Just One Taste (20 page)

D
inner was
a candlelit affair in the cavernous formal dining room, even though the sun had not yet slipped completely behind the Camden Hills. A long trestle table laid with a floral and berry patterned tablecloth and plain white china was set for twelve. Covered ironstone tureens held delicious entrees on the massive oak sideboard. The room had been designed to feed at least twenty voracious robber barons and their wives, and there was a definite echo, despite Lyra’s attempt with the thick rug underfoot, yards of silk curtains on the windows and fake tapestries on the walls. It was all very hollow and grand.

Flynn had refined a basic repertoire, and had cooked and frozen what he could ahead of time. He’d figured out just what he could get away with and still call himself a chef. He was fortunate there was no worry about vegetarianism; all the guests were most definitely meat-eaters. Tonight’s menu included a simple but spectacular beef stew, fruited rice, salad, sweet potato rolls and asparagus from the inn’s very own bed. He was still in the kitchen mixing up the Hollandaise sauce, but Lyra urged the others to start with salad. She had set bottles of mineral water and merlot and regular intervals. There was a bar cabinet set up at one end of the room if anyone wanted something stronger.

Of course, the Boys from Boston, as she thought of them, did. There was some discussion that owning a bar was actually not conducive to drinking; they couldn’t drink on the job. When they finally got away, they could relax and enjoy themselves. They each poured substantial amounts of single-malt scotch over ice into their glasses and returned to the table.

The girls had given Lyra a report, so she was totally up to speed on her guests. Anna and Steve were already moony and paired up. They’d discovered a little screened gazebo in a clearing in the woods and had already mated as humans. Anna thought Steve was the most intelligent man she had ever met, and Steve admired her white teeth and pretty much all the rest of her. He’d always been a bit embarrassed that he’d needed corrective lenses—cheetahs were supposed to have superior
everything.
Anna could attest that his equipment was more than adequate and excessive speed was not a problem. She felt the tiniest twinge of guilt that she was letting down her college roommate by falling in lust so quickly, but she’d always been a decisive woman. Cassie could deal.

Alys had spent two frigid minutes in the bay and an hour in her whirlpool tub to get the feeling back in her toes. Tom and Dave and Brian had found the billiards room and wasted the afternoon away. Adrienne and Cassie had walked as far down the road as they dared, and then walked back, eating tiny wild strawberries along the way. Tomorrow they would take bikes if they weren’t involved with a man.

Rachel had sat on a rock and just looked her fill for the longest time at the sky and the sea, the birds and the trees. She’d sketched a little until Flynn came out and sat down next to her. And then she sketched him. The picture was now up on the Viking refrigerator with a flamingo magnet left over from Flynn’s Key West cooking experience. The Duval Crawl had a debilitating effect on his psyche, but now he had a reggae-free kitchen.

Lyra had spent the afternoon inventorying the linen room, marking towels and sheets so she could remember what went where. She drank a glass of Pinot Grigio at four and kept right on until Brian found her and challenged her to a game of pool. She beat the pants off all three of them and smugly went back to work. At seven she took a fast shower, changed into a chocolate brown slip dress with a lacy shrug and lit the candles.

And Ben? Lyra didn’t know, but he’d opened his laptop and spent the whole afternoon reading shifter porn.

He was ready.

Conversation and wine flowed. Lyra thought as far as first days went, it had gone pretty well. Sometimes there was awkwardness with new arrivals, and a time or two some of the males got into a pissing contest to mark their territory. Literally. She supposed it helped that the Boys from Boston had some prearranged signal worked out. She got the feeling that a few of the girls were not as yet thrilled with the mating selection, but hopefully nature would take its course and everybody would be sleeping in tomorrow.

She took a quick peek at Ben. He wore a white Oxford cloth shirt and khakis. A smattering of fur—chest hair, she mentally corrected—was visible beneath the v of the unbuttoned collar. Good, she didn’t like men who waxed their chest, although she had every bit of her own pubic hair ruthlessly removed.

Before she changed tonight, she wanted to see just how experienced Ben was as a man. She shifted in her seat, imagining his smiling mouth in the most secret places.

