Savage Nature (34 page)

He scooped her into his arms, ignoring her sleepy protest. She might not need a man to protect or take care of her, but she had one that wanted—no—needed to do just that. He laughed softly at her squirming and cradled her tight against his chest as he took her through to the bathroom. She was solid in his arms, all soft curves and satin skin. He couldn’t help kissing her upturned mouth for a long, languid indulgent few moments before trailing more kisses to the tip of her left breast.

She didn’t flinch or pull away as he half expected her to do. She had to be a little sore. There was blood and semen on her thighs, evidence of her first time, and she’d been incredibly tight. He was a large man and he’d felt the stretching of her body.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Saria, I tried to be gentle.” He had been so close to the edge of his control, a shocking first for him.

“Silly man. You didn’t hurt me.” She glanced down at the steaming water. “You aren’t plannin’ on throwin’ me in there, are you?”

“Not this time,” he admitted. He lowered her feet first until she was standing. “It’s going to feel good, honey.”

“So would sleep. And while I’m sittin’ in here, you can entertain me. You aren’t sleepin’ while I’m takin’ a bath.” Saria sank down into the hot water and sighed with pleasure. “You’re right, it does feel good. You really are incredible, you know.”

“I wish, honey, but the sad truth is, I’m selfish. I want to wake you up tomorrow morning or maybe an hour or two from now.” Drake laughed and nudged her legs over. “I’m coming in with you.”

She leaned her head back against the porcelain. “I’ll probably drown, or we’ll soak the floor, but I’m fine with that. This is very relaxin’. Maybe I can sleep right here.”

He placed her feet in his lap and began a slow massage under water. “Go ahead, Saria, I’ll carry you back to bed.”

“Tell me where you grew up,” she encouraged, opening her eyes to look at him through her long lashes. “I think you would have made an interestin’ child.”

“I come from a lair in the Borneo rain forest. Children there are pretty much taken care of by everyone. We run free and have no idea we’re learning skills that will come in handy later on in life. Survival, hunting, basically, all the things you learned here.”

“School?” she asked.

“Mandatory. We have teachers in our villages and then later we are required to go to outside schools. We’re encouraged to travel to other lairs in search of true mates. That keeps our lair strong as well as the others.”

She frowned, sitting up a little straighter. Her breasts floated temptingly and Drake stroked one creamy swell to the darkened tip. Her nipple hardened under his touch.

“Is that what we should have done? All of the children when they grow up, search out other lairs?”

“Of course. Bloodlines get weak or they marry outside the lair and produce children with leopards who are unable to shift.”

Drake knew he sounded distracted, but she had beautiful breasts. He leaned forward, cupping the slight weight on one palm and drew her nipple into his mouth. His cock jerked, and a warm, pleasant feeling of exquisite happiness filled him. This, then, was how it should be. He knew the terrible craving for her would rise, an urgent, almost brutal need, but there was this—comfortable—right—relaxed contentment.

She ran her fingers through his hair. “I love the way you look at me, Drake.”

“Good, because I love looking at you.”

“You make me feel beautiful.”

“You are beautiful.”

She made a small derisive sound in the back of her throat. “My mouth and eyes are too big for my face. And I’m sort of . . .” She looked down at her body and made a face. “Curvy.”

His thumbs slid over her nipples, sending a shiver through her body. “You’re so responsive—and I love your curves.”

She wiggled her toes. “I rather like that foot massage you had goin’ . If you’re gettin’ all hot and bothered again, I’m sleepin’ through it this time.”

“Clearly I’m going to have to improve my skills.” He took her foot back in his hands. She looked exhausted—happy—but exhausted.

“I don’t think improvin’ your skills is a good idea. You’ll kill us both.” She closed her eyes, a small smile tugging at her mouth.

He didn’t want her to fall asleep in the tub, but the water was still hot and he wanted her to soak a few more minutes. “Would you mind filling me in on some of the families? The shifters, those who are part of the lair. I need to know what they’re like.”

She opened her eyes enough to peek at him. “Like who? I didn’t know anyone other than my brothers were shifters. I didn’t even know the Lafont family had shifter blood in them. As secrets go, they’ve all been good at keepin’ them.”

