“Hey.” Fisting his hand in her hair, he rubbed his nose over her own. “What’s the matter?”
“C-can we still be together?” Kirby forced herself to ask, the idea of losing Bastien making her cat—a lynx!—hiss and snarl. “If I’m a lynx?” Not that it mattered; she would fight for him until her claws were bloody and her body broken. He was hers.
“Did I ever tell you about Mercy’s mate?” Bastien said with a slow smile that made her abdomen clench.
“Yes. His name is Riley.”
“He’s a wolf.”
Kirby’s cat sat up inside her, shook its head. Kirby felt like doing the same. “A wolf?”
“Yeah, that’s what my brothers and I said.” A scowl. “Planned to beat him up for it, too, but he adores Mercy so we tolerate him.”
Kirby saw right through the bluster. “You really like him,” she said, joy bubbling through her.
“Maybe.” A playful bite of her jaw, his teeth grazing her skin.
“Grr—”
Laughing from deep in his chest when she slapped a hand over her mouth, he drew away that hand to drop a tender kiss to the center of her palm. “You need to eat, my ferocious lynx,” he said, but seemed powerless to stop himself from dipping his head and running his lips up the sensitive line of her throat.
She arched into the caress.
“You’re all pretty skin and curves and luscious heat.” A wet kiss to the point just above her pulse; it made her shudder and curl her hand around his nape.
“I want to push off this blanket”—another kiss—“and spend all night exploring every delicious inch of you.”
CHAPTER 9
An hour later, dressed in one of Bastien’s shirts and a pair of panties from her overnight bag, Kirby finished eating and decided she could cheerfully murder the man beside her. Despite his aroused body and erotic kisses, he’d made it clear he had no intention of going any further, regardless of her repeated assurances that he would in no way be taking advantage of her.
“I feel gloriously, vividly alive,” she said as he fed her a thin slice of ripe pear, the dark, masculine scent of him making her breasts swell, her cat rubbing up against her skin in an effort to get closer to him. “It’s as if I’ve only been half-awake this entire time.”
She let him slide a second slice of succulent fruit between her lips, a drop of juice dripping down her chin. Bastien leaned over from where he was sprawled in the chair next to her own, still wearing just those well-loved jeans that hung distractingly low on his hips, and licked it off. Her breasts strained further, the place between her thighs damp. When his eyes went to half-mast, night-glow green glinting at her as his chest rose in a deep inhale, she had to fight to withhold a whimper.
“I’m going to do bad, bad things to you in a minute,” she threatened when she could speak, toes curling at his unrepentant smile.
“Open that pretty mouth.” He painted her lips with another juicy slice, then, pupils dilated, watched her act on his request oh-so-slow.
Kirby swallowed the first bite he offered, came back for the last of the slice, licking her tongue over his skin to get every bit of the juice. Neither woman nor cat was impressed when he withdrew his hand.
“Go a little higher,” he purred . . . and only then did she realize she’d cut through denim with her claws, was digging into the skin of his thigh.
Skin pulsing as her blood rushed to it, she retracted them. “I’m so sorry.” Control was obviously a learned skill. “Did I hurt you?”
“Want to kiss it better?”
Kirby’s eyes dipped to the erection straining the zipper of his jeans and, heart kicking, she decided to take the dare. But she hadn’t even lowered her head an inch before he halted her with a kiss that tasted of ripe, juicy pear and Bastien.
Moaning, she melted into it, her entire body humming in anticipation. She’d been waiting for him so, so long and now she ached. “Bastien!” An infuriated cry, his lips no longer on her own.
“What’s the rush?” He fed her another bite. “I want to play.”
Swallowing the fruit, she decided his idea of play might make her certifiable. She’d about decided to pounce on him and damn the consequences, when the solar-powered comm built into the wall chimed an incoming call.
Bastien turned lazily to glance at the code . . . and was on his feet with feline quickness. “Emergency code,” he said, answering the call.
Out of view of the camera where she sat at the table, Kirby was still able to see the scared girl on the viewscreen—a girl, who, it turned out, had crashed her car and needed a ride home.
“I broke the rules,” she admitted, voice trembling, “and went to a new club on my own. There’s no one else around.”
Kirby glimpsed the dark street behind the teenager, felt her stomach knot.
Bastien, however, didn’t lose his calm. First, he made certain the girl wasn’t injured, then got the exact details of her location. “I’ll have someone there ASAP.” He was already pulling out his phone as he spoke. “Will the car need to be towed?”