To get what he wants, he’ll have to rattle her cage…

Jaguar’s Kiss
© 2014 Vivi Andrews

Lone Pine Pride, Book 1

Lila Fallon, the Lone Pine Pride Alpha’s only daughter, has
been betrothed
since childhood to marry her father’s chosen successor. The
match is designed
to maintain peace by shoring up any cracks in pride solidarity.

She’s always known she would do her duty—she just never
expected to meet a
man who would tempt her to throw it all away.

As a black panther, Santiago Flores couldn’t be a less
suitable mate for the
Alpha’s purebred lioness daughter. But that doesn’t change
the fact that for
every one of the five years he’s been with the Lone Pine
Pride, he’s been
head-over-heels in love with her. And when the Alpha
announces that Lila’s
indefinite engagement is about to end in a very definite
marriage, Santiago
is through holding his peace.

From their very first kiss, Santiago rattles Lila’s neatly
ordered world. But
can a lioness who’s always lived to please everyone else
risk everything to
please herself?

Warning: This book contains tempting lone-wolf jaguars,
lionesses who long
for fairy tale endings, arranged marriages, tangled emotions
and a pride full
of trouble.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Jaguar’s Kiss:

Maybe Lila was a coward after all. There really wasn’t any
other explanation
for the fact that she was fleeing from her fiancé. She
slowed to a walk,
stumbling a little as the alcohol sloshed through her
bloodstream. She was
almost back to where she’d shattered the beer bottle. She
was really having a
bang up night. Temper tantrums, running away—

The thought evaporated as she saw the figure standing in the
darkness next to
the fence post with her hair ribbon tied around it, staring
out over the elk
enclosure. For a second she was terrified Roman had circled
around them and
she would have to face him after all, then she realized the
form didn’t have
the bulk to be the future Alpha. No, this shadow was all
sleek strength, dark
hair, and the smoky scent of a jaguar teasing her as the
wind shifted.

Santiago.

Oh mercy. She wasn’t prepared to deal with him any more than
she had been to
face Roman with that hops-induced honesty in her
bloodstream. But it was
either talk to him, turn back and face Roman, or march on
past, pretending
not to notice him there—which would be just another
cowardly, childish move
in a night that had already proven her pathetic.

She refused to be a coward in front of him.

Lila marched over to the fence, trying to sway her hips but
fairly certain
her va-va-voom was more than a little alcohol impaired.
“What are you doing
here?”

He turned his head, looking at her for the first time,
though he had to know
who she was the second she came into range. In answer, he
lifted his own
bottle for her to see—tequila—and she saw he had the end of
her hair ribbon
curled around his little finger.

“Me too,” she said in response to the alcohol. The world
dipped unexpectedly
and she reached out to steady herself on the fence, hoping
it looked like she
had intended to lean against it shoulder-to-shoulder with
him. “Patch and I
ran out so I’m headed back for a refill.”

“Shouldn’t you be with your fiancé? Celebrating the upcoming
nuptials?”

The growly quality in his voice made something warm stir low
in her abdomen.
She cleared her throat. “He’s out there with Patch.”

“Ah.”

The alcohol honesty chose that moment to rear its ugly head.
“You aren’t much
of a conversationalist, are you, Santiago Flores?” She
wanted to hear more of
that rumbly voice.

“You want conversation?” The words sounded like a threat.
“Then by all means,
let’s converse. Do you really want to marry Roman?”

This conversation again. Joy. Lila sighed, resigned. “It’s
doesn’t matter
what I want. It’s what I’m going to do.”

“Are you really such a martyr?” That lovely growl was back
in his voice.

“It’s not martyrdom.” She was certain it wasn’t. She just
couldn’t seem to
think past all the alcohol to figure out why precisely.

“So you don’t think you’re giving anything up, is that it?”

That was it. No sacrifice. How helpful he was. “Exactly.
What would I be
giving up?”

“A thousand opportunities.” He spun to face her, dark eyes
flashing in the
night, all that contained ferocity suddenly erupting with
startling
intensity. “The chance to be something more than what others
would make you.”

“So I can be what you would make me instead?” She turned to
face him head on,
throwing her chin back to growl up at him. “Everyone wants
me to be their
version of what I should be. Even you.”

“Then what do you want? Who do you want to be?”

“I don’t know! Don’t you see? If I wanted something more
than this life,
maybe I would go after it, maybe I would be brave, by your
definition of the
word, but I don’t. I never have. So what’s so terrible about
what I’m doing?
What am I giving up, Santiago Flores? What is supposed to
stop me from doing
what I’ve always known I would when the time came? What is
it you think I’m
supposed to want?”

“Me.”

He gripped the nape of her neck, his fingers tangling in her
hair as he
pulled her toward him, his other hand cupping her jaw,
tipping her face up to
meet him as his lips closed over hers, firm and fierce and
demanding and—oh
my God, so exquisitely perfect.

She’d been kissed before. Of course she’d been kissed
before. In twenty-three
years as the pride’s resident flirt, she’d kissed dozens of
guys in a sort of
playful almost-platonic way that was all the other shifters
would dare. She’d
even gone a bit further with a few humans who didn’t know
Roman to be afraid
of him—until her instincts had reared up and put a stop to it.

She knew perfectly well what lips were for, thank you very
much. But all
those kisses. All those affectionate buses and eager lip
locks. They had
never been this.

The rest of the world simply melted away until there was
only Santiago. He
nibbled, sucked, coaxed and teased until she opened for him
and his tongue
stroked into her mouth, a question she answered with her
own, angling her
head for more. She’d ceased to exist outside this kiss.
There was only his
heat, his strength, the pull of his body, and her need. God,
her fierce,
impossible need for more of him.

She wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling herself against
him so their
bodies aligned, a gasp escaping her mouth at the feel of all
that delicious
heat. Her other hand slid up his chest and around to palm
the back of his
neck, holding him there in case he had any rogue thoughts
about pulling away.
Away wasn’t allowed. Only closer, harder, deeper and more.

And he was very good at those words.