SixBarkPackTabooMobi (9 page)

Real desperation filled me, then. I got his pants open, spread apart, and his manhood sprang free. The head of it was slippery wet, bounced off my hand. I made a mistake--trying to get his pants down more. It made him get a hold of me, pull his head back, and look me in the eye.

“Look at us,” he said.

I was looking, wanting to cry. “Let me make love to you, the way you did me.”

“Puss--”

“Letha.” I had to get him to stop calling me cat, puss. I had to get him buried inside of me again, where he could forget everything but the way we fit together. “It’s Letha.”

He conceded that. “Letha.”

“Just let me love you.” Yes, I sounded desperate. It’s not really cat nature to want to please someone else. I’d never felt like that before. Rejection was something I did to people. Not received.

I tried to pull my hands free, but he held tight, brought them up between us, in fists. Held them to his chest. His burly, massive, wiry-haired chest. I realized that the fight was fruitless. I sighed into him, buried my head against the meat there. So bulky. I loved that!

Tried to breathe. Tried not to cry.

He put his chin on the top of my head, let loose of my hands, and wrapped his arms around me.

There’s no telling how long he held me like that. All I know is that, eventually, I smiled to myself, curled up into his neck practically with a purr and let him be strong.

Until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

My hands slowly found their way to his waist, rested a minute, maybe two or three. Slow seduction. No fast moves.

I exhaled on his throat, tasted, sighed against him.

Felt his arms tighten, his fingers stiffen. Heard him groan when I flicked my tongue out under his jaw, and purred louder. I don’t know how his knees stood it. All I can say is...garou are built different. His stamina is a...monumental thing. I had to climb up on his lap, one tiny, easing movement at a time.

When I slid down onto his shaft, I don’t think he realized what I was doing. I distracted him with kisses, touches, slow lip-slides over his throat, his cheek, up to his temples. Buried his nose against my chest again as I rose up. He just held tight. Didn’t give back.

But he let me settle.

That came with some serious, spreading pain. Had I been so...hot earlier that I didn’t realize how tight the fit was? The wince eeked from the corners of my lips.

He whispered, “See what I mean?”

“Shh.”

His mighty hands spanned my back, gradually finding their way to my hips. I can’t tell you how slow we moved. I was afraid he’d make me stop. And I think he was afraid to hurt me.

But a man is only a man. His self-restraint is only so tightly wound up. You can unravel it, given the right approach. With Bark, I realized that I couldn’t drag him kicking and screaming. I had to ease him into the water until he couldn’t turn back. Still, he let me do the work.

Nothing,
nothing
has ever given me more satisfaction than the feel of him erupting inside of me, crying out with an, “Aaah!” as his fingers bit into my hips, and he held me down, kept me from riding up one more time.

I found out what a turn-on it was to swallow someone’s gasp of climax. To fill it with my tongue. To perpetrate after-play that makes your head spin.

He fell back
then
. Carried me with him, still impaled, totally engrossed in being on top of him. And he rolled me, showing me what it felt like to be pumped. Thank Gaia for the lubrication he’d already shot into me. And for the bearskin rug beneath us. I found myself clutching at it, grunting with every solid thrust. He didn’t fuck me fast. Just...thoroughly. All the way to the hilt.

Until I was insane, to the edge.

He must’ve been watching my eyes, gauging my breathing, waiting for me to tense up even more around him. Because he held himself rigid within me while I bit into his bicep. Not drawing blood, just burying my mouth, and the screams of total satisfaction.

But I couldn’t stand it. I had to let it out when he moved one more time. My head fell back and I released the squeal of ultimate orgasm. The one you get when you’re hit deep-stroke with full-controlled impact.

He dumped into me, telling me, “Go ahead, scream...
cat
.” And I did. I know he was fully into it. Absolutely loving it.

But out of nowhere, his hand covered my mouth, clamped right down, and he went deadly still, saying, “Hush.” He winced, though, and I felt him spurting into me.

He didn’t get to relax then, because another noise outside--the slightest thing--barely more than a scratch, had his gaze darting around, to one side and then the other.

When he was sure I was gonna be quiet, he hopped off of me, bounding to his feet. “Did you hear that?” His voice was barely audible.

