Miz Spelled Read online

  “Now,” she ordered him.

  He reached between them, grinding his thumb against her clit and her climax started in her womb, radiating outward in a steady stream of energy that rattled the door. Her channel squeezed around his hard length, gripping him in hot velvet as she rolled through one orgasm into another, and neutralized the excess power that roiled inside her.

  Nothing mattered but satisfying her. He concentrated on delivering pleasure, pumping hard and fast, then slow and easy, as he feasted on her burn. It. Was. Bliss.

  Finally, her body quivered with aftershocks, and she whimpered against Thomas’s neck. His beast roared, emitting a primal mating sound as Thomas claimed his own release.

  For a moment afterward, he held Miz in his arms, nuzzling the lobe of her ear and whispering his claim until she reared back and reasserted her usual independence.

  “Best put me down now, Sunny. That pounding on the door will wake Lynette.” Miz’s voice was husky, her grin a wry reminder of where they were.

  So much for special training and abilities. His beast had blotted everything from Thomas’s mind but the sound of his mate’s distress. Now that she’d called his attention to the noise, he could hear the persistent knocking coming from the hallway.

  Mentally alert she might be, but physically, Miz was still a wreck. Thomas took charge, tidying their clothes, and ushering her from the bathroom to the outer door.

  He unlocked it, took the coffee from Braddock’s hand, ignored the guards who were looking at them speculatively, and guided Miz to the elevator.

  She gulped the coffee during the elevator ride, silent and tense. Thomas knew she was in bad shape when she let him drive her hog.

  “Can you hang on?” He buckled her helmet, put on his own, mounted the bike and she slid on behind. No argument, no sarcasm, Miz was really quiet.

  It wasn’t that far to his room at the hotel. Miz wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his back. The connection between them was strong and his cat purred, savoring the bond that had snapped in place.

  Sometimes she called him Thomas and other times Sunny, acknowledging both parts of him without realizing it. In the past, she’d been okay with Thomas as her lover. His jaguar side she’d shunned.

  “It ain’t personal, Sunny. I just don’t like animals. Not any of ’em,” she’d explained once.

  Thomas wasn’t about to let a little animal phobia stop his pursuit. Until he’d met Miz, the threads that bound jaguar and man had been unraveling as his two natures warred for supremacy.

  No matter how discordant the relationship between cat and man though, whatever that special ingredient was that made Miz who she was, made both of them need to claim her. Not lover, fuck-buddy, or friend—the names she tried to assign to what Thomas was to her. Mate.

  Shep had sent Thomas to West Virginia on a bullshit mission, pursuing a pack of elusive werewolves. When Thomas had met Miz during the investigation, she’d become the focus of both man and beast.

  She was his mate. And his mate needed him now. He guided the big bike under the hotel canopy and stopped.

  “Nobody touches it but you,” she mumbled.

  “Not a problem.” He tipped the valet and drove the Harley to special parking. Though he knew she was exhausted, Miz stalled, fussing over the bike, wiping it down and setting a ward before she’d go inside. When they started to walk away from the Harley, she stopped as if she’d come to a decision.

  “I’ll just ride on home tonight. It’s quit raining. I’ll be fine. Like I told you before we came—I don’t have a lot of time. I have to get back.”

  Thomas could have argued but sometimes situations called for muscle. She didn’t expect it when he scooped her into his arms and leapt toward the elevator. Using his jaguar speed, Thomas covered the distance before Miz could squawk more than once. After the door to the elevator glided shut, he pushed the button, and the lift began climbing.

  “I need to get home,” she muttered.

  “By my count, we’ve got thirty-five hours left.” Thomas kept his arm around her shoulders, giving her a reassuring squeeze every floor or so. When the elevator doors slid open admitting another rider, he felt Miz stiffen. She rubbed her hands on her pants as if embarrassed by her leathers and stared at the control panel as the elevator climbed upward, not at the male who’d joined them in the cubicle.

