Serengeti Heat: A Sexy Shifter Story. Page 5

  “I didn’t say that!” His hands had long since dropped from her breasts to brace on the counter on either side of her. He loomed over her, his own temper snapping at its leash. “I was trying to explain why I attacked you that way in the jeep,” he protested. “I wasn’t talking about you being unsuitable. I completely lost control, Ava. I couldn’t even maintain my human form. You make me so crazy. All I can think about is getting inside you. I shouldn’t be allowed to want you like this. Your brothers have been among my few allies since I arrived here and how do I repay them? By banging their little sister.” The fight went out of him and he dropped his forehead down to rest on her shoulder. “God, what am I doing?”

  Ava ran her hands from the base of his neck across the sculpted muscles of his back. “You told me I was unsuitable because I make you crazy?”

  Landon groaned. “I didn’t say you were unsuitable, Ava. And if I did, it wasn’t what I was trying to say. I thought you wanted that fucking cowboy, that I was smelling your attraction to him and reacting to it. I was so sure you didn’t even want me and then I practically fucked you right there in the front seat. I needed there to be some reason for it. Some way to explain it. I’ve never reacted to another female’s heat the way I have to yours tonight. The scent is intoxicating, yes, but never so irresistible. But when you walked in here, I couldn’t let you leave. I think I would have broken down and sought you out even if you hadn’t come. I had to have you, Ava.”

  He whispered this entire speech against her shoulder. Ava held herself perfectly still, afraid if she moved that he would remember she wasn’t the irresistible goddess his body had tricked him into believing she was.

  “You drive me crazy too,” she confessed, resting her head against his shoulder as she continued to trace the lines of his back. “I wanted you. In the jeep. In the bar.”

  He lifted his head, but Ava kept hers hidden. “You ran to Zoe’s.”

  “I thought you didn’t want me.”

  His fingers traced a trail from the base of her spine around her ribcage, reminding her that she was naked and wrapped around him. Her pulse kicked into high gear as he bent to press his face against her neck, inhaling deeply. His hands closed over her breasts. “Me not wanting you was never an option.”

  The reprieve her body had granted her was over, all of the symptoms of her heat returning in a thundering rush at the touch of his hands. She writhed on the counter, her hips slipping off the cool surface, but Landon’s body was there to catch her, firm and immovable. He caught her against him, chuckling low at her lack of feline grace, and kicked the bathroom door shut. He spun to pin her against it, their entwined bodies hitting the door hard enough to rattle the frame.

  Ava purred in her throat, locking her ankles more snugly at his back and bracing herself with a hand on the towel rod. Clearly Landon was taking her request that he not hold back this time very seriously. She loved a man who could take direction.

  As Landon occupied her mouth, she ran her hands over every inch of him she could reach, basking in the breadth of his shoulders, the warmth of his skin, the firmness of his muscles against her fingers. He was a specimen in his prime and he was all hers. Ava ignored the niggling whisper in the back of her mind that tried to remind her that he was hers for a limited time only. Once he took a mate…

  The thought spurred an aggressive jealous streak she didn’t know she had. Ava bracketed his head in her hands, holding him captive as she increased the pressure and urgency in the kiss. In this moment, he was hers and no one else’s.

  Landon responded readily to her spike of need. His fingers, which had certainly not been idle, found their way to her wet, heated core and he speared one long digit high into her pussy. Ava jolted at the impact. Her head smacked back against the door, but she was mindless of the insubstantial blow, her entire being focused on his finger working inside her. She snagged his lower lip between her teeth, urging him on, inciting him to a frenzy. Landon growled against her mouth.

  He hitched her higher against the door, and then guided the heavy arousal that had been wedged between them unerringly to her tight sheath. Ava grabbed for the towel bar again, her other arm locked around his shoulder as she braced for his delicious invasion.

  “Make it hard.” She panted the reminder against his skin.

