by Reina Torres
Leaning back against his mate, he turned his head toward her and smiled when she met his lips with a kiss. “I’ll be right back, Paige.”
He headed for the patio doors and was outside in just a few moments ready to take on the world. Or at least a handful of shifters ready to kick his ass.
When the patio door clicked shut, Paige sat still for a moment or two. Devlin said he would be back.
Then why was she sliding down from the counter and crossing the room toward the back-patio door?
The back yard, if that’s what you could call it, was a wide-open grassy area lined by tall trees and a scattering of underbrush.
It might have been hard to find him if he’d gone far, someone could easily disappear into the trees.
Instead, Devlin was standing nearly at the edge of the open space, his arms held loosely at his sides.
Facing him, half in the shadows of the tall trees ringing the property, were three men in full view. No, she corrected herself, shifters. It was strange, she thought, just a day or two ago, she wouldn’t have thought there were more options. Now she knew better, and now, as she looked at them, across the yard, she found herself wondering what they were underneath those muscular forms.
There were just a few steps down into the grass and it was only when she felt the chill of the wet grass under her feet that she realized she’d left her shoes inside.
Paige couldn’t hear anything they were saying, but she wasn’t about to let Devlin face those men alone. She had a feeling, from the waves of tension rolling off all of them, this was because of what Devlin did to save her.
Something inside of her said these men weren’t just men. This wasn’t nearly as cold and ‘civilized’ as her father’s staff had been. These men could likely tear her apart with little to no effort.
Still, she ran on toward Devlin, needing to be closer.
By the time she reached Devlin’s side, some of the men were out in the sunshine and none of them looked happy.
“Devlin, what’s going on?”
He grabbed her arm and anchored her to his side with his other arm around her back and his hand on her waist. Before he answered her, he gave the other men a hard look. “Nothing much, Paige. These men just came to congratulate us.”
Paige elbowed Devlin in his side.
“Hey!” Devlin hissed at her.
More than one of the men almost cracked a smile.
“Why are you trying to lie to me?”
Devlin’s posture tightened beside her. “I’m not lying.”
She looked at the men standing before her. “You’re not here to congratulate us, so why are you here?”
“She’s sharp, Devlin.” The man stared at her openly, ignoring Devlin’s cold look. He looked like he’d just stepped out of the Sylvan Country Club and was waiting for the valet in his slacks and polo shirt. Neither garment did much to disguise his distinctly muscled form beneath them. She saw him look her over from head to her bare toes. “Pretty too.”
Devlin squeezed her closer. “You say that like it’s a shock, Graham. Should I be offended on behalf of my mate?”
She heard the warning tone in his voice and saw the hardened looks of the other men.
“So, we have her to thank for everything going public?” The man to the far left wore leather fingerless gloves on his hand and he had a bruise along his temple that seemed to be healing as he stood there before them. “That’s not how things work, Devlin.”
The man just off to Devlin’s right folded his arms across his massive chest. His eyes weren’t angry so much as they were worried. “Now you’re going to tell us it’s because you’re new in town?”
“Or maybe he just couldn’t help himself?” Another man, still hovering in the shadows of the trees settled a look on Devlin. “This isn’t just about you.”
“No, it’s not about me.”
Paige felt his fingers dig into her hip and she wrapped her arms around his chest and embraced him tightly, leaning her cheek on his shoulder.
She felt his breath purring in his lungs and she rubbed her cheek against him.
“She’s mine,” his voice crackled through the air separating them from the others. “She’s my mate.”
One of the men narrowed his eyes at her, his gaze passing over her neck and shoulders. Lifting his hand, he pointed at the bend where his neck met his shoulder. “She’s not marked.”
A warning growl rolled through Paige like a seismic wave.
“Not yet, Cage.” Devlin leveled a look at the others. “You interrupted our honeymoon.”
Cage shot back. “I’m not worried about your romantic evening, we’re here because we’re worried about our necks in a noose. We’ve lived in Sylvan for a while now-”
“Some of us,” the largest man, the one who she was fairly sure was some kind of bear just relying on his size, “have families to worry about, if this becomes a man-hunt-”
“We all know that humans would have no trouble coming after us-”
“This isn’t good for any of us-”
Paige felt a huge weight of guilt crash down on her shoulders and she muffled a sob pressing her lips against Devlin’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Devlin. I-”
“Enough!”
Devlin’s roar was enough to bring their complaints to a stop.
He gently nudged her around to stand behind him as he addressed the men. “This stops now. You want to punish me for this, then do it, but you leave Paige out of this. She’s my mate and you tell me,” he jabbed a finger at the closest man, “if you found your mate and she was one moment away from death, that you’d worry about revealing your animals to the world?”
Paige looked up into the silence that descended upon them and saw the men walking back into the thick forested area at the edge of the yard.
She eased her embrace, loosening her arms as she drew back enough to look him squarely in the eyes. “Devlin?”
Scrubbing his free hand over his face, he pulled her hips tightly against his side. “Yeah?”
