Spotting His Leopard (Shifters, Inc.) (8 page)

               
That one hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest. It knocked the breath out of her, and she choked back a gasp, and struggled to string words together into a sentence.

                “I don’t… I…your fated mate? As in…we’re each other’s fated mates? I don’t know if I believe in that whole concept at all, but…” The truth stone wouldn’t let her lie, even to herself. It pushed through the tangled skein of denial and self-protection wrapped around her heart, and she looked him in the eye and said, “Yes. Somewhere deep inside me, I’ve known it since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

                He nodded, then reached out for the necklace and took it off for her and draped it around his own neck.

                “Go on,” he said somberly. “Ask me anything.”

                Her heart pounded so loudly that she could hear the thudding in her ears. 
This is where everything changes. If I let it. If I let him in.

               
“Who do you work for?” she said, her heart racing.

                “A private security firm called Shifters, Inc. We’re based in Playa Linda, California.” So he’d been telling the truth about that. He wasn’t one of her sister’s enemies running some kind of scam on her.

                “Did you come to the island to look for me, or my sister?”

                He shook his head. “No. I didn’t know a thing about you or your group of thieves. I came here because my parents tricked me into taking this technology-free vacation, and I happened to stumble on you in that museum. Although if you believe what they say about fated mates, it was destiny, not an accident, that I found you.”

                “How did you find out my sister’s identity?”

                “After I spotted you, I chartered a private plane and left the island for the day.  I had taken a picture of you at the museum with my cell phone, and I ran your face through a facial recognition program of my own design.  I compared it to databases of suspected thieves, especially high-end ones. I came up with your name.  There was only a record of your sister, not you, and she only came to the attention of law enforcement a few years ago.  There was nothing confirmed until this year when she started screwing up big time.”

                “I heard you talking to Maji, asking him if he’d found out anything else about my sister. That was why I was angry at you. Were you just flirting with me so you can track her down and arrest her?” She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

                He looked shocked. “Of course not. But…if I did find her, I’d have to take her into custody. An entire family was murdered.  And two security guards, innocent men doing their jobs, men with families who now do not have fathers.  I cannot let that go.”

                She bit her lip. “I know you’re right. I don’t know what I’d do if I thought she really committed those murders – but she didn’t, I’m sure of it. I know it in my bones.  For a million reasons, I know it. All I can ask is that if we ever do come across her, that we at least investigate and find out what happened before turning her in. If…if she really murdered those people…then you’re right, I can’t defend that, even though she is my sister. But she didn’t,” she finished with conviction.

                She looked at him, her heart in her throat. The final question. She knew the answer, so she was kind of wasting a question, but she desperately needed to hear him say it.

                “Do you really want me?” she said, her voice small and shaky.

                A broad smile spread out across his handsome face. “Let me show you how much.”

                “Do you really want me?” she said, her voice small and shaky.

                A broad smile spread out across his handsome face. “Let me show you how much.”

                He leaned towards her, moving slowly as if he was afraid she’d spook and run. She wondered if he could hear her heart pounding as if she’d been sprinting. It was partly from fear – fear of making herself so vulnerable to someone who had the power to hurt her – but it was mostly from excitement. She trembled and held herself tense and still as he placed his warm lips gently against hers. His muscular arms went around her, holding her fast like steel bands, and then it was too late to run – even if she’d wanted to.

                His mouth was firm and sweet against hers, and she parted her lips on a sigh, swirls of sensation in her belly and shivers of anticipation running up and down her spine.

                He gave a low groan and wrapped his arms around her, crushing her to him. Her breasts pressed against the hard planes of his broad chest and she could feel her nipples pebbling into tight little buds of sensation. She knew he’d be able to feel it too.

                She gasped against his mouth, sliding her arms around his neck so they were pressed even more closely together, and he angled his head and pushed his tongue into her mouth, tangling it with hers in sweet, teasing, twisting motions. She whimpered with need when he nipped at her lower lip, feeling a warm trickle of wet excitement in her panties. A low throbbing arousal started between her thighs and she wriggled against him in a futile attempt to ease the ache.

