Savage Hunger (23 page)

She’d had her share of relationships; none of them had worked out. Either the guys were too busy making rank and enjoying the freedom and money as single men in the service and didn’t want to be tied down to a wife and kids, or there just was no spark. Until Roger came along. But that engagement had been short-lived after her aborted mission in the jungle. He didn’t even have to tell her it was over between them. When he began giving her the third degree about her mission while she was still so out of it from her injuries, she knew the mission was all he cared about. And she had been the one who ended it between them.

With Connor, it was totally different. She was certain that if he had been able to save her life and take her with him that day she had been shot up so badly, he would never have questioned her about anything until she was ready to share what had happened. But in truth, if he had known her beforehand, she was sure he wouldn’t have allowed her to go on a mission that would have endangered her life in the first place.

Even now, the way he stood so close to her made her feel sparks and heat and sizzle. A dolphin bumped gently against her leg, but Connor, looking down at her and trying to read her feelings, was the one who stole her attention.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him to prove to the other jaguar, if he was watching, that she already had a shifter she was interested in.

That’s when Connor smiled at Kat in the most devilishly sinful way, cupped her face with his wet hands, and pressed his mouth against hers.

Everything—the flow of the river, the dolphins swimming nearby, Maya and anyone else who might be watching—faded into the distance as if none of them existed. Only Connor’s hot lips against hers held her attention. It was just like at the waterfall, as if nothing mattered but his touching her. She treasured it and needed it—the closeness and the feeling she wasn’t someone who had no one, had never had anyone in her life, and was wanted now for the first time ever.

But it was more than just want. It was a craving, something primal, instinctive, necessary. Not just an urge to have sex—although she was already thinking about the room arrangements when they reached the city. She wasn’t sure Connor would want to leave his sister alone in a room of her own, while Kat and he shared another. She wasn’t sure she wanted Maya off by herself, either.

But she did know she wanted Connor alone to cure this growing need to have him. Ever since he’d begun sleeping in the same small bed with Kat in the hut, with his body pressed indecently against hers, she had wanted more.

Standing in the river, he pressed his fully aroused body harder against hers. If another shifter was watching, she was fairly sure he would realize that Connor wanted her and she wanted him. Unless another shifter figured she might be fickle. As cats, they would be. But she wasn’t that way.

Still, she didn’t know Connor well enough to know if he would stay with her in the long run. What if he found another female jaguar-shifter who had been born to this way of life like he had? Wouldn’t he prefer someone who was able to control what she was? Knew what to do as a shifter? Wasn’t such a neophyte like Kat was?

She normally didn’t feel unsure of herself. She had a will of her own, and once she had left foster care, she had lived her own life. But now, she couldn’t help but feel somewhat insecure. She had no idea how to live this life as a jaguar-shifter.

In part, she wanted to do her own thing, plan her own life, be her own person. She had known what she was capable of—but now, she wasn’t sure.

“Your thoughts are somewhere else, Kat,” Connor whispered, kissing her ear and her throat, his hands around her waist, holding her in place, tight against his body.

Her body pooled with liquid heat at the feel of his warm mouth on her skin.

Yet, he must have felt the tension in her, the hesitation, and seen the way she glanced again at the woods because he said what she thought he was afraid to say to her: “He can’t have you.” His eyes were dark with desire, his words determined. “If he’s a shifter, he can’t have you,” he repeated, as if he wanted to make it perfectly clear to her that he wanted her and wasn’t giving her up.

Loving a challenge, she smiled and moved her hands down his back to his buttocks, the boxers clinging to his hard muscles. She tilted her lips up and replied in a hushed voice, “I take it you’re going to prove to me why I should want you instead?”

His mouth curved into a lazy smile, the skin beneath his eyes crinkling in wry amusement. “If that’s meant as a challenge…”

Absolutely
.

He let his words trail off, right before he nibbled on her ear, and she arched against him. God, Maya had to get a separate room from them when they arrived at the city or Kat would never manage.

