Predator (9 page)

No, she amended as he forced an arm under her shoulders and lifted her off the ground. She was no damsel or helpless and hapless bitch. He’d freed her, shaken off the shackles of civilization.

She stared up at the sky and treetops, her world a kaleidoscope of blue and green and dancing branches with a solitary hawk and beyond the drifting predator a jet trail.

So far away. Part of a foreign world
.

Just as she reached the edge, his body-jarring thrusts slowed to long, sleek glides. His cock caressing her cunt walls put her in mind of a sightless man exploring his world with his fingertips. The gentle strokes kept her just below the brink and made it possible for her to concentrate on each touch, every embrace. Gripping his upper arms, she closed her eyes, her mind holding on to the colors and dancing branches, the watching hawk.

Cougar Spirit too was watching. She felt the predator’s steady gaze on every inch of her, his impact blending with Stark’s and becoming one.

No fear now, not even question. She accepted that Cougar Spirit had somehow blended and united with Stark.

Stark again nibbled at her breasts, again laid a wet trail between them. She realized he was marking her, giving himself in the pure and uninhibited way of an animal. And because she was his mate today, she clung to him and tightened her pussy muscles until his cock stilled.

“What—are you doing?” he demanded.

“We’re equals.” The words closed around her. “For right now, we are,” she tried to amend. “This—all I want is to fuck. Just fuck.”

“Then let me do my job.”

Forcing herself to relax, she concentrated on the press of skin against skin. He loomed over her, his weight holding her to the ground. Her teeth and nails might stop him, but if he was as primitive as she sensed, aggression on her part would only trigger the same from him.

There, his cock once more challenging her, moving free and full. Although she loved the sweat and smell and hunger of sex, her most violent climaxes had come from clit stimulation. She hadn’t had that many partners and only two had truly gotten it. As for why she hadn’t said anything to Stark—

Because you’re afraid you’ll never be able to put yourself back together
.

Casting off dangerous thoughts of what it would feel like to have his tongue and teeth and fingers controlling her over-the-top sensitive nub, she turned her head to the side and stared up at the sky. She was trying to make it come into focus when he nibbled the side of her neck.

Explosion! Not a climax, but an unraveling of her senses.

“Stop! Oh God, I can’t—stop.”

Instead of ceasing his attack, he closed his mouth around tendon and vein. Heat from his expelled breath bloomed from ear to shoulder.

“Oh God, God!”

Holding on much as a lion or tiger might control its prey, he continued. In her mind, she saw his toes pressing against the ground as he drove himself into her. No matter that she was in over her head, she clasped his arms with all her strength. Her heels pressed against his ass, and sweat sealed them together.

She’d become animal, as wild as he was, knowing nothing beyond need. She writhed under him. Everything in her became movement and action, energy firing throughout her. By turn she clung to his arms, pulled his head down against her breasts, or dug her fingertips into his buttocks. By arching to the side, she managed to bury a thumb in his crack. Once there she prodded and teased and laughed when he tried to pull away.

“Get back here,” she commanded, slapping his buttocks with her free hand. “Take your punishment.”

“Doesn’t—damnation—doesn’t feel like punishment.”

He’d released her throat so he could speak, and instead of reclaiming his predator hold, he closed in on her left breast. Sucking her nipple into his wet mouth, he lifted his head a little, bringing her breast up with him.

The drawing sensation, ah, hell, it sent her off into a new direction. Everything was happening at once, his cock claiming and pounding, his body imprisoning hers, mouth taking ownership of her breast, one arm again bracing his upper body while the other slid under her back and once more lifted her off the ground. Her thumb slipped out of the home she’d found for it; she let her head dangle.

Too far gone. Incapable of meeting him strength for strength after all. Floating and flailing in his grip. Sensation sparking from her captured breast and throughout her invaded pussy, the flame-shards meeting in her belly and womb.

I’m coming
.

Raw female cries exploded as the first wave slammed into her. “Help me!” she sobbed. “Oh, shit, help—damn! Oh, damn!”

