another towel and dried himself. He was watching her the whole time, as if he could read all the thoughts running through her mind.
She smiled then, took his hand in hers, and pulled him out of the bathroom and toward the bed. “When I first saw this bed,” she said, casting a look over her shoulder at him and capturing his gaze, “I thought of you in it with me.”
The duvet was already tossed aside from where she’d been sleeping before she heard Wade taking a shower. She’d thought that a mischievous monkey might have turned the faucet on.
No way had she envisioned that she’d find a naked man washing up on the wood deck—a hunk of a jaguar shifter whom she’d already fantasized about showering with there.
She released his hand and crawled into bed, while he continued to dry himself slowly, working on his hair first and showing off his exquisitely tanned body, every muscle group toned, his cock stretching out to her.
After he’d finished drying himself, he tossed the towel on the tile floor and stalked toward the bed. He climbed onto the mattress as she scooted over to allow him room. Pulling the netting around the bed shut, he half covered her body with his, like a big primal cat, as he began kissing her all over again.
The heat and sounds of the jungle surrounded their private, glassed-in cottage hideaway. The primitive, feral side of their nature thrummed in her blood as she cupped his head and kissed his mouth with desperate need and desire.
His hand slid over one breast, cupping, stroking, his thumb circling the nipple, and her breasts ached and swelled with his touch. His legs straddled one of hers, his knees spread wide as his thickening cock pressed against her hip, sliding, stroking, adding his musky male scent to her body, claiming her.
She knew he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.
No elephants trumpeted here like they did at the shifter club, and no music played as a backdrop to their heated moves this time. The only sounds were the tropical birds twittering, howler monkeys calling out to one another, and two shifters’ hearts beating hard as one. Yet she felt the same heat and passion and craving between them as she’d experienced on the dance floor when he held her tight in his embrace. Clothing was all that had separated them then. Not now.
She ran her nails lightly down his muscled back like a cat in ecstasy as a low growl rumbled deep in his throat. She loved the primal sound, the connection with their feral side, and arched against his body, offering her own.
He lowered his face to lick her nipple, his hand sliding down her flat belly and making her tense with anticipation when his fingers combed through the golden curls nested between her legs and touched the knotted part of her that was sensitive and receptive. She couldn’t help bending to meet the onslaught.
He looked up at her, his eyes heated, predatory, a jaguar’s blue-green gaze like a shadowy jungle filled with dark secrets. She could smell his wild, musky male scent driven by ravenous desire.
She scraped her fingernails lower down his back to his buttocks.
He gave a raspy groan and slowly, deliberately ground his rigid cock against her thigh. She’d never felt this needy, craving to have his wicked flesh embedded deep inside her, moving in and out, taking her to a world of feral indulgence.
He slid a finger between her feminine folds, deep. “So wet,” he whispered, licking her nipple. “So hot.”
So needy, she wanted to whisper back, but she could barely breathe as he plunged two fingers into her. She was weak for him. She knew if he stopped, she would beg for more. No one had ever had such an effect on her.
His mouth was again on hers, sweet and not sweet, plundering and backing away, taking and offering. She couldn’t fall for him. Not when he was her first shifter. She couldn’t. But she wanted this—to quell the raging fire burning deep inside her. Just like the one he’d stoked within her when he was dancing with her at the club.
She bucked against his fingers as they stroked her, played her, and made her gasp as sprinkles of hot, white light flitted across her senses, her body’s ache climaxing with guilty pleasure. Guilty because she shouldn’t feel this much ecstasy from a man she hadn’t given her heart to.
But she didn’t want this to end.
Feeling as though Maya was a clawed wildcat beneath him, Wade fought for control, unwilling to give in to the madness he felt—the jungle fever—the desire rocking his body as she writhed and bucked at his touch.
He’d never felt this out of control. If she pushed him from her bed now, he’d have a devil of a time walking away. Her hand skimmed down his arms as he straddled her leg, his hands on the mattress as he loomed above her, the predator in him coming alive. His body demanded he finish this, that he thrust between her legs and take her for his own.
Yet some part of his brain screamed at him to wait. To come back for more when she truly wanted him and
He growled as her lust-filled golden gaze studied him, her tongue licking her lips, her whole posture saying she was waiting, anticipating his next move.
He shook his head, trying to clear it so he could make the right choice, a human one, not a jaguar one. The jaguar in her was submitting to him. The human was not.
“Don’t you dare leave me like this,” she growled softly, her voice ferocious.
He fought smiling, knowing she could back up that threatening glower with deadly teeth if she decided to shift beneath him.
She lifted her head without warning and nipped his shoulder, not enough to break the skin and not in anger, but in a cat’s way of courting before the mating. The fury in her eyes said she’d bite him again if he thought of moving off her.
He smiled, knowing that his expression was that of an extremely appreciative, hungry male who hadn’t wanted to rein in his jaguar half. In a pure male jaguar display of ownership, he pressed his teeth gently against her neck. He pushed her legs apart with his knee, settled against her, and then thrust his cock deep between her folds in one slick move.
His mouth was alternately on hers and then sliding down her throat, licking and kissing, as her body arched to his thrusts and savage hunger drove him deeper. The smell of her—citrus fruit, orchids that she’d brushed against, and pure sex—filled him with hot need.
Her nails scored his buttocks this time and increased the intensity of the pleasure she aroused in him. He felt as though he was taking a hellcat in the jungle, surrounded by the rainforest noises—the wild animals, the bugs, the flow of a waterfall in the distance—and sweet, musky scents. The feral pleasure they took in each other was only a part of the sensations he was drowning in. He felt the tenderness, too. Her wide-eyed innocence when she’d come made him think that the humans she’d been with hadn’t made her blood heat like this.
Smugly, he smiled as he kissed her again. Their tongues danced to the jungle beat of their hearts as he slid her legs around his hips and thrust again.
She was so hot, her sheath stroking him like wet velvet. When he felt her come again, he muffled her cry of release with a kiss and exploded inside her. He rocked inside her for a few seconds more, relishing the intimacy between them, before he rolled onto his back and stared up at the curtained ceiling of the bed. Hell, she might have been all wide-eyed innocence about being with a shifter for the first time, but he was feeling just as unsteady as he tucked her under his arm, her cheek against his chest, her golden hair tickling his bare skin.
For a long time, he didn’t speak, just luxuriated in the satiny feel of her, breathed in her sexy scent, and enjoyed the whisper of her breath against his chest. “I wanted to swim with you in the Amazon River in the worst way,” he finally said quietly, in case she’d fallen asleep.
“When?” she asked, her voice soft and caressing.
“The last time we were in the jungle together. I wanted to be the one brushing up against you instead of the pink dolphins.”
“You were there?” Then she cleared her throat. “Of course you were. Guarding us. Ensuring no one sneaked up on us while we were swimming.”
“I couldn’t understand why you would let Connor kiss Kat.”
She gave a little laugh. “I was his
“I didn’t know that then. Although in hindsight, I realized I’d never seen you being intimate with Connor. That he’d only been that way with Kat.”
