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Cass rolled over, shoulder sore from being wedged between her torso and the floor of a cave.
Can’t be, she thought, as the world came into focus. A fire?
“Lex?”
Her answer was a kiss on the back of her neck, where her hair was parted down either side. “I got us some food,” he said, before running his lips gently past the collar of her shirt, warming her chilled skin. “Made a fire. It’s about midnight, I think. Little after. We need to think about what’s next, but,” he trailed off, inhaling the scent of Cass’s hair and pulling her into his lap again.
She drew her legs up as he encircled her with his arms. “I know we need to go,” he growled, “but I can’t stop thinking about you. We need to get somewhere safe, but even the short time I left you, I kept thinking about the way you taste, the way you smell, the faces you make when I—”
Cass stopped him short with a quick kiss. She pulled away, but stayed close enough to his face that their noses touched, and when he opened his mouth again she took advantage, darting in and swirling her tongue against his. She felt his groan rumble in her chest and let her hands slide down his stubble-covered cheeks.
“God, do we ever need to get somewhere safe,” she said. “This beard of yours is sharp enough to cut my hands.” The two of them laughed for a brief moment of relief, then Lex ran a hand up the side of Cass’s calf, where her jeans had pulled up from her contortion.
“I’m not the only one, though yours is softer, and I can’t say I mind at all,” he kissed her behind the ear, sending a swirl of electricity snaking from where his lips warmed her skin all the way down to where his palm warmed her before.
A second later, she realized what he said, and slapped playfully at his arm. “You get the first shower at whatever dirty motel we end up at and I get the second one. Wait, you do shower, right? Or... oh wow there’s so much minutiae I never thought about.”
“Er,” Lex grunted. “How else would I get clean?”
“Well I hosed you off all the time,” she said, looking off into the distance, watching the twinkle of a star. “Oh, God, that didn’t make you mad did it? The brushing and all that?”
Lex was smiling, but there was something else behind those beautiful eyes. “That’s the same look you got before you started talking. If we’re gonna be fugitives from the circus together, we’ve gotta be honest with each other. Hell, if we’re gonna... well... yeah, if we’re gonna do that sorta stuff, we’re honest. Got it?” she jabbed him in the chest with her index finger.
He traced one of the cords on Cass’s wrist – an old bracelet that she’d worn for as long as he’d known her. “What’s this?” he asked, before kissing her where he’d just touched. “Why do you wear it?”
“Jewelry?” she cocked an eyebrow. “I mean, it’s—”
“I’m not an alien,” he said with a chuckle. “I meant this one. We only wear jewelry given to us by loved ones. Mating rings, things like that. Is that from someone like that for you?”
“Mating rings?” for some reason that made Cass giggle. “I’ve laughed more in the last two days than I have in... hell, years. How did all this happen? I mean, you and me, of all the wildly improbable luck in the universe, for us to end up together?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think about it. No reason to do anything but embrace what is instead of thinking too much. You think too much, and the world’s beauty turns into a series of questions and answers.”
Curling tighter into a ball, Cass rested the side of her head on Lex’s sloped shoulder. “Yeah,” she finally said. “It’s from an old boyfriend. Old and only. It’s a long story, and, honestly kind of boring.”
“I have ears, and it’s the middle of the night.”
“You’re kinda witty for someone who spent most of the last decade turned into a lion, aren’t you?” she nibbled at his collarbone and nuzzled against Lex’s neck. “I mean, not that lions can’t be clever, but, erm...”
“We’re no velociraptors,” he said. “But we do all right for ourselves. It’s the bears that I worry about. Very single minded, strong enough to throw trains off tracks, but... yes, very single minded.”
“Wait,” Cass said. “Bears?” For a second she lifted her head off of Lex’s chest, but then settled back down. “Shit, if there are magic lions, why not? I just,” she swallowed hard. “How am I taking this so well? By all reason, I should be flipping my ass out right now. The lion I’ve been living with for the last seven years turns out to be the hottest guy I’ve ever seen, and for some reason wants me. I ran away from Lyle and all that horrible stuff, I’ve got my life back – as brief as it may be, if he finds us – but yeah, no, most of that is comprehensible.”
A smile flickered on Lex’s curled lips. “Magic lion?”
“Well,” she said, flustered. “I mean, what the hell else do you want me to call you?”
“Lex is a good start.”
“I—you’re gonna make me kiss you again if you keep saying funny stuff and touching me like that.” Cass’s hand slid down Lex’s arm to where his fingers hand slipped underneath her shirt and were caressing her belly. “And I thought you were going on and on about how we had to go somewhere.”