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Thomas pulled her along by his side, his keycard in his hand, ignoring her hesitation. He felt her relax when the other man turned in the opposite direction, walking away from them down the hallway.

  “Bet your neighbor thinks you’ve brought in a hooligan.” She brushed her hand self-consciously over her skull-cap.

  Thomas looked her over and shook his head. A pink flush stained high cheekbones emphasizing the beauty of her apricot-toned skin. Though she held them in an unsmiling line, her lips were swollen from his kisses and even exhausted, she walked with the grace of an athlete.

  “No, he’s thinking he just saw a beautiful woman who’s about to have serious love made to her.”

  “Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes at him and resumed her silence on the trip down the hotel corridor. Once inside the suite, she looked around as if she’d never seen anything like it.

  “How much does a place like this cost a night?” Miz frowned and Thomas suspected she was calculating how to pay half the bill.

  “Don’t worry about it. The agency picks up the tab when I’m on assignment.”

  “Well, all righty then. Can’t quarrel with using some of those tax dollars I pay each year.”

  She relaxed and began to investigate. As soon as she saw the marble bathroom she abandoned Thomas in the main room and claimed the shower.

  Chapter Eleven

  Thomas stood in the door, feasting his eyes on her as she disrobed and unbound her hair. The auburn mass tumbled down her back, skimming over her narrow waist to brush against her high, round ass.

  She turned on the water and stepped under the spray. He watched until he couldn’t stay away any longer. Then he shed his clothes and crowded into the shower with her.

  Miz kept her eyes closed while he lathered soap over every part of her body.

  He cupped her breasts. His palms were slick with soap and he rotated them against her flesh, feeling her nipples pebble as he rubbed and pinched each between fingers and thumb. “Like that?” he asked.

  As if admitting to sin, Miz nodded reluctantly.

  Thomas turned her in a circle, watching the opaque film slide away leaving glistening flesh. His cock stood rigid between them but he took his time, determined to reclaim every inch of her body.

  He washed and rinsed her hair and then, holding her back against his chest, he wrapped his arm around her torso. Miz moaned soft sounds of pleasure as he rubbed his lips across the sensitive spot where he’d marked her.

  He sent his hands downward. One stroked her belly, the other paused to pet her lower curls before cupping her heat and sliding two fingers inside. She shuddered in his arms and her channel clenched around his digits.

  “I can’t take much playing right now,” she said apologetically.

  “Who’s playing?” Thomas turned and knelt before her, spreading her thighs. “I’m still hungry for you.” He caught her gaze and held it, sliding his tongue along her nether lips before opening them to taste her.

  When her orgasm rippled over her, he sipped her honey and kissed the lips of her sex, paying homage to the wonder of having her.

  Willing her to understand how much he needed her, he worshipped her with his mouth, tongue and fingers until the water ran cold, pelting them with icy spray. When he kissed his way upward and moved to shut off the shower, she stopped him.

  “No, leave it on. It’ll carry away what we don’t burn.” She slid down his body and held his gaze as she said, “My turn.”

  Miz touched the tip of her tongue to his cock. It jerked in response as a current of heat stoked the fire
s inside him even higher.

  “You’re playing with fire, little girl,” he growled.

  “Am I?” She gave him an innocent smile right before she took him between her lips and deep throated him.

  “My God, woman,” he growled, not sure if he’d made a sound or if their connection had automatically kicked in. They were so together right now he could feel his pleasure in her brain. Her lips softened around him, sucking and caressing as she massaged his length in the back of her mouth.

  Thomas leaned his arms against the shower stall and surrendered to the bliss she provided with lips and tongue, losing himself in pleasure. After she’d swallowed his release, she tilted her head back and licked her lips.

  The gesture went straight to his groin and though he’d just come, his cock sprang back to life, stiff and randy. Thomas lifted her high, entering her with one thrust. He’d thought the earlier fucking and multiple orgasms should have been enough to siphon off her excess energy, but her channel squeezed his shaft in a hot pulsing rhythm that announced he was wrong.

