Page 96 of Light the Fire

“I have to shoot her.”

“No,” I said with a whispered yell. “Do NOT shoot her.”

The giant cat and I were now less than three feet apart. She looked up at me, and I looked down at her.

Her mouth parted, showing off her enormous teeth, and her lips pulled back as she made a weird raspy meowing noise. It wasn’t nearly as threatening or terrifying as that first noise. She cocked her head to the side, her amber gaze unwavering on mine.

Her cubs were off playing in the ferns and salal, not worried in the slightest about us or their mother. I would have loved to have had such a carefree childhood.

“We come in peace,” I said gently to her. “We don’t want to hurt you or your babies. We’re in hiding. We mean you no harm.” Then slowly, as a gesture of goodwill—or complete and utter stupidity—I held out a hand toward her.

“What are you doing?” Rix asked, disbelief in his tone.

“I don’t know,” I said, not breaking eye contact with the cougar. She sniffed, and those big, alert eyes blinked; something tender flashed behind them for a moment that settled my hand so it was no longer trembling—as much.

“She’s going to eat your damn hand.”

“Good thing it’s my left one then.”

My palm still wobbled a little as it hovered between us, but I kept it out there as she took a half step forward, sniffed my fingers and hand, made another growly noise in her throat, then stuck out her long pink tongue and licked my hand lovingly.

I wasn’t naive enough to relax or let my guard down, but this felt like a good sign.

She licked my hand for a few more moments, then sniffed it again, glanced up at me, and finally turned to go, slowly sashaying back toward her cubs, who were off wrestling behind some trees.

Rix and I stayed rooted in place until we could no longer hear or see them, and her heartbeat was faint and finally gone.

Then, and only then, did we exhale.

Rix turned to face me and grabbed me by the shoulders. “I don’t know if that was the dumbest or the bravest thing I’ve ever witnessed, Cat. What possessed you to stick your hand out?”

I shook my head, my brain in a temporary state of shock over what I’d just done. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “I knew I didn’t want to hurt her, and I could feel that she didn’t want to hurt us. She just wanted to know if we were a threat, and I let her know that we weren’t. Maybe she smelled thePantherablood in me? I don’t know.” I scratched my head. “That sounds kind of stupid when I say it out loud, but maybe … I don’t know.”

His brown eyes were wide with wonder, then he swept me up into his arms, hugging me until my feet left the ground and dangled. “Damn, woman, you just keep surprising us. First your eagerness for a sandwich, then a spit roast, and now you’re a cat whisperer. What next? Do you shift into a tiger on the full moon, too?”

I snorted a laugh and shook my head, glancing up at him with a big smile as he set me back on my feet. Cupping his face with one hand, my fingers into the silky strands of his hair before hauling his lips down to me for a kiss I didn’t even know I needed as badly as I did until his mouth met mine.

I broke the kiss a moment later and looked up at him, both of us panting. A feral gleam twinkled in the gold of his eyes, his hand shot out and wrapped around the back of my neck, dragging my lips to his for a searing kiss, devouring me like I was the only woman on earth. It was both exhilarating and addictive, and as the kiss intensified, my knees grew weak and I whimpered as my nipples tightened.

Digging my fingers into his scalp, I pulled on his hair, drawing him down to me more. He must have sensed my urgency because before I knew it, I was being scooped up with his hands under my thighs and pressed against the trunk of the nearest tree.

We shed only the necessary bits of clothes, and in seconds he was inside me, hammering me harder and harder into the trunk of the tree, enough so that the whole damn thing shook and brown leaves fluttered down around us.

It was quick, it was raw, and it was perfect.

In no time at all, we were both crying out as we found our release, my body spasming around his punishing cock as his fingers dug harshly into the backs of my thighs.

When our breathing returned to normal, he set me back down on my feet and I went about finding my clothes. I was just pulling up my underwear when the whirr of the drone rotors came to me on the breeze. But we didn’t have time to drop to our bellies again before it flew by overhead, pausing just for a moment right in front of me.

Crack!

I glanced over at Rix, who had his gun cocked, then I watched the drone fall down into the water below, breaking into a million pieces as it landed on the shallow, jagged rocks hidden just beneath the surface.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Rix said with a weary sigh that mirrored my own tired heart.

I nodded and turned to head back to the cabin. “Yeah, we do.”

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