Her stomach growled, making Lex chuckle, but he kissed her again anyway, sucking on her bottom lip, inhaling deeply and tasting her essence. So slow and hungry and powerful, he kissed her in a way that she didn’t know existed; she felt his hands on her body, his tongue against hers, those parts were like any normal kiss.
But the way he growled as he did it, as the sounds rumbling inside his body flowed through hers, it was nothing she’d ever even read about.
“Why does it feel so good when you kiss me?” she asked, slightly breathless when he finally pulled away with a suck. “Why does it feel like this is how a kiss is supposed to be? And why do I feel sorta guilty that most people will never feel this way?”
“The guilt, I don’t know. And I can’t give you a real answer, except to say that when I first saw you, my heart sang. My soul stirred, and I knew that... somehow, through the strange walk of life that led me to that filthy dirt circus, it was all supposed to happen like that.”
“Oh my God,” Cass whispered, drinking him in, letting the deepness of Lex’s voice carry her away. “Just keep talking. Just keep on until my pants are off and I’m sweating and begging for you. I didn’t even know words could do this, but I’m sweating. It’s probably not sixty degrees in here, and I’m sweating. Just keep talking,” she asked, kissing him desperately. “Just keep talking and don’t stop.”
“I’d leave at night, but you knew that.” His voice was making her ache. The way he rounded his words, how he kept coiling her hair around one of his fingers, the way he was whispering, that whole thing about pants-off was dangerously close to coming true. “I left at night, but I wasn’t ever far. I never let your trailer – our trailer, I guess – out of my sight. I’d pace, I’d creep around, but I never, not once, left you alone.”
Cass’s cheeks were fully flushed. Her whole body was just tingling with anticipation. She got a fistful of Lex’s hair, squeezed her hand closed, feeling it rub between her fingers. “If the point of this is to get me so wet that my panties just fall off of me, you’re like three-quarters of the way there.”
She had her fingertips outstretched, ready to brush against those beautifully stubbled cheeks and rip her clothes off for Lex to ravage her, when the spotlights cut through the still, silent darkness of their cave.
Instinctively, Lex froze, lips a quarter inch from Cass’s skin. He let his breath out in a slow, even exhale that thrilled her, but the pounding of his heart resonated through her body. “What is it?” she whispered in his ear. “More joyriders?”
He was stock still. A finger lightly pressed to Cass’s lips got the message across, though an involuntary shiver shot through her before she settled completely. Lex motioned for her to get back against the far wall, which was safe from anything coming through the opening, though given how small their little room was, not for very long.
There was no noise, at least none that Cass’s helpless human ears were able to pick up. But Lex had his head cocked to the side, staring intently into the darkness, as though it helped him channel his hearing. “Not joyriders,” he finally said, in a voice so low as to be almost imperceptible. “Not this time.”
She wanted to ask how he knew, how he could tell. She wanted to ask what they were going to do, how they were going to get away but the look on her mate’s face told Cass that this wasn’t the time for any questions. It wasn’t the time for anything but silence, and maybe a whole hell of a lot of luck.
“Stay down,” he whispered. “Any luck, they’re drunk. I can take ten of them if they’re sober, but if they’ve been down in the bottle, the two of us could take on that whole camp.”
He laughed bitterly under his breath. “They’re circling out there. Probably trying to kick up their courage. Whatever happens, you stay down, out of sight. Got it?”
Cass narrowed her eyes. “I’m the one that swung a whip, jackass,” she hissed. “I’m not useless in a fight.”
“Yeah, but you’re useless against guns, which I’m sure they have. Like I said, stay down.”
“But guns?” she asked. “Why? Why would they want to kill us?”
Lex shook his head. “You owe him, and as far as he knows, I’m a lion that’s going to kill a bunch of babies and make his carnival look bad. Better dead than red. That’s how the expression goes, right?”
“Something like that,” Cass smirked and grabbed for Lex. He let her catch his bare shoulders and pull him in for one more kiss. “I just had to taste you one more time,” she said. “Don’t get hurt, okay?”
“With you back here, waiting for me?” The lion pulled his lips back in a smile that was as stirring as it was menacing. “Not a chance in the world I’ll let them keep me away from you.”
Just as he was crouching, tensing up, Cass thought to take on his animal form... or whatever he called it, the lights swerved away from the entrance to the cave, and Lex froze in place. The next second, he grabbed her hand, jerking her to her feet. “What’s going on?” she gasped, surprised at the jolt.
“We got one more chance,” Lex said, kissing her hard and deep. “They’re either gone or looking for us. Either way, I’m not gonna regret taking this chance. Come on.”