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He glared up at her, gauging the distance. The table’s puny height offered no protection if he chose to go after her. Then he saw the t-shirt in her hand.

  Oh, he realized, she took the shirt from my neck. Okay, that was good. He shook himself, glad to be relieved of all the clothes.

  “I’m sorry I yelled. You startled me. Warn a guy next time you want to strip him,” Dylan told her.

  How strange. Hildy didn’t act like she understood him. Okay, then. If she wanted to play stranger in a strange land games, he was willing to go along. If he managed to convince her to trust him, he might get lucky again.

  Damnation. The more he smelled her scent, especially her pussy’s natural perfume, the more he wanted her. Being horny hurt.

  If playing her game got him laid again, he was all for it. To play in her “I’m a scared stranger” scenario, he needed to gain her trust. The first thing to do, he remembered from his training, when approaching someone who doesn’t speak the language is remain calm and don’t make any sudden moves.

  Nonchalantly, he scratched behind one ear with a hind paw. The healing bullet hole in his thigh ached at the movement. He reminded himself it had only been three days since he’d been shot when he was trying to reconnect with his contacts fighting the human-smuggling cartels. He was damn lucky it had been a stray bullet and had gone cleanly through. Full use of his muscles with no hindrances was going to happen eventually as long as it healed properly, which it appeared to be doing.

  He gave the sore spot a couple of licks but tasted the artificial skin on the area instead of his own skin and fur. He groomed himself a bit more, both to look better and to get the nasty taste of the artificial skin from his tongue.

  Dylan finally decided he was satisfied and settled back into his rest position. He hoped Hildy would calm down enough to get off the table and come back to petting him. She still looked at him with wide eyes while in her hands she twisted the torn panties she’d taken off one ankle.

  Dylan didn’t have anything else to do, so he waited. Considering Hildy had the same tension as a cornered rat or rabbit, Dylan slid easily into the wait that deluded prey into thinking he’d fallen asleep. He just needed to be patient and wait.

  Through half-closed eyes, Dylan watched Hildy climb down from the table. She approached him quietly and cautiously, then knelt in front of him.

  Once again, her hand came in front of his nose. Her palm smelled a bit like the temp skin he smelled on his thigh. Her own scent still came through delightfully.

  Hildy fondled his ears, head and neck for a while, then stood. She picked up his unnecessary clothes and shoes, then looked at him.

  “Com, Dylan.” With her hand, she gestured as though she wanted him to follow her.

  Com? Hmmm, that sounded close to “come”. He stood up, stretched, then walked behind her from the kitchen. He took advantage of their walk down the hallway to strut around her lovely legs and twist his tail around them to further mark his scent on her. He wanted all males to smell her and know she belonged to him.

  “Dylan,” Hildy garbled a bunch of noises at him, dumped his clothes on a chair, the shoes on the floor, turned on a small Tiffany-style lamp on the nightstand, then sat on the bed and patted the area beside her.

  Hot damn. Dylan jumped on the bed, happy to have the invitation. He walked all around Hildy, managing to rub his tail and scent on her. She lightly swatted his tail out of her face. Her laughter started his purr again and she began petting him.

  When she got off the bed, he moved to follow. She placed the palm of her hand against his nose. “Say, Dylan.”

  Say? Say? With her hand in his face, it dawned on him she meant “stay”. If that meant he didn’t have to leave her bed, it was okay with him. Dylan settled into his rest position and watched her take some pink flowered, flowing clothes from a drawer, then go into the toilet area off the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  Dylan looked at the moonlight spilling across the bedroom floor from the window away from the dim lamplight. Dust motes danced in the moon’s path like tiny silver fireflies. He heard an owl’s hunting call and her mate’s answer. A mouse’s squeal died a sudden death. The owl fledglings’ supper was ready.

  Water ran in the bathroom.

  Dylan stretched out in pure contentment. His muscles tingled and ached. He told himself to be careful not to snag the soft, yellow comforter with his claws. He watched his fingers as he forced his arms and legs out further despite their pangs and discomfort.

