Free Drawing Deep by Jennifer Dellerman Page B

there it was. Lilac blossoms under a light layer of fresh snow.
    The heady fragrance was so faint as to be non-existent. He knew it wasn’t her soap or shampoo as he’d already discarded surface scents. This one though. This one caused his cat to leap to its feet with an alert swiftness that put his earlier move to shame. Razor sharp teeth gleamed as the feline opened his mouth wide in silent demand.
    Son of a bitch.
    “Am I boring you?”
    Santos opened his eyes, having no idea when he’d closed them. Probably when the truth, and not the possibilities or the potentials, had hit him in the gut like the sledgehammer he once threatened to take to Porter. There was no longer any doubt in his mind. Ria was his mate.
    Mates weren’t a one-time-only shot. There were actually hundreds of potential mates for a shifter. Women who had compatible genes, ensuring that any male offspring could take on their paternal animal form at puberty. Daughters of a mated couple didn’t have the same ability, the belief that the change was too violent on the body and thus destroy any child the woman would carry.
    A true mate, however, was one that not only had the right DNA, she intrigued the cat, and the man, on multiple levels. It wasn’t much different than human pairings. Physical, mental and emotional draws, intimacy and companionship both in bed and out. Bonds that only strengthened with time, affection and a deep sense of knowing each other, inside and out.
    Santos felt slightly giddy, a wide grin creasing his face at the knowledge that the woman standing before him with the indigent expression of a ticked off female, was his. Not that he could pounce and claim her this very instant as he craved. No, he needed to put a plan into action. One that wouldn’t alarm her, and wouldn’t make him go near insane with need. Because despite her little show of temper, he couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t rabbit.
    “Of course you’re not boring me. I was just thinking about pirates.”
    “Pirates?” She shook her head as if his statement came out of the blue.
    “Hmm. Claude Morgan was, by all accounts, a very successful pirate. Who, if the stories are to be believed, mysteriously vanished only to reappear in Florida several years later as Cort Fylin, a wealthy Frenchman. Cort built the house and created a thriving pepper plantation along with his young Calusa bride.”
    A slow sweep of lashes that fleetingly hid stunning eyes the color of turbulent clouds. “Your ancestor.”
    It wasn’t a question. “Yes. Could the ruin be part of a Calusa village? A structure that Claude-Colin emulated when he built the house?”
    Ria was shaking her head before Santos finished. “No. Their territory was much farther south. Sarasota, Fort Myers. Basically the south central and western parts of Florida. Besides, I doubt the Calusa would leave stone carvings depicting Mayan art and Egyptian mythology.”
    Stymied, Santos shifted his legs apart and crossed his arms over his chest. Her eyes dropped to follow the move, resting a long moment on the hand he had over his bicep. He couldn’t help it. He flexed that muscle. Her quick inhalation and the subsequent wave of feminine arousal had him biting the inside of his cheek, steeling his feet against the earth. Now that he’d uncovered the richness of her true scent, could pinpoint it from a thousand others with ease, along with the knowledge that she was sunk along with him deep in the pull of the mating heat, resisting her would become near impossible. “That’s random.”
    Her gaze jumped back to his. “What? Oh. I didn’t tell you about the stones we uncovered.” Before he could open his mouth, she waved a hand in the air in front of her like she was erasing a chalkboard. “Not those. There’s a three feet by eight feet section of the ruin made of whitish stones. Like ash. They varying in size and shape and some even contain etchings similar to Mayan and Egyptian artwork. Tomorrow we’ll finish