“How much trouble are you in?” Her eyes looked off into the woods. “What can I do to help?”
She saw the depths of awareness in his eyes when he leaned down to brush a kiss over her lips. Paige felt as if in just that simple touch, they were feeding off of each other, drinking in the very air from each other’s lungs.
When he drew back to meet her eyes she saw how dark they had become as if the irises had grown and swallowed the color whole. There was something in the dark looking back at her, another soul waiting inside of him.
“You can come inside with me,” his suggestion made her smile and tremble in his embrace, “and let me love you.”
She pressed a kiss against his lips and murmured her answer with a sigh. “Yes, Devlin. Love me.”
Chapter Five
It took only minutes to get Paige back inside. With her words ringing in his ears, he’d taken her hand and walked her back inside his cabin. Once he’d closed and locked the glass door behind them everything changed.
Kid gloves. He’d heard the phrase before, but he’d never really thought of what it meant until now. Holding Paige in his arms, his natural instinct was to let go and bury himself in his mate. His tiger wanted to mark her and get it done, prove to the world who she belonged to.
She set her hand on his shoulder and the last few rays of sunlight gilded her skin with gold. The same hand that should bear his ring. He may be a tiger, but he was also a human. A human that understood that Paige would want a ring.
A ring he didn’t have.
“Are you regretting your choice now?”
He heard the tight uncertainty in her voice and struggled to rise up out of the miasma of his own thoughts to attend to her need. “What?”
“To marry me?” She swallowed, and he had to drag his eyes away from her throat. The throat he desperately wanted to nibble on and then soothe with his tongue. “It was probably crazy enough to see what my father and his staff thought of you… of us. But now,” s
he shook her head, “you have those other… shifters angry with you too.”
“They can be a lot to deal with,” he told her with what he hoped was an easy smile, “they’re all Alphas in their own right. A little thick in the head sometimes, but they understand. They want what I want.”
“Headstrong, if they’re like you.” She smiled at him and he saw a little bit of her worry slip away. “You said they want what you want. You mean mates?”
“Yes. They understand why I did what I did, even if their lives are going to change because of it.”
“You’ve kept yourselves out of the spotlight for your safety and now, because of me, you don’t have that anymore. I wouldn’t blame you for regretting your choice, or resenting me for the microscope you’re going to go under.”
He wanted to say something, but she kept talking, and heaven help him, he loved hearing her voice.
“But I want you to know that I want to be here. It’s not because it would make things easier for my father, that’s just a lovely side-effect of this. I look at you and I remember the way you jumped in to save me. Everyone around me thinks before they do things. They examine all of the outcomes before they make a decision. They don’t act out of passion or need to help others.
“But you do. You did.” She moved her gaze all over his face, her fingers up his shoulder and over to his neck, tentatively exploring his skin. “And yet, here I am not because I want to help someone. I’m here because I want you. I don’t understand this need, this rush of selfishness that I feel inside of me.”
He smiled at his mate… his bride. It was hard for humans to understand shifters, he’d had a precious few that he’d let into his world over the years. The fact that they’d only become aware of his existence because he’d saved their lives made it easy to convince them to keep his secret. But his beautiful mate had seen him rip a man to pieces for her in front of cameras. Most people would want nothing to do with the circus he’d created, but she was here, with him.
And she wanted him.
He heard her words, but it was more than that. He saw it in her eyes, her rapid in-drawn breaths, and he could smell her arousal. She’d never been with a man, but she wanted to be with him.
She wasn’t just brave, she humbled him with her innocent spirit. How she’d laid herself bare before him.
“I can help you, Paige.” His tiger wanted him to shut the hell up and do something, but he was wrapped up in his concern for Paige. A first time wasn’t easy. The last thing he wanted to cause her was pain. “Let me show you.”
She nodded a moment later, no hesitation at all.
He moved away from her, taking her hand in his, and walked her toward his bedroom.
In the bedroom, he left her standing by the door and moved away so she could see him and have some semblance of safety. Shirt buttons, cuffs, undone. A formal cotton shirt dropped over the back of the chair he used beside the window.
Belt, released and removed, the tail sliding through the loops until it dangled from his hand toward the floor. Paige had known that his waist was narrow, but it was more than that. The muscles of his torso were like sculpted marble shaped by the hand of a Grecian God.
Paige pinched the fabric of her bodice until the neckline of her dress pulled away from her neck. It gave her a bit of relief from the heat, but not nearly enough.
Devlin was like a roaring fire, but even though she felt the very air lick at her skin like a flame she wanted more.
She heard the heavy fall of his belt buckle on the floor and then the hushed whisper of the button on his waistband pulling free. Her ears were useless as her eyes followed his fingers as they drew down the zipper of his pants and then pulled the last of his garments to the floor. She saw his body, highlighted by the rays of the sun that made their way in through curtains. Gold fire licking at his bare body made her stomach twist and her heart pound inside of her chest.
She lifted her hand across her body to tug at the side-zipper of her dress, and at the first brush of air she shivered. Her hands grasped handfuls of her skirt, but she hesitated, wondering if she should undress herself.