As if Maya had read Kat’s mind, she said good-naturedly, “You two need to get a room. Let’s eat so we can get back on the trail and reach the city before it gets too late.” She waded out of the river and onto the bank.

Connor gave Kat another heartfelt squeeze. “I accept the challenge.”

Kat chuckled under her breath. “I’ve never had two men fight over me before. You do realize you might not have any competition anyway. I mean, if he’s a shifter, he might be interested in Maya, not me. And if he’s not a shifter, there would be no competition at all.”

Connor shook his head. “No matter what the situation is, I won’t chance it.”

He sounded dead serious, and she took his hand and walked with him to the shore. “All right by me. So where shall we go for our first date?”

Grinning this time, he looked down at her. “How about a cookout in the Amazon rain forest? We could go for a nice long hike through the steamy jungle until we reach a city. Check into a room—”

“Dinner first, though,” she said smiling.

His eyes glittered with amusement. “Dinner first, then we have to work off the meal and then get a room.”

“Once we get to the city and before we get booked on a flight, can we go to the beach?” Maya asked.

“Sounds good to me,” Kat said, as long as they swam late at night, just in case she had the sudden urge to shift. Then she sobered. “If you’ve recently shifted, will that stop you from having the urge again for a long time afterward?”

Maya looked at Connor, like she felt bad for not knowing the answer to Kat’s question, then sadly shook her head. “We change at will, Kat. I’m sorry. Did you have a feeling that warned you that you had to shift the first time?”

“I was asleep,” Kat said, helping Connor to gather kindling for a fire. “I didn’t think I was awake. I’d been dreaming about being a cat most of the night, thinking it was because I had seen you and Connor as cats in the jungle earlier, and maybe also as a byproduct of the unusual foods I’d been eating. Then before I knew it, I was tearing off my clothes, desperate to get out of them, and I shifted. After that, I still couldn’t believe it, thinking I was having a very vivid nightmare. So if I had any warning about shifting, I was too sleepy to know what it was.”

Maya and Connor exchanged worried glances, which didn’t bode well for Kat.

When they had a good fire started to cook the meal, Connor disappeared into the jungle. “Where’s he going?” Kat quickly asked.

“To get us something to eat. It’s easier if we shift so that we can hunt. But he didn’t want to do it in the open, here by the river. He’ll try to find as secluded a spot as he can.”

“What about the other shifter? If he is one. What if he tries to visit with us while Connor’s gone?” Kat knew Connor would be ready to tear into the man, jaguar to jaguar, if he returned and found the man with them. She didn’t want to see that. Not if the other shifter wasn’t a bad guy.

Maya poked at the fire. “If he’s a shifter, he’ll know not to come near us. He’ll know Connor won’t like it. And the guy couldn’t really speak with us unless he shifts. Without a set of clothes…” She shrugged. “So he’ll do what he’s doing now, continue to stalk us and try to learn where we’re going. Although I assume, considering the direction we’re headed, he’ll figure we’re off to the city. If he finds me alone when we split up to our separate rooms for the night in the city, he might approach me then.”

“That’s what you’re hoping?” Kat asked, worried that the man might be a problem. Even if he was a shifter, he might not be anyone Maya would care for.

Maya smiled and squeezed Kat’s hand. “Don’t look so worried. Not only can I take care of myself, but I highly doubt Connor will let me stay in a room of my own alone. He’s really a worrywart when it comes to me. I’m sure we’ll get a room with a bedroom and a foldout couch in a suite-type arrangement. I’ll sleep on the couch, unless you want Connor to.” She smiled as if knowing just what Kat wanted. “Then again, I doubt I’ll have much say about it.”

Kat took a deep breath, then let it out. She had never confided in another woman about her interest in a man before. Certainly, it seemed strange to be talking about this with Connor’s sister. “You’ve always wanted us to be together, so it’s not only Connor who might wish it,” she said smiling.

Maya sighed and pulled on her pants, then a shirt over her damp undergarments. “I didn’t want you to be angry with me for turning you, Kat. You aren’t, are you?”

