Savage Hunger

Chapter 21

Kat knew what Connor wanted, but she couldn’t give it to him. Not yet. What if she said “I love you” and “I want to be with you forever”—like she’d done with Roger—and that was the turnoff in their relationship?

Maybe just being there for one another, loving and caring, but not making the “I do” commitment was better. Maybe their relationship would last longer.

For now, while she was still testing the waters with her new abilities and still unsure what her future might hold, she didn’t want Connor to believe that he had to be tied down to her if he found someone else who had been born a shifter.

Her heart wouldn’t be broken again if she reserved some part of herself by not making the commitment.

Once they had cleaned up in their suite, they had breakfast on their patio with Maya. They watched the antics of the birds twittering about the flowers and greenery surrounding the cabana, butterflies fluttering about, a brilliantly colored poisonous frog sitting on a broad leaf, humming birds drinking from the long-throated red flowers, and even small monkeys clambering through the trees.

They intended to sleep around the clock. Although, Kat said, “If they have beef steak on the menu, that’s what I want for dinner.”

Connor gave her a light squeeze and kissed her forehead. “No more Jurassic-era catfish?” He said to Maya, “Warn us if you have any trouble at all.”

Looking beat, Maya nodded. She left their cabana and made her way to her own, while Connor took Kat’s hand and led her into the bedroom and shut the door quietly behind them.

Connor released Kat’s hand. “If you sleepwalk this time, you’ll wake me. I’m not risking that we’ll lose you again.”

He rested his hands on either side of her head and placed his forehead against hers in a sign of relief.

Kat wrapped her arms around him and held him close. “Maya didn’t have to tell on me.”

“Yes, she did.” He let out his breath. “What other secrets do you have that we should know about?”

Kat snorted and released him, but he seized her arms and wrapped them around his neck, then encircled her back with his and hugged her close.

“I could say the same about you. Who would have ever thought you hunted caiman with your teeth?” Kat said.

He smiled a little at her comment. “We’re fabulously wealthy.”

She raised a brow.

He took a deep breath. “Part of the fun in getting to know one another is learning all about each other’s… secrets. Come, let’s get some sleep.”

Connor had turned the air conditioner on high. After having lived in the jungle for a week in the heat and humidity, Kat was freezing. But when she tried to leave the bed with the intent of turning the air conditioner down lower, Connor pulled her into his arms and whispered into her ear, “Leave it. We’ll warm up after a bit.”

She just hoped they were far enough away from Maya’s cabana that she couldn’t hear them if they got a little noisy when they were supposed to be napping.

Hot, Connor thought as he slid his hand over Kat’s T-shirt covered body and the soft fabric moved over her lithe form. He wasn’t sure about her, but he definitely needed the air conditioner on high to cool his fevered blood. They had slept for some time, but he had awakened with Kat pressed hard against his body, clinging to him for warmth. Her heat and softness and delightful scent had triggered all his senses to take their fill of her. But he wanted more.

His painful arousal jutted against her belly, and he was surprised that his prodding her with it as she pressed closer hadn’t awakened her. At some point while he was sleeping, she had slipped away from him and pulled on a long shirt. That bothered him a bit. Not that she had gotten cold and put something on, but that he hadn’t awakened when she’d left the bed.

Now he lifted her shirt so he could run his hands over her silky back and lower to her naked buttocks. He squeezed them, his own balls tightening.

He hadn’t really had a plan except that he would sleep with her and ensure she didn’t shift and sleepwalk right out of the cabana. He couldn’t believe they had this additional problem to worry about.

But now he wanted her again, just like he had craved making love to her when they were standing in the waterfall—kissing, stroking, and working each other up—and again every night since they’d made love at the hut. Even when they’d kissed in the river with the dolphins swimming near them, he’d wanted to take this further with Kat.

Now, he wanted to wake her, ravish her, and encourage her to ravish him right back. He kissed her forehead, licked her cheek, ran his hand up the front of her T-shirt, and cupped a breast. It was warm and malleable, the tip turning hard and needy against the palm of his hand. He massaged to feel the hard nipple teasing his heated flesh.

He rubbed his stiff cock against her belly, making her smile. He knew she hadn’t been asleep. Had she wanted to see just how hard he would try to wake her?

He leaned down and kissed her smiling lips. “Vixen.”

She opened her eyes and grinned at him. “I didn’t think you’d ever wake up,” she whispered. “Even though part of you seemed wide-awake.”

He chuckled low. “How could it be otherwise, the way you cuddled against me so tightly?”

