to it. And how easy allowing him to do so was. “I’ve seen cougars mating, if that’s what you’re about to tell me.”

“It is.” That said, he flattened his palms over her nipples, claiming her.

Something about his possessive touch took her both into and beyond herself. Awash in sensation, she mentally
traveled
to where Stark and Cougar had been. She
heard
the savage, unearthly scream of a male cougar closing in on a receptive female. Instead of trying to flee a predator weighing as much as twice what she did, the female stopped and turned toward her pursuer. Her primal scream matched his as he slipped closer. At the last moment, she sprang and whirled away with him in hot and noisy pursuit. Seconds later, he overtook and pounced on top of her, stopping her. Squawking in what sounded like fury and fear mixed together, she bit and clawed, but the male easily drove her to the ground. Captured her.

Once she was trapped beneath him, she stopped fighting and twisted her heavy tail to the side, allowing the male to power his cock into her. Her expression became one of acceptance and pleasure. Even when he bit into the back of her neck, she only dug her claws into the earth. Her cries became a loud purr.

That’s what Stark had intended to do to her. He’d run her down—or in this case tied her up—and then was going to use his body and sexuality to tame her.

“It’s a savage act,” she finally thought to say. If she wanted, she could duck her head and sink her teeth into the backs of Stark’s hands. Even as she rejected the notion, she wondered what it would feel like to scream and bite and claw while his cock claimed her. “One designed for animals, not humans.”

“But what’s happening to the forest is the work of animals, albeit two-legged, but animals just the same. Beasts.”

She couldn’t deny that any more than she could deny feeling as if she were expanding and opening up. Stark was everywhere, over and around and on her. Dangerous as it was, she loved feeling as if she belonged to him. Granted, a small voice warned that sex between them was only the beginning of something that would fundamentally change her, but how could she be expected to think beyond that point?

She needed to suck Stark into her core. He could throw her to the ground and mount her as Cougar had to his mate, and she’d let him. Hell, given the way she was feeling, she’d beg him to
force
himself on her!

Was that what she wanted, she pondered when he closed an arm over her breasts and clasped her against him. His now-free hand trailed over her midsection, inching lower, softening and loosening her.

Why not? Damn it, why not? The human rules she’d always lived by didn’t exist here. Cougar Spirit was in charge, and she desperately needed to open herself up to the creature’s messages.

His gifts.

She’d face the consequences later.

A sound reminiscent of a contented hum slipped from her lips as she spread her legs and lifted her buttocks off the ground. A deep answering rumble began in Stark’s chest. Then silence descended.

Unable to maintain her position, she sat again, but kept her legs open. As she knew he would, he answered her call. Down, down, down his fingers slid, slipping over and then past her mons,
kissing
her labial lips, barely touching her entrance, stopping and resting there.

She couldn’t rest, couldn’t think, couldn’t remain still! Fighting down a hungry cry, she tilted her pelvis toward him. At the same time, she raked her teeth over the arm imprisoning her breasts.

Muttering something that wasn’t words, he released her breasts only to grasp her chin and force her head back. “Don’t move,” he warned. “I’m doing everything.”

When was it going to be her turn?

Even more important, did she want any kind of responsibility?

Something, tension probably, slipped out of her to leave her even looser and receptive beyond words. Her existence began and ended on this small piece of land, its boundaries defined by her captor, her mate.

He’d run her down, overpowered her, and was now playing with her. She loved the game, loved being the center of his world and having his attention fully on her. To be a naked and receptive animal.

To live in the moment.

Even as she began rubbing her ass against his erection, she acknowledged the otherworldly quality of her thoughts. His fingers might be dipping into her so he could collect the gift of her fluids and then bathe her cunt with them, but some part of his mind must be on Cougar Spirit, while yet more brain cells were engaged in processing what needed to be done in order to stop the assault on the wilderness. And even if his brain wasn’t heeding the grinding pressure on his cock, other parts of his anatomy had to be.

The hand that had been on her chin slid lower to cover her collarbone. Hoping he was about to claim her breasts again, she leaned back. As she did, he pressed down until her back and trapped arms rested on his left thigh. He kept after her until her head hung nearly to the ground. Not content with his total mastery, he looped his boots under her feet and spread her legs wide by pushing against the insides of her ankles. Splayed like this, she couldn’t lift her legs enough to free her feet.

Curling his body over hers made it easy for him to work her pussy with both hands. Acknowledging his strength and control left her unnerved; it would be insanely easy for him to do any and everything he wanted. But the tiny voice of caution barely registered. How could it when she needed this. Needed this!

