Page 11 of Predator

“You forget that I was feral, too, sucre. I had seventy years to learn control and there were times I still couldn’t. That was your first shift. An unexpected shift. I bit you. Don’t ever blame yourself for biting me.”

Is that what he calls it? “But your throat?—”

“These are my mating marks. I won’t lie and say you weren’t a little… enthusiastic?—”

Oh my God.

“—but that makes them even more special. You marked me so hard, no one will ever doubt that I have a mate who didn’t want to bond herself to me. Because that?” He taps the scars. “That’s what these mean to me. Proof that I’m yours. So don’t fret, my mate. I’m proud to wear your bite on my skin.”

I.. I don’t know what to say to that.

Lucas’s thumb ghosts over the point where my shoulder meets my neck. “Besides, it’s only fair. You wear mine.”

I haven’t seen the bite there just yet. Well, obviously. But I’ve seen Eleanor’s so I have an idea what to expect. And, yes, Lucas’s are so much more obvious… but he’s not lying to me. When he said he was proud… through the bond tying us together, I can tell just how much he meant that.

My panic ebbs, hysteria stepping aside as he lowers his finger to caress the mark on my skin.

I shudder, and a part of me blazes when Lucas’s amber-colored eyes burn like lava as they dip down to watch my tits shake with the motion.

His hand drops, settling along the curve of my bare boob. He squeezes it gently, and I gasp, arching my back so that I’m pressing it even more against his hold.

Is he distracting me? Probably.

Am I going to let him?

Nothing is going to stop me.

He’s holding my boob, waiting to see how I’m going to react. Will I jerk out of his hold, moving further away from him? Will I crumple to the floor, dissolving into sobs after he already told me that he’s happy I savaged him? I know he’s a shifter and he looks at things differently, but will he expect me to shove him away, ignore the need to mate him, and suddenly develop some kind of faux sense of modesty?

If so, he hasn’t been paying attention.

Lucas is holding my boob. Hey. Fallon is back. If anything, I want to prove to myself that being a shifter hasn’t changed me all that much. Turnabout’s fair play, babe. It’s only right that I get to reach down, cupping his cock.

“Oh.” I trail my fingers along the erection I find pushing against his jeans. “Oh.”

Why am I surprised? I shouldn’t be. Not only has Lucas confessed that he wanted to mate me from the first moment he had me laid out on the couch in this very same cabin, but I’m naked. I’ve been naked since I shifted back. I guess I’m more shifter than I thought, because it didn’t bother me one bit… but once he saw that I was okay, I think I’d be insulted if my naked body didn’t turn my mate on.

Nudity isn’t a big deal to shifters—unless there’s a sexual attraction between them.

For all the issues we’ve had and overcome in our relationship, that’s never been one of them.

We’re mates. Sex comes with the territory.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve fucked a guy or two just to make the loneliness go away for the night. I wasn’t picky. I was rarely choosy. If I needed to forget myself for the moment, why not get some pleasure out of it?

That’s not what I want from Lucas. Sure, I’d be full of shit if I acted like I wasn’t about to bang him to stop dealing with the reality of our situation for the moment. I’m human again, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m a shifter, and I’ll have to confront that.

Later. I’ll do that later.

For now…

“I need you,” I tell him. Snapping the button on his jeans with my thumb in between tilting my chin back, waiting for Lucas to kiss me, I shudder out a breath. “I need you, babe.”

“I’m right here?—”

I dip my hand beneath his waistband, enjoying the way he jolts when my fingers find his heated flesh. “I need you now.”

Lucas was the one distracting me before, but he seems to have second thoughts now. “How are you feeling? Maybe you should lay down. Are you hungry?”

---