“Maybe he has his own agenda. Maybe he’s really interested in you.”
Tammy snorted. “A guy like that could have any woman he wants. He certainly wouldn’t bother with someone who isn’t interested. Can you think of any reason why he would be looking into this case?”
“What if he knows who the corrupt agent is?”
Tammy took a deep breath. “So why not just come clean about it?”
“Maybe Quinn doesn’t have proof. He’s thorough when he does a job, and I can’t see him hurting anyone’s good name on just a supposition that the agent is crooked.”
“Okay, I can believe that,” she said, snuggling even more against David’s hard, warm body. Wanting more from him. She was sure he’d go along with it if she suggested doing something more…but she was still a little wary of making too much of…them.
David stroked her hair in a tender caress, while her hand rested on his bare belly. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” she said softly, feeling dreamy and comfortable with him, like they belonged together like this, like they’d been together for a while. Facing danger did that to shifters—brought them closer. Not quite like this, usually. But with him, she felt…differently.
Her fingers slid over his belly with a gentle sweep.
He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “Tammy…”
She swore he looked a little misty-eyed. Or was that just lust?
She didn’t care. All she wanted was him, now, this very minute. She’d been in life-threatening situations before. And she’d needed time to decompress. What a way to do it. She’d never been with a partner that she’d felt anything for other than camaraderie if they worked well together, or disdain if they had not. With David, she really wanted…more.
Still, she was afraid to be hurt again. “No strings,” she said, as if that would make the situation more tenable if he dumped her after a few dates. She kissed his lips—his warm, firm masculine lips.
He broke off the kiss and said in a caring way, not annoyed but like this really meant something to him and he wanted her to know how much, “I don’t do one-night stands, Tammy. Not my style.”
She sighed, sounding exasperated, but she was secretly pleased at his declaration. “I’m…the same way, only things haven’t worked out.”
“I understand.” He continued to stroke her hair with one hand, his other arm wrapped around her, holding her to him and showing possessiveness in an affectionate way.
She studied him for a moment and saw the sincerity in his expression, then sighed again. “Fine. Then we’re dating now. All right?”
He gave her the warmest smile. “You’ve got it.” He didn’t even try to couch his enthusiasm.
She loved his impulsiveness and zeal. She might be a wild cat—as in able to live in the jungle—but when it came to sex, she didn’t really see herself as the aggressive kind.
Until David started kissing her. Ohmigod. What had made her want no strings attached?
He started nuzzling with his mouth against hers, his hands sliding up her tank top, leaving trails of heat everywhere he touched her skin. She was half burying him with her body, straddling one of his muscular legs, rubbing her sex against him like a cat affectionately rubbed against someone. Only she was leaving her scent on him, claiming him.
He drew his leg up a bit, making her groan as his thigh increased the contact between them. She was ready to come, never having experienced the rush this quickly. She felt like a tigress, licking and kissing his lips, pressing for entrance, making him smile.
His hands were busy at work, first sliding up beneath her top, but then he quickly seized the ends and tugged it up to remove it, forcing her to quit kissing him for a second.
Then he was kissing her again, with only her nipples rubbing against the light hair on his chest, and she thought she would die of pleasure.
For a moment, he ran his hands down her back, caressing, stroking, but as hard as he was and as much as she could smell his musky desire, she figured that wouldn’t last. Sure enough, he slipped his hands under the waistband of her panties and cupped her buttocks, squeezing gently. Only she wasn’t going for gentle. She wanted it all.
She began to rub his cock through his boxers, and that made him groan. She smiled, feeling wickedly in charge, when he flipped her on her back, pulled off her panties and tossed them, and then jerked off his boxers.
Now he straddled her leg, rubbing against her and leaving his sexy scent on her. With the same maneuver he’d made with her, she meant to raise her leg a little to increase the contact between his cock and her, but he slid his hand down to stroke her between the legs. The kissing had turned to suckling as he moved his mouth to a breast, his tongue toying with her nipple and teasing her into a higher state of ecstasy. Her hands were in his hair, her fingers tangling in the strands, while she was barely able to breathe. The climax hit so quickly that she cried out with awe and joy, her whole body awash in sexual gratification.
He was quickly off her, and she felt the loss of heat at once and the disappointment that they wouldn’t finish this together. He grabbed a handful of condoms and stuck them on his bedside table—making her smile—and then quickly sheathed himself before he again joined her on the bed.
She welcomed him with open arms, her legs parted, ready.
Tammy was hot, sexier than the devil, and David had to add wildly unpredictable to her list of traits. He loved her for it.
He nestled between her legs this time, rubbing his cock against her sweet sex. He cupped her face and began kissing her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes. He was ready for anything. As soon as she began to kiss him back, her lips brushing, pressuring, nipping at his, her arousal fed his own. Their bodies moved against each other, their fueled cat scents turning them on all the more.