  Landon bared his teeth in a silent snarl, locked his fingers on her hips and slammed her down onto his shaft, half-seating her in a single stroke. Before she could adjust to his sudden presence, he pulled out and drove home again, deeper, higher. It took three more strokes before her tight pussy could accommodate his full length. When he hilted against her, they moaned in unison. He held for a moment and Ava clenched her inner muscles around him to keep him there, drowning in the perfect sensation, the exquisite relief of his body thick and hard inside her.

  “Oh God, it feels…” There were no words to describe the soul-searing perfection of the feeling. Landon didn’t wait for her vocabulary to return. Instead, he set a pace that quickly deprived her of her powers of speech. Ava was reduced to panting, gasping moans as Landon made good on his promise for a hard, rough ride. Attentive to the tenor of her cries, he adjusted his angle until each sure stroke was another stab of ecstasy.

  Ava heard a high-pitched noise twining around the pounding against the door and realized it was her own high-pitched keening. The sounds Landon made were feral music to her ears. He drove into her until she was clinging to the precipice, so close to tumbling over the edge, holding desperately to her sanity, knowing that each second she held off her climax it grew in intensity. Landon shifted, his own face straining against the inevitable, shifted his hold on her, lifting her legs higher, changing the angle of her hips subtly before ramming home one last time.

  Ava screamed, her back arching like a bow as white light exploded behind her eyes. Landon gave a ferocious roar and slammed her into the door. The sound of splintering wood was completely lost beneath their orgasmic cries as the door gave way, tumbling them back into the bedroom.

  Landon landed hard on top of Ava, still seated deep within her, and his weight sent her off again, shooting toward the stars. Still caught in his own orgasm, his hips flexed hard into hers, pressing her down into the remains of the door.

  She was still shuddering from aftershocks when he rolled off her, hauling her with him and draping her across his chest. Ava focused on the little things—breathing, the gradually steadying drumming of Landon’s heart against her ear—until she could make her eyes focus enough to realize she was gazing at the shrapnel of their lovemaking.

  She snickered.

  “What?” Landon grunted.

  She laughed harder, tucking her face against his chest. Her hormones must be working overtime because he still smelled fantastic to her, even reeking of sweat and sex, man and beast.

  He swatted her backside half-heartedly. “What are you laughing at?”

  “I probably have splinters in unmentionable places.” She giggled, perversely delighted by the destruction they had wrought on his bathroom.

  “Hm, we’d better check.”

  Landon deftly flipped her over and began a very thorough investigation. Ava moaned through her laughter. She could definitely get used to this.

  Chapter Eight

  “How is it you managed to hide from me for the last three months?” Landon mumbled the question against her breast. They had finally made it to the bed after thoroughly christening the floor and her heat had subsided to a soft thrumming at the base of her spine, screwed into abeyance by Landon’s superhuman efforts. But he still couldn’t seem to stop touching her.

  They curled around one another in a knot at the center of the bed, forming a private cocoon where the realities that kept them apart outside this room didn’t exist. Ava winced internally as his question threatened her ability to ignore those realities.

  “I’m hardly the kind of girl to come to the Alpha’s notice.”

  He frowned against her skin, even that subtle movement a
caress. “What does that mean?”

  “Landon,” she sighed. “You’ve seen my lion form—”

  “I told you I could make you shift.” He chuckled smugly, the vibration carrying through her body.

  She swatted him, unwilling to be distracted now that he had brought it up. “You know how small I am. I’m hardly the type of girl to attract the attention of the Alpha.”

  “I like how small you are.” One long finger plunged inside her, leaving her no doubt as to his meaning.

  Ava caught her breath and closed her eyes, letting sensation wash over her. “How can I still need you like this?” she gasped as he shifted his body over hers.

  This time their mating was slow and sensual, each deliberate movement of his body wrenching at her heart. When he eased off her onto his side several minutes later, Ava twisted to fit her back against his front, tucking her chin to hide her face. Her emotions were too close to the surface, filling her eyes to glistening and threatening to betray her.

