Serengeti Sunrise

Chapter Three

Bastard. Tyler was six feet away, the cab still shuddering from the slam of the door, when all of Zoe’s year-long frustration crashed over her like a wave.

No way. He was not walking away from her. Not this time.

Zoe had wanted Tyler from the first second she’d laid eyes on him and when she wanted something, she went after it with everything she had. So there was no reason why she shouldn’t have him by now.

The entire drive back to the ranch she’d been tempted to crawl into his lap. The urge to break through his reserve and stir up the banked heat beneath taunted her. When he’d asked if she was in heat, it had spun her world like a top. It was all the proof she needed. Tyler Minor wanted her. Unequivocal, no two ways about it, sweet, hot lust.

And she’d hesitated. For a nanosecond there in the cab, for the first time in her life, nervous uncertainty had spiraled through her chest. And he just left. When the creaking slam of the car door jolted her, the uncertainty flashed into hurt and quickly twisted into its cousin, anger.

This wasn’t over. He didn’t get to just pretend nothing had happened. Not today.

Zoe launched herself out of the truck. “Tyler!” His only response was the clang of the heavy metal door to the garage slamming behind him after he ducked inside. “Dammit.” She stalked after him. Cutting through the garage was the fastest way to the main part of the compound, but they weren’t finished here yet and she was going to make sure he knew it.

She ran to the door, jerked it open and surged through, carried on a tide of indignant frustration.

“Tyler!” Her shout echoed in the garage bay along with the ringing clang of the heavy door banging shut behind her. “Stop running and face me, you coward!”

Two yards from the front exit, Tyler’s feet took root on the concrete floor. She could hear a growl rumbling in his chest. His lion must not have liked being called a coward. Well, hers didn’t much like him running away from her.

Her lioness was ready for this fight, had been itching for it for months.

He turned to face her, his eyes narrowed and hands loose around his hips like a gunslinger. As they faced one another across the length of the garage, she felt that high-noon feeling herself. Tension snapped in the air, the unavoidable sense that something was coming. Something that had been bearing down on them for a while now.

Love or war. Whichever it was, there wasn’t any middle ground. They’d burned it all away with the friction of the last year.

“Coward?” he asked, his voice a soft, dark rumble.

“You have another word you’d prefer?” She strolled across the concrete floor, adding an extra sway to her hips as she came to stand directly in front of him. “Chicken? Pussy, perhaps?”

“Don’t push me, Zoe.” He rumbled the warning.

“Or what? You gonna show me who’s boss? Or are you just gonna run away like you always do? Like a coward.”

His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl and he loomed over her. She could practically feel his lion pushing against his skin, burning with the need to prove to her, once and for all, which one of them would end up on top if it ever came down to a battle for dominance. He might play at being civilized, but Tyler wanted to make her submit. She could see it in the luminous feline gold of his eyes.

“Are you going to kiss me or throttle me?” Zoe tipped her chin back, meeting his eyes with a blatant challenge. “Whichever you’re going to do, do it now. Because I’m sick of waiting for you to make up your mind.”

“What makes you think I didn’t make up my mind months ago and you just can’t take a hint?”

“What hint was that? The way you stare at me when you think I’m not looking? How you take the longest possible path between your bungalow and the garage each evening just so you can go past my house? Or maybe the fact that you can’t tell when I’m in heat because you always want me?”

He turned away, striding toward the door. “That’s quite a healthy ego you have there.”

“It’s all in my head, is that it?” He put his hand on the door and Zoe felt her composure fracture. “Dammit, Tyler! What the fuck is your deal?” He didn’t turn back to her, but he didn’t open the door either. She shouted at his back. “You want me. I’ve made it embarrassingly obvious I want you too. So what is the big problem?”

“Your brother…”

“I’m twenty-seven years old. I don’t have to ask his permission to fuck whoever the hell I want.”

He turned, leaning his shoulders against the door, one hand still resting on the knob. “He’s the Alpha—”

“So what? This has nothing to do with him. He doesn’t even have to know.”

“He’ll know.”

“Who the fuck cares? Because I’m the Alpha’s sister, I’m not allowed to get any?”

“I don’t want any more commitments in my life. I’m sick of being responsible for everyone.”

“Who’s talking about a commitment? I’m talking about sex. Fucking. Screwing. Banging our brains out. No strings attached. I never asked you for a fucking commitment, dumbass.”

