An Unauthorized Field Guide to the Hunt by Kari Gregg Page B

Shane’s blood, and his mouth watered at the rich, lingering perfume of their sex. Even hurting as badly as he was, the desire to drop to all fours and lift his ass in offering rocked him.
    Probably Shane’s lust would’ve swamped him just at the sight of all that agile power sculpted into the gorgeous puma. Competitors registered for the Hunt and endured the lengthy screening process in hopes of experiencing sex with the elusive cats. Most entered arenas for business purposes and for their own selfish reasons as Shane and Fallon both had, but a few wished only to be fucked by the most sinuous and skilled lovers in the explored worlds.
    Why arousal burned through him like fire wasn’t important anymore, though. Nothing was—not Shane’s training, the cat’s mating pheromones, or even the puma’s dangerous beauty.
    What mattered was the instinct demanding Shane belonged to this cat. That compulsion annihilated everything else: Shane’s determination to maintain a careful distance, the hurts shrieking through his body, the stupidity of making the cat’s quest so effortless.
    He needed . And so needing, he surrendered again.
    On unsteady feet, Shane stumbled toward the puma despite the scent that would both drug and inflame him. His stare never wavered from the stony gaze of his mate. The lack of welcome didn’t slow him. Rather it encouraged him to breach the distance between them all the more urgently. He must reach his cat. He must tremble under the cat’s touch, melt at his caress.
    Shane licked his lips.
    He must taste the puma who had mated him.
    He halted when they stood a scant breath apart, when the cat’s lightly furred chest brushed Shane’s nipples with Shane’s every ragged gasp.
    “Precious,” the cat said and leaned forward, angling his head. Shane longed for the cat’s kiss, but instead the cat bent to nip Shane’s chin. “So mine. And so hungry .”
    A fervent moan escaped Shane’s mouth. The cat was in his prime, old enough to have been in other Hunts, and knew better than Shane what his hollow and hurting body required. It was an unfair advantage, but what could he do?
    The cat lifted a palm and threaded his fingers through Shane’s hair to cup his scalp. He tugged, drawing Shane in, and Shane let him. He wanted this, wanted to feel the heat of the cat’s body, the solid weight of muscle against him. When the cat dragged Shane’s face into the crook of his neck, Shane shuddered. “Breathe me in,” the cat whispered.
    Trembling, Shane sucked in air through his nose and groaned at the musky fragrance of last night’s sex still thick on the cat’s fur. He closed his eyes to concentrate on the familiar comfort of the cat’s silken body and that amazing scent. He nestled closer, dick hardening at the responding purr and the hand that dropped to Shane’s sore hip, nudging him squarely into the V of the cat’s thighs. Gods, it felt decadent. Shane rubbed his cheek on the short, satiny hair at the cat’s throat and was rewarded with a chuckle.
    “Stubborn,” the cat said, voice husky with approval. “But affectionate.”
    Shane didn’t have an affectionate cell in his body, but this felt so pure and right. He stroked his cheek against the cat’s fur again, shifting slightly away to part the pelt covering him so he could plaster his naked skin against the warm cat head to toe. “Cruel.” Shane sighed blissfully. “But seductive.”
    Laughing, the cat bent to brush a quick kiss over Shane’s lips, and while Shane blinked in astonished yearning, the cat slung him over one silky shoulder. Air left Shane’s lungs in a whoosh. The cat crouched and then jumped, launching them into the trees. Fighting for oxygen, Shane watched the ground grow distant beneath them, luck more than design securing the pelt around him. Caught under his weight, the fur mostly stayed around him so he wasn’t lashed by twigs and stray branches. He grunted as the cat sprang from limb to limb. Higher, into the