  Landon threw a leg across hers and wrapped one heavy arm around her waist, holding her snug against him. His mouth traced patterns on the back of her neck, never still.

  She needed distance. She needed to remind her heart that it could not get too attached to this passionate, surprisingly playful, intelligent, dynamic, honorable man. With her face still hidden, Ava made herself say the words that needed to be said.

  “You’ll be taking a mate soon, I expect.” Her throat threatened to close off, but she choked out the next few words. “It will need to be someone strong. Someone who can lead the Hunt.” Even if they were only hunting the domesticated cattle on their own ranch, the ritual of it was essential to their culture.

  Landon stilled at her first words, but then he made an agreeable noise and began kissing a line across her shoulder again.

  Ava made herself go on. She needed to be clear. She would not be pitied. She wanted him to know she had no expectations to be his partner, no matter how much her heart might ache at the idea of anyone else taking her place in his arms. “Have you given any thought to which of them you will choose?”

  This conversation was agony, but she would have it.

  His mouth stopped against her shoulder blade. “I’ve wanted to learn a bit more about the pride before making an irrevocable decision,” he said, his voice frustratingly devoid of inflection. “Who would you have me choose, Ava?”

  Now he wanted her to pick her own rival? “I couldn’t make such a choice for you. She must be strong and fast—”

  “Tolerant, progressive in her way of thinking…” His mouth glided back to the nape of her neck.

  Ava gritted her teeth. He was taunting her now. She knew as well as he what was required of the Alpha’s mate. “Firm enough to rule in your stead.”

  “Wise enough to rule without violence…”

  “Large enough that none of the other lionesses could physically threaten her to get their way…”

  Landon suddenly grew very alert at her back. “Has someone been threatening you, Ava?”

  She rolled her eyes, not caring that he couldn’t see the gesture. “I’m the runt of the pride, Landon. Everyone bullies me. It’s practically the national pastime.”

  His arm tightened almost immeasurably against her stomach, the muscles suddenly iron hard. “Your brothers allow this?” he growled.

  “My brothers can’t be everywhere and even if they could, a lioness should fight her own battles.” Ava smiled wryly. “Or be smart enough to give in when a battle with someone twice her size is imminent.”

  “That isn’t how I want my pride to be.” Landon’s body was impossibly tense. It was like being in bed with a marble statue.

  “We can’t always get what we want, Landon. Shifter prides have been a hierarchy of strength for as long as anyone can remember. I don’t think they’re going to suddenly start changing now.”

  “We will change,” he vowed. “We may be animals, but that doesn’t mean we have to abandon all reason. The weaker ones should not be punished. No one should be allowed to decide who is eligible to breed and who isn’t.”

  “It keeps the gene pool strong,” Ava countered, having memorized all of the arguments that were supposed to comfort her in the knowledge that she would never be allowed cubs of her own. As a tiny, albino lioness, she was practically considered deformed.

  “Survival of the fittest does not include breeding restrictions,” Landon snapped. “And a select coalition of males being allowed to breed with the females is just as ridiculous.”

  “Even if, as the Alpha, you decide the coalition?”

  “There are no conditions on decency, Ava.”

  She twisted around in his arms until they faced one another. His expression was fierce, determined. Ava smiled a little at his idealistic resolve. “Zoe said you wouldn’t force the strong young males to become nomads as you were forced out of your pride. Don’t you fear that one of them will overpower you and toss you out of your home?”

  “If we did not micromanage every aspect of their lives and forbid them from ever having sex with the females, then I imagine the young, strong males would be much less likely to want to rip my head off.”

  Ava gently stroked a finger across his cheek. “It is a lovely idea, Landon. Justice and equality for all often is. But do you really think you can accomplish all that? Change our wild and savage ways?”