  What did his mom call this kind of material with the small pattern cut out all over it? Oh, yeah. Eyelet. He stacked the frothy lace and eyelet covered pillows and small round and oblong pillows onto the bench at the foot of the bed. On top of the comforter remained two thick pillows, encased in covers that matched the flowered sheets.

  Dylan tossed the comforter to the end of the bed and lay on his side with his full glory resting on the sheet.

  “Oh, you’re back already.” Haley shut off the bathroom light and marveled at the complacent, smiling man waiting in her bed with his head propped on one hand and her yellow-flower-splattered sheets under him.

  His naked shoulders glowed burnished bronzed in the lamplight. The dim light and shadows delineated the dips and curves of his biceps and abs. His dark hair gleamed blue-black, accenting his green-gold eyes, chiseled cheeks and smiling mouth. She itched to run her fingers across his short hair, down his face to follow the light hair dusting his chest, to trace the thicker trail down his abdomen.

  “I’ve never been anywhere.” His eyebrows lifted in puzzlement. “And you’re speaking English again. I was getting tired of pretending you’re a foreigner trying to confuse poor me whom you cast as the stranger in a strange land. I’m all for playing sex games, but warn me first. I like the pajamas, by the way. Quite fetching.”

  Haley grinned at him and pirouetted so the wide pants legs swirled like individual skirts. “I love being a girly girl. After years of plain, practical clothes, uniforms in various shades of cam or wrapping up in the depressing clothes of a suppressed Muslim, I love wearing laces and flounces. My mother always insisted I was too big for girly girl clothes.”

  “You are absolutely the perfect size.”

  “Thank you,” Haley pulled out the sides of her pajama pants and dropped a curtsy. “I’m happy with my size too. And since Mom doesn’t pay for my clothes, I wear what I want. My only regret at joining Wildlife Management is being stuck in a uniform again. But I make up for it by wearing lace undies.”

  Dylan gave her a sideways smile and an exaggerated leer. “Yeah? What do these look like? You want to show me?”

  “Not right now.” Haley sat on the bed tailor fashion, well aware she didn’t have on any panties beneath her flowing pajamas. Sex energy began to flow as soon as she caught a whiff of his male musk. Much as she wanted to rub herself all over him, she forced herself to sound calm.

  “And by the way, I’ve always been speaking English. You’ve been a jaguarondi for the past half-hour.”

  Dylan twisted his kissable lips into a grimace. “I have not. I’ve been watching you in the kitchen and waiting for you to calm down. You were scared after I accidentally clawed you when I was lifting you up against the wall. I swear to God, I wish I knew how that was happening to me and why.”

  “You remember being in the kitchen?”

  “Of course. You jerked the t-shirt off my head and then jumped on the table when I yelled at you.” He pinched a fold in her pajama leg. He slid his thumb and index finger along the pleat he made up her shin, then back down to her ankle.

  Haley shivered with increased sex heat as though he were stroking her skin instead of her pajamas. Her breathing hitched, but she refocused on the situation about his changes.

  It gave her hope that he had memories of being a jaguarondi, even if he thought he was in human form at the time. Now she needed to make him remember being in his jaguarondi form. For his own sake, he had to accept he changed.

  “Why
don’t you describe what you were doing?”

  “I told you, waiting for you to calm down.” Dylan’s smile disappeared into an annoyed scowl.

  Haley didn’t let his scowl bother her, but persisted, “No, I meant tell me where you were sitting, how you were sitting.”

  He rolled his eyes at her, blew out air, then said, “I was on the floor in rest position. Waiting.”

  “Where were your arms and legs?”

  Dylan started to say something, then stopped. His face twisted with puzzlement. “Why am I thinking I had them under my body like a cat making a bread loaf?”

  Haley nodded. “And your tail?”

  “Wrapped around my body?”

  The words hung in the air.

  Dylan looked stunned as though he didn’t believe the words had come from his mouth.