                Suddenly he put his big hands underneath her arms and lifted her effortlessly, setting her astride his lap so she could feel the hot, hard length of his cock against her most intimate folds. She gasped and rocked her hips, setting up a sweet mutual friction that made him groan and clutch her hips hard enough to leave bruises, pushing upwards towards her and panting against her mouth. He lay back on the bed, letting her work above him for a few long moments, writhing on top of him and revelling in the way his dick got bigger and harder until she wondered whether she’d be able to take him. Her core was molten and aching with the desire to be stretched and filled and possessed by his rigid length.

                Then he rolled her over and lingered there, kissing her throat and palming her breasts before he climbed off her and got to his feet, leaving her breathless and bewildered. She parted her lips to ask him why he’d stopped, but he placed a finger to his lips, his eyes burning with dark, intense desire as he looked down at her.

                He slowly unbuttoned his shirt, his expression becoming almost playful as he exposed a muscular chest, a flat, taut stomach and a trail of hair starting at his navel and trailing down below the waistband of his pants. She could clearly see the rigid outline of his erection pressing against the fabric in a way that looked restrictive and painful, and she ached to free him and take him into her hands, into her mouth…

                He quickly discarded his pants and underwear, letting his cock spring free from its prison. It was long and thick with a slight curve, and she could see a shiny bead of precum trembling at the tip, which told her that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. She didn’t need the truth stone to prove that to her – his body’s reaction to her spoke for itself.

                Following his lead, Gwenneth  wriggled out of her top and bra, dropping them to the side of the bed, and she saw his eyes drift to her full breasts with their hard, dusky nipples as if drawn by a magnet. Then he kneeled on the floor, spreading her legs to either side of him before undoing the button at her waistband and trailing his fingers down the insides of her thighs and her calves. He pulled off her socks, then tugged at her pants, pulling them down her legs and leaving her in only her panties, which were plain cotton – it wasn’t as if she’d been planning to seduce anybody on this trip.

                Then he lifted her ankles onto his shoulders and grinned wolfishly up at her, setting her pulse fluttering once again. She was sure he must be able to scent her arousal, and her thighs trembled as he kissed her calf, then trailed his lips up her leg, lapping at the sensitive spot behind her knee and making her whimper and twitch as he worked his way higher, nipping at the tender flesh of her inner thighs.

                He pushed his thumbs into the sides of her panties and twisted the fabric, drawing the cotton tight so that the outline of her damp pussy was clearly exposed beneath, then lowered his head and ran the flat of his tongue, hard, up the length of her slit, ending with a rough flick to her clit that make her twist and moan beneath him, fisting her hands in his hair to hold him to her as she felt coils of excitement winding tighter and tighter like a spring. She thought she might come just from the heat of his mouth on her pussy, even through the damp cotton.

                Tyler pulled down her panties, tugging the moist scrap of cotton down her thighs and raising the bundled cloth to his face, inhaling deeply and savouring her scent before discarding the panties and returning to her slick, throbbing pussy.

                He lapped at her slit, pushing his tongue just fractionally inside her and withdrawing it again, as if to tease her with a hint of the sensations in store when he entered her for real. Then he ran the very tip around her clit in rapid circling motions that had her gasping and arching her hips off the bed. She released his head to fist the covers on either side of her, white-knuckled as she rode out the near-orgasmic sensations he was eliciting with his clever, playful tongue against her most intimate folds. He washed her thoroughly with his tongue, moaning with satisfaction as he lapped up the juices that flowed from her core as if they were the sweetest honey. Then he sucked her clit hard between his lips and starbursts of light and colour exploded behind her closed eyelids as she teetered on the brink of orgasm, his mouth on her wet pussy and her thighs clamped to the sides of her head.

                He drew back, the bottom half of his face shiny with her juices, and grinned at her as he crawled up her body, pausing to press his face against the soft curve of her belly, nipping at her breast then suckling hard on her nipple, drawing a thread of electric sensation up from her clit through her entire body. Her skin was delicately dewed with a fine sheen of sweat, from the tropical heat of the jungle paradise and the wild, primal arousal that throbbed through her body and made her heart hammer in her chest.

                He quickly sheathed himself, and she felt a brief moment of relief. She was so desperate to feel him moving above her, inside her, that she wasn’t sure she’d even have thought about using protection. She remembered that they were at a fertility temple, for goodness’ sake, and thanked her lucky stars that Tyler cared enough about her to be careful about protecting her.