Dessert was served out on the porch. The fireflies tried to outshine the stars, and the water slapped soothingly against the shoreline rocks. While the guests chatted quietly, Lyra and Flynn cleared up the dining room and loaded the dishwasher.

Lyra had to give Flynn credit. Unlike so many males she knew, he actually cleaned up the kitchen as he went along. It didn’t take her long to handwash the crystal glasses and return them to the butler’s pantry. She could hear some laughter from the open dining room French doors, wishing for a minute she was sitting outside with all of them.

If only she had an actual butler to work in the butler’s pantry. But she and Flynn had ruled out hiring islanders to help. She really didn’t want to see the lit torches and an angry armed mob crunching down the pebbled drive once it was discovered exactly what when on at the Perch.

When she returned to the kitchen, Flynn was gone. The hum of the dishwasher droned on. Lyra realized she was getting a bit of a headache. Her contacts had been in way too long, too. She went up the servants’ stairs to the set of rooms she and Flynn shared. Technically they weren’t in the servant’s quarters—those had been in the attic. Someday if the money was there, the twins thought they’d expand the inn and add rooms on the third floor. Their own bedrooms were a discreet distance from the guests and separated from each other by a small study, where Lyra worked on her web designs and brochures. There wasn’t even a TV, just a DVD/CD player and a beat-up leather couch. The real entertainment center was in a cozy room downstairs next to the billiards room, but most of the guests always found something much less passive to do during their stay.

Unlike their paying guests, Flynn and Lyra shared a bathroom. It was one spot that had not been renovated but for a fresh coat of white paint, because Lyra liked it just the way it was. There was a deep old claw-footed tub which tempted her quite a lot tonight, but she knew she didn’t have time for a soak.

She popped out her lenses, took two Aleve, brushed her teeth, and let her hair down from the twist it had been in for dinner. Her glasses might get lost in the grass, so she made her way carefully downstairs, willing her shifter senses to come to her rescue.

When she arrived on the porch, the hurricane lanterns flickered and revealed just one male. Her male for tonight and the next two. She knew she was breaking protocol by picking him, but she told herself it was necessary. The reputation of the Perch was on the line. Last year three couples had found their life mates, and more than half of the guests rebooked. Word of mouth had been great. When she was done training Ben Cooper, he’d make some female very happy.

“I wondered where you were.”

His voice was low and rough, causing a frisson of desire to slither up her spine. She felt her muscles expand ever so slightly.

“Things to do, people to see,” she quipped. “Where are the others?”

“Listen.”

She heard laughter, panting, the thudding of heavy eight-foot long bodies racing. A high screech. The shifters had shifting without her, and that was fine. She was never one for group mating, although she knew it was a turn-on for some. She noted clothes, some neatly folded, some tossed on the porch chairs.

“So. What did you learn, grasshopper?” She sat down next to him on the wicker love seat.

“That one minute everybody was drinking coffee, then they suddenly stood up, stripped and paired off. I didn’t see anybody change.”

“No, you wouldn’t. They’ll reveal their true selves to each other once the ritual words have been spoken. You know what they are, don’t you?”

“I’m not a complete idiot. I told you I’ve shifted.”

“Don’t be annoyed. Your eyes glow green when you are and you’ll attract moths,” she teased.

She could see him quite well in the dark. Her feline blood was thrumming. She ran her tongue experimentally on the edge of her teeth and felt their growing sharpness.

“When are we going to get started?”

She heard the hint of desperation in his voice. No doubt his body was reacting just as hers was. She placed her hand on his lap and felt his marble-hard arousal.

“Seems like you’ve started without me,” she purred.

He pulled her to him and she let him kiss her.

Very nice. Hot and hard. She nipped his lip and drew blood.

“Ow.”

“Pussy. You know it’s part of the mating. We mark each other. I’ve been giving some thought as to where I want you to mark me.”

She stood up, took off her sweater and pulled the dress over her head. She was naked.

“God.” The one word was enough. Lyra smiled.

