Serengeti Sunrise - By Vivi Andrews Page 0,30

gripped the table for balance. She felt his thick cock probing at her entrance, impossibly hot like all the heat in his body was being redirected there, and then he plunged inside and she screamed raggedly as sensation ratcheted to an unbearable pitch, her cries echoing hollowly in the garage bay.

He drove into her again and again, hard enough that the heavy table began scraping across the floor with each pounding thrust. Zoe held on tight, aware of nothing but the knot of pleasure building in her blood. Tyler reached around and found the heart of the knot, rotating a single finger on her clit. The knot unraveled like a slingshot, flinging her into the stratosphere as her climax shook her body, and Tyler rammed into her one last time, holding tight and deep as he came hard inside her.

As she floated back to her body, Zoe concentrated on the sound of their uneven breathing. Everything else was too big, too much to contemplate.

Whatever this thing was between them, it had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.

Chapter Nine

Zoe snuck into the back of the mess hall, hoping to go unnoticed at Landon’s mandatory defense summit. Flying under the radar wasn’t something she had much experience with, but she’d been practicing it diligently for the last forty-eight hours. Ever since Tyler tossed no-strings out the window.

She’d fled the garage, throwing some lame excuse she couldn’t even remember over her shoulder. Tyler hadn’t stopped her, either smart enough to know she needed space or cocky enough to be certain she was coming back.

The world felt like it was squeezing in around her like a vacuum pack, sucking all the oxygen out of her lungs. She’d needed some breathing room. Some time to evaluate. Just a few minutes when her hormones weren’t running on overdrive and insisting she absolutely must stay with that walking aphrodisiac of a lion. She couldn’t think when she was with him.

Unfortunately, after two days apart from him, she was no closer to knowing what she wanted.

She’d avoided Landon, Ava, the entire Minor family, but especially Tyler. She knew what he wanted—what they all wanted. For her to decide she really did want to settle down.

Settle. The word tasted like rust on her tongue. If she stayed here, she’d be close to Landon and Ava. She’d have Tyler, and probably a few cubs and an extra thirty pounds of baby weight she couldn’t shed.

She’d be domesticated. A house cat.

The thought made her physically ill, so much so she’d actually considered going to the pride doc and asking him to give her a pregnancy test even though she couldn’t be pregnant without going into her heat cycle. Wouldn’t that be just her luck? If Tyler knocked her up, there’d be no denying him.

She didn’t want her claws pulled. She could handle it for a little while—being surrounded by people you cared for wasn’t exactly torture—but eventually the wanderlust that was so deeply embedded in her soul would start pressing against her heart again, begging for an outlet. Independence. Freedom. Adventure. Would her soul just wither and die without them? Could she be a house cat? And on the other side, could she even make herself leave Tyler?

He already felt like the cornerstone to the foundation of her happiness, like it would all crumble without him. But was he too grounded? He might profess to want to leave the pride and see the world, but he would never be able to leave his family. His siblings meant too much to him. And knowing what she now did about his father, she knew he would never let himself be the kind of man who abandoned those he loved. Tyler was even more caged than she was here at Three Rocks. But if she put herself in that cage with him, would they soothe one another or rip each other to pieces?

Zoe shuffled along the back of the room filled with every able-bodied adult in the pride. She didn’t need to scan the room for Tyler. She spotted him right away, leaning against the base of the stage they never used. Landon stood on it now, Ava at his side, the Minor siblings and their mates arrayed at his feet. Zoe felt a twinge of guilt that she wasn’t up there with them, presenting a united front, but that would only reinforce the illusion that she was part of this pride, and she wasn’t. Not really. Not yet, a small