“There’s one family that leases from Jake and no one has mentioned them,” Drake said. “Can you tell me a little about them? The last name is Pinet. No one has mentioned them at all and that makes me wonder. I need a complete list of suspects.”

Saria made a derisive sound in her throat. “You can cross them off your list of suspects. They have a big family, very close and lots of fun. Good people. Mr. Pinet was there when you fought Amos for leadership.”

“I didn’t fight him for leadership, I fought him for you.”

She shrugged with a litte smirk on her face. “Whatever. Mr. Pinet was there, but not his children. The three older boys, Charles, Leon and Philippe, are serving in the military, so they’re not even around here at the moment and they just aren’t like that. Mr. and Mrs. Pinet have a daughter, Sabine, who went off to college this year. And the two younger boys are still in high school.”

“I see.” Weariness was overcoming him fast. Drake picked up her other foot. “You know most of these people. Who would you suspect? And who do you suppose Remy suspects? Because I got the feeling he was holding something back.”

“You’re probably right about Remy. He plays things close to his chest.” Saria yawned and covered her mouth. “I need to go to sleep, Drake.”

He took her hand to look at her nails, devoid of color. She’d probably never had a manicure in her life. His fingers stroked over hers. “Okay, honey, let’s get you into bed. But at least think about it. Whoever is doing this didn’t just start. Maybe they were cruel to animals. A bully in the play yard.”

He stood up, allowing the water to cascade off him, tugging at her hand so she stood as well. He released the plug to let the water out and lifted her onto the bathmat.

Saria reached for a towel, but he took it from her hands. “My turn.” He dried every inch of her as gently as he could, and then himself, before lifting her into his arms.

“I could get used to this.”

“You’re going to get used to a lot of things,” he predicted.

Her smile was drowsy. “You’re so sure of yourself.”

“I know when I’m good at things.”

She burst out laughing, a soft musical sound that tightened his groin. He drew back the comforter and placed her in the middle of the bed. Before she could scoot over, he stretched out beside her. It had begun to rain and the sound through the open French doors created an intimate rhythm on the balcony.

“Don’t you love the sound of rain?” she asked.

“Yes.” But it was her laughter he loved. He wrapped his arm around her waist and scooted her tight against him. “Where’s your knife?”

“My knife?” She echoed the word, her tone dripping with innocence.

He bit her shoulder gently. “I know you have it here somewhere. You sleep with the damn thing.”

Her laughter was taunting. It slid inside him and wrapped around his heart. “Does that scare you?”

“Hell yeah,” he said. “One of these nights you’ll get angry with me and . . .”

“Wait!”

Saria started to sit up and then retreated when he refused to move his arm. He pinned her with one leg draped over her thigh.

“What is it?”

“Lojos and Gage came home one day very angry, about two years ago. They’d been off trappin’, and I’d never seen them in such foul moods. They aren’t like that, you know? They laugh a lot and tease the way men often do, but Gage actually punched the wall outside and Lojos was like a bear with a sore tooth. At first I thought they got in a fight, but then I heard them talkin’ to Dash. Someone had gone along their trap lines and tortured the animals. Most were still alive, and the boys killed them to put them out of their misery.”

“What were they trapping?”

“You know nutria isn’t native to Louisiana. They came here from South America to fur farms and were released. No one knows if it was accidental or on purpose, but they’re impacting our wetlands adversely. A huge study was done to put in place a plan to control the population and we participate. But we don’t torture animals, Drake. There’s a huntin’ season, just like with alligators. We want the swamp to flourish. With oil spills and hurricanes and everythin’ else we have to contend with, almost all of us here conform to the regulations. And no one that we know would ever torture an animal for fun.”

“Did they find out who did it?”

She frowned. “That was the strange thing. There were no tracks.”

“And no scent,” he guessed.

“At the time, they weren’t admittin’ to me they were shifters, so if there wasn’t any scent, they didn’t mention it, but they didn’t want me goin’ out in the swamp by myself.”

