As if his body danced to her command, a powerful orgasm shuddered through him as her muscles contracted and released around his shaft. English abandoned him, so he murmured to her in German, telling her he adored her, that he’d care for her forever. He came back to himself gasping and panting atop her, with her arms and legs twined around his body.

“Amazing, incredible,” she crooned and stroked his back. “All that aside, learning German is at the top of my to-do list.”

He started to answer her, and then froze. “Ssht.” He pulled his cock from the heat of her body, collected his pants and dragged them over his still throbbing member. A moment later he reconsidered. His cat form was ideal for night work, much better than his gun. Clothes would only be an impediment.

“What is it?” She kept her voice low and gathered her own clothes.

“Hold off on those clothes. I heard a car.”

“But it’s the middle of the night.”

“Exactly.” He reached for his gun, loaded it just in case. He worked automatically, without needing eyes to see what he was doing. “Have you ever fought in your cat form?”

She nodded, her eyes round with apprehension. Lars listened intently. The car had slowed, but it was definitely closer and still moving toward them. Damn it! He’d left tire tracks in the sandy road. They would have been easy to follow. “Listen closely. This is what we shall do. I cannot leave you in the car. You would be a sitting duck.”

Chapter Twelve

Tamara shifted from paw to paw as she waited in a shadowed overhang about fifty human paces from the car. She could cover the distance in three or four easy leaps. Lars’ plan had been simple enough. They’d left the car open as a trap to draw whoever hunted them. It would allow them to determine how many men they had to deal with. If it was only two, Lars said he’d take them both, striking while they leaned inside the car. If it was more than that, they’d regroup. Fortunately, they could communicate telepathically in cat form, something she already knew. Lars had told her it was possible in their human forms as well, but there hadn’t been time to go into any deeper explanations.

She sensed him across from her, still as death, waiting. Cats were excellent predators because they could stay so motionless their prey never knew what hit them. Tamara felt a growl form deep in her chest and swallowed it. Her cat was thrilled by the turn of events; Tamara wasn’t so sure, but she would do whatever she had to. Lars was shaping up to be the man of her dreams, the love of her life. No way would she lose him now. She pictured him above her, making love to her, and her vulva twitched.

Not now. She dug her claws into the dirt as a distraction. A car engine got louder and then stilled. She tried to pinpoint its location and determined it had to be somewhere behind the SUV, but on the same dirt road Lars had taken. Car doors opened, but she didn’t hear them close. Maybe two, maybe three. It was hard to tell when sounds happened at the same time.

Footsteps pounded their way. “There are three,” Lars informed her just about the time she’d come to the same conclusion.

“What do you want to do?”

“Wait till they get closer and I can see what kind of firepower they are packing.”

Of course they wouldn’t come empty handed. Tamara’s cat wanted to leap forward, tear their fucking throats out. What was a bullet or two? Shifters had excellent restorative magic. She kept her cat in line by reminding it Lars was calling the shots. Her cat adored Lars, so it seemed to do the trick.

The men moved cautiously forward. They must have had some sort of communications devices that amplified their voices, but only for one another. She might not have heard them if she’d been human; as it was, every word was crystal clear.

“You sure this is the car?”

“Yeah. Plates match what our hacker picked up off the car rental site.”

A third man, with a heavy accent that sounded Russian said, “I tell you. Better we riddle car with bullets. Tell boss they fought back.”

“No,” the first voice said in refined British English. “These two are wanted alive. Particularly the man. We have tried to get our hands on him for years.”

“Holy fucking crap. Take a gander at this,” the second voice, which sounded American as all get out, muttered.

“What is it?” from the Brit.

“Big cat tracks. Fresh too,” the American answered. “Are there cougars in these hills?”

“That’s a stupid question,” the Brit snapped. “There must be or you wouldn’t see tracks. Hmph. I wonder…” He moved toward the SUV and shined a penlight into the back. Tamara got a good look at him. He resembled many of Jaret’s men. Hard body, hard eyes. He was tall and rangy, dressed in black, with greasepaint on his face and a black watch cap pulled low on his head. “Fuck. They’re not here.”

“Maybe we get lucky,” the Russian smirked. “Cats might have got them.”

“Not very fucking likely,” the American muttered. “Man’s too smart for that. I fought him in Africa. Bastard had some kind of affinity for big cats. It was spooky, I tell you. They obeyed him, danced to his tune like some fucked up Pied Piper.”

“Lars…?”

“Stay put.” One minute he was near her, the next, he flew through the air and drove the Brit and the Russian to the ground. The American pulled a large caliber revolver from a hidden holster. Tamara didn’t stop to think. She launched herself at his back and sank her teeth deep into the side of his neck, aiming for his carotid. Blood shot into the air before he hit the ground, and it just kept pumping. She batted his gun out of range and raked her claws down his head and neck for good measure. Flipping him over, she clawed out his eyes. If he couldn’t see, he wouldn’t be a threat, even if it took him a few minutes to die.

A gun went off. She spun, tail and whiskers twitching. The Russian lay in a spreading pool of blood, maybe dead. Didn’t matter since he wasn’t moving. Lars was all over the Brit who’d just fired point blank into his belly. Tamara shrieked a high, feral squeal and pounded her body into the Brit’s side. He went down with a whump and she clawed and bit until she was drenched in his blood.

As soon as she was sure he’d never get up again, she padded to Lars inert body, whining. She nosed him, licked him, and could have cried once she realized he was alive. “Heal yourself, beloved.”

“Get me into the car and drive us out of here.” His mind voice was shockingly weak. She reached for her human form and acted fast. Lars was bleeding. A puddle had formed beneath him. She drove the car right next to him, opened the back door, and tried to lift him, but his cat weighed well over two hundred pounds. After sweating and struggling, she finally had an idea and draped one of the sleeping bags so it hung half out the door. She closed the other end in the opposite door to stabilize it.

“You have to help me.” She buried her hands in his fur. “Goddammit, Lars. Sure and you can’t die on me. Use your claws. Dig into the fabric. If you can help even a little, I think I can boost you inside.”

Making a gurgling sound that made her blood run cold, Lars twisted and dug his claws deep into the sleeping bag. She got behind him and pushed. Between the two of them, his cat’s body slithered inside. She took a moment and wrapped her arms around him. “Hang on, dearest. I’ll be figuring something out.” He licked her face. She stroked his fur, murmured in Gaelic, unable to force herself to let go.

“We must leave. More will come behind them,” Lars said, voice so faint she barely heard him. Blood bubbled from his nostrils and her heart shattered. She slammed the back door and ran around to the driver’s side pulling a sweatshirt over her head as she went. No time to worry about her naked bottom half. As an afterthought, she remembered to open the other back door and move the sleeping bag so it wouldn’t flap against the car as they drove.