Chapter 11
Lana was seated at an empty table at the restaurant where Jackson had arranged to meet with her, waiting patiently after asking the hostess for him. She watched everyone as if she were a waitress planning to apply.
It was a nice place, she decided. The din of the rush had apparently quieted down, and the staff were busy cleaning the place up around the few straggling patrons. It was cute, homey. It seemed like a place where you could order a good, solid dinner of comfort food and talk with your friends.
Comfortable.
Kind of like Jackson.
The thought startled her. She hadn’t ever considered Roman’s second-in-command comfortable—at least not consciously. But apparently her subconscious had some other ideas.
She stood as the tall, handsome, blue-eyed Jackson approached her while brushing his thick, blond hair out of his face.
“Hi,” she said, suddenly shy to be meeting him in his own territory, away from the rest of the streak.
The pheromones seemed to thicken the air around them, swirling and dancing, playing on the air as they studied each other. A blush rose on both of their faces as they gazed into one another’s eyes, studying the features and perhaps looking for intent. In his peripheral vision, Jackson could see Luke stopped and staring at them both, locked in their own, private tension—an animal attraction that he hadn’t really expected.
“I’m glad you agreed to meet me here,” Jackson continued, clearing his throat and sitting with her at the table, trying desperately to push past whatever had just happened.
“Oh?” Lana’s face was masked in a quizzical look, her blush finally starting to settle as she watched him from across the table.
Jackson’s voice hushed to a near whisper, so much so that Lana had to lean in across the table to hear him properly. “I don’t know if Roman’s talked to you about this, but there are some local legends in the parks—about what the people here call ‘ghost tigers’. There have been some sightings, and that means sometimes there are poachers. Texans with guns, looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. So we’ll need to be careful when we run.”
“I see. And those ghost tigers?”
“Are usually us,” Jackson confirmed quietly.
Lana nodded as she sat back in her chair, the shifter-sensitive part of their conversation presumably over.
She couldn’t help but let her gaze pass over his body, taking in how incredibly chiseled his features were, the heavy brow that only helped accent his eyes. Lana realized she was chewing nervously on the inside of her full bottom lip and stopped immediately, fixing her posture and meeting Jackson’s eyes.
I am not nervous about this, she told herself. But at least with Roman she’d been able to get drunk first.
“Is it dangerous?” she asked. “Will we be okay?”
“No,” Jackson blurted in the middle of her sentence. “I mean, yes, it’s pretty dangerous but most of us are fine, we’re simply careful. Usually sticking to small groups. Safety in numbers, you know.”
Lana’s eyebrow cocked slightly at his last statement, but otherwise, she didn’t really react. “So, we should be all right to hunt together for a night or two?”
“Yeah,” Jackson pondered his next words carefully while looking intently at the table. “But you should be sure to stick with me. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you on my watch.” The corner of Jackson’s mouth drew up in a charming grin as his eyes met hers.
She could feel him laying it on pretty thick, giving them a reason to stick together. This could work. Tonight could be fun. “That actually sounds nice.”
His grin grew into a full-blown smile as her words met his expectant gaze. He stood and offered his hand to her, and she smiled up at him for a second before taking it. It was nice, to be out and making their own decisions without the weight of the streak on their shoulders, even if only for a night. For a moment, Lana and Jackson stood close, looking at each other. There was something intangible here, something that neither of them could name, but it hung in the air between them like a strong perfume.
Jackson broke the tension first. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah.” Lana headed out toward his pickup. She’d driven one of the streak’s extra cars out here, and she wouldn’t be sorry to leave it behind for a while.
“So, you own the restaurant?” Lana asked after they were on the road. She stared out at the sunset and the highway flashing by.
“Yeah,” Jackson replied, also looking anywhere but at her. “Bought it a few years ago. The place practically runs itself. I have a really great staff there.” Jackson laughed slightly and leaned forward to glance out the windshield, up at the stars. “As much as they bug me about my love life, I know I can depend on them to get their jobs done. How about you? Are you liking life in the streak?”
Lana’s gaze never left the road, but she couldn’t help but snicker. “Roman’s decided it’s up to me to organize the streak’s history. And to start, he’s put me in charge of organizing all the photos. Especially the baby photos. Pretty sure he’s trying to tell me something.”
Jackson froze briefly at the mention of Roman, and Lana wondered why. Still, he managed to recover the conversational thread.
“That’s awful,” he said in the most sarcastic voice he could muster. “You have to stare at pictures of super cute babies all day? That must be horrible.”
Lana shoved him playfully across the cab of the truck as they both started to laugh. “Shut up. It sucks when people have your whole life planned out for you before you even know what you want out of it.”
Her face froze. She hadn’t meant to say that at all.
“Yeah, I get that.” They drove a few more moments in silence, and then Jackson pulled into the parking lot of a small business close to the national park. “We’ll have to walk from here,” he said. “The park’s closed, so we’ll have to head in after we shift. A mountain-lion shifter owns this building; all the shifters park here when we go for runs. It’s an unofficial neutral zone.”
Lana grinned and nodded. They clambered out of the truck and she followed him as they moved along a small path heading into the park.
Jackson glanced back up at the stars and Lana followed his gaze. The moment was heavy with meaning, and she was painfully aware that this moment would be emblazoned upon her memory forever.
“Do you ever think about how small we are compared to everything out there?” Jackson asked, gesturing to the sky.
“Like nothing matters and everything is random and meaningless?” Lana replied, realigning her gaze to the skies as well. “That’s pretty bleak, isn’t it?”
