With his hands still framing her face, he said, "I feel your desire, Kathleen. Do you feel mine?"
A small gasp escaped her lips. She felt as though he was reaching into her mind and becoming part of her. That insight stunned her, frightened her, because she let no one get close to her. And she couldn't control this uniting of emotions, of souls, that went beyond anything she had ever experienced.
Kathleen's hold on him tightened, her fingertips turning white. One of his hands slipped lower and came to rest over her heart. With his other hand he placed her splayed fingers over his heart. Its rapid, rhythmic beat matched hers, rushing into her, filling her with his desire.
"They beat as if one," he whispered, the declaration binding her to him as if their hearts were truly united.
"I don't understand what is happening to me. Why do I feel what you feel?"
He grinned, a lopsided lifting of one corner of his mouth. "Neither do I. For all sane purposes I should never have brought you here that first night."
"Then why did you?" The inquiry came out breathless, barely audible.
But he heard and smiled. "That's a good question."
"But one you aren't going to answer?"
He buried his hands in the long strands of her hair and looked into her eyes. "No."
"What do you want from me? And don't tell me it's that you want me to leave the jungle. That's not why you brought me here that first night."
Before Kathleen could react, he crushed his mouth into hers, holding her head still while the grinding pressure of his lips demanded her response. She wanted to push him away, to scrub away his touch because she felt her very nature slipping from her with each second his kiss claimed her. And yet, she wanted to dissolve into his toughened contours, to return his ardent brand with one of her own.
)
Geologist Kathleen Dawson is in the South American jungle in search of oil, but her guides are terrified of the Jaguar Man. Kathleen doesn't believe in the mythical shape-shifter who rules the jungle both as beast and man. Then Kathleen finds herself in a cave with a man named Guerriro who claims to be the Jaguar Man. He warns her to leave. When Kathleeen's guides find a jaguar's skull on a pole, they abandon Kathleen in a flood. She's saved by a black jaguar and again finds herself in Guerriro's cave. Soon Kathleen begins to wonder if Guerriro, who is both her captor and her savior, really is cursed to live his life as a black jaguar by day and a man by night.
