She pretended to think for a moment, then she smiled. “Yes, I believe I do.”
He chuckled. “Fine, but you’re going with me.”
“What?” A choked giggle erupted from her as he slid one arm around her back and another under her knees. “No. Wait.”
He lifted her up and started walking into the water. “Don’t struggle, Doc. I might drop you.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, laughing, kicking her feet. “You called my bluff.”
“Never dare a Pantera.” He waded farther in.
“Come on, bring me back.”
“You want me wet and I want you—”
“Parish!” she cried out in shock.
He stopped, the water swirling around his waist, his entire body tense as he gazed down at her. “What did you call me?”
“Parish,” she said, this time with a wave of heat attached to each syllable. She bit her bottom lip, suppressing a giggle.
He lowered his head and lapped at that bottom lip with his tongue. “Oh, Doc,” he uttered. “I warned you what would happen the next time you said my name like that.”
Her eyes flashed. “Yes, you did.”
His mouth closed over hers, hard and hungry, and he groaned with the instant and incredible feel of her soft, wet lips. She could drive him insane with just her scent, her warm breath. He suckled her bottom lip, then nipped it, and when she whispered his name again and pressed herself closer, he thrust his tongue inside her hot mouth and claimed her.
Christ, how did he tell her?
How did he form the words, then release them?
How did he make her understand when he himself barely did? She didn’t live in his world or understand how things were when a Pantera male claimed a female.
How could he explain to her that there was no going back? That she belonged to him now.
His hands gripped her thighs and waist as he caressed her tongue with his own, then plunged it deep inside her mouth, over and over until they were both panting. There. See how much I want you, Julia Cabot. Understand that you are mine.
Water splashed as she suddenly struggled in his arms, trying to turn, reposition herself. When she faced him, her legs wrapping around his waist and squeezing, Parish growled and caged her ass in his palms as he took her mouth again. Fuck. She was wet. And not just from the splash of the warm bayou water around them. He could feel her damp pussy through the fabric of her jeans. It ground against him, calling to his rigid cock, begging to be filled, fed. And he wanted to oblige. He wanted take her, rip her clothes from her body and sink himself balls-deep into her tight, tender flesh.
Just the thought of it made him mad with lust. He’d never wanted anything or anyone like he wanted her. The intensity of his desire almost frightened him.
He ripped his mouth from hers and nuzzled her neck, ran his sharp canines gently across her pounding pulse.
“Parish?” she uttered on a moan.
He lapped at her pulse, wondered what her blood would taste like. “Hmmmm?”
She gasped, pressed her breasts against his chest. “You said this pool was free of critters.”
“Mmmmmm…Yes…”
“Then…what’s that behind you?”
His mind came awake like a shock of electricity. He drew back from her neck and whirled around, coming face to face with a small alligator. The thing was only about two feet long, but it was packing a set of impressively sharp teeth. Protective of his woman, his puma rose to the surface and growled, flashing the small creature his own set of sharp and deadly hardware. The alligator instantly turned around and swam the other way.
“Damn reptile,” Parish grumbled, still gripping Julia’s sweet ass as he carried her to shore. His body screamed with need, his cock hard as stone and pulsing. But he wasn’t risking another encounter with sharp teeth.
Other than his own.
If she was willing.
His puma purred at the thought. For a second, he wondered about taking her to the caves above, where he lived and slept. But it didn’t seem right, didn’t feel like the proper place to take the female he intended on claiming as his mate. Not for their first time together, anyway. He had enough cold, hard stone to deal with as it was.
At the bank, he gently eased her to her feet and tried to get his mind to focus on something else, something that would make his cock calm the hell down. But one look her way, one brief trip down her body, had the thing creaming at the tip.
Wet clothes clinging to delectable hips, round succulent breasts and erect nipples.
Fuck.
He grabbed her hand and started up the incline to the bluff. “Sun’s going down. We should get back.” His tone was nearly a growl. “Natty’ll have my hide if I bring you home late for supper.”
“Can’t have that.” The thread of unfulfilled desire in her tone was unmistakable.
Parish cursed inwardly. “Nope.”
“You’re probably hungry.”
You have no idea, Doc.
“Parish?” she said as they reached the top of the hill.
“Yeah.”
“Was that magic?”
His head came around, and his eyes met her hers. “What?”
She looked disheveled in the sexiest of ways: pink cheeked, and eyes wide and heavy with lust. “Not the alligator or your shift, but what happened in the pool, between us. Was that magic?”
Parish felt his heart squeeze inside his chest. “No, Doc.” He drew her closer. “That was so much more.” That was just the beginning.
Before he took her right there on the bluff, he shifted back into his puma, then waited for her to climb onto his back and fist his fur. He couldn’t wait much longer to have her. When the moon rose and stole the bayou heat, she’d lie beneath him, and she wouldn’t just be speaking his name. She’d be screaming it.
His puma roared into the coming eve and he took off into the trees.
CHAPTER 6
DINNER had been fantastic. Or at least Julia assumed it had. Her plate was clean, she just couldn’t remember actually tasting any of it. Ever since she’d returned to the boarding house, all her tongue seemed to want to register was Parish. And if that wasn’t bad enough, all her mind wanted to bring forth were images of their incredible time at the bayou pool.
She let out a long breath. She could still feel his arms around her, so tight, so possessive, his mouth working hers with soft kisses, hungry bites and snarls of arousal. She’d known what he’d wanted from her. Not because it was pressed against her belly, inciting the blazing heat inside her sex to liquefy, but because it was exactly the same thing she’d wanted from him.
The deepest, most intensely erotic fuck of her life.
Her body contracted at the thought, and she gripped the table. What would it be like to be touched by him? Her back to the mattress, Parish looming above her, the muscles in his arms and chest and stomach pulled tight under sweat-laced, tanned skin?
“Dr. Cabot?” came a soft male growl.
Julia glanced up from her empty plate and caught Parish staring at her across the dinner table with a mask of sensual ferocity, his black hair loose to his shoulders. He was so sexy. Every inch of his face, from his eyes to the scar near his lips, tempted her, made her mouth water.
His nostrils flared. He glanced left, saw Nathalie chatting it up with one of the other boarders down the table, then returned his gaze to Julia as he leaned forward.
“You have to stop thinking about us or I won’t be able to stop myself from throwing you over my shoulder and hauling your sexy ass upstairs to bed.”
Julia’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know—?”