  “Dylan, it’s going to be all right. We can work this out.”

  “I turned into a fucking cat and you have the gall to say ‘it’s all right’ and ‘we can work it out’? Why the hell is this happening to me?” He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m going to kill the people who did this to me!”

  Haley lunged across the bed and grabbed his shoulders. She leaned all her weight against his tense back and slid her arms around his chest, holding him to her.

  “Dylan, listen to me. I don’t know how this is happening or who did it to you.”

  “I do,” Dylan said. “And I’m going to hunt them down and kill them.”

  Haley shuddered to hear the cold, bleak determination in his voice.

  “Dylan, right now, as much as you want to hurt whoever did this to you, you have to first accept what’s happening.”

  “I don’t have to accept it. I want to be me. Not some wildcat.”

  “Dylan,” Haley leaned over one rock-hard shoulder and got in his face.

  Now her shudders came from pure sexual energy. Her breasts pressed against his bare back, her nipples ached to feel his skin instead of her silk pajama top.

  His mouth was set in a tight line she wanted to ease with her mouth and tongue, but she continued to try to persuade him to see some logic. “If you accept it, maybe you’ll be able to learn to control it. Once you learn how to keep from changing, then we’ll be better equipped to hunt down the why, how and who were responsible for this mess in the first place.”

  “We’ll be better equipped?” Dylan snapped her words back to her.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “We. You’re not in this alone. I can help. What’s been done to you is wrong. If you don’t let me come with you, I’ll track you on my own. But whether you take me with you voluntarily or I follow you, I’ll be your backup. If you wanted the ability to change species at will, that would have been your choice. But the way it is now, they’ve taken your freedom from you. I joined the Amazons because I wanted to be able to fight those who take away others’ freedoms. Personal freedom for all is still my goal. If you know who’s responsible, I’ll help you hunt them down and hurt them for taking away your freedom.”

  Dylan’s half smile warmed her and a little bit of her heart gave itself to him, willingly and happily.

  “What’s in it for you?”

  He twisted his body to face her. Haley saw the tip of his cock. A drop of cum on its tip gleamed in the silver moonlight flowing through the window.

  Haley slowly stroked around his cock with one finger. It jerked at her touch. She caught the drop of cum on her fingertip and licked her finger. She looked at his face. His golden-green eyes gleamed at her. The hot lust shining in his eyes nearly made her come without even a touch from him.

  “What’s in it for me?” She sat back against the pillows and told him. “In my own interests, I want to get laid. I want you to learn to control this because I absolutely have no desire to be in the midst of things again only to discover you changing. Bestiality is so not my thing.”

  Dylan placed one hand on her stomach and weighed one breast in his other hand. His thumb stroked her puckered nipple.

  Her words came in gasps between breaths. “Kinky is okay. I can do kinky for a change of pace. I like an occasional light bondage, both as Dom and as sub. I even enjoy participating with my college roommate’s ménage partners once in a while.”

  “Your college roommate’s part of a ménage? F-M-F?”

  “Mmhhh,” she sighed as his hand dipped from her stomach to massage the silk pajama crotch. “No, M-F-M. Very stable threesome for several years now. Huge bed for them and their occasional guests. Takes up most of the bedroom.”

  Dylan felt the silk dampening under his fingers. He slid his hand back up her soft stomach, then untied the pajama bottoms ribbon to run his hand between the material and her soft skin.

  She spread her knees farther apart as he parted the slick folds covered by her pussy hair.

  He took his hand away from her breast long enough push the silk and lace top up above her breasts. He held one in his hand to play with the nipple while he placed his mouth on the other to feast on the full bounty.

  “Now as for me…”

  What the hell was it with women who chattered during sex? Damn it, if she didn’t willingly put her hands on his shaft in half a minute, he was going to come from just the feel of the sheets, her wet juices on his fingers and the taste of her breast in his mouth. Everything suddenly had more texture as if his nerve endings had been enhanced to feel each molecule separately.

