Page 15 of Snared
“Are there dangers?” I asked instead, changing the subject before I did something stupid like throw myself at him. “Things the jungle can’t protect us from?”
His expression shifted, almost imperceptibly. A tightening around the eyes. A slight flare of his nostrils. He didn’t answer.
“Lor?” I pressed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Rest,” he said, deflecting with a grace that would have impressed me if it hadn’t been so frustrating. “The journey tomorrow will be challenging.”
I watched as he moved to the outer edge of the shelter, positioning himself like a sentinel between me and whatever dangers lurked in the darkening jungle. His body was tense, alert, every line of him radiating protective intensity.
“You’re not going to sleep?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“I will rest when it’s safe.” He glanced back at me. “The jungle will warn me if anything approaches.”
I wanted to argue, to demand answers about what had him so on edge. But exhaustion was creeping over me, the strange fruits and the day’s exertions taking their toll.
I stretched out on the moss bed, softer than any mattress I’d ever owned. Phil coiled protectively near my feet, joined by two smaller vines that draped themselves across the edge of the sleeping platform like living guardrails.
“Goodnight, Phil,” I murmured, my eyelids growing heavy. “Keep the creepy crawlies away.”
Phil rippled in what I chose to interpret as agreement. Through half-closed eyes, I watched Lor’s silhouette against the night sky, his tail moving in slow, hypnotic sweeps.
The last thing I saw before sleep claimed me was his head turning, those predator eyes reflecting the bioluminescent glow as he watched over me.
And the last thing I felt was anticipation—deep, primal, and undeniable—for the dream I knew was coming.
I dreamed of him again.Lor.
His tongue, hot and slow, dragging down the inside of my thigh. His claws scraping gently over my hips. His tail wrapping around me like silk and heat and *claiming*. His body—hard, golden, striped in shadows—pressing me into glowing moss as he groaned into my mouth like I was his first and last taste of anything sweet.
But this wasn’t just memory. This was now. This was happening again.
The Unity dream pulled me under like a riptide, dragging me into a world where only sensation existed. I found myself standing in a clearing bathed in moonlight, the jungle aroundus pulsing with bioluminescence that matched the rhythm of my heart.
And there he was. Waiting.
Lor stood at the edge of the clearing, his golden eyes glowing in the darkness. Gone was the careful restraint he showed in the waking world. Here, in this space between reality and fantasy, he was all predator. All hunger. All mine.
“Kassari,” he growled, the word rumbling from his chest like thunder.
I should have been afraid. Should have been intimidated by the raw power radiating from him, the deadly claws that now extended fully from his fingertips, the fangs that gleamed in the moonlight as he stalked toward me.
Instead, I felt myself moving to meet him, drawn by a force as inevitable as gravity.
“Lor,” I whispered, his name a prayer and permission all at once.
We collided like stars, his mouth crashing down on mine with a ferocity that stole my breath. His hands—those deadly, gentle hands—cradled my face with exquisite care even as his body pressed against mine with urgent need.
I tasted wildness on his tongue, something primal and ancient that called to something equally primal in me. My fingers dug into the corded muscles of his shoulders, nails scoring his skin as he deepened the kiss, claiming my mouth with a thoroughness that left me gasping.
When he finally pulled back, his pupils had dilated to dark pools rimmed with gold. “Let me taste you,” he growled, his voice so deep it vibrated through my bones. “All of you.”
“Yes,” I breathed, the word barely formed before he was moving, lifting me as if I weighed nothing and laying me down on a bed of glowing moss that seemed to have materialized specifically for this purpose.
His tongue—that incredible, devastating tongue—traced the line of my jaw, the curve of my neck, the hollow of my throat. I arched into the contact, a whimper escaping me as I felt the rough texture of it against my skin.
Unlike a human tongue, Lor’s was textured with tiny ridges that caught against my sensitive flesh, creating friction that sent sparks dancing along my nerve endings. He worked his way down my body with agonizing slowness, those ridges scraping deliciously over my collarbone, the swell of my breasts, the sensitive peaks of my nipples.
“Your taste,” he murmured against my skin, “intoxicating.”
