Serengeti Heat Read online

  attention to her other breast, to begin the

  process all over again. Her cries

  became his name and something in the

  tone of her voice cranked up the dial on

  his need for her. His control became a

  memory.

  Landon growled, his claws tearing at her

  jeans. He needed her naked. Now. But

  though the denim shredded, it did not

  melt away and the tattered ribbons of her

  clothing still bound her. She made an

  alarmed noise in her throat and Landon’s

  head snapped up to meet her eyes. He

  was too desperate to be ashamed of his

  frenzy, but he managed to grunt, “Did I hurt you?”

  Vivi Andrews

  Ava blinked at him, her clear gray eyes

  fogged over with want. “No…yes…”

  She shook her head as if trying to clear it

  and reached out a hand to him, almost as

  if she would stroke his face, but instead

  she ran a fingernail across his nipple.

  “You startled me.”

  Landon blinked at her

  uncomprehendingly. There was not

  enough blood flowing to his brain to

  work out what she wanted him to do.

  “Stop?”

  She laughed and his cock jumped like a puppet on a string. “No. More.”

  Thank you, God. Crying defeat for the

  moment on the wreck he’d made of her

  jeans, Landon attacked the fastenings on

  his own. He struggled with them, his

  hands refusing to stay in full-human form

  long enough to work the button fly.

  Ava brushed his hands away. “Let me.”

  The backs of her fingers rubbing against

  his shaft as she slowly, carefully worked

  the buttons was a new kind of torture in

  itself. Landon braced his hands on the

  seat and closed his eyes, determined to

  let her work and not fall on her like a

  ravening beast until she had freed his

  cock. Then he could be an animal. He

  just had to hang onto humanity for a few more seconds.

  She shoved his jeans and underwear

  down over his hips. As soon as it was

  free, his cock sprang up, pointing due

  north like a fucking compass. Landon

  hissed as Ava wrapped her small soft

  hand around it.

  Lights exploded in his brain. Landon

  wondered idly if he was having a

  seizure as Ava’s hand worked slowly

  down to the base of his shaft, giving him

  a little squeeze and then a slow, tugging

  pull up his shaft to the head. He was

  going to die. That much was clear. But

  what a way to go.

  He let her have two more torturous strokes before closing his hand around

  her wrist and squeezing gently.

  “Enough.” His voice didn’t sound

  human, which was fine by him. He didn’t

  feel particularly human.

  She released his cock, but he didn’t

  release her wrist. He pulled her hand

  away from him, pinning it against the

  seat near her head. He lowered himself

  to take her mouth again as his free hand

  probed between the shredded remains of

  her jeans, seeking the source of the

  musky moisture between her thighs. He

  brushed one spot and her entire body

  jolted. Bingo.

  Landon eased her—amazingly still intact

  —panties aside and pushed one finger inside her slick heat.

  Her hips pushed up against his hand and

  moisture swamped his finger. He

  worked his mouth against hers as he

  worked a second finger inside her,

  stretching her. She was so tight. Her

  pussy was going to feel like a goddamn

  vise on his cock.

  Landon released her mouth as he

  removed his fingers, pressing his face

  against her neck to breathe in the

  intoxicating scent of her as he positioned

  himself between her legs.

  “What’s that sound?” Her voice was

  breathless.

  Landon stiffened, trying to hear beyond the blood rushing in his ears. It took him

  a moment to identify the tinny ring-tone

  rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”,

  his sister’s idea of a great joke. “Shit.

  It’s Zoe.

  She wouldn’t call unless it’s an

  emergency.”

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  Serengeti Heat

  She’d better not have. He was about

  fifteen seconds away from the fucking

  promised land. If someone wasn’t dying,

  someone was about to be.

  He found his cell phone in the pocket of

  his jeans, tangled near his knees.

  “What?”

  “Ava’s missing!”

  Landon blinked, startled by the depth of

  panic in Zoe’s voice. He wasn’t aware

  his sister had formed any strong

  attachments since their arrival in the

  pride three months ago, but her concern

  for Ava was unfeigned.

  “I’ve got her.” At least, he’d been about

  to have her, a few seconds before Zoe

  had decided she needed rescuing. “I’m

  bringing her back to the ranch now.”

  “Oh thank God,” Zoe whispered. “I’ll tell her brothers we can call off the

  search. Where was she? Is she okay?”

  The mention of Ava’s brothers searching

  —Jesus, they wouldn’t search the ranch

  road, would they?—

  not to mention his sister’s barrage of

  questions, had the effect of a bucket of

  cold water. Landon shifted off Ava,

  ignoring the small sound of protest she

  made, and retreated back to his own

  seat. He braced himself against the door,

  as far away from her as he could get, and

  tried to tug up his jeans one-handed

  without much success.

