Page 415 of Bride of Choice

I had no clue what to make of the soft grunt he let out at that.

With a shrug, I frowned and glanced off over his shoulder. “Hm. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should be extra careful. You know, for the baby.”

Rek’s loud snort from the living room had me nearly breaking.

Jeh-kal stumbled a step. His gaze darted from me to the hall he was headed for.

“She no mean it!” Celuk translated the Joanie speak for him.

“She doesn’t mean what?” Dace squeaked out.

“No need know,” Rek rumbled out at her. “Mates things.”

“I don’t think I wanna know,” Dace mumbled in answer.

“Dace not,” Buu agreed.

The sigh of relief Jeh-kal let out had me cackling in his arms like a mad woman. “No scare like that,” Jeh-kal bitched at me over my fit of the funnies as he stopped in front of a door that looked like it was carved from his tree home.

“A frightening thought,” I paused laughing long enough to agree.

Words left me as Jeh-kal threw the door open and strode inside. It was like walking into a studio sized version of his tree home, if more homey and comfortable than his tree home had been. His shelves and big chair, the things strewn all over Tor’s place were sprinkled throughout, a big mishmash of both sides of him.

“Are you okay, being Jeh-kal and not swapping back and forth between Tor and Hyde?” I questioned. My gaze darted away from his, fixing on the large bed he was headed for.

Placing me with utmost care into the middle of the bed, he quickly shut and locked the door behind him to join me. Curling me into his arms, he tucked my head under his chin. Thick fingers began smoothing up and down my back comfortingly. “Jo ‘kay, Jeh-kal stay? Jeh-kal Tor and Hyde together, no fight, no feel be separate. Work together. No fight over turns. We share.”

“I want you to be yourself,” I murmured softly, slipping my arms around his waist to wriggle in closer. “Love you, Big Business.”

“Loves our Jo, too,” he happily purred right back.

My hand smoothed down a thick pec, pausing to tease the hardened bud my fingers skimmed across. A soft growl mixed in with that purr and the big male holding me shivered. Leaning in, I nipped at a thick pec, rewarded with a soft growl and a very distinct thickness between his legs jerking, trapped between us.

“Sometimes… I’m very naughty,” I informed him.

“Jo not naughty. Jo goot female,” Jeh-kal grumblingly argued. Pulling back, his fingers slid beneath my chin, forcing me to look up and meet his swirling, mismatched irises. “My Jo strong, smart, beautiful.” Thick, clawed fingertips carefully brushed down the side of my scarred face. “Jeh-kal Jo goot.”

Biting at my lip, I reached down between us. “Being bad isn’t always a bad thing,” I teased as I wrapped my fingers around that monster between his legs and I started to work the furry foreskin covering it down his length.

Cottoning on, Jeh-kal let out a noise that said just what he thought about this side of his mate, then he captured my hand, my lips, rolled me to my back, and showed me in every way imaginable just how much he enjoyed Naughty Joanie.

Chapter 50

Our night of crazy and claiming had the added benefit of smoothing some ruffled feathers. Rek was the first to say anything about any of it, because of course he was.

When he looked up at Odix across the table from him at breakfast, stared him dead in the eye and demanded to know, “What you do my Jojomine, make her scream like that?” it made for a funny, if awkward for the poor human guest staying with us indefinitely, conversation.

Thankfully, they all quickly switched to their native tongue to talk about it, leaving both humans present in the dark.

Hey, if they wanted to swap make her hoohah sing and our woman scream pointers, who was I to argue? They were bonding.

Sitting at the table sandwiched between Buu and Rek with Dace seated at the end next to Buu since she didn’t really seem to trust anyone else really besides him and to a growing but small extent me, I almost felt bad for the woman.

She freaked out at the smallest things. She’s passed out twice since she’s been here and I wasn’t even sure what triggered the second episode, to be honest. The woman was fearful of just about everyone and everything. It was kinda sad and helped me understand a bit better how and why she loved her cave living as much as she yammered on that she did.

“No eggs,” Jeh-kal instructed Gopher, who was manning the stove today while Celuk sliced bread.

Jeh-kal made a mean pot of tummy tea, mixing it just right to ease the early morning pregnancy pukes the baby had ambushed my ass with.

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