Serengeti Heat (2 page)

Landon was
way
too close to losing control completely.

“She’s
sure
,” he growled.

Ava turned toward Landon, putting her back against the bar, and raised her face to him. As always, the sight of him hit her low in her stomach, a blow to her equilibrium.

Tall and broad, every inch tanned and muscled, he could have stepped right off the set of a gladiator movie, thrown on a black knit shirt and jeans and wandered into the bar. A man so large should never seem graceful, but there was a sense of the feline in Landon, even in his human form. He kept his hair short enough that it just fell over his brow, but the mix of dark golds and browns still called to mind the heavy mane of an African lion. And his eyes, Ava always wondered how they could be mistaken for human. A bright feline gold with the slightest sheen of green, those eyes always seemed to see so much more than they should, piercing right through her.

“Landon,” she said, her voice even smokier than usual. “Let’s just go.”

She reached across him to put her hand on his arm, so that her own arm stretched like a bar between him and his cowboy prey. Her arm wouldn’t stop him, but she was counting on it to act as a psychological barrier more than a physical one. She gently squeezed his biceps and those green-golden eyes shifted away from Chance to lock on her.

Ava bit her lip. She’d never been so close to him before and the way he was looking at her…it was a miracle she didn’t combust on the spot. But then his eyes flicked from Chance to her and back again, the martial gleam in them brightening.

“Landon,” she said his name again, lowering her voice to little more than a purr. She shifted toward him. They weren’t separated by much, so it didn’t take much to press her front against his. His eyes slammed down on her, Chance forgotten. She had all of his attention now.

Now all she had to do was convince the big bad kitty that he didn’t want to kill the man who had threatened his territory.

Ava rubbed her body against his, a gesture that was more familiar in her other form, but she hoped would have a similarly calming effect. Her intention wasn’t sexual. Social touching to soothe one another was common among the lions of the pride, but when Ava rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and tipped her face to scent his neck, she felt anything but soothed. Desire coursed through her in a shuddering wave, pooling in her stomach and releasing a flood of moisture and heat between her legs.

Landon inhaled sharply and coughed, a hard ridge against her stomach marking his body’s reaction to her arousal. Ava knew better than to think his erection had anything to do with her personally. Any lion male scenting a female’s lust would react the same way.

He closed one arm around her, pinning her to his front. “I’m taking you home.” She felt more than heard his words vibrating through his chest.

Chance, wisely, didn’t protest further as Landon ushered Ava out of the bar. Stepping out into the oppressive heat of the summer night, Ava scanned the parking lot until she saw Landon’s jeep, starting toward it without being told. She’d caught a taxi to the bar, thinking her brothers would be less likely to track her down if they couldn’t use the LoJack that was in all the ranch vehicles, but her carefully laid plan evidently hadn’t slowed them down much.

“They sent you after me, didn’t they?” Ava snapped, as Landon hustled her across the parking lot with an unyielding grip on her upper arm.

“Honey, no one sends me to do anything,” he snarled. “I’m the boss.”

An illicit thrill shot through her.

He’d come for her. Landon King, Alpha of the Three Rocks Pride, had come after lowly little beta Ava Minor. Which meant he actually knew who she was. Which meant she
wasn’t
completely invisible to him.

It may not be a declaration of love, but life was looking a hell of a lot brighter than it had a few minutes ago.

“I was already in the bar when you showed up. A fact which you would have noticed if you hadn’t been so busy shaking your ass at anything that would stand still long enough.”

And, just like that, life was a dark and depressing place once again.

Of course he hadn’t come for her. Why would he? As far as he was concerned, she barely even existed.

And as for her brothers…they probably hadn’t even noticed she was gone. No one was out scouring the night for unimportant Ava Minor. Her little rebellion had been crushed without so much as a kiss from a stranger to make her feel like a woman.

Was that so much to ask? To feel different for a change? For once not the weakest member of the pride. For once not a protected little sister, a helpless little girl, a lioness so small she was never even included in the hunts. Tonight, for once in her life, she was going to be more. But it hadn’t worked out that way. It never worked out that way.

