Gena Showalter - Playing With Fire (tales of an extra ordinary girl)

The one I’d almost iced.

Had Rome simply told me of his ability, I might have tried to deny it. I might have called him a liar, might have told him to stop joking around. Seeing it, watching his transformation, offered irrefutable proof.

And it brought home the fact that there was an entire world out there I hadn’t known existed until a few days ago.

Rome growled up at me, the sound fierce and pure animal. Total danger. I backed another step away, my hand fluttering over my throat. Not once had he hurt me while in this form. But… a girl couldn’t be too cautious.

“Holy shit!” Tanner shouted from the cabin. “ Rome, the badass, is a pussy. Woohoo!”

The jaguar’s fierce attention never deviated from me. Its-his-gaze continued to pierce me, daring me to say something. Daring me to do something. He expected me to run, I realized, to rebuke him. He probably expected me to faint, as well.

No wonder he had been so adamant about keeping this part of himself secret. Did he fear rejection, too? Did he think I would find him disgusting? Silly man. This was weird, yes, but hardly a relationship killer.

I’d dated worse.

Besides, I started fires-with my freaking eyes. Like I really had room to judge. I crouched, lowering myself to his eye level. “Here, kitty, kitty. Come to sweet, sweet Belle.”

His long, black lashes swept down, back up. Then, slowly, he prowled toward me, closing the distance between us inch by animal inch. I reached out and stroked the softness of his fur. He purred.

“I guess this means I get to call you Cat Man. ”

He bared his teeth, his lips quivering over them as he uttered a feral snarl.

“No? What about Agent Fur Ball?”

Another snarl.

My own lips twitched. “You should have told me about this,” I admonished. “It would have saved me a near heart attack and you a near icing.”

His snarling ceased, and he blinked at me again. I scratched behind his ears. Hesitantly, he licked my arm. The warmth and smoothness of his tongue surprised me.

“Are you letting him lick you?” Tanner called. “Gross.”

“Shut up!”

“Belle and the pussycat sitting in a tree,” came the singsong reply.

With a roar, Rome prowled menacingly toward the cabin. Realizing he’d just been placed on the dessert menu, Tanner finally shut his big fat mouth.

“This actually explains some things,” I said, cupping the cat’s jaw and forcing him to stop and face me. “Your never wear jeans, probably because they won’t rip when you change. You don’t wear underwear, either. For the same reason, I’m guessing.” I recalled how easily his pants had torn that day I’d twisted them. So much for my theory that my superhuman strength had been responsible. “Sometimes you act like a total animal. You get this savage gleam in your eyes, like you could eat everyone in sight. And not in a good way. Then there’s the way you kiss-”

Another growl erupted from him, this one different from the others. Hope and desire deepened the timbre. He stretched his front legs, then his back. My hands dropped to my sides. His bones elongated instead of hunching. Fur shed, falling from him as if it had been nothing more than a temporary suit. His teeth retracted; his face reformed into hard planes and angles.

The muscles of his chest roped, corded. His penis-oh my holy Lord, his big, hard, erect penis… I forced myself to turn away from him. My cheeks overheated, and I had to fan myself. The sun seemed brighter somehow. I’d seen him naked before, but I’d been too weak to feel the effects. Surely I’d start a fire if I looked at him now.

“Belle… ”

“You’re naked.” Ah, stating the obvious. My specialty.

“That’s what you have to say to me?” Shock and laughter, anger and relief dripped from his voice. “You don’t blink at my… animal form, but my nakedness intimidates you?”

“Not your nakedness, exactly,” I hedged, glancing down at my feet. I kicked a pebble with the toe of my boot.

“Then what?”

“Well, your penis.” Duh. “It’s big. And hard.”

He barked out a laugh. “You need to get used to it, baby, since you’re going to be seeing a lot of it in the future.”

My cheeks heated another degree. “Just put a leash on that thing for now, okay?”

A pause. The crackle of grass. “I just showed you I can shape-shift, and all you care about is my dick. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this much shock.”

“Well, I think I mentioned how big it is.” Thankfully, my newfound superpowers didn’t, like, cause the world to explode with the force of my awe. And lust. There was definite lust here, making me all tingly and breathless. “I don’t want to start a fire.”

I’d never seen a man so well formed. So rippled with muscles and tanned skin. Rome was the epitome of total masculinity. He reeked of power. Oozed it. “Can you put some clothes on?”

I didn’t have to see him to know he rolled his eyes. “No. I’ve finally managed to intimidate you. I’ll probably remain naked for the rest of my life.”

Lalalala. The trees were lush and green. The sky, what little I could see of it through the leaves, was a bright, vivid blue. Hardly any clouds. The scent of pine filled the air.

“We gonna stand here like this all day or are you going to turn around and talk to me?” Rome asked comfortably.

“Stand like this all day. Duh.”

“Belle.”

“ Rome.” I crossed my arms over my chest. If the man hadn’t yet figured out I possessed a stubborn core, it was past time he did so.

“You’ve seen a naked man before, haven’t you?”

I liked the way he’d snarled that, as if he couldn’t stand the thought of me with another man. “Yes, I have.” I shifted from one foot to the other. “I just hadn’t seen you naked before-at least, not when I was strong enough to do something about it.”

Another pause. “And that’s different how?”

“Well, it’s you.”

“Me?”

A slight breeze danced past, cooling my skin somewhat. “That’s right. You. You make me feel things.”

“I’m glad,” he said. His hands settled atop my shoulders and gently squeezed. I hadn’t heard him approach, but suddenly he was there. The scent of virile man enveloped me.

“Me, too,” I said softly, “but that doesn’t mean I’m looking again. Not now, at least. I mean, if I turned around we wouldn’t be talking, now would we?”

A third pause, then, “No, I guess not.”

“Like I told you, I’m in serious danger of starting a fire. Not a good idea when we’re standing in a forest.” I needed to change the subject before I forgot exactly why not talking would be a bad idea. “How did you end up a… cat? Ohmygod, you didn’t really have that eye surgery, did you? You have night vision because cats do.”

His chest pressed against my back (earning a slight gasp from me) and he deepened his massage of my shoulders. “No, no eye surgery. Remember those experiments I told you about? My DNA was spliced. They-the scientists who work at PSI-did other stuff, as well, but I’ve never fully understood it.”

My mouth fell open, and I floundered for the right words. When they came, they choked out of me on infuriated breaths. “How could they do that? Mix human and animal, which could have kill-”

“While I like that you’re outraged on my behalf, you shouldn’t be. I volunteered, remember? I wanted the kind of skills that would make me invincible. I can do things, see things, hear things others can’t.”

I toyed with the ends of my hair and shifted my feet again. My heartbeat had yet to slow down, and his touch was only making it worse.

“And you’re right,” he added. “I don’t wear jeans because they don’t rip easily. The underwear, well, the first time I changed, all of my clothes stayed on my… cat body. They stifled my movements, but I was able to tear them off with my teeth-all except for the underwear. As you can imagine, I made quite a spectacle. A hard-core predator wearing nothing but Hanes.”