ROMANCE: SHIFTER: Shifter to the Max Collection (Dragon, Bear, Wolf and Panther Shifter Romances) (Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection) (62 page)

              The moon hung full and round in the sky overhead; the city felt so far away here, she could almost forget the concrete jungle outside as her senses took in the luminous silver landscape before her. She could see that the man was still standing on the hill, and her fear for his immediate safety was quickly starting to turn into anger and annoyance.

              Clearly none of the cats were bothering with him. It was strange for them to be so uncurious toward an alien presence in their enclosure; they had a similar disregard for their handlers,
most of the time
, she reminded herself. But she didn’t recognise him as one of the feeders, she’d never seen this man before in her life.

              She thought, with annoyance, that this idiot was likely some yuppie from an upper-class neighbourhood or one of the near-by universities who had thrown back one too many beverages and was now completing a very ill-considered and dangerous dare for his fellow morons over the wall.

              The two female leopards greeted her at the door, their previous animosity forgotten, as Felicia pulled several hunks of meat and began to disperse them onto the ground. The two girls purred and pushed up against her forcefully in a frightening imitation of their more domesticated cousins. Once she had emptied the bucket and assured herself that an adequate distraction was in place, she marched out to the center of the enclosure.  

When she reached the top of the hill, she flung the towel with force at the man. The figure caught it easily, and smirked.

“Cover yourself” Felicia hissed, pushing a strand of red hair agitatedly back behind her ear. Her hands were slick and bloody from her handling the meat, but she was too irritated to care. “Letting it all hang out in this part of the zoo is a
very
bad idea.”

“You’ve got quite the temper, Felicia, I like it.” The man’s voice was as dark and velvet-soft as the night’s sky surrounding them, almost a purr. She froze in stricken silence, before remembering that she still wore her nametag. By the light of the moon it wasn’t such a stretch that he’d been able to read her name.

              “The cops are on their way.” She was lying – she hadn’t even thought to call for backup. There couldn’t be a member of the security team very far from where they were, at least. The uniformed men and women were instructed to patrol the predator enclosures at least twice as often as they were their more docile neighbours.

              He looked at her, still amused. Then his face softened a little, and he did the most unexpected thing – he took Felicia’s hand, and he kissed it.

              Felicia dropped the empty pail, her face burning at the overfamiliarity and strangeness of the gesture, her heart thudding once more in her ears. She was painfully aware that he still hadn’t accepted her offer of the towel; as his warm lips skated across her knuckles, she tried not to notice how unfiltered moonlight highlighted every delicious muscular definition that made up his physique.

Seeing him up close was enough to make her regret coming out into the enclosure alone. The man was easily a head taller than her, with broad shoulders and a tanned, statuesque frame. Definitely from an upper class neighbourhood – who else could afford the time to hone a body like that to complete physical perfection?

He overturned her captured hand with lightening-quick speed, and before Felicia could react she felt a wet, probing warmth flick the crease of her palm. He was licking her hands clean, laving up the juices leftover by the meat. Felicia pulled her hand back, aghast, and trying not to dwell on the strange, primal thrill the action gave her. “You
are
drunk.”

“No.” The amusement in his eyes was gone. His voice sounded sober and serious. She could almost believe him if everything about their current predicament didn’t point directly to intoxication. “I’m completely healed, as you well know. It’s my first day off the tranquilizers.”

Felicia blinked, uncomprehending, as the man turned his face up to the moon. His hair was dark and matted; it hung down in his eyes, obscuring the veracity of their colour, but for a moment she almost thought she could see them glow. “And now,” he continued, “you can see me as I really am. You need to know what I am, Felicia, you above all else.”

Felicia took a startled step back, her wide eyes flickering between the man before her, and the safety of the exit behind her. The man stood, watching her passively as he waited for her to understand.

Felicia hesitated for a moment,
Shadow
. She scanned the landscape for his familiar form, but couldn’t see him anywhere. She looked back at the man, his eyes searching hers, as if willing her to understand something.
Where was Shadow?
Even as she asked the question, her mind screamed that he was standing in front of her – no longer beast, but man.

Felicia began to back slowly down the hill. The man started forward; he took measured, almost stalking paces, and it was the inhuman fluidity in the way he moved that triggered her flight. Felicia ran. She was fast, but not fast enough. Her legs carried her the distance to the door before she felt a pair of hands come down on her and arrest her mid-sprint.

The man spun her around and pushed her back against the enclosure wall. Felicia winced, expecting pain to accompany his forcefulness, but it never came.  He pinned her solidly, and all she felt was the cool concrete of the wall and the long, invasive heat and muscle of his body as he settled himself against her. His hands gripped her wrists above her head, ensuring she wouldn’t be able to use them to aid her escape.

Despite her fear and trembling body, she met his eyes furiously and defiantly. As she did so, she was left awestruck; on the surface his eyes appeared to shine like silver, but beneath the sheen she could see an evanescent gold of a yellow iris.

She knew those eyes. She hadn’t recognised them in his human face, hadn’t
wanted
to, but there was now no denying the evidence that was right in front of her.

