Page 18 of Condor Deck Party

“No, it doesn’t hurt, and if there’s a limit to how many times someone can shift, no one’s run into it yet. And here.”

One moment, he was a gorgeous man talking with her, and the next, there was an eagle the size of a three year-old standing up in his chair. She had been about as ready for it as it was possible to be, which was, to be fair, not very, but still Ros sat back hard in her chair, quelling the automatic panic of suddenly being next to something that her brain told her was absolutely, positively a wild animal.

Then somehow, all of her fear evaporated and she leaned in closer. A strange feeling came over her, fascination and wonder and adoration, and she examined Teagan in this new shape, which, she realized in some elemental way, was as much him as the other.

In his eagle form, he was enormous, and when he stood in the chair across from her, their heads were just about level. While his belly was a speckled cream, the rest of his feathers were colored a range of gray, from the pale gray of his head to the almost charcoal gray of his back and his wings. His beak curved to a wicked point that made her shiver, but it was his eyes that caught her, round and such a bright gold that she almost gasped. Something about those eyes said beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Teagan in there, no matter what he looked like, and her heart swelled.

Before Ros quite knew what she was doing, she reached out her hand, palm down, to Teagan. She moved slowly and still hesitated just before her fingers would brush the feathers of his chest, but before she could decide if this was a good idea or not, Teagan twisted his head, shoving up under her fingers in a startlingly powerful motion. He was large enough that the crown of his head filled her palm, and she gasped a little at how soft and sleek he was.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered.

The sound he made startled her, a soft, almost purring, little coo. It wasn’t a sound she’d expected to come out of an animal that large, especially not after all the murderbird screaming she'd been dealing with for the last two days, and she smiled delightedly, scratching his head with her nails.

The soft coo grew louder, and Teagan shifted closer to her, straight to the edge of his chair. Instinctively, she scratched more firmly, then instead of an enormous eagle pushing into her hand, it was a man, sliding down to his knees, her fingers ruffling through his blond hair.

“Oh,” she breathed, and he looked up at her, dark eyes dilated, lips slightly parted.

“And you’re my true mate,” he said. “Mine, just like I’m yours.”

That should have spurred a whole heck of a lot more questions, all about what the hell that meant, what it meant to her, what it meant to him. Instead, it was as if he had rung a bell at the center of her chest that she had never even suspected before this, and its tolling grew louder and louder until the only thing that she could do, the only thing shewantedto do, was lean down and claim his mouth with hers.

They had kissed the day before, and if she had to think about it in a wider context beyond just thinkingoh my god, that was incredible, do it again,she would have said it was one of the best kisses of her life. This kiss, however, with her hand in Teagan’s hair, him kneeling on the ground but still so damned big and present and solid in front of her, blew that one out of the water.

His arms went around her waist as he leaned deeper into the kiss, and Ros realized all over again how large he was, how his body dwarfed hers even when he knelt. His mouth was hot and demanding, urging hers open so he could slide his tongue between her teeth. She could taste the spearmint of his toothpaste, and underneath that, it was just him, elementally him in a way that she couldn’t describe but would never, ever forget.

Ros whimpered when he broke the kiss, pulling back to look at her.

“Ros,” he said, his voice a low and desperate rumble, “Honey, is this all right? This is a lot, and–”

He stopped when she deliberately slid her hand from his broad shoulder down to his belly. He as soft everywhere she touched, but even a cursory push revealed the muscles underneath, as unyielding as bedrock.

“More than all right,” Ros murmured. She could barely recognized the low, sultry tone as belonging to her. “Soall right. I know my own mind, Teagan, when I’ve been given the information that I need, and right now, I know that I might actually die if we don’t go straight to bed.”

“A lady who knows what she wants,” Teagan said, a slow, sharp grin spreading over his face. “Love it.”

Before she could respond to that, Teagan stood up, and almost in the same breath, plucked her out of the chair as easily as he would a doll. She yelped in surprise, because she was absolutely not used to being easily picked up, but Teagan showed not the least strain as he carried her to the bedroom.

“God, you’re strong!” she exclaimed.

“Good endurance too,” he said with a wink, but when they came to the bed, he paused.

“If you ever want to stop, hon, if this ever gets to be something you don’t want–”

“You will be the first to hear about it,” Ros said, her arms wrapped around his neck. “I promise. I promise, I promise. But right now, all I want, all it feels I haveeverwanted, is you and me, in this bed together.”

She took a deep breath, looking him straight in the eyes.

“Please?”

It was like walking out on lake ice. One moment, you were confident there was a good two feet of ice between you and the water underneath, and the next, it cracked, and you knew, in the very core of your body, that something had broken.

Teagan kissed her even as he lay her out on the bed, shoving the blankets aside as he came to lie down next to her. She kissed him back with a kind of desperate feverishness she had never suspected in herself, but God, it was so hard to keep up with him. It was as if Teagan were determined to map every part of her with his mouth, trailing sweet, drugging kisses from her lips to the line of her jaw and the sensitive whorls of her ear. She gasped, fisting her hand in his shirt as he traced her earlobe with the tip of his tongue before burying his face in her hair.

“You smell so good,” he murmured. “I think I dreamed of this last night, how good you smell, how much I want to be with you, in you...”

Something about his words made her remember, and she groaned, pulling away slightly. Immediately, Teagan was on alert, his hand light on her waist and his eyes concerned.

“Honey, what is it?”

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