Serengeti Heat: A Sexy Shifter Story. Read online

  He couldn’t shift. Not tonight. When he took his other form, the animal in him had too much control. He would not be able to stop himself from hunting Ava down and proving his ownership of her in the most primitive way. He couldn’t risk running on all fours through the acres of private land belonging to the ranch. Even that freedom was denied to him tonight.

  The creak of the step outside his door sounded unnaturally loud to his heightened senses. Landon spun to face the door, falling into a crouch, his lips pulling back in a snarl. He knew better than to expect Ava to come to him, but second to her presence, the one he wanted the most was that of a threat. Someone he could decimate. His heated blood would eagerly boil over into violence.

  The step creaked again. The intruder didn’t knock. Landon’s eyes locked on the door, watching the knob as it turned, inch by inch, waiting, ready to spring.

  “Landon?”

  Her voice, husky and scratched, was a blow to his composure, cracking the façade of his inhuman control. She already sounded as hoarse as if she’d been screaming his name all night.

  Ava pushed the door open a few inches and peered inside. When she saw him there, crouched for attack, she froze with her hand on the knob.

  Ava eyed him hungrily. He was barefoot and bare-chested, wearing only the snug blue jeans he’d had on earlier, the partially buttoned fly straining over his erection. She dimly recalled ripping his shirt off earlier and silently thanked herself for her foresight. The muscles across his chest and shoulders stood out prominently in his tense stance, his tan skin gleaming in the golden light of the lamp.

  His appearance stole her breath, primitive and wild. She knew the feral gleam in his eyes should have frightened her, but instead she licked her lips, her own excitement ratcheting up to a frenzied pitch in instantaneous response.

  Ava forced air into lungs that felt suddenly tight and refused to expand all the way. She tossed her head, defiant of the threat implied in his stance, his eyes. Her hair flicked around her shoulders and his nostrils flared as if reacting to the scent of her shampoo.

  Feeling daring and far too excited to be touched by fear, Ava shoved open the door all the way and stepped into the predator’s lair. The door fell shut behind her with an audible click through the humid silence.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His voice was more beast than man, but the shiver that shot down Ava’s spine had nothing to do with fear.

  “You told me to come.”

  Landon straightened, as though suddenly recalling his less than human posture, but his new stance was no less threatening. He took a step toward her then stopped, feet braced, glowering down at her. “I don’t remember telling you anything like that.”

  Ava wet her lips and his eyes tracked the movement. “You did,” she insisted.

  There was no question that she was in heat. The feline had taken over entirely or she would never be able to say what she was about to say without stammering, blushing and collapsing in a mortified heap. Ava cleared her throat. She wasn’t going to say this twice. She tipped back her chin, looking straight into his eyes.

  “You told me to come to you if I needed to be fucked.”

  He didn’t react beyond the almost imperceptible stiffening of the muscles across his shoulders. For what felt like an eternity, he gave no response, watching her with heated green-gold eyes that revealed nothing.

  Ava held herself perfectly still under his gaze, afraid if she moved the moment would shatter and he would toss her out on her ass. She flinched when he took a step toward her, startled to have the statue resolve itself once more into a man. Another step and he stood directly in front of her, separated by mere inches but careful not to touch.

  “I did say that, didn’t I?” he mused, husky and low.

  Ava caught her breath and held it, her eyes falling closed as he leaned in until his face hovered over the curve of her neck. He inhaled deeply and Ava felt herself mimic the action without conscious direction from her brain. The scent of him hit her nostrils and shot straight to her clit. A gush of fluid drenched her thong and Ava gasped, breathless again, sucking in another lungful of him.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  She couldn’t answer. Did she? How would she even know? She’d forfeited brain function in favor of sensation the second she walked in the room and now he wanted her to contemplate the repercussions of her actions? Impossible.

  Ava nodded, eyes still closed, praying that was the right answer, the answer that would make him touch her.

  “Good.”

  When he did touch her, it wasn’t where she wanted it. Where she needed it. His hand closed like a shackle around her wrist. He touched her only there, and with the cool brush of his breath blowing against the side of her neck. His thumb rubbed a small, rhythmic circle against the pulse-point on her inner wrist and Ava felt her entire being narrow to that point.

  She wanted to leap on him, tearing both of their remaining clothes off. Knock his feet out from under him and beat him to the ground. She wanted him fast and rough and hot, but she stood motionless, hypnotized by his stillness, captivated by his unyielding control. Helpless to hurry him, she let herself feel.

  The hand circling her wrist was impossibly warm, the air he blew against her skin icy cool. He was firm but gentle. The patience of his current stillness refuted the frenzied wildness that had been in his eyes when she walked in, but she knew it was still there, lurking just below the surface, waiting for him to lose the battle with the beast. Ava couldn’t wait.

  She opened her eyes. He was still bent over her, inhaling her scent, his muscular chest right in front of her face.

  Ava leaned forward and bit him right above his nipple. Her human teeth sank into his skin, hard enough to leave a mark, but not hard enough to make him bleed. Landon hissed and snarled, spinning her away from him to break her hold. Ava released him with a wicked little laugh. He jerked her back against him, her back to his front, one arm a tight band across her bare stomach as the other still caged her wrist. The stiff fabric covering his erection pressed into the small of her back. Ava leaned back against him, rubbing sinuously.

