Illicit (2 page)

Age meant shit. The Alpha in any group of animals dominated. Period. When an Alpha met your gaze, you looked down or you bared your throat. In their screwed-up circle of leopards, there had been two top cats: Peter and his father. The little fuck-up from nature, a side effect of crossing a leopard with a panther, had been the second problem between him and his dad. Two dominant males in one house was…explosive.

Something ugly simmered inside him. “
Our
?” Peter sneered, brought the glass to his lips but didn’t sip. He had more to say.

While he was cast out like forgotten trash, both the town and the Pard accepted Eva in his place with wide-open arms. The anger boiled, and the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “She isn’t one of
us
. Did Greg at least wait until she was eighteen until he started fucking her?”

He knew his words were cruel, but he wouldn’t take them back. Not when anger and jealousy left him vulnerable. The black hole of emotion tightening his chest spread to his gut.

The bone-deep sorrow in James’ eyes vanished. Fury and resentment turned his uncle’s gunmetal gray eyes arctic blue. Well, well. That got a reaction, didn’t it? Jesus, Greg hadn’t really mated with her, had he? Did James hold some sort of claim? After all, Eva wasn’t blood related to the Marx men and thus could be considered fair game.

A new flurry of unwanted emotions took hold, killed his buzz quicker than a cold shower. A different type of jealousy filled him.

Ours
, the leopard growled, and it was the first time the cat had ever laid claim on a woman.

The urge to knock his uncle’s teeth into the back of his head warred with a possessive instinct to drag Eva close, bend her over the table and take. No. He didn’t want her. He only wanted what she had. His signals were crossing, mixing things up in his brain.

“Eva is family, boy,” James snapped, lifted his head to hold Peter’s gaze boldly. “If I were you, I’d mind yourself and watch the way you speak about her. It’s time for you to leave.”

Peter swallowed the last of his firewater. Ever so slowly, he set his empty glass down on the bar. Under the counter, his hand curled into a fist. One by one, claws pressed from beneath his fingernails, bit into skin. “That sounded an awful lot like an order. Are you challenging me, old man?”

From behind him, there was a rustle of movement and an overwhelming flood of otherworldly energy. His fellow shifters were reacting to his leopard, answering the Alpha’s call for submission. Peter ignored everything except the person before him.

A muscle ticked in his uncle’s squared, scraggily beard-covered jaw as he fought the compulsion to bow. After a long, tense minute, James answered in a fierce whisper. “No.”

“Then
you
mind yourself. The cat is spoiling for a fight and I don’t really think it cares who with. I was only observing and relaying the facts. She’s wearing my mother’s God damned pearls. She’s attractive, I guess. Given the lack of appealing women in this shit hole, why wouldn’t Greg make a pass? He’s top cat, had his pick of the litter, so to speak.”

“Because he raised her, that’s why.” James lowered his voice. “No one was good enough for Eva, not even Greg. I don’t like the way you’re sizing her up. I
suggest
you leave her alone.”

“Or what?” Peter challenged.

The pattering of footsteps sounded close, too delicate to be male. He and James cut off their conversation at Eva’s approach. For some reason, she’d decided the seat next to his looked welcoming enough. When she sat, her shoulder brushed his. Her unique, intoxicating scent slapped him across the face. The feline rubbed the inside of his skin, desperate to smell her, to press its nose against her neck and lick.

What the hell was it about Eva that drew him?

He remembered the night a little over twenty years ago when Greg had come home with her. She’d been beaten and bruised, barely recognizable through the blood staining her face. He recalled looking into her eyes, feeling the punch to his stomach. Her eyes were just as dark, just as innocent, just as compelling as they were now. At fifteen, a man-boy struggling through testosterone overload and a need to dominate, he hadn’t understood the fierce urge to protect her.

Eva had been the third and last problem in the combative, violent, unloving relationship between him and his father. She’d moved in, and he, out.

Tapping unpainted nails on the bar’s counter, Eva stared straight ahead as if he didn’t exist. She must not remember him. Must not recognize his face when he, even after all these years, couldn’t get hers out of his memory.

“Hey, James. Can I get a Coke?” Her voice was husky, sexy, not at all what he imagined she’d sound like.

The sex kitten purr laced in her tone surprised, aroused, and drove him just a little crazy. She looked so…angelic.

He turned closer to Eva in order to get a better look at her. When he caught himself admiring the line of her vulnerable throat, he picked up his drink and slammed the contents back. Only, his drink was empty.

