There was no snow yet, but there would be soon enough. Built for that environment, her paws natural snowshoes, his lynx might just outpace him on it. He looked forward to the challenge, to playing with Kirby on her natural turf. Now, however, he was content simply to be with her under the starlit night, the moon a silver spotlight that caressed her fur like a lover.
Arriving home at the midnight hour, the world hushed around them, Bastien shifted back into his human form, while Kirby stayed lynx. She was having trouble getting used to the nudity most changelings grew up accepting as natural. “I could jump up to the aerie, throw down some clothes.”
She nodded, tufted ears bobbing.
“Or,” he drawled, his gut tight with a need only Kirby could fulfill, “I could stand right here and watch a pretty, sexy woman come out of the shift, then run my hands all over her bitable body.”
He expected a yowl of defiance, but the world fractured into light and then a lusciously sensual woman—his mate—was rising from a crouch, honey-colored hair tumbling over her back as she smiled and crooked a finger . . . and the mating bond smashed into him, the connection vibrant and primal and tasting of Kirby.
Stunned, they stared at one another.
Bastien pounced the next instant, his hands on her hips, his lips on hers. Wrapping her arms around him, she opened her mouth and he took full advantage, giving his hands free rein to explore her curves. “You are mine,” he growled into her mouth. “Always mine. I love you until I can’t breathe.” The mating bond might’ve drawn them together, but it was now entangled with heartbonds as strong.
“You’re mine, too.” Hand fisting in his hair on that ferocious claim, she moaned and held on tight, her body straining as she rose on tiptoe. When she made a frustrated sound, he hitched her onto his hips and turned to the tree trunk, then paused.
“Bastien?” Kisses along his jaw, her skin silky soft against his.
“Bark will hurt your back,” he muttered, nibbling on the tip of her ear because he knew it drove her nuts.
Shivering, she purred, sought his lips for a kiss. He opened his mouth on her own, licked and tasted, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted her body under his, wanted to be inside her, her pleasure feeding his. “Up,” he said, his breath jagged. “Climb.”
She tightened her thighs around him. “No.” Nipples rubbing over the hard wall of his chest, she kissed him again, licking just the way he liked. “Here.”
He almost gave in, pounded her on the forest floor, was stopped only by the sneaking suspicion that had taken root when he’d realized how touch starved she’d been. “Have you done this before?” he asked, too aroused to be anything but blunt.
“No.” She didn’t stop tormenting him, her slickness erotic temptation against his abdomen. “I am so ready, Bastien.” Her body moving sinuously against his own. “I want to be with you. Only you.” Kiss after kiss. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
God, she made him her slave.
Determined to give her a good memory despite his ragged control, he walked to the rope ladder and started hauling them up. She held on but did nothing else to help him, nibbling and kissing at his jaw until he thought he’d go mad. “Behave,” he snarled, nipping at her ear but careful not to hurt.
Another shiver, a wicked smile. “No.” Another kiss, this one on the mouth.
Swinging up onto the balcony, he somehow found the door, stumbled inside and to the bed. Where he finally, finally, had her curves under the rigid planes of his own body. Pinning her hands above her head with one hand around her wrists, he settled his lower body snug against her damp heat.
It made him groan.
Kirby arched up, sliding her folds over his erect cock.
“Bad lynx.” Chest heaving, he snapped his teeth at her.
She snapped back, then arched her neck in invitation. Leaning down, he suckled at the flutter of her pulse. Laving his tongue over the red mark with unhidden possessiveness, he closed one hand over her breast, teased her nipple. “You are so pretty everywhere.”
A shy-sweet smile, sparkling pleasure-hazed eyes, her tongue flirting with his until he gripped her jaw to hold her in place for an open-mouthed kiss, wet and hot and a prelude to sex. Legs still locked around him, she opened for him, demanded more, the damp musk of her so intoxicating his claws sliced out to tear the sheets.
“Shit.” Retracting them, he pressed his forehead to hers. “Sorry, baby. I’m having trouble holding it togeth—”
Pelvis arching against him, she sucked at his throat as he’d done at hers—possessive and determined—and that was it. All he wanted, needed, was Kirby. She was liquid heat and hot honey on his fingers when he touched her between her thighs.
“Bastien!”
If he’d had any hope of taking this slow, he lost it on the ripples of her pleasure. Pushing one sweetly curved thigh wider, he waited only until her body had stopped clenching in orgasm before beginning to slide in. She moaned, her claws digging just enough into his shoulders that it felt amazing.
“Tell me if it hurts,” he grit out, because not for anything would he hurt his Kirby.
Kisses on his throat, a purr in the back of hers. “It feels sooooo good.”
Shuddering, he withdrew after that first shallow penetration and slid back in, reining in his instinct to thrust; she was so tautly stretched around him, so small. But she was also lusciously aroused, her unhidden desire threatening to erase the last, faint glimmers of his control.
It was excruciating.
It was beautiful.
Then at last, he was buried to the hilt and they were kissing.
Hand tightening on her thigh, the taste of her in his every sense, he withdrew, pushed back in slowly.
Once. Twice. “Fuck!”
Spine locking, he came in a violent rush, his face buried in the curve of his mate’s neck. His utter lack of control would’ve been embarrassing . . . except that he felt her gasp as she came again, her body clamping down possessively on his cock.
Male pride restored, Bastien collapsed on her. Her fingers petted his hair, her arms and legs imprisoned his very happy body, her words a husky whisper. “Can we do that again? I really, really, really liked it.”
Bastien grinned. “Hell, yeah.”
EPILOGUE
Kirby glared at Bastien as he led her out in front of a lovely home set deep in the forest the next day. “Is this your parents’ house?”
“Yep.”
She dug her heels in. “I’m about to meet your mom and dad and you couldn’t have warned me?” Her old jeans and faded T-shirt would hardly make the best first impression, not to mention the leaves she no doubt had in her hair from playfully wrestling with her mate not long ago. “We’re leaving right now so I can change.”
Bastien tugged her forward instead, insouciant. “Don’t worry, little cat. They’re going to see what I see.”
Kirby wasn’t so certain, but the door was already opening to reveal a small woman with hair of rich dark gold. “Bastien? Why are you lurking out—” A dazzling smile broke out on her face. “Well,” she said, walking over to take Kirby into her arms, “there you are.”
The maternal warmth of the touch, the words, erased any nerves Kirby might have had. And when Lia Smith said, “I’m so happy to welcome another daughter to this family,” she knew she was going to adore Bastien’s mother just as much as she loved Lia’s son.
“Hey, Frenchie!” Sage poked his head out the door, the sun hitting the brown of his hair to reveal hidden strands of red. “Did you bring any baguettes?”
“Why don’t you go season something, Herb?”
Kirby’s shoulders shook as Lia Smith glared at each man in turn. “I gave you both beautiful names. Use them.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Kirby didn’t stop smiling the entire time she was in the Smith house, was the same when she spoke to her grandparents on the comm later that night. “Our future babies are going to be utterly spoiled,” she said to her mate afterward, delighted at the idea.