“Do it,” it didn’t sound like a command. It felt like a request… as if he was asking her a favor. How could she deny him? She closed her eyes as she lifted her skirt, bunching up the fabric in her hands as she lifted her dress up over her head and dropped it down to the ground behind her.
Paige looked up at Devlin and felt his eyes on her face, unwavering.
“All of it, Paige.”
She reached her hands up behind her and unhooked her bra, letting go of the straps, she pulled it off her shoulders and dropped it down at their feet.
Paige turned her gaze to the floor. It was mostly fear and a little bit of self-loathing. She’d always known that her figure wasn’t what most people found appealing. She’d had years and years of taunts at school until she’d developed a bit of a thick-skin, or at least deaf-ears to the insults. After her father began his campaign to be elected Mayor, his advisors had plenty to say to her about her body.
Being bare in front of Devlin was terrifying. She didn’t want to see regret or disappointment in his eyes, it was a blow she wasn’t sure she would ever recover from.
When she felt his hands on her bare skin, her eyelids slid closed and a soft moan fell from her lips. His palms warmed her flesh, cradled her breasts in his hands.
“Ohhh…”
“Open your eyes, Paige.” His words were a request, but his tone was a command. And heaven help her, she liked it… too much.
She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her. Her breasts.
Paige looked down and felt a rush of heat between her legs. Devlin slowly swept his thumbs over the crest of her pale skin, brushing his thumbs across her nipples. They pebbled, drawing tight in reaction to his touch as her breasts felt heavier in the palms of his hands.
“I could touch you all day long.”
The words tore through Paige and she trembled before him.
“If this goes on all day long I’ll probably faint.”
Devlin gave her a smile, his eyes full of mischievous promise. “Then I better get to it.” He moved closer and took hold of the last piece of clothing left her on her body. She wiggled a little to help him work the fabric over her hips and she felt a warm puff of his breath against her belly even as she saw him lift his eyes to meet hers.
“Keep moving like that baby, and I’m not going to be able to go gentle with you.”
The little voice inside of her told her to do it again, but she couldn’t seem to move, not when he leaned forward and placed a kiss against her belly.
She squeezed her thighs together, embarrassed by how easily her body reacted to him, almost weeping in need.
Devlin’s gaze crawled up her body to meet her eyes. “Second thoughts?”
Paige dug her teeth into her bottom lip for a moment while she struggled to get her body under control. She shook her head.
“Is something wrong?” She could see the worry in his eyes, the careful way he looked at her.
She knew deep down inside that if she didn’t tell him how she was feeling, he was going to stop. And the last thing she wanted him to do was stop.
“I don’t want to embarrass myself. Or you.” She looked away from him and squeezed her thighs together, even tighter than she had before. “I’m-”
“You’re wet, baby.” She felt both of his hands slide around toward the insides of her thighs and his fingers skimmed her flesh, making her gasp. “If you weren’t, then I would worry.”
She was going to ask him why, but then she couldn’t even speak.
Devlin slipped a finger in between her legs. Her knees buckled as his callused finger stroked the slick folds of her body. A gasp tore from her lips and she widened her stance instinctively.
“Like that?”
She heard the note of humor in his tone, but she also heard the rough scratch of his voice and she bit back a moan as she answered him. “Yes.”<
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He turned his wrist and stroked her flesh again and leaned forward to press a kiss against her silken curls.
She heard the moan before she felt it vibrating in her throat. “Devlin?”
“Tell me what you want, Paige.” His answering smile was self-assured, but not over-confident and she wanted to taste a bit of that herself. “Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”
She knew what she wanted to say, but the knot in her throat was making it nearly impossible. She finally made the decision to let go of all her fear and go after what she wanted.
“I want you inside me. I want to be yours, Devlin. Your wife, your mate,” she licked her lips and bared her soul, “and your lover.”
A growl filled her ears and before she could move, Devlin was on his feet, his mouth was on hers, slanting across her lips. His hands anchored her by her hips against him before they traveled up her arms to cup her face, so he could take possession of her.
The tip of his tongue against her lips had her parting them in an eager gasp. The taste of him made her shake, the rough scratch of his tongue had her fingers digging deep into the muscles of his back.
He pushed against her lips in another searching kiss, tilting her head back, tipping them both off balance. They fell to the bed, his body taking the brunt of the impact before he rolled her onto her back.
Devlin pressed kisses to her jaw and then the underside of her chin, tilting her head back so that her gasp of pleasure was a breathy echo in the room.
Wrapping his hand around the back of her thigh, he drew her leg up toward his hip and stopped short. Pulling his lips away from the column of her throat on a soft muttered curse, he grumbled to himself, “I need more.”
He struggled to control himself as his eyes trailed over her exposed skin. “You’re a dream, Paige. My dream.” He took in deep breaths, his chest expanding under his broad shoulders as he drew in her scent. “Get up on the bed, baby. Higher, so you can lay your head on my pillows.” She crept back onto his dark blue sheets. The contrast of the darker color beneath her body stole his breath.