  “We’ll be back at the ranch in—” he

  glanced around, looking for a landmark through the darkness outside the jeep,

  “—five minutes. You can ask her all the

  questions you want, then.”

  Ava groaned from the passenger seat,

  pulling herself into a more traditional

  seated position, rather than her I’m-

  about-to-have-my-brains-fucked-out-on-

  a-bucket-seat sprawl.

  “But she’s okay?” Zoe pressed.

  Landon looked at Ava out of the corner

  of his eye. She was a sight. Rumpled,

  sweaty, trying to get her top back into

  place over her breasts with her jeans in

  useless tatters from her upper-thighs to

  her waist. She looked gorgeous. Fan-

  fucking-tastic. “She’s fine. See you in five.”

  He disconnected before Zoe could lob

  another question at him, mentally

  crossing his fingers that his ornery sister

  didn’t keep calling him back every five

  seconds until they arrived at the ranch.

  Although, given his current control—or

  lack thereof—that might not be a bad

  idea.

  Dropping the phone, he yanked his jeans

  back up over his hips and tried to shove

  his uncooperati
ve cock back inside. He

  winced as each button closed, but

  managed to keep his hands from half-

  morphing into claws long enough to get

  his jeans fastened. Thank God. If Ava

  laid one finger on his fly, he was a goner.

  Shit, if her brothers ever found out he’d

  come about five seconds away from

  fucking their baby sister in the front seat

  of a jeep, he’d be lucky to see his next

  birthday.

  Landon started the jeep and punched the

  gas pedal. The vehicle jumped forward

  obediently, punishing them with a rough

  ride the last three miles to the ranch.

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  17

  Vivi Andrews

  They were closer to the main compound than Landon had thought—though, to be

  honest, he hadn’t been doing much

  thinking. Anyone out for a run tonight

  could have seen them, groping in the car

  like teenagers.

  How had he let things get so far out of

  control? He’d never even noticed Ava

  Minor before tonight, but the second

  she’d walked into the bar, he’d wanted

  her. The scent of her, the way she pushed

  her ass back at him as she stood at the

  bar, the reckless challenge in her voice

  as she argued with him in the jeep, all of

  it seemed calculated to drive him wild.

  The truth smacked him between the eyes,

  making him feel like a prize idiot for not

  realizing earlier.

  He should have realized it as soon as

  she walked into the bar, but his

  hormones had short-circuited his brain.

  It was so damn obvious.

  Ava was in heat.

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  Chapter Four

  She needed to say something. They

  couldn’t have been driving for more than

  a few seconds, but the oppressive

  silence coming from the driver’s seat

  made it feel like a millennia. He wouldn’t even look at her.

  “I take it they discovered my absence,”

  Ava said, her tone a pathetic attempt at

  lightness.

  Landon sounded about as light as a

  midnight hunt on the Serengeti. “Didn’t

  you even leave a fucking note so your

  brothers wouldn’t panic?”

  Ava snorted. “Saying what exactly?

  ‘Gone to get some nookie. Back by

  noon.’ That’d go over real well.”

  “Better than not saying anything at all,”

  he snapped. “They’re searching the

  ranch for you, Ava.”

  Ava looked out the window, realizing they were on ranch land and had been

  for a while. In fact, they’d been on ranch

  land when they’d… “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh.”

  Ava tipped her chin defiantly. She

  wasn’t going to cower. She didn’t have

  anything to be ashamed of, dammit. “So

  what? I deserve to get out just as much

  as the next girl.”

  “Ava.” Her name sound like a curse on

  his lips. “There are reasons why we do

  things the way we do,”

  he said as if explaining the facts of life

  to a simpleton and hanging onto this

  patience by the thinnest of threads.

  “Yeah, well, maybe your reasons are

  stupid.” Keeping a healthy, attractive

  young woman with the libido of a cat

  cooped up on a secluded ranch with a

  bunch of men she couldn’t have was

  downright cruel and unusual. Ava had

  seen Lifetime movies about religious

  cults that did the same and things always

  ended badly for the misogynistic pigs

  running the show.

  “Valuing human life is stupid, now?”

  They hit a particularly nasty bump and

  Landon was forced to slow to a

  reasonable speed.

  Ava frowned. “What does human life have to with a—”

  “Ava,” Landon interrupted, her name

  sharp this time. “You’re in heat.”