He felt he was on fire despite the air-conditioned bungalow, the she-cat making his blood sizzle. The jungle sounds faded into the background, and all he could hear were their breathing and heartbeats drumming hard. Her hands skimmed his back and buttocks as he tried to rub against her, taking pleasure in kissing her breasts, suckling on her nipples, and smelling her arousal. He kissed her mouth again, and she parted her lips. As soon as he inserted his tongue inside, she sucked on it, making his erection throb with eagerness. Her breathing was as ragged as his. He wanted to be deep inside her so badly that he could barely stand it.
Her nipples were tight and rubbed his chest as she moved in his arms. The intensity of the heat built inside him. She groaned deep in her belly like a feral cat. The erotic sound nearly undid him.
She ground against his erection, making him groan out loud. She smiled. The vixen.
Her luscious body was flushed, her nipples taut and blushing. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he couldn’t hold off any longer. He penetrated her. Slowly. Until he was inside her to the hilt. She was gloriously anchored to him, and she began to move with him. Sweet heaven, she was desire personified.
Her teeth grazed his neck and then his shoulder. He pumped into her like a man possessed. Her teeth and tongue and mouth were making a sensual assault on his neck and throat, and then she worked her way to his jaw. As much as he wanted to make this last, he couldn’t. His hands tightened on her buttocks as he drove into her. He felt as though he was ready to explode.
White-hot heat filled him. He let go, bursting with the release. He held on to her, loving that they were still joined, feeling one with her, wanting to hold on to the pleasure and the moment and her.
“I’m ready to sleep now,” Tammy finally said in a softly sensual but sleepy voice. “What about you?”
“Hell, yeah.” But that meant snuggling all night with the she-cat, and he hoped they woke up to another bout of this…soon.
Chapter 17
Late the next morning while Tammy and David were slowl
y waking up in bed, Tammy said, “Today we were supposed to go waterfall rappelling. I’m thinking the boys probably won’t be there, or we could watch over them. Since we’ve already talked to them, and if it was Joe Storm targeting me, he might be planning to take one of us out at the waterfalls.
“So what if we get something to eat, then run as jaguars, search the area surrounding the waterfall, and see if we can locate him readying an ambush? We’d have to keep out of everyone’s sight, but we could move faster and, with our noses to the ground, could find Joe’s trail much quicker if he’s been in the area.”
“He could be in place now,” David said, agreeing with her. He kissed her head, his hot, hard body wrapped around her in a loving embrace.
She really could get used to waking up like this in the morning. The other guys she had dated seriously had slept on their own side of the bed, and she’d thought that was the way all guys preferred to sleep. But this was really, really nice.
“Yeah. Maybe we can take him down. I’d certainly be willing to chance it. You want to do it?” she asked.
He sighed. “You like to live dangerously, don’t you?”
She smiled up at him. “Isn’t that a prerequisite to joining the Service?”
“Yeah, for me, not for you. Your job isn’t supposed to be this treacherous.”
“Ha! Says you.” She shook her head and untangled herself from his sexy body. “Why is it that most JAG agents think their jobs are more dangerous than an Enforcer’s?”
His mouth curved up.
“Don’t answer that.” She meant to mention that he had been watching two teens at a club, and how dangerous was that? Except that David had risked getting killed by stepping in and protecting the boys from Joe Storm’s fury. And her brothers had been in numerous life-threatening situations, many more than she had in her job.
“All right. Let’s go,” David said, slipping out of bed naked.
She admired him for a second. So hot. “Do we run as jaguars from the bungalow in broad daylight? Or shift in the jungle? My preference would be to…” She hesitated. Her choice would be to shift in the bungalow. But practically, there was probably more of a chance for a human to see them running from the bungalow as jaguars, though each of the places was surrounded by vegetation. She took a deep breath. “…shift in the jungle.”
“As much as I’d prefer to turn here and not have to leave our clothes out there, it would be safer to shift out there,” David said, pulling on a pair of camo boxers. He smiled at her eyeing his boxers. “They blend with the foliage better.”
“As long as you don’t misplace them.”
He chuckled.
She slipped into her camo pants. “Good thing we have an enhanced sense of smell, or we’d be in real trouble.”
“We’d never find our clothes upon our return otherwise,” he agreed.
She pulled out a small camo backpack. “We can tuck our clothes into this.”
They had finished dressing when Tammy’s boss called. “Anderson,” she said.
“Tammy, one of our agents discovered that Joe Storm had a flight home late last night to Las Vegas. And Quinn took a flight to Los Angeles an hour after that.”
To some extent, she was surprised to hear it. “And, they are both exactly where now?”
“We weren’t able to track either of their current locations, but we’re still working on it. The airline confirmed the two men were on their flights. You won’t be able to get a flight out until tomorrow afternoon, but I’ve had our people book you both for a return passage. We need you here looking into the circus situation.”
“All right. We’ll take the time to search the area for any other clues concerning Joe and Quinn in the meantime. Joe might have figured the boys aren’t planning on going on any of the excursions they’d signed up for. Now that we know he’s involved and by protocol we would inform our superiors, he’s probably rethinking his strategy.”
