Jaguar Fever

Chapter 2

Wildcat? Maya was opening her mouth to protest—she did not make up aliases for any reason—when Candy replied, “Really. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be a wild anything.”

Maya snapped her jaw shut and glared at Candy.

Wade said, “You have no idea.”

He said it in such a deep, sexy way that Maya stared at him, trying to discern his meaning. He wasn’t smiling. He was looking straight at her with those jungle-cat eyes that said he meant what he said.

He was still watching her as if he knew just what was going on in her head. The music was beating away, but it had faded into the background. She vaguely heard the women ask David what his name was.

Lion Mane finally got up the nerve to move closer to their table.

“What do you mean by that?” Maya asked Wade, ignoring the blond guy.

Everyone at the table stopped introductions to hear what Wade had to say.

He smiled in a feral way and took Maya’s hand. “Let’s dance.”

Candy took Wade’s cue and grabbed David’s hand. “Come on. Wanna dance?”

David grimaced, as though he’d prefer doing anything else, but he got up and took the woman to the dance floor.

“What are you doing here in Houston?” Maya asked in Wade’s ear as he danced her across the floor to the slower-paced beat. His brother might not want her to learn the truth, but she had to know.

“David and I have a job to do.”

“And it has nothing to do with seeing Kat?”

He frowned. “I thought Kat was one of us when I first contacted her. You know how it is. It’s difficult to find more of our kind. I thought that when she posted on her networking sites about jaguars, she was throwing out a lifeline, looking for someone special to be in her life.”

“I can understand that,” Maya said sincerely. “Until Kat arrived, Connor and I had never met any shifters. I’ve certainly wanted to meet others of our kind.” She took a deep breath. “I wanted to thank you for helping us in the Amazon.”

“I thought you were Connor’s mate.”

She smiled up at Wade. “I know. David told me.”

Wade smiled a little.

She sighed. “You know, Kat and I wanted to thank you when we were there. It might have been nice if we could have all stuck together. Of course, it would have been even better if we could have just enjoyed the time being big cats—fishing, swimming, lazing in the trees—like we’d planned and not had to deal with those assholes.”

“Hmm,” Wade said, his expression unreadable.

“Well, I’m sorry we messed up your vacation plans.”

“It all worked out.” Wade narrowed his eyes a little. “Why are you here alone? As protective as your brother is, I wouldn’t have thought he would like you coming here by yourself.”

She shrugged. “He doesn’t know.”

“So you sneaked out to come to a shifters’ club?”

“No,” she said in an elongated, irritated fashion, not liking that he sounded annoyed with her for slipping out of the house without her brother’s approval. She didn’t need her brother’s say-so, even though Connor might think differently. “He’s gone on a vacation with Kat. I’m to join them. I heard from my cousins, and they wanted to meet here.”

He didn’t say anything more and just danced with her, which she loved. She hadn’t danced in ages, and never with a big cat.

Maya and Wade had started a respectable distance from each other as they moved to the music, but somehow they’d quit dancing apart. Their bodies were sliding against each other, rubbing like cats would, scent-marking, claiming each other. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, his arms around her waist.

“You feel good,” he murmured, nuzzling her face with his cheek. If they’d been cats, their whiskers would have been touching, sensing each other.

He felt good. Hot and sexy and hard—very hard—as he showed her just how good she was making him feel.

“You smell good,” he whispered, his husky voice breathy against her ear, making her shiver with expectation.

He smelled good. Like one turned-on, spicy-scented, musky male big cat.

“You taste good,” he finished, licking her earlobe, then moving his sensuous mouth over hers with barely a kiss, just a sweet caress of lips.

Maya cupped his head and held him in place as if he might release her. She wanted to see how good he tasted. She pressed her lips against his mouth and slipped her tongue between his lips. He growled low as if he hadn’t anticipated her to go that far. She’d never been with a cat shifter before, only humans. His hot kiss made her forget where she was, that they were surrounded by a lot of shifters, that his brother was watching—everything.

With Wade rubbing against her as they continued to move to the beat, and his hands secured around her back, she felt sinfully sexy.

And aroused. Her blood heated with the press of his body against hers. She wanted to do more as the jungle drums pounded through the floor and filled the air around her. Her heart pumped just as loudly, the rush of blood thrumming in her ears.

She wanted to unbutton more of his soft chambray shirt, to skim her hands across his chest, to flick her fingernails against his pebbled nipples. She craved running her hand over the rock-hard erection she was gently rubbing against her thigh as they continued to move to the rhythm of the music.

