messy cavalcade of feeling. His fingers speared into me, like he knew the time for sweet and caring was over. I had the taste of him in my throat as I screamed out my pleasure, crying, crying out, but for what?
For this, I soon realised. There was a moment of perfect ecstasy, frozen in suspended animation. My head was thrown back, my cries raw, as his fingers pressed with the exact amount of pressure on the now throbbing lump inside me, his lips sucking my clit into his mouth. Pleasure prickled across my skin, sending little darts deeper down, over and over, until I was remade by it. Jai was in me at a cellular level, a virus that did its damnedest to rewrite the shitty past and replace it with something small, fragile, new.
I dragged him shaking upwards, both of us clinging to each other, tangling our limbs, needing that skin to skin contact as we shivered through the aftermath. We should have changed the sheets and pulled a blanket over us, but neither of us could bear to be apart from the other.
“I had so much more planned,” Jai said sleepily.
I smiled at that, snuggling down into the comfortable weight of his chest. “We’ve got all day, rest now.”
“Rest now,” he agreed.
Chapter 19
“Are you OK?”
Jai watched me wobble towards the front door with an amused grin.
“You made me come so many times, my muscles are all really sore and my legs feel like jelly.”
He got to his feet and stopped me by putting his arms around me, my attempts to shove him off pitiful.
“It’s because I didn’t want you going anywhere other than back to bed. Where do you think you’re going, anyway?”
“I don’t think anything. I know I’ve got some clients I need to wrap things up with and work out how to keep managing their care. I need to pack up my stuff…” My throat closed on the words. I’d worked at the vets for over five years. To just walk away… “I also need to look for a job.”
“If you become my mate, we’ll support you. You could see clients out of the house. We could build you your own clinic here.”
“That’s not wise. People…when they see my abilities at a vets, that makes sense to them. Setting up on my own? I’m either a quack or I’m a threat.”
“No one will hurt you for being who you are,” Jai rumbled, his grip getting tighter. “Even if you decide against… You’re not out in the cold, Shan. Remember that. We’re your family either way.”
I looked up at him and smiled at all that hot intensity in his eyes. This was a side to him I’d never seen before, and I had to admit growly, protective Jai was hot.
And annoying.
“Well, I still need to pack up my things, and the Dylan’s schnauzer needs to be seen and—”
He stopped my words with a kiss.
“I’ll get one of the guys to pick up your stuff, and you can get Janey to reschedule your appointments. I can’t let you go off on your own, Shannon.”
“You don’t get a choice in the matter,” I said, my hands going to my hips as I put some distance between us. “I’m my own person. You don’t make decisions for me.”
“I’m not making decisions for you. Do whatever you want with your life, but I need to keep you safe. Right now, your scent is broadcasting your receptivity to the whole valley, maybe beyond that. Not everyone has the same level of control as me. And there’s that bloody Hollingsworth guy.”
“Yeah, him.”
“Exactly. You’re just what he needs right now. If that place is to be a breeding facility, what would be better than you? You know you’re ovulating?”
“What? How the hell do you know that?!”
“And he would be mad not to scoop you up and throw you to his shifters. Locked up in there, going insane from captivity, and then given a tasty morsel like you?” I blinked as I watched Jai struggle to hold himself back from me, respecting my boundaries. But would they? Gaden, Kazimir… “You’re vulnerable right now, and I want—no, I need to protect you. Choose me, don’t choose me, just stay safe.”
I’d been caught up in a sweet bubble of heat and sensuality for the past day, so the institute was far from my mind. And why wouldn’t it be? I hated what they were doing there, but what could I do? I just wanted to stay the