Beast Within (4 page)

“Yes. You’re welcome.” She quickly cleaned his dishes and
added them to the ones in the dishwasher.

“Now,” she turned the laptop she’d been looking at while he
ate to face him. “I need you to watch this.”

With a click, she started a video on her laptop.

Dylan watched himself writhing with pain he almost felt
again. He watched as frame by frame he turned into a jaguarondi with a dart in
its chest. Then the pictures tracked the jaguarondi on her bed as it changed
until the last of the pictures showed him sleeping on Hildy’s bed.

“Interesting pictures. Nice morphing software you have on
your computer. It almost looks like I changed into the wildcat and back.”

“You did,” she said.

“Yeah, sure. You’re good, lady. Thanks for the meal. Now can
you drive me someplace?”

“You did. Wait just a minute.” Haley left the room and
returned with a mirror before Dylan did more than put his plates and bowls in
the dishwasher.

“Thank you for clearing the table.”

Her pleasure at the little bit he did had to be gratitude
enough because her voice held a bit of northern exposure.

“Look in the mirror.” She demanded, yet took his hand,
reminding him of his sisters when they needed comfort.

She handed him the small mirror.

“Yeah, so what am I looking for?”

When he saw his face, he jerked the mirror closer and drew
his lips away from his teeth.

“That’s right.” This time her voice held the coldness of a
woman pissed off because her word had been doubted. Still, she let him cling to
her hand as though to a lifeline. “I’ve been watching you eat. As soon as you
cut the steak, your teeth sharpened to those of a predatory cat.”

Not only did he have pointed teeth, but long, black, stiff
hairs sprouted from his carefully shaved cheeks. Even his cheeks didn’t look
right. They hung slightly over his mouth and his nostrils flared on a flat nose
between the hanging cheeks.

“Look at your ears.”

Because Hildy—Haley, not Hildy, Dylan reminded
himself—sounded like a dispassionate scientist observing a interesting
phenomenon, Dylan manage to control his panic. He tightened his fingers around
hers, needing the connection to humanity.

He moved the mirror to see one ear. It no longer lay flat
against his head but rode higher, nearly to the top of his skull, and turned
forward with the top of it in a sharp peak caught in his hair. When he touched
the ear’s peak, he touched stiff tufts of hair instead of his skin.

He checked the other ear. The peak on it showed, but it
turned more toward his head and almost sat where ears were supposed to be.

“You’re changing back.”

Dylan used Hildy’s calmness to anchor his own. He watched
the fangs and pointed teeth in his mouth shrink and become the round and smooth
shapes of the omnivore instead of a carnivore.

The flat nose, whiskers and dewlaps morphed back into his
own familiar nose and clean-shaven cheeks. His mouth and face stung and
tickled, then quit. His ears shaped back into their normal shells. He ran his
tongue over his teeth reassuring himself everything was back to normal.

“Are you okay?” She placed her hand on his now smooth cheek.

“What the fuck do you think?” Dylan jerked from her touch
and slammed the mirror on the table. The mirror shattered into dozens of
glittering shards that flew across the table and to the floor. “What the hell
happened to me?”

“How do I know?” Hildy yelled back while she brushed shards
of glass from her t-shirt with hands Dylan saw tremble. The sane part of Dylan
didn’t want to contemplate the consequences if one of those shards had hit
Haley’s face instead of her shirt and skirt. Her shrieking voice shook
slightly, “I picked up a jaguarondi and ended up with a naked man in the same
cage. A naked man who changed back into a jaguarondi in front of me. You’re
damn lucky I just used my tranq gun instead of my rifle.”

Dylan stood up abruptly, knocking the chair backward. A
piece of glass from the shattered mirror crunched under his foot. He stamped
his shoe on it and ground it to dust. “I still can’t believe you had the
audacity to fucking tranq me!”

He knew it was a stupid point, but he’d rather focus on that
than the impossible thought of changing into a wildcat.

Hildy jumped up from her chair and rounded the table to him.
The calf-length gauze skirt she wore swirled above her knees from the force of
her quick movement.

In the bright kitchen light, Dylan saw her breasts pressing
against the top of her dress. His vision sharpened as he focused on her nipples
peaking against the sheer material.

Dylan clamped down on the flash of lust tightening his
groin.

Hildy got right into his face. “Screw you, bud! I tranqued a
jaguarondi attacking me. And like I said, you’re fucking lucky to still be
alive. Most people would have seen you change from man to animal and killed you
rather than deal with a real-life something that belonged in a Hollywood
special effects movie.”