“Aren’t you a pessimist?” Jackson said, a lilt of amusement clear in his voice. “Honestly, no. I mean, yeah we’re tiny and probably in the grand scheme of things pretty unimportant, but our lives are too intricate, too detailed to be accidental. It’s like, have you ever looked at a Monet painting and noticed how when you look at it up close it’s this hectic, disgusting mess of color that doesn’t make any sense at all? But the more you back up and look at it as a whole, the more you start to realize that even the smallest pinpoint of color far away in the background is there for a reason. Every brush stroke has a purpose.” Jackson looked at Lana closely as she turned her face to look at his. “Even we have a purpose—it’s just that we’re too close to see what it is.”
Lana wasn’t sure how to respond. The idea was beautiful and romantic, but she didn’t know how she actually felt about the idea of being a minute but terribly important detail in a much larger whole.
This wasn’t the Jackson she had dealt with up until now. Everything this Jackson said dripped in poetry, but she wasn’t so sure it was an accurate description, and she really wasn’t sure it was a good metaphor for life.
Certainly not when she considered how her father and Ian had died. Or how Trevor had held her captive, how the Incas had cut off Roman’s arm, leaving him feeling like only part of a man.
No. Life wasn’t all poetry.
But something in Jackson called to her, too. Like his worldview might balance all the darkness she’d lived with so far.
By this point, they had gotten deep enough into the trees to start their own little hunting rituals, to shift without being seen. They both stripped off their clothes, leaving them in a neat pile by a tree while respectfully trying to keep their eyes off one another—and failing pretty miserably. They each shifted smoothly into their feline forms, lunging onto all fours and taking off, running at top speed through the trees.
Jackson was a bit larger than Lana as a human, but even more so as a tiger. They ran together, but the longer their race went on, the further ahead Jackson got. Lana quickly became frustrated that he was so much faster than her, weaving in and out between the trees gracefully as though this were where he truly belonged. He took notice that she was lagging behind and slowed a little bit, allowing her to catch up, but she leapt on top of him, pulling him down to the ground before she rolled onto her feet and began running again.
Jackson let out a pained roar, more to tease her than anything else, before getting up and chasing after her. He might have been faster than her, but he couldn’t match her agility. When he finally caught up to her, she was in a clearing, purring as she stalked back and forth across the opposite side, staring at him, daring him to step into the circle. He walked forward tentatively, sniffing at the air around them when he caught her scent, and she his.
It was intoxicating, and now she was all he could focus on.
When he got too close for her liking, Lana stopped purring and swatted at him. Soon, they were play-fighting in the clearing, rolling around and gently biting one another. That tension, that intangible thing that seemed to tie them together was getting more clear, more unavoidable. Lana managed to roll over Jackson and dart off, letting out a short, guttural yowl as she ran back in the direction of their clothes.
He chased after her, following her scent like it was his destiny. She was an obsession for him right now, and all he could think about was catching up to her. It was visceral, instinctive, carnal. His paws pounded the ground as he ran as fast as he could through the massive trees. He finally caught up with her as she was slowing down near their clothing. They both shifted back into their human forms seamlessly, though it seemed like Jackson had never stopped moving toward her.
Jackson’s lips met Lana’s in a heated kiss, and soon, his hand was buried in her hair while his other arm was pulling her closer. Her arms wrapped gently around his neck as they wrestled each other passionately, her heart quickening in her chest, beating against her rib cage violently.
She realized her hands were shaking and she pulled away, taking a second to try to compose herself. She’d never been quite so frenzied before, her overwhelming attraction to him having grown in the weeks he’d avoided her—or at least, avoided
Now, with no reason to hold back, they were free to tear into each other. Lana gasped as she lowered herself onto him, as she lost herself to the heat of their bodies moving together in unison, intuitively.
Jackson flipped her onto her back forcefully, taking control and pinning her to the ground. The way her voice rang out told him he was doing something right. He delighted in this, wanting desperately to watch her, to relish in the fact that he was the one prying these sounds from her small frame.
They fought each other for control, Lana trying to work her way back on top of him and failing each time, until eventually she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, pulling his cock deep into her. Her moans grew in desperation, in urgency. Jackson could feel her hot breath on his ear as she leaned up and whispered lustfully into his ear.
“Harder...”
Whatever resistance he’d had to her, he lost the last of it at that moment, following her directions as he pounded harder, faster, deeper. He was her puppet, he would give in to her every whim. They moved together again, no longer fighting against one another for control, no longer wrestling in their animalistic state, but delighting in each other’s pleasure. Their mounting cries tapered off in satisfaction as they finally slowed, finished and sweaty, ready to fall asleep in each other’s arms. They lay together like that for some time, catching their breath and absorbing what had happened, before either of them finally moved to sit up or get dressed.
Lana was pulling twigs and dead leaves out of her hair and assessing the damage left on her skin when Jackson spoke.
“So what now?”
Suddenly, despite all her plans, Lana was terrified. Her heart pounded in her chest and her hands began to shake again. “We’ll be fine. We’re good.” She smiled at him unconvincingly. “It’ll be fine.”
Jackson laughed slightly and kissed her again. “I believe you.”
She wished she believed herself. But she had the most unbelievable urge to go apologize to Roman for having had sex with Jackson.
How can I possibly fall for more than one man? What is wrong with me?
She dressed and headed back to his truck without another word, practically running away from Jackson.
He was left staring after her in the forest, completely shell shocked.