Beastly Desires (22 page)

Kamali bit her lip and plunged headlong off the cliff they’d been maneuvering around for hours. “Let me feed you.”

***

“This is called
Ofada
sauce.”

Kaisal tried pronouncing the word around a bite of oxtail, jollof rice, and a tomato-based sauce that tasted like a blend of shellfish and peppers.

Kamali laughed before kissing the corner of his mouth and coming away with some of the sauce on her lips. “Very good.” She reached for another plate and fed him a bit of what appeared to be meat in a small fried crust. “And this is
Asun
.”

“
Asun
,” he dutifully repeated, watching delight dance in her eyes.

“It’s a bastardized version of what’s really supposed to be smoked goat but all Dubbs could find at the market was lamb,” Kamali joked, finishing off the small treat. “The crust is fried plantain and you should be able to taste red onion and maggi.”

He chewed slowly, enjoying her smile and the way she had a story about her childhood for every dish. They went through a spicy coconut fish curry, leafy Nigerian vegetables, and then a small dessert that was made with ground plantain and nuts. Every one was delicious; every chuckle Kamali gave was taken in and digested along with the food.

When she’d offered to feed him, he’d thought they’d simply hunt something together and take it down in tandem but instead, she’d written a list of things and handed it off to Dublhainn with the kind request for him and Basanti to make a store run for her.

The pair had gotten back, both unusually quiet, and handed over the shopping bags before taking places next to Kaisal at the island and staring intently after Kamali as she moved about the kitchen with ease. Once she finished, she packed up containers for both and sent them on their way.

Currently seated on the counter with her legs on either side of Kaisal, she gave him small tastes of the dishes she’d prepared while allowing him to glimpse the side of her that soothed him. With a satisfied sigh, he rested his head on her thigh and closed his eyes as she stroked a hand over his hair.

“My domesticated tiger,” Kamali hummed.

He rubbed his cheek against her cotton-clad upper-leg. “It was you who said that with the right incentive, even the wildest beast can be tamed.” Kaisal pressed a kiss to the covered flesh beneath him. “I think domestication looks good on me…along with everything else.”

She snorted. “Does this mean I can get you a collar and rename you
Fluffykins the Great
?”

Lifting his head, he waggled his brows and replied, “Only if it the collar comes with four-inch leather boots, a sex swing, and a flavored lube box set.”

Kamali blinked and without another word placed her hand on top of his head and pushed it back onto her thigh. “Obviously a full stomach makes you delusional.”

Kaisal laughed and gently bit her. “Not completely full, princess.”

She went still. “Kaisal…”

He nuzzled the inside of her knee as his hands came up and ran over her calves. “Hmm?”

“What, pray tell, do you think you’re doing?”

Hooking a finger into the waistband of her yoga pants, he pulled at the elastic and listened to it snap back. “If I have to tell you then I’m obviously losing my touch.”

Cupping his face, she nudged it upwards so she could stare down at him. “We still have a few issues to deal with. One of them being our hostage.”

He smiled and brushed his lips over the inside of her palm. “We’ll run across that bridge hand-in-hand when we get to it later.” Kaisal scooted the stool backwards. “But right now I’d like to make up for time lost last night when the love of my life decided to take away my chances of hearing her purr for me.” Hands around her waist, he pulled her off of the counter and into his lap, making her straddle his thighs. He ran his nose from her earlobe to her shoulder. “She always smells
so
good—like every sweet thing the gods ever created for our enjoyment.” Kaisal slid his hands up her back and beneath her T-shirt as she gripped the nape of his neck and moved his head slightly to the right in order to nip him just under his chin. “I
love
that smell. I love the little noise she makes in the back of her throat when I do this…” He glided the tip of his tongue over her mark as he pulled the strap of her tank out of his way, noting the hitch in her breathing. “And the way she growls when I do this.” Taking a hand from her back, he grasped the rise of her ass and squeezed. “Makes my control slip just a bit.

“But I think what I love the most is the way she sounds when I cause her to experience
la petit mort
.” With one hand cupping her buttocks, the other on her back and his lips on her mark, he put pressure on all three, provoking her into undulating against him.

Kamali’s chest heaved, feeling the points of her nipples with every breath as they brushed his chest. She nibbled at his jaw line and murmured, “I’ll purr for the remainder of the night if you would just. Keep. Touching. Me.”

“I
can.”
Kaisal’s eyes closed, and a hard shudder racked him as Kamali’s scent intensified. “I can keep touching you.”

Her mouth continued its path from his jaw to his lips. “Good.” Then she bit his bottom rim and tugged hard enough that if his attention
hadn’t
been on fucking her dizzy before, it most certainly was now. He took his hands away from her nubile form and put them on the counter, gripping as she plundered his mouth. Kaisal didn’t want to risk bruising her, and the way her tongue stroked over his almost guaranteed he might do just that if he didn’t garner some form of discipline.

“You lied,” she whispered. “You just stopped touching me.”

He rubbed his face against hers and felt his chest bulk at the sensation of her soft skin. “If I don’t stop I might hurt you.”

