Adrian kept an eye on the door, wary that Edric might return with reinforcements. No one wanted to admit a family member had gone rogue. It was like admitting your loved one was a criminal on death row. Which it kind of was, since the only way to handle a rogue was to kill it.
Now Adrian was second guessing himself about asking Darcy to come to the inquest. If Edric was an example of what he’d face at the inquest, things could get violent, and Darcy didn’t have a shifter form to protect herself. She didn’t have accelerated healing like a shifter did. Hell, he didn’t even know if her claiming mark was healing like it should.
Even dark thoughts couldn’t extinguish his desire for her. She was only across the booth from him, yet felt too far away. Beneath the table, their feet still touched, a secret intimacy that made him yearn for more. He wanted to touch her everywhere. She was so fucking beautiful and shy. He loved that she didn’t need to fill the silence with idle chatter, loved how he could be with her and still be able to breathe. We’re in this together. For the first time in his life, he could actually picture spending the rest of his life with someone. With her.
She kept glancing at him beneath her lashes as they ate. Another couple entered the café, and the gentle buzz of conversation and clinking dishes grew louder. Adrian’s mountain lion itched to get away, but then his gaze would connect with Darcy’s and the beast inside him would calm, as if her presence was a shield.
Darcy polished off her omelet with surprising thoroughness and nodded gratefully at the waitress when she filled their coffees again. Just like him, she enjoyed a healthy dollop of cream in her brew, and she shared a look with him over the rim of her cup as they both sipped. His gaze dropped to her shoulder. “How’s your mark?”
She pulled aside the collar of her shirt, craning her head to look at the scab. “It will heal.”
Voice thick, he said, “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
Her fingertips traced his claim, and her eyelids fluttered as if the sensation surprised her. “It doesn’t hurt. Actually, the opposite…”
Her gaze returned to his, eyes dark with her arousal, and he couldn’t help smirking. If that didn’t prove they were mates, he didn’t know what would. He looked forward to showing her just how arousing a claiming mark could be.
The waitress cleared their dishes and Darcy glanced at her phone. “Darn.”
“What is it?”
“I need to stop at the apothecary shop, b-but it doesn’t open for another hour.”
He realized that with breakfast over, the date was coming to an end, and he wasn’t ready to let her go. “We could take a walk until then.”
Her face lit up, and she nodded. As they rose from the booth, she took his hand. The casual affection felt good. Right. He never would’ve believed he might crave another person’s company this much.
He allowed her to lead him from the café through the parking lot to the dirt road fronting the building. Although he could hear traffic on the two-lane highway from here, the dirt road they walked along remained blessedly empty. Side by side, they strolled toward a gray wooden sign in the ditch several hundred feet away. As they drew closer, he read Hazel’s Tea and Herbs in white, hand-painted lettering with an arrow pointing toward a driveway.
Darcy paused and pointed, “That’s the apothecary.” She leaned close and gave him an exaggerated wink. “Don’t tell anyone, but the owner’s a witch.”
He smiled back, breathing her in, thinking more about the way her hand felt in his than the witch at the end of the driveway. Running his thumb along the edge of her palm, he imagined other soft skin he’d like to be touching. If she hadn’t expressed a need to visit the apothecary, he’d have swept her back to her place to get naked again. As it was, his pants felt too tight as they continued walking.
They chatted about growing up, realizing they’d both been in Anchorage at the same time while in high school. But where he’d been a troubled homeless teen, she’d been living in a very nice house on the Hillside with her mom. “How’d your mom die?” he asked softly.
“C-car accident.” She shrugged one shoulder, eyes sad. “I’ve come to terms with it, and Aunt Willow took me in. Why were you homeless in Anchorage? I thought you said you have family in the area.”
He put his arm around her waist so they walked hip to hip. Although he had to take shorter strides to match hers, she fit against him perfectly. “Mom and Dad didn’t know what to do with a teenage mountain lion. Especially one that kept causing trouble.”
He explained to her how they thought he needed fostering with other lions and how mountain lions weren’t much like savannah lions. Although he hated to admit it, after his recent visit to his parent’s house, he was beginning to think he’d been wrong about their intentions. “They were as confused as I was. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Wombly, I’d probably be dead now. He was an old black bear shifter at my school. He made sure I had food and clothes, got me through school, and eventually pulled some strings to get me a job here.”
“Right b-back where you started.” She nodded as if it made perfect sense.
“Huh, you’re right.” Now that he looked back, he almost wondered if Mr. Wombly had been in touch with his parents the whole time. He’d have to ask when he saw them again. But he didn’t want to think about that now.
Stopping at the side of the road near some large aspen trees, he pulled her against him. “I can’t take it anymore.”
