Chapter 8
Jasper
The house has been quiet for over an hour. Bea went to bed at nine-thirty, and I’ve been lying here in this damn laundry room, staring at the ceiling, counting the minutes until I can see Tabitha again.
My body hasn’t stopped humming since this afternoon. I can still taste her on my tongue, still feel the way she clenched around my fingers, still hear the sounds she made when she came.
And I want more.
I need more.
‘Tabitha,’ I reach out through our connection. ‘Let me out.’
Silence.
‘I know you’re awake. I can feel you thinking.’
‘Go to sleep, Jasper.’
‘Can’t. Not when I know you’re just down the hall, probably in that robe, probably thinking about what we started.’
‘I’m not thinking about anything except how I’m going to survive having you in this house.’
‘Liar. You’re thinking about my mouth on you. My fingers inside you. How good it felt when you came all over my face. That was hot, by the way.’
I feel a pulse of heat through our bond. Got her.
‘Stop it.’
‘Come let me out and I’ll stop.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t trust you.’
I grin in the darkness. ‘Smart girl. You probably shouldn’t trust me. But you want me anyway, don’t you?’
‘Want and trust are two different things.’
‘Then let me turn over a new leaf—prove I’m trustworthy. Open the door, kitty. I promise to be good.’
‘Your promises mean nothing.’
‘Ouch. That hurts.’ I pause, then soften my mental voice. ‘But seriously, Tabby, I’ll behave. Scout’s honor. I just want to see you. Talk to you. Maybe steal one more kiss before we try to sleep. That’s all.’
Another pause. Longer this time. But I can feel her wavering.
‘Just talking?’ she asks suspiciously.
‘And maybe one kiss. I swear.’
I hear soft footsteps in the hallway, then the click of the lock. The door swings open and there she is, backlit by the hallway nightlight, wearing that damn robe that drives me crazy.
She looks nervous. Defiant. Beautiful.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she says firmly.
“Oh, you won’t.” I move before she can react, grabbing her waist and pulling her against me, my mouth crashing into hers.
She makes a sound of surprise that quickly turns into a moan as I deepen the kiss, one hand tangling in her hair while the other grips her hip.
“This isn’t talking,” she gasps against my mouth.
“But it is a kiss,” I admit, continuing down her neck. “One really long, really deep full-body kiss.”
“You’re—oh god—you’re terrible—”
“We foxes prefer the term cunning.”
She tries to protest but I silence her by sealing my mouth over hers, kissing her slower, deeper, pouring everything I feel into it. The want. The need. The certainty that she’s mine and I’m hers and nothing else matters.
Without breaking the kiss, I reach down and lift her off the floor, and her legs wrap around my middle as I carry her to the couch, holding myself over her as I gently lower her down and tug the robe open to reveal her nakedness underneath.
“Were you planning this?” I ask, grinning at the sight of her soft curves, and she giggles.
“Just shut up and keep kissing me.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
My mouth finds hers again while my hands roam her body. She arches into me, her fingers dragging down my back, nails biting into my skin.
“Gentle kitty.” She purrs into my mouth, the sound vibrating against my lips, her body soft and hot beneath me.
I slow down, dragging out each touch, wanting to savor her, memorize the way she feels.
She’s not just beautiful—she’s confident and wild and absolutely alive, and the taste of her is as sharp as a shot of whiskey.
She runs her hands through my hair, tugging hard enough to make me groan. “You’re supposed to be being good,” she whispers, voice gone breathless.
“This is me being good,” I reply, nipping at her collarbone. “You don’t want to see me bad.”
She looks up at me, hair splayed across the couch pillow, eyes dark with desire and a hint of challenge that makes my pulse race. “Show me bad, then,” she murmurs, her voice a velvet dare that makes me impossibly harder.
I chuckle low in my throat, the sound more growl than laugh.
“Careful what you wish for, kitty.” My hands slide down her sides, tracing the dip of her waist before gripping her thighs, spreading them wider as I settle between them.
She’s all warmth and invitation, her skin flushing under my touch, and I can’t resist leaning down to trail kisses along her throat, nipping lightly at the spot where her pulse flutters like a trapped bird.
She gasps, her fingers tightening in my hair, pulling me closer.
“Jasper...” My name on her lips is pure temptation, laced with that purring undertone that reminds me exactly what she is—feline grace wrapped in fire.
I shift my weight, pressing my hips against her thigh, letting her feel how hard she makes me, how much I want this.
