Page 99 of Seducing Jenny
My chest tightened, my heart beating fast and furiously at the declaration. “You’ve never said that to me before.”
She nearly smiled. “No? I’m pretty sure I have—”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Well…I do.” She came to me and wrapped her arms around my waist, burying her face against my chest. “Very much. And I’m just…scared of losing you.”
I felt the same fear. “I love you, too, Jenny.”
She hugged me tighter. “We will fix this.”
Gods, I wanted to believe her. “We will. Somehow.”
CHAPTER 28
Jenny
Tiger loved me.
He’d held me close and whispered those words like they were sacred. But even wrapped in that moment, warm and real and everything I’d wanted, I couldn’t shake the fear clawing inside me.
Because I might lose him. To his clan.
It was difficult for me to understand how deeply that obligation ran, but I realized it wasn’t just family. It was faith, his identity, hisduty. They wanted him back. Wanted to pair him off with some stranger and harvest his bloodline like a sacred crop. And even though he said it wasn’t what he wanted—even though he said he loved me—I could feel the weight of his guilt dragging him down.
Tiger felt as though he owed them, and guilt had a funny way of rewriting even the strongest promises.
I hated feeling powerless. Hated that I’d offered to unite with him and he’d turned it down. Not because he didn’t want me, but because he wanted our choice to be free of obligation. I respected it. I really did.
But I still wanted to scream. And cry. And maybe punch his whole damn clan.
But my stomach chose that moment to growl loud enough for Tiger and Mal to hear. My cheeks heated from embarrassment, which made them laugh, breaking the tension between all of us.
“I think I need to eat,” I said with a grin.
“Surge, Sam, and Discord were at brunch, before I left them to run here,” Tiger said.
“Then let’s go join them,” Mal added, reaching for both our hands. “We could use the break, and food.”
We left the room together. Out on the terrace, the morning air was crisp and warm, the sunslight filtering through the canopy overhead. Still no Longshot, which I found disconcerting, but everyone else was out there, lingering over coffee and something that looked like cookies.
“Vine made lasky?” Mal asked excitedly.
Discord raised an unimpressed brow. “And good morning to you too, Mal.”
He grabbed three cookies from the platter. “Thegreatestmorning,” he said with a grin. “There’s lasky.” Then he dipped two of them in a mug of coffee, while eating the third.
I laughed at his exuberance. “I thought you grabbed one for each of us.”
He scoffed playfully. “You have my love. You don’t get my laskies, too.”
Everyone laughed, and I grabbed one of my own. It looked like a small butter cookie with a dollop of jam in the middle. When I bit into it, I realized why he was being greedy. It was delicious.
“Oh damn,” I said, truly obsessed.
“Mal, watch yourself with those,” Discord cautioned. “You know what happened last time Vine made lasky.”
I tilted my head curiously. “What happened?”