She lifted her chin, mouth parted in what he believed was an invitation. Lowering his head, he kept his gaze locked with hers until their lips met. She responded warmly, sliding both arms around his waist to press herself against him. He kissed her, his fingers threading into her silken hair at the base of her neck. She was so fucking intoxicating.
He walked her backward between the trees, supporting her from stumbling until her back met the smooth bark of a trunk. Taking a wide stance in front of her, his erection felt like a living thing, surging toward her, fighting the constraints of his clothing. Her kisses were as fevered as his as she tilted her head back against the trunk.
Sweet tea and flowers and luscious female filled his senses, and he devoured her mouth in long, sure strokes of his tongue. Her hands slipped around behind him to cup his ass, grinding herself against his hard cock. She lifted one leg, the heat of her sex warm as she opened to him, and he dry-pumped her against the trunk, eliciting a soft moan from her. God, this was bliss.
He kissed along her jaw, nibbled her earlobe, brushed his mouth over her shoulder where her shirt hid his claiming mark.
She gasped, nipples hardening against his chest. “W-why is that so sensitive?”
“It’s a reinforcement of the bond.”
“Will it always feel like this?” She tilted her head, exposing her throat.
“Yes,” he growled, loving how she yielded to him. Whether or not she ever became a shifter and gave him a mark didn’t matter. She was his, and he would cherish her for as long as she would allow it. But now wasn’t the time to bite her. He satisfied himself by setting his blunt teeth lightly over her fabric-covered mark.
She cried out and bucked against him. He inserted one hand between them, lifting her skirt to find the hot dampness between her thighs. “So sexy,” he murmured against her shoulder as he slipped his fingers beneath her panties and into her slick folds. Dipping into her, he drew her juices up to circle her clit. Over and over he teased her while she matched his rhythm, her fingers clawing into his shoulders.
A car drove past without slowing, kicking up a cloud of dust, but he didn’t pause. She was making tiny mewling gasps, obviously trying to be quiet as he brought her toward climax. When she let out a strangled noise and shuddered, he shifted his hand from behind her head to her waist, holding her up as her supporting leg threatened to give out. He wrung every last ripple of sensation from her until she sagged against him, breathing hard.
He held her, his cheek on top of her hair, his nose filled with her scent. “You are amazing,” he mumbled, cock still aching, but soul satisfied.
“I th-thought mates are supposed to be able to hear each other’s thoughts.”
“I think you have to claim me back for that to happen. You need your animal to do that.”
She lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “So I can’t claim you if I’m a witch?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “It doesn’t matter. As long as you accept my claim, we’re bonded.”
They were bonded, soul to soul, and whether or not she was a shifter mattered as little as the color of her skin or eyes.
A naughty twinkle filled her gaze, and she dropped one hand from his shoulder to cover his erection. “I have another way to claim you.”
He groaned and closed his eyes, the pressure of her hand making him want to burst. She unfastened his belt and flicked open the button of his fly. His engorged cock almost undid the zipper on its own, straining to be free, and she had him in hand within moments.
She threw her leg up over his hip, shoving aside the crotch of her panties and guiding him to her entrance. He pumped forward, impaling her hot folds in a single thrust. She moaned, hips straining to meet his. He wrapped both hands around her ass, lifting her to seat himself more fully inside her. He pressed her against the tree trunk, body hard against her softness as he reveled in her tight heat around him. Damn, she felt so good.
He rocked back, then plunged forward again while she looked fiercely into his eyes. Slowly his rhythm built until he was pistoning into her, his hands crushed between the bark and her ass, but he didn’t care. He drove forward with relentless intensity, her heels locked behind his hips. The pressure in his balls rose to intolerable heights.
She threw her head back, mouth open in a choked moan as her inner walls tightened around him. Her orgasm was his undoing. He tipped over the edge, cock pulsing and jetting deep into her core. She took all of him, her orgasm milking every last drop while he held her tight, riding out the shuddering waves of pleasure.
After his breathing slowed, he pulled away from the tree, letting her slide down off him and back to her feet. She wobbled, hands on his shoulders to steady herself. He smoothed a damp strand of hair off her flushed cheek. Her eyes widened, and she grabbed his wrist to look at the backs of his hands, scraped raw from being up against the bark. “You’re hurt.”
“I’ll be fine. Shifters heal fast.” Another car drove past, a blur of color between the tree trunks, and he closed his fly. “I’m sorry. Seducing you on the side of the road isn’t what I’d call a good second date.”
She shook her head and rose to her toes to kiss him on the mouth. “Technically, I’d still call this our f-first date. But who’s counting?”
He smiled with genuine affection. Hard to believe they’d only just met yesterday. He’d never been this happy. Fate had definitely picked this woman for him. Lacing his fingers with hers, he said, “Let’s get you to the apothecary shop and finish your potion.”