Isabeau blinked back the tears burning in her eyes. She’d thrown herself at him and he’d turned her down. Her pride was on the ground, trampled. He didn’t want her. She ducked her head, bending at the waist to drag in air. It was a mistake. She could scent all the men now, a heady mix of lust and male potency.
If you don’t knock it off, you female hussy, I’m going to strangle you, she hissed at her cat. She wanted to claw her way down Conner’s muscular back. Who would have thought muscles could be so defined? She knew it wasn’t the cat—or at least just the cat. She wanted Conner, and her cat emerging was a great cover. But he didn’t want her.
How could that be when she wanted him with every fiber of her being? She couldn’t close her eyes without images of him haunting her. She couldn’t take a breath without needing him. Damn him for rejecting her. He had been the one spouting the law of the rain forest was a higher law, and yet when she’d taken the chance, he’d shut her down. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to get him to kiss her, hoping he’d take it from there. If he didn’t want her anymore, well . . . She lifted her head and looked at the men talking to Jeremiah in the clearing just a short distance away.
She’d told Adan she would try to seduce one of Imelda Cortez’s guards because she knew she would never feel for another man the way she felt for Conner. Seduction still had possibilities. Maybe being a leopard meant she could be promiscuous and not care. Maybe her moral scruples would be overcome much easier than she’d ever believed. She moved closer, wanting to hear what they were saying.
She was acutely aware of Conner joining the other men. He stood out. For her, she feared he would always stand out. The light fell across his hair and body, illuminating him in the darkened, dappled clearing. He ran his fingers through his hair, slicking it back haphazardly in the way she found sexy. She almost hated him in that moment. She looked away from him and her gaze met Jeremiah’s.
He kept casting Isabeau small amorous glances, unable to keep his eyes off of her. Clearly he found her attractive. He flexed his muscles for her and she tried not to be amused. It wasn’t fair that she thought of him as a young boy when he was nearly her age. Conner just seemed so much more of a man, with a man’s ripped physique.
Jeremiah flexed again and shot Conner a quick glance before sending her a smile. Rio called out to him and he took off running, stripping as he went, tossing his shirt aside and ripping his jeans down, glancing back at Isabeau as he did so. The material trapped his ankles and he went down, head over heels, rolling across the clearing, half-naked, tangled in his jeans.
“What the hell was that?” Rio demanded.
“I know exactly what that was,” Conner said ominously, stalking across the clearing to Jeremiah.
“Conner!” Elijah moved quickly to intercept. “He’s just a kid.”
“He knows the rules.”
Jeremiah scrambled to his feet, looking defiant. “Maybe you’re just worried because I’ve got larger than average equipment and you think she’ll prefer me?”
“Because of the size of your dick?” Conner looked him up and down and there was contempt on his face. “Sorry, kid, that’s not going to cut it. You can’t even get your pants off when you need to. I doubt you’ll be too impressive trying to perform.”
Outraged, Jeremiah tore his jeans from around his ankles and threw them in disgust, rushing at Conner. Elijah caught him and threw him away from the other man.
“Idiot. You’re going to get yourself killed. Can’t you tell when a man’s mate is in the Han Vol Dan? Have some fucking respect.”
Jeremiah stopped in his tracks and looked at Isabeau. They all did—with the exception of Conner. She tried not to turn bright red. She looked at the ground, wishing it would open up and swallow her. She turned and walked into the comparative shelter of the trees to watch as Jeremiah dressed and prepared to start over again.
Watching him run, strip and shift made her itch to try shifting. She’d been over her father’s office carefully, getting into his private papers, and there had been no mention of the leopard people. She didn’t believe that he knew. Her mother must have died in childbirth just as Conner had speculated and no one had come to claim the infant. He had relocated from the Amazon to Borneo around the time of her birth. There was a good chance her people were there. Maybe she should go try to find them.
She couldn’t go back to Borneo. She couldn’t stay in Panama. Conner was everywhere. She would have gone anywhere with him, even knowing he had brought about the downfall of her father. She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, ashamed of herself. It was a convenient excuse, a way to keep her hurt alive. Her father had brought about his own downfall. Conner’s sin had been in seducing her when he didn’t mean it.
He hurt her pride. He was still hurting it, but he wasn’t responsible for the things her father had done. He’d used her just as she was asking him to use Imelda Cortez in order to get back the missing children. Did the end justify the means? Didn’t that make her a hypocrite?
She pressed her fingers to her temples and willed her body to calm down. She didn’t want to leave without seeing this through. She owed it to Adan and even to Conner’s mother, who had befriended her, as well as all the children who had been taken. She took a deep breath and let it out, pacing back and forth to get rid of as much excess energy as she could before going back to join the others.
Isabeau walked with her head up, refusing to be intimidated or humiliated by the group of men. Whatever she was, whatever was happening to her apparently was normal in their world and she refused to be afraid. She might desperately want sex, but she didn’t lack courage.
She watched the mechanics of the change over and over. Eventually she got over seeing a naked body and became fascinated by the actual shifting. It looked as if it could be painful, although it seemed to happen so fast as Jeremiah ran that maybe it wasn’t that bad.
Rio, Felipe and Elijah shook their heads and looked at one another as they timed Jeremiah’s run for the umpteenth time.
“Too slow, Jeremiah,” Conner snapped. “Do it again. And this time think about someone shooting at you while you’re running. You’re younger than any of us and you should be faster. You need to shave fifteen or twenty seconds off of your time.”
Jeremiah shot Conner a look of utter disgust. “Jealous bastard,” he muttered under his breath. “It can’t be done.”
Jeremiah should have known better. Conner had excellent hearing. Conner stalked across the forest floor to loom over the younger leopard. “You don’t think it can be done? Not only can it be done, you young lazy cub, but it can be done racing through the trees, not in some nice clearing like this one.”
Jeremiah compounded his sins by sneering openly. “I don’t believe you.”
Rio came up behind him silently and cuffed him on the back of the head, the blow hard enough to rock the kid. “Stop whining and try to learn something. If you’re going to be working with us, you have to know how to stay alive. You didn’t even hear me coming.”
Isabeau turned away to hide her smile. Jeremiah really was a large child, wanting the respect of the other leopards, but not wanting to work that hard for it. They were all exasperated with him. They’d been working all morning and it was becoming clear he was a bit self-indulgent and lazy.
“You said your family was from Costa Rica?” she ventured, forcing herself to keep a straight face.