Page 26 of Her Lion Lover

"Where are you going? I've been waiting for you to wake up. I've been wondering what you taste like, and I've spent the last hour fantasising about what sounds you'd make if I buried my head between your thighs and made you come with just my fingers and my tongue."

Oh fuck. If she'd been wearing underwear, it would have evaporated at the heat rising from her core at the very thought...

She turned. Just one look at the sheer perfection of his naked body, laid out on the bed beside her, was enough to make her mouth very, very dry...a terrible contrast to the wetness between her thighs.

She wanted to straddle his lap and ride him to Valhalla.

"I have work to do," she reminded him.

The arm around her waist tightened. "No, you don't. I'm firing you. You can't be my wife and my maid. Three months' severance pay in lieu of notice, or whatever you want. What's mine is yours now, anyway, or it will be as soon as I dig out that prenup and destroy it. You won't need to work ever again." He grinned. "Here, I'll even make you late for work, to give Mum grounds to fire you." He lifted her almost effortlessly, setting her down exactly where she wanted to be, with his hot, hard cock poised to give her as much pleasure as any woman could want.

How could any woman resist Leo King?

Lily angled her hips just right, before impaling herself on his length. God, he felt so good inside her. Exactly like they were made for each other.

THIRTY-TWO

Leo had reluctantly left Lily in the shower, so that he might explain things to his mother before Lily appeared.

The moment he appeared in the kitchen, though, it was Mum who spoke first. "Congratulations. So you found your fated mate after all."

Well, they hadn't been particularly quiet last night. Both on the lawn and when they'd come inside.

But Mum didn't look the slightest bit surprised.

"Did you already know?" he demanded.

Mum shrugged. "Laima said it was likely. But nothing is ever certain about these things, especially when fated mates are involved, so we had to let fate take its course. Or not, as the case may be. She said she's been wrong before, though it's rare."

Leo blew out a frustrated breath. If she'd only told him sooner, he and Lily could have been together on their wedding night. Now he had an employment contract and a prenup to get rid of. "I hope you factored that in when you drew up her employment contract. I will not have my wife working as a maid in her own house. She doesn't need to work at all."

Mother coughed delicately. "I believe that is Lily's decision to make, not yours. Though I did receive a call from Mrs Parker last night, saying that her son-in-law is entitled to paternity leave, and he's going to be at home with her daughter and granddaughter from next week, so she won't be needed there any more. She'd like to come back to work on Monday."

"So you don't need me any more?" Lily appeared in the doorway, dressed in her maid's uniform.

"I won't need your services as a housekeeper as of Monday," Mother said. "I will, of course pay you in lieu of the short notice, but maternity leave cover is one of those things you can never be certain about. Sometimes it's only a few weeks, and other times, it's the full year, with job share afterwards. Of course, if what my son tells me is true, that you are his fated mate, you have a place here indefinitely, not just for the duration of the marriage contract."

Ah, yes. He'd almost forgotten about that. "I'll go find that contract and make sure it's destroyed," Leo promised, heading for the library.

THIRTY-THREE

Leo hurried out, leaving Lily alone with Alicia.

"I believe congratulations are in order. If my housekeeper were here, she'd have prepared you a proper wedding breakfast, something suitable for the first morning of your honeymoon. Of course, after your first hunt together, most couples rarely want breakfast, but such things are tradition..." Alicia eyed Lily. "What did you catch? I'm grateful you didn't leave the carcass on the lawn. The gardener does hate disposing of bodies."

So Alicia knew what her son was. What she now was. Lily sat down before her knees gave way, but only just. "I only chased Leo, and that was more out of instinct than anything else. He keeps saying I'm his fated mate, like something out of a paranormal romance book, but nothing I've ever read suggested I might turn into a lion. Until yesterday, I thought shapeshifters were only found in fairytales. Or horror movies. Now, I don't know what to believe."

"Coffee?" Alicia asked.

At Lily's nod, Alicia held out a brimming cup. Lily's fingers brushed hers, only to feel...fur. She glanced down and almost dropped the cup as she saw the enormous clawed paw where Alicia's hand should be.

"You're one, too?" Lily squeaked.

"As was my husband, Leo's father. We were fated mates, too, which is as much a fairytale to our kind as it is to humans, you should know. In fact, even I thought that the stories saying a bite between fated mates could turn a human were merely a myth. You proved me wrong, as I saw yesterday." Alicia shook her head, then shook her paw until it turned back into a well-manicured, beringed hand again, before picking up her cup of tea to take a sip. "We'd always hoped for the same thing for Leo, but he was so focussed on his studies and then the business, and when none of the other shifters he'd dated over the years seemed to attract him...well, it's lovely to see him finally happy."

"But what is a fated mate? And how do shifters even work? I mean, the size difference between Leo as a lion and him as a man..."

Alicia took a seat at the kitchen table. "As far as the shapeshifting process goes, I can only tell you what my parents told me when I first shifted. It's magic. No one knows how or why the first shifters came into being. Some say it was a gift from a witch, while others say it was a curse placed on the first shifters' entire bloodlines. What we do know is that the ability to shift is genetic. Not everyone who has the genes can shift, but they have the potential to do so. For example, my husband's brother, Jeremy. He was born of the same two shifter parents as Leo's father was, but it wasn't until he reached adolescence that the difference between the two brothers became apparent. My husband managed to shift into a gangly, juvenile lion on his first try, but Jeremy has never shifted at all, and likely never will. But he does carry shifter genes, which means he or his descendants might still find their fated mate, and if that mate claims them properly, then the shift might be shared. Like you."

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