her teenage sweetheart, the one-night stand she’d had since rejoining the human race, hadn’t prepared her for making love with Alex.
She clenched around him. She understood what this sweet, lazy fucking was.
This was just as much a claim on her as the other, but where last night had been about her body, this morning was about her heart.
His lips pursed and he took the kiss his mouth had promised. The hot water beat down on his back. His buttocks flexed beneath her heels as he thrust over and over, the sweet slide dragging her closer and closer to orgasm. His hand left her pussy to curl around her hip, the strength of his hold almost bruising. “Tabby,”
he breathed into her. His eyes closed and she knew he was close.
She wanted, needed to come with him. Her hand reached down and took off where his had left off, stroking herself. She was so damn close. “Alex. Bite me.
Please.”
His eyes flew open. His chin brushed against hers, his mouth nipping its way down to her shoulder. She felt her own fangs descend and knew she’d mark him when they came.
His teeth pierced her, throwing her into her orgasm. He groaned as she bit into him, marking him once more. She rode his cock and the never-ending orgasm that flowed through them both.
They were both quivering at the end. Less intense than last night, it was nonetheless just as profound. She’d never had an orgasm last that long before, the sweet flood of pleasure going on and on that way.
She wanted that again, that feeling of belonging.
She licked his wound closed. Her head dropped back against the tiles. The only thing she wanted to do was crawl right back into the bed in the other room, wrapped up in her mate.
He lifted his head from her shoulder, a thin line of blood trickling down her chest.
The wound was already closing. He rested his forehead against hers, his lips taking hers in a gentle kiss. “Good morning.”
She smiled. “Yes indeed.”
His answering smile matched hers.
Bunny walked into the hospital, still torn about leaving Tabby with the other girls at Living Art. She’d insisted on it, saying that she had to work and he had to check on Chloe. She was right, damn it. He almost called his father to ask him to go protect his mate, but with Chloe still unconscious and her attacker still on the loose, there was no way he could divide his family’s attention that way. He frowned. Maybe he could enlist Julian or some of the Pumas to keep a surreptitious eye on the place for him. But first he needed to know how his little cousin was doing before he went to see Sheriff Anderson.
That part of his day he hadn’t discussed with his mate. He had every intention of finding out just who the fuck Gary was and what kind of a threat he represented to Tabby. If he found out the fucker was the one who’d hurt his mate, Halle would be short one asshole. There would be nothing that could stop him from ripping Gary apart.
He entered Chloe’s hospital room to find Ryan, his father, Aunt Laura and Uncle Steve already there. “How is she?”
Aunt Laura looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks, her eyes red-rimmed and weary. “No change. She won’t wake up, damn it, and I’m at my wits’ end.”
Uncle Steve placed his hand on his mate’s shoulder, his own expression full of fear and grief. “She could wake up at any minute, sweetheart.”
“Then she needs to.” The determination in Aunt Laura’s voice came as no surprise. The tiny Fox female had to be strong, surrounded as she was by Bears.
“Dr. Howard suggested we find something to stimulate her with. Can you think of
He sighed. “No, I…” He blinked. “Wait.” The sheriff had said something the first time they met, when Bunny was still shocked over finding his mate.
“She has a mate.”
The uproar that followed was loud. “What?” Uncle Steve’s voice was full of hope.
“Since when?” Ryan bellowed.
“Is it Sheriff Anderson?” Aunt Laura asked. She stood, somehow towering over the men in the room, though she barely topped five foot three.
“She knows who it is, but from her scent I’d say she hasn’t claimed him yet. And no, it’s not Anderson. The man already has a mate.” Bunny pulled out his cell phone. Right after the attack on Chloe, he’d programmed Dr. Howard’s number into it. He knew Dr. Howard had Anderson’s phone number, and Bunny needed it. “Let me make some calls, see what I can find out. Maybe if we get her mate in here it will be just what she needs.”
And maybe he could get some of his own questions answered while he had the sheriff here.
“Speaking of mates, how’s yours?”
Bunny grimaced. “She got attacked yesterday.”
“What?”
“By who?”
The family chorus of outrage was strangely soothing. “I have no idea.” He breathed deep, afraid he would accidentally shatter the phone in his hands. “By the time I got to the shop, she was on the ground, a lump on the back of her fucking head.”
Ryan’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Do you need help?”
He stared at his cousin, knowing what Ryan was offering and what it would do to them both if Bunny took him up on it. One of the ways they sometimes blew off steam was by fighting each other. The way Bunny was feeling, if he took Ryan up on that offer, one or both of them would be lying in the bed next to Chloe’s. He shook his head. “Nah. I’ll make sure to do an extra twenty minutes of yoga.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “You have to get over that some day.”
Bunny shrugged, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going. “I need to call the sheriff.”
“You need to remember you were sixteen when it happened. Let it go, Alex.”
The soothing sound of his father’s voice did nothing to help. “I have. I make sure it’s never going to happen again.” Nearly killing someone because you’d lost your temper was a sure-fire way to teach you how to control yourself. He’d done everything in his power to see to it he’d never hurt another living soul.
Still, there were times when he longed to roughhouse with his cousins without the fear that he’d hurt them. He was large and strong in his human form, larger than all of his relatives, except for his father. He was even more so in his Bear form. And even his father didn’t have the depth of rage Bunny had learned to conquer. His father was one of the most even-tempered men he knew.
Bunny dialed the phone. If he had his way, he’d never fight again. He couldn’t live with the consequences if he did.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
Tabby shoved Cyn’s hands away from her head. “I’m fine, okay?”
“No headache?”
“Other than the one you’re giving me? No.” She snapped on the rubber gloves and smiled weakly at her nervous client. If Cyn didn’t knock it off, Tabby was going to lose her customer.
Cyn glared at her. “Fine. I’ll let it go for now.” She smiled down at the nervous college boy. “So, what are we having done today?”
The boy gulped. If he didn’t calm down, he was going to shake apart from nerves.
“Um, I want a wolf, a timber wolf.” He held out a picture. “Just like this.”
Tabby frowned down at the wolf. It looked familiar. “Where did you get this?”
“Gary gave it to me.”
Tabby put the picture down on the counter and leaned back with a sigh. “Why did Gary tell you to get a wolf tattoo?”