I hadn’t heard anything. I’d been screaming. Remember?

Chapter Six

Gaia, I’d never seen a garou from that angle before. His chest heaved. His cock throbbed, still dripping. Magnificent manhood. I gasped. I’d never felt awe like that before. I reached up--to catch a drop of fluid as it fell through the air.

That’s what drew his attention to it, I think. He looked down, tucked himself in his pants. Did them up.

Biting my lower lip, I sat up, rubbing the pearly drop between my thumb and forefinger, hugging my own knees. I could tell by the crouchy way he stood, and the tip of his head, that he was listening to something outside, so I waited for him to tell me what to do.

Or for it to go away.

But it didn’t.

There was another noise, very small, then silence.

Reaching down blindly, he grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me up beside him, into a protective circle. Before he could put me behind him, which I felt him trying to do--while I was trying to get safe under his armpit--the door busted open.

Leo and Tommy, my retrieval team. Full crinos yellow panther bastets. Absolutely awesome in their own right.

I don’t know how they both got through the door so fast. They stopped, though--pulled up flat and hard, eyes bulging, noses taking it all in. Tommy’s gaze glinted, flashed over the liquid evidence of our sex, and then his head jerked at the dead body. To tell the truth, I’d been so wrapped up in Bark that I’d forgotten that. But suddenly, my stomach growled.

All three men tensed at the sound. Barklay said quietly, “Get behind me, Letha.”

“No.” I knew the minute I did, he was dead.

Leo never took his eye off Bark. I knew that look. It proceeded a shredding.

Tommy had his gun in his hand. He swung it around, aiming it at Barklay. Very succinctly, he said, “Move, Le.”

“No.” I tried to slip forward, put my arm around Bark’s waist.

He peeled me, growling--grew crinos beneath my hands. Full crinos werewolf.

Talk about a towering son-of-a-bitch. I was afraid to look up. I just hung on, made it impossible for him to get in front of me.

Yeah. Go ahead and laugh.

I watched Leo and Tommy’s heads go up, watching the transformation--calculating his weaknesses. Bark’s hulking shadow ruggedly crawled the wall behind them, dwarfing them--and their shadows.

Two bastets to one werewolf. They had the upper hand, even without Tommy’s gun. Never even wondered where Leo’s was. He was more a claw-man, anyway.

The only thing that slowed the action down was me. I was in the way.

Leo snarled, “Let her
the fuck
go.”

Barkley spit out, “Get off me, puss!” His frustration had changed hands, completely.

Now, Leo’s not exactly slow, but he wasn’t getting the whole picture. He said again, “Let her
the fuck
go.”

Thank Gaia, Tommy was with him. He put out a hand, right before Leo would have leaped at Bark’s throat. One more time, he insisted, “
Move
, Le.”

That finally got through to Leo. He broke eye contact with Barklay, found my eyes and flashed. Blazing, absolute, fury.

I don’t, exactly, know what he’d been thinking before. But I think he was surprised to realize I was alive. I mean, my smell--the scent of my sex--was all over the place. The air was thick with it. He’d walked in on that so many times. Always told me my screwing around was gonna get me killed. Plus, there was the smell of fresh blood, and I’d been screaming my fool head off just seconds before they burst in on us.

It took a few for him to finally get the fact that I was alive...and not
letting
Bark put me aside. That was a first.

I’d enjoyed watching
my brothers
in action before. Always stepped aside to let them do their thing. Encouraged them, even.

Yeah. I never billed myself to be a saint. I’m a friggin’ cat woman, for Gaia’s sake. Not a member of PETA.

Not that I’m against them. By all means, save us all. But, really, their ads make me laugh.

There was nothing funny in that cabin, though. Not then. One wrong move, and any one of us could end up dead.

I itched to turn crinos. You know--so I could protect. Myself. My...men. Bark. My brothers. Whose defense would I leap to?

Ah, I wanted to run. Let them work it out. But I was afraid to.

Tails turned, got stiff. Razor claws flexed. Everybody waited for someone else to make a mistake. To say the wrong thing.

So, should I mention that it never occurred to me that I was naked? Not that it would have mattered. Compare bastet thinking to Asian. We bathe as a family. We swim nude. We aren’t prudes. But we can be very...propriety conscious, when the mood suits us, depending on company. That’s how we are.

