She didn’t know if it was different
because she was in heat, different
because she’d never been with another
shifter, or different because it was
Landon, but every sensation seemed
magnified a thousand times beyond her
previous experience. It was a miracle she hadn’t shifted at the climax as
Landon had predicted.
Ava turned her head, breaking her mouth
free. Landon didn’t stop kissing her. He
just moved his kisses along her jaw,
nibbling down the column of her throat.
“I didn’t shift,” she bragged, proud of
her superlative control. Even the puniest
lioness had some positive attributes.
Unsuitable. Ha!
“Mm.” Landon took his nibbling
southward, reaching the upper curve of
her breasts.
She smacked him lightly on the shoulder
to get his attention. He needed to be appreciating what a paragon of self-control she was, here. “When I came. I
didn’t shift. Like you said I would. I can
control it.”
“Mm-hm.” His tongue flicked across her
nipple.
She gave him another smack, not quite so
gentle this time. “Landon!”
He groaned and looked up, his hands
quickly taking up where his mouth had
left off. “What? I’m doing good work
here.”
Yes, he was. “I didn’t shift,” she pointed out. Again.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t happen every time. I didn’t shift either, but it was a
near thing. I think I left some claw marks
in the footboard.”
It doesn’t happen every time? That was
it? No recognition of her superhuman
control? No acknowledgement that she
wasn’t useless and unsuitable and
totally unworthy of his attention?
Ava shoved at his shoulder. “Let me
down.”
Landon frowned, visibly perplexed, but
he didn’t budge. “You’re mad.”
“Well spotted, Sherlock. You figure that
one out all by yourself?” Big dumb
alpha.
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“How did we get from foreplay to mad?
I’m confused.”
Ava resisted the urge to tell him for the
thousandth time that she had not shifted.
Didn’t he understand the significance?
Did she have to spell everything out for
him? “I’m not unsuitable.”
Landon blinked uncomprehendingly.
“What?”
“I’m not unsuitable.” This repetition thing was really starting to get annoying.
One would think the leader of the pride
would need to be able to listen a little
more closely.
He frowned. “I never said you were.”
This time when she smacked him, she
put her weight behind it, really giving it
all she had. “Yes, you did.”
“Ava.” He ducked, though she was
hardly capable of bruising the big hulk,
let alone doing real damage. “I would
never say that about you.”
“You did!” she insisted. “In the jeep.
You said I was unsuitable and should be
kept away from the other lions when I’m in heat. You said the only reason you
jumped me was because I broke the
rules and wasn’t cloistered off like I’m
supposed to be.”
Ava winced internally. She hadn’t meant
to say quite so much. She didn’t really
want to be reminding Landon that the
only reason he was with her right now
was the potent hormone cocktail they
were both swilling. And she certainly
didn’t want him to hear the
disappointment in her voice that he only
wanted her because she was in heat. The
last thing she needed was him wondering
why else she would want him. How mortifying if he suddenly realized she’d
been secretly in love with him for months.
Fortunately, Landon was a masculine
member of the species, and therefore
incapable of deducing the origin of her
emotional meltdown. Instead, he focused
on her attack on his integrity.
“I didn’t say that!” His hands had long
since dropped from her breasts to brace
on the counter on either side of her. He
loomed over her, his own temper
snapping at its leash. “I was trying to
explain why I attacked you that way in
the jeep,” he protested. “I wasn’t talking
about you being unsuitable. I completely
lost control, Ava. I couldn’t even
maintain my human form. You make me
so crazy. All I can think about is getting inside you. I shouldn’t be allowed to
want you like this. Your brothers have
been among my few allies since I
arrived here and how do I repay them?
By banging their little sister.” The fight
went out of him and he dropped his
forehead down to rest on her shoulder.
“God, what am I doing?”
Ava ran her hands from the base of his
neck across the sculpted muscles of his
back. “You told me I was unsuitable
because I make you crazy?”
Landon groaned. “I didn’t say you were
unsuitable, Ava. And if I did, it wasn’t
what I was trying to say. I thought you
wanted that fucking cowboy, that I was smelling your attraction to him and
reacting to it.