  The heat radiating from her skin dried the water between them. Her orgasm vibrated through her body and Thomas pressed against her breasts, absorbing the spilled energy that heightened his senses and made him stronger with each stroke. When he came, jaguar and man both roared.

  “That is so damned sexy,” Miz mumbled and went limp in his arms.

  Thomas shut off the water and carried her to the bed. He lay with his head on Miz’s belly and she stroked her fingers up and down his spine, petting the jaguar as much as the man. Both purred under her affection.

  The jaguar stirred as she reached out tentatively with her mind. For once Thomas and beast agreed. They’d been separated from her too long. That wouldn’t happen again. He rolled his head sideways and blew a strawberry on her stomach, sighed and sat up. Playtime over.

  “Tell me about Braddock’s daughter, Lynette.”

  “There was chocolate in her stomach. I’d look for whoever gave her silver-laced bonbons. I don’t see it being accidental.” Miz shrugged. “It wouldn’t have killed her. She’d have worked it out of her system eventually, but not in time to go to the Harvest Ball.”

  Because silver poisoning was lethal to his kind, it wasn’t a metal kept on the premises in shifter homes. It sure wasn’t a food additive. “What’s the Harvest Ball got to do with it?”

  “Call it female intuition,” she said and shrugged. “I’m guessing Lynette has a boyfriend and a rival for his affections.”

  Miz didn’t seem overly concerned about Braddock’s kid, so Thomas quit worrying about Lynette and focused on what he’d brought Miz to DC for.

  “What’s wrong with Shep?” he asked. “When you looked at his thoughts, I felt it rock you.”

  “Pure animal rage blasted at me. I didn’t stop to say hello, that’s for sure.”

  “The sonofabitch put his beast in charge.” Thomas smiled, feeling hopeful for the first time in weeks.

  “You mean as in, shifter? Is Buchanan a werewolf? Or is he a big cat, like you?”

  “Nothing so tame.” Thomas thought about the beast living inside Shep Buchanan and snorted. “We need to get him out of here and take him back to West Virginia where you can work on him. If he loses his grip on his beast in this town, it might be an international incident.”

  “What about Lynette?”

  Thomas had one too many open cases right now to worry about.” Braddock can take care of finding out who sent his kid the bonbons,” he growled, flashing his teeth at Miz.

  She growled back, mocking him. Thomas held on to his control as the sound roused the jaguar from slumbering beast to predator on the hunt.

  They dressed fast. Miz seemed recovered. Actually she looked damned good, almost glowing with health. As for himself, he was relaxed and ready for action. He wanted Miz to visit the spot where Shep had been attacked.

  “Let’s get down to business,” he said gruffly.

  “What’d ya have in mind?” she drawled.

  “I need to line up transport, and then you and I are going to sneak Shep out. But first, we eat.” He was starving and with all the healing she’d done, he knew Miz had to be hungry too.

  “We’ve got thirty-two more hours before I have to be back.” She pointed at the clock, all playfulness gone from her expression.

  Chapter Twelve

  After Thomas slid in behind Miz, she started the engine. The sound of the Harley’s motor throbbed, interrupting the silence of the parking area.

  “Where to?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Have any favorites you want to see before we go sleuthing?”

  “Never been here before, Sunny.” She flashed him a grin, telegraphing her excitement. “Get ready to play tour guide.”

  He hugged her waist and leaned closer than necessary, using his proximity to keep the connection between them strong. Holding her made him feel euphoric. “Well, if I recall,” he drew out the words in a drawl, mimicking hers, “take a left at the next corner.” Happiness he’d never experienced permeated every molecule in Thomas’s body.

  Miz followed his directions and he guided her to the intersection of Tenth Street and Constitution Avenue. She pulled into a parking spot and let her motor idle as she studied the building in the pre-dawn mist and half-lighted landscape. The moon, still a bright wedge in the sky, cast a luminous glow over the majestic Smithsonian.

  “Sometime when it’s open, I’d like to come back,” Miz murmured.

  “We will,” Thomas promised. “Right now, let’s eat.”