“Make hers a whiskey, and another one for me,” he ordered, wondered where the words came from.

She turned in her chair to eye him warily. Her gaze traveled from his beardless face, over the fitted black wool sweater, and down to the dark blue jeans that had been bought on sale in a department store.

“No, thank you,” she said politely.

He leaned into her, and she immediately drew back. The feline took her withdrawal as a challenge. A rush of adrenaline washed through him, quickening the drum of his heart into a gallop. Holding up his hands, he gave her a lazy grin, the one that rendered most females powerless.

If her blank, no-blinking stare was indication, she was immune.

A point in her favor.

“I meant no harm. I was just getting a closer sniff,” he wiggled his nose. “You are missing a certain scent.” What she lacked, she certainly made up for in other ways. She had a sensual mouth that begged to be fucked.

Her shoulders stiffened at his words, and her gaze zeroed in on his face. A line creased her brow, made her look…cute. She picked apart the subtext of his words, and he waited for her to make the connection between father and son. Not many knew about the secret world of the two-natured.

“I’m not…” she trailed off, looked at James who watched their exchange in rapt, unhappy silence.

Peter leaned forward again, slower this time, and was idiotically pleased when she didn’t back away. He tipped his head toward hers and deliberately let their shoulders brush again. Conspiratorially, he whispered, “Two-natured? It’s okay. I know.”

Two glasses of whiskey slammed to the bar, hard enough for a few drops to land on his hand. Peter raised his eyes, glared at James. He scraped his glass across the bar, sat back.

“I’m ready whenever you are, old man,” Peter said.

Eva glanced between them, noticed the tension and looked like she was going to do her best to defuse it. Stepping between two fighting cats was never a smart move.

“You’re new here,” she interrupted. “Are you in town for the funeral?”

She had no idea who he was.

“Hell if I know why I’m here,” he murmured, took a drink. “I hardly knew Greg.”

At the mention of his father’s name, her eyes watered. The tip of her nose reddened as if she were about to cry. Damn. He didn’t deal well with leaking women. The unbecoming blotches on the forehead gave him hives.

She sniffled back the tears and earned yet another notch in her favor. “How come I didn’t see you at the church?”

Damn. He needed an excuse to dislike her, more than circumstance.

He looked away, contemplated his liquor in order to suppress the guilt. After a minute, his sights lifted from the amber liquid to meet the curious expression in her eyes.

“You didn’t see me because I never went inside. I decided to get drunk instead.”

“Oh,” she said softly.

He motioned toward her glass. “Liquor dulls the pain and from the looks of you, you could use some numbing. Drink it.”

Eva pushed an errant curl behind her ear, sent a new wave of scent his way that went straight to his cock. He was going to need a lot more booze.

“James,” he called, downed his whiskey as if it were water. He sucked in a breath, hissed through the heat. “Leave the bottle.”

His uncle ignored him, stared at Eva as if trying to warn her off a potential sex offender. As if just sitting next to him would infect her with something awful. James had no idea what kind of a man Peter was, and the reaction pissed him off. A fierce, low growl erupted from his chest.

He wouldn’t apologize for his lack of control, not in front of James. Testosterone did funny things to self-restraint, even stranger things to his libido. Reining in the anger, he said to Eva, only a hint of the rumbling in his chest remaining, “Let’s grab a table in the back. You can catch me up with what Greg spent the last years of his life doing. Or, you can just sit and watch me drink. I don’t care. We don’t have to talk.”

They could do other things that didn’t involve talking, but for now, he’d keep those thoughts to himself.

She met his gaze, the indecision clear in her bloodshot eyes. The scent of her apprehension filled the space between them. He hadn’t slept in days, had eaten only enough to take the edge off. Who could blame him if his grin was forced, or if his tone was just a little hostile? Never looking away from Eva, he addressed the older man. “James, tell her she’s safe with me.”

Silence. What a nice, ringing endorsement.

Eva broke the hold of his gaze, looked at James, a man she probably considered her uncle. Her mouth softened when she looked up at him, and out of nowhere, the stab of jealousy was back and ripping through his gut. The sappy, doe-eyed look his uncle gave her in return didn’t help matters.

“What do you think, James?” She started to roll her glass much like he had before she’d walked in and turned him upside down. Had she grown up watching Greg in his office chair, rolling his crystal glass back and forth as he had?

His uncle placed a full bottle of his father’s favorite whiskey between them, was careful not to look Peter in the eye. What game was he playing? “You’re a big girl, Eva, that’s what your dad used to always say. Use your instincts.”