“It’s never going to be no strings. Not with the Alpha’s sister.”

“God, I am so sick of being the Alpha’s sister. I’m Zoe. Can we just have one conversation that doesn’t include Landon?”

Tyler thunked his head back against the door. “Look, Zoe, if I wanted to stay here at the pride for the rest of my life and mate with a little lioness who’d give me lots of fat babies, you’d be the first person I’d-”

She cut him off with a solid punch to his shoulder that made him wince. “You asshole. Would you listen to me for five seconds? I don’t want to marry you. I’m not Mara the fucking baby-making machine. If you tried to give me a picket fence, I would rip up the posts and shove them up your ass. So stop trying to put me in that box.” She slapped her palms flat on his chest, baring her teeth up at him. “I want sex. And I want it from you. So do you want me or not? Because I’m done waiting. We’re deciding this, once and for all. Are you a man or what? Because for someone with the teeth of an alpha lion, you’re awfully fucking scared of me.”

He grabbed her so fast her back was slamming against the door before she even realized his hands were on her waist. Her hat went flying, landing somewhere on the dirty floor. “Scared, am I?” He gripped her jaw and forced her face up to his. “Does this look like fear to you?”

His expression was harsh and unforgiving, the animal running close to the surface. There was nothing contained or distant about the heat in his eyes. Who is this man and what has he done with Tyler Minor? Zoe’s breathing quickened.

His claws flexed against her side. Zoe wet her lips. She’d goaded him to this.

A little flicker of misgiving flared in her chest.

“Hasn’t anyone told you not to bait lions?” he growled, palming her nape.

Zoe’s heart stopped then restarted and accelerated. The nervous sensation got lost in a flood of heat as he took command. Finally. This was it. After a year of foreplay, it was finally happening. Quick, rough, one and done. At last, she’d get over this stupid obsession.

Tyler Minor had her pinned between hard and harder, leaving no doubt in her mind exactly how much he wanted her. Then he leaned in and sealed his mouth over hers, and Zoe forgot everything but the taste of him. This wasn’t just a quickie to get him out of her system. This was everything.

He hadn’t expected her to taste so good.

The tang of her went straight to his brain and shut it down. He didn’t need it anyway—for the first time in his life, pure animal instinct took control. His lion clamored to claim her completely. After a year of buildup, he craved her, needing nothing more than to dive in and drown in her.

Zoe made a jagged, needy sound and stabbed her fingers through his hair, tilting her head to invite him deeper. She hooked her legs around his waist and he stepped closer, notching his hardness at the apex of her thighs, crushing her against the door. She clutched his shoulders, purring throatily, and Tyler realized, with the distant part of his brain that was still running on auxiliary power, that Zoe wasn’t going to stop him.

Dimly, he recalled his master plan. Something about teaching her not to tease him? But this wasn’t a tease. This was a full-body erotic invitation.

Tyler caught her ponytail in his fist, holding her steady as he devoured her mouth. Her scent swamped him, clouding his senses until he felt savage, feeling nothing more keenly than the throbbing need to make her submit. Where was his famous self-control?

He shoved her thin T-shirt up above her breasts, barely managing to keep from shredding it with his claws. She released him long enough to yank the shirt over her head and fling it aside, then her hands were fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, her own claws extending and retracting.

Tyler reached over his shoulder with one hand, the other palming her ass. He grabbed a fistful of fabric and jerked the shirt off over his head, sending a couple buttons plinging against the concrete. Zoe made a hungry sound and her hands stroked his chest, petting and kneading until he leaned into her and she had to move them or get them caught between their bodies. The feel of her, pressed hot against his skin, was sheer perfection. He ground his erection into her heat and she cried out as the friction hit her clit, her green-gold eyes dark with need.

Zoe clutched his shoulders, moaning, “More,” against the shell of his ear.

Didn’t that just figure? He owned her body right now and she was still making demands. The woman just didn’t know how to stop pushing.

Luckily, he was inclined to give her what she wanted.

He held her steady with a hand on her ass and ground into her again, gently biting the curve of her shoulder as his other hand slid up her side to cup the fullness of her breast. Her strong thighs squeezed his hips as her own began to move against him. She moaned his name, then whispered it brokenly, repeating it until it became a mantra, a rhythmic plea and exultation rolled into one.