Growling, she kissed him more fiercely, penetrating his mouth again with her tongue, making him groan as he tongued her back, his hands remaining at her waist. Infuriatingly, she wanted him to cup her buttocks, to touch and kiss her breasts, but she knew he couldn’t. Not here. She shouldn’t have wanted it. But she did.

A male voice beside them broke through her lust-filled thoughts. “Your cousins are here, but they were afraid to break things up between you and Wade so they sent me.”

David grinned at her and then at his brother.

Feeling flushed and needy, Maya refused to appear

embarrassed in front of Wade and his brother or

her cousins.

David observed her for a moment before he said to Wade, “Remember, we’ve got a room if you want to use it.”

Okay, so she might feel like she wanted to get a room and finish the moves with Wade in privacy, but she didn’t appreciate Wade’s brother saying so.

Maya instantly pulled away from Wade. “My cousins, where are they?”

Wade looked like he was ready to slug his brother. He slipped his arm possessively around Maya’s waist.

“At our table. I saw these two new cats looking around as if they were searching for someone, then heard one of them ask about a Maya Anderson. They saw you dancing with Wade and wanted to know who you were.”

“Wildcat,” Maya said, casting David an annoyed look.

“Hell, yeah.” David grinned. “Candy had nothing on you, and she’s been stewing with her girlfriend ever since you hit the floor with Wade.” He glanced at Wade. “I don’t remember you ever having dance moves like that. Must have been Maya who inspired you.”

“She’s inspirational all right.” Wade tightened his hold a little on Maya, as though he wanted to make sure the other cats in the place knew she was with him, although she wasn’t. Not exactly.

“Maya’s cousins’ faces fell when they learned she was their relation,” David said smugly.

Amused, Maya smiled. As they returned to their table, Wade asked Maya, “What would you like to drink?”

“A Singapore sling.”

She hadn’t been out with a man in eons, and she was having fun. She thought all she’d be doing was getting the garden nursery ready before her flight to Belize tomorrow. She’d never expected to hear from cousins she didn’t know she had, or visit a shifter club she didn’t know

existed, or meet up with Wade and his brother there.

A well-built man a couple of inches shorter than Wade and his brother and her cousins, wearing denims and a black T-shirt, approached the table. His gaze took in the men seated there, but his light brown eyes quickly fastened on Candy. Maya assumed he knew her and was a bit bothered by the other men sitting with her.

Maya took in a deep breath, like every shifter at the table did, trying to smell his scent. Jaguar shifter. Not purely human.

They could differentiate a human from a jaguar shifter if they got a good whiff. The big-cat scent was enough to clue them in. The only other way to know was if they saw them actually shift.

“Candy,” he said, raking his hand through ash-blond hair and drawing close as every male shifter at the table fixated on him. He turned his broad back on them, looking a little as though it bothered him to see the attention he was gathering. “We got a date later?”

Candy smiled, cleared her throat, and said softly, though the cats could still hear what was being said, “Yeah, George, later.”

“Did you want to dance?”

“Um, we’re getting together later. All right?”

He squeezed her hand, then turned and gave the men at the table a hard look. Candy appeared to be hedging her bets, looking to add to her stable of boyfriends in case one of these guys appeared to be interested in her and she grew tired of poor George. “I’ll see you later, George,” Candy reiterated.

George leaned down and kissed her lips, taking his time about it.

“What was that for?” she asked, red faced.

Showing off, claiming her, Maya thought.

“Just to let you know how much I’ll be thinking about you.” Then George gave the other men at the table a growly look and headed for the bar.

Poor guy. Maya felt sorry for him and hoped he’d dump Candy for someone else.

Wade ordered beers for David, himself, and her cousins, and a sling for Maya, while Maya introduced herself to her cousins, Everett and Huntley. Candy and the other woman, Cherry, were still nursing margaritas.

Everett was taller than Huntley by a couple inches, with grass-green eyes and blond hair sweeping his shoulders like Lion Mane’s. He was dressed in black leather pants and a black muscle shirt. Huntley, dressed in blue jeans and a navy T-shirt, was staring hard at Wade, his eyes a bluer green than his brother’s.

“Have we met somewhere before?” Huntley asked Wade. There was a seriousness to the question that made Maya sit a little taller.

“The Service,” Wade answered.

Huntley’s mouth dropped for a fraction of a moment, then he snapped it shut and nodded.

