"Shh. I knew it was something like that. I don't like that he's tied you to him, but you aren't his. You were never meant to be his."
She shook her head, trying to deny it.
"Don't." He pressed her close to him, so her mouth was against his bare skin. "I don't want you to lie to me. I'd rather you didn't answer."
That made her ashamed. He was being honest and she wasn't. "Yes. No. I'm married, but . . ." That's why the attack didn't make sense. None of it made sense. Him marrying her. Declaring undying love. Treating her like he did, which was good, and then telling his father . . . She pressed her knuckles to her mouth. How did one explain something she didn't understand? And then add the little part about them being notorious gangsters.
"You had to run from him."
She nodded, her heart beating out of control. His voice was so low, so hypnotic, she had to answer him even when she didn't want to. They were getting into things she tried not to think about--they hurt too much.
"The fiery crash into the ocean Gatita showed Shadow?" he pressed.
She took a breath. Nodded again. Her heart hurt. Her lungs burned. She was terrified she might have a panic attack.
"Why are you uncertain whether you're married or not?"
He wasn't going to drop it, but then they'd had more than a week of crazy, spectacular, fireworks-and-rockets-going-off sex. He obviously didn't want to be with a married woman. That was wrong. She knew it. He knew it. But she wasn't married in her heart. Even if her husband had lied to his father, they'd tried to kill her. Did that mean she had to be loyal? Bitterness had her pulling free of him, stepping away.
"I overheard them talking. My father-in-law, who'd always acted so loving to me, told my husband that one didn't marry women like me, they fucked them and got rid of them. They certainly didn't fall in love. My husband laughed and said the marriage wasn't legal and when he was tired of the fucking he would end it. My father-in-law then said, 'You know you have to kill her,' and my husband said, 'Of course.'" She looked at him. "So there you have my sad little story. Since you and I are brilliant at fucking, I . . ."
He didn't let her finish. He moved so fast he was a blur, on her in a quarter of a second, his hands on her upper arms, giving her a little shake, and he wasn't gentle. "We were mating, Sonia. Mating. There's a difference. I've never fucked you. I never will. My leopard marked you. I marked you. You're mine. My mate. We are tied for life. You don't see other men, and I don't see other women. I don't get tired of you, and you aren't going to get tired of me. This man who so carelessly was ready to throw you away is an idiot, and I'm fucking glad he is. I wouldn't have you otherwise. I'd go through my life alone because someone who has no right to you claimed you."
He pulled her up tighter against him, right up on her toes. "Look at me, Sonia."
He waited until her gaze lifted to his. It was an effort. Every word he said gave her hope, gave her the burn of tears, so that little voice in the back of her head reminding her that men lied to get their way was pushed back further. When her lashes came up she found herself looking into that crystalline blue. Dark green swirled through the blue, a turbulent sea. He was angry, and that scared her a little.
"I'm not leaving you. I'm not going to put a bomb in your car. You're mine to protect and treasure. I didn't think I had a chance in hell of finding you, and believe me, I searched the world for you. For Shadow to find Gatita right next door was a miracle. I don't throw away my miracles."
"You could be killed for being close to me, Joshua. I know you work for Drake Donovan and you think you're invincible, but not from him. I am not going to say anything else, because I won't be responsible for getting you killed." She had to give him every out. She was certain everyone believed her dead, but if they didn't, if they were looking, she had to warn him what could happen. The men she was dealing with were first-class killers.
"Fair enough. But I do need to know if he's leopard."
"I don't know if he is. I didn't know I was until Gatita saved my life. Believe me, I was shocked when she emerged. I had several shocks that day." She had nightmares. Not every night, but quite a few. She was traumatized by what had happened. She'd believed in Sasha Bogomolov. He'd been her rock when her world had gone to pieces. He'd taken such good care of her. She'd been barely eighteen and had no idea what to do. He'd sorted her life out for her and she'd believed in him.
