Jaguar's Kiss

Chapter Four

Maybe she was a coward after all. There really wasn’t any other explanation for the fact that she was fleeing from her fiancé. Lila slowed to a walk, stumbling a little as the alcohol sloshed through her bloodstream. She was almost back to where she’d shattered the beer bottle. She was really having a bang up night. Temper tantrums, running away—

The thought evaporated as she saw the figure standing in the darkness next to the fence post with her hair ribbon tied around it, staring out over the elk enclosure. For a second she was terrified Roman had circled around them and she would have to face him after all, then she realized the form didn’t have the bulk to be the future Alpha. No, this shadow was all sleek strength, dark hair, and the smoky scent of a jaguar teasing her as the wind shifted.

Santiago.

Oh mercy. She wasn’t prepared to deal with him any more than she had been to face Roman with that hops-induced honesty in her bloodstream. But it was either talk to him, turn back and face Roman, or march on past, pretending not to notice him there—which would be just another cowardly, childish move in a night that had already proven her pathetic.

She refused to be a coward in front of him.

Lila marched over to the fence, trying to sway her hips but fairly certain her va-va-voom was more than a little alcohol impaired. “What are you doing here?”

He turned his head, looking at her for the first time, though he had to know who she was the second she came into range. In answer, he lifted his own bottle for her to see—tequila—and she saw he had the end of her hair ribbon curled around his little finger.

“Me too,” she said in response to the alcohol. The world dipped unexpectedly and she reached out to steady herself on the fence, hoping it looked like she had intended to lean against it shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “Patch and I ran out so I’m headed back for a refill.”

“Shouldn’t you be with your fiancé? Celebrating the upcoming nuptials?”

The growly quality in his voice made something warm stir low in her abdomen. She cleared her throat. “He’s out there with Patch.”

“Ah.”

The alcohol honesty chose that moment to rear its ugly head. “You aren’t much of a conversationalist, are you, Santiago Flores?” She wanted to hear more of that rumbly voice.

“You want conversation?” The words sounded like a threat. “Then by all means, let’s converse. Do you really want to marry Roman?”

This conversation again. Joy. Lila sighed, resigned. “It’s doesn’t matter what I want. It’s what I’m going to do.”

“Are you really such a martyr?” That lovely growl was back in his voice.

“It’s not martyrdom.” She was certain it wasn’t. She just couldn’t seem to think past all the alcohol to figure out why precisely.

“So you don’t think you’re giving anything up, is that it?”

That was it. No sacrifice. How helpful he was. “Exactly. What would I be giving up?”

“A thousand opportunities.” He spun to face her, dark eyes flashing in the night, all that contained ferocity suddenly erupting with startling intensity. “The chance to be something more than what others would make you.”

“So I can be what you would make me instead?” She turned to face him head on, throwing her chin back to growl up at him. “Everyone wants me to be their version of what I should be. Even you.”

“Then what do you want? Who do you want to be?”

“I don’t know! Don’t you see? If I wanted something more than this life, maybe I would go after it, maybe I would be brave, by your definition of the word, but I don’t. I never have. So what’s so terrible about what I’m doing? What am I giving up, Santiago Flores? What is supposed to stop me from doing what I’ve always known I would when the time came? What is it you think I’m supposed to want?”

“Me.”

He gripped the nape of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair as he pulled her toward him, his other hand cupping her jaw, tipping her face up to meet him as his lips closed over hers, firm and fierce and demanding and—oh my God, so exquisitely perfect.

She’d been kissed before. Of course she’d been kissed before. In twenty-three years as the pride’s resident flirt, she’d kissed dozens of guys in a sort of playful almost-platonic way that was all the other shifters would dare. She’d even gone a bit further with a few humans who didn’t know Roman to be afraid of him—until her instincts had reared up and put a stop to it.

She knew perfectly well what lips were for, thank you very much. But all those kisses. All those affectionate buses and eager lip locks. They had never been this.

The rest of the world simply melted away until there was only Santiago. He nibbled, sucked, coaxed and teased until she opened for him and his tongue stroked into her mouth, a question she answered with her own, angling her head for more. She’d ceased to exist outside this kiss. There was only his heat, his strength, the pull of his body, and her need. God, her fierce, impossible need for more of him.

She wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling herself against him so their bodies aligned, a gasp escaping her mouth at the feel of all that delicious heat. Her other hand slid up his chest and around to palm the back of his neck, holding him there in case he had any rogue thoughts about pulling away. Away wasn’t allowed. Only closer, harder, deeper and more.

And he was very good at those words.

He deepened the kiss, stroking the hand at her nape slowly down her spine, pressing her even more tightly into his body. He palmed her bottom and jerked her up against him, onto her toes, twisting to pin her to the fence and grind his hips to hers.

She gasped in a breath at the feel of his hardness against her clit and his scent flooded her–Christ, no man should smell so good. Smoke and cinnamon. It was an aphrodisiac all its own. Not that she needed an aphrodisiac. She clenched her thighs together to keep from wrapping them around his waist, wet and wanting.

She’d lost her mind. He tasted of tequila and temptation, dark and spicy and right. She didn’t care that anyone could come walking up and see them. Didn’t care that anyone downwind would know exactly what they were doing. Didn’t care that her best friend and her fiancé—

Lila jerked away, shoving Santiago hard enough that he was three feet away before he caught his balance and growled, rocking instantly back toward her.

“No!”

The word froze him in his tracks. It took a minute, but something human gradually surfaced in his eyes, though he didn’t stop staring at her, watching her as they both breathed too fast. His gaze darted down to her chest, rising and falling rapidly, and she fought the urge to cover herself.

Jesus, what had they been doing? One second they were arguing and the next she’d been ready to crawl on top of him and stay there for a good long while.

She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, trying to get rid of his taste, the branded-into-the-flesh feel of him. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I’ve wanted to for five goddamn years,” he growled, the cat in his voice.

Lila felt her eyes go round. He had? Five years? That was the entire time he’d been with the pride. He’d wanted her? “Why didn’t you say anything?” When he just looked at her, a strange cousin to anger sliced through her. “Why didn’t you do anything? Why now? Why wait until I have to be with him?”

“You think I could have had you for five years and then let you go to another?”

Lila shivered at the unchecked possessiveness on his face. God, to be wanted like that. To belong to him. “That’s not what I meant. It’s too late now. I can’t—” Things were settled. Didn’t he see that? Why had he waited? She might have been able to talk to her father before. Might have wanted to if she’d only known. “Why didn’t you let me know you wanted me before?”

“Because it wouldn’t have made a difference,” he snarled, raking a hand through his black hair. “Because you flirt with everything that walks, but when push comes to shove you’re the biggest goddamn snob in the pride when it comes to mixing with the non-lions.”

“That isn’t true!”

“No? Then why were you telling Patch she needs to hook up with a mountain lion?”

“Were you spying on me?” She had said as much to Patch, right before the meeting tonight. She’d been trying to distract herself from the upcoming announcement, thinking to play matchmaker between her best friend and some of the new independent male cougars who had recently arrived from the south. But for Santiago to know that… “How did you know about that? Did Patch tell you?”

“You just told me. It was a guess. An educated one based on your prejudice and the fact that there are finally eligible males for Patch in the pride—by your limited definition of eligible.”

“It’s not just my definition,” she defended, hating that he saw her as closed-minded. “The children of cross-species shifter pairings can’t always shift. Don’t you want your children to be able to change?”

“Medical science is advancing all the time. And you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you, princess? I haven’t even asked you out.”

“Don’t call me that.” She’d always hated it. The pride princess. She was more than that, damn it.

His eyes were dark, mocking. “Hey, if the tiara fits…”

“I don’t have to listen to this.” She turned, meaning to shove past him and march right back to the main compound, but his arm shot out, wrapping around her waist and dragging her back against him—exactly where her traitorous body desperately wanted to be. She twisted, struggling in his grip, the cage of his strength making something hot and wild unfurl in her core. “How dare you?”

The growl was back in his voice. “You want me to dare?”

Oh God, yes, please. “I want you to let me go.”

His hands were suddenly off her, his luscious heat gone. “Whatever you say, princess.”

Half of her wanted to run like hell. The other half longed to throw herself back into his arms, knock his feet out from under him and beat him to the ground. But Lila forced herself to do the right thing and walk slowly, deliberately away without a backward glance.

Doing what she was supposed to do had never been so difficult.