Acceptable Risk (11 page)

Bethany gave a single, tortured scream
throughout all four strikes, and was still screaming as Ranger
released her bound breasts.

Jonathan held her tight and kept her from
thrashing around, but his mumbled string of cuss words let her know
her reactions had translated to his cock buried in her ass and he
was having a hard time remaining in control. He took a few deep
breaths and finally scooted down the bed and positioned her so
Ranger could get to her pussy, and then they fulfilled their
promise and fucked her into oblivion. She lost track of how many
orgasms she had, and when they both finally came, she rolled
sideways off Jonathan and onto the bed, curled in a ball.

Mac spooned behind her, kissing her neck just
below her ear as he said, “Poor baby, they were so rough with you.
Let me make it better.”

She relaxed for him, and before long was on her
back as he soothed and rubbed the rope marks still showing around
the base of her breasts. He was careful to avoid the whip marks,
already turning colors, so she was sure she would,
indeed
,
wear Ranger’s marks for more than a few days.

When Mac climbed between her legs and slid his
cock into her pussy, she moaned and protested, but he said,
“Ssshhh, watching them fuck you was so damned hot. Now it’s time
for you to take what I give you, Cupcake. I know you’re sore, but
you’re just gonna feel every inch of me that much more, right?”

He sank into her with a groan, and Bethany
wrapped her legs around his waist, accepting him into her. He
kissed her neck and worked his way up to her mouth, his lips
spreading hers as he pulled out and pressed back in.

She moaned at the loss of his mouth as he lifted
his head, but then she opened her eyes and was lost in his
gaze.

“Come for me, my beautiful little vixen. I can
tell you’re close, I want to feel you squeezing my cock as you
writhe under me.” He sped up and changed angles, and she was swept
under by the orgasm.

When she slid down from the summit, Bethany
sighed in both relief and disappointment when Mac pulled out, but
then her eyes shot wide open when he pressed into her ass.

She mouthed, “No!” but he only smiled and pushed
in as he said, “So fucking
tight
.”

“Or maybe you’re just too fucking
big
,”
she groused, but Mac only chuckled and picked up speed.

Mac lifted his head and closed his eyes,
pleasure clearly written across his face, and Bethany moved her
legs to give him better access. He leaned forward, kissed her
again, and said, “Sorry, my little vixen, I need to be rough with
you.”

Bethany reached for her clit, but Jonathan’s
hand was suddenly there, working it for her as Mac pounded her ass,
and thirty seconds later Bethany was lost in another screaming
orgasm, followed shortly by Mac growling his way through one.

When Mac sat up, Bethany knew right away
something was wrong. Two seconds later, Mac’s voice snapped, “Get
her out of here.”

Bethany sat up, grabbed his shoulders from
behind, and felt the bones inside shifting and moving.

“Feel my hands, Mac. My hands on your
human
shoulders.” She dug her thumbs into a trigger point
above his shoulder blades and pressed towards his spine in a
straight line, changing direction a few inches from his backbone
and moving towards his neck. “I couldn’t do this if you were a
wolf. Do you want my thumbs to keep working on you? Because I can
only do it if you stay in control.”

The bones stopped moving, his skin stopped
crawling, and Mac took a shuddering breath.

“Well,” said Jonathan. “I’ll be damned. She’s
the Mac whisperer.”

They all gave a relieved laugh, and Bethany
leaned in and kissed the side of Mac’s neck as she kept working his
shoulders and upper back. He turned and took her into his arms,
saying, “I’m good now, you can stop. We’re supposed to be taking
care of you, not the other way around.”

“No apologies,” she ordered. “What
happened?”

He looked towards Ranger and back to her. “I got
too caught up in the smells and it let the wolf get too big of a
foothold.” He kissed her forehead. “The scents you give off when
aroused are intoxicating, but when Ranger layered pain and fear
over the top…” He shook his head. “I’ve smelled true fear and true
pain, and both are a bitter, acrid smell. But yours tonight was
sweet, beautiful, and they all worked together, merging and
layering and…” He chuffed a breath out and shrugged. “It’s like
explaining the difference between red and purple to a blind man. I
couldn’t have understood it before I was turned.”

