Magical Menages 1: Shifters' Captive (5 page)

John bent toward her throat and licked her pulse point. He moved his face down her body, between her breasts, over her belly to her throbbing cunt where he paused. She realized he was inhaling her scent.

His eyes closed, long, dark lashes so sexy against his cheeks and his nostrils flared as he remained poised over her, smelling her like a dog. Or a wolf.

After a moment, his eyes opened and he crawled up her body to lie above her. He supported some of his weight on sinew-corded arms, but his groin settled into the cradle of her hips, and his cock pressed hard between the lips of her pussy.

Sherrie exhaled through parted lips and she lifted her knees on either side of him. For one second her reason resurfaced, and she panted, “Condom?”

“Human diseases aren’t transmitted through shifters, so you’re safe as long as you’re on birth control.” His voice was low and growly. “Even if you weren’t, interbreeding is rare.”

“Okay.” She was already rubbing her sex against his hard length. She slid her hands down his smooth back to grab his tight ass, accepting the convenient answer at face value. If she wasn’t so goddamn horny, maybe she’d question it, but right now she was operating on instinct and pure lust.

Reaching between their bodies, she took the thickness of his shaft, so strong and vibrant with life, into her hand and guided it to her wet, yearning entrance.

His breathing was ragged and it caught as he pushed into her with one strong, hard thrust that buried him deeply. He groaned, and his body quivered in her embrace. Sherrie closed her eyes and held her breath too, as she savored the sensation of fullness…and something more. There was an unearthly quality about the feeling of completion that came over her. It was as if she’d never had cock before, as if John’s was the missing piece she’d been waiting for all her life.

The muscles of his ass flexed beneath her hands as he pulled out then filled her again. She lifted her knees even higher, wrapped her ankles around his thighs to pull him deeper, and dug her fingers into his hard buttocks.

He sank down onto her, pressing his body full length against hers, naked flesh to flesh, nuzzling his mouth against her neck and shoulder and making that soft growling noise in his throat. How she loved that animal sound. His chest was covered with dark hair that brushed against her flattened breasts, tickling her pebbled nipples and making her squirm beneath him. Ooh, he liked that, did he? Another groan let her know.

Sherrie let go of his ass and slid her hands up his back to his shoulders before plunging one hand into his hair. The strands slipped between her fingers as she gripped his skull, hard bone beneath feather-soft hair. For a second she flashed on how soft his fur had felt when she’d pushed away his wolf-shaped body.

God, had that actually happened? It seemed like a dream now—yet not, because she swore she could feel the animal in him even now, a wildness barely restrained and releasing more with every plunge that filled her body.

Faster, harder, deeper, he fucked her. She thrust back as she begged aloud for more, “Go! Harder!” and “Yes, right there” when he rammed into a spot that sent pleasure spiking through her.

Again he growled. His mouth, which had been pressed open and damp against her shoulder, clamped down. His teeth bit hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to break skin. The pain burst through her at the same moment as her climax, pain and pleasure twisting together, becoming one as she howled her release and writhed beneath him.

With one last thrust, John froze, and Sherrie felt the swell of his cock in the grip of her inner muscles, the gush of warmth as he came. She groaned and drew a long breath, her sweat-slicked body sticking to his.

Wetness seeped out of her pussy to pool on the sleeping bag. It was messy and sexy and real.

As if waking from a pornographic dream, she became aware of what she’d done—had sex with a shape-changing stranger. She waited for alarm, guilt, horror and shame to flood her, but none of them showed. In fact, she still felt elated, flying high on endorphins and the blissful remnants of her climax. With a contented sigh, she loosened her grip on his shoulder and the fistful of his hair.

He kissed her where his teeth had scored her flesh and lifted his head to look into her eyes. “Okay?”

“Mm,” she acknowledged.

“Sorry about…” He dipped his chin, indicating her shoulder.

She shook her head. “No. It’s good.” She grinned. “Really good. I’ve never felt anything quite like that. It was, uh, intense.”