Kat began to get dressed, too. “For turning me?” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to feel yet. I understand why you did it. Not that you were mean or vindictive or anything. You wanted Connor to have a mate.”

“Not just him. I wanted you to be my sister,” Maya said quickly.

Kat couldn’t help but give her a small smile. “I believe we’re blood sisters now.” She sat before the fire. “What if Connor can’t stay with me for all time? What if he gets tired of me?”

“He won’t.” Maya frowned. “I know he won’t.”

“But cats don’t stay with one mate. They’re… fickle.”

Maya smiled. “We’re human, too. Believe me, he didn’t like it that our father strayed and then abandoned our mother and us. So Connor won’t do that. He’s stuck by my side since we were little, never wanting to leave me. Our mother even left us when we were young adults. We don’t feel the same as the big cats or our parents.”

“Wow.” Although Kat didn’t know why she was so surprised. She had seen enough of that growing up. She picked up a twig and scratched it in the dirt. “What if
I
can’t stay with one mate? What if with this jaguar gene, I have the uncontrollable urge to stray?”

“All right, for the sake of argument, let’s talk about it. How many boyfriends have you had?”

Kat’s brows rose. She didn’t speak about stuff like that with just anyone, well, with anyone, period. And although Maya was to be her sister, she didn’t know her well enough to tell all. In truth, she hadn’t been with more than four guys, and none had had any desire to set up a homestead until Roger. After bouncing around between foster homes herself, settling down was damned important to her. But she still didn’t feel like exposing her whole past life to a virtual stranger.

Maya shrugged. “If you’ve had a ton of boyfriends, then maybe you would be fickle. But even so, it doesn’t mean that if you found the right man, you couldn’t settle down. The others could have been just a case of experimenting, trying to locate the right guy, testing the waters, so to speak. So how many have you been with?”

Kat’s mouth parted, but she couldn’t say. Would Maya think there was something wrong with her because she had been with so few guys? She wasn’t really outgoing when it came to meeting men.

Switching the focus, she said, “What about you? How many guys have you been with?”

Chapter 19

After finding the scent of the male jaguar on a tree that had a great view of the river where Connor, Kat, and Maya had swum, but not locating the jaguar now, Connor left his pack and his clothes in the jungle near a stream. He shifted and climbed onto a fallen tree in his stocky jaguar form to search for their meal. A giant river otter jerked his head around to see the jaguar, then quickly slipped under the water with his belly exposed, sweeping his tail and legs until he dove under a stack of downed tree trunks in the water and disappeared. Not that Connor had any interest in eating the otter.

Then Connor spied a pirarucu, the air-breathing, carnivorous catfish, one of the most ancient prehistoric fish from two hundred million years ago, that would eat fish, small animals, and birds. It was the largest freshwater fish in the world.

This one Connor estimated to be a couple of hundred pounds and about six feet long, although he had heard of one that had been caught weighing nearly 675 pounds and measuring ten feet in length. From his tree-trunk perch and with his spotted tail slashing the air, Connor watched the catfish swimming through the brown water. He was ready for dinner.

He leaped into the water and pounced on the pirarucu, which swiftly continued downstream and slipped out of Connor’s grasp. Connor waded after the catfish, ears perked, whiskers and tail twitching, muscles bunching as he readied himself for another try. He leaped again, his claws raking down the carnivore’s tough scaled skin, which was capable of protecting it from caiman, freshwater dolphins, and other predatory fish. But not jaguars. The scales of the catfish were sandpaper rough, so much so that the natives used the three-and-a-half-inch scales as sandpaper and a scraping tool.

The catfish slid away from Connor’s grasp again, turned, and headed upstream this time. The water Connor was wading in was jaguar-shoulder deep. He jumped straight out of the water again and leaped for the fish, his head submerging when he landed on his prey so he could get a grip with his teeth. The pirarucu wriggled free again, its tail waving in the water like a giant paddle and propelling it forward.