And that’s what it all came down to. Who we were. And what he was.

Sleeping with each other--had been suicide.
Taboo.
They were gonna kill him and then Daddy would slash my throat himself. Enough was enough. Some things were just too much.

Leo surprised us all, breaking the silence by asking softly, “You know his name, Le?”

Bark jerked. He stopped working to get shed of me.

Leo’s body language
cried
I’m gonna kill you both.

I stuttered, “Ye--yes. B--Bark.”

Almost sadly, Leo shook his head. “No.” He corrected me. “His name is...Nine.”

Panic.

“No. No!”

Tommy clarified, “Not a number, Leo. Bark. Fucking...
Barklay
.” Said it like it meant something.

Bark smiled, exposing saber fangs. “I thought I recognized a family resemblance.”

He wasn’t talking about me, believe it or not. Connected me to my mother, and that to Lionel--the whole family by way of that. Barklay, it turns out, has been fascinated with bastet history and politics for a very long time. Been through all the old papers, newsreels.

So, back to the moment.

That family resemblance comment made me flinch. Bark and Tommy knew each other? I eased my grip, just a little. I didn’t know whose face to watch. But, honestly, I knew already that Leo was the loose cannon.

Tom straightened his back, rose up to his full height, but he didn’t lower his gun. He let his gaze wander, knowing full well that Leo would pounce if Bark so much as bristled a hair.

“How’d you find the place?” Even then, Bark’s voice sounded very easygoing.

“Had a call,
or two
,” Tommy said. “I never expected it would come out this way.”

“Everybody calm down.” Yeah. That was not my usual line.

My brothers glanced my way--with one eye a piece.

“Put your gun away, Tom--my.” My mistake. I knew it before I had his whole name out. He leveled it, even as I added, “There’s garou all over out there.”

“Yeah? I don’t hear any howling. Do you?” Tommy raised his lip in the semblance of a grin. A self-satisfied expression.

“They’ll be back any minute.” Part of me hoped it was true. Hoped my brothers would get in their car and disappear before it happened. Surely Bark’s people would be back soon. Chasing after one paparazzi couldn’t take all night, could it? There was no way my brothers got through them, killed them all, without us hearing it, was there? Even they weren’t that good.

“Shut up, puss,” Bark urged me to close my lips, but he had relaxed a little. His fingers started sliding up and down, caressing my arm. Those claws--were retracted. Amazing, considering the type of beast he’d turned into.

Always so gentle.

“Get your hands off of her,” Leo hissed. “Before I rip your throat out.”

Bark chuckled at that. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Stop!” I appealed to Tommy. “Make them--”

But Tommy interrupted me with, “You heard him.”

It almost killed me. Shocked the hell out of me...when Bark lifted his hands--both of them--into the air. Totally non-aggressively, too. Didn’t flick those claws out on that one hand.

Tommy said, “Pull her free, Leo.”

Digging my toes in, I locked my hands around Bark’s waist. For as big as the rest of him was, he came to a tight V above the hips. The corded muscles of his thighs were so much thicker than they had been that he had to bend at the knee to accommodate me so he didn’t lift me off the ground.

No one could have denied his physical presence. His Adonis sculpturing. Even with the pronounced lupine features. The extra, crisp hair that had sprouted thickly over his back.

Leo got a hold of me, cussed when he couldn’t pull me away easily. Careful not to get in too close where Bark could slash him directly, he gritted, “I’m gonna fucking kill you myself, Le. Let go.”

That, apparently, did it for Bark. In one swipe, he knocked Leo off balance, bounced him into the wall--sent me spinning. The turn of his body shielded me, but gave Tommy a clean shot, hitting Barklay in the ribs. That didn’t stop him, though. He kicked out, popping the gun out of Tommy’s hand before another shot rang through the air. Tommy pulled the trigger at the last second, but the bullet went into the ceiling.

My brothers didn’t think twice. They matrixed off the walls. By that, I mean--they defied gravity, showed off their cat skills. Climbed the freaking walls, slashing to Bark’s gnashing. They were everywhere at once, and he was turning, deflecting them with unbelievable swiftness and accuracy. Snarling to his growling. Squealing to his howling.