                He held himself above her for a few moments, arms straight and biceps bunched and shiny with sweat. He gazed down into her eyes as if trying to brand the moment into his memory forever. She knew she’d never forget it if she lived to be a hundred. There was a primal connection between them that went beyond the physical, beyond the sexual, and if she’d still doubted that they were fated mates, that moment would have laid those doubts to rest forever.

                He positioned himself at her slick, needy entrance and she moaned and wiggled against him, urging him to enter her.

                She was tight, and he was so large that at first she struggled to accommodate him, but he worked himself patiently inside her, inch by delicious inch, until he was seated to the hilt and her pussy sheathed him snugly in its hot, wet depths. He closed his eyes and shuddered briefly, and the knowledge of how hard-won his control was made her pulse around him with instinctive, involuntary lust.

                The he started to move inside her, and Gwenneth was lost. She thrashed her head from side to side on the bed covers, moaning and whimpering with each powerful thrust, and clutched his buttocks, digging her fingers into the bunching muscles and urging him inside her farther and faster and harder.

                He gave a hoarse, desperate moan and she wrapped her legs around his waist, opening herself to him as far as she could while he drove inside her, his smooth skin sticky with sweat, his muscles working, his breath coming in harsh, effortful rasps.

                Gwenneth’s cries rose, crescendoing as he drove her closer and closer to a peak of ecstasy that had her trembling beneath him with blissful sensation. She froze, shuddering, her thighs trembling, as she came harder than she ever had in her life, unbearable sensation washing over her as Tyler gave a fierce groan and surrendered to his own crisis, continuing to pump inside her until the last spasms faded away and they were left weak and drained, tangled in each other’s arms, sweaty and utterly sated.

               
“I cannot do it, sir.” Maji stood in the doorway of his shanty, glancing around nervously. Tyler and Gwenneth had stopped by to ask for a ride into the city so that they could meet up with Nadette and Corran.  

                “Here, you must take this back,” he added, thrusting his fist at Tyler. Tyler glanced down; Maji had a
hand
ful of bills clutched in his
hand
.

                “What is that?”

                “The money that you paid me in advance. I cannot take it.” He glanced around again. “Perhaps you should come inside a moment. It won’t do for me to be seen talking to you.”

                Gwenneth and Tyler stepped through the door quickly.

                The entire hut was one room, with several cots on one side and a small cooking stove on the other.  Stacked-up wooden boxes held battered pans and chipped dishware. An older man who looked to be in his eighties lay curled up on one of the cots.

                “My great-grandfather,” Maji said, nodding at him.

                “Maji, what’s happening?” Tyler asked. “Why can’t you take us into town?”

                “Farruki knows that you hired me,” Maji said, his voice lowered.  “If you come to me, I am supposed to take you straight to the nearest police station and call out to them so you can be arrested. He promised me a very large reward. And he will kill me and my family if he finds out I’ve been helping you.”

                “Since when does the Thieves’ Guild work with the police?” Gwenneth asked, astonished.

                Maji gave a tired shrug. “The Thieves’ Guild, the police…it’s all the same thing these days.”

                “How long has this been going on?” Tyler asked.

                “For a few years now.”

                The old man on the cot started coughing and pressed a dirty rag against his mouth. The coughing fit lasted for almost a minute before it subsided and he lay there wheezing.  Maji sighed heavily and looked away.

                “Why does the king allow it?” Tyler wondered, shaking his head. “It never used to be like this.”

                Maji glanced around nervously, as if even the walls of the hut had ears, and a voice to betray him.

                “The King has not been seen close up by anyone, for years,” he said. “Since the trouble started. It’s always the Witch Doctor who makes the public announcements these days. Him and the King’s Number Two Wife, Serena. We’re not even sure if the King is alive anymore, or if they’re just using some actor to pretend to be him. He used to greet the public personally every year on his birthday, giving blessings to hundreds of people, but he stopped doing that three years ago, and when he makes appearances now it’s just from his balcony.”

                Tyler and Gwenneth glanced at each other.