"I've taken control of my life," she said, wanting him to understand. "I didn't know how to live before. I was barely eighteen when my mother died. He took over, paid the hospital bills, arranged her funeral and cremation. He helped me scatter her ashes in the sea. He did everything for me. When I ran, I didn't know how to take care of myself. Now I do."
He kissed the top of her head. "And you do it very well. When I made inquiries about the renovations, every single person I talked to said to go to Jerry, that he had a brilliant carpenter, an artist with restoration, and they named you."
"My father was a carpenter. He liked to work with wood. I don't know how he got mixed up--" She broke off abruptly. She was becoming far too comfortable with Joshua.
"My male needs to see your female for a little while. Are you comfortable with that? With letting them out to run together. If you're not too tired?"
That was so perfect. She wouldn't have to think and Gatita would be happy. She wanted her little female to be happy. Sonia nodded.
He caught the hem of the stretch lace camisole. "Let me. This thing is so damned sexy I can barely think when I look at you."
Sasha had rarely had sex with her. Only when she'd initiated it. He had always been gentle, almost reverent, the opposite of Joshua's wild, out-of-control, rough sex. She responded to Joshua's way of touching her. The way he talked to her. He'd given her an orgasm--well, the first of many. Why she felt guilty over that, she didn't know. Sasha had tried to kill her. She had no reason to feel guilty because she liked the way Joshua touched her.
She watched as he carefully folded the little top and put it on the table. He hooked his thumbs in the boy shorts and started to slide them down her hips. As he did, his head lowered and he caught her left breast in his mouth. Sucked hard. Fire streaked straight to her sex. He caught her nipple between his teeth and tugged.
She cried out as white lightning ripped through her body, shocking her. The things he did should have hurt, but the bite was a sweet ache that fueled the darker desires of her body. His tongue licked gently, a velvet rasp that sent more lightning arcing through her. She fisted one hand in his hair and with the other cupped her breast, guiding his head to that side for equal attention.
He obliged, his mouth closing over the soft mound. Her knees went weak. The brush of shaggy hair against her breasts and midriff sensitized her skin more. The bristles on his jaw rubbed the swelling curves, marking her the way his mouth did. Her boy shorts were around her thighs, forgotten as his hand slid down her mound, fingers curling to find her entrance.
She threw her head back and keened, a long, low wail of pure pleasure escaping her throat. His mouth left her breast, and he turned her toward the railing, one hand curling at her nape, pressing until she obediently leaned over it. She found herself looking down from the upper story while his fingers moved in her, sliding in and out of her.
"You're so tight, baby. So fucking tight I can barely get my fingers in you. How the hell you manage to take my cock, I don't know."
She didn't know either, but she did know she needed him in her right that moment. "Stop messing around and get inside me."
She should have known the way he would respond, slowly drawing down her lace panties so she could step out of them. She knew him now, the way he was with sex. He liked to do everything his way. She didn't mind because she reaped the benefits, but sometimes he took forever to get where she knew he needed to be. She caught the railing and held tight while he began his slow torture. Soft touches. A fiery lick of his tongue. The edge of his teeth raking her clit. Over and over, small tortures designed to
drive her out of her mind--and he was succeeding.
Her breasts were mashed against the wrought iron railing, swinging with every movement, pressed tightly against the twisted metalwork the next. She heard herself sob, plead, her hips squirming and earning his hand. That felt good, spreading even more heat, more need. He did it again and again and then his mouth was there, right where she needed it. She pushed back, and he was gone. She cried out in protest.
"You want me?"
"Yes." She hissed her answer. "Hurry."
She felt the head of his cock, so broad, so velvet soft and hard at the same time, stretching her, giving her that burn she craved. She held herself still, knowing if she moved he would stop, maybe start all over from the beginning. He liked to play. Liked to make her body hum and vibrate. He loved her pleas, or the cries she couldn't suppress. She knew that, because he told her he did. Sprawled on top of her, he had confessed he loved her need of him. The "music" she made for him. He liked the way her lungs struggled for air when she was desperate to come or when he gave her his weight, holding her down with his body, gliding gently in her.