The four found a way to lie in bed together,
Bethany comfortably draped over them, and they talked for an hour.
She could’ve easily fallen asleep, but didn’t want to lose this
last hour with them before they left.

The final goodbyes were more difficult than they
should’ve been, and both she and Jonathan were quiet as he drove
them back down the mountain.

Snowy was less than pleased to see Jonathan
again, and when he bowed up and turned sideways with a hiss,
Bethany scolded, “Oh, enough of that, you silly cat.”

“Don’t fuss at him. He can smell what I am and I
can smell his fear. It’ll take time for him to trust I won’t eat
him.”

He double-checked the locks, and then went
through the house looking at windows and the other doors. Bethany
watched him a few seconds, and then trudged off to her bedroom,
exhausted. She put a cute pajama outfit on — shorts and a matching
camisole — and climbed into bed, figuring she’d probably be asleep
before Jonathan joined her.

However, she was getting comfortable with her
pillows when he stepped into the room and took his shirt off, and
she quietly threatened her libido to shut the fuck up before he
smelled her arousal and decided to fool around some more. Her pussy
and ass were deliciously sore, but she couldn’t take any more
tonight.

“You asked if you could see my leopard,” he
said, his voice a quiet offer.

She sat up, her weariness forgotten. “Yeah?”

“I won’t hurt you, and I can understand you,
though I can’t talk back,” he told her, and she had a feeling it
would hurt his feelings if he smelled her fear, so she determined
not to be afraid.

His torso moved deliciously as he undressed, and
she tried to admire his beauty without remembering how he looked
above her while taking her, his cock in her ass as his hips pumped
and his ab muscles rippled. His smile told her he smelled her
arousal, but when he was nude he stood still, took a breath… and
morphed into the most beautiful leopard she’d ever seen.

He paced out of the room and back in, his long
whip-like tail alternately curling and swishing.

“Can you jump up on the bed with me? I want to
pet you.”

He was at least ten feet away when she asked,
but he turned and leapt into the air, gracefully landing on her bed
and immediately lying down and rolling to his side.

“You surprised me, you didn’t scare me,
Jonathan,” she told him, aware she probably smelled afraid because
of the shock of seeing a two hundred plus pound cat flying through
the air towards her. He’d been nowhere near landing on her. She was
never in danger.

“Can you come closer, so I can pet you?”

He rolled over and touched her foot with his
paw, and she leaned forward to pet him.

Bethany truly felt no fear as this huge leopard
wallowed on her bed, in heaven as she rubbed his head and scratched
behind his ears. He caught her off guard when he started purring,
as at first it sounded more like the growl of a German Shepherd
than a purr, but she soon realized what it was, and laughed with
joy as she kissed him on top of the head.

“Can I rub your chest?”

He rolled to his back and rubbed the top of his
head on the bed as she stroked and rubbed his huge chest, burrowing
her fingers in his fur. He rolled to his side and she rubbed the
outside of his leg, then up to his shoulder, up his neck and back
to his head.

“How about your tail?”

He swished it in a figure eight, whipping the
bed with it hard enough to make her jump a little, and she asked,
“No? Really? Just a touch?”

His beautiful golden eyes let her know he most
certainly didn’t want her touching his tail, and she decided she
could wait to talk him into it another day. “Okay, I get it. Leave
your tail the fuck alone.”

He nudged her hand as if to say, “
Yeah, but
you can pet my head some more,
” and she laughed as she pet
him.

“You’re beyond beautiful, both as a human and a
leopard,” she told him.

He touched her arm with his paw, squeezing it
between the pads while keeping his nails sheathed, and she turned
the light out and stretched out in the bed, her arm over his
shoulder, her fingers buried in his fur as she absently stroked him
until she fell asleep.

* * * *

Jonathan awoke the next morning, still in his
leopard form, snuggled against Bethany. He smelled Snowy and turned
his head to see the white housecat sitting on the dresser,
glaring.

The fact he’d come into the room meant it might
be easier to befriend him in cat form than in his human skin, so
Jonathan rolled to his back and playfully batted his paws as he
looked at Snowy upside down.