“I was cold.”

“And now?”

“You’re heating me right up.”

She smelled divine, like a she-cat and mandarin oranges and tangerines, a sexy citrus delight. The humming of the air conditioner couldn’t drum out the jungle sounds surrounding the cabana. It felt right to be here like this with Kat as he kissed her mouth with a raw passion that he had never felt with any woman before. It most likely had to do with the way she kissed him back, just as aggressively, just as needy, punishing his mouth with bruising kisses while she ran her hands down his backside and kneaded his ass.

“Hmm, Kat,” he said just before she licked his mouth, and he smiled, then plunged his tongue between her parted lips that welcomed him to take his fill. She tasted sweet, of citrus fruits, her tongue teasing and touching his.

She was panting, pressing against his arousal, her fingers raking down his back.

He slid her T-shirt up her body, exposing her mons, her belly, her breasts. He kept moving the shirt upward until he pulled it over her head and tossed it onto the floor. Running his fingers through her silky hair, he took in a deep breath of her, smelling her sex and her readiness to have him.

He kicked off his boxers and kissed her mouth softly this time, his hands cupping her breasts, glorying in the feel of the soft mounds, the hard nipples, the way her body arched against him, seeking more.

He kissed her harder and moved his hand down her soft belly and through her short dark curls, and then slid his fingers into her sex. She was wet and ready, and she smiled a willful, half-lidded smile. He stroked her clit, wanting to see her come, wanting to make it happen.

She purred and arched, and he had to will himself to take it slowly with her, not to rush it. But when she tugged at him to join with her, he nudged his penis at her tight entrance and slid in slowly.

He felt hot, silky, wet delight as her flesh surrounded his, welcoming him in, but he paused, wanting to see her come first, although it was killing him to put on the brakes. He stroked her again, his erection still filling her. Seeing them joined made him even hotter.

From the look of desire and craving, and from the way her heels dug into the mattress as she pressed herself harder against his fingers, she was near the edge, which made him even hotter. Before the climax hit her, he pushed his advantage and drove deep into her tight passage. She arched in climax, calling out his name in a half purr, half growl as he continued to slam into her, driven to possess, to conquer, to satisfy the need to have her.

He kissed her nipples, licked and suckled, then kissed her mouth again right before he surged inside of her. He felt the end coming, held his breath, and let go, bathing her womb with his hot seed. She was exquisite, sexy, loving, and generous. And he was one lucky damned jaguar god. She cuddled against him and seemed to drift off to sleep as he pulled the bedcovers up over them.

He had never thought of himself as a possessive man and had always kept an emotional distance from the women he’d had sex with, but not with Kat. He felt like he was a part of her, like their souls were connected in some ancient, mystical jaguar way. Not really knowing for sure whether she had lived or died after the Army ambush had nearly killed him. As if even then they were linked by some invisible magical thread of existence.

Deep down he told himself it was fate that had made them cross paths, providence that had brought them together again. She had said she had come to thank him personally for saving her life, but he suspected there was more to it. That she had felt the same compulsion to see him again that he had felt about seeing her.

From the moment he had seen her again, he had craved being with her. Now she was his. He still couldn’t believe it. Jaguars didn’t mate for life. But as far as he was concerned, it was a done deal for him and Kat. She was unique and special. She had fought the drug runners fearlessly; she had worked as part of a team the way he and his sister did; and she was compassionate. Not only had she accepted him and desired him, but she had accepted his sister’s friendship despite what Maya had done to her.

Everything about Kat compelled him to want to keep her for his own. She was his mate. She completed him.

He had never really given thought to having jaguar-shifter children of his own before, except maybe in a really vague way. Now he wanted them, wanted to prove to his parents, to Maya, and to himself that he could be the kind of father his own couldn’t be. That he wouldn’t abandon his mate or children the way his father had done.

He rolled over onto his back and pulled Kat against his chest, wanting to discuss something that had bothered him since the day she’d had the fever and he had seen her bullet wounds. They should have no secrets between them, even though Maya had warned him that she had asked Kat and had been told the mission was classified. He didn’t buy that she couldn’t share her whole life with him. Not with what they were and how they needed to confide in one another while keeping the secret about what they were from the world.

Connor kissed the top of Kat’s head, and she purred. He loved the way she did that. He sighed. “What really went down in the jungle that day you were hit?”

He didn’t want to ever leave the bed as long as he had Kat to hold close. He had never felt that way about a woman, always wanting to distance himself both physically and emotionally after he’d had sex. He’d never thought he would enjoy the exclusive company of a woman and regret the notion of leaving her for anything.