He knew, way back in a quiet logical part of his mind, his
rage came from terror. He’d just seen the reflection of his face, but not in
the shape he knew. Instead, he looked like a bad special effects artist’s
crappy construction of a half-man, half-wildcat. That sight scared the shit out
of him.

He barely managed to stop from puking as he watched and felt
it change back to his own face. His gut churned with the thought of his entire
body transforming into a wildcat. He didn’t want to even think about it, much
less face the truth in Haley’s statement about changing into a full jaguarondi
in front of her. Instead, he distracted himself from his fear by yelling at
this woman who was responsible for the very clothes on his back.

“If I’m such a monster, why didn’t you just shoot me?” Dylan
tilted his head slightly to look into her eyes.

Her lips pressed into an angry straight line that Dylan
resisted, just barely, tracing with his finger. Pale blue eyes narrowed above
sharp cheekbones covered by smooth skin slightly flushed with pink.
Honey-blonde eyebrows tried to furrow together resulting in small puckers at
the bridge of her long nose. Dylan wanted to ease the creases with kisses while
he cradled her face.

“I don’t kill innocent people,” she screamed. She took a
deep breath which had a very interesting effect on her breasts under the gauze
top.

More calmly, she continued, “Under the jaguarondi, I knew an
innocent man was trapped in something beyond his control.” Her breath wafted
sweetly to his nose and held the scent of the green tea and sugar cookies she
ate while he devoured the steak.

Dylan stepped away from her before his lust turned him
completely into a caveman who wanted to take her here, now. He had to figure
out what was happening to him and fast. His cock had to take a cool down and
let him think.

He knelt and began to pick up pieces of broken mirror. In
each small sliver he saw his face holding thirty years of growing from child to
teen to man. He saw the faint lines brought by studying long hours, by
concentrating on skills to save his life and others, by joyously loving family,
friends and several incredible women. His anger dissolved and left him with the
sick-tasting tang of force-swallowed fear. “I suppose I should thank you for
sparing my life, but…”

“But maybe I didn’t do you any favors considering what you
just saw happen to you?”

Thank God, she didn’t sound sorry for him. He wanted his own
pity party and he didn’t want to invite anybody except maybe his friend Jim
with his bourbon or his buddy José with his outstanding tequila.

She knelt on the floor beside him. Her lovely fingers began
to gather glass fragments.

The silence they worked in broke with a gasp of pain from
Hildy.

Dylan looked up to see her sit back on her heels and jerk a
sliver from the gauze skirt. A blotchy red flower of blood bloomed in the
pastel floral material.

“Crap.” Haley snatched the stained skirt above her knees to
see blood trickling down her shin. She blinked back the quick well of tears.
The tears came more from her long-denied reaction to the stressful day rather
than the dying pain of the small cut and the blood staining her favorite skirt.
“I love this skirt. I bet I never get the blood out.”

“Hydrogen peroxide and cold water.” Dylan’s voice sent hot
shivers through her to tighten her nipples unbearably and make her cunt wet
with longing.

“Oh please, all-knowing male,” Haley grumbled while she
tried to decide how to stand and still hold her skirt away from the blood
leaking down her leg.

Crunching glass, Dylan walked to the sink, bits of glass
sparkling on the jeans covering his shins like tiny diamonds. He unrolled some
paper towels and ran water over them.

Haley managed to struggle to her feet and continue her
harangue, “I’m such an innocent female. Please tell me something else I’ve
known since before you were old enough to slap your sausage.”

Dylan’s gush of laughter surprised Haley. She realized he’d
temporarily set aside a reality he couldn’t deal with at the moment. The change
in his face from solid world-weary fighter to easy joy twisted her heart with
tenderness. He knelt at her feet and pressed the sopping paper towel against
the small cut.

Rivulets of cool water slid down her leg. His touch made her
so hot she found it amazing the water didn’t turn to steam immediately.

“First you call my cock a pickle. Now it’s a sausage. What
is this, some kind of food fetish with you?”

“Everything’s always better coated with chocolate,” Haley’s
mouth said before her lust-filled brain had time to think.

Dylan stopped cleaning her leg but continued to apply
pressure to the cut. He leaned back and looked up at her.

“Got any?”

His voice held the challenge of a man in full sexual rut
wanting his woman right now. Underneath the alpha male command that appealed to
her inner take me, take me cavewoman, the gentle hint of invitation beguiled
the romantic in her. Part of her felt assured that if she decided not to go
further in this, her choice would be accepted without rancor.

“In the refrigerator,” she said, her mouth wanting his tongue
in it to ease its sudden dryness.