Everett shook his head. “Small world. Thought you lived in Pensacola.”

Wade lifted his beer mug off the table. “I do. I’m just here with my brother, now visiting Maya.”

Her cousins knew Wade? Maya wanted to learn more, but the two human women were listening in, delighted more hunky guys chose to sit at their table.

“The service,” Candy said, grinning, looking from one to another, as if trying to decide which of the men was the yummiest. “How cool. Which branch of the service? My dad was a Marine.”

Huntley looked over at her as if he’d just realized she was sitting there. “Special unit. Classified.”

Her eyes grew big. “All of you?”

No one responded.

Maya had been about to ask her cousins what they did for a living, but now she didn’t need to. The idea that they were in some secret service unit intrigued her.

Everyone’s drinks arrived, and Wade paid for the first round.

“I wish you could meet Connor and his wife,” Maya said to her cousins. “I’m joining them in Belize tomorrow.”

“Belize,” Wade said, his eyes widening. “You didn’t say that’s where you were going.”

David choked on his beer. Everett and Huntley frowned at her.

“I didn’t realize you had a need to know.” When no one said anything, she asked, “Okay, is there something wrong with going to Belize?”

“Yeah, it’s really not safe for you,” Wade said. “Can you cancel?”

“No. I’m flying out tomorrow afternoon. We’re staying all next week.” She waited for Wade to tell her what the trouble was.

“Where are you staying?” Wade asked, his cell in hand.

“The Treetop Cottage Jungle Resort.”

Wade punched it into his phone and shook his head.

She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Okay, so want to tell me what’s wrong?” She was starting to feel antsy. Her brother and Kat were down there.

Everett and Huntley exchanged looks, then Everett said to Candy, “Want to dance?”

“Sure. I thought you’d never ask.”

Huntley took the other lady to the dance floor and Wade moved Maya’s chair closer to his, then spoke in a low voice for her hearing only as David watched them. “We’re with a special unit, tracking exotic animal hunters down—jaguar hunters specifically.”

“You think they’re in Belize?”

“We’ve had word that the buyer meets with hunters here, then the men—or possibly women, though I’d lay odds they are men—head for the regions where jaguars live. To our knowledge, they plan to hunt in Belize this time.”

Belize was a big place. Tons of unexplored territory—places in the jungle where no man had ever set foot. She and her brother and Kat would be fine. She took a deep breath. “Okay, look, it’s illegal to hunt jaguars in Belize, but we both know hunters do kill them. It’s a risk we’re willing to take. We’ve always done so. Drug runners can be a danger, too. It’s the same with them. If we worried about this all the time, we’d never return to our native jungle habitat.”

He was wearing a worried frown.

She tilted her head to the side. “Are you going there?”

“Yeah. David and I.”

“You’re going after these guys.” She didn’t ask him. She knew from the feral look in his eyes that he wasn’t planning on just talking to the hunters who used the club as a rendezvous point. “Is… is this just a job?” She didn’t think so. He was so tense that he looked like he was ready to snap.

“Yeah, it’s a job.”

But it seemed personal. Or maybe she was just projecting.

The dance music ended, and Everett and Huntley hurried the women back to their chairs.

“Um,” Everett said, glancing at the human women, who were all ears. “Did you come to some decision?”

He seemed to be asking both Maya and Wade.

“They’ve got a job to do in Belize,” Maya said, waving her hand at David and Wade. “And I’ve got a vacation coming up.”

Everett turned his attention to Wade. “Can we have a word with you? In private?”

Maya ground her teeth. She suspected the “word” had something to do with her and her family.

“Can it wait until we leave?” Wade glanced at the shifters just waiting for an opening to ask Maya to dance.

Right now, with four male jaguars sitting with Maya, none of the other three shifters dared approach. She might as well have been with Connor for all the freedom she had.

“In fact, we could leave now,” Wade said.

“No, I don’t want to leave this instant.” She’d never been around other shifters before, and she did want to dance. She wanted to discover if one of them might interest her more than Wade did. If she left now, would she ever have the nerve to come back?

“We need to talk now,” Everett said to Wade. In private. He didn’t have to tack on the words; the message was clear.

David cleared his throat. “I’ll watch over her.”

Candy snorted. “She’s a wild thing. Why does anyone need to watch over her?”

Maya smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.

Maya’s cousins stared at Candy like she was nuts. Her cheeks reddened a bit.

