The Bobcat's Tate (11 page)

Tate kn
elt above her, staring down, his expression a mix of tenderness and desire. Then he slid on top of her, nuzzling her neck with hungry kisses. He nipped at her tender flesh, and she whimpered in pleasure.

The crescent moon overhead was a silver smile, and the glittering stars winked down at her
. Her senses were heightened as they had never been before, making his every touch exquisitely pleasurable.

So this is what pure pleasure feels like
, she thought, as he moved his mouth on to her right nipple, sucking on it while he caressed her left nipple with his fingers.

“Your breasts are so beautiful,” he murmured, and then
he nipped at the engorged ruby tip, wrenching another whimper from her. He teased the sensitive peak with his tongue, swirling, sucking, before moving on to her other breast. “I want to taste all of you.”

She threaded her fingers through his silky
-soft hair, guiding him. Her boldness shocked her, but his obvious arousal gave her a confidence she’d never felt before. He truly wanted her. She could tell by the way he looked at her, by the small groans he made as he kissed her, by the way his breathing had turned harsh and guttural.

He moved down lower, kissing her stomach, and she tensed up
. She couldn’t help it. She’d spent a lifetime hiding that big belly, binding it in girdles, draping it with flowing rivers of cloth, sucking it in until she couldn’t breathe every time a hot guy walked by.

“Kat, you’re beautiful
. I love every inch of your body,” he said. “You’re a real woman. You’re soft and warm and delicious. Never be ashamed of that.”

And then he was moving lower, lower…he dipped his tongue into her navel and she gasped in surprise and pleasure. “Oh,” she said, surprised. “That feels good.”

“We’re going to discover every erogenous zone on your body,” he promised, his voice husky with desire.

Then he moved down even lower
and settled himself on the ground between her legs, spreading them apart with his strong hands on her thighs. Her arousal was swelling inside her, turning into an urgent, burning need that cried out for release.

“Please,” she begged, brazen and unashamed. “I want it.”

She kept her pubic hair neatly trimmed in the front and shaved bare on her lips. He spread her apart with his fingers, bent down, and ran his tongue lightly from front to back, and then from back to front.

“
Ohh!” she cried out, jerking as she was zapped by a bolt of pleasure so intense, it was shocking.

“I’m just getting started, baby. You taste like heaven
. Like honey and cream mixed together.” He ran his tongue over her again, lightly, teasing her as she lay helplessly, her hunger a raging inferno.

He ran his tongue along the seam between her labia, lapping at the juices of her arousal and
moaning appreciatively as if he’d dived into a delicious hot fudge sundae.

Then he moved up to her clit, which was swollen and so sensitive that she shrieked
when he sucked it into his mouth and swirling his tongue around it. The pent up dam of her desire was agony now. She’d die if she couldn’t come.

He sucked harder, moving his mouth and his tongue, and she felt that heat gather inside her into a tight, hot little ball right below her navel, in a place she’d never
known existed before. Oh, she’d made herself come all right, plenty of times, but this was a sensation she’d never dreamed off. Her body felt hollowed out and lighter than air, filled only with electric jolts of pleasure that sizzled down her nerves.

His mouth
continued moving, sucking at her hungrily, as if he were savoring a delicious dessert. Groans of satisfaction rumbled up in his throat, making his mouth vibrate on her pussy.

Suddenly
, the pleasure gushed forth from her, flowing out, spreading in waves that washed through her entire body, to the tips of her fingers and toes, to the roots of her hair. She was limp and boneless and gasping. She heard her wails of pleasure drift through the air as if they were piped-in music from somewhere far away.

Tate sat up, grinning at her like a cat
who’d just lapped up cream. “You like?” he said, trailing his fingers down the inside of her thigh.

“
Ohh. Ohh…” She was still beyond words.

“I assure you, that
was just the preview.”

She sat up
, still breathing hard. “My God. That was the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had. It was crazy.”

“Tell me more,” he begged, his grin stretching even wider
.

“I saw stars
. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. If you make me come any harder, I might have a heart attack.”

“I’m willing to take that chance,” he
teased. “Come on, baby, I know CPR”

S
he batted at his arm, laughing.“Now, that’s an irresistible pickup line if I ever heard one.”She glanced around. “You know, this might be even better in a bed. It’s getting a little chilly out.”

“If only I weren’t
staying in a house with my darling siblings. We’re crashing with friends of the family. Now, my home town is only an hour from here, and we live in a very big house. And I can assure you—”

He was talking about the future, and she couldn’t let that happen
. It would give her hope, and hope was too painful when it bloomed and then was trampled on.

“Let’s just think about tonight,” she pleaded, softening it with a smile. “
We can go back to the boarding house. I’d be willing to sneak you in, and if you play your cards right, you might even get lucky.”

“I got lucky the day I met you,” he said softly, trailing his fingers down her arm, and she felt her heart squeeze
.

Seriously, this man was dangerous.

She shivered as a breeze whipped through the air, cooling her sweaty skin. His jacket lay on the ground next to her, and impulsively, she picked it up and wrapped it around her shoulders.

As she did, something fell out of the pocket and thudded to the ground, and she reached down to pick it up.

It was a glass.

It was her glass, the one he’d picked up at the bar when she went to use the rest room.
It was obvious why he had it. He’d brought it with him because he was planning on having it fingerprinted or DNA tested or whatever the hell he was going to do.