I was so sure you didn’t even want me
and then I practically fucked you right
there in the front seat. I needed there to
be some reason for it. Some way to
explain it. I’ve never reacted to another
female’s heat the way I have to yours
tonight. The scent is intoxicating, yes,
but never so irresistible. But when you
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Vivi Andrews
walked in here, I couldn’t let you leave.
I think I would have broken down and
sought you out even if you hadn’t come. I
had to have you, Ava.”
He whispered this entire speech against
her shoulder. Ava held herself perfectly
still, afraid if she moved that he would
remember she wasn’t the irresistible
goddess his body had tricked him into
believing she was.
“You drive me crazy too,” she
confessed, resting her head against his
shoulder as she continued to trace the
lines of his back. “I wanted you. In the
jeep. In the bar.”
He lifted his head, but Ava kept hers
hidden. “You ran to Zoe’s.”
“I thought you didn’t want me.”
His fingers traced a trail from the base
of her spine around her ribcage,
reminding her that she was naked and
wrapped around him. Her pulse kicked
into high gear as he bent to press his face
against her neck, inhaling deeply. His
hands closed over her breasts. “Me not
wanting you was never an option.”
The reprieve her body had granted her
was over, all of the symptoms of her
heat returning in a thundering rush at the
touch of his hands. She writhed on the
counter, her hips slipping off the cool
surface, but Landon’s body was there to
catch her, firm and immovable. He caught her against him, chuckling low at
her lack of feline grace, and kicked the
bathroom door shut. He spun to pin her
against it, their entwined bodies hitting
the door hard enough to rattle the frame.
Ava purred in her throat, locking her
ankles more snugly at his back and
bracing herself with a hand on the towel
rod. Clearly Landon was taking her
request that he not hold back this time
very seriously. She loved a man who
could take direction.
As Landon occupied her mouth, she ran
her hands over every inch of him she
could reach, basking in the breadth of his
shoulders, the warmth of his skin, the
firmness of his muscles against her fingers. He was a specimen in his prime
and he was all hers. Ava ignored the
niggling whisper in the back of her mind
that tried to remind her that he was hers
for a limited time only. Once he took a
mate…
The thought spurred an aggressive
jealous streak she didn’t know she had.
Ava bracketed his head in her hands,
holding him captive as she increased the
pressure and urgency in the kiss. In this
moment, he was hers and no one else’s.
Landon responded readily to her spike
of need. His fingers, which had certainly
not been idle, found their way to her
wet, heated core and he speared one long digit high into her pussy. Ava jolted
at the impact. Her head smacked back
against the door, but she was mindless of
the insubstantial blow, her entire being
focused on his finger working inside her.
She snagged his lower lip between her
teeth, urging him on, inciting him to a
frenzy. Landon growled against her
mouth.
He hitched her higher against the door,
and then guided the heavy arousal that
had been wedged between them
unerringly to her tight sheath. Ava
grabbed for the towel bar again, her
other arm locked around his shoulder as
she braced for his delicious invasion.
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Serengeti Heat
“Make it hard.” She panted the reminder
against his skin.
Landon bared his teeth in a silent snarl,
locked his fingers on her hips and
slammed her down onto his shaft, half-
seating her in a single stroke. Before she
could adjust to his sudden presence, he
pulled out and drove home again,
deeper, higher. It took three more strokes
before her tight pussy could
accommodate his full length. When he
hilted against her, they moaned in
unison. He held for a moment and Ava clenched her inner muscles around him
to keep him there, drowning in the
perfect sensation, the exquisite relief of
his body thick and hard inside her.
“Oh God, it feels…” There were no
words to describe the soul-searing
perfection of the feeling.
Landon didn’t wait for her vocabulary to
return. Instead, he set a pace that quickly
deprived her of her powers of speech.
Ava was reduced to panting, gasping
moans as Landon made good on his
promise for a hard, rough ride. Attentive
to the tenor of her cries, he adjusted his
angle until each sure stroke was another
stab of ecstasy.