Ava had never felt more invisible.

Landon opened the driver’s side door of the jeep and tossed her across the stick shift into the passenger seat. He’d all but thrown her into the car, but she didn’t make a single sound of complaint. She curled into the far seat, more cat than woman, and he jumped in after her, slamming the door harder than necessary and barking, “Seatbelt.”

What the hell had she been thinking walking into a place like that dressed the way she was? Acting like everything she had was up for grabs. Smelling like…
fuck.
The scent of her from half a room away had his cock standing up for duty. Sitting in the cab, the air around them smelled heavily of her. It was scrambling his brain. That was his only excuse for the fact that he had nearly shifted in the middle of the bar—in
public
—just for the satisfaction of ripping out that cowboy’s innards.

Landon revved the engine to life and slammed it into gear. Gravel sprayed up, pinging against nearby cars, as he tore out of the parking lot. She clutched at the doorframe as he took the corner too fast. The jeep rocked, the left-side wheels nearly lifting off the ground, but instead of easing up, Landon’s foot slammed down on the accelerator. Tires screeched and jolted as they found purchase on the asphalt of the county road and the jeep shot forward like a rocket, passing eighty miles per hour as the abused engine screamed.

She didn’t make a sound.

Landon was still spoiling for a fight, his blood up higher than it had ever been outside of the challenge circle. His claws kept springing out, his usual, rigid control of the animal inside him beyond him in his current state. His body wanted to shift and go to battle, not to hunt but to fight for his territory, protect his pride. He needed the violence. And barring that, he needed to snarl at someone, verbally rip into someone until his claws no longer itched to fillet the cowboy who had stood too close to her.

Beside him in the passenger seat, Ava’s calm mocked him. A silent challenge.

“What the
fuck
were you doing?”

She started at his tone, instinctively shying against the door. Her fear, subtle though it was, only served to enrage him further. Then she spoke and her words disabused him of the notion that she was afraid of him.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she snapped, her voice brittle as she stared straight ahead out the window.

“Think again, sweetheart. As far as you’re concerned, I’m judge, jury and executioner. So start talking.”

She shifted against the door again and Landon took a deep breath, thinking to reassure himself that there was no tang of fear in her scent, but instead his head was swamped by a rush of heat. His hands tightened convulsively on the steering wheel. There was no fear in her scent. Only lust, thick and heady. He’d thought it would diminish once he got her away from her cowboy toy, but the close proximity inside the jeep made her scent even stronger. He was drowning in it. And hard enough to pound spikes.

“You’re not talking…” he growled, the promise of a threat creeping into his voice.

“I could declare myself a nomad,” she said defiantly. “Then you wouldn’t have any rights over me.”

Landon laughed sharply, incapable of actual humor in his current state, but bitterly amused. “Shall I call your brothers or would you rather tell them you’ve decided to go off the reservation yourself?”

She hissed a curse under her breath.

“I don’t hear an explanation, Ava.”

She turned to him sharply, blinking in surprise. “You know my name?”

“Of course I know your name,” he snapped, made defensive by the fact that he
wouldn’t
have known it if the cowboy hadn’t said it in front of him. He’d known she was one of his pride by the scent of her and a vague sense of familiarity, but twenty minutes ago he wouldn’t have known her from Eve among the lionesses in his pride.

He’d only known to dangle her brothers over her as a threat because he’d heard those brothers, four of his most effective enforcers, talking about their kid sister more than once. “Little Ava” was nothing like her hulking brothers. She was tiny, almost frail for a lioness. She couldn’t possibly be fully grown, could she? Though in that outfit, she looked plenty grown-up.

“Your brothers are going to have kittens when they see you dressed like that.”

“I just wanted to have a good time. Is that against the law?”

“Yes.” The answer shot out of his mouth before his brain caught up. Technically, fun was not illegal either among the humans or the pride, but Landon would happily fabricate a law if it kept her ass out of that bar for the rest of her natural life.

