Tobias’s eyes danced as he stared down at her. Gently, he pulled her hands away from her mouth. “Let her out, Vera. I love it when you growl.”
Let her out? Okay. Vera closed her eyes and opened her mind to the animal, just enough so she could see what was happening between her and Tobias. She should feel this, the bond she shared with her mate. This wasn’t just bringing gifts and making each other feel safe. This was loving each other, and her fox had never known love. Not from her and not from her maker, Jonathan. It was scary to relax enough to let her animal in. What if she forced a Change and took her body? But when she felt the fox, it wasn’t like that at all. She was…stunned.
Tobias brushed his finger just under her eye. “Those eyes,” he whispered, looking awed. “Gold like a sunset on the water.”
Vera’s eyes rimmed with tears at the rightness of this moment. Tobias’s bear was here, and so was her animal, and this was what it was supposed to be like. She wasn’t just a human anymore. She’d fought it for so long and had suppressed the scary side of herself, but right now, she accepted all of it. What had happened to her, what she had become. If she’d stayed human, she would still be working in some lab somewhere with an easy, bland life instead of here with Tobias, feeling all these emotions and this depth of happiness. Her joy was more potent because she knew how truly awful things could be.
The fox had given her Tobias.
There was no more accidental snarling as her fox sat inside of her, a quiet observer to Tobias’s affection.
He smoothed her hair, and when he cupped her cheek, Vera squeezed her eyes closed and nuzzled against his palm.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.
And for the first time in a long time, she felt beautiful. How could she not with her mate looking at her like this. Even fox-eyed, he was accepting all of her. The new her, not the her that had died the day Jonathan bit her for the first time.
She lifted up and kissed him as a single tear fled the corner of her eye. And when he pushed his tongue against hers this time, a soft humming sound she didn’t recognize rumbled from her chest. And the only feeling she got from her animal was happiness. A first.
Tobias pressed his hand between her breasts and froze as she hummed on, a distracted smile on his face as he watched her with deep approval etched into his striking features. Leaning down, he kissed her where his hand had been and trailed his lips down to her belly button. Vera inhaled sharply as he grazed his teeth against her hip. She remembered the pain from his claiming mark, but that was over and done, and now, Tobias used that sexy, gentle bite of his to tease. To work her into an inferno and make her beg.
Gripping his hair, she pushed him down between her thighs and arched her back when his lips moved against her sex.
Her ring glinted in the lantern light as she ran her fingers through his hair, and she closed her eyes at the overwhelming happiness that filled her. When Tobias dipped his tongue inside of her, she moaned and spread her knees wider for him. Hooking his arms around her thighs, he pulled her closer as a growl rattled his throat. With each push of his tongue, the pressure between her legs built and tingled until it felt so good she lost her words completely. Please. That was what she meant to say, but instead, only a whimper came from her.
Tobias sucked gently on her clit, then dipped his tongue back inside her, and she was gone. Falling, falling, the lantern was too bright, and she squeezed her eyes closed as an orgasm pulsed through her. She was too sensitive now, but when Tobias thrust into her again, the next throbbing sensation was even better. Her body trembled and twitched by the time he pulled away and ran biting kisses down her inner thigh to her knee.
“Tobias, Tobias,” she whispered in a reverent chant as her aftershocks pulsed on.
Lifting up slowly on all fours, Tobias unsnapped the button of his jeans and pulled at his zipper. The slow metallic sound shot a lightning bolt of excitement through her. He wasn’t through with her. When he was bare before her, she was intimidated once again by how long and thick his erection was. But this time wasn’t like the first time she’d seen him on Perl. She wasn’t nervous anymore. Now, she just wanted him to be inside of her, connected to her, making her feel safe in that uncanny way of his. He was hers. And suddenly, it hit her what he’d said when she’d first met him. He’d admitted his likes in the bedroom but hadn’t once acted on it with her.
With a satiated smile, she turned over and offered him her back.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his tone amused.
“You took care of me, and now I’ll take care of you.”
Tobias slowly ran his hand down her spine until she arched. “I thought this position wasn’t your favorite.”