Free CatOutoftheBag by Tatiana Caldwell Page A

the condom as he came, bucking hard.
    As soon as he went limp and pulled out of her, Sofia went
limp too, and she crumpled to her knees, but Nathan caught her in his arms and
held her up, still wobbly and woozy from ecstasy himself.
    “Are you okay?” he asked as she studied her, his voice gruff
with his release and his concern. “Did I hurt you?”
    “No,” she laughed. “No. Not in a bad way at least. I’m just
completely spent. All the shape-shifting and walking and running and sexing…”
She trailed off as she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, a wide smile
on her face.
    Nathan scooped her up into his arms, carried her into the
tent and laid her down. He unrolled and unzipped the sleeping bag and helped
her inside it. Then he squeezed into the bag with her, holding her close to
him. “I’m so sorry, babe, I wasn’t thinking. I should have slowed down.”
    Sofia laughed softly. “And you called me an animal.”
She snuggled against him with her hand pressed tenderly against his chest, and
fell asleep soon after that.
    He laid there with her in his arms and his lips pressed
against her forehead, staring at the shadows the blowing tree branches made
outside the tent. All of this was unprecedented. The loss of control—as if he
were a teenager again. The need to have her all to himself. The free frolicking
through the fields. The raging libido. The tantalizing tongue baths. He’d even
contemplated impregnating this woman. Was he…was he in love with her?
    For a long while he stayed awake, holding her like that,
trying to comprehend the idea of meeting and falling in love with someone in
six days, and precisely how that might have happened. By the time he began to
drift off, the one thing he knew for certain was that now that he had her in
his arms, he never, ever wanted to let go.

Chapter Eight
     
    Sofia took one last, long look from this place on the
mountain. With the sun still up, it was not too cool to enjoy the breeze, and
so she stood for a moment, enjoying the scenery and the wind flitting through
her hair. This high up, clouds were near eye level, forming a misty but serene
view of the other mountain peaks and the world below. It was three o’clock and
the late afternoon sun cast one last ray of light through the clouds in the
distance, like a beacon of hope and peace and promises of good things to come.
    But all good things had to come to an end.
    Who knew when would be the next time she’d get to enjoy a
view this gorgeous, a week this free, a moment this perfect. Tilting her head
to the side, she listened to Nathan moving in the tent behind her, cheerfully
humming some tune she didn’t recognize. She smiled to herself.
    She certainly hoped this wouldn’t be the last day she got to
spend time with this man.
    They’d spent two full days and two nights out in the
wilderness alone, conquering the tricky nuances of being Werecats and exploring
the carnal pleasures of being lovers. Not in a million years could she have
dreamed that this was how her week-long getaway would turn out. But neither in
a million years would she have had it any other way.
    If only she could stay out here like this with Nathan
forever. Then she laughed at herself for wishing it. Whoa, slow down there,
girl! So you had a great time with the man. What’s with this forever stuff? You
just met him this week! She glanced down at her mobile phone in her hand,
miffed by the number of unread emails from work. Damn mountain and its
freakishly good cellular reception. Her fantasy week was just about over now.
It was time to go—she had responsibilities to return to. She exhaled deeply and
then turned around toward the tent.
    “Would you like to go up to the summit?” Nathan asked.
“Might as well go all the way up while you’re out here, you know?”
    “No, we should head back to the cave now,” Sofia said as she
went inside the tent and tossed her phone into the backpack. “I need to get
cleaned up, get my stuff