Snowy looked away, more pissed than scared, and
Jonathan knew he’d won the white bundle of attitude over — he’d
been frightened before, but now he was jealous of Jonathan sleeping
in the bed, and no longer terrified.

The leopard wriggled and twisted, offering to
play until the white cat looked back to him, but no way was he
going to jump on the bed and play right now. Still, it was a good
start.

Bethany giggled, and Jonathan rolled to look at
her, gently touching her leg over the cover as a way of saying
good morning
.

“Hello to you, too. Are you trying to get Snowy
to play? I have some catnip around here, will you get goofy if I
give you some?”

He gave her a level stare to let her know he
wasn’t amused, and then took a breath and focused on what his human
body felt like. The cat no longer held on when he wanted to
change
back, and seconds later Jonathan was in his human
skin once again.

He stalked up the bed towards her, still on all
fours, telling her, “If you weren’t so sore I’d show you just how
serious I can be, but I’m guessing you’re in no shape for it right
now.”

Her arms went around his neck as he bent to kiss
her, and he buried his neck in her throat and smelled the feminine,
musky scent of a happy, relaxed, healthy woman. The cat reminded
her she was
his
woman, and Jonathan didn’t argue. Bethany
wasn’t at all freaked out about sleeping with a leopard, or
watching him
change
, and his heart melted a little more for
this strong, brave, sensual, beautiful woman, and he let her feel
it in the kiss. He knew she was skittish and they needed to go slow
with her where feelings and emotions were concerned, but she’d
grown important to both the man and the cat in a few short days,
and it was hard to
not
show how he felt.

When he finally backed away from the kiss, she
glanced at the clock as she stretched under him, and he had to will
his cock not to go insta-hard.

“I don’t have to leave for another hour and a
half, but I was awakened by my two cats apparently flirting with
each other. Or one flirting and the other being pissy, I
guess.”

He chuckled and plopped beside her, still on the
outside of the covers while she was under them. “I wasn’t flirting,
I was offering to play. He was terrified of me in human form
before, but apparently only cautious of me in leopard form. Or,
perhaps merely so pissed off because I took his spot in bed, he
didn’t care whether I ate him or not as long as he got to glare at
me, first.”

She pushed the hair out of his face, and ran her
fingers through it. “So different, and yet the same,” she said,
almost to herself. “My brain wants me to be sure you can play with
Snowy and not hurt him, but my heart knows if you couldn’t, you
wouldn’t have made the offer.”

He kissed her forehead as she stole the rest of
his heart. “Listen to your heart, Raggedy. I won’t hurt you, or
anyone you care about.”

“How could you sleep with me last night, when
Mac can’t?”

“Mac doesn’t know he’s a wolf all the time,
sometimes he forgets and the wolf instincts come through. I slept
with my back to you, on top of the covers, and my claws are
sheathed. Wolves can’t retract their claws, so it’s doubtful even
Ranger would try it, and he has tons of control.”

He glanced at the clock and suggested, “Why
don’t we get up and ready for the day, so I can take you somewhere
nice for breakfast?”

Jonathan and Bethany had a nice couple of days,
but on Wednesday, he got a phone call during dinner and she knew
right away it was bad news.

He stepped onto her back deck to talk, and she
forced herself to keep eating. He’d made a fantastic salmon
brisket, and had given the trimmings to Snowy, who was now
Jonathan’s bestest buddy.

When he came back in, Jonathan closed the door
and leaned against it, his face solemn. “Aaron’s leaving Sophia
alone on their honeymoon a few days to go to Washington and speed
things along with Mac’s debrief. He needs me and a few members of
the team to leave in the next couple of hours, because he won’t
leave Sophia until we’re by her side.”

Bethany’s heart nosedived into her stomach and
she thought she might be sick. “Things must be bad if he’s leaving
his wife alone on their honeymoon.”

“They’re headed towards bad, and Aaron wants to
intervene before it’s beyond his ability to fix.” He took a few
steps toward her, pulled her out of the chair, and wrapped his arms
around her. Bethany wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her or himself
as he said, “Aaron’s good, and he has a lot of contacts in high
places. If anyone can get Mac free from his government obligations,
Aaron can.”