Passion's Prey: The Shadow Shifters (3 page)

But all that changed when Darel caught a whiff of something—no, someone—else in the room. He stood, looking down into the dark crowd. With the night vision of his cat he could see as if it were daylight. And the one he searched for stuck out like a cub in a den of lions. Only this cub had massive balls, probably because he was the second hand to the East Coast FL.

Darel smiled again. Tonight was going to be a good fucking night.

*   *   *

After years of searching, hunting, waiting, he’d found her. Rolando looked through the glass, down to the platform where she stood, moving her body, showing herself, and cringed. She was for him, dammit! Only for him!

His
companheiro
. He’d told her this over and over again, and she’d lied to him. Looking him in the eye, declaring her undying love for him, taking him into her body. Then leaving without a word, taking with her a piece of him he’d ever since craved.

But now he was here and there she was. He would have her. He’d traveled far, had begged reprieve from his leader to search for the one who would complete him. He had only a limited time to return or face the wrath of his leader—a thought that was not desirable. So he would not waste time.

Standing, he turned toward the door in which he’d entered. But the two jaguar shifters moved with him, blocking the exit.

“I must get her,” he said with intent.

“Sit down until the show is over,” the lead shifter here, the one they called Darel, said without turning around.

He was watching her, watching Rolando’s mate with a hunger that sickened Rolando. He wanted to tear that bastard’s throat out for daring to disrespect him in this manner. But he had specific instructions from his leader not to cause a scene, not to expose himself here in America. Rolando hoped like hell he could keep that promise.

“I want to go to her now,” he restated.

“When she’s done making my money, you can have her,” Darel said.

The two at the door simply smiled, looking beyond him to see his
companheiro
once more.

“Do you not have any respect? She is my
companheiro,
” he told them.

The one with the skin as dark as night smiled, his teeth a bright contrast with his coloring. “She’s entertainment right now, homeboy.”

At his sides Rolando’s fingers clenched and unclenched, his claws stinging just beneath his skin as they pressed forward, determined to break free. He bore down so hard on his teeth, his temples began to ache. With a cool and what he hoped was a controlled gaze, he looked through the window once more, watching as Caprise moved across the stage, just about naked. Taunting him with her betrayal and deceit, daring him to come and get her.

Rolando never turned down a dare.

Chapter 4

The door closed, the clicking of the lock sliding into place echoing loudly in the small room. Caprise immediately wrenched her arm free of X’s hold. It wasn’t easy and had her stumbling back a few steps. But that was good. Space was good.

“How dare you!” she said through clenched teeth. “Do I come to your job to manhandle you? Big idiot! That’s what you are,” she raged. Then she made a colossal error, and truth be told, if she’d claimed more of her shifter heritage she would have known better. Her instincts would have been heightened, her nostrils alert to the scent of danger.

He’d grabbed her again before she could say a word. Spinning her around and lifting her off her feet, he slammed her ass down on the dressing table with no mercy.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re a freakin’ shifter, an elite breed, and you’re stripping in front of horny men for money. I should paddle your ass good for this stunt. What do you think your brother would say if he saw you tonight?”

His hands gripped her forearms, shaking her every so often as if to reiterate the words he spoke—which really, with a man the size and build of X, was not at all necessary. But there was something else about his touch, another reaction besides the general irritation at his audacity. It was one Caprise had felt with him before, the one that evoked a feeling in her she did not readily accept—desire.

“If you don’t get your hands off me you’re going to be very sorry,” she told him in a low, serious tone.

All sorts of things were roaring through her body: intense lust, pierced by anger and by the interest that Xavier Santos-Markland had been sparking in her since the moment he’d locked her in that room.

“So I can’t put my hands on you, but you’ll allow strangers to get their rocks off looking at your naked ass!”

He was angry, his cat’s eyes said that much. Yellow-rimmed, with a muted green inner layer and pitch-black centers that narrowed to almond shapes and had her swallowing hard. But his touch, even though she’d told him to get off her, this was what was driving her insane. It was making her skin itch all over, had her nipples puckering, her center pulsating. She inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and that only made matters worse.