“How is this even possible?” She faltered, “how, how can you be a man and a…”

“Beast?” He smiled at her again, but this time it was slightly more gentle. “It’s something I was born into; it flows in my blood. There are many others like me. But…” one of his hands reached forward and lightly circled her throat, “we don’t like being held captive.”

“I’m…sorry,” her apology was whispered and uncertain. Her head was still reeling from the possibility - no, the increasing
likelihood
- that Shadow, who she’d spent weeks spilling her mundane secrets too, stroking, petting and loving, was now pinning her beneath an irrefutably male human body. “I just wanted you to get better…we thought we were helping you.”

“You were…and then you weren’t,” his body pressed perceptively closer, “You drove me crazy Felicia, being that close to you without being able to change. There wasn’t a moment when I didn’t want to take you in my arms, to touch you the way your body begged to be touched. It was sheer agony.”

His handsome face leaned closer into hers, and Felicia felt the crush of his lips against hers. The kiss sent a rush of heat flooding through her, and she found herself melting into him as her body flagrantly disobeyed her head.

He released her other wrist, and her hands fell down to press uncertainly against his collarbone. He interpreted her hesitance as invitation, and his own hand came up to bury his strong fingers into her hair, teasing the fiery red free of its elastic restraint. Her hair cascaded down one shoulder as he pressed her back into the wall, his lips working hers open, the tongue that had already tasted her skin now delving deeply into her mouth.

Felicia moaned, and her inadvertent cue of lust caused his fingers to increase their pressure on her scalp in response. She felt the push of his chest against her own, and was immediately reminded of her wardrobe mishap from earlier; her blouse gaping at the neck, causing more of her cleavage to be on show than she was comfortable with. Their proximity pushed the swell of her breasts up between them, and she thought she could feel another button working itself loose.

His lips left hers with a wet, heady gasp, and he then lowered his mouth to the the base of her neck, just below where he had released her hair; his tongue, lips, the sharp graze of his teeth, alighted on a sensitive spot which threatened to melt Felicia completely. She gasped and clung onto his shoulders, arching herself into him instinctively. She felt something hard and warm stirring between them, and recalled too late that the man wasn’t wearing any clothes.

“Stop,” she gasped. And then, more forcefully, “
stop it!
” The hands on his chest shoved at him roughly, and he pulled away.

His dark and handsome features were drawn together in an expression of confusion and, swimming below the surface, agitated lust and longing. Felicia realized that she had just used the same tone with him that she would have used if one of the cats had been trying to dominate her space.

“Stop?” he repeated incredulously, “why?”

Felicia pushed the hair off her neck, trying to summon some mental capacity back from the pool of desire in the pit of her stomach. It was incredibly difficult with the man before her still naked and rock-hard against her; his intimidating lack of self-consciousness about his state was making her grasp for reason and logic in regards to her situation difficult.

“Yes, stop it. I’m not…I’m not going to be
seduced
by a stranger, a shape shifter or whatever you are, inside the enclosure where I
work
.”

“I’m no stranger, Felicia,” he all but purred, “and I’m many things, but I am also just a man, and I want you. I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you, standing over my broken body, tears in your eyes.”

He dipped his head to return to kissing her neck once more, but Felicia thrust him away with finality while she still had the capability to do so. Being seduced against a wall by a gorgeous man was an overwhelming, tempting offer, but she knew she couldn’t - she felt strangely betrayed by the panther she’d loved so much becoming a man. As nonsensical as it was, Felicia felt like she’d lost Shadow, and now a stranger was in his place, and she wasn’t sure yet how she felt about that.

“I’m probably going to regret saying this, but,” Felicia sucked in a breath and stared hard at him, “I think you should come home with me. We run the risk of being seen out here, and I could lose my job.” She groaned and put her head in her hands, “How are we going to explain this to the media? We’ve been promoting your reveal constantly all week – how on earth are we going to cover up the fact that you’re gone?!” Her head started spinning wildly.

“Felicia, you know I can’t stay here.” His hand’s squeezed her shoulders tenderly, and she nodded:
of course he couldn’t.
It wasn’t an option.

She just wasn’t sure she was liking the
other
option.

Felicia finally convinced him to wrap the towel around his waist. It was far too small, and hung off his hips lewdly, but there was nothing more to be done about it until they got back to her apartment. Felicia guided him through the back entrance of the enclosure and took him to her car.

They drove through the dark city in silence.

              At the sight of the other female, Shelia had ducked down behind the wall of the enclosure, yanking Derek down with her. It was too risky acting now, with an audience.

              She had watched as Caleb’s naked form had stood in all its glory at the top of the hill, almost celestial in his beauty. She should have acted then, but she’d felt the arrows of a bitter hate rip through her heart as he had embraced the redhead woman, as if his very life had depended on it. The ripe acid of jealously permeated her mouth.

The one night that she’d had the pleasure of Caleb’s lips, body, and skilled hands on her had been one where he had been distracted, ambivalent; he had left as soon as they’d finished and went to have a shower, washing their shared night of passion from his body. The way he had behaved with that red-headed woman was vastly different. As if she were his oxygen.

