Page 73 of Bearly Hanging On

After Harper spent the entire time on the dodgem cars ramming my butt, which turned into a joke about her riding my arse, followed quickly by a not-so-jovial conversation about pegging, I managed to redirect her towards the Ferris wheel. A twenty slipped to the operator and he made sure we stopped here, at the top of the ride. A panoramic view of the sea spread out before us, and at the sight of the twinkling lights and the last rays of the sun, Harper let out a sigh, settling back against the seat.

“OK, Kitty Cat.” She shot me a sidelong look and a smile. “You got me up here. Now what?” She glanced at the railing. “Tell me you aren’t going to re-enact the great roof jump of 2010.”

“Nope.” I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. “Something a lot scarier.”

I’d watched movies, seen guys make their moves on the Ferris wheel, so why the hell was I freaking out way more than when I climbed that damn tree? Maybe because when I was a kid, the worst that could’ve happened was I would’ve fallen or gotten grounded. Now? I pushed her hair behind her ear, treasuring the silken slip of it between my fingers before I moved in closer. Her smile faded, but what sunlight remained had her eyes glowing. They stared into mine, right as I moved forward.

“I don’t want to rush you,” I said.

“Pretty sure I’ve been trying to get all of you to hurry things up, Tor,” she said, grabbing my shirt and pulling me closer. Our lips hovered over the other, but I wouldn’t kiss her again, not until I got this out. “If I have to sleep through one more sex dream…”

“What if it wasn’t a dream?” She glanced up, seeming to sense that this was different. Not us tumbling into bed together like last time. We still had a long way to go to prove our worth to Harper, but I needed… I needed to know we were heading in the right direction. “What if…?” My lips brushed against hers, unable to go a second longer without a taste. “What if we made a commitment?”

She went perfectly still, and the tiger let me know what was happening. The prey was on high alert, ready to bolt. I needed to move slowly, carefully, not send Harper running the moment she got off this Ferris wheel. When her hand clutched at my shirt, hope flared anew.

“No grand declarations, no mate bonds,” I said in my best reassuring tone.

“Yet.”

She growled that out, staring into my eyes.

“Yet.” I nodded. “But a commitment to being open to that idea. You, me, us, and the rest of the world a few hundred feet below.”

She shook her head with a smile.

“Dramatic much?”

My hand slapped down on my chest.

“Have you met me?”

“You’re a walking bad decision, you know that, right?’ she replied, her tone just a little too sharp.

“One you keep making.” My smile faded. “Want to keep making bad decisions with me, Harper? For worse or worserer.”

“Worserer is not a?—”

I silenced her with a kiss, unable to hold myself back. Letting the other guys take her on their dates half killed me. The tiger might be patient, but the human wanted her right fucking now. Pulled closer, that little moan of hers everything as I kissed her harder, deeper. The soft slick sensation of her tongue against mine making me remember the last time I felt that elsewhere. Whatever thoughts I had were driven out of my head by her.

Of course, I wasn’t allowed to just lose myself in that. A sharp creak from above had us both looking up and then the carriage swung wildly as Mack appeared, obviously having climbed up from the one below ours.

“We’ve got company,” he said, the muffled chatter from the wheel operator barely registering. “Time to go.”

“Go how?”

The answer came quickly as the ride began to move. Mack jumped free as soon as he was close enough, meeting us at the stairs as soon as the harried looking operator released the bar enclosing our carriage.

“Where?” Kieran’s terse demand was at odds with his burden. His arms were stuffed with animal plushies.

“Coming in through that way,” Mack said, stabbing his finger at the path that led in from the beach.

“Then we’re heading this way.”

I ripped my shirt up and over my head, pausing for a split second to soak in Harper’s appreciative look. My shoes were kicked off and then my beast came, flowing out of me like a river until the tiger stood in front of her. We nodded to our back, making clear what we needed.

“You want me to… ride you?”

I forced the tiger to chuff, unable to stop the innuendo from making me laugh, even as my tiger senses made clear something that my human nose had missed. There were wolf shifters close. Good ones, bad ones, cops or bikers, we didn’t know, but we wouldn’t stop to find out. I let out a little growl and then sidled up to her, not stopping until she threw a leg over my back. Then we were off.

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