Romancing the leopard, p.2
Romancing the Leopard, page 2
Tom leaned close and clapped Dylan on the shoulder. “Be nice when you say hi and I bet she’ll smile like that for you.”
Dylan blinked, but before he could respond, Tom winked and walked away, chuckling under his breath.
Dylan faced the woman again. Apparently, he did need to introduce himself to his neighbor because he didn’t hesitate in taking Tom’s advice.
She bounced on her toes as she moved around her scope, adjusting the base and eyepiece, before turning her attention to the tablet in her hand. She was all energy and spark, in constant motion. What would all that energy be like in bed? He stopped that line of thinking in its tracks. Better get her name first before he leapt to fantasies of tangling in a sleeping bag with her. Not that he hadn’t already made that leap.
When he was within a few feet, he cleared his throat to get her attention, and so he wouldn’t startle her. She looked up, blinking at him, and he smiled a greeting.
Her mouth hung open a little before she snapped it shut.
Okay, so maybe he had surprised her. “Hi,” he said, making an attempt to look harmless and take Tom’s advice to be nice. “Guess we’ll be neighbors for a few days.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t reach out toward her. He could pretend he was just offering to shake her hand, but he knew what he really wanted was to feel the texture of her skin. “Thought I should introduce myself.”
She shook her head and said, “Oh, yeah. Yes. Sorry. Hi. I guess we will.” She blinked. “Oh, the sun’s going down.”
He chuckled. “Tends to happen this time of day.”
This close he finally got her scent, carried to him clearly on the shifting breeze. The scent made his leopard sit up and growl. It was rich, full of complex flavors—human, something sharp and tangy like lemon mixed with sweet, smoky nutmeg, musk, and…he almost wanted to say sizzling ozone, like the way the air tasted after a lightning strike. Not like magic, though that was a similar electrical scent. She wasn’t a magic wielder. This was different. He’d never smelled anything quite like her before. No human he’d met had that flavor. He liked it.
His leopard liked it a lot.
Too much. Her scent was catnip, a flavor he wanted to soak up and explore. But he still couldn’t explain why he reacted to her so strongly. Still, with her scent hanging in the air between them, it took an act of will to stay on his side of the imaginary line separating her little camping lot from his.
She bounced on her toes again, humming a little under her breath. He probably wasn’t supposed to hear the hum it was so quiet. She sounded like she was chanting, “Focus, focus, focus,” as she stared at her scope. Was something wrong with the eyepiece?
He didn’t want to disturb her or make her uncomfortable, so he should step away, give her some room. They’d be here a few days. He had time to get to know her a little better, figure out why he couldn’t stop staring at her. He started to turn away when he realized he hadn’t even gotten her name yet.
And despite his better judgement, he reached out a hand toward her when he said, “I’m Dylan by the way. Dylan Jones.”
2
Cat had never experienced so much trouble focusing. At least, so much trouble focusing on something she loved. When she was in her element, contemplating the delights of particle physics and the effects of quantum mechanics on the universe, getting her to stop focusing was usually the problem.
But the man who’d parked next to her in the field was definitely a distraction. A gorgeous, sexy, hot-as-hell-with-a-voice-like-sin distraction. She felt a little blindsided. What sort of human being looked like that? All hulking muscles, dark brown hair, blue eyes, a face like it was formed by some sort evil genius intent on making people melt with lust.
And his voice! If sin and sex had a voice, it was this man’s.
Not that she thought there was anything sinful about sex. She was all for sex. Enthusiastic even. But…this guy’s voice brushed across her like a dark fire that made her burn inside, and the instant lust went well beyond anything she’d felt before, paling all her past sexy thoughts.
Focus, Cat, focus. She repeated the chant in her head that she’d breathed out loud moments ago.
But how the hell was she going to concentrate on the eclipse—on anything!—when all she wanted to do was drink in the gorgeousness next to her?
It took her an amazingly long second of helpless staring, during which she contemplated the relativity of time when faced with a sex god, for his introduction to sink in.
She should probably do something about his extended hand before things got any more awkward. She took a few steps closer to him, shook his hand in two hard pumps, and released quickly because touching him made everything inside her dance and tighten. His hands were warm, and large, and his fingertips were a little rough, and all she could think about was how that roughness might feel scraping over her skin.
Her head was going to explode.
She scurried backward those couple of steps she’d taken closer to him and said, “Catalina Donovan. Cat.” Because despite herself, her mother and then her sister, had insisted she adopt socially acceptable manners. Sometimes she even remembered to use those manners.
His smile deepened, and for maybe the first time in her entire life, Cat couldn’t think. Her mind went absolutely blank.
Wow.
She mentally shook herself. She’d always admired good-looking men, but unless she knew they could vaguely keep up with her mind, the attraction didn’t usually last long. She didn’t want to spend time with a man who made her feel like she had to dumb things down for him. Her sister had raised her better than that. She hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with Dylan Jones. He could be a complete idiot for all she knew. A sexist frat boy. A misogynist. He could be gay and not interested in her. He could be straight but still not interested in her. There were all sorts of options that would make her sexy feelings irrelevant. He could be…
He could be an asshole like the stupid tiger shifter men who wouldn’t leave her the fuck alone.