              Shelia and Derek stealthy followed the pair to the car, keeping their distance. As the motor started, Sheila changed into her panther form and tracked them through the city. With every pace, with every breath she took, every pant she exhaled, she vowed revenge on Caleb and his harlot.

              Back at her apartment, the man shed the towel and roamed her small living space as Felicia made herself busy in the kitchen. When a glance over her shoulder in his direction revealed that he was naked once more, and under much more revealing lighting, Felicia quickly crossed from the stovetop to the refrigerator and pulled the door open. She removed a bottle of white wine and hurriedly uncorked it. She raised the bottle to her lips without giving a thought to procuring a glass. 

                “What’s you name? I – I keep wanting to call you Shadow, but you’re not…him, are you?” Her enquiry was tentative; she was half reluctant to hear the answer.

              “Caleb. Caleb Hunter,” he responded with a smirk. Felicia nodded in response, not returning his smile. The next moment his eyebrows shot up as he caught sight of a piece of paper on the kitchen table. “You
drew
me?”

              Felicia flushed with embarrassment, she’d realized too late what he was looking at, and wanted to walk over and rip the picture out of his hands. She took another sip of wine. “Yes. Yes, I did. You’re…I mean, you
were
…special to me,” she admitted clumsily. “You know that, I almost got mauled by the felines in your enclosure trying to spend time with you. I was so…unprofessional,” she finished, awkwardly. Her eyes fell on him across the room, and he met her gaze levelly. She quickly turned away again, grabbing the wine bottle from the counter and taking another gulp.  

              “I was really starting to become fond of you,” she continued, breaking the tense silence. She could feel the sting of the wine on her lips and taste its nectar on her tongue – it burned through her veins slowly, sensuously, but it was nothing compared to the affect of his kisses earlier. “You made it so easy. I knew you were different from the others: intelligent, self-possessed, sentient – you were so beautiful to me…”

              She didn’t finish the sentence before she felt a pair of hands alight on her shoulders. She’d not heard him approach, he moved soundlessly as if he were still in cat form.

              “And now?” Caleb’s hot breath caressed her ear. Her hand moved upwards, up the front of her still half-open shirt to hesitantly touch his.

              “I don’t know you. I want to get to know you,” she said with sudden conviction. “I want to know everything about you – you’re more fascinating that I ever could have imagined, I - ”

              Caleb turned her in his arms and swept her mouth up sweetly in his. This time, Felicia didn’t deliberate about what she wanted. Their entire evening together up until this point had been something out of a dream; didn’t she owe it to herself to see it through to its conclusion?

              Yearning hit her, and she let her body and mind submit to its desires. She wove her arms around his neck, feeling the taught muscle of his shoulders, the softness of his hair. The broad palms of his hands slid slowly down the curves of her waist, skating across her rib cage before settling on her hips. He kissed her in fleeting dips this time, making her pursue him, his body urging hers to press and strain desperately against him in a bid for more.

              She felt that she was in the arms of a skilled lover, the most ardent she’d ever known – his obvious lust and his pure animal instinct made her feel entirely base and wanton against him.

              Caleb pulled away from her eventually with a small gasp; both of them were panting, and his compelling eyes were drawn downward by the rapid rise and fall of her chest. He raised a hand from her waist to hook a finger into the front of her blouse and unfasten the next button. Felicia trembled with anticipation beneath him; she felt the gentle stoke of his fingertip along her cleavage, and felt it equally when the button at last gave way, exposing the black curve of her bra. He unbuttoned the next in line, and then the next, slowly and leisurely, until her shirt hung open between them. Then he ducked and kissed the exposed hill of her breast.

              Felicia moaned softly and arched against him. This was
not
what she’d had intended to happen when she’d invited the shifter back to her place. She had meant to feed him, clothe him and send him back into the world…
not
to let herself be provocatively undressed and slowly ravished by him.

              She could tell by his careful treatment of the proceedings that he had been thinking about this for a very long time. If only she had known the intentions of the majestic predator she had spent so much time with, she might have stood a chance of resisting his advances – now she could do nothing but give herself over to the promise of illicit pleasure his lips spoke against her skin.

              “Spend one night with me” he murmured into her cleavage, as he kissed down the dip between her breasts. Felicia found she could formulate no proper response; all she could do was nod once, yes, and Caleb slid her shirt off her shoulders.

              Caleb yanked her against his scalding hot body, pulling one of her legs up to straddle his hip. Felicia tipped her head back as he put an end to his teasing nips and kissed her as forcefully as he had in the enclosure. His tongue swept her mouth hungrily, and she met his desires with her own; she swallowed his groan when she tugged Caleb’s lower lip between her teeth. 

              “My bedroom,” she managed to gasp out once they had broken apart for air. Caleb lifted her against him until she had both feet off the floor, her legs wrapped around his hips as she straddled his growing erection. Her apartment was small enough that he was able to navigate the two of them into the back bedroom easily, without having ever been there before; he did an admirable job considering Felicia never stopped kissing him long enough to allow him to glance up properly.