The Shadows of Night (9 page)

The lust won.

“It appears we’ll be sleeping together,” he said.

At Hart’s words, a startling eddy of lust swirled through Katara’s veins. Being enclosed with this extremely attractive man excited her on a primitive, visceral level.
 
She’d been aware of her own arousal since the door had closed behind them.
 

The thought of sleeping on that narrow cot with him, her naked body pressed up against his muscled chest, sent heat slicing through her like a striking fang.

She reminded herself firmly that he was an Antler, and thus beneath her.
 
“Perhaps I will sleep outside after all,” she said.

“No. We stay together.”

“Then I will be happy to sleep on the floor,” she answered, tamping down the heat in her veins as best she could.

She could tell by the dark glow in his eyes that she hadn’t been entirely successful.
 
Doubtless he could scent her arousal, even from across the small room.
 
“Don’t be absurd,” he said curtly.
 
“I’ll sleep on the floor.
 
You can have the cot.”

“I am not one of your fragile does.
 
I don’t need protection or chivalrous behavior.
 
Chivalry is not an idea my people value.”

“Fine,” he said between his teeth.
 
“If you prefer to sleep in the
dirt, that
is perfectly all right with me.”

Having won an argument she wasn’t certain she wished to win, Katara looked dubiously at the floor.
 
In human form, her people generally slept on a crude mattress of skin stuffed with leaves.
 
The hard dirt floor looked uncomfortable.
 
She decided she’d shift to her animal form, assuming that she could.
 
It was impossible to change to animal form when one was in a state of sexual arousal, and there was no denying that she was.

Closing her eyes, she tried to calm herself so that she could shift.

“No,” Hart said instantly, divining her intent.
 
“I will not be able to sleep if you shift to your leopard form.”

“Afraid?”

“Cautious.”

She lifted an eyebrow.
 
“I could wait till you fell asleep and then make a meal of you, Antler.”

“Believe
me,
such an idea has already occurred to me.
 
Perhaps I should have brought the collar along, rather than leaving it on the forest floor.
 
But we made a pact, Claw.
 
Will you not abide by it?
 
Did you not tell me your people believe in honor?”

“We also believe in dinner.”
 
At his scowl, she smiled a bit.
 
“I am only jesting.
 
I will abide by my word.”

“I can only hope your sense of honor is better than your sense of humor,” he grumbled.
 
He headed for the cot and sat down on the edge, looking up at her.
 
It creaked under his weight.
 
“If you truly prefer to bed down in the dirt, be my guest.”

She looked down at him for a long moment.
 
Stark naked, hair falling around his massive shoulders, he was nearly irresistible.
 
She’d never had a need to resist an attractive man—her people mated almost as freely as they hunted—and the heat curling in her belly was difficult to ignore.
 

She reminded herself of all the reasons she shouldn’t lust after the man.
 
He was a leaf-eater.
 
An enemy.
 
A man without claws.

He was also courageous and strong, and much more of a man than she’d expected.

Her kind didn’t spend a great deal of time on decisions—thinking too long about a decision meant giving dinner a chance to escape.
 
She made up her mind with the quickness of a predator.

She stalked toward him, swaggering a bit and rolling her hips.

“I suggest we share the
cot
,” she said in a sultry voice.

His eyes went darker than before.
 
“I don’t think that is a wise plan.”

“Perhaps it isn’t wise.
 
But it is an appealing thought, isn’t it?”

“
Appealing
isn’t the word for it,” he responded, running his hungry gaze over her body.
 
His gaze burned everywhere it touched.

She walked forward, dropped a hand, and let her finger trail over the strongly etched sinews of his shoulder, admiring the solid bulge of muscle and bone.
 
At the light brush of her hand, a shudder ran through him.

“We can’t be intimate,” he said, his voice low and husky.
 
“You are not a doe.”

“No.
 
I’m not.
 
And that excites you, doesn’t it?”

His eyes regarded her thoughtfully.
 
She could see lust and a touch of fear tangled together in his gaze.
 
“I should be revolted by the thought of having sex with you.”

She dropped onto his lap, her legs straddling his, and pushed him over backward.

“You’re not revolted,” she whispered.
 
“Don’t even try to pretend that you are.”

Between her thighs, she could feel the proof of her statement, hot and hard.
 
He wasn’t revolted by her… and she wasn’t revolted by him, either.
 
She could feel her own moisture on her thighs, could feel an aching need, a longing, deep within her body.

She reached for his wrists, pinned them to the mattress, and lifted her hips slightly, so that her hot moisture stroked lightly against his cock.
 

“Your does don’t make love like this, do they?” she purred.

“No.”
 
In one smooth move, he wrenched his arms free and rolled over, pinning her beneath him.
 
His big hands wrapped around her wrists, holding them fast.
 
The corners of his mouth curved up as he flashed a wicked smile.

“They make love like this,” he said softly.

*****

Hart was amused to see Katara’s green-gold eyes glittering with mingled lust and anger.
 
Evidently the lewd stories he’d heard whispered in the taverns were true.
 