Tyler fumbled with her belt, cursing softly, until Zoe shoved his hands aside and unfastened it with quick, deft fingers. He had no trouble with the row of buttons on her fly, flicking them loose and sliding his hand inside beneath the thin silky scrap of her panties.

At the first brush of his middle finger on her clit, Zoe’s back arched and a jagged cry ripped from her throat, her head thrown back as an orgasm shuddered through her body. Tyler continued to work the tiny bud, rubbing his finger in a fast, tight circle until she went off again in his arms. He stroked lower, thrusting a single finger into her moist channel and curling it inside her. She was so hot. Wet and tight. The way her inner muscles clenched around his finger, she’d feel like a fucking fist gripping his cock. His vision nearly went black with the thought.

He needed to get inside her. Now.

She rode his hand, panting his name, as Tyler struggled to unzip his jeans over his aching erection one-handed without success. Realizing that wasn’t going to happen, and Zoe was too close to climax to be any help, Tyler gave up on his jeans for the moment and pulled down the cup of Zoe’s bra, cradling the weight of her breast in his palm and plucking the tight bud of her nipple. Zoe catapulted into another orgasm with a shattered cry, and he eased his finger from her sheath, determined to get them both out of their clothes while she was enjoying a little afterglow.

“Tyler? You in there?”

Tyler froze with his hand down the front of Zoe’s jeans at the sound of his brother’s voice on the other side of the door. He cursed low as Zoe’s eyes met his, a spark of amusement kindling in hers. She bit her lip, a smile fighting its way past her attempts to keep a straight face. Of course she would think this was funny. She wasn’t the one about to break the world record for bluest balls.

“Tyler?” The doorknob rattled.

Tyler’s hand shot out and slammed flat against the door as it began to move behind Zoe, banging it shut before Kane could push his way inside. “What is it, Kane?” he called, then cleared his throat raggedly.

Tyler removed his other hand the rest of the way from Zoe’s jeans and braced it against the door as well. She eased her legs to the floor and tucked herself back into her bra, her eyes twinkling with wicked enjoyment.

There was a moment of silence—if he didn’t count the soft, panting laughter coming from Zoe—before Kane replied, “Have you seen Zoe? Landon wanted to see both of you as soon as you got her back to the ranch, but Caleb said he saw the tow truck pull in fifteen minutes ago.”

“I know where she is,” Tyler called through the door, choking on the last word as her fingers brushed across his fly, flicking the button open. He caught her wrist, but her fingers were hooked in his waistband and he couldn’t pry them free. “This isn’t funny,” he whispered harshly.

One golden brow arched upward as a smile overflowing with mischief quirked her lips. “You look tense.” She twisted her wrist free as Kane called through the door again.

“Can you tell her to get her ass to the Alpha’s? Landon’s wearing a groove in the floor with his pacing.”

Tyler hissed as Zoe took hold of his zipper and began dragging it down, with one hand tucked inside his jeans to caress each inch as it was released. “Tell him she’s—Jesus—fine.” More than fine. The zipper had hit bottom and so had Zoe. She gripped the base of his cock with one hand and gently brushed a thumb across his glans with the other. “We’ll be right there. In a—” She dragged her hand up his shaft, the slow milking pull knocking the top right off his head. “Fuck. In a minute.”

“More like five,” Zoe purred, wetting her lips until they glistened as she slid down the door to kneel at his feet. All his blood and good sense rushed south with her.

When her mouth closed over his cock and liquid suction pulled him deep, Tyler would have corrected her if he still had the powers of speech. He wasn’t going to last five seconds.

As primed as he was, it was a miracle he hadn’t come in his jeans before she got him unzipped. Tyler braced both palms flat on the door, focusing on the feel of the sun-warmed metal beneath his hands to distract from the smooth, moist mouth pistoning on his shaft.

“Okay, but hurry up,” Kane—the brother he’d forgotten he had—called through the door. Tyler was vaguely aware of footsteps fading out of range, then Zoe did some swirling thing with her tongue and his last few brain cells evaporated.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall forward, far too heavy for his neck to support anymore. Her hands peeled his jeans down until she could cradle his balls with one hand as the other grasped his hip, holding on tight, her claw tips pressing into his skin. His own claws sank into the metal of the door, his fangs cutting the inside of his lip as he fought the urge to pump his hips and shove himself deeper.