  Morning traffic began to stir and before it became intense, he offered to drive the Harley. Miz snorted at the suggestion.

  “You tell me where you want to go and I’ll get you there,” she boasted.

  They cruised along the early morning streets of DC with Thomas pointing out the sights and Miz stopping once in a while to look closer. When the sun was up and Thomas was certain it was safe to stop, he pointed the way to the diner at the corner of Chesapeake and Davenport.

  “I’m hungry, how about you?” Miz asked as she climbed off the bike and took off her helmet.

  “I could eat a whole side of beef,” he told her.

  She looked at him sharply and then made that silly female snorting noise of hers before she drawled, “I bet you could, Sunny.”

  Not until they were seated and had ordered did she ask about the car that had been attempting to trail them. Thomas hadn’t pointed out the dark sedan but she’d seen it just the same. It was one of theirs, keeping tabs on him.

  Miz had made a last-moment dodge, leaving the tail behind as she cut between two tractor trailers to merge onto an exit ramp. After hair-raising swerves that scared the shit out of him, Thomas conceded that, been here before or not, his country girl had no trouble with city navigating.

  “Pretty fancy driving,” he complimented her and meant it. “You go to daredevil school or something?”

  She grinned at him and winked. It jolted a spot inside his chest, right about heart level.

  “I taught myself to ride on a trail named Devils’ Backbone,” she told him. “Maybe I’ll get to show it to you sometime.” The laughter went out of her expression then and she became somber.

  The waitress refilled the coffee and Miz grimaced but didn’t complain at the pot of cream she left. Thomas made a mental note to always carry packets of coffee creamer from now on. It was hard to concentrate on his courtship with the agency business in the way. It irritated him and made his beast surly.

  The steak and eggs were delivered and Miz waited until they’d both eaten a healthy portion of their food before she asked her first question. Leaning forward she said, “I’ve been thinking about this whole mess you’ve got going on here. Why didn’t someone just kill Shep if he was a target? Or if he’s holding some top-secret information why not just read his email or break into his office files?”

  “Shep doesn’t write anything down. He carries every piece of agency business in hi
s head.” It had always seemed sensible before Shep’s brain got hacked.

  “It’s either a small agency or he’s got a big brain,” Miz observed wryly.

  “Shep Buchanan is a genius with eidetic memory. He remembers not only everything he’s ever seen, he can repeat every conversation he’s ever heard, tell you the texture of anything he’s ever touched. He likes food and he can eat a meal and name the ingredients in every dish right down to the grains of salt and amount of pepper. He can also recognize the scent of a human after he’s smelled it once.”

  Thomas felt sick. Now every detail stored in Shep’s mental files about every shape-shifter Thomas knew and probably a hell of a lot more he didn’t know, every single DNA, print, scent, habit, home, girlfriend, wife, child, skin color, hair texture and fighting method—all in the hands of an unknown.

  Which was why, while he’d waited for his best friend to get control again, Thomas had stashed Shep at the hospital, stuck a twenty-four hour trusted security guard on him and lied about what was wrong. If whatever had Shep in its grip didn’t kill him, there was a town full of nervous shifters who would.

  Thomas understood why Buchanan kept every scrap of information secret and filed somewhere in his brain. Shep had brought them together, organized them into a cohesive unit and convinced the government to use his special op forces without revealing why his well-trained unit had such a high success rate. Nobody knew about shifters but shifters—except for the rare human mate and even some of them were kept in the dark.

  And Shep wanted it to stay that way. He’d maneuvered the politics of Washington effectively and, if what Thomas suspected proved true, Shep had deliberately placed shifters in key positions.

  “Well, damn,” Miz looked duly impressed. Then she ruined her respectful attitude when she snorted. “Better hope Mr. Genius remembers where he parked all those smarts when we rescue him. And then he needs a better filing system.”

  Considering all of that, it was pretty damned hard imagining Shep overlooking the existence of a healer in his own backyard. Miz and Shep were from the same state, county and country backwoods holler.