Ava heard a high-pitched noise twining around the pounding against the door and
realized it was her own high-pitched
keening. The sounds Landon made were
feral music to her ears. He drove into
her until she was clinging to the
precipice, so close to tumbling over the
edge, holding desperately to her sanity,
knowing that each second she held off
her climax it grew in intensity. Landon
shifted, his own face straining against
the inevitable, shifted his hold on her,
lifting her legs higher, changing the angle
of her hips subtly before ramming home
one last time.
Ava screamed, her back arching like a
bow as white light exploded behind her eyes. Landon gave a ferocious roar and
slammed her into the door. The sound of
splintering wood was completely lost
beneath their orgasmic cries as the door
gave way, tumbling them back into the
bedroom.
Landon landed hard on top of Ava, still
seated deep within her, and his weight
sent her off again, shooting toward the
stars. Still caught in his own orgasm, his
hips flexed hard into hers, pressing her
down into the remains of the door.
She was still shuddering from
aftershocks when he rolled off her,
hauling her with him and draping her
across his chest. Ava focused on the
little things—breathing, the gradually steadying drumming of Landon’s heart
against her ear—until she could make
her eyes focus enough to realize she was
gazing at the shrapnel of their
lovemaking.
She snickered.
“What?” Landon grunted.
She laughed harder, tucking her face
against his chest. Her hormones must be
working overtime because he still
smelled fantastic to her, even reeking of
sweat and sex, man and beast.
He swatted her backside half-heartedly.
“I probably have splinters in
unmentionable places.” She giggled,
perversely delighted by the destruction
they had wrought on his bathroom.
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Vivi Andrews
“Hm, we’d better check.”
Landon deftly flipped her over and
began a very thorough investigation. Ava moaned through her laughter. She could
definitely get used to this.
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Chapter Eight
“How is it you managed to hide from me
for the last three months?” Landon
mumbled the question against her breast.
They had finally made it to the bed after
thoroughly christening the floor and her
heat had subsided to a soft thrumming at
the base of her spine, screwed into
abeyance by Landon’s superhuman
efforts. But he still couldn’t seem to stop
touching her.
They curled around one another in a knot
at the center of the bed, forming a
private cocoon where the realities that
kept them apart outside this room didn’t
exist. Ava winced internally as his question threatened her ability to ignore
those realities.
“I’m hardly the kind of girl to come to
the Alpha’s notice.”
He frowned against her skin, even that
subtle movement a caress. “What does
that mean?”
“Landon,” she sighed. “You’ve seen my
lion form—”
“I told you I could make you shift.” He
chuckled smugly, the vibration carrying
through her body.
She swatted him, unwilling to be
distracted now that he had brought it up.
“You know how small I am. I’m hardly
the type of girl to attract the attention of
the Alpha.”
“I like how small you are.” One long
finger plunged inside her, leaving her no
doubt as to his meaning.
Ava caught her breath and closed her
eyes, letting sensation wash over her.
“How can I still need you like this?” she
gasped as he shifted his body over hers.
This time their mating was slow and
sensual, each deliberate movement of his
body wrenching at her heart. When he
eased off her onto his side several
minutes later, Ava twisted to fit her back
against his front, tucking her chin to hide her face. Her emotions were too close to
the surface, filling her eyes to glistening
and threatening to betray her.
Landon threw a leg across hers and
wrapped one heavy arm around her
waist, holding her snug against him. His
mouth traced patterns on the back of her
neck, never still.
She needed distance. She needed to
remind her heart that it could not get too
attached to this passionate, surprisingly
playful, intelligent, dynamic, honorable
man. With her face still hidden, Ava
made herself say the words that needed
to be said.
“You’ll be taking a mate soon, I expect.”
Her throat threatened to close off, but
she choked out the next few words. “It
will need to be someone strong.
Someone who can lead the Hunt.” Even
if they were only hunting the
domesticated cattle on their own ranch,
the ritual of it was essential to their
culture.
Vivi Andrews
Landon stilled at her first words, but
then he made an agreeable noise and
began kissing a line across her shoulder
again.
Ava made herself go on. She needed to
be clear. She would not be pitied. She
wanted him to know she had no
expectations to be his partner, no matter
how much her heart might ache at the
idea of anyone else taking her place in
his arms. “Have you given any thought to