Jaguar Fever

“I’m fine. I have a hard head, or so my wife always tells me. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better.”

“Ha! The crash knocked you out. You couldn’t have done anything differently.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Thompson said.

“Thanks, Thompson. You don’t know how important that is. I think Wade was planning to mention to you that the female jaguar wasn’t from your zoo.”

Thompson didn’t say anything for a moment, and Wade was afraid he’d ask to see the jaguar to prove to himself the cat wasn’t her.

“It… wasn’t?” he finally asked, cautiously.

“No. Believe me when I say she wasn’t.”

“Okay, I do.” Thompson sighed. “I have to find her.”

“People who Wade and I know are looking for her as we speak. They won’t let you down, Thompson.”

Thompson paused. “I believe you. Will I see you again?”

Maya smiled up at Wade as she told Thompson, “Maybe at the club sometime. We could dance.”

“I’d like that. My wife just arrived, and she’s taking me home. The last time I got knocked out when I was searching for clues about a wolf, she wouldn’t let me go anywhere for days.” Thompson paused. “Wolves. Hell.” Another long pause. “Werewolves,” he said under his breath.

Maya laughed. “No way.”

Thompson said good-bye to Maya, then spoke to Wade, thanking him for his continued help in trying to locate the Oregon Zoo jaguar.

After he hung up, Wade kissed Maya’s forehead, loving her but not sure what he should do about the fact she had shifted in front of a human. He should report this to Martin. They couldn’t allow a human to know what they were. Yet he couldn’t do it. He sincerely believed that Thompson was one of the good guys. And he didn’t want Maya to be in trouble, either. Besides, if Thompson started telling the world that werewolves and jaguar shifters were real, he’d be laughed out of existence.

“You won’t say a word,” Maya whispered against Wade’s ear as if she could read his thoughts. “You don’t want to be in the doghouse.”

Wade chuckled and squeezed her in a hugging embrace. “No, I don’t.” He was thinking of getting one of those suites at the classy hotel where George and Candy had taken a room.

Maya had other plans.

Before they reached the hotel where the Pattersons’ car was packed, George said, “I’m sorry for… my involvement in this, Maya. I didn’t have all the facts when I helped Jim Bettinger. I… know… Martin has to review the case, but maybe you can put in a good word for me?” He looked terrified and hopeful at the same time.

As angry as she was that George had helped hand her over to Bettinger, she had to admit that he’d risked his life to help Wade protect her from the hunters. She nodded. Maybe next time he’d know better.

Before dropping Caryn off at her home, Maya vowed to get together with her for lunch in Houston sometime, while Caryn said she’d come out to see their nursery. Then, after making arrangements to secure Maya’s car and dropping David off at the hotel where he and Wade were staying, Wade drove Maya back to the Anderson Garden Nursery. She couldn’t wait to see her brother and Kat.

When they finally arrived home, Kat and Connor greeted her, and Maya felt overjoyed to see them. Though she’d had a swim in the lake and been thoroughly rained on during the storm and was still wearing only Wade’s shirt, she wanted to take a hot shower and slip into bed with him.

What she didn’t expect was to see a strawberry-blond-haired woman crossing the living-room floor, ready to greet her, blue eyes smiling. “I’m Tammy,” she said, “your other cousin.” And then she pulled Maya into a hug as if they were the best of friends and always had been.

“What are you doing here?” Maya asked, loving her already. “I’m so glad you came, but no one said anything about it.”

“You know men. My brothers were too intent on rescuing you. Minor details like my being here wouldn’t have been important enough to share with you. I’m trying to get a lead on Thompson’s missing zoo jaguar, but I wanted to come down and meet you all, too, since you’re my only known cousins.”

Tammy glanced at Wade. “I take it you’re the man of the hour?”

“If you mean I helped free Maya, I’d say she was doing a great job on her own,” Wade said, shaking Tammy’s hand. “I’m only one of the men who came to rescue her.”

“I understand you are practically family now. Don’t be shy.” Tammy pulled him into a hug, and Maya had to really curb the urge to hiss. The only reason she didn’t was that Wade looked nearly as uncomfortable with the woman hugging him as Maya felt.

When Tammy released him, Wade swept Maya up in his arms, and she gave a small cry of surprise. “You think too much,” he whispered against her ear. “We’ll see you all later. I think we might be flying out to Belize real soon.”

“Um, we’re going to go out for lunch and a double feature with Tammy and dinner after that,” Kat said as she grabbed Connor’s arm and headed for the door.

Connor looked surprised, but then getting the point, he nodded. “See you later.”

“And maybe check out that shifter club,” Kat teased.

“Not on your life,” Connor said.

Tammy smiled, waved, and followed them out of the house.

Maya couldn’t have loved Kat more for the suggestion. She breathed in Wade’s musky, sexy cat smell. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. Wade was one happy male jaguar shifter.

When he entered her bedroom, he shut the door with his hip. “You don’t know how badly I wanted to join you here the first night I stayed in your home.”

“Yeah, I do. If my cousins and your brother hadn’t been here…”

He laughed. “Yeah. I knew you wanted me in here.” His mouth curved up, his eyes heating with fire.

“Whirlpool bath first,” she said.

He stalked with her into her bathroom, set her down on the floor, then considered the whirlpool tub, and smiled.

“What took you so long to come for me?” she asked, leaning over the bathtub to turn on the faucets.

He took hold of her hips and pressed his growing arousal against her ass. She wriggled a little against his groin and smiled when he groaned. That would teach him to play with fire.

“If I waited long enough,” he said, slipping his hands under the shirt and cupping her breasts, “I knew you’d really appreciate the rescue.”

She moaned with delight. “I thought you were a hot-shot Golden Claw,” she said, turning around as the water filled the tub, her hands sliding up his bare chest over rock-hard abs, her nails softly raking his skin. “And would have come sooner.”

He slid his hands up her shirt—well, technically his shirt—again to fill his large hands with her breasts and rubbed his thumbs over the taut and sensitive nipples. “I am a hot-shot Golden Claw.” He kissed her mouth, his tongue tangling with hers as he tightened his grip on her breasts.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, smiling, just waiting to hear what he would say next. His eyes were sparkling with good humor.

“Some wild cats are just a lot harder to get a handle on.”

His voice had grown husky and his eyes had darkened with lust. She rubbed up against him, sliding a leg over his hip and caressing the back of his thigh with the heel of her foot. He took advantage of her posture to slip his hand between her legs and insert two fingers deep inside her. “But I’m getting a handle on it,” he whispered against her mouth as her lips parted on a sigh, and she felt she was dissolving in a puddle.

With their mouths fused and their breathing labored, she was ready to skip the bath and take him to her bed. But he quickly remedied that and stopped the water from filling the tub.

“It’ll take too long,” he said brusquely. When she looked up into his gorgeous blue-green eyes, he smiled. “I can’t wait.”

Then he flipped on the water in the glassed-in shower stall, carried her into it, clothes and all, and shut the door before he began kissing her all over again.

She was trying not to laugh, thinking he must have some kind of fetish for feeling her up when she was