Page 100 of Primal Mirror

“I’m going to write her letters,” she whispered against his chest. “While I’m still me, I’ll write her letters that I need you to keep for her if nothing we do works and I turn into the other me.”

Remi’s body went rock-hard, a block cold and jagged, but he didn’t interrupt.

“I want her to know I loved her. So much.” Her throat grew thick, her eyes burning. “I want my baby to grow up knowing she was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Remi’s chest rumbled, his hand warm and protective as he cradled the back of her head. “She’ll know. No matter what, she’ll know.”

Sobs rocking her, Auden cried. But she only gave herself so much time, no more. Because she couldn’t break down. She had to use the time she had as herself. “While we wait for the house to settle,” she said, wiping her face on the backs of her forearms, “I’ll see what I can dig up on the system. Rina said she put my organizer with your kit.”

Remi didn’t argue—he probably saw how close she was to the edge, how much she needed to do something for her baby. “Yes.”

After retrieving it for her, he said, “I’ll duck into the bathroom and change out of this suit. Mliss handed our stuff over to Rina at the gate, so no one in your house has had a chance to embed anything in them.”

“Change here,” Auden whispered from where she sat on the bed, because the idea of seeing all that masculine beauty made her skin stretch, dulled the pain until it no longer throbbed like blades in the skin.

“You can scent me.” She used his own words against him because it had struck her all over again that her life—as Auden—could end without ever experiencing intimate touch at Remi’s hands. And this time, it wasn’t a realization she could fight, wasn’t a panic she could think away. It was too deep, too vicious. “Please be with me while I’m me. While I know you.”

“Auden. We’ve already talked about this. Anything we do, we do on our own timeline.”

“I know…but I’ve realized…I need that time to be now. I need something good to balance out the ugliness of this house, of my family, of my entire life.” She swallowed her tears, fisting her hands in the sheet. “I need you, Remi.”

“You’ve just given birth.” It came out a growl.

“I’m healed, thanks to the insane amount of money your pack blew on me.” She tried to smile at the words she’d meant to be light. “My hormones are all over the place, my emotions a huge storm, but they’re not affecting my ability to think—and while I might still be trembling from the shock of the birth, it was the most beautiful shock of my life. If I’m shaken, it’s in joy. If I’m lost, it’s only because I’m a new mother. There’s nothing bad in it.”

The tears burned her irises now. “And you. You’re the most extraordinary, wonderful shock I could’ve ever imagined—and I don’t want to miss out on knowing you in this way that’s integral to your nature. Each time I close my eyes, I’m afraid I won’t wake up as me. Please, Remi. Give me this piece of you to fight the nightmares.”

A growl before he reached up to undo his tie. “I’m going to spank you later for disrupting all my plans,” he threatened…only it wasn’t a threat at all.

His voice was thick, leopard eyes awash in emotion.

The alpha heart of him, it wrapped her in its embrace, holding her close to his primal warmth.

“You’re making me break all the rules.” Tie off, he looked at it for a long moment before hanging it carefully over the end of the headboard. His jacket he threw over the armchair after prowling over to that side of the bed.

Then, eyes of green-gold locked with hers, he began to undo his shirt. “Only for you,” he murmured in that rough, deep voice. “You understand that, Auden? I don’t let go of what’s mine.”

Her tears retreated under a wave of languorous warmth that made her toes curl. “Yes,” she whispered. “I understand.”

Her breath was no longer in any way steady, her breasts so tight that she was afraid the medication had worn off again, but when she touched one taut mound, it felt different. Hot, wanting.

Remi’s gaze followed her hand as he continued to open button after button to reveal a strip of golden skin faintly dusted with dark hair. “Take off your sweatshirt and touch yourself just that way.” It was an order.

The part of Auden that had been fighting for her freedom all her life thought she should rebel, couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to.

“It’s a game, little cat.” Piercing tenderness in Remi’s deep purr. “Played only between us. Because it makes you wet and me hard.”

The blunt carnal statement twined with raw affection had a whimper escaping her mouth and any thoughts of clinging to control slipping out of her grasp. As he pulled his shirt out of his pants to finish unbuttoning it, she reached for the bottom of her sweatshirt and pulled it over her head in a single move.

Remi hissed out a breath at her exposed body, her breasts bare because they’d ached too much for her to put her bra back on when the medication first wore off. “Fucking beautiful.” A petting growl that felt like a touch. “Do it. Hands on those gorgeous tits.”

The words he used, so rough and unpolished, they only made her…wetter. So wet that she saw his nostrils flare.

“Good girl,” he purred again. “That’s how I like you, so wet your musk sticks to my throat and makes me want to lick you up.” A narrowed gaze. “But we can’t do that yet—and we definitely can’t give my cock what it wants—because that’d be going straight to a hundred from a standing start. So we’ll do something else.”

He flicked a look at her unmoving hands. “Do what I said, Auden”—his voice dropping an octave—“or you’ll be punished.”

A game, she remembered. This was a game he was playing with her. Because cats liked to play games…and her lover was a cat.

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