She wrapped her arms around herself. “Aren’t you going to join me?” she asked through chattering teeth.

He sought words to tell her how striking she was, how incredible, but English eluded him. All he could come up with was German. He swallowed hard. “I will lock the car with your things in it. The keys will be in front of the left front wheel.”

“What about your clothes?”

“If something untoward happens, they will be the least of my problems.” He began to strip, starting with his shoes. “Go ahead and find your cat form.” He grinned. “She will keep you warm.”

The air around her shimmered. A knockout of a mountain cat emerged with a thick, tawny pelt, and Tamara’s beautiful, blue eyes. The cat grinned at him, licked her chops, and purred long and low. His cat raged for release. Lars forgot about folding his clothes. He stuffed them beneath the car, along with the keys, and opened the pathway to free his cat.

“You’re silver,” she murmured. “Just like your eyes.”

He rubbed his flank against her and licked her snout. She nuzzled him back. His cat cock hardened. To quell the sexual heat flaring painfully in his loins, he suggested, “Shall we run?”

Tamara made a noise between a purr and a snarl. “Sure and I’d rather make love, but running is good too.”

“Remember what I told you about joining in this form.” Hope speared him. He wanted nothing more than to be bound to this woman, but he understood the need for caution. Now that he saw her as a cat, he felt the mate bond and was even more certain she was his chosen one, but they had to have at least a small space of time when they weren’t running for their lives to make a decision that would bind them forever.

She leaped into the air and took off at a dead run. He charged after her. They chased one another, nipping, rolling, playing, until both were breathless. His sense of time was diminished in this form, but he was certain over an hour passed. Without exchanging words, they loped back to the car and called their human forms. He shook sand out of his clothes before getting back into them and opened the car so she could dress. By the time she was covered, he’d folded down the back seat and laid the sleeping bags out. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable bed since he hadn’t thought to buy air mattresses, but it wasn’t all that long before dawn. He wanted to be at the airport in plenty of time, and it was still a couple hours’ driving time. Plus, they’d want to stop for coffee and breakfast.

He tucked her into the nest he’d made when he’d unzipped the bags and laid one atop the other, got in the other side, and hit the clicker to lock the car. When he held out his arms, she snuggled against him. Tenderness flooded him as he wrapped his arms around her. “I was right. Your cat is just as gorgeous as you are.”

“Not that I’ve seen that many shifters in shifted form, but sure and I’ve never seen a silver cat before. You’re amazing.” She quieted, but he sensed she wanted to say more.

“What?” he prodded. “We should have no secrets between us.”

She propped herself on an elbow and gazed at him, her heart in her eyes. “I had no idea it could be like that. I’ve never shifted just to play, and it felt incredible, like I was born to be her.” She took a measured breath and went on. “My cat is happy too. I don’t ever remember sensing her emotions before, but her joy is so deep and so poignant, it’s as if she’s dancing inside me.”

He felt the smile begin in his heart before it found its way to his lips. “It is the same with me. I have always embraced my dual nature, but my cat has never been so exultant. We have been waiting for you all our lives.”

Tears formed in her eyes, making them glow. “My mum, she tried to tell me I shouldn’t settle for less than a shifter mate. I told her sure and wishful thinking it was, since the odds of meeting another of us was so remote.” A single tear tracked down one cheek.

He pulled her into his arms again. “The past does not matter, liebchen. Only the future. Our future.” He covered her mouth with his. Lars didn’t plan to make love with her, but his cock was still hard from when he’d been in cat form. Even beyond his physical need, Lars craved the woman in his arms with his soul.

She opened her mouth beneath his and curved her arms around his body, holding him tight against her. Unlike earlier, Lars didn’t hurry. He kissed her until the body in his arms melted against him and she made delightful mewling noises deep in her throat. When he raised his mouth from hers and strung kisses down the side of her face to the hollow in her neck, she murmured, “We could have saved a wee bit of time by not getting dressed.”

“I did not plan this.” He nuzzled her neck. “You are nigh onto irresistible.”

“You’ll be turning this poor girl’s head with all that fancy talk.” She slipped a hand between their bodies and curled her fingers around his erection, still covered by his trousers. His breath quickened. In the small corner of his mind that wasn’t swamped with lust, he didn’t understand why he couldn’t keep his hands off her. It hadn’t been that long since they’d sated themselves.

He tugged her top up to expose her breasts. Moonlight spilled into the car, lending her skin a silvery glow. Her nipples were already puckered. He bent and kissed first one, and then the other. She arched her back, wove her fingers into his hair, and murmured in Irish. Her hips thrust rhythmically as he suckled her and he sensed her increasing arousal. It stoked his own until he trembled on the edge of orgasm. It was as if everything he did to her amplified itself until he felt it in his own body.

Lars drew away and gazed down at Tamara. She gazed back, eyes liquid with need and warmth. Slowly, she reached between them, undid his pants, and drew his cock out. He felt her spread liquid heat around his exquisitely sensitive glans, and understood his own fluid had escaped. She gripped his shaft and milked it with her hand. So aroused he could barely contain himself, he reached down and laid his hand over hers. “I need to be inside you. If you keep that up, I will spend on your beautiful belly.”

“Such an old-fashioned word.” She helped him undo her pants and pushed them down so she could free one leg.

“Maybe I am an old-fashioned man.” Lars took hold of his cock and guided it between her legs until his cockhead seated firmly against her opening. She moaned, drew her legs up, and latched them around his back. He took his time pushing into her and savored every centimeter of him surrounded by her lush heat. When he hit bottom, he stopped moving and contracted his muscles until he felt an answering twitch from hers.

He supported himself on his arms and drank in her beauty. Ever so slowly, he began to move in tiny little circles. Her hips bucked beneath him; her head fell back on her graceful stalk of a neck. She made a grab for his hips and ground herself against his body. He felt her pussy convulse around him as she came and he rode through her peak alongside her, feeling her ecstasy in his heart. He wanted release, but he could wait. Pleasing her was everything. He’d never felt that way before. He’d always been a considerate lover, but he’d always been anxious to get up and get moving once sex was over with. The emotions cascading through him, where he wanted to shield Tamara, protect her from harm, hold her next to him forever, were something new.

Tamara made a satisfied, purring sound and clamped her muscles around him. She moved her hands off his body and cupped her breasts, twirling and teasing the nipples. Watching her touch herself was a game changer; it amped up his arousal to white heat. When she moved a hand to her mouth, licked her fingers, and placed them atop her mound, he almost forgot to breathe.

Gazing at her while she touched her nipple and her clit unraveled him. Control crumbled. He withdrew and slammed himself home, never taking his eyes from the show she put on for him. His balls tightened and snugged against his body. The deep blue of her eyes drew him in, and held him. “Yes, my love.” She met him stroke for stroke, breasts and cheeks splotched with lust. “Now. Come with me now.”