A small smile played over his lips, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he rolled off her and lay on his back beside her on the narrow futon. He stretched an arm over his head and stared at the rough-hewn boards of the ceiling.

Sherrie lay with a hand resting on her chest, feeling the pounding of her heart and listening to the breeze outside rattling the tree branches. Sweat evaporated from her skin, cooling her, but John’s hot body pressed against her side. She rubbed the sore spot on the crook of her neck and shoulder where he’d bitten her—
Left his mark—
and glanced over at him.

“Is it always like that for, um, your people? I mean the biting and the intensity?”

“No. Not like this.” He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and let it go. “This was something different.”

I’ll say.
She rolled onto her side facing him and rested a hand on his chest, combing her fingers through the light pelt of hair. She tried to work up some shame for fucking her abductor but couldn’t manage the least little bit. It had felt good and absolutely right.

“This entire day has been bizarre,” she said. “I can’t say I don’t wish things could go back to normal, but I don’t regret tonight.”

He didn’t reply, but the little smile played over his lips once more. Slipping his arm beneath her, he pulled her snug against him.

Sherrie rested her head on his chest and continued to rub little circles on his hairy belly. “Wish I could have this with you and not worry about the rest of it. I don’t know how I’m supposed to help that little girl.”

“We’ll figure it out. Tomorrow you can tell me again everything you saw or felt when you bonded with Liberty. There have to be clues to the identity of this person or entity, and you must have some part to play or Anna wouldn’t have seen you in her vision.”

It was Sherrie’s turn to remain silent. She didn’t want to think any more. Warm and comfortable against John’s side, she shut her worries and fears from her mind and allowed herself to rest. Within seconds she’d drifted away from the new world that contained werewolves and psychic warlocks and the most mind-blowing sex she’d ever experienced in her life into a deep sleep.

John listened to Sherrie’s breathing deepen. The warm puff of her breath tickled his chest, and her hand had stilled on his belly only inches away from his cock, which began to stiffen once more. What the hell was it about this woman that lit in him an inferno of desire? He’d never before felt anything like the hunger she roused in his blood and the crazy, fierce need to protect her and join with her.

The feelings surging through him bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the mate-claiming he’d heard about all his life. He’d pretty much believed it was a myth shifters made up. The whole soul-bonding thing seemed like nonsense to him. Males and females were physically attracted to each other. They fucked.

They produced some offspring. End of story. Because he’d never felt an overwhelming magnetism toward any particular woman, it had been easy to scoff at what others claimed to experience.

But now… He stroked the soft skin of Sherrie’s hand, touched one pink-painted fingernail. Sex with a human went against his personal beliefs, yet he wanted this particular human woman with an inhuman longing. He’d take her again right now if she were awake. But she slept peacefully and deeply so he didn’t disturb her rest.

John couldn’t lie still. He never required much sleep, and right now the night called to him. He carefully shifted Sherrie and slid out from beneath her sprawled arm and leg.

Rising from the bed, he covered her beautiful, naked body which looked so vulnerable. But the woman wasn’t weak. She had an inner core of strength. Anyone who could quickly adjust her entire mind set to encompass the paranormal realm was strong and self-confident.

John stooped and kissed the curve of her shoulder rising above the top of the blanket he’d placed over her. She shifted and muttered. He resisted the urge to reach beneath the blanket and tease her to readiness again. The scent of her musk, of their combined essences, drew him like a magnet, but he forced himself to turn away.

He walked outside naked. His keen hearing caught the rustle of small animals in the undergrowth, a sound that would usually make him salivate. But he wasn’t interested in hunting tonight. He would patrol the perimeter of the cabin and make sure it was secure. A niggling sense of danger at hand pulsed through his veins, making the hair at his nape rise.

As his adrenaline level rose, John released his primal self, allowing it out of the cage where it dwelt when his id was in control. His body began to shift, a grinding of bones and reshaping of muscles that twisted him into his other shape. It was painful, but such a familiar necessity that he never thought about the pain—wouldn’t have now if Sherrie hadn’t mentioned it earlier. The process was simply a part of who he was, like his big feet or his tone-deaf singing voice. Soon it was over, leaving him panting and exhausted for only a few moments before his heightened senses kicked in.

