Page 57 of Purring for Her Lion
“Mine,” I growl, the word escaping before I can stop it. “My mate.”
“Yours,” she agrees, her voice breaking as I increase the pace. “All yours.”
I can feel my control slipping, my release building at the base of my spine. My cock is swelling, the beginning of the knot forming—a physiological response I’ve never experienced before, not even with previous partners. Only with her. Only with my true mate.
“Liana,” I warn, my voice strained. “I’m close... and there’s something you should know...”
“I can feel it,” she says, surprising me. “The... swelling. Is that normal for you?”
“It’s a Rodinian trait,” I explain, slowing my thrusts slightly. “The knot. It forms when... when we mate. When we bond.”
I lean over her back, my chest to her spine, my mouth at her ear. “I won’t knot you today. Not until you’re ready. But I want to... I want to claim you fully. One day.”
She turns her head, seeking my mouth for a kiss that’s all heat and promise. “I want that too. But yes, one step at a time.”
The permission, the acceptance in her voice is what finally breaks my control. I straighten, gripping her hips tightly as I thrust into her with increasing urgency. I feel my release building, unstoppable now, and when it hits, it’s more intense than anything I’ve experienced before. I growl her name as I fill her, my cock pulsing deep inside her body.
The sensation triggers her own climax, her inner walls milking me for every drop as she comes around me with a cry that might be my name or might just be pure pleasure.
We collapse together onto the bed, my larger body curled protectively around her smaller one. I nuzzle the back of her neck, placing gentle kisses along her shoulder as our breathing slowly returns to normal.
“You better not go anywhere,” she murmurs sleepily. “Do you know the food investment I’ve put into you?”
I laugh, the sound rumbling from deep in my chest. “I’m not going anywhere,” I promise. “You’re stuck with me now.”
“Good,” she says, and then gasps as I shift behind her, my cock—still hard despite my recent release—pressing against her. “Wait, already? How are you... I mean, that’s not humanly possible.”
“I’m not human,” I remind her, rolling my hips slowly against her. “And I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time.”
She turns in my arms to face me, her expression a mix of disbelief and arousal. “Well, in that case...” She reaches between us, wrapping her hand around my length. “I guess we have some lost time to make up for.”
As I claim her mouth in another hungry kiss, I allow myself to imagine our future together—not just the next few hours or days, but years. Decades. Her by my side, her chaos complementing my order. Nugget growing alongside us, the homestead expanding to accommodate our needs.
I’ve spent so much of my life alone, convinced that solitude was safer. That connection meant vulnerability, and vulnerability meant pain. But as I move inside her again, as she wraps herself around me, giving and taking pleasure with equal enthusiasm, I know that I’ve found something worth the risk.
I’ve found my mate. My heart. My home.
CHAPTER 19
LIANA
I’ve never beena roots kind of girl. My life has been a series of takeoffs and landings, never staying in one place long enough for the soil to remember the shape of my feet.
Manila to New York to Virginia, each move fueled by restlessness, by the persistent itch under my skin that whispered, “Not yet. Not here. Keep going.”
But now, watching the morning light filter through Roarke’s bedroom window, his massive arm draped over my waist, his breath warm against my neck, I realize the itch has gone silent. For the first time in my life, I’m not planning my next escape route. I’m planning to stay.
It’s been three weeks since I told Roarke I loved him, three weeks since he carried me to bed and showed me exactly what that territorial instinct of his meant in the most delicious ways possible. Three weeks of a new routine that somehow feels like it’s always been this way.
My days still belong to my homestead. I wake with the sun, slip out from under Roarke’s protective embrace—not an easy featconsidering he tends to growl and pull me back against him—and make the short walk back to my house. My house. It’s still mine, still the space where I work and bake and tend to my growing menagerie. But it’s no longer where I sleep.
Today follows the familiar pattern. I check on the chickens first, making sure the coop door is secure after letting them out to free-range. Chestnut gives me her usual unimpressed side-eye as I scatter feed, as if to say, “You’re late, and I know exactly what kept you.” Buttercup, more forgiving, clucks happily around my ankles.
“Yes, yes, I know,” I tell them, running a gentle finger down Marigold’s back. “Mommy got distracted. Again.”
They don’t need to know that the “distraction” involved Roarke’s mouth between my thighs at 5 AM, his golden eyes watching me fall apart as the first rays of dawn crept through the window. Some things are between a woman and her lion-man.
With the chickens sorted, I head inside to my makeshift office. Three client meetings, two UX proposals to finish, and a prototype to troubleshoot. Corporate America continues to turn, oblivious to the fact that the woman designing their sleek interfaces is doing so with flour in her hair and dragon scales stuck to her socks.