  “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” he growled, his breath stirring her hair.

  “What are you waiting for?” She bumped her hips back against him. “You’re obviously up for it.”

  He whipped her away from him again, this time to tow her across the room toward the wide, sturdy bed. Ava started to climb on the mattress, but Landon grabbed her and spun her until her hips were pressed up against the footboard, facing the bed. A hand on the center of her back pressed her forward until she was bent over the rail of the footboard, her hands braced on the mattress, her ass presented to him like a present.

  He wasted no time unwrapping her. “You’re going to be sorry you taunted me,” he growled, stripping her borrowed skirt so quickly she barely had time to gasp before he was pulling down her tube top. The stretchy fabric caught on her hips, but that didn’t slow him down. Landon grabbed the shirt and her thong, yanking them together down her legs.

  Completely naked and totally exposed, Ava had never felt more powerful. She fought the urge to writhe with sheer pleasure, then gave into it when his palms slid up the backs of her bare legs, cupping her ass almost reverently. Dipping his fingers between her legs, he found the juices dripping down her thighs and hissed something that might have been a prayer or a curse. “God. I’m sorry, baby, I can’t wait.”

  The sudden loss of his hands and the heat of his body behind her had Ava turning. Landon stood a few feet back, wrestling with the buttons on his fly, though the difficulty this time was not his hands, but the heavy erection pressing against the seam. Ava reached out a hand to help.

  “No.”

  Ava snatched back her hand, startled by the abrasive command. Landon, his hands now folded almost protectively over his cock, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “I can’t have you touching me right now, Ava,” h
e said, his voice strained. “I won’t last.”

  Ava was tempted to test his control, but she didn’t think her own need would wait for him to recover if he was right. She resumed the position he had put her in, watching him over her shoulder. “Well, come on then,” she urged, when he didn’t immediately drop his pants and dive at her.

  Landon opened his eyes, saw her position and groaned, closing them again. But his motivation was apparent. His claws sprang out and he slashed down the outer seams of the jeans, whipping his pants and boxers off like a Chippendale’s dancer. His cock sprang up, thicker than she remembered from the jeep and already glistening with the first drops of pre-come.

  Ava squirmed, her body screaming for him. What was he waiting for? An engraved invitation?

  Landon moved up behind her, the heat of his body enveloping her. She dropped her head forward onto her arms, bracing her feet and arching her back to give him easier access as he shifted behind her, making accommodation for the drastic differences in their heights.

  When she felt his head at her entrance, Ava moaned. Landon froze at the sound.

  She wondered if there was anything within reach she could throw at his head. What the hell was he waiting for? Her insides were coiling, twisting, every nerve on high alert, waiting for his possession.

  Right when she was about to scream her frustration, he moved, sliding the head in, then working another inch deeper. Oh, yes. He was bigger than anyone in her limited experience and she was naturally tight, but she stretched to take him in another inch, then another. He filled her so perfectly, but she needed him deeper. She needed him faster and harder, but he just eased forward, controlled and smooth.

  Then he stopped. Again. Ava hissed.

  “Landon.” His name was a plea. Hard. Deep. Please, please, please.

  She saw his hand gripping the footboard, the knuckles white with strain. “I’m sorry, Ava,” he groaned, easing back.

  She stiffened in alarm. If he backed out on her now she was so going Lorena Bobbitt on his ass.

  “You’re so fucking tight,” he bit out, sounding like he was on the verge of asphyxiating. He slid out until just the tip was still inside her. “Am I hurting you?”

  Men were such fucking morons. “I have never felt anything so fucking fantastic in my entire fucking life, you fucking idiot,” Ava snapped, her tone far from loverly as she swore more in that one sentence than she ever had in her life. “Now would you please just fuck me already?”

  Landon made a choked sound that might have been a laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He gripped her hips between his hands and slammed into her so high and hard that her toes lifted off the ground entirely. Ava screamed. Half a second later, she came screaming. Every cell in her body felt like it expanded and exploded, shattering her into a thousand tiny pieces. Landon rammed into her two more times before he fell over the edge after her, roaring, his body stiffening and jerking against her back.

  Chapter Seven

  That wasn’t enough.

  Ava’s first conscious thought after her brain put itself back together was the realization that the Hiroshima sex she and Landon had just had had barely been enough to take the edge off. She needed more and she needed it soon. Fuck, being in heat sucked. She couldn’t even enjoy a good afterglow. Although, she did get the kind of sex that people wrote sonnets about, so she probably shouldn’t complain.

  Her second conscious thought was that footboards were not meant for lying over.

  “Landon.”

  He grunted, his weight still pressing her down onto the wooden rail.

  “Landon. As much as I love this…” she tightened her inner muscles where he was still lodged and her lover groaned appreciatively, “…this isn’t the most comfortable of positions for me.”

  He swore with feeling and shifted his weight off her, his cock slipping wetly out of her body. He gently turned her and lifted her into his arms, carrying her not around to the side of the bed as she had expected, but across the room to the only other room in the bungalow, the bathroom.