The heat of the day was upon them, and everything in the city would be shut down anyway. Later, he would call to get plane reservations. Tonight, they would go to the beach.

“It’s classified,” Kat said quietly, yet he heard the metal in her voice, as if she was ready to tell him her name, rank, and serial number—and nothing more.

He smiled, then frowned, running his fingers over her bare arm and loving the feel of her silky skin. “Are you still in the military?”

She shook her head, her hair tickling his chest.

“Good.”

She snorted.

“What? The Army mission went wrong,” he said, not willing to let it go. He had to know what she’d had to deal with. When she was wounded, she must have been scarred both physically and emotionally.

“Yes. The mission went horribly wrong,” she whispered against his chest.

“I take it you were one of the lucky ones.” He hadn’t had time to check the other men. Some might have survived around the perimeter of the camp. He just hadn’t known.

A tear splashed on his chest, and he felt mortified. “Kat…”

“I was the only one of my team who made it out of there alive, Connor.”

He stroked her hair and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad you made it. God, I’m glad.” He took a deep settling breath. “And, although I wouldn’t have condoned what Maya did to you, I’m still grateful she did.”

“Hmpf. That remains to be seen.” Kat sighed. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said softly. “I have flashbacks. I don’t know when I’ll have them. I don’t know what will happen when I do, either.”

He didn’t say anything for a time, just stroked Kat’s silky hair. What kind of flashbacks had she been living through? He wanted to take them and crush them with his bare hands. More than anything, he wanted to help her get over them.

“We’ll deal with it,” he said firmly. He intended to help her get over them any way that he could. But he had to know what was causing them, and he wasn’t sure how someone could deal with that kind of trauma.

She gave a disparaging grunt. “And I walk in my sleep.”

He chuckled low. “Yeah, well, I’m not letting you out of my grasp at night or whenever we chance to lie down together.”

“Controlling, aren’t we?”

“You bet. What about the flashbacks?”

She sighed. “Everyone has flashbacks of memory. A song that you love might trigger a memory of… dancing with someone in the past. Or the scent of jasmine might remind you of a botanical garden you visited when you were a child.”

“Your fragrance,” Connor said. “When I came upon you in the jungle, I recognized your special scent.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. But when a traumatic event has occurred in your life, something in your everyday life can trigger the memory.”

“Like?”

“A car backfiring.”

Connor kissed her cheek. “Which sounds like gunfire.”

“Yes. So I wouldn’t necessarily have to hear gunfire to have some stimuli trigger another bout of a flashback.”

“Hell, Kat, you must have felt terrible when Manuel shot at you.”

She gave a ladylike snort. “Hardly. The sound of gunfire was terrifying only because the bullets were winging right past me—way too close. I was afraid for you and Maya, and terrified I’d fall out of the tree and break my neck when I landed on the ground. I might be a cat sometimes, but I still don’t land on my feet when in my human form.”

He heaved a sigh because that hadn’t been too far from his own thoughts and pressed a tender kiss on her forehead. “But the gunfire didn’t trigger a flashback?”

“No.”

“Has anything triggered one while you’ve been here?”

“Yes. The voice of one of the men. The leader. Something about his voice made me think of the man we were trying to take down. But what I’m worried about—what will happen if I have a flashback when I’m in my jaguar form?”

“You’ll be fine, Kat.” He stroked her cheek and looked down into her eyes. “Have you been given any treatment for it?”

“Yeah.”

“What can I do for you if it happens again?”

“Hold me close. Tell me it’s just a flashback. That it isn’t real. Or I can stomp my feet and tell it to go away. Or talk to you and Maya about it.” She shrugged and smiled a little. “The doc said a nice warm bath could help. Breathing in deeply. Reminding myself that I survived. That it’s over with. And it will get better.”

Connor still couldn’t get his own anger under control over what had been done to her, although for Kat’s sake he tried not to show it. “You don’t work for them any longer, right? Not undercover or anything?”

She finally said, “They gave me a medical discharge.”

“Hell.”

“They do that when they believe you’ve cracked under pressure.”

“What gave them that idea?”

She smiled up at him sweetly and innocently, but deep down, full of the devil.

He raised his brows. Once again he found himself admiring her.

“I had it together for about three months after the… incident. Really, I thought I could keep it all in, bury it where I never had to deal with it again, pretend that the men I had trained with for years who had families, well, that none of it mattered because we’d had a mission to do. We’d signed up, and that was our way to bring down the scum of the earth. But the intelligence was dead wrong, and we walked right into a trap.” She hesitated. “I’m not really telling you all this, you know.”