She probably needed to exchange more than a few words with Dylan, get to know if he was one of the assholes or not. That would help. Right?
And yet…her brain seized. The experience was so rare, she found herself studying it. This was what happened to other people, huh? They had moments when their brain didn’t do anything and they could just exist without the constant stream of ideas and thinking. No actual thoughts. She realized those were thoughts she was having. That she was thinking. But now she was thinking about thinking, and that should have been distracting enough to allow her to hold a conversation…
Nope. She had nothing. No idea what to say to the stunning Dylan Jones. She couldn’t stop staring at him. But she also couldn’t seem to find a comment.
“I have a sister named Caitlin,” he said, returning his hands to his pockets. “We shorten it to Cate, though. I like Cat.”
“Uh huh,” she said. She really wasn’t used to feeling tongue-tied. This was weird. “My sister’s name is Amy.”
“How many siblings?”
He was good at small talk. Damn it. “Just one. Her name’s Amy,” she repeated, then winced. “She’s married.” Why did she feel the need to say that? Small talk. This was what other people did. They made small talk with strangers they’d just met and didn’t know. Wait, was this small talk? She was so off center she wasn’t sure about anything anymore. “Did you know we can test Einstein’s theory of gravity during the eclipse? Need pictures obviously, but measuring the lensing of the stars behind the sun should be possible.”
She blinked. What, Cat? What? She knew for sure that wasn’t small talk. Everyone had told her, more than once, Einstein’s theory of gravity wasn’t small talk.
And yet, she didn’t stop. “During totality. I was thinking of trying it. Getting pictures of the lensing. Working out the math. For the fun of it obviously.”
“Obviously,” he said, his voice quiet and amused.
She didn’t even pause in her rambling. “It’s been done a lot. Since 1919. Einstein, right. Lots of confirmations. But still, it could be fun. Seeing the lensing through our little scopes. Being able to prove it. Well, my scope is little. Haven’t seen yours yet.” Her cheeks heated. Cat Donovan, stop already! She really wanted to shut up but words kept pour out.
“I’d actually intended to take pictures that would let me see the lensing for myself, too,” he said.
And she finally stopped talking.
“Relativity isn’t my specialty. I’m more of a spectroscopy kind of guy. Studying stars for my thesis. But who doesn’t love reproving Einstein, right?”
Her jaw went a little slack. “You study stars?”
“It’s the focus of my thesis,” he said. “Been work on spectroscopy comparisons of stars off the main sequence. Nothing ground breaking, just adding to the data, but I like the precision of it.”
Wow.
“So, not just an amateur astronomer, then?” she asked.
He grinned. Her knees actually weakened. Like, she might just fall down. That was… Wow.
“Well, since I’m not making my living at it yet, I guess you could still call me an amateur.”
“Me neither,” she said, still trying to get over his smile. “Not working yet. Finishing my Ph.D. Second one. I have some job offers.” She winced. More rambling.
Usually, she didn’t mind her rambling. It weeded out the people she didn’t want to talk to. But right now, she felt too out of control, too stunned, too… Entirely too eager to strip him naked and spend the next few hours exploring that stunning body while he talked about stars. She was pretty sure if he said spectroscopy again she was going to have an orgasm.
Focus, Cat, focus. This eclipse was a rare opportunity and she didn’t want to miss out on any of it. Not that eclipses didn’t happen all the time. They did. All over the world. In all kinds of phases. But having totality pass over the US hadn’t happened in almost a century, and since she was busy finishing her second Ph.D. and had to finally settled into a job and a research topic soon, travelling around the world to watch eclipses wasn’t high on her list of “need to”s. At least not yet. Someday maybe she’d have the money and time to traipse around the world watching the moon block the sun’s light.
The reminder that she had to pick a focus for her research, and choose from her current job offers soon, made her stomach tighten—not for good reasons. Yes, it was nice having job offers. A lot of her friends and acquaintances from college didn’t, and had massive student loans that needed paying back. She’d been lucky with scholarships and a rare mind that research universities knew would draw grant money.
Sometimes, though, all that choice got to be a little overwhelming, emotionally speaking. And overwhelming emotions could make her shut down, hide in her own mind, and not get around to making those decisions.
They were decisions about her entire life and…well, she wasn’t sure how to make those choices yet. Which was why she was giving serious thought to a third Ph.D. instead of accepting any of the jobs. Her sister would kill her if she did that, though.
And just to add insult to injury, she had the whole tiger shifter shit to deal with.
She shook off the worry as Dylan spoke in that sex-on-a-stick voice again, capturing her full attention. He could definitely make her forget her worries.
“Second Ph.D., huh?” he said. “That’s impressive. What’s your focus?”
“First one was particle physics. This one is quantum mechanical effects around black holes.” Those were the overview answers she gave most people because most couldn’t understand the specifics of what she was working on. Words like black holes and particles were common enough people’s gazes didn’t tend to glaze over.
