Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
There was only skin and heat and need . . . and love. So much love.
When the orgasm hit, hard and deep, he was dazzled by both his pleasure and Pavel’s own. The double jolt made the erotic waves last and last and last, and they were both limp and sweat-damp in the aftermath when Pavel said, “Yes, I’ll marry you, svetlyi luchik moy. Under the sky in a slick suit, with all the people we love, all the people you look after, as our witnesses.”
Chapter 58
Janine Fong has potential, despite her limitations. I suggest we assign a specific member of staff to work with her—the tests seem to show that she needs to bond to her handler in order to function at an effective level.
—Dr. Upashna Leslie to Councilor Marshall Hyde (date corrupted, file reload required)
JANINE HEARD THE call, tried to answer. But her head was fuzzy and it felt nice to snuggle down into her blanket. Sleepy, she managed to telepath.
She knew they wouldn’t be angry with her. They were never angry with her. Today, they said, Rest. We can teleport tomorrow.
Promise? Janine managed to get out past the heaviness in her mind. She loved teleporting to new places, but first she had to get the image of the place, so she could lock onto it.
Last time around, she’d gone to a forest! That had been so fun! Forests were hard to lock onto, because they didn’t have a lot of unique things. Just tons of leaves and trees and crumbly things underfoot. But Janine had done it. She’d stared and stared at the photo she’d been sent, and found an interesting pattern of roots, then linked it to the spiral pattern on the trunk, and she’d done it!
I want to teleport again.
We will. I promise. Tomorrow night.
Janine smiled, her sleep that of the innocent.
Chapter 59
You’ll never guess what just happened, Starlichka.
—A (grinning) Valentin Nikolaev to his mate, Silver Mercant (today, now)
HARD-CORE CUDDLING HAD begun in earnest when Yakov felt a jolt at the back of his brain. Not pain or a warning . . . but a shift. And he knew. Usually, only the alpha of a clan would know so soon, but Yakov fucking knew.
Joy, pure and unfettered, set his heart alight. “My brother just mated. About damn time!”
Big blue eyes hazy with pleasure looked up into his. He’d been lying beside Theo, petting her naked body slow and easy for a good ten minutes, and his cock was about to erupt. But this wasn’t about rushing.
“How do you know when you’ve found your mate?” Husky words, her gaze so open that he wanted to wrap her up in titanium, protect that vulnerable core the world had wounded over and over again.
He stroked the rounded curve of her thigh, slid back up over her hip, her rib cage, to cup one plump little breast. A small handful. Just the right size to squeeze and caress and pet. “This bear,” he murmured, “dreamed about his mate.” He’d let her come to him in her own time as Arwen had come to Pavel, but he wasn’t about to hide who she was to him. “You’re it for me, serdtse moyo.” His heart. Always. “Whether we mate today, or ten years from today.”
A shaky exhale, her hand tugging at his T-shirt. This time he didn’t resist pulling it off, and once that was off, she was insistent he get naked. “It’s only fair.”
As an argument, it was a compelling one. Even more compelling was the look in her eyes as she took him in once he stood bare to the skin at the side of the bed. He was a bear with no sense of modesty whatsoever, so he smiled and prowled over to lie above her, his body braced on his forearms, and the heavy weight of his cock snuggled against her stomach.
When she spread her thighs a fraction, the scent of her musk grew heavier, richer. Groaning, he leaned down to kiss her all slow and romantic. Because damn if he was just going to thrust into her like a rutting bear tonight. That could wait until his lover was comfortable with intimate skin privileges.
No scaring her off when he wanted to do this with her for the rest of her life.
Continuing to kiss her, he moved one hand down to between her thighs and began to make sensual music with his fingers, while murmuring sexy, encouraging words to her that made her skin flush and her body move rhythmically on the careful intrusion of his. And kisses slow and sweet.
His Theo liked kisses.
“Please,” she whispered long before he was ready to stop playing, “I need . . .” A lost look to her.
“I have you, my Theo.” And though he’d planned to draw this out, need clutched his heart, the desire to give her what she wanted his most primal driving force.