“I agree. We’ll let you know if we pinpoint either of the men’s locations in the meantime.”
“What about Weaver and Krustan?”
Her boss let out his breath. “No getting hold of them, either. But we haven’t found that they’ve taken any flights out. Though they could make their way back via other means.”
“All right. Thanks.” She pocketed her phone.
David was leaning against the dresser, arms folded across his chest. “Joe and Quinn have left, I take it.”
“Yes, back to the States.” She explained the rest to him. “Since we have the free time on our hands, I still think we should search the area around the waterfall to see what we can learn. I’m curious whether he had a hunting stand set up somewhere in view of the waterfall.”
“Let’s go.”
They grabbed a quick bite to eat, then headed out to the jungle, shimmering light filtering through the rainforest.
The trek through the jungle was hot and muggy as David and Tammy kept an eye out for any movement along the way. When they found a place to strip, they did it in a hurry and stuffed their things in the camo bag. David tucked it among the dense ferns. Tammy shifted and watched for any signs of anyone, listening to the sounds of the jungle, but except for a few voices drifting from the resort, there was no other indication of humans in the area.
David shifted and they took off running in the direction of the waterfall.
They searched for any hint of Joe or Quinn having been in the area—and Weaver and Krustan, while they were at it. They also checked for the boys in the area. David was just as alert, tense, listening, watching, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Now that Joe and Quinn were gone, Tammy didn’t believe anyone else would take a shot at them when they were traveling to the waterfall rappelling site. Even if Joe had still been in the area and planned to attack her or David or the boys, she figured he wouldn’t be looking for them, but would be ready in a tree somewhere with the perfect view of the waterfall.
She saw something flick out from a tree. She studied the branch. A seven-foot boa coiled around it—the snake’s dark brown- and gray-banded skin so indistinct that it nearly blended in with the bark, the flick of its tongue the only thing that gave the reptile away.
When they reached the site, she wanted to split forces, but she thought better of it and figured David wouldn’t go along with it, either. Tammy took in a deep breath, smelling the air drenched with the fresh, watery fragrance of the rapids flowing over the cliff and the waterfall splashing into a turbulent pool below.
The burgeoning sunlight collided with the waterfall, creating a multicolored arch, the red, green, yellow, and purple forming a soft, misty rainbow. The climb was steep, at an angle, the rocks moss-covered and slippery.
They kept watching for any sign of the boys or her fellow Enforcer agents, but nada. No jaguars, none of them in human form. Had they missed spotting them if any of them were in the area? In the dense vegetation, it would be easy to hide.
Birds flitted about, leaves fluttered, insects flew around them, all distractions that caught their cat eyes. Cats could detect the slightest movement, so she was constantly looking, seeing something, but not the right something.
Then she smelled a whiff of Joe. David had, too. His whole body was rigid, ready to take action, his ears perked, nose sniffing, tail twitching, just like she was reacting. She dashed off in the direction of the smell.
Joe’s scent trail led them down a steep incline that would be easy to traverse without ropes if they were in human form and was even more easily navigated in their jaguar forms.
They found his scent where he’d climbed a tree, and David hurried up it while she searched for Joe’s trail leading away from there. She was so intent on her surroundings and the trail that she had gone quite a distance before she realized David wasn’t with her. She waited, twitching her tail hard, anxious to keep going.
&n
bsp; David dove out of the brush to join her, looking a little anxious that he’d lost her for a moment, and then they continued on the path she’d found. Not that there was an actual human kind of path. Just the scent trail the cat had left.
They found a site where Joe appeared to have pitched a one-man tent, the vegetation flattened in one area, fern fronds broken. It was close to the river, a mile and a half south of the waterfall. He hadn’t needed to maintain a campfire because he could just hunt as a jaguar and eat his meal raw.
It looked as though he’d packed up his gear and gone, no sign of anything left behind.
She was ready to give up the search when David nudged at her to follow him. Wondering what he thought was wrong when she smelled no sign of Joe, any other cats, or humans in this direction, she loped behind him. She was contemplating what they would do until they left. She hoped the boys would see them again before she and David took off on their drive to the airport in Belize City and flew out tomorrow.
She and David had traveled maybe eight miles, and she was really wondering what in the world was leading him in this direction, when they came to another waterfall. He began to make his way down the steep rocks to the bank surrounding the pool beneath the tumbling water. She kept sniffing the air, smelling David instead, loving his sexy scent but trying to catch any sign of what he was investigating as she followed him down the rocks that would have been treacherous for a human without rappelling equipment.
After David reached the narrow, rocky bank below, he swam into the center of the pool. She paused on the moss-covered rocks edging the pool, the water crystal clear blue, as she watched him, waiting for him to do something. He shifted. She looked up at the steep cliffs all around them covered in thick vegetation, and then back at David. He was observing her, looking expectantly.
“The water’s great. We have tons of time to kill. Want to join me?”