“Feel that?” I whisper against her ear, my breath hot. “That’s how badly I want you.” One hand ventures lower, fingers teasing along her inner thigh, inching toward where she’s already wet and ready. She arches up to meet me, a soft whimper escaping her, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
Her nails dig into my shoulders as she rocks against my hand.
“More,” she demands, all that aristocratic poise cracking into raw need.
I oblige, slipping two fingers inside her, curling them just right to make her moan.
Our mental link flares with her pleasure, a feedback loop that amplifies everything—her heat, her scent, the way she clenches around me.
“I’m trying to hold back, kitty. Take my time,” I groan, capturing her mouth again in a kiss that’s all teeth and tongue, desperate and devouring as my fingers move inside her and her hips rock, meeting my hand stroke for stroke.
“Don’t hold back, fox. I can handle you.”
That does it. I withdraw my fingers, eliciting a protesting mewl from her, and positioning myself at her entrance, I pause just long enough to savor the anticipation humming between us. “Say it,” I rasp, needing to hear the words.
“Please,” she breathes, wrapping her legs around my waist and pulling me closer. “Now.”
“That’s not what I want to hear, Tabitha. I need to hear you say it.”
She looks up at me, those green-gold eyes dark with desire. “I want you inside me. I want you to claim me. I want—” Her voice breaks slightly. “I want to be yours.”
With a thrust, I bury myself inside her, and the sound she makes—part gasp, part curse, all bliss—almost undoes me.
She’s perfect, tight heat wrapped around me, velvet and claws and insatiable need.
I move slow at first, savoring the way she stretches to take me, her ankles locking behind my back, one hand tangled in my hair and the other dragging down my spine with a line of fire.
The rhythm finds us before I can think, bodies moving in sync, want and need woven tight.
She bites my shoulder to keep from screaming, and that flash of teeth just makes me go harder, rutting into her like I could crawl inside and never leave.
Through our bond, I can feel every flutter, every adjustment as her body accepts mine.
“Oh my god,” she gasps. “I can feel—everything—”
“I know. I feel it too.” I pull out slightly, then push back in. “Every time I move, you feel what I feel. And I feel what you feel. It’s—fuck—it’s incredible.”
She nods, unable to form words, her fingers digging into my shoulders as I move inside her.
I pick up the pace, angling my hips to hit her G-spot, and she cries out, quickly slapping a hand over her mouth.
“Quiet, kitty,” I murmur. “Don’t want to wake Bea.”
She nods, but her eyes are rolling back as pleasure builds between us—doubled, tripled by our connection. Every thrust sends sensation echoing through both of us, building higher and higher.
“I can’t—I’m going to—”
“Not yet,” I grit out, even though I’m close too. So close. “Together. We come together.”
I reach between us, finding her clit and circling it with my thumb while I drive into her harder, faster. She’s trembling beneath me, her body coiling tight, and through our bond I can feel her right on the edge.
“Now,” I growl. “Come for me now, Tabitha.”
She shatters, her body clenching around mine, the sensation pulling me over with her. I bury my face in her neck to muffle my groan as I empty myself inside her, pulse after pulse, while she shakes and gasps beneath me.
And then—something happens.
I feel it before I understand it. A pressure, a swelling, a sense of being locked together.
“Jasper?” Her voice is breathless, confused. “What—why do you feel… bigger?”
“Shit.” I try to pull out and can’t. We’re stuck. Couldn’t break apart if we wanted to. “It’s, uh, the mating tie.”
“The what?”
“Fox thing. Like wolves, we—uh—we knot during mating. It’s temporary. Usually lasts about twenty minutes.”
Her eyes go wide. “TWENTY MINUTES?”
“Give or take.”
“We’re stuck like this for twenty minutes?!”
“Looks like it.” I shift slightly, trying to find a comfortable position, and she gasps.
“Don’t—oh god—don’t move. Every time you move, I can feel—”
“Yeah. Me too.” I settle my weight more carefully, keeping us connected but not crushing her. “Sorry. Should have warned you.”
“You think?!”
But despite her outrage, I can feel through our bond that she’s not actually upset. She’s... curious. And still aroused, the knot putting pressure in all the right places.
“It’s not so bad,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Being tied to you.”
“That’s because you’re a fox. This is normal for you.”
“Nothing about this is normal for me. The mating tie only happens when you’re fated. Or if you’re with another fox who’s in heat. I tend to avoid that. Not really in a financial position to be producing little fox cubs.”
Her eyes bulge. “Please tell me this isn’t that.”
“Me impregnating you?”
“Yes!”