She had a weird feeling she could discuss the specifics with this guy and he wouldn’t blink. He still might not understand everything she said—not even her professors could always follow her thinking—but he might actually understand enough to keep from getting bored.
“Impressive,” he said again, his voice lower and deeper.
Her stomach danced at that sound, her thighs tightened, and she wanted to wrap her legs around him and lose herself in all his sexiness until morning. Maybe for the next few days. The eclipse wasn’t until Monday.
Without her permission, her gaze traveled over the breadth of his shoulders, the way his t-shirt fit tight across his chest and biceps, the sinew and strength in his forearms, covered with a dusting of dark hair. He still had his hands in his pockets but her thoughts jumped to that roughness on his fingertips again. She had a lot of sensitive spots that would enjoy feeling the rub of that roughness.
She gave herself another internal head shake, trying to clear her thoughts. But he was still smiling. It was impossible to think or focus when he was smiling. If she didn’t look away now, she wouldn’t have to worry about unfiltered sunlight burning out her retinas. Staring at Dylan Jones would take care of that.
Her stomach tightened when his gaze locked with hers.
She could think of worse ways to go.
* * *
If Dylan had thought the woman was magnetic before, he’d been wrong. Being this close to her, talking with her… She dazzled him.
And everything around them sort of fell away. The sounds of all the human conversations, the scents of barbeque, the dust as a car eased down the dirt path between camping spots, the darkening sky. It all just dropped off his radar. All his attention zeroed in on Cat Donovan.
She rambled, hopping subjects, but beneath that he heard the genius, and it was everything he could do not to close the space between them and claim that gorgeous mouth. He held his place a couple of meters away, hands firmly in his pockets so he’d keep them to himself, and watched her talk. Something about a smart woman who smelled like lightning.
Catnip.
There was more to her, too. More in her scent. It tickled his nose, teasing him with hints of… He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t really pause to analyze that tantalizing mystery. He was too busy trying to keep up with her thoughts on how the discovery of the Higgs boson was just the start to what particle physics could do to help unlock the connection between quantum physics and relativity. At least, he thought that was what she was getting at. There was something in there about the singularity at the heart of black holes, too.
It took a lot of concentration to follow her thoughts, and even then, he wasn’t entirely sure he understood what she was saying. He had a base knowledge of physics and chemistry for his specialty. But Cat Donovan took the conversation to the next level.
It was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard.
She blinked a few times, refocusing on his face, and a delicious blush crept up from her chest, across her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I got a little off topic there,” she said.
“Not really.” He grinned. “We didn’t have a topic to get off.”
“Uhm.”
Well. He’d managed to render her speechless. He bet that didn’t happen often. “Do you know which job you’ll be taking after you finish this Ph.D.?”
Her face pinched in a frown, then she shook her head and said, “I’m still deciding.”
“The big research facilities must be beating down your door.”
He should probably end this conversation and leave her alone. At least for a little bit. She kept blinking at him like she didn’t quite know what to do with him. He could offer some suggestions, most of which involved one of their tents and a lot less clothing, but it was probably too early for that.
And really, he shouldn’t be getting this distracted by a woman. He had plans for the next few days. Late nights that involved star pictures, not fucking his neighbor. He could already feel himself slipping away from the event, his whole focus on her, and if he didn’t shake himself loose soon, he’d miss the whole damned thing.
His twin, Julia, would never let him live that down.
Cat looked away from him finally, glancing at her telescope. Giving him the mental space he needed to realize she probably wanted to get back to what she’d been doing before he introduced himself.
He opened his mouth to say he’d leave her to her work now, but instead he said, “I was going to find some food. Want to join me?” Then before she could turn him down because she’d just set up her scope and wouldn’t want to leave it sitting out, he said, “Or I could bring something back for you.”
His leopard growled in approval. His leopard side loved feeding women. Especially this woman. Which was something Dylan probably needed to think about more when he could think clearly again.
She opened her mouth, and he was pretty sure she was going to refuse his offer—her expression and scent both confirmed she was hesitating—but then she said, “I could eat.”
Her eyes widened as if her response surprised her.
He hid his smile. “What can I bring you?”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
And her eyes widened more, so wide the expression might have made him laugh but he was too busy quieting his leopard’s surge of triumph. She’d just agreed to a walk, he reminded himself, and getting some food from the concessions tent. Not a date. Not an offer to slip into her tent for some hot, sweaty sex. Just two acquaintances going to get some food in the middle of a big field with hundreds of people wandering around doing the exact same thing. He hadn’t achieved anything here. She hadn’t agreed to anything more.
But his leopard viewed this as a first step.
A first step toward what?
“I just need to put my scope up,” she said, quickly turning to take her scope back off the tripod.
He returned to his truck to lock up, tossing a blanket over his gear still on the backseat even though they were at an event where a lot of people had telescopes and he probably didn’t have to worry about theft. He kept his back to Cat so he could think a little, but he was so aware of her moving around behind him that trying to analyze his reactions to her was impossible.