Drake listened to the sound of her voice closely there in the dark, with the rain providing a musical background. There was an underlying hurt in her tone when she spoke of her brothers. The boys in her family had been close, but it was as if they hadn’t really noticed her until she got older. By the time they wanted to exert authority over her, she had taken firm control of her own life and resented their interference.

He rubbed his chin over the top of her head. “Would they have told Remy if there was evidence of a leopard as well as a human attack?”

“Of course. Remy’s the acknowledged head of the family and he’d beat the crap out of one of them if they held somethin’ like that back.”

“He didn’t try to beat you,” Drake felt compelled to point out.

“Remy would never hit me. None of my brothers would.” She was silent a moment and then half turned toward him to look at him, her eyes wide. “I had forgotten, but now that you say that, I remember Remy takin’ the switch from
Pere
and breakin’ it in half. I got in trouble for sneakin’ off at night.”

She talked so rarely about her childhood that he wanted to hear more. “Why’d you sneak off like that?”

A half smile touched her mouth. “I was angry with
mon pere
for gettin’ so drunk. He made a terrible mess on my floor and even the sofa. Pauline had made me the most beautiful cover. Our sofa was old and fallin’ apart and he ruined the cover. I knew I’d never get the stain out, so I threw a bucket of water on him where he was layin’ in the mess and stormed out. He was too drunk to catch me that night, but I went back a couple of nights later and he went to switch the tar out of me.”

“How old were you?”

“About nine.” She turned back, snuggling into her pillow. “I haven’t thought about that in years. Remy had come home and he came barrelin’ out of his room and yanked the switch out of
mon pere’s
hands and told him if he ever touched me lke that again, he’d get the switchin’ of his life. Funny that I didn’t remember that until now. That’s probably how I always knew Remy wouldn’t ever hit me in anger. He was furious with
mon pere.
”

“I would have been too.”

She laughed. “You say that now. You haven’t lived with me. Pauline says I could try the patience of a saint. As I recall you said you were no saint.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” He spread his fingers over the slight roundness of her stomach. He loved the way she felt so soft. “I’m definitely not, as much as I’d like to be for you.”

“I rather like that you’re no saint. I couldn’t live up to one.”

A sudden blast of wind sent a barrage of rain into the room and the curtains flying. Saria yelped and put the covers over her head as the drops of water poured over them. Laughing, Drake leapt out of bed and caught the doors to close them.

“Miss Pauline is goin’ to kill me,” Saria wailed, her voice muffled. “She loves those curtains.”

Drake pulled the first door closed, but stopped, looking out over the water in the distance. Rain swept down in silvery sheets, dotting the surface of the lake. Something moved just inside the tree line, where the hammocks were slung in the trees.

“What is it?” Saria peeked out from under the blankets.

When she went to move, he held up his hand as he would have for one of his team members. It didn’t occur to him she wouldn’t obey. Saria was intelligent and she knew the danger of what he’d done—challenging the leader of the lair. Already the two of them had been hunted. Armande and Robert swore they were only trying to scare off Drake, but Robert had made his try twice with a weapon.

Drake didn’t move, but stayed very still, allowing his leopard to come close to the surface, improving his night vision. The heavy rain made it difficult to see into the heavy foliage. The water behind the trees had allowed him to see a shadow he couldn’t identify merging with the darker interior of the grove.

They had one guard, the others needed sleep, and Pauline Lafont owned one very large piece of property. He silently cursed himself for provoking the male members of the lair. He should have taken care of hunting the killer and then worry about everything else.

A deer nosed its way out of the trees onto the edge of the inn’s rolling lawn. Drake didn’t move. He watched the animal step cautiously, almost delicately onto the expanse of green. He looked warily around and moved to a line of shrubs guarding roses. Every third step the animal stopped and waited. Twice he looked toward the trees where Drake had thought he had seen a shadow move.

Drake shifted his gaze to follow the line of the deer. The trees were close together, some of the trunks quite thick. The rain pounded the leaves, turning the night into a thick gray veil. Every now and then a gust of wind blew straight toward the house. He inhaled, trying to catch an elusive scent. Nothing. The deer continued to make his way toward the roses, leery, but determined.