Kamali pushed his hair back and growled, “Every pleasurable experience we have comes with a little pain, Kaisal.” She rolled her hips and his eyes crossed beneath his lids. “Sensitivity so acute that your breath shortens, your skin pimples, and your stomach clenches. Those things happen every time you touch me. We’ve broken furniture and a door but I’ve never once felt anything less than completely loved. Stop holding back. Stop thinking that at the first sign of your beast I’ll run out of fear rather than the need to be caught.” Lifting his forearm, she waited until he opened his eyes before she found his mark and latched onto it.

Kaisal gave a short roar and, after getting loose from her jaw, hiked her up with one arm and used the other to shred the adorable but now ruined yoga pants she was wearing. He fumbled with the string on his sweatpants and eventually slit it open in frustration. She laughed, but it turned into moan when he freed himself and slammed her down onto his cock in one frenzied motion. Putting her hands to his shoulders, she used him for leverage as she moved over his length in a fast-paced slide of flesh against flesh. Kamali obviously wasn’t fazed by how his clawed hands grappled with her shirt so he could palm her bouncing breasts, and she didn’t seem to care in the least when his canines lightly raked over her lip as he kissed her. She simply continued to move, bringing her hips down simultaneously with his upward thrusts, a little grunt leaving her with every connection.

Her smell made him close to feral, and the way her claws dug into his shoulders as the walls of her pussy clamped around him in a silken hold pushed him farther and farther away from rationality. Kaisal had been the one to begin their game but his mate was quickly ending it, and he needed to make certain she crossed the finish line first.

This was why he pulled his mouth away from her own, located her mark, and locked onto it. Kamali’s head went back with a gasp before she snarled, “Yes…yes…yes…”

Her sex convulsed then dragged out the climax that had been building in Kaisal’s shaft until it spilled over inside her.

She bent backwards over the counter, shoulders resting on the granite, panting in clear exertion. Kaisal put his head to her chest and could hear the way her heartbeat had accelerated.

“Well,” Kamali breathed. “At least we didn’t break anything this time.”

He went to respond but she moved a bit and a plate went sliding across the island, crashing onto the floor.

Kaisal buried his face into her torso and tried to stop the shaking of his shoulders but she caught it anyway and hit him lightly. “And you can just shut it, Fluffykins the Great.”

Gods, he
adored
this woman.

Sitting up, he kissed her temple and suggested, “Let’s discuss that bridge.”

***

They’d put him in some shitty little back room in a cabin, making sure the doors and windows were constantly guarded. The only advantage he had was that they’d been courteous enough to make sure said shitty room had a bathroom attached to it. Rave sniffed in disgust as he looked around. Weak. They were all so fucking
weak.
Who gave their hostage comforts? And why had Verochka stopped Kamali from taking his throat? It was probably some misguided act of heroism. He could already see the way she’d softened the tiger. He was putty in her hands and seemed content to remain that way.

Rave grunted and stared at the door to his holding cell. A few hours after he’d healed enough, he’d attempted to ram the goddamn thing and make a run for it but Verochka’s sibling had been waiting on the other side with a sadistic smirk on his face and a knife in his hands.
“Please be gracious enough to give me a reason to make Dublhainn’s dreams of a safari-themed office come true,”
he’d said. Rave didn’t know who Dublhainn was, but if he’d had enough strength to fight he would’ve snapped the asshole’s neck along with the tiger’s.

He was beginning to become irritated waiting for the verdict. It didn’t matter, really. Since Verochka had stopped Kamali from killing him once, he estimated they’d probably hand him over to the elders or banish him as a repercussion. Neither of which would hold Rave for long, because at the first opportunity he’d leave devastation in his wake getting back to the princess and her mate so he could destroy everything they loved.

Rave was meditating on that very satisfying thought when the door to the room swung open. He stood tall from his previous resting place against the window and watched Verochka stride in with Kamali following.

His lip curled. “Isn’t it nice for the royal bitch and her lumbering servant to visit?”

There was no reaction. Not even a facial tic. Both stared at him with a resolve in their gazes that gave him pause.

“What?” Rave snapped, shaking off the sense of caution that had bound him briefly. “No response? No gloating?”

Kamali’s head simply tilted, her eyes narrowing just a bit.

“The fuck are you here for, then?” he snarled, kicking over a small nightstand. “
What did you come for
?”

Silence.

Rave’s lips curved just around the edges and he snorted before it became a full-blown laugh. Taking a seat on the small bed, he said, “About to pardon me with an act of mercy, princess? Gonna wax poetic about how I can learn and grow and transform into the squishy motherfucker behind you?” Lying back, he folded his arms across his chest, looked to the ceiling, and smiled. “Because you can’t kill me, can you? You’ve thought about it, fantasized even, but the actual act frightens you, doesn’t it?”

When she didn’t answer, he turned his head and found himself staring into the frigid, hard gaze of a lioness. And Rave didn’t see a pardon in that gaze. He didn’t see mercy or the desire to change him. He saw the desire to
kill.

His amusement faded as Kamali took a step forward. “I’ve always asked myself when our kind would realize that being a predator didn’t mean you couldn’t become prey. I questioned when we would understand that an over-inflated sense of self-worth was what got us hunted down and gutted time and time again. I even queried as to who would be so foolish as to get between a mother and her child. I’ll quite possibly never have any of those answers, Rave.” She angled toward him just a bit and in a low tone finished with, “I don’t want you to experience the same ignorant frustration so allow me to answer all your questions in order. No. No. Yes.
No
.”