“It’s my ass” was the only reply she could come up with.

His scent confused her senses, pushed her buttons until she felt almost frantically out of control. She should be scratching his eyes out, yelling and screaming for help. But she wasn’t. Instead she was looking into dangerous eyes, feeling an embrace that was stern, hard, almost painful, and she liked it.

“What if I told you I didn’t like you showing off your ass?” His words were punctuated by hoarse chuffing noises that were loud and scraped against a foreign part of her.

Inside, that beast of hers that Caprise ignored on a daily basis rose from its normal perch and stretched. “Not your call,” she told him defiantly.

Then he let go of her arms and Caprise almost moaned with missing the contact so swiftly. She should have known he wasn’t finished with her. His thick hands roamed down her back until they were under her cheeks, gripping them tightly. Lust speared through her body at an alarming rate. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from screaming.

“Really,” she sighed then shook her head and added more persistently. “You need to take your hands off me.” Her eyes closed because his held her as captive as his touch.

God she wanted to run, she wanted to break away from him, knock down that door and run as fast as she could. Because that’s what she did best. When things got too hard, Caprise ran hard and long in a quest for what … safety, serenity, sanity?

She shook her head, her fingers curling over the rim of the table. Running was not an option, not anymore.

“What I need, you little tease, is to taste you.”

His words seemed quietly lethal, his voice laced slightly with dread. Was he questioning his own actions? No, not X. He knew what he wanted at all times and had no problems letting everyone else know. Everything about him screamed attitude, dominance, danger. There was no weakness in this man, nothing he ever did that he would end up regretting.

But when he pulled his hands from her ass Caprise was almost certain he’d walk away. He’d say something about telling Nick and yank her ass off the table to carry her kicking and screaming back to Havenway. That’s also what he was good at—telling on her then leaving her to bear the consequences, alone. He’d never stuck up for her, never backed up what she said or did, never supported her in any way. Caprise didn’t care, it didn’t matter what he did or didn’t do because he was nothing, nobody.

Until his hands slid to her knees, pushing them apart. X lowered himself until his mouth covered her center. She still wore the sparkly pasty that matched her costume, but he quickly used his teeth to rip that away. With a growl he spit it across the room then returned his face to the crevice between her legs. He pushed her knees out farther, extended his tongue, and licked her long with one powerful stroke.

Her head fell back, smacking against the mirror as she gasped. Breathing was a task as her entire body trembled. His fingers dug into her skin as if he were trying to break her bones beneath. He wasn’t gentle, not one bit as his mouth tortured the tight bud of her clit. Something was building in her chest, maybe a moan. No, Caprise did not moan for any man. Ever.

His fingers moved from her knees up her thighs to pull apart the wet lips of her womanhood. He licked her over and over as if he thought to consume her entirely. Then he speared his tongue into her opening and a sound ripped free of her lips. It wasn’t a moan, but more like a purr. As good as his mouth on her felt, she wouldn’t touch him, she couldn’t. Her knuckles were probably white, she was holding on to that table so tightly.

Caprise felt like an entrée at which he seemed overly pleased. Her mind screamed for her to clap her legs shut and get the hell away from him. Her body protested with the arch of her back and the gentle chuffing of her cat, now fully awakened thanks to X’s every lick.

With teeth bared the feline was aroused beyond measure. So long it had waited to be summoned, to be allowed to let loose its aura. Much to Caprise’s dismay tonight seemed to be the night.

*   *   *

The one thing X knew with startling clarity was that Caprise Delgado was going to be his tonight.

There were issues, reasons why he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing, why he should find Seth Jamison—the guard who was assigned to Caprise—and blast his ass for not keeping her locked down tight. Instead of addressing those issues he was drowning in the exquisite taste of her.