  He perched her on the edge of the sink and wet a washcloth with cool water. Standing between her knees, the big bad lion looked tentative, his movements cautious, as if she were as fragile as porcelain.

  The chill of the washcloth pressing against the hot flesh between her legs had her gasping at the surprising pleasure of the contrast. Landon brushed her hair back away from her face with his free hand, still wielding the delicious washcloth with the other.

  “Are you sore?” he asked gently, not meeting her eyes. “I know I was too rough. I couldn’t control myself.”

  Ava snorted. When Landon’s eyes snapped up to inspect hers, she rolled them at him. “You are such a baby,” she scolded. “This—” she wrapped her hand around his cock, which was already stiffening even so soon after their first bout, “—is not the terrifying monster you seem to think it is.”

  He snorted and she grinned.

  “I liked it,” she promised, then shook her head sharply. “No. I loved it.” Ava leaned forward, the high counter putting her face on a level with his. She gave his cock another friendly stroke and gently scraped her teeth along the side of his neck before whispering directly into his ear, “I wanted it harder, Landon. Deeper. Rougher.” His cock jumped a little in her hand at every word. She laughed darkly. “This was fabulous. But next time…” She sucked his earlobe into her mouth, giving it a gentle nip. “Next time, I expect you to ruin me for all other men.”

  “Done.” Landon lunged forward and caught her mouth, his tongue plunging inside and tangling with hers.

  Apparently next time was starting right now.

  Ava linked her legs loosely around Landon’s waist and draped her arms across his shoulders. Their first bout had taken the edge off enough that she could enjoy the kiss for the moment without feeling like she needed to crawl inside his skin. Her lover was not so patient.

  His hands skimmed lightly over her arms. They framed her collarbone, his thumbs brushing the pulse points in her neck before he turned his hands, tracing the outer edge of her breasts and across her stomach with the backs of his fingers, all without releasing her mouth.

  Then suddenly he slowed the kiss until it was languid and drugging, pulling at her soul through her mouth. Ava hummed her pleasure against his lips.

  She didn’t know if it was different because she was in heat, different because she’d never been with another shifter, or different because it was Landon, but every sensation seemed magnified a thousand times beyond her previous experience. It was a miracle she hadn’t shifted at the climax as Landon had predicted.

  Ava turned her head, breaking her mouth free. Landon didn’t stop kissing her. He just moved his kisses along her jaw, nibbling down the column of her throat.

  “I didn’t shift,” she bragged, proud of her superlative control. Even the puniest lioness had some positive attributes. Unsuitable. Ha!

  “Mm.” Landon took his nibbling southward, reaching the upper curve of her breasts.

  She smacked him lightly on the shoulder to get his attention. He needed to be appreciating what a paragon of self-control she was, here. “When I came. I didn’t shift. Like you said I would. I can control it.”

  “Mm-hm.” His tongue flicked across her nipple.

  She gave him another smack, not quite so gentle this time. “Landon!”

  He groaned and looked up, his hands quickly taking up where his mouth had left off. “What? I’m doing good work here.”

  Yes, he was. “I didn’t shift,” she pointed out. Again.

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t happen every time. I didn’t shift either, but it was a near thing. I think I left some claw marks in the footboard.”

  It doesn’t happen every time? That was it? No recognition of her superhuman control? No acknowledgement that she wasn’t useless and unsuitable and totally unworthy of his attention?

  Ava shoved at his shoulder. “Let me down.”

  Landon frowned, vis
ibly perplexed, but he didn’t budge. “You’re mad.”

  “Well spotted, Sherlock. You figure that one out all by yourself?” Big dumb alpha.

  “How did we get from foreplay to mad? I’m confused.”

  Ava resisted the urge to tell him for the thousandth time that she had not shifted. Didn’t he understand the significance? Did she have to spell everything out for him? “I’m not unsuitable.”

  Landon blinked uncomprehendingly. “What?”

  “I’m not unsuitable.” This repetition thing was really starting to get annoying. One would think the leader of the pride would need to be able to listen a little more closely.

  He frowned. “I never said you were.”

  This time when she smacked him, she put her weight behind it, really giving it all she had. “Yes, you did.”

  “Ava.” He ducked, though she was hardly capable of bruising the big hulk, let alone doing real damage. “I would never say that about you.”

  “You did!” she insisted. “In the jeep. You said I was unsuitable and should be kept away from the other lions when I’m in heat. You said the only reason you jumped me was because I broke the rules and wasn’t cloistered off like I’m supposed to be.”

  Ava winced internally. She hadn’t meant to say quite so much. She didn’t really want to be reminding Landon that the only reason he was with her right now was the potent hormone cocktail they were both swilling. And she certainly didn’t want him to hear the disappointment in her voice that he only wanted her because she was in heat. The last thing she needed was him wondering why else she would want him. How mortifying if he suddenly realized she’d been secretly in love with him for months.

  Fortunately, Landon was a masculine member of the species, and therefore incapable of deducing the origin of her emotional meltdown. Instead, he focused on her attack on his integrity.