Dad. Peter swore he heard his jaw pop. “He wasn’t her father,” he hissed.

From the biting cold outside, to the warm temperature of the bar, Eva’s cheeks had taken on a rosy glow. One that looked good on her, one that he imagined she’d get on her chest and neck when she climaxed. Peter watched the color drain. A hard edge of beautiful anger filled her eyes, erased the exhaustion she emitted.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” she snapped.

He fought the immediate instinct to grin. Smiling at this point would have earned him a slap across the face.

Holding up his hands. “I’m just stating a fact. Greg never had a daughter, not one that would be your age, anyway.”

“Fine,” she seethed, leaned closer to him so when she spoke it was a few inches from his face. Her breath smelled of mint, and he savored the taste when it lingered on his tongue.

“He wasn’t my biological father. But he was the closest thing I ever had to one. In my entire life I’ve loved one man, and one man only. Not two hours ago, I sealed his ashes in a fucking jar. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going home now.”

At Eva’s loud, heartfelt outburst, every person in the bar turned to stare at them. Chairs scraped backward on the wooden floor, boots thudded to the ground. The air shifted as one by one the patrons of
Lost Isle
stood. The chorus was a clear signal he was about to have the entire town converging on him in a matter of seconds.

Bring it on
, the leopard growled.

Peter pushed his beast back, forced himself to react. He grabbed Eva’s wrist, stopped her from walking away from him. The moment their skin met, he jolted. Not from the shocking ice of her skin, but from the electric hot current zapping between them. The sudden, overwhelming urge to wrap her in his arms, to press her nose into his neck consumed.

“I’m sorry, Eva. If you knew me, you’d know how rare it is that I apologize. I should not have said that. Sit back down.”

“No,” she snapped, ripping her arm from his grasp.

Did her ‘no’ mean she wasn’t sitting back down? Tension coiled, and stupidly he found himself holding his breath.

Peter blew out a breath as Eva sat back down on her stool.

She glared at him. “Damn right you shouldn’t have said that. What's wrong with you?”

“I was raised by a pack of wild animals?” Peter suggested, and felt so relieved she’d stayed he let the full impact of his boyish, sometimes charming, grin show through.

With a huff and a backwards wave of her hand, she settled the patrons teeming for a fight. They sat, but it didn’t take much to guess the town wasn’t happy about Eva’s decision to handle the outsider on her own. The leopard sensed their agitation, smelled their thirst for blood. Peter made an easy target for their anger and grief.

He held out a hand to her, one that she stared dumbly at.

“You’re joking, right?” she said.

He shook his head. “You should also know, in addition to my rare apologies, and my two-naturedness, I’ve got zero manners.” He picked up her hand, placed it in his much larger one in a parody of a handshake. “Let me try this again. Hi, I’m Peter. I’m a complete and utter asshole. Now, who might you be?”

Reluctantly she gripped his hand, shook. If he wasn’t mistaken, he caught the glimmer of a smile fighting its way through the tight line of her lips.

“I’m Eva.”

When she would have pulled her hand from his, he held tighter.

She stared into his eyes, waited a full minute before she broke the mounting tension.

“Peter.” She said his name slowly, erotically, as if tasting the name on her tongue. Or maybe his cock was doing the majority of his thinking as she simply tried to reconcile the name with a face from her past. “What did you say your last name was?”

His grin faltered and he let go of her hand. “I didn’t. Now, how about that drink? You look like you could use a whiskey. Lord knows I need the entire bottle. What do you have to lose? Liquor will erase the chill from your skin.”

A suspicious, oddly sexy, gleam flashed in her eyes. Peter wasn’t accustomed to people, women especially, questioning him. Damn if it wasn’t a huge turn on.

“What do you get out of it?” she asked.

“A drinking buddy.”

She shifted, head angling toward James for guidance. Yeah, he didn’t think so. Peter touched her silky soft cheek, brought her attention back to him. “You’re a big girl, remember? It’s a drink in a crowded bar. Listen to your gut, what’s it telling you about me?”

There was no hesitation, no polite one-second pause to think it over. “Instincts tell me you’ve either got multiple personalities, or Greg meant something to you. You’re conflicted, hurting, lonely, and for some reason you don’t want to show it. It’s a dangerous combination mixed with liquor.”

Accurate and more than a little unsettling. Before he could stop himself, he swiped the callused pad of his thumb along her full, lower lip, if only because he needed to feel if the flesh was as soft as it looked. His voice lowered, and he let the sights, smells and sounds fade into the background. “Come on, Eva, have a drink with me.”