Other sounds, rough and wild and uncontrolled, accompanied by his wet heat deep inside said his own climax had hit him. He’d become all male animal and as such utterly vulnerable, but she was too far gone to do more than scratch his shoulder.

Heat. Again and again. Waves of fire tearing at her sanity and making her cry out. She was as lost and vulnerable as he was, afraid of her body’s relentless power and yet diving deep and free into wild pleasure. Familiarity with the ways of her climaxes did her no good. They’d never before gone on and on until she believed she’d break apart.

Her clit, throbbing, fired and firing. Short-circuiting over and over again. Shaking her as a cat shakes a mouse.
Help me!
she wanted to beg. At the same time, nothing had ever felt this good.

“Ah, ah, ah-ah.” She whispered because her strength was spent. At the same time she clung to the powerful beast who’d ripped her apart and was the only creature who could put her back together again.

His cock jerked inside her, the movements slowly quieting as if it were dying, and she sensed he felt as overwhelmed as she did. Wave after wave rocked her. They rolled together so she couldn’t tell when one ended and another began or if there was a distinction between them, but the intensity was lessening. She filled her lungs to ease her lightheadedness.

His weight pushed down and around her, pinning her beneath him. Even when his climax had spent itself and there was nothing left of him except sweat and exhaustion, his strength still rolled over her.

He had her in every way a man could possibly have a woman. In the ways of a savage beast ruled by primitive urges.

And that was why her own climax—or was it a multitude of climaxes—continued to live.

Too much! More than he’d expected
.

Eyes shut against the world, Stark struggled to silence his thoughts. The fault was his, his and his damnable obsession. Cougar Spirit had brought him so deep into the creature’s world that he’d all but forgotten anything else existed.

He’d committed himself to safeguarding the mountain even if it meant risking his life. What he hadn’t comprehended, what maybe he’d refused to acknowledge, was that others might not embrace the same goals.

The moment he’d seen
her
, he’d wanted her body and mind, her voice and smile. The clawing need had blinded him to everything else, and he’d let himself believe she’d embrace his quest. Be his mate.

Now the darkness was lifting, forcing him to acknowledge that she was more than a soft body and feminine voice. She was much more than the being Cougar Spirit had led him to. No matter what he did, he couldn’t touch Mia’s mind or heart or soul, and without those things, she’d never be the companion he’d sought.

Let her go. Take her back to her world.

No! I won’t be alone, I won’t!

Chapter Nine

Cougar Spirit stood where Mia had spotted him when she and Stark were having sex. As far as she knew, the magnificent creature hadn’t moved the whole time.

Stark had rolled off her, but his arm was thrown over her breasts, and his leg lay over hers, continuing to hold her down. Every inch of his flesh was sweat-caked; his long hair clung to his forehead and cheeks. Although something that might be panic kept clawing at her senses, she refused to let it overwhelm her. He was watching her intently, undoubtedly recording her every move and expression.

But what was he thinking?

One spring morning, she’d happened upon a coyote as it silently circled a crippled rabbit. Instead of pouncing on the hapless creature and killing it, the coyote had studied its prey much as Stark was studying her. Man and predator had the same look in their eyes, a simple statement of power and strength. The coyote had wanted the rabbit to know its life would end when and how the coyote determined. Stark needed her to acknowledge that her future was under his control and command.

“You aren’t going to let me go, are you?” She didn’t move.

“Cougar Mountain needs you.”

So it wasn’t just because Stark wanted her as his mate. A force larger than both of them held the ultimate trump card.

“You aren’t enough?” she asked. “You can’t protect and defend this mountain without my help?”

“I don’t want to do it alone. Cougar Spirit doesn’t want that for me, either.”

There it was, a simple statement that marked the direction her life would take if she turned everything over to something she barely comprehended. She could tell Stark that just because he’d accepted the mountain’s challenge didn’t mean she was willing to throw away her future for something she’d known nothing about until a few hours ago.

But Stark’s seed was still in her, his teeth had reddened her breasts, her fingernails had marked his shoulder, and she was alive! Thinking.

“Let me up.”