She snorted, unimpressed by his heavy-handed answer. “My, my. Aren’t we king of the double standard?” she purred, the sarcasm coating her words like molasses. “And what were you doing at such a notorious meat market, my liege?”

Landon hissed, spinning the wheel to take the turn onto the ranch road and nearly throwing the jeep into the ditch in the process. He got a little yelp of surprise out of her this time, but she quickly contained herself, silent and stoic as the jeep bounced painfully along the rutted dirt track.

She was right. He had gone to the Bar Nothing to find a nice, malleable human piece of ass and get laid. Ever since he’d won the challenge to take over the Alpha position in the pride three months ago, every lioness on the ranch had been waving her tail under his nose, angling to get her paws on the position of his mate. The female he picked would lead the Hunt. She would rule the pack in his absence and preside over the other females. She would be the strongest, the fastest. The best genetic material to pass on to his cubs.

He knew he needed to pick soon. The pride was unstable without an Alpha female in place as his mate. But he wasn’t ready to choose just yet. He and his sister had been nomads before he had challenged for control of the Three Rocks Pride. He didn’t know the pack and its social undercurrents as well as he needed to before he elevated one of the lionesses to be his mate.

He’d slept with a few of them—he was a cat, after all, and there was only so much teasing he could take—but he’d been careful not to lead any of them to believe that their efforts in his bed had pushed them to the front of the line for his consort. Tonight, he’d just wanted to relax. A simple, easy romp with a woman who didn’t have political gain on her mind. Just sex. No obeisance to the big strong Alpha, and no machinations to become his queen.

Ava had shot his plans for the evening straight to hell.

“No response?” the assassin in question purred acidly. “Afraid you’ll have to apologize for dragging me out of there?”

“I’m not the one who’s going to be sorry if you don’t stop baiting me, little girl.”

She didn’t back down from the threat. Her body angled toward him on the seat and she snarled, “If you can go out looking for a piece of ass whenever you feel like it, then so can I.”

Landon slammed his foot down on the brake pedal. The jeep fishtailed and the brakes shrieked, bouncing and jolting them to a sudden stop. He cut the engine and crawled across the stick shift, caging her between his arms and the door. He loomed over her, his animal nature lapping up the flash of wariness in her pale gray eyes.

“Did you honestly think some human would be able to satisfy you?” he growled low, pressing in on her with his heat.

Her eyes widened, the expression in them suddenly raw and vulnerable, exposed.

“You should have just come to me if you needed to be fucked.”

Anger burned away the vulnerability in her eyes. “Fuck you, you arrogant prick.”

Landon laughed darkly. “All you had to do was ask.”

He slammed his mouth down on hers, ready to force her lips apart, but she opened for him willingly, hungrily. He jerked her hips across the seat toward him and her legs fell open. Landon fitted his hips into the invitation of her wide spread thighs and ground his aching cock against her clit, the friction making them both growl.

He plunged his tongue into her mouth, driven by lust and lust-fogged purpose. He needed to intimidate her into retracting, apologizing,
something
. The drive to make her submit was overpowering, but not as strong as his other motive. He would make her forget the puny human. He would drive every other man from her thoughts, banishing them with his body, claiming her wholly as his own.

Ava arched beneath him, her small hands fisting in his shirt and ripping it cleanly down the center. She hummed her pleasure into his mouth and her back bowed again, rubbing her breasts against his now-naked chest, her nipples hard little points through the thin fabric of her top. Landon yanked her shirt down to her waist and took one perfectly formed breast in his hand.

She was small, so much smaller than the other lionesses, but her breast filled his hand perfectly, the hard nub of the nipple teasing at his palm as he plumped the warm flesh. When he lightly pinched her nipple, she broke away from his mouth with a hiss, her hips pressing up, grinding against him mindlessly.

Landon gently scraped teeth too sharp to be human down the side of her neck, nibbling down across her chest and drawing the peak of one small breast into his mouth, careful not to pierce her soft skin. Ava moaned, her hands tangling in his hair, gripping so tight it hurt, but he didn’t spare a thought for the slight pain. His attention remained fixed on her delicate, perfectly formed body, laid out before him like a feast.