She searched his gaze, picked through the emotions roiling in his eyes.

“I should have my head examined for even considering it after what you said to me a few minutes ago,” she muttered.

Peter rose, cradled his bottle of whiskey in one arm, held his glass in the other. “I don’t speak girl. Is that a yes?” When she made no move to join him, he hiked an eyebrow. “Are you coming or what?”

Poor word choice, he realized. His cock twitched and he suddenly knew exactly what he wanted. No, needed. Eva coming in his mouth, on his dick. If he could lose himself in her body, perhaps he could forget everything else.

“Why not?” Eva finally said as she slid off the stool.

“Peter…” James growled. The single word held a breadth of warning, one Peter had no intention of heeding.

He didn’t look back at his uncle. “Mind your own business,” he called out and followed the sharp angle of the bar toward an empty table in a shadowed corner.

From behind him, he heard Eva rap her knuckles on the bar. There was a pause, a short, whispered conversation which he could have heard if it weren’t for the Godawful music playing in the background.

Peter looked around the room, took in the rustic bar with its wood motif and mounted heads of moose and elk. He remembered killing those animals with his father and uncle when he’d been ten. Too many memories. With half an ear, he listened as best he could.

Eva said in a hushed voice, “He’s hurting.”

“Don’t let him fool you. He’s dangerous, you don’t know him,” his uncle rasped.

“It’s just a drink,” she replied.

“Eva, it ain’t never just a drink and you damn well know it. Let me drive you home, or better yet, come back to my place. I’ll take care of you, you don’t have to be alone. I still have those papers for you to sign.”

“Ugh. I can’t look at any more legal documents. Besides, you have enough to take care of without worrying about me. I’ll see you tomorrow at the meeting, okay?” she said, and that seemed to end the conversation.

A second later, he felt Eva behind him like a wave of sunshine at his back. He looked away from the carcasses he’d been staring at, ignored the various portrait landscapes of mountains and forests. Moving to the back corner, he chose a lone table. He held out a chair, gestured for Eva to sit. She looked over her shoulder, gaze darting around the room. After a moment, she gave in and sat.

“Worried about what the locals might think?” he asked, sinking down in the chair across from her.

Under the table, their legs brushed. Neither made any move to separate. Maybe she was just as desperate for human contact as he was.

“I’m not stupid; like James said, and don’t pretend you weren’t listening because I could practically see your ears twitching, ‘It’s never just a drink.’ A man brings a woman to a shadowed booth for only one reason: To get into her pants.” She heaved in a deep breath, tried to smile and failed. “I suppose wondering if I’m going to let you fuck me or not will give the townspeople something other than Greg to gossip about.”

Peter, who’d taken a mouthful of whiskey, coughed at her unexpected words, drew in a breath and choked like an idiot. A wide, self-satisfied grin spread across her face, and it was all too easy to imagine waking up next to her, watching her smile light up the room when the sun couldn’t.

“I kind of like it when you use the word fuck,” he said as he struggled to salvage his composure.

Eva shook her head. “You’re such a man.”

She took a tentative sip of whiskey, eyes immediately widening. Swallowing, she coughed and then sputtered, much as he had. Her open hand slapped the table until she regained the ability to breathe.

His laughter was automatic and, to his surprise, genuine. The murderous glare she shot him ramped up his arousal. Oh yeah. He wanted her.

“What the hell is this stuff? Poison?” she asked.

“For your liver? Yes.” He took a healthy swig, shoved the glass she’d pushed away back in front of her. “The second sip won’t be so bad. After a few, it’ll hardly burn. Don’t be a baby.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk? Where’s the sportsmanship in that?”

As he leaned across the table, the glass he clasped in both his hands bumped over the scuffed wood. The scraping sound lifted the hair on the back of his neck. Peter stopped short of touching her. He left just enough space between his knuckles and hers to make her wonder if, or when, he’d close the gap.

“Sportsmanship only counts when trying to acquire trophies. You don’t strike me as the type who wants to be ‘won.’”

“I’m no one’s trophy,” she said firmly.

He tried his charm on her again, gave her a lopsided grin and hoped the whiskey had eroded a few holes in her armor. “As for getting you liquored up, that all depends on what kind of a drunk you are.”

Eva eyed him, sipped. Nope. Still immune.

“Oh, this should be good. Why don’t you guess?” she suggested.