Dylan wiped the last of the water and blood from her leg,
then set the paper towel on the table as he rose to his full height.

Haley had the giddy feeling of being twelve and in love
again for the first time in her life. It took one rapid heartbeat for her to
realize the impression came from Dylan being shorter than she, the way the
first loves in her life had been before they finally got their adolescent
growth spurts. At that point, most of the boys either reached her height or
surpassed it.

She’d had her fertility inhibition since she was an
adolescent. She wanted a baby, but on her terms, not because she neglected to
stay up to date with free and easy protection. Most loving parents taught their
children the practicalities of preventing pregnancy and the tools for safe sex
years before the first lust addled their minds. Why run the risk of having a
baby during schooling and job skill years when the situation could be avoided
with a visit to the local Population Planning Council?

She stepped closer to him and put a hand against his chest.
“There is a problem. We need to talk about this jaguarondi shape-shifting of
yours. I don’t want to suddenly have a jaguarondi on me just as I reach orgasm.
You almost did it once already. Shift again while we’re making love and I will
use my rifle on you.”

“I didn’t change into a jaguarondi!”

Haley ignored him and went to the broom closet, then laid a
dish towel on the floor in front of his glass-glittered jeans. She used the
broom to sweep the jeans free of glass so the shards dropped into the towel.
Her thong grew wet at the thought of sweeping her palms across his bulging
crotch.

“I don’t.” His voice deepened with a harsh growl. “I don’t
turn into a jaguarondi. Especially not when we’re enjoying each other.”

Haley tilted her head, almost certain she heard a cat’s
growl in some his words. Trying to decide how to tell him, she swept the last
of the glass into a pile then onto a dustpan which she emptied onto the towel.
She set the broom and dustpan away, then picked up the towel at Dylan’s feet.
When she stood, she looked into his face set so tense his cheekbones stood in
sharp relief, and she marveled at his self-control. If she were the one
changing, she’d probably have the screaming jeebies.

She pitched the glass-covered towel into the trash, then
turned her back to him and lifted her skirt. “Note the claw marks on my butt.
Made by you while we were getting it on in the hallway.”

Dylan looked down at his fingernails, torn and ragged. “I
need to trim my nails. That’s all. I don’t have claws.”

She dropped her skirt and turned around. “The jaguarondi
tail came out while we were rolling on the floor.”

“You,” Dylan said between clenched teeth, “were fingering my
butthole, then slapped my ass.”

“I wasn’t doing your butthole—I slapped the tail and it went
away.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m crazy? I’m crazy? You’re the one with the jaguarondi
shifting. Look,” Haley untied the skinny strings holding up the top of her
dress and pushed her shoulder at his face. “Look at the bite you marked me
with. It shows pointed teeth, not round human teeth.”

Dylan’s arm snaked out and caught her. He pressed against
her ass until her pelvis rubbed against the rigidity of his crotch.

“I won’t change into a wildcat. I don’t.” He tilted her face
down to his.

His mouth nibbled her lips, coaxing, wordlessly pleading for
her to open her mouth.

She let him in.

His tongue dived between her lips, stroking her mouth as
though she were the sweetest juice he ever drank. Their tongues dueled and
mated, playing the game of chase and retreat, conquer and surrender.

Dylan felt her hands first around his waist, then felt the
tug of his shirt being pulled from his jeans. While her hands slid up his skin,
he managed to get the two of them turned around and her back against the wall.
He pulled apart the strings tied on her other shoulder, pulled the top of her
sundress down and captured one nipple in his palm. Dylan rolled his prize with
his fingers while continuing to lick and suckle her mouth.

He used his full body to press her against the wall. Her
legs parted under the skirt and he lifted one of her strong legs to wrap around
his waist.

Once again he had access to the treasure he’d been wanting
to touch ever since he first saw her standing in front of him in her uniform.

Dylan ran his hand across her ass and felt the ridges of the
scratches she claimed she gave him. He smoothed his hand across her butt again
and traced the silk ribbon of the thong between her butt cheeks. He continued
to plunder her mouth and toy with her nipple even while he ran his fingers
under the thong.

He dipped his finger under her thong and across her folds,
judging how wet she already was. Her groan of pleasure encouraged him to slide
the little bit of silk covering her curlies to one side to give him room to
probe deeper and harder.

Her mouth grew frantic under his. She pressed her head
against the wall and arched her back to give him full access to her generous
breasts.

He paused half a heartbeat to enjoy the strawberry red
areolas and jutting nipples on the mounds of her creamy skin. Hmmm, when they
got around to it, he decided to use her chocolate to have himself some
chocolate-covered strawberries and cream.