Again, the elusive smile.
“All right. Next step. I’m going to get the shampoo and body wash, and I’m going to walk you over there to get it, so just hold on.”
What had happened to Maya that she couldn’t have helped?
Kat did as he said while he gripped her arm and moved them slowly over the slippery rock floor, the wet moss feeling like squishy velvet beneath her bare feet. Her heart in her throat, she began to slip. Connor held her tightly against his hard body, like a pillar of strength, keeping her on her feet.
Then he grabbed the bottles of soap and walked her slowly back to the falls.
A roar she barely heard beyond the waterfall reached her ears. She stared at the rushing water but couldn’t see through it.
“Maya sent one of the cats to watch over us and make sure we don’t have any unwelcome visitors,” he explained.
That’s where Maya had gone.
“Did you hear her roar?” he suddenly asked.
Concern and wariness etched his voice, warning her that knowing the truth was important to him.
“I thought I did. Although the roar of the waterfall nearly drowns everything else out. But still, the jaguar’s roar sounded different.” Which, come to think of it, she thought was odd. She hadn’t had to shout to Connor to be heard. Although initially he had spoken next to her ear so that she could hear him, he hadn’t done so the rest of the time he had been speaking with her, and she had heard him.
Now he was looking at her differently. She couldn’t say how, exactly. But it was as if he was looking at her with new eyes—as if she had changed in his estimation somehow. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“Hold on to me,” he said, his voice low.
She clung to his waist as he pulled her into the falls and doused her in the water. Every silky drop felt wondrous, and she wanted to shout her pleasure as the water ran over her face, her shoulders, and her breasts and then all the way down to her toes.
He smiled at her, and she luxuriated in the feeling of the water sluicing over her bare skin.
But then he pulled her out from under the shower of water, long before she was done with the exhilarating experience. He smiled again, seeming to understand her disappointment, and began to soap her hair. Oh. At first she was annoyed with his controlling nature, but this—oh… my… God—was heaven.
The soap smelled divine, like oranges—fresh and citrusy and sweet.
No man had ever washed her hair, and if the feel of the waterfall rushing over her body had given her a new high, this did even more so.
He was gentle, careful not to pull or snag her hair, which had to be horribly tangled from her sleeping and tossing and turning on it and not being able to wash it for several days. In fact, she had to look like a total mess.
That brought a fresh flush of heat to her cheeks and throat and chest.
But Connor didn’t seem to notice as he concentrated on soaping up her hair, massaging the scalp, and caressing her with a gentle tenderness. She didn’t know when it happened, but the next thing she knew, she had moved in closer to him. Her body pressed against his, trying to cling to him like one of the vines wrapped around the trees beyond the falls. Her bones were melting.
She figured once they were done, she would have to return to the hut and sleep for a while because she was feeling so relaxed and worn-out all over again.
“Can you manage all right?” he asked again, moving her away from him a little bit.
“Yes,” she whispered. Not sure she could, wanting to hold him tight and never let go, when she had never been a clinging vine in her life.
“I’ll try to do this quickly,” he reassured her.
Do what quickly? she wanted to ask.
But he was already taking the body wash, which smelled like tangy tangerines and just as sweet as the shampoo, and spreading it over her. He washed every inch of her, including the less sensitive parts that felt sensitive with his large hands moving over them and the very sensitive parts that swelled with eagerness at his touch.
She shouldn’t have loved what he was doing to her, should have treated this as purely a clinical task that he was performing. Yet she couldn’t help wanting this to be the real deal—making love under the waterfall in the Amazon rain forest while the colorful birds of paradise serenaded them from overhead. The mosslike emerald-green velvet carpeted their private shower, and living plants and ancient stone served as the walls. The waterfall itself was a shower curtain and shower all in one.
He was acting as though he didn’t notice that her nipples were rigid and the nub between her legs was swollen as he washed her thoroughly there, too, that her breathing was becoming raggedly aroused, her heart beat pumping harder… but he had to have noticed.
Then she noticed something else. She swore she could hear his heart beating more loudly, faster, his breathing just as ragged.
His gaze shifted to her eyes, and she wondered if her eyes looked as insanely aroused as the rest of her felt. His eyes darkened.
Yeah, he wasn’t immune to her, although she didn’t want to get too close just to see how his body was reacting to him touching hers.
Ha! She didn’t need to. One look at his water-soaked clothes, and she could see just what she was doing to his body.
Time to rinse and get back to the hut before they did anything they would both regret.
She began to take a step toward the water, slipped, and stopped, and his arm moved around her to steady her. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but the next thing she knew, they were kissing under the waterfall. The soap suds had been washed away, leaving her body squeaky clean and smelling like a medley of oranges and tangerines.
His arms wrapped tight around her, holding her against him in a hard embrace. Every muscle group outlined by his wet clothing was pressed indecently against her naked body. And damn if she didn’t want him inside her now!
His kiss was so passionate, so feral, that she knew it was only the beginning.
Chapter 10
Connor couldn’t deny how much he wanted Kat. He loved that although she had to know he didn’t want her to visit, Kat had stood up to him to make his sister happy. And he couldn’t deny he was glad to see that his sister and Kat really seemed to hit it off. He had been worried about how melancholy Maya had seemed lately because the two of them only had each other.
When he had nursed Kat back to health, he hadn’t been able to help how much he had desired her, but until now, he hadn’t thought he could risk giving in to the way he felt about her. As a jaguar-shifter, he knew one-night stands were the only way he could keep from falling for a woman and wanting her forever when he knew he could never have her that way. Because Kat had been in his care, he couldn’t think of her as a one-night stand. And now…
He pressed his lips against Kat’s again, while her arms wrapped around his waist as if she would collapse from his kissing her at any moment. She hesitated at first. And then she was kissing him back as if she couldn’t get enough of him, purring like a cat would and smelling like a cat—like a jaguar cat—along with the fragrant scent of oranges from the shampoo and her mouth tasting of the sweet pineapple that she’d had for breakfast. Her soft, heated body—but not from the fever this time—pressed tightly against him, against an arousal that he couldn’t have kept in check if he had wanted to. The feel of her made him want more of her than was safe.
But could he want her forever? Exclusively?
Male jaguars had larger territorial boundaries than females, overlapping more than one female’s boundaries. And a male would service each of the females, not just one. Even though he was a jaguar-shifter and his human half fought against the notion of straying, Connor had never found a woman he was the least bit interested in staying with forever. And he wasn’t sure he could keep his jaguar half in check if he did take a mate.