Tempting the Jaguar. Katie Reus
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dagger. The rib was already healing and the silver hadn’t gotten into his blood stream so while he hurt, he was almost four hundred and fifty years old and more than capable of compartmentalizing his pain.
For a brief moment he tensed, wondering if the female planned to attack him too. The thought of sparring with this woman, even in self-defense, made something painful well up inside him. Some primal part of him just couldn’t do it. But then she let out a soft whine and nudged him with her nose and he realized she was worried. Or at least concerned about him.
He tried to move then realized he must have been injured worse than he originally thought. More pain ripped through his right shoulder like tiny daggers digging into him. Damn vampire had sliced through him with his claws. Rainer let his head fall back against the pavement. He’d heal soon enough and if those vamps didn’t come back and the woman didn’t try to attack him, he’d be fine.
But she clearly had other ideas. After whining and nudging him again, she turned tail and disappeared around her Jeep. Less than a minute later she came back around in her human form wearing a form-fitting T-shirt and shorts. All shifters he knew carried around multiple changes of clothes so it made sense she had something extra to put on. It was a shame she’d had to destroy that skimpy black dress though. He’d had some wicked fantasies earlier tonight of slowly peeling it off her. Watching her carefully, he relaxed slightly when she opened the back door of her Jeep.
“Come on, big fella. You’re coming home with me so you can heal. Do not make me regret this,” she murmured as she bent down and picked him up.
Rainer was huge and if she’d been human she wouldn’t have been able to lift him. As it was, the petite woman strained and grunted as she slid her arms under his big wolf body and lifted him up. Though it would have hurt like hell, he could have jumped into the back on his own, but he was afraid any sudden movements would scare her.
And he wasn’t above playing the sympathy card if it got her to take him back to her place. She was living in Huntsville, which was his Alpha’s territory and she hadn’t made her presence known to anyone that he knew of. Considering that his oldest brother Alaric was second-in-command to Knox, his Alpha, Rainer would have known if a jaguar shifter had been living in their territory. Then she’d acted as if she didn’t know what an Alpha was. Whatever was going on with this woman and whoever she was, he was damn sure going to find out.
Because those vampires tonight had been hunting her.
After gently sliding him onto a thick quilt, she shut the back door while she muttered to herself about how she was definitely going to regret letting a wolf into her home. If he’d been in human form he would have smiled. Inhaling deeply, he scented her on the quilt and the smell soothed him on a primal level. Most shifters carried quilts or blankets around in their vehicles in case they decided to stop somewhere and sleep out in the woods, on the beach, or wherever.
He didn’t like leaving his truck but there was no identifying information inside and the license plate wasn’t linked to his pack. If someone stole it, well, he’d take care of that later. The gentle hum of her engine would have lulled him to sleep but after only a minute of driving the vehicle shut off again and she got out.
Making a split second decision, he shifted back to his human form. His bones cracked, broke and realigned and skin quickly replaced fur. Rainer wanted to be able to talk to her and he wanted to know why they’d stopped when they were in the middle of nowhere. She definitely hadn’t gone far.
Seconds later the back door opened. The woman’s dark eyes widened and she took a step back. She seemed almost frozen to the spot as her gaze raked over him. He was turned on his side, still covered in blood and aching, but the way she stared at him made another part of his body react. When her eyes landed on his groin area, her olive-hued cheeks tinged bright pink and she quickly averted her gaze.
Looking at a spot over his shoulder, she cleared her throat. “Do you need help getting out?”
No. “Yes.” Yeah, he definitely wasn’t above playing the sympathy card if it got her to touch him. Rainer sat up and winced when he saw the blood he’d left behind. “Sorry about your quilt,” he muttered.
“It’s fine. We need to get you cleaned off.” Still keeping her gaze not quite on his face, she slid an arm under his shoulder and helped him slide out. Her body was stiff and tense as she held on to him, making it clear she didn’t like touching him.
He inhaled deeply, memorizing her jasmine scent. It was so pure and classic he wanted to bury his face against her neck and just breathe her in. “My name’s Rainer,” he said as his feet touched the paved driveway that led to a cottage style one-story home in the middle of the woods. Perfect for privacy, but not for a single female shifter who clearly had no pack for protection. He frowned at the thought of her out here all alone. His inner wolf flexed its claws, wanting to protect her.
She paused for a moment. “I’m Estrella. Now come on. I want to get you inside before those...things come back.”
He let her name roll around in his head as he savored it. But the uncertain way she said “things” made him curious. “You’ve never seen a vampire before?”
Her grip around him tightened as she hissed in a breath. “Those men really were vampires? I’d thought so but I still wasn’t sure if I was right or if they were even real...” She trailed off and put a key in the front door.
The second they stepped inside she let her arm drop, leaving him standing naked and dripping blood in her foyer. He started to call out but she returned a moment later carrying a towel covered in old paint splatters. Keeping her dark brown eyes on his she held the towel out, effectively blocking his lower body from her line of vision. “This is so you can cover yourself.” Her cheeks had turned that delicious shade of pink again.
Despite the residual pain pulsing through him, Rainer wondered what it would be like to nip and kiss her very full lips. “Does my nudity bother you?” Most shifters were immune to nudity, but he still wrapped the towel around his waist.
“Uh, yeah.” She said it as if he was stupid. Her gaze trailed to his shoulder and to his surprise she took a step closer and ran a gentle finger over his almost healed wounds. “You’re almost healed so if you want to take a shower and clean off the blood I think I can find a clean set of clothes that fit. Then I’ll take you back to your truck.”
And get him the hell out of her house, was her unspoken message. That wasn’t happening anytime soon. Not until he got his answers and not until he was certain she wasn’t under threat from those vamps. Eyeing her, he let his gaze trail down her lithe, lean body for the second time that night. Even though she wasn’t wearing that tight dress, her top and shorts showed enough that he could fantasize about running his hands and mouth over all her smooth, olive skin. Her body practically glowed.
She’d had her hair pulled back at the art studio but after her shift to animal then back to human it was free and her tight corkscrew curls framed her face, giving her an almost innocent quality. He couldn’t be sure but he guessed she had some Mediterranean and possibly Hispanic heritage. Wherever she was from, the woman was gorgeous. For the first time in over four hundred years he felt absolutely tongue-tied as he stared at her. As he brought his gaze back up though, something else struck him. “That vampire clawed you, too.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, so?”
“How did you heal before you even put on your clothes?”
“The same way you’re healing now,” she snapped, annoyance and some other foreign note in her voice that he couldn’t define.. Fear, maybe?
That’s when he realized how tired she was. Dark circles ringed under her eyes and she’d just admitted she’d never seen vamps before so he knew she had to be reeling somewhat from the shock of that revelation. “Ah, sorry. Thank you for bringing me back here. I know it wasn’t easy to bring a strange shifter into your home, especially a male of a different species. I’d appreciate a shower but then I’d like to talk to you about some things, namely those vampires.”
She