  “No, I’m no…” Her denial was

  automatic, but her voice trailed off as

  she mentally did the math.

  “Shit.”

  The shape-shifters who traded shapes

  between human and lion form didn’t

  possess the exact physiological traits of

  either. A shifter lioness would go into

  heat only three times a year, lasting

  anywhere Vivi Andrews

  from a few hours to several days. And like their feline cousins, they wanted sex

  almost constantly during that period.

  Even the birth control shots she received

  to suppress ovulation couldn’t combat

  the hormonal demands her body made

  during her heat.

  “I don’t see what that has to do with

  anything.” Ava folded her arms across

  her still-sensitive breasts, knowing she

  looked like a petulant child, but feeling

  like one giant exposed nerve.

  “You don’t s—” Landon cut himself off,

  his hands fisting on the steering wheel.

  He bit out his next words with careful

  precision. “Have you ever had sex while

  you were in heat?”

  A blush rose up her already warm face until she felt like her cheeks were on

  fire. “No.” She left her answer at that.

  He didn’t need to know that her entire

  sexual history consisted of a few

  bumbling encounters in dorm rooms the

  one semester of college when her family

  had eased up on the reins enough to

  allow her to live on campus.

  She’d been embarrassingly celibate ever

  since she’d moved back to the ranch. As

  if it wasn’t bad enough having four

  ridiculously over-protective older

  brothers lurking around every corner, the

  lionesses who weren’t old enough or

  genetically desirable enough to mate

  were cloistered while they were in heat to avoid unwanted pregnancies. So her

  opportunities for sex in heat were

  severely limited.

  “When a shifter is in heat, everything is

  amplified,” Landon explained, his tone

  carefully blank.

  “Many females, particularly the younger,

  less experienced ones, will shift

  uncontrollably when they climax.

  That is why we have rules against

  seducing humans during heat. It isn’t safe

  to be with someone who can’t defend

  himself, or understand what the fuck just

  happened when he finds himself in bed

  with a several-hundred-pound lioness.”

  Ava’s blush was getting downright uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” she muttered

  in the direction of her lap. “I didn’t

  realize.” But then her remorse faded and

  she frowned at the Roman gladiator

  driving the jeep.

  “It still doesn’t seem fair. You guys get

  to go around screwing anything that

  moves and we have to be virgin

  priestesses.”

  “I’m not telling you not to get fucked,”

  Landon snapped. “I’m telling you not to

  fuck a huma
n.”

  Ava bit her lip on the complaint that was

  poised to jump out of her mouth and

  mortify her—that the only lion she had

  ever wanted was him. She was afraid he already knew. The way she had reacted

  to him, wordlessly begging him to take

  her, had made her feelings for him

  pathetically clear.

  She had wanted him since the second she

  saw him walking through the compound

  the first day he arrived, wary and worn

  from his travels. Even before he was

  Alpha. She had felt desire tightening her

  body when he was just another reckless

  nomad, a lion without a pride. She’d had

  more of a shot with him then.

  The second he became Alpha was the

  instant he rose out of her reach.

  To a nomad, any lioness was a prize,

  even a small, abnormal one. But the Alpha? He would mate with the

  strongest and fastest among them, and

  Ava would never even come close.

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  Serengeti Heat

  So why had he leapt on her in the jeep?

  Was it possible he could really want

  her? Or was the truth much more awful

  than that? Could he have somehow

  learned of her infatuation? Was he

  taunting her?

  Playing some horrible game? Was that

  why he had stopped just short of taking her?

  Ava glanced over, her eyes locking

  hungrily on the impressive bulge beneath

  his fly. No, he wanted her all right.

  There was no doubt about that.

  Landon looked over at her—just in time

  to see her staring at his crotch. Ava’s

  blush reached terminal levels as he

  shifted uncomfortably in the seat.

  “That’s another reason unsuitable

  females are sequestered when in heat.”

  Ava flinched back from the words like

  he’d slapped her. Unsuitable?

  As they pulled into the compound, he

  went on relentlessly. “Any male coming into contact with you, looking and

  smelling and acting the way you did

  tonight would have lost control and

  climbed all over you.

  That’s why there are rules, Ava.”

  She averted her face as he slowed the

  jeep, rolling slowly between the low-

  lying bungalows that made up the ranch

  compound where the pride lived. She

  was not going to cry in front of him.

  Even if he was telling her that the

  electric, soul-searing almost-tryst they

  had shared not ten minutes ago was

  nothing more than a forced chemical

  reaction.

  Ava felt an ominous tightness behind her eyes and swallowed thickly, fighting to

  keep it together. So what if he didn’t