Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Snapping up his head without warning, Ivan pulled back the sleeve of his blazer to reveal a communications device as small as a watch. When he swiped it over the reader on the table, she realized it must hold a credit chip, too. The screen glowed blue to show that they’d cleared their bill, complete with suggested tip.
“Ivan—”
A single glance that made it clear he was in no mood to wait. And she remembered … they were bonded. In a way that sent erratic bursts of information across from one to the other.
And she’d just been indulging in fantasies erotic and wild.
As she watched with her heart in her throat, he caught the attention of a busboy and asked the lanky youth—who Soleil’s nose told her was a leopard juvenile—to package up their mostly uneaten food to go. “Fast as you can.” He slid a physical credit token onto the table, the amount it represented equal to half their bill.
Eyes going wide, the juvenile moved, and had the food back to them in a matter of minutes. The boy pocketed the tip after Ivan thanked him for his quick work, then grinned and went to hug Soleil before hesitating. Smiling, she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tight. He was one of hers now, a cub to protect.
Wrapping his arms around her in turn, he squeezed her back as hard. “Welcome to the pack,” he said, the scent of him sharp and young and wild.
“Thank you, baby.” It just came out, that gently affectionate word.
He blushed and ducked his head but took it with a smiling roll of his eyes. Because she was a healer, and this was a pack in which healers were cherished and respected.
As she was heading to the door, she realized she didn’t know the boy’s name. But that was okay. Because she had his scent and he already felt safe enough with her to have hugged her. Even with her deadly Psy right next to her the entire time. Because the boy had sensed that Ivan was no threat to him—children knew, they always knew. “Thank you for indulging the cub.”
A curt nod. “He was excited to see you.”
She went to reply but Ivan put his hand on her lower back as she walked out the front door and her mind short-circuited, her cat remembering exactly where they’d been before the small interruption. Her body snapped right back to taut, exquisite readiness. She wanted to arch her back and moan, the slight contact a tease she could hardly bear.
The sun out on the street was a burn on her overheated, oversensitized flesh, her clothing suddenly too heavy, too rough against skin that wanted only to touch skin. “Ivan.” A husky plea.
He took her hand, the bag of food in his other. “We’re going home.” Cool, controlled words that crept over her skin like a caress from an assassin’s blade. “You can eat after.”
After.
She almost orgasmed then and there.
Chapter 40
Lover, lover
Die for me
In this sweet kiss
This carnal b—
—“Unfinished work 7” by Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)
IVAN DID HIS research before every operation. He liked plans, liked having worked out every possible scenario.
He’d have researched sexual contact with the same single-minded determination had he ever believed Soleil would come back into his life and want to interact that way with him. But he hadn’t, and so he had no plans, nothing but an urgent physical drive that threatened to wipe his mind of all rational thought.
He fought it long enough to say, “You’re sure? Even knowing—”
“I’m sure.” Her voice was breathless from the speed of their walk, her eyes no longer human … and the erotic images that kept flashing into his brain without warning an education.
He could do that. And that.
He hesitated. So many of the images were of her touching him, caressing him. As if she found him as much a compulsion as he found her. His penis threatened to go fully erect; the only reason it hadn’t already done so was that he’d thrown literally all his years of control into suffocating the reaction until they were in the apartment.
He still barely made it.
Slamming the door behind them with a force he’d never before shown, he used his palmprint to activate full security, then ran a telepathic scan as Soleil raced up the stairs ahead of him. He followed, his heart pounding and his skin so hot that he half expected to see steam coming off it.
No intruders detected in his telepathic scan.
He set it to run automatically in the background as he entered the bedroom behind Soleil and shut the door. First, he put the food carefully aside. She hadn’t eaten; he’d seen that. He’d feed her after, his need to look after her a driving force. But first, he had to touch her, the hunger inside him a new thing he didn’t have the language to describe.