                “Are we putting you in danger just by being here?” Tyler asked Maji.

                “Not for the moment. Everyone in my neighborhood hates Farruki, so they will not betray me. You could stay for tea if you wish.” But he looked nervous as he said that.

                “Maji, we must go,” Gwenneth said. “Thank you for warning us. If I ever get off this island and can talk to someone in the Thieves’ Guild, I swear we’ll have Farruki’s head on a pike.”

                She and Tyler quickly hurried out, refusing Maji’s final attempts to return Tyler’s money.             

* * *

                It seemed as if there were police officers on every street corner,  Gwenneth thought uneasily as they headed towards the park. They’d had to walk, since Maji couldn’t give them a ride.

                She and Tyler had told the priestesses they had business to attend to in the city. Belij had looked concerned but hadn’t said anything. They never got involved in politics.

                “May all your endeavors be fruitful!” Belij called out to them as they left the temple.  She didn’t know that, while Tyler and Gwenneth had been having sex all night long for the past couple of nights, they’d also been using birth control.  Thank heavens the priestesses didn’t search through their guests’ bags.

                Gwenneth and Tyler were walking separately, since the police were searching for them as a couple. He stayed a block or two ahead of her as they worked their way towards the park, which was finally in sight.

                Police walking past glanced at her then looked away.  She’d taken care to disguise herself before leaving the jungle – she had used a special bronzer to dye her skin so tan that she could easily have passed for a native, popped in a pair of green contact lenses, and styled her straight hair so it was in ringlets. Tyler had borrowed a business suit and a homburg hat from one of the guests at the fertility compound, and she prayed that would be disguise enough for him.

                 “Miss, miss, a coin for me? My mother is sick and cannot work!” a familiar voice sang out to her.  She glanced down. It was Hiro.

                She knelt down, fished in her purse, and pulled out a few coins for him.

                “Hiro, are you all right? What are you doing here?” she asked in a low voice, glancing around warily. Nobody was looking at them, she saw with relief.

                “Tana heard you say you were meeting your friend here today. We have been watching the park in case you need us,” he said.

                Her heart made a painful thump in her chest.

                “Is everything all right? Did the soldiers hurt any of you?”

                “Oh, no, miss, we are much too fast for them.” He flashed her a devilish grin.

                “Tell me where the Fallback is,” she said. “I can’t remember.”

                He described an abandoned bridge on the outskirts of the shanty town. She pulled out some more bills from her purse and gave them to him. A soldier was watching her, she saw; he was probably wondering why she was spending so much time talking to the beggar child.

                “You need to go. It’s dangerous here for you,” she said to him. “Tell Tana thank you, but I want you to stay away from me for now, because the soldiers are watching too closely. If I can make it to the Fallback, I will.”  Before he could answer, she stood up and hurried away, praying she hadn’t blown her cover.

                She looked up ahead; Tyler had vanished, probably gone into the park already.

                As always, she’d arrived early.  Normally she showed up an hour early to scope out the area when she was meeting with anyone, and Nadette knew that about her, so today, to be extra cautious, she and Tyler had showed up two hours early.

                “Hey, sweetheart.” Tyler walked up to her, grinning and holding out a cup of coffee. “Don’t show any reaction, here comes a squadron.” His voice and expression were cheerful, but she felt the tension in his body as he put his arm around her waist and quickly walked her to a side path at the edge of the grove.

                “They’re watching us,” she observed as they settled onto a bench.

                “I know one way to blend in,” Tyler said. He glanced at another bench farther down the path from them, where a lion shifter couple were having very enthusiastic public sex.  The woman was on her hands and knees, and the male lion was thrusting into her from behind. Every time he pulled back, Gwenneth caught a glimpse of his enormous phallus.

                Once upon a time, a public display like that would have had her blushing and running for cover. After the last couple of days with Tyler, though, all she could think about was sex. Tyler grabbing her, pulling her hair, forcing himself into her, thrusting hard…

                “For the sake of blending in, you should probably kiss me immediately,” she murmured into his ear.

                “Oh, the things I do for you. Any other requests?” She could hear the smirk in his voice.

                She pretended to consider for a moment. “Yes. There should be plenty of tongue. And you should get handsy.”