“Don’t run.”

“Because you’ll stop me?”

After a long and powerful gaze, he rolled onto his side, but the better part of a minute passed before she forced her legs under her. Once on her feet, she stared down at the naked man who’d tied her up and made her beg him to fuck her. His muscles crouched just beneath the surface, and although his cock was at rest, it would soon want her again.

His cock had assumed ownership of her. It promised nothing but so much pleasure she wasn’t sure she’d survive her next climax.

Did Stark want more from her than to spend the rest of her life on Cougar Mountain?

Did he know?

Shutting down the question, she focused on the unblinking four-legged beast above them.

There’s no compromise to you, is there?
she silently asked Cougar Spirit.
All or nothing. Either I bend my will to what you want, or what, you’ll kill me?

Not want, need
.

She nearly challenged Cougar Spirit to explain further, but her spent and trembling body had started to sing. Mountain air and heat flowed over her flesh to remind her of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of days she’d spent in the wilderness. The finest silk couldn’t match this sensation.

And yet this moment was about more than air and heat because Cougar Mountain was home to deer and elk, trees and creeks, all of them vulnerable to man’s senseless and sometimes cruel attack.

Walking barefoot over forest debris had already become as easy as standing on plush carpet. With each step she felt stronger, renewed, her sex-wounded body humming and alive. She loved her nudity, tangled hair and aching breasts. Her body remembered the feel of Stark’s flesh against it. Most of all, her core comprehended.

“You believe you’ve done it, don’t you?” she asked when she and Cougar Spirit stood inches apart. “Taken control of me.”

I need you. And him
.

Not trusting herself to look back at Stark, she focused on the animal. “I know what you’re capable of. You’re the most powerful animal in the forest, top of the food chain.”

Not me, man is
.

Much as she hated hearing that, he was right. A well-placed bullet would end any predator’s life. Cougar Spirit might be immune to man’s weapons, but not deer and elk, bear and eagle. Only man—and woman—could hope to defend them.

“I have a career just as Stark once did.”

I know
.

“But you got him to turn his back on that and everything else that was once his life.”

Yes
.

This time she lacked the strength to battle her need to look at Stark. He’d stood up but had made no move toward her, the distance between them letting her know he understood her need for time alone with Cougar Spirit. Just the same, she took note of how the wilderness surrounded and embraced Stark. He’d told her a little about his existence before coming to Cougar Mountain, the job he’d been questioning, the lack of a meaningful personal life. Still, leaving the familiar must have been hard.

But he’d done so because he’d heard Cougar Spirit’s plea through every fiber of his being. The mountain and the creatures who called it home had become more important to him than his own life.

“I can’t just stay here,” she told Cougar Spirit. “If I do, people will come looking for me.”

I know
.

What had Stark done, she wondered. Had he turned in his resignation, told his landlord he wasn’t coming back, sold his possessions? Could she do the same?

Stark
.

Beyond tears, she retraced her steps but stopped when she was still out of Stark’s reach. “You made incredible sacrifices,” she told him.

“I didn’t see it that way; I still don’t.”

In other words, his commitment would remain steadfast whether or not she willingly joined him.

“I
saw
one poacher today, but there are more, aren’t there?”

“And timber thieves. And those who leave campfires burning. And others who tear up the ground with their machinery and vehicles.”

“Cougar Mountain isn’t the only place that happens.”

“I have to start somewhere.”

“Violence isn’t the only option.”

Not a sound, not a movement, simply the sense that his entire being was focused on her. She hadn’t simply given fantasy free rein when she likened Stark to Cougar Spirit. Whether the otherworldly being was responsible or Stark had already carried the essence of what he’d become in him didn’t matter. The end result was that he was part of this forest.

“You said—you told me that there isn’t the necessary manpower to go after poachers.”

“Yes.”

“Because poaching is an attack on one animal at a time. But what if what’s under attack is an entire stand of trees?” Forcing herself, she glanced at Cougar Spirit. “I have some idea what those operations are like. It takes a number of men, heavy equipment, time, and noise.”