How gentle and yet masterfully he spread her sex lips. Even as her cunt beat and pulsed, a part of her floated. Her mind’s eye watched as he opened her to the mountain breeze. Her wet, red pussy gaped, its mysteries exposed. A masculine finger slid into the cave he’d uncovered. She trembled, shivered, whimpered. Even with blood rushing anew to her head, there seemed to be no end to the inner fire heating her pussy.

She’d been invaded and claimed, taking and receiving pleasure. He’d turned her clit into a hotbed of need and restlessness, and even as it screamed its silent savage scream, she embraced its hunger. She needed to climax! Needed. To. Climax! At the same time, she half believed she could dance at the edge of release until the moon watched from the heavens. Relishing the growling, impatient hunger, she wrapped herself around it until little else mattered.

There he was, taking up her space and turning her into his pet, his plaything, his soon-to-be mate. He’d taken her down, down to that dark and fevered place. Everything was physical now with hard-as-hell nipples and breasts that felt as if they might explode. She didn’t think. She existed. Felt everything.

Him again, or was it still? That potent finger sliding in and out, work-rough fingers slick with her juices, reaching deeper and deeper, triggering nerve endings that lived for the weight and heat and length of an engorged cock. And, yet, his finger wasn’t enough! Wouldn’t take her far enough!

“Please, please, please.” Swallowing was nearly impossible.

“What do you want, Mia? Tell me, what is it you’re begging for?”

“You!” Pussy muscles clamped down, then further yet, trying to trap him inside her. “I need you!”

“This?” He curved his finger, gliding his short nail over the swollen and sensitive sides of her pussy. “Is that what you need?”

“Not enough, damn you! Not enough!” Alarmed by the desperation in her voice, she struggled to sit up.

“No!” He punctuated his command by pressing his elbow against her midsection. “Not until you understand.”

“What? That you’re stronger than me?” She tried to bite, but missed his arm. “I get it, all right! Does that make you feel superior? Does it?”

“That’s not what I’m about.” His voice turned low and seductive. And now two fingers rested inside her, taking her closer to that wonderful and overwhelming edge. “This is about us becoming one.”

“Not this way!”
Stop sounding so desperate!
“It’s not enough, damn it! Not enough.”

“Show me, then,” he muttered as his fingers began moving, claiming. “How do you propose we turn us into one?”

One? Promise or threat?

Despite the incredible distraction, she reached deep inside herself for what remained of her sanity. Sweat slicked her neck and chest, the small of her back and behind her knees. “Let me up. Please.”

Instead of heeding her plea, he worked her, fingers gliding faster and faster, pushing her up the mountain again.

“Please! Please please please,” she chanted. The voice belonged to someone she’d never been, a famished and burning bitch in heat. Someone frightened. “It’s your turn! I want—need to bring you to—to where I am.”

He wanted to keep things the way they were. She sensed the male predator in him, the primitive possessor of females. Saying nothing, no longer breathing, he bent the leg she was resting on until she was able to sit up. Doing so sucked his fingers out of her. Her pussy cried at the loss. Leaning forward, she waited until her head stopped pounding.

Waiting for a measure of clarity and strength to return seemed to take forever, but bit by bit she decided what she would do. What she had to. Keeping her features impassive and her pussy muscles clenched, she pushed away from Stark and got to her knees.

“You’re afraid,” she told him, her voice a whisper. She looked around for the cougar. Nothing. He’d left them to work this out without him. For her to face herself. “As long as you physically control me, you believe that’s all you need to do, but what happens once I’m free?”

His slow blink robbed her of his incredible eyes. “Maybe I’ll keep you with me forever.”

“No, you won’t. But look at what exists between us.” Despite the hunger gnawing at her inner thighs, she refused to be distracted. “I’m naked.” A shrug served to dismiss the bra and shirt bunched around her restrained arms. “Unable to touch you while you can do whatever you want to me.”

“If I was doing what I truly want, you’d be under me.”

Under me. Spread for me. Oh God!
“Then do it. Turn into a cougar and drive me to the ground. Spread my legs and fuck me.” An image of a hard and raw sex act dried her throat and soaked her pussy. “I sure as hell can’t stop you.” Glaring at him, she turned so he could see her roped hands. “You’ve told me some nonsense about needing me to help confront those who are endangering this mountain, but that’s not it.”

“It isn’t?”

“No! That’s your excuse for doing what you have. You’ve been out here so long that you’ve more than become antisocial. You’ve turned into an animal. And now you’re trying to do the same to me.”

Something washed over his features, dark layers of emotion she couldn’t penetrate. She wasn’t afraid of him so much as overwhelmed. When he stood, the size difference slammed into her along with the inescapable proof of his greater bulk and strength. Just the same, her body had only one reaction: she wanted him. Needed him. As for her mind—