Wade gave David a warning look as though he’d just better take care of Maya, and then he stepped outside with her cousins.

Time to dance, and when the guys returned, she wanted to make plans for her cousins to meet Connor and Kat at a later date. She wasn’t sure how her brother would react, but she was thrilled to have found more family.

As soon as Wade left with her cousins, the jaguar piranhas moved in.

Maya was going to demonstrate to David she’d be fine, show Candy she had the blond guy’s nickname down pat, and dance with another shifter to prove to herself she could do it—and nothing bad would come of it.

“I’m dancing with Lion Mane,” she said to David, then held her hand out to Lion Mane.

He hurried to take her to the dance floor, though the redhead gave him a manly shove, telling him “Way to go,” and no doubt wishing Maya had invited him to dance instead.

She cast a look over her shoulder at Candy and mouthed, “I told you so.”

Eyes narrowed, Candy gave a little shrug like she didn’t care.

David didn’t come after Maya, which she appreciated. Instead, he pulled Cherry, the other lady seated at their table, onto the dance floor. He moved her nearer to Lion Mane and Maya as if he was going to protect her that way. She really liked Wade’s brother. He was sweet and not half as controlling as Wade. Looks could be deceiving, though. If she’d been someone David was interested in dating? Might have been a whole different story.

When Lion Mane pulled her close, she let him, figuring it was only one dance and then she’d take a new dance partner.

He had some wild moves, twirling her and pressing her intimately against his very hard body, their blond hair colliding as he dipped her and swung her around.

“Beautiful,” he purred and tried to kiss her. When she turned her head away from his mouth, he said, “You gave me a nickname.”

The implication was that she wanted him to kiss her like she had kissed Wade—and probably go much further. “Yes, because the name suited you.”

His hands slid up her waist, his thumbs brushing underneath her breasts like she wished Wade had done, but she didn’t care for this guy’s intimacy. “Because you want me,” Lion Mane said.

No, she didn’t want him. She just wanted to dance with other shifters.

She tried to appease him somewhat. “I love your hair.”

He smiled. “Run your hands through it, beautiful cat.”

“Thank you, no. I’ll just enjoy looking at it.”

Lion Mane twisted his head a little and looked at her, his expression one of disbelief. He knew she wanted to touch his hair. Probably all the women loved to. “The man you danced with earlier does not want to see you with others of our kind.”

She didn’t respond to his comment. He was fishing about her relationship to Wade. As far as she was concerned, she and Wade didn’t have one yet.

“He is not the one for you. He’s too controlling. You need your freedom.” The music ended and Lion Mane kept her close. So much for his sentiments about her needing her freedom.

She tried to back off, but David was coming to her rescue. The redhead, Bill Bettinger, was headed their way, too.

Another man, one she hadn’t noticed before, reached her first. Even though he was human, he was well over six feet tall and towered over Lion Mane and the others. The intimidating blond-bearded human quickly took charge of the situation. Wearing camouflage, he seemed out of place despite the club’s jungle theme. His vivid blue eyes studied her the way a hunter would its prey. Not that he appeared to be a bad man, but he did look like a hunter minus the rifle. Hunters were bad news for big cats like her.

The male cats closing in on her looked like they’d love to shift and take care of the interfering human.

“You seem extremely popular here,” the human said, as he began to dance with her. “Come often?”

“First time.”

He raised a brow. He wasn’t holding her too close. He was gentlemanly, in fact, and she liked that.

She had a feeling, though, that he had some other purpose in dancing with her.

He cleared his throat. “I saw your picture on the website.”

“Website?” she said, trying to figure out the connection. “You must be mistaken.” Only her jaguar picture was on their garden nursery website, not any of her in human form. How would he have recognized her?

“You’re Maya Anderson, part owner of the Anderson Garden Nursery?”

“Yes,” she said, hesitating. “How do you know that? Which photo are you talking about?” They had dozens of pictures on their website showcasing the pottery barn, the greenhouse, and the sections that featured the variety of plants they offered.

“I was particularly interested in the greenhouse,” he said.

That still didn’t answer how he would know her by some photo. “Are you considering building one?”

He shook his head. Blue eyes narrowed, he studied her. “Where’s the jaguar?”

Astonished at the question, she stared at him openmouthed, took a misstep, and only managed not to trip because he hurried to steady her.

“What jaguar?” she asked, using her most annoyed voice, which wasn’t difficult.