  Scents grew sharper. He separated out the chemicals in the soaps she used to wash the sheets and herself. Then he concentrated on the natural scents—the grass outside, the smell of her skin, the flowing musk between her legs.

  Colors disappeared but shapes came into crisp focus. The room no longer was the dim cave of seduction. He watched the interplay of light and shadows dance across her glowing skin. Between the lamp and the moonlight, the room was lit as bright as daylight.

  Dylan knew if he lifted his head from his succulent feast of Hildy’s breast, he would be able to see the mouse he smelled and heard rustling in the grass outside the window. He heard the male owl’s hunting scream, then the whoosh, flap of wings. That mouse didn’t even have time to squeak its death call.

  “But as for me,” Hildy’s voice broke into Dylan’s study of all the different tastes, textures, smells and shapes created by his Brunhilde’s lush body. “I prefer a single male at a time. And while I occasionally like my human males to act like animals, I do not want animal animals as lovers. As much as I love your tongue on my breast, it’s starting to scratch. I think you’re changing again. And if those damn claws come out again while you’re playing with my pussy, I will break your cock in two.”

  Chapter Five

  Dylan jerked his fingers away from Hildy’s pussy. “Damn it all to hell!”

  He looked at his hand, four fingers and a thumb—no claws, just fingernails. He breathed a sigh of relief that the changing hadn’t occurred yet.

  Tentatively, he ran his tongue across his teeth. His teeth hadn’t turned into points. He rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth

  “Are you sure I was changing? My tongue feels smooth.”

  “You were shifting into the jaguarondi.” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  Well, damn, he knew better than to doubt a woman’s word, but still.

  “My tongue feels normal to me.”

  She jerked down her pajama top and crossed her arms under the lovely breasts he’d been holding and suckling. “How exactly do you know how normal feels? You spent half an hour in the jaguarondi shape and didn’t even realize you’d shifted until I made you face facts.”

  Dylan flinched at the reality Haley once again forced at him. Part of him felt like he was five years old, mad at one of his snotty girl cousins.

  “Want to feel it?” Dylan stuck his tongue out at her.

  Haley leaned forward, her fingers extended. Dylan resigned himself to no more playtime for the night. He just hoped his First Amazon Battalion soldier didn’t jerk his tongue ou
t in her anger. She swiped her own tongue across his, then sat back before he had a chance to grab her.

  His cock pulsed angrily. He froze, afraid if he even moved across the soft sheets he’d come all over the bed.

  “Dylan?”

  “Just wait,” he said between gritted teeth. Silently, sweat popping in beads on his forehead, he fought the battle for dominance with his cock.

  The scent of her body on sheets, the aroma of her wet pussy next to his head, the still slick feel of her juices on his fingers made it all that much worse to gain control over his cock. Damn it all to hell and back. His being—his self-worth—encompassed more than overactive hormones and a nearly out-of-control dick.

  His cock finally eased off enough that he didn’t think he was going to come at the moment. He made no promises to himself that the next time he’d win the battle or even want to. He hated not being in control of his body.

  “You okay now?” Haley asked.

  “Absolutely just fine and dandy,” he snarled. How the hell did she think he felt? He had no control of this changing shit and his cock kept wanting to take full charge.

  “I’m so glad you’re feeling better.” Her sweet, sugary, sarcastic voice flayed guilt across him for snapping at her concern. “I had nothing to do with this crap about you turning into a jaguarondi. Don’t get snitty with me, you pickle head.”

  “Now I’m a pickle head?”

  “Substitute dick for pickle, pickle head.”

  Dylan didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. “My older brother and cousins used to call me Pickle.”

  Haley laughed, then asked, “Are you serious?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?” He tried to glare at her. One look at her fighting back giggles and he found himself grinning too. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh. Dylan became Dill, which ended up being Pickle. They quit when I finally got old enough, big enough and mean enough to beat the crap out of them.”

  Their shared laughter eased some of Dylan’s tension.

  “Families suck.”

  “Yes,” Dylan nodded, “and what would we do without them?”