His fingers fumbled and he upended a jar of rings. Brent swore under his breath and bent down to hastily scoop them up.
But as soon as he so much as leaned forward, he felt a sharpness dig into his throat. Brent’s bones froze in place when he glanced in the vanity mirror and saw Miranda standing behind him. Mostly Miranda. Her arm had snaked around his shoulder and now her long, black cougar claws were pressed against the soft skin of his throat.
“Bad boy,” Miranda hissed in his ear as a vicious smirk curled over her lips.
“Where is it, Miranda?” he growled. He could feel his own bear ready to charge. That is, if he could transform before she slit his throat clean open. He took deep breaths, tried not to let her smell his fear.
“Where’s what?”
“Y’know. The…necklace. The one from the hunter. With the star.”
“Wow,” she purred. She was dripping on him, still wet from the shower. “Look who suddenly got a brain. So you finally realized the charm holds Jacob’s curse. Honestly, I’m impressed. I’ve been holding on to that thing for years. I thought you and your idiot clan would never figure it out.”
He smelled wet cat and felt her tail snake out and coil around his leg, trapping him in place. “Look,” he said, “just give us the necklace and we’ll be outta your hair.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, sweetie,” Miranda said and her nails flexed little pinpoints against his neck, making his Adam’s apple bob nervously. “I’ve hidden it somewhere they’ll never find it. And you know what?” A purr rumbled through her throat and sent shivers down Brent’s spine. “I think I’m growing to like having everything Jacob wants.”
Claimed by the Claws
(Part 5)
Chapter 61
He kissed her like he wanted to rip her head off. His lips tasted practiced and experienced and the tip of his tongue flicked against hers in just the right way that sent shivers down her spine. Still, she felt him holding back, each move deliberate. He was, after all, an animal all too used to playing with humans.
“You’re not going to break me, you know,” Trish said when she took a small break to catch her breath.
Cayden smiled against her lips. A cat’s smirk. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’m tougher than what you’re used to.” He dipped his head and his tongue traced patterns along the crook of her neck. Trish gasped lightly as the sensation hummed through her. Necking on a bench on campus grounds should have felt wrong, but between her legs was a throbbing battle cry for more, more, more. “Nothing can break me,” she told him as her head dropped back to give him better access, loving the way his lips butterflied.
“Almost nothing,” he reminded.
“You mean the necklace?”
“No,” he smirked and she felt it against her neck. “I meant my cock.”
“But the necklace too, right?”
He lifted his head and she could see his pressed his lips together, a thin line of frustration. “It’s a talisman, not something you find at Tiffany’s. And, yes. It could rip your sanity right out from your paws. Curses are a bitch like that.” His head dropped again and she felt his fingers toy with her shirt, thumb unsheathing one button, then another.
Never say Cayden wasn’t a man who knew exactly what he wanted. The touch of his deliberate fingers sent an ache through her core. Her heart fluttered; she was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was about to be the only non-family member who had ever seen her tits. “How bad are they? Curses? I mean…can they be…broken?” she asked, breathless, and her fingers caught onto her shirt, keeping it closed protectively.
Finally, Cayden pulled back. His eyebrows hiked up his forehead. “Is this a game of twenty questions?”
Trish curled her legs up and made herself vertical. “I’m sorry,” she said and tucked her frizzy hair behind her ear. “I’ve just got…a lot on my mind.”
She must have looked pretty hangdog, because Cayden seemed to deflate at that. He sank back into his bones, looked like he was rolling his next words carefully around in his mouth, and then said, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“You don’t want to hear it.” She shrugged. Cayden wasn’t interested in empathizing and handholding. His attentions were very singular—Trish got it. More than any of his other playthings, no doubt. They were young adults budding into their own, sure, but they were also animal, and those instincts were constantly whispering in her ear: eat, sleep, mate.
But the way Cayden was looking at her, blue eyes piercing…he looked very human. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know,” he said.