The mention of the jaguar made her heart begin to pound. With Kat’s help, she’d revamped their nursery website to include a picture of her—in her jaguar coat surrounded by glossy-leafed tropical plants—inside the greenhouse. She’d also added some special links that talked about the plight of the jaguars. She’d posed for one picture as a ferocious cat, but Kat had also caught her snoozing on a bench, legs and tail just hanging off, eyes closed—one happy, sleepy cat—and snapped a picture of her.

Maya had objected to putting that picture on the site, but both Kat and Connor had insisted, though Connor hadn’t liked featuring jaguars on their webpage in the first place, worried it would draw undue attention.

The human didn’t say anything further about the jaguar on her site, just continued to dance with her as if he was giving her time to come up with a good alibi.

The man finally smiled at her, then said, “The picture of the jaguar on your website.”

“Oh,” she said as if it finally came to her. “The jaguar in the greenhouse. What about it?”

“Where did you get the cat?” He continued to dance with her slowly, not tightening his grip on her as if wanting to shake the truth out of her or ensure she didn’t run away, but just as gentlemanly as before.

She should have jerked away from him, but she couldn’t. She had to know where this was leading. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“The jaguar,” he said. “Where… is… the… jaguar?”

“Photoshopped,” she blurted. What else could she say? They’d borrowed a cat from somewhere?

Telling the truth was so much easier. Not believable. But easier. Telling a lie? It just snowballed into something totally unmanageable.

His smile said he knew she’d lied. “I verified that the picture was authentic. Real greenhouse. Real cat in greenhouse. Not Photoshopped.” He waited a heartbeat for her response. When she didn’t offer him any explanation, he pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her.

Henry Lee Thompson, Agent for the Preservation of Wildlife, Portland, Oregon.

A picture of a gray wolf’s head was featured in

one corner.

She frowned and looked up at Thompson. “Portland, Oregon? What are you doing way out here?”

“I’m a zoologist for the Oregon Zoo. One of our jaguars was stolen. I was asked to look into it.”

“Do you often have problems with people stealing predators from the zoo?” she asked, trying to sound flippant, like she couldn’t believe anyone would be that stupid.

“Only the wolves,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “Wolves?”

His jaw tightened. “Yeah, but I’m here because of a missing jaguar.”

She couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that someone was stealing wolves and jaguars from a zoo. Finally, she focused again on the real issue at hand, the only one that should concern her—that he thought she’d stolen the big cat. “Oh, and you naturally assumed my Photoshopped cat was your jaguar.”

“The cat was real. The setting was real, Miss Anderson. The jaguar looks just like ours.”

Her lips parted, then she frowned again. “So you’re telling me all spotted cats look alike? If you knew anything about them, you’d know the rosettes are uniquely patterned. That’s how scientists can tell them apart.” She almost said us apart because she was so angry.

Most humans would think jaguars all looked alike. Even though she and Connor were twins, they had differences in their jaguar appearance other than the shape of their rosettes. Her cheeks and chest had more white than his did, for one thing.

“Search the garden nursery if you want. You’ll find plenty of plants. Maybe a kitty cat or two. They’re kind of wild, but they catch mice, and we’ve found them curled up in the catnip and basil before. We don’t have any big cats there.”

“Big cats?” he asked, sounding suspicious. “I was asking about only one.”

She felt her cheeks warm. Maybe Connor had been right, though she hated to admit it. Maybe trying to catch a jaguar shifter’s attention on social networking sites was going to cause more trouble than it was worth.

“So where’s the cat in the photo?” Thompson

asked again.

Thompson was like a wolf, she decided. Just like the picture on his business card. All people had an animal type. Some were snakes, some sharks, some butterflies; others cats, doe-eyed deer, or bull terriers. Thompson was a lone wolf, and right now he wasn’t letting go of his potential prey.

The truth, then. “It was me,” she said, cocking her head. “I confess. I was having a bad hair day so I shifted, and one of the other jaguar shifters in the family snapped the photo. We all sat around looking at it afterward over glasses of ice-cold milk—cats like milk, you know—and decided it would be great for the website since jaguars love the jungle. The jaguar gave the greenhouse a wilder appearance and would catch a viewer’s attention. We’d make more sales that way, don’t you see?”

He nodded agreeably, a lifted brow saying he didn’t believe a word she said.

She smiled. “I like you, Thompson. I love jaguars. I wish I could help you find your jaguar and return her to the zoo.”

“I believe you. So where did you get the cat for your website photo?”