He pushed deeper. So slowly. The burn scorched her. Took every bit of air. With him moving so slowly, her muscles were forced to give way for his invasion and then stretch to accommodate him, burning more than they ever had. It was brutal. It was perfection. It was them. He seemed to know exactly what she needed, or better yet, he was right all along and she'd been born for him. Created just for him. The wind ruffled the Spanish moss in the trees and her hair as it hung down over the wrought iron.
"Do you feel your beauty right now? The moon is shining on your body, spotlighting you. That glorious skin." He stroked his hand down her back. "I love your skin." His hand slid over her right cheek. "Your sweet ass is red with my marks. Do you like them as much as I do? You can't see them, but can you feel them?" He rubbed at the marks, and when she didn't answer, he added another one.
She cried out, and he felt the hot liquid surround him, enticing him into her farther. She pushed back subtly, trying to get him to fill her.
He laughed softly. "Yes. The answer is yes, my little cat. Say it. Say you know how beautiful you are with my marks on you."
"I love them," she admitted. "Every one of them, and I especially love how you put them there. It's sexy. Hot. And it feels good. Now please, please, please, stop teasing me."
"I'm making love to you, baby. Don't you feel that?" He smacked her left cheek this time, leaned forward and licked down her spine with that velvet rasp.
Her inner muscles tightened impossibly, and he groaned. "So fuckin' hot, Sonia. You give this to me every time." He slipped in another slow inch.
He was killing her with pleasure, if that were possible, and she was beginning to be afraid it might be. She lifted her head to look out over the swamp. Leaves rustled and branches swayed gently. For a moment she thought she caught the sheen of eyes.
"There might be something out there," she reported, her breath in her lungs. Her body was on fire, her muscles grasping at him, slick and hot.
He rubbed down her thigh, and back up her inner thigh. "I have guards watching the territory. They'll take care of anything straying our way."
"Would you stop if there was something?" she asked, because nothing in the world would stop her. She wanted him that badly. She needed to hear that he did too.
His fingers crept up to her clit and flicked, sending shock waves through her. "Nothing. Not even if someone put a gun to my head. This is paradise. My paradise. When you're wrapped around me like this, I know I'm home." His voice dropped, became low and intimate. "This is me with you. Our world, Sonia. The two of us. No one can take it from us. The things I do to you are for you alone. No one else. I've never been able to be me. You're the lover I've waited for, the one I can give who I am to. The one I can give everything to. You take what I need to give."
She loved the ring of truth in his voice. "I love what you have to give. It's the same for me. I never knew what was missing. Why I couldn't feel what I was supposed to feel. I needed you." God help her, that was the truth.
He surged into her hard, filling her completely, driving through her tight muscles, the angle of her body allowing him to go deep. He set the pace, a hard, steady rhythm that sent her tumbling off a precipice into a place she'd never been. Everything seemed to go to bursting color behind her eyes, but there was no floating free.
He was moving hard in her, setting a brutal pace, his fingers digging into her hips to yank her back onto him as he surged forward. The streaks of fire threatened to consume her. The man had stamina, and he sent her over the edge again and again until she was crying for mercy, but not wanting him to stop. She needed him to keep going. To fuse them together.
One hand slid up her back to curl around her throat so that her pulse beat right into the center of his palm. She loved when he did that. Her breasts pressed against the bars, her nipples twin peaks of fire. Each time the breeze hit them, it sent fire shooting like an arrow to her clenching sex. Her lungs felt raw and burning, but that added to the churning fireball inside of her, coiling tighter and growing hotter.
She felt his shaft swell, pushing hard against the restriction of her muscles. The friction was superb. Perfect. Bordering on pain, tipping so close to it, she was light-headed with need.
"Now, baby. Come with me now." He whispered it to her in that hypnotic voice of his, and she couldn't do anything else.