He thought for a moment. “You’re a happy drunk. No, not given the circumstances. Emotional? Nah, too easy. How about violent?” He shook his head. “I think I got it.” His gaze slid from her eyes to her neck. He traced the graceful line of her throat, thought about sinking his canines into her flesh, and dropped his sights to her breasts. Quite obviously, he ogled her assets. She had nice tits. Not too big, not too small. Looking up, he said, “I bet you’re a horny drunk.”

Eva bit her lower lip, suppressed a chuckle for all of about two seconds before a lilting laugh left her. “Oh my God.” She wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of her eyes. “That was, hands down, the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard. Horny? Really? Peter, I want you to look around you. These men in their plaid finery have been hitting on me since I hit legal age, some even before that. Do you know how many marriage proposals I get in a week?”

She slid a little closer over the table until he was the one left wondering if, or when, she’d touch him. The look on her face was soft, friendly, dare he say inviting? As if a soft light shone from above, her skin appeared to glow. She went from being a looker to knock-down, drag-out gorgeous. Men would sell their souls for a piece of her.

The leopard, which had gone dormant for a few precious moments, woke with a vengeance.
Take her,
it growled.

Peter swallowed. Knew this was the point in their conversation, before he was too shit-faced to feel guilt and remorse, where he should tell her exactly who he was. In some part of his gut, he knew his connection to Greg would ruin everything. Even in death the old man was a bastard.

Women had a mental checklist they kept running at all times. Every man they met went into a box. The friend box. The asshole box. The potential lover box. The awkwardness of “You stole my father, took his love and left me with none” would send him to the no-man’s-land box. He took one lingering look at the warmth in her eyes, made the conscious decision not to tell her who he was.

Yep, he was going to hell. But who cared? Tonight was tonight. Tomorrow, when the pass opened back up, he’d be gone. By the time Eva realized she’d fucked Greg’s long-lost son, he’d be halfway back to Montana.

Yes
, the feline purred, knew they were one step closer to getting what they both wanted.

“You seem to know James pretty well. How come I’ve never seen you around here before?” she asked, slowly tracing the rim of her glass.

He wondered if she knew how sexual the simple gesture was. Peter sat back, stretched his long legs out more comfortably under the table. If she minded the way his calf pressed against hers, she didn’t say anything.

“I used to live here. I left when I was fifteen, haven’t been back since. I live in Montana now, own a couple of fencing companies. And you’ve met me before, you just don’t remember it.”

A frown creased her brows. “I’d remember if I met you.”

In twenty years, you’d think someone—Greg—would have mentioned the fact he’d had a son named Peter. Among the Pard, with Peter’s dark hair and green eyes, he stood apart from the other blond-haired, blue-eyed snow leopard shifters. If she’d known who he was, just the mere mention of the name Peter should have clued her in.

“Why would you remember?” he asked. “Is it because I’m the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen? Or are you just wary of men with multiple personalities? I do suppose you wouldn’t forget someone like that.”

Eva hid her grimace behind the cup she pressed to her lips. “I deserved that. But, you started it.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “You were five when I met you. It was only once, and not for very long. I suppose I shouldn’t blame you for not remembering, even though it does sting the pride a bit.”

“Your pride will be just fine. And don’t take it personally. I don’t remember much from the year Greg rescued me. He found me abandoned on the road, just outside of town. He took me in, cleaned, clothed and named me, then raised me as his own. To this day, I’ve got no idea where I came from, or who I really am. I would have died if it weren’t for him. I’ll never be able to repay him, and now…now that he’s dead, I can’t even try.”

He’d known how dire her situation was then, knew it now. The truth didn’t change his resentment toward his father. Just when Peter had come to accept Greg wasn’t capable of love, Eva had come along and proven him wrong. Greg could love…he just couldn’t love Peter.

“What did the Pard think of the Alpha bringing a non-shifter within their sacred circle? They’ve got a strict no-human policy, or at least, they used to. I don’t know them, not anymore.”

Some emotion filled her eyes, gave off a scent he couldn’t place. It wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t sadness. A golden light flared in her gaze and it was just barely visible in her dark brown eyes. He liked the intrigue, the possibility of ferreting out her secrets.

“I never said I was human.” Tilting her head and then angling her glass, Eva threw back the liquor as if she’d been drinking whiskey all her life.

He watched her throat work, her eyes water. It was easy to fantasize about Eva on her knees, the slight oval curve of her face tilted up as she swallowed his cum. At the thought, his cock went from partially erect to hard as steel.

“Another,” she demanded, slammed her glass to the table. With the back of her hand, she wiped her mouth.