He was wrong on so many levels. And normally that admission would be enough to halt him in his tracks. But this, what he felt when he was around her, wasn’t normal, he was convinced of that fact.

She was delectable. X had known the minute he saw her again they would end up in this place. The verbal sparring between them over the past few weeks had only brightened the flame that had been smoldering. Seeing her tonight, surrounded by a sexual air, in a room full of horny men and scantily clad women, had pushed him beyond his breaking point.

X needed right now, he needed this as badly as he needed his next breath. And dammit, he was going to take his fill!

When he finally was able to pull his mouth away from her it was to nip at the soft skin of her thigh. When his sharpened incisors touched the light skin, she gasped, hissed a curse.

She did not push him away.

That was key, because if there was one thing X was not into, it was forcing women to do his bidding or abide him in any way. Whatever he did, he did with the knowledge that his partner was in full agreement. And Caprise wasn’t telling him to stop. She was, in fact, no longer telling him to get out or to get away from her. What she was doing was creaming for him as if she heard his silent commands, feeding his steadily growing hunger for her. Looking down at her center as arousal glistened over her plump folds, he growled, ready for more.

His gaze raked over her body as he stood full-length in front of her. X snatched those silly things off her nipples, wanting to see all of her right here, right now. Her breasts gyrated with the action and she made a mewling sound that had his gaze flying up to hers. Her eyes were gold, like liquid sunlight, and mesmerizing to both X and his cat, which now scraped at the surface.

It knew there was another cat close; it scented her and wanted just as badly as X did. It was weird, this being part man and part beast. There were two parts he had to satisfy, two parts that were hungry and needed desperately at this moment.

“You ready to come for me?” he asked in his signature deep voice.

She tilted her head only slightly, as if through these different eyes she needed to study him. He was sure his cat’s eyes were alight with the hunger it felt and was rewarded by her licking her lips, her own incisors clearly visible.

“You ready to come for me?” was her retort.

His dick grew harder, threatening to break the damn zipper of his pants. Instead X did the honors, pulling his length free then moving his hands to palm both her breasts. He looked down at his dark skin against her light, and even the contrast was arousing.

When her fingers wrapped around his thick length he didn’t suck in a breath—even though ripples of pleasure from the intricate piercing he had along the underside of his dick soared up his spine.

“That’s right, sweetheart, hold on tight,” he said roughly.

She jerked and massaged his dick with the hands of an expert. As he palmed her breasts, fingering her nipples, X’s jaw clenched. She’d asked if he was ready to come for her. He was ready for her, period, and hoped she was for him.

His answer came when she leaned forward, scraping her sharp teeth over his shoulder blade, then licking over the spot with her warm tongue. Inside his cat roared, prompting him to mimic her action. When his teeth settled on her soft skin he bit down harder, to the point where he tasted her blood on his tongue.

This was normally where X pulled back, searched the eyes of his partner for any revulsion or fear associated with his actions. Caprise’s back arched, her fingers tightened around his dick, and her teeth once again found his shoulder. X licked her wound then scraped his teeth along the line of her shoulder. He squeezed her breasts so hard, if she were pregnant they would leak. And all the while her purring had continued, her breath growing heavier, her body trembling beneath him.

She was enjoying this as much as he was and for X, that was huge.

He pulled back from her, dropping his hands from her breasts and moving them to her rounded ass once more. Pulling her to the edge of the table, he used his thighs to push hers farther apart, then speared his dick right into her entrance. She bucked beneath him, her arms going around his neck to scrape along his back.

Pumping began immediately because he couldn’t hold back. Blood roared in his ears as he drove deeper into her. She lifted her legs, locked them at the ankle behind his back.

“Come for me,” she taunted, her eyes glittering with arousal as she held on tightly.

He gripped her ass, his fingers slipping into the crevice as he pulled her closer to him. “After you,” he replied.

She pumped back, matching his motions stroke for stroke. Her acceptance of his entire length at one time was phenomenal. No woman had ever been able to take him all at once.