He still thought of her as a suspect
, but a suspect who he’d be willing to have a quick roll in the hay with, while dangling false promises of more before her. How could he have been so cruel? Why did he have to make her think that he wanted more, that he cared about her as a person?

His eyes met hers as she leaped to her feet.

“Kat, I can explain,” he protested.

“Don’t bother,” she snapped
. Before he could say another word, she’d shifted into bobcat form, grabbed her purse in her mouth, and dashed into the woods, leaving her clothes behind.

Tate was a Florida shifter, born and bred, and normally he didn’t blink an eye at the muggy summer heat, but this morning he felt like he was swimming through a swamp as he walked the short distance from his pickup truck to the front door of the sheriff’s office. Last night’s fiasco had soured his mood and curdled the breakfast in his stomach.

When he swung open the front door,
the blast of icy air conditioning slapped him in the face as if he’d stepped inside a walk-in freezer. He ran his fingers through his rumpled hair as he walked in, the sweat instantly drying on his forehead.

Loch was in his office, sitting behind his desk
. “You look like ten miles of bad road,” he observed.

“You have a talent for stating the obvious
.”

Tate
knew Loch was right. He looked terrible, and he felt worse. He couldn’t stop thinking about Kat. He didn’t have her phone number, so he couldn’t call her and explain, but as soon as they’d dealt with the Sinclairs, he planned on heading right over to Imogen’s to apologize and try to talk to her—if only she’d let him.

“Do I?” Loch said
irritably. “Okay, here’s some more obvious. You’re acting like an ass, and whatever your problem is, it’s not with me. If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears. Otherwise, put on your big-boy pants and try to act like you’re all growed up, if you think you can manage that.”

“Sorry,” Tate muttered
. Loch was right. He didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of Tate’s snappishness.

He’d spent all night long tossing and turning, and not just because of the raging erection he’d been left with
. That was a problem that could have been easily solved, if he’d wanted to. Women came on to him all the time; he could easily have found another woman for a quick roll in the hay. What was really plaguing him was the fear that Kat would never speak to him again.

More and more, he was starting to wonder if she could possibly be his fated mate.

There was no other explanation for it, for the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, and the strong physical reaction he felt every time she was near him. He’d been attracted to women before, sure, and he could still admire a pretty face, but he’d never felt anything like what he felt for Kat. She crowded all rational thought from his mind. It was thrilling and frightening all at the same time—especially frightening considering how little he knew about her.

“Anything I can do to help?” Loch asked.

“Unfortunately, no. This one’s all on me.”

Before Loch could press him any further, the
Sinclairs bustled through the front door of the station, and it felt as if the air, cold as it was, suddenly dropped several more degrees in temperature.

Quincy
, his sister Aurora, and his sister-in-law Cornelia, Portia’s mother, were there. Loch had specifically asked that they bring in Quincy’s son, Frank Sinclair. They hadn’t. It was clearly a challenge to Loch’s authority.

Or, Tate reflected, it could be because Quincy and his son were known to loathe each other, which gave Tate even less reason to trust Frank.
Frank had moved off of pack property as soon as he turned eighteen, and he didn’t work for any of the Sinclair businesses, which was unheard of for most of the Sinclair pack. When someone was too obnoxious even for Quincy Sinclair, one knew they were bad news.

As soon as the
Sinclairs walked in to the station, three of Loch’s deputies, who were also members of his pack, walked in to Loch’s office, in a show of solidarity.

The
Sinclairs entered the inner office behind the deputies, and Quincy shot Loch a frosty look. “There was no need to bring your pack in here,” he said. “What is the meaning of all this? We are attending your wedding as a courtesy, and we’ve been shown none in return from the moment we arrived in town.”

“Quincy, when you pretend not to know what’s going on, i
t just wastes everybody’s time,” Loch said. “We asked you to bring Frank with you, and you already know why. We have undercover deputies working security on the Beaudreau property, and he was spotted there last night. When the deputy called out to him, he shifted, and ran into the woods, where he managed to elude law enforcement. The scent trail led to the area where the reception is being held. We also smelled scentsbane, but not enough, clearly, because we could still pick up his trail. Inside the reception hall, we found that someone had spray-painted the walls with curse words involving my family.”

“Strictly circumstantial
.” Quincy, who was a lawyer, spoke quickly. “Frank has visited the Beaudreau property several times recently. He could have left his scent then.”

“
Why?” Tate growled, his face turned hairy and his eyes glowing. “What the hell is a nineteen-year-old boy doing hanging out at some old mansion? Sight-seeing? He was up to no good, obviously. If he was anywhere near my sister Megan, I’m throwing down a challenge right now.”

Quincy swallowed hard
, no doubt aware that the last time Tate had issued a challenge, he’d killed a crazed Alpha.

“The scent was fresh,” Loch added
. “It was clearly Frank that defaced the reception hall. That’s equivalent to a declaration of war, Quincy. I strongly suspect that Frank was the one who poisoned several flower beds on the property as well, because I asked around, and he was seen lurking near the Calloway’s truck on that day. It would have been very easy for him to put weed killer on those beds.”

Loch
stared at Quincy, and Quincy stared back only briefly before dropping his gaze. Twenty years ago, Quincy might have accepted Loch’s challenge. Now, Quincy was fifty years old, and time and luxurious living had not been kind to him. Soon, he’d have to step aside to let someone else in his family take over as Alpha, or face a Death Challenge for his position as pack leader.

“My family and I will, without admitting guilt, pay for any damage as a gesture of good will
and as a desire to indicate our good wishes to you and your bride,” Quincy said.