“Hell,” Connor said again. He couldn’t help it. His muscles bunched with tension as he felt like turning into his jaguar form and tearing into the men who had injured her. He would have loved to force the men who gave them the false intelligence to take their place on the front line instead of Kat. “Why did they have you go? A woman?”

“I was supposed to be the bait in a hostage-taking situation. The man in charge was supposed to take me into the camp, and my men would come in afterward, guns blazing, and free me. But the drug leader knew who I was all along. They pretended complacency, and when my team came in to rescue me, they found themselves fired upon from every corner of the camp. We’d been set up.”

“But your people got you out.”

“Yeah,” she said sarcastically, “after everyone else on the team was dead. I was interrogated before I went into surgery and after I came out, despite the fact that I was mostly out of it the entire time. Who knows what I really said. I knew it was my job to tell them everything I could about the mission, but I was so emotionally and physically exhausted that I finally told them where they could take their future missions. I think I bloodied Roger’s nose when he tried the ‘I’m your fiancé and you can talk to me’ ploy.”

She kissed Connor’s cheek. “I wouldn’t have been a suitable Army wife or career Army myself. Not after I had a mental breakdown.”

“Why did you really come back here, Kat?” Connor asked, thinking that a woman who had experienced a mental breakdown shouldn’t be alone in the Amazon.

She let out her breath in a huff. “If I tell you all my secrets, you might just decide I’m too much to handle.”

“Ha! You say that to a jaguar god?”

She chuckled but then grew serious. “I was under a doctor’s care. He suggested I visit a place similar to where I had experienced my trauma. He thought it would help to cure me of the flashbacks. At least that’s what I got out of the sessions. Go someplace that was relatively safe, but that might trigger the feel of where I’d been. Of course I was supposed to take a reliable friend or two with me. I couldn’t find anyone like that who was in the least bit interested in going to the Amazon rain forest.”

“Has it helped?” Connor shook his head. “Here Maya changes you, and you already had a nightmare to deal with.”

“I feel… different. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but when I first arrived here intent on dealing with my problems and trying to find you to thank you, I loved the jungle, but I was more like a vacationer just here to observe. And I have to admit I was a little on edge, as if the enemy was hiding behind every tree. Now it’s almost as though this is my second home.”

Relieved that she would feel that way, Connor nodded. “I understand the sensation. As jaguars, we come home to roost, so to speak, from time to time. It’s as though the craving to be here is in our blood.”

He would hate it if she didn’t want to return with them when they came here in the future. Yet, the fact that they had no idea how often she would shift or when bothered him. What if it took years before she could get it under control? What if she could never control it? He couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to visit the jungle then. Maybe they could buy a boat or visit a location closer to home. Belize bordered Mexico. A rain forest existed there, too, and it was closer to Texas and another haven for jaguars.

“I’m not sure about flying home,” Kat finally admitted.

“I understand,” he said, running his hand over her arm. He was worried about it, too, not at all sure they would make it. He was thinking of checking into other options in the meantime. “I’ll get dressed and call the airlines to see if we can book a flight.”

“All right. I’m going to take another shower.”

The water was cold, even though the sun would warm them somewhat. Thinking of the water sluicing down her tan skin in the shower brought a smile to his lips. He couldn’t help thinking how he could warm her up in there again. Trying to get his lascivious thoughts under control, he slipped into his boxers.

He pulled out his phone and called the airlines while Kat disappeared into the shower. One flight would accommodate them best, a one-and-a-half-hour trip to Bogotá, Colombia, from Santa Marta. One stop. He was certain that Kat could make that trip. Then they would have a five-hour layover in the city. Maybe they could find someplace to hide out for a while. After that, it would be a little over a five-hour flight to Houston. It was the shortest flight plan he could find.

He heard the water shut off and cursed softly under his breath. He had wanted to join Kat in the sunny shower before she finished.

He walked into the bathroom to see her wearing only a towel around her head. He smiled, hurriedly ditched his boxers, and gathered her in his arms before she could escape. “Don’t you need to… rinse off a little more?”

She laughed. “No, but do you want me to soap up your hard-to-reach spots?”

He pulled the towel off her head and tossed it on the towel rack, then turned the water on and moved her under the showerhead with him. “Only if I get to soap up all your hard-to-reach spots.”

“Hmm, jaguars love to play in the water,” she said and stroked his swelling cock.