“Now you.” She grabbed his shirt and helped him unbutton. “Stand up.” His pants and boxers dropped to the porch floor and she dropped to her knees. “We’ll do this step-by-step. The female is subservient to the male at night, no matter how liberated we are in our daily lives. You have complete control over me now, do you understand? I am obligated to do just as you wish. If you can’t think of anything, I’ll just do the conventional, usual thing. Is that okay?”

B
en looked
down at Lyra and nodded. Her cats’ eyes were luminous, her lips swollen from his kiss. If she put those lips anywhere near—

She did. He heard her take a deep breath, as though she were inhaling his spirit. Then her tongue lapped his shaft, swirled, sucked, licked the pearl of moisture from the tip.

“Mmm,” she said, her eyes closed and a look of pure bliss on her face.

He fought for control, his fingers slipping in her caramel curls, but she fought harder, and he erupted in a torrent inside the haven of her unbelievably hot mouth. She continued to swallow and lave until he felt he might just die. But it would have been so worth it.

He exhaled when she was finally finished. “Shit.”

“That’s not very nice. You’ve got to come up with a much better thank-you line.” She smiled up at him. “Now you’re worried about your refractory period, aren’t you.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you teach sex education as a health teacher, Mr. Cooper? You’re worried you’ll not be able to respond to further stimulation for a while so you can give me equal pleasure. But you will.”

She stood up. “You’ve never mated as a shifter with a shifter before. Look down.”

Ben saw that not only was he as hard as a rock again but he seemed to have grown significantly.

“Shit.”

“Really. Your vocabulary is so limited. I’ll have to wash your mouth out with soap. Now, we’ve completed step one of the process. I have honored you as my master. You must now reciprocate with a loving gesture.”

“I want to make love to you,” Ben said hoarsely.

“Not so fast. We will consummate in our cat forms, and the power of it will rival anything you’ve ever dreamed of. Let’s take a walk in my night garden. No one should be there.”

She led him around the house toward the barn, where a large rectangular garden lay behind a locked metal gate to protect against the deer who thought Lyra had planted them a buffet. She picked up a white-painted rock and held up the key. Ben took it and unlocked the gate, his hand trembling ever so slightly.

S
teady boy
. The flowers within glowed in the moonlight. Ben didn’t consider himself to be at all fanciful, but Lyra had created a magical place. They walked the grass path to the center, which was empty, edged, a perfect circle.

“A loving gesture,” he said, smiling. “Lie down, Lyra.”

He parted her legs and her baby-smooth folds with his tapered fingers and covered her core with a kiss. He suckled, tugged, teased until she cried out on the grass. Ben’s teeth sharpened in near fever as he tasted her honey. He gently nipped and she came apart.

He moved up and covered her with his bare flesh, feeling the drumming of her heart, feeling his own expand and judder.

“A loving gesture,” she whispered. “Thank you, master.”

And here she had doubted him.

Ben grinned down at her. His teeth felt wicked, his eyes saw every blade of grass. “What’s next?”

“I think you know. We lie heart to heart, just as we are now. You have been boning up, haven’t you? We say the words, we shift, you make me yours.”

He eased away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t hurt me. Not really. I’m not human. I was made for you.”

Ben held her face between his hands. Their breaths mingled. His lips touched hers.

“So sweet. How will we communicate when we—when we can’t talk?”

“With nothing but our bodies. I’ll know what you want.”

“Will I know what
you
want?”

She laughed. “Ben, you don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what I want. If it makes you feel better, you just gave me what I dreamed of all winter. Once we shift, it’s strictly domination time. You can’t hold back. No matter what that small human part of your brain tells you, you’ve got to let out the animal. I’ll expect it.” She lowered her voice. “I’ll want it. I’ll need it.”

She put her hands on his, kissed him long and slow, giving him her trust. Ben felt like a beautiful man under her lips. He hoped he’d be a beautiful panther. His ebony fur, her tawny gold. Soon they’d be engaged in the fight of their lives which she was apparently looking forward to losing.

He drew back. Her eyes had already changed some. He supposed his must have, too. Everything was sharper in the dark, the scent of the garden, the scent of her skin.