                He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Well, if you insist.”

                Then he was on top of her, unbuttoning her shirt with greedy, eager hands, thrusting her skirt up, sliding between her legs…

                Then he was on top of her, unbuttoning her shirt with greedy, eager hands, thrusting her skirt up, sliding between her legs…

                Gwenneth giggled – she actually giggled. It was completely out of character, and all the more so because she didn’t give a damn. There was something so freeing about the sexual openness of this little island paradise, and for a moment she felt sad that she couldn’t be here, with Tyler, simply as a woman with her lover – with her fated mate.

                But why shouldn’t she enjoy the moment, even if they had other things to worry about? With her dark ringlets, tan skin and bright-green contacts, she looked like another woman entirely. Why shouldn’t she act like a different woman too? Wild, wanton and impulsive…

                She wriggled out of his arms and pushed him back onto the bench, standing above him with her hand on his chest and narrowing her eyes wickedly at him as he let his hands roam over her body, spanning her waist, massaging her breasts, playing up underneath her skirt until she slapped them playfully away and wagged her finger at him.

                “Oh no,” she said, catching his wrist as he made another lunge for her.  “I’m the one making the demands here, remember?”

                She got to her knees on the gravel path, feeling distinctly wicked and hungry for the hard length of his cock. She didn’t care who was watching – the thought made her feel feral and free.

                She ran her fingers over his rigid length where it pressed against the dark fabric of his formal suit, and gave a low laugh when it twitched beneath her hand. She undid his fly and quickly slipped her fingers inside, wrapping her hand around the hot length of his cock and marvelling at the velvety-softness of the skin over the rock-hard shaft beneath. He throbbed in her palm and gave a heartfelt groan, allowing his head to fall back against the slats of the bench as she started to run her hand up and down, from his sac to the very tip of his dick where slick precum provided lubrication for her wandering fingers.

                She grinned up at him and he gazed back with heavy-lidded eyes that were clouded with lust. His lips were slightly parted and his broad, muscular chest rose and fell in a rhythm that wasn’t quite steady.

                She worked him harder, watching his face as she pumped his shaft, then lowered her head and kissed the tip of his cock before flicking out her tongue to scoop up the bead of precum that glistened, trembling, on his glans.

                He rolled his hips, pressing the head of his cock against her lips, and she parted for him, swirling her tongue around his head before taking him farther inside. He groaned again and she sucked harder, pushing her lips down his shaft, then hollowing her cheeks as she withdrew to increase the friction against the sensitive flesh.

                She moved back down again, not stopping until her lips were nestled against the crisp curls of his pubic hair and the head of his cock was hitting the back of her throat. Then she swallowed hard, again and again, allowing the motion to massage him. He trembled beneath her and she knew he was aching to fuck her mouth but holding back with incredible self-restraint to keep from making her choke.

                She could feel moisture pooling between her thighs and she wanted to touch herself, but she didn’t. This wasn’t how she wanted either of them to get off. As delicious as he tasted and as intoxicating as it was to drive him out of his mind with her mouth, she wanted him inside her. She wanted to ride him right there on the bench in the humid open air, not caring who might see them.

                She pulled back, releasing him from her mouth with a little pop, and started to move back up his body, unbuttoning his crisp white shirt and running her hand over his flat belly and strong, broad chest. She couldn’t keep her hands off him.

                She whipped off her panties and stuffed them quickly into his jacket pocket, then straddled him, the warm, fragrant air feeling exotic and wicked on the damp flesh of her pussy.

                Tyler kissed her deeply, their tongues duelling and their breath clashing as they fought to get even closer. It was wild and unrestrained, and it was all she could do to hold herself back as Tyler slid a condom on then returned to plunder her mouth again, groaning softly and running his hands over her back and buttocks to press her against him.

                She worked her hips, her moist lips sliding against his sheathed length and causing them both to gasp and clutch at each other. Then she took his twitching member in her hand again and positioned the head against her slick, aching entrance.

                They moaned in unison as she sank down onto him, his entrance smooth and easy because of the slick excitement trickling from her depths at the thought of how brazen their act of exhibitionism was. She clenched around him in helpless spasms as she withdrew to plunge back down onto his hard, pulsing length.