Her face went pink as she gazed at his ordinary cotton briefs. He was hard behind them—how the hell could he help it? Jamison tugged off his socks then, without modesty, pulled off the briefs.
The way her gaze swiveled to his needy arousal was gratifying. She’d always liked to look at him, lord knew why. She’d wet her lips like she was eager to savor every inch of him.
Two years without Naomi had been way too damn long. He loved every molecule of the woman. Why do I love her? he’d once asked his grandfather, who was a much better shaman than Jamison could ever hope to be. Was it some kind of trickster magic? Jamison had spent his entire life on the Navajo reservation, scoffing at white people and white ways. Then a woman with blue green eyes had smiled at him, and he’d fallen like boulders in an avalanche.
He’d fallen so hard he’d moved into her house in the middle of a white man’s town. In the middle of a community who believed that the ghost of a steam train chugged through their little town every Christmas. The gods had to be laughing their asses off at him. Except Jamison hadn’t felt humiliated.
He’d been happy.
Jamison crossed his hands over his chest and closed his eyes. He drew on the stillness he’d learned deep in drug-induced dreams, looking for the center of calm that nothing could breach.
He found the beast right where he’d left it. The beast had terrified Jamison the first time, and he’d been convinced he’d been put under a spell or cursed by a sorcerer. The Changers in Mexico had explained everything to him. Whatever else they’d done, they’d at least let him understand.
Jamison’s mouth always changed first. His flat human teeth enlarged and elongated, becoming sharp canines, top and bottom. His face pushed forward, his jaw and tongue re-forming to fit the new mouth.
The strangest feeling was the whiskers poking out sharp and hard from the sides of his face.
The mouth took the longest, then the rest of his head followed rapidly. Ears pricked, his hearing sharpened, and his eyes became round and wide. His spine narrowed and lengthened, and claws erupted on his now huge feline feet. He fell to all fours, feeling a long tail twitching behind him.
He wanted to roar but stifled it; there was enough of his own consciousness left to realize what would happen if someone heard a wildcat snarl in Naomi’s bedroom. He lifted his gaze to Naomi, his world now black-and-white, the edges rounded and slightly concave. She stared back at him, her red-lipped mouth open, her blue green eyes wide.
His beautiful, brave lady didn’t scream or faint. She simply gaped at him for a moment then said,
“Jamison, what the f**k?”
TWO
This couldn’t be happening. Naomi stared at the mountain lion that gazed back at her from the middle of her bedroom rug. A mountain lion. In her bedroom.
Jamison Kee had turned from a magnificently nude man into a mountain lion.
He looked back at her with the large dark eyes of a hunting cat, his lips parted to show huge, sharp teeth. She’d never seen a mountain lion this close before—never seen one at all, in fact, except in a zoo or through a pair of strong binoculars. She noted every detail—the light tawny color of his pelt; the black around his muzzle and the tip of his tail; the round, pricked ears; the heavy muscles of his shoulders and chest.
He looked bigger than she thought mountain lions were—his head would reach her chest if she were brave enough to go to him. And his eyes held intelligence. Jamison’s intelligence.
“Jamison,” she whispered.
The mountain lion growled softly. Then its face began to flatten as it rose on its hind legs. The transformation she’d witnessed happened in reverse, and in a few seconds, Jamison stood on his flat feet, naked in front of her.
They stared at each other in dead silence for a full minute. Then, as though to make sure she got the point, Jamison morphed back into the mountain lion.
“Jamison, why are you doing this to me?”
The mountain lion padded toward her. Naomi stood frozen, unable to run, unsure she wanted to run.
She was right, his head came up to her chest. He butted against her like a tabby cat, rumbling in his throat as he stroked his forehead across her br**sts.
Naomi didn’t like how her body flushed with heat, how her ni**les tightened. She tentatively pushed him away, and he turned his head into her hand, rubbing his whiskers against it.
She started to laugh. “That tickles.”
The mountain lion reared up and placed his paws gently on her shoulders. The look in his eyes was almost amused as he swiped a rough tongue across her cheek.
“Jamison.”
The cat morphed back into Jamison. Now she had his tall, naked body against her clothed body. He leaned down and licked her neck, his hot breath sending fire through every nerve. He gently bit where he’d licked.
“Please tell me that was a trick,” she said. “You’re playing a trick on me.”