Page 38 of Alistair

He stalked to her, his gaze riveted to hers. He climbed up behind her and pushed her gently forward. She bent at the waist and rested her head on the bed. He moved back and pulled her thong slowly off, the little scrap of material soaked with her arousal.

He swiped his finger along her lips and let out a low growling sound that made her body light up. Then he was feasting on her, holding her cheeks with his hands and licking her, finding all the places that made her writhe in his hold.

When she came on his tongue, he was inside her a moment later, riding her orgasm to his own, stretching her pleasure out immeasurably long, until she thought she’d never stop coming. Never stop feeling so much from her sexy soulmate.

When he came inside her, she realized he wasn’t wearing a condom, but she didn’t care. It suddenly felt like the perfect way to start this new chapter of their lives together.

Because that’s what it felt like.

She turned in his arms as he cradled her close and kissed him.

“I love you.”

His fingers dug into her skin. “I love you too.”

Jasper Wilder followed a few cars behind Alistair and Maggie as they left the wedding venue and headed to her apartment. He was part of the security detail for the alpha elephant. No one was allowed to go anywhere alone, even an alpha. When Joss, his alpha, asked him if he wanted to stick with Alistair while he escorted Maggie to her sister’s wedding, he’d jumped at the chance.

He wasn’t interested in sitting around all night doing nothing.

Even playing cards with his friends had lost its luster, and not because he was on the biggest losing streak of his life.

Nothing made him happy anymore. He felt like he was just going through the motions, trudging through molasses just to get from dawn to dusk and start the process all over again.

At a stoplight, he rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes and stifled a yawn.

“You okay?” Lucius, one of the lions, asked from the passenger seat.

“Tired.”

Jasper normally handled security for the safari tours, but he was also part of the general security team for the park, roaming the park at any time of day or night with the rest of the team. He also often volunteered to escort shifters outside of the park.

“Something going on, or just general insomnia?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but it was all too complicated. After a long moment, he said, “It’s a combination of things.”

“That sucks. You know what’s weird?”

“What?”

“Every time someone finds their soulmate, it makes my lion more anxious. It’s almost like he feels like there’s a finite number of females for shifters and we’re not going to find our own.”

That wasn’t exactly Jasper’s problem.

He knew he’d get a soulmate.

He just couldn’t have her.

Bitterness boiled up inside him, but he pushed it away before it turned him into a raging jackass.

Instead of telling Lucius his whole backstory and reliving the night that had forever changed his life in the worst way, he pressed on the gas when the light turned green and said, “I do believe there’s someone out there for everyone; the question is how long you have to wait. Joss was in his forties, and so was Atticus. Alistair just turned forty.”

“Shit, man, I don’t want to wait over a decade for my mate. Do you?”

He’d be waiting longer than that.

The wordeternitycame to mind.

But again, he chose to go with jovial and not solemn to answer his friend. “Nah. It’ll happen when it happens, right? And she’ll be worth the wait.”

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