The rustling in the grass was much louder. The piercing trill of tree frogs hurt his sensitive ears, and he whimpered. Lifting his muzzle, he breathed in. So many delicious smells to explore. Rabbit, squirrel and mouse trails zigzagged all over the forest floor, as clear to him as if they were laid out like blue laser lines.

But he would not follow any of them tonight. There was something else out there he needed to investigate, something hiding in the dark. The threatening presence was uphill from the cabin, how far, he had no idea, but it drew him.

John padded silently over the rough terrain, tongue lolling, hackles raised and nose constantly scenting the ground. He could smell nothing out of the ordinary, earth and animal, pine needles and leaf mold, but the sense of a foreign presence on the mountain grew stronger as he loped along. He paused at a stream trickling from a fissure in the earth and drank deeply, lifted his dripping muzzle and gazed into the darkness.

The world looked different through animal eyes. Shapes and shadows were sharper and clearer, and their patterns spoke to him in a different way. The thing that was drawing him up the mountain was not a normal part of nature. It was foreign, beyond his comprehension—and evil. He had no idea how he knew all this but the impressions broke over him with the clarity of a sunrise. The being would have to be killed, taken down like a rabid animal before it spread its infection further.

He sensed he was still far from his goal, whatever it was, and Sherrie lay alone and unprotected in the cabin. He must get back to her. Intuition never steered him wrong so he listened to the inner voice that told him to go back, abruptly turning and trotting downhill.

Light glowed through the windows of the cabin in the hollow. Thinking about Sherrie naked on the futon made him pant and run faster. His cock hardened as he imagined mounting her. She’d be sleepy at first, but would quickly wake and respond as he rammed into her. Their joining would be rough, hard and fast and when it was over, he’d do it again, slowly and gently with more of his human mind engaged. He’d give her complete pleasure.

If she were a shifter, he’d stay in wolf form while he fucked her, but it was too much to expect a human woman to welcome him like this. Before he reached the cabin, he changed from his animal shape and was walking upright by the time he reached the steps. He could smell Sherrie’s earthy musk before he pushed the door open—and something else. A stranger. Another male.

He threw open the door to see a naked man bending over the woman on the bed.
Cougar,
his senses identified, and John launched himself across the room at the cat-shifter. Grabbing hold of the taller man’s shoulder, he spun him around and plowed a fist into his face. His head snapped to the side, but he quickly recovered and punched John in the gut, knocking the breath from him.

Sherrie screamed and jumped from the bed. John sucked in a painful breath and drove his shoulder into the blond man’s abdomen, trying to knock him off balance. It was like ramming into a tree trunk.

The man cuffed John in the head with one big fist, sending him flying across the room. Pain shot through his shoulder as he hit the wall and slid down it. Shifting even as he fell, he became wolf again and ready to fight with tooth and claw. He sprang toward the panther, jaws open, intent on ripping him apart while he was in his vulnerable human form. Once the stranger shifted, he’d again be outmatched.

His attention was focused on the man before him, whose shape shimmered and began to change even as John lunged at him. Then, suddenly, the panther-shifter crumpled and fell to the floor.

Sherrie stood over him with a wooden chair clutched in her hands, her eyes wide and her bare breasts rising and falling as she gasped for breath.

John stopped his leap before it carried him over his opponent’s prone body and into her. He nosed the fallen man, memorizing his scent, and considered tearing out his throat before he regained consciousness.

But that would destroy the fragile truce between wolf and panther. It would be better to find out why the cat was down here in wolf territory and what he wanted with Sherrie.

John gathered his flagging energy and shifted into human form once more.

Sherrie clung to the chair she’d cracked over the stranger’s head and stared at his sprawled, naked body. She was shaking and her heart pounded so hard she felt light-headed. Two nights in a row of strange men accosting her was too much. Sick of being some kind of pawn in this bizarre new world she’d stumbled across, she was half tempted to bat John with the chair too, as he morphed into human form.