Her body clamped down hard on his and milked him. He threw back his head and roared both triumph and challenge, his cock jerking hard, jetting hot splashes of his seed against her scorching walls, triggering a much stronger orgasm than she'd ever had. It came in waves, rushing through her entire body, sweeping every nerve ending with it. It went on and on, powerful and beautiful, a glorious tsunami that roared with intensity.
He collapsed over top her, his arm around her waist, his body tightly in hers, his mouth at her shoulder. He turned his head, burying his face in her neck, and then she felt the nip of his teeth and the pull of his mouth as he sucked the bite mark into his mouth, his tongue stroking and caressing.
She tried to turn her head but couldn't find the energy. "You are very oral."
His tongue touched her ear. "Yes, I am. Thank God you like it."
She did. She liked everything he did. "I hope Gatita can still run."
He laughed. "I'm sure she won't have any trouble. She isn't in heat right now. There isn't any danger with the other leopards around. Shadow will tolerate them."
"Other leopards?" she echoed. "There are other males out there?"
"When I go running, yes, of course." He kissed her neck, still gliding slowly and easily. Each glide triggered a weaker ripple through her body.
"You mean, shifters? Men? Actual men?"
"Don't act like you're interested in whether or not there are other men in near proximity to you," he growled, and bit her earlobe.
She yelped and turned her head to glare at him. "Let me up. This isn't the most comfortable position."
He did so immediately, slipping out of her and helping her to stand. She gripped the railing to keep from sliding to the ground. He made her that weak. She could feel the mixture of the two of them slowly slipping out of her to drip along her inner thighs.
"I'm more interested in having the reassurance that they weren't watching us."
He frowned and looked out into the night. "I don't employ perverts."
"We were making a lot of noise."
His frown turned to a slow grin. "We were, weren't we? Screw 'em, baby. If they watched, they know how hot you are and how lucky I am. They also know if I ever got wind that they were watching you, I'd put them in the fucking ground."
He said it so mildly, she almost didn't catch the threat, but there was a ring of truth in his voice that was disconcerting.
"Um, honey, I don't think if someone watched us the right punishment would be to kill them. That's kind of taking it a little too far," she felt comp
elled to point out.
"I'm leopard, Sonia. I don't give a fuck if someone sees my body. In other circumstances, they might see yours. When I make love to you, it's for you. What I give you is yours alone. The way I touch you, the things I say to you, the things you say to me. That's mine. The sounds you make, those little hitches in your breath. That's what you give to me."
She nodded and slipped her arms around his neck, leaning into his body. "You're . . . unexpected. I don't know what to think about you half the time."
He tipped her face up to his and took her mouth. It wasn't his usual rough, and that surprised her. Melted her. He tasted of something that made her heart pound and adrenaline rush through her veins. She pulled away, closed her eyes and clung to him.
"What is it, Sonia?"
The caring in his voice was her undoing. That note of reality. His kiss hadn't been about sex at all. It wasn't about claiming--leopard or man. It was something altogether different, and she couldn't face that.
"You're a good man, aren't you?" A part of her was pleading with him to be.
"I try to be."
How did one know? How could a woman tell if a man was a good man? He was so rough and dominant, even moody like his leopard. Sasha had been sweet and charming, always gentle with her when he touched her.
"Gatita wants to run, Joshua."
He tipped her face up, making it so she couldn't avoid looking at him while he searched her eyes. "All right, baby. I'm going to give this one to you. But when we're in bed, I'm telling you about me, about my life. You're going to get to know me."
"I'd like that." It was the best she could do, and she knew it came out hesitant. She wasn't certain it was a good idea to get to know him.
To avoid any further conversation, and mostly so he couldn't challenge the truth of her answer, she shifted. She was getting better at it. She still wasn't nearly as fast as she wanted to be, and it still hurt like hell, but she was used to it and not afraid.
Joshua stroked his hand through the female leopard's fur, looking into her eyes and seeing Sonia's dark chocolate eyes staring back at him. "She's beautiful, baby, just like you. Her fur's very rare." He traced a thin golden band that ringed a rosette. "You must love this little cat."