  His green-gold eyes held hers steadily. “Not alone.”

  Ava tucked her chin and snuggled close to him, burying her face against his chest to avoid his penetrating stare. He would need a true queen as his consort if he was going to accomplish his dreams for the pride. “Then you had better choose wisely,” she murmured, closing her eyes against the painful knowledge that she could never be that choice. Not for him. Not for the pride.

  Chapter Nine

  Landon’s first sensation upon waking was hunger, and not the hunger that had consumed him during the hours of the night before and well past dawn. His stomach felt like it was wrapped around his spine, consuming itself in a futile quest for sustenance.

  He realized he hadn’t eaten since before seeing Ava in the bar last night. Lion shifters had naturally high metabolisms and between the sexual marathon and the extra energy expended from the one time they’d shifted, he felt like he’d been starved for a week, rather than fasting for a matter of hours.

  His stomach growled ferociously, but Landon didn’t move. He held himself perfectly still as Ava sighed and rubbed against him in her sleep. She was half sprawled across his chest, her long white-blonde hair blanketing them both. He ran his fingers through the soft strands. Often a shifter’s human mane would resemble the pelt of their other form—in his travels, Landon had once met a tiger with gold hair and black stripes at his temples—but he had still been surprised by the pale luminescence of Ava’s coat when she shifted the night before.

  White lions were rare in their feline counterparts, perhaps one in a thousand born with the anomaly, but they were practically unheard of among the shifter culture where any hint of the unusual was brutally bred out. Landon had never seen a white lioness before last night, which made him wonder where Ava had been hiding during all of the gatherings over the last three months. He was sure the unusually bright sheen of her fur would have caught his eye in any form.

  She curled toward him instinctively in her sleep and Landon smiled. She was so skittish when she was awake, always holding part of herself away from him, hidden behind her enigmatic pale gray eyes. For all that she gave of herself generously, as purely uninhibited a lover as he’d ever had, she always kept that part of her safe. Separate.

  Except when she slept. At least her subconscious was willing to acknowledge that she belonged with him.

  Landon didn’t know when the decision had been made, but sometime between that first teasing taste of her scent in the bar and their lazy post-coital chats as dawn broke, he had made his choice. Ava was the only lioness he could imagine taking as his mate. She would n
ot cling to outdated traditions, but would help him bring a sense of humanity into their less than human world. She would support him, argue with him when he needed it, and was brave enough to step between him and his prey when his ire was up, strong enough to face down his misdirected anger. She was ideal.

  Now all he had to do was convince her of that fact.

  She was so eager to run from him, his little mate. So ready to hand him off to someone she had decided was more suitable to rule beside him.

  Landon tightened his arms around her sleeping form. His stomach grumbled again and again he ignored it. There was no food inside his bungalow. None of the sleeping quarters on the compound were set up with kitchens. In the communal living environment of the pride, all meals were taken at the mess hall. It had taken Landon some time to accustom himself to eating with his pride, after the years he and his sister had spent fending for themselves, but he had found, much to his surprise, that he enjoyed the familial feeling the large community meals inspired.

  Attendance at mealtimes was not required, even the pride-first oriented lions had too much feline independence for that. Snacks were always on hand in the kitchen for those who chose not to dine with the group, for whatever reason. So his and Ava’s absence at breakfast, which they had long since slept through, at least wouldn’t be noted.

  If they were still missing at dinner, it might raise some alarms—and Landon might die of hunger, if the ache in his stomach was any indication—but he was hopeful he would be able to convince Ava to become his consort before then. His plan consisted largely of keeping her trapped in bed until she said yes. Not terribly sophisticated, but hopefully all the coercion she would require.

  He stroked her hair away from her face and she hummed and sighed against him as she slept. He had worn her out, poor thing, but it seemed her heat had finally subsided. The scent of her no longer demanded that he wake her just so he could make love to her again. Their libidos were finally allowing them some rest.