Claw women liked to be on top.
 
Dominant.

He wanted to show her the benefits of submission.

Bending his head, he took her lips with his.

She stiffened beneath him, and her lips didn’t yield.
 
He reminded himself that she seemed to prefer to dominate, to control men sexually.
 
Perhaps
she was shocked by his domineering attitude.
 
He’d have to seduce her.

He backed off a bit, brushed her lips with his own in a softly persuasive caress.
 
He persisted, stroking, kissing gently, till her arms wrapped around his neck and she responded, kissing him back eagerly, hungrily, her tongue delving between his lips and seeking his own.

Sweat broke out on his skin, as if he’d just run ten miles in the hot season.
 
Heat grew between their bodies, and his erection swelled, throbbing with a relentless need he’d never felt before.
 
He thrust his tongue into her mouth in a hungry, forceful motion that mirrored what he ached to do with his body.

In a sudden movement, she rolled over and pinned him like the predator she was.

An unwelcome memory pierced the pleasant cloud of lust that had enveloped him, the memory of his small brother pinned to the ground by a Claw, its teeth at his throat.
 
He opened his eyes, looked up at her with annoyance bordering on anger.

“Persistent, aren’t you?”

“Is that how does mate?
 
Always submissive?
 
Meek?
 
Always permitting you to be in control?”
 
Her eyes glittered down at him, golden in the artificial light.
 
“No wonder you’re bored with them.”

Her words struck a raw nerve.
 
He’d never thought of his sexual experience in quite that way, never thought of the numerous sexual encounters he’d experienced as dull, but in hindsight, he could barely remember any of them.
 
All he could seem to remember was a vague succession of women, lying beneath him
placidly,
almost motionless, scarcely reacting no matter how he touched them.
 
No single woman stood out in his mind.
 

No doe had ever stirred his body and soul the way this Claw did.

And yet the idea of letting her dominate, allowing her to be on top, terrified him on a visceral, primitive level.
 
She could
shift,
tear his throat out with a single bite.
 
Tear him to ribbons with her claws…

He knew his anxiety was irrational, that she couldn’t shift to animal form while sexually aroused any more than he could, but that didn’t make the terror he felt any less real.
 
With an effort, he forced back his fear.
 
For now, he’d let her win.
 
Let her control this encounter.
 
Who knew?
 
It might be… exciting.

“Fine.”
He surrendered, letting the muscles in his arms relax and allowing her to pin him.
 
“Show me how your people make love.
 
Convince me that your men don’t find
you
boring.”

She sat up, so that his erection was cradled beneath the warm, wet entrance to her body, her gold-streaked black hair falling loose around her shoulders, cascading over her breasts.
 
Her coral-tipped nipples peeked from between the gold and black strands, teasing him, taunting him.

He freed a hand, lifted it, and stroked his fingers lightly over one of those tempting nipples, and she shivered.
 
The warm, sensual fragrance of her arousal drifted to his nostrils, and he grew harder.
 
He wanted her in a way he’d never wanted another woman, his body wracked with an intense need he’d never known before.
 
The instinctive fear he felt for her people added a sharp edge to his lust.
 

She was the farthest thing from
boring
he could imagine.

“Tell me,” he said softly, “do the men of your people take the time to touch you?
 
To make you ready?
 
Do they care for your pleasure as much as for your own?”

Wordlessly, she shook her head.

He continued to brush his fingers across her nipple until it puckered, growing rigid beneath his touch.
 
“How do your people make love?”

Her eyes smoldered.
 
“Feline couplings are rough and quick,” she said in a hoarse voice.

Rough and quick
sounded good to him right now.
 
A hard, fast coupling, leading to a violent climax, in order to assuage the desperate need he felt.
 
But he couldn’t do that to such a lovely woman, a spirited woman, who deserved to be treated so much better.
 

She deserved to be made love to, to be touched and kissed until she
ached
as badly as he did.
 
She deserved as much pleasure as he could possibly give her.

He was taken aback by his thoughts.
 
For the first time he realized he had begun to see her as a woman, and not just as a Claw.
 
To his surprise, his fear of her had subsided, almost lost beneath his need for her.

He lifted his hands and ran them down her arms, feeling the texture of her skin beneath his fingers.
 
Her skin was soft, and almost as warm and silky as he imagined her pelt must be.

“My people make love more slowly,” he said.
 
“But the men are always dominant, and perhaps we spend less time on the woman’s pleasure than we should.”

She moved restlessly against him, bathing him in her slick heat. Her hands clutched his shoulders, the nails long and sharp,
a
reminder of her animal form. Yet her fingers touched him with surprising gentleness.

She spoke in a hoarse voice.
 
“I think it would be pleasant to see what making love slowly is like.”

“And I think it would be enjoyable to see what letting the woman take control is like.”
 
He flashed a grin.
 
“Perhaps there is something to be said for both our people’s methods of lovemaking.”

“Perhaps.
 
Let us see.”
 
She lifted her hips, moved her hand between them, and captured his shaft, guiding it into the hot, moist entrance to her body.