“Bastard.” She panted, still unsure how he’d beaten her. Gabby liked to think of herself as fast. Only Julia could beat her in a race, but that was fox to fox.
He yawned and blinked up at her. “Oh Gabby. Didn’t see you there.” His eyes glinted with mirth.
She compared herself to him, her smaller size, her reddish color, which complemented his tawny coat, and knew the time had come. She jumped up and stretched out next to him, then rubbed her body against his, less for companionship than because she wanted to spread her scent. This desire she had for Grady hadn’t abated. If anything, it had grown.
His lazy attitude vanished from one heartbeat to the next. The large male rubbed back against her, encouraging the contact. They rose to their feet. Her tail grazed him. He circled behind her. The feline inside her rumbled her pleasure. And then Grady rose over her.
The animal mating ended in moments, the physical copulation quick and repetitive—a fact her cat acknowledged before letting the satisfaction ease her firm grip on Gabby’s psyche, allowing the human aspect of her to regain control.
After Grady eased from her body and lay back on the rock, panting, she turned and regarded him with a woman’s need.
In tune with one another, they shifted back to human.
“Sorry. I meant to take my time, but my cat didn’t want to wait.” The man didn’t intend to wait either, if his growing erection was anything to go by. Though he’d just come, Grady, the man, seemed ready to go again.
She lay next to him on the warm rock. “That’s okay. I don’t think mine wanted to wait either.”
He pulled her into his arms so that he lay on his back, and she draped over him like a blanket. Where they touched, heat flared between them.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for.” He pulled her down for a kiss, his mouth taking charge and fogging her brain with unwavering lust. His hands stroked her back, then cupped her breasts.
He pinched her nipples and toyed with her until she couldn’t stand it. And all the while he teased with his tongue, his lips.
“Yeah, that’s it.” He gripped her hips and ground her over his cock. “You’re nice and wet. All for me.”
She couldn’t think, enrapt in his scent, his taste, the feel of him hot and hard beneath her. Grady, all hers. And only hers. Gabby lost herself in the hold of her own possessiveness and nipped him hard on the shoulder.
“Shit. Oh fuck. That’s good.” Trust Grady not to cry out but accept the rough gesture as she’d meant it. While she licked at the spot she’d unintentionally left, he positioned his cock at her entrance and pulled her down onto him.
So thick, so full. He impaled her with his shaft, which felt bigger than it had before. And he didn’t stop. Once seated inside her, he lifted her hips and urged her to ride him.
“Lean up, Gabby. Let me see you,” he rasped.
She couldn’t stop even if she’d wanted to. The desire to have all of him consumed her, and she made love to him with a passion she’d never before felt for anyone.
He palmed her breasts while she took him deep, increasing the speed of their joining until she had what she wanted. When he let go of one breast to reach between them, she moaned his name, praying for relief from this unending ache.
“So beautiful. Come for me, baby. Come hard.”
He put pressure on her clit at the same time he pinched her nipple, and she clamped tight around him as she came. Her orgasm took her to a new plane of pleasure, the scent of her lover mired with hers, a mating dance leading to a permanent bond that should have scared her, but only encouraged her to continue until no part of him remained unclaimed.
Grady swore and let her go, only to grip her hips with bruising fingers as he arched up and filled her once more. “Oh yes, yes. That’s it. Squeeze me, Gabby. Fuck.”
The sight of him in ecstatic agony imprinted onto her mind—he was so handsome, so innately wild and raw beneath her. The play of sunlight and shadow over his muscles entranced her, and she stroked his chest and biceps with the pads of her fingers, pleased at the way his nipples remained hard, like the thick shaft inside her…
“You came inside me.” She should never have had sex without protection, and she knew it. Though Ac-taw were immune to most diseases, pregnancy was always a risk. Yet she didn’t care. She’d claimed this male. He’s mine.
Gabby blinked down at him, caught by his and her mutual purring. “Oh wow. We’re…purring.”
“Content, eh?” He smiled at her and eased his hold on her hips. “Sorry. I lost my head.”
“That’s not all you lost,” she murmured, wondering when she’d start to feel upset that they might very well have made a baby. He’d taken her as an animal, and now as a human. Their scents mixed, a unique smell that would signal to one and all they’d joined in the most elemental and revered of ways.
“You’re finally mine.” The satisfaction in his face gave her pause.
“Yeah, well, you’re mine too.”
Instead of showing worry that he could no longer tomcat around town, the canny male winked at her. “Honey, I’ve been yours since you took a bullet for your sister.” He rubbed her left thigh, where not even a scar remained to indicate she’d been injured. “That kind of courage, inside that gorgeous cat, got my notice.”
He didn’t let her go, but continued to remain inside her.
She leaned down and kissed him again. “You just wanted a cat.”
He frowned when she pulled away. “Bullshit. I could have had any of the cats who are right now sitting around the pride. I wanted you.”
She knew the moment he remembered Joy, because his expression grew shuttered. Before she could say something to ease his pain, he rolled her over and proceeded to love her until she couldn’t move. The man shouldn’t have had the stamina, but he did. Lord, did he.
When he’d wrung another orgasm out of her and had made a real mess again, filling her up, she pleaded for mercy.
“Okay, okay.” She tried to catch her breath, feeling completely boneless. “I give up. You win.”
He grinned down at her, his face flushed with spent passion. “Honey, I’d say we both win.” He sniffed the crook of her neck, then licked her there. “Oh yeah. No going back now.” He opened his mouth to say something else, then froze.
“Grady?”
In seconds he’d pulled out of her and shifted into his cat. “Someone’s out there.”
Gabby turned into her fox without thought, the need for speed and cover overriding her concern about size. “Go. I’ll watch your back.” If they encountered real danger, she’d shift into her larger, more lethal animal.
“Be careful.” Then he screamed in warning at whatever awaited them and took off like a shot.
She followed, relying on her sense of smell and hearing, as her vision wasn’t as good in this form. When Grady stopped a few moments later, she stopped with him. He turned his head and opened his mouth to taste the scent on his tongue.
“Feline, but I don’t know him.” Grady shook his head, his ears back, alert. “He’s gone now, whoever he is. I didn’t detect aggression in his scent, though you never know. I’ll let Burke handle this. We have more important things to do.”
“Like what?” she teased.
“Let’s get back and finish this discussion.” Then his eyes widened when he took a good, hard look at her. He grinned. “You are so cute.”
“Cute? I’m vicious.” As a cat she would have bared her teeth at him, but as a fox, she lacked the facial muscles to do so. Instead, she pounced on his tail and gave him a warning bark.