His existence narrowed to a few square inches of flesh. He opened his eyes, hoping to distract himself from the monopoly touch had on his senses, but with his head bowed, the sight that greeted him was Zoe’s golden head bobbing, plunging his ruddy, veined cock repeatedly into her mouth. He watched her take him in, eagerly swallowing every inch, humming her pleasure against his shaft. The vibration from deep in her throat thrummed up his spine, and Tyler’s last shred of resistance snapped. His roar echoed off the ceiling as he came into her mouth, hips jerking with hot jets of come, his claws digging grooves in the metal door until he was wrung out, a dazed and empty shell.

Zoe released him, rocking back on her heels. She rubbed a thumb across her softly swollen lips and flashed him a bright, flirty smile. Breezy and casual, as if she hadn’t just sucked him off like a fucking Hoover Energizer Bunny.

“Landon’s probably given himself a stroke by now,” she said as she rose gracefully to her feet. She turned away, wandering over to collect her shirt where it dangled from a fender and buckling her belt as she walked.

Tyler’s brain came back online with a jolt, jarred by the easy conversation of the woman who’d just had his cock balls-deep in her mouth. It was disconcerting. He’d done casual sex before, but never with a woman who treated it so…casually.

He tucked himself back into his jeans and refastened them, feeling inexplicably irritated by Zoe’s notable lack of pillow talk. She’d said no strings, hadn’t she? So why was her stringlessness so vexing?

She pulled on her shirt, smoothing the soft, stretchy cotton over her flat stomach. “He’s probably dying to tear me a new one. God knows he’s been freaking out at the drop of a pin lately.”

“He’s responsible for a lot of people,” Tyler grumbled as he crouched to grab his own shirt, untangling the twisted fabric. “You’d be stressed too.”

She snorted. “That’s why you don’t throw yourself in the path of responsibility.”

Tyler straightened, catching Zoe in the act of staring at his bare chest. He’d never thought of himself as vain, but the hungry little smile curving her lips stroked his ego.

“Has anyone ever told you how mouthwatering you are?”

Tyler considered lying just to feign modesty and continue the flirtation, but he was still annoyed enough to be truthful. “Yes.”

Her eyebrows flew up and she laughed as she bent to scoop up her hat, smacking it against her thigh to dust it off. “Well, whoever she was, she had good taste.” She popped the hat on her head, angling it back. “Thanks for the preview, Tyler. Can’t wait to see what you can do when we have time for the feature presentation.”

Tyler yanked his shirt on, stupidly bothered by her presumption that there would be a feature presentation, even though he knew there would be. Even frustrated with her I-got-what-I-wanted-from-you attitude, he still wanted her down to his bones. And as long as they kept it quiet…just between them…

But how could they?

Even if Kane hadn’t heard them, he had to know something was up. The most tactful of Tyler’s brothers, he wasn’t likely to say anything—certainly not to Landon—but how many people saw Kane shouting through the garage door? How many people had seen Tyler drive onto the ranch with Zoe in the passenger seat twenty minutes ago? How was he supposed to explain the delay? They needed to get their stories straight. They needed—

“Relax, Tyler.” Zoe strolled over to stand inches in front of him, resting her hands on his sides. He couldn’t help thinking of the last place she’d put her hands, and his cock stirred. “Stop freaking yourself out. It’s just sex. No ball and chain. I promise.”

The amusement in her eyes grated even more than her cavalier dismissal. “If Landon finds out—”

“Then he finds out. Who the fuck cares? Cat shifters were horny even in Victorian times. It’s in our nature. People have sex without getting married all the time. You need to learn a little carpe diem, Tyler. There’s more to life than the shoulds.”

“I think I just proved I have plenty of carpe diem.”

“Oh? Was that you? I thought I was the one who jumped you.”

“I have restraint, unlike some people. But, for the record, the jumping was mutual.”

“You just keep telling yourself that, sugar. And let me know when you’re ready to seize something.” She ran her hands across his stomach, her eyes dark with invitation, then pivoted and strutted out the door, her gait liquid with satisfaction. The kind of walk that made sure anyone who saw her knew exactly what she’d been doing.

Tyler cursed and followed his doom out the door to the Alpha’s place, hoping Landon didn’t have some kind of sex radar that could tell that Tyler had just had his cock in his sister’s mouth.