Lion's Dangerous(Kings of the Jungle #1)(19)

His lashes flicked up. Gleaming eyes fixed on hers. The air seemed to thicken. She moistened her lips again and held her breath as the moment stretched.

Intense. That's what it would be like. Intense and hot, just like the way he stared at her. The memory of his hard body against hers lit up her nerve endings. She wasn't a sexually shy woman but she found herself pressing her thighs together, shaken by her body's response to him and needing to hide it away for now.

When a breeze came through bearing the sound of laughter, Jude broke eye contact. He squeezed her calf as he looked back down at her legs.

"I don't know," he said. "I've never been with one."

Lily snorted softly, but didn't press. Probably best if she didn't know what she was missing.





6





A beast. It would be like fucking a beast, as badly as he wanted her, as deeply as his lion craved. He needed to lock that down before he pushed her slim, sexy skirt up to her hips and drove into her musky heat right then and there. 

"I see some dark spots that could be flecks of imbedded dirt. I'm going to clean you up so there's no chance of infection."

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that." She sighed. "I'm a baby when it comes to alcohol and cuts."

"Didn't say anything about alcohol." Planting one hand on the bumper, he bent and touched his tongue to her torn skin.

His kind didn't have the same taste for blood that some of the more common species' possessed, but Lily's rich flavor gave him a sizzling jolt. Tightening his grip on the firm muscles of her leg, he focused on his self-control as he cleaned her skin with slow, thorough licks.

Above him, she let out a strangled whimper that squeezed his dick like a fist. His beast stirred. Even as he pushed it down again, Jude knew his time was running out. The lion had a taste of her now.

While she panted softly, he cleaned her other knee, drawing tiny particles of grit from her flesh. He swallowed the miniscule pebbles along with her blood and licked his lips clean before straightening to look at her.

She stared at him with wide eyes, her blue irises made bright by the stimulant he carried in his genetic make-up. "What was that?"

"A look at what it's like to be with a man who can turn into a lion." At her frown, he held up one hand. "My claws are poison. The antidote is in my saliva."

"You didn't scratch me," she pointed out.

"The antidote is an extrapolating agent. It gets foreign bodies."

"I see," she said. "Well, no I don't. But okay. That's a unique ability."

"Fairly common among my kind. I don't know anyone who lacks the enzyme."

She nodded and folded her hands on her lap. "Okay. Well, thank you."

"The least I can do. Now I'm going to drive you home."

"You don't have to … damn." She grimaced. "My keys."

"I'll send a locksmith to make a new one and have it delivered to you tomorrow."

"Thanks."

"It's my fault you dropped them."

"No, it's not. I can't lay my fear at your feet." Avoiding his gaze, she slid from her perch and straightened her skirt. Her eyes were still soft from the effects of his healing as she looked around the lot.

She was afraid. Despite her belief that the break-in was random, he sensed that she wasn't telling the whole truth. She was burying something, hiding a history that he suddenly wanted to uncover.

Taking her hand, because she was looking around the parking lot like she was searching for an exit, he drew her around to the passenger side and belted her in.

As he got behind the wheel, her scent surrounded him. She was warm, spicy-sweet female, and she made his mouth water. The taste of her skin had come close to pushing him over the line between craving and need.

He stared at the road and drove in silence. Need was dangerous. Need meant you weren't your own master anymore and with a killer loose in Pride territory, he couldn't afford to the distracting, consuming hunger for a mate.

And then there was everything that came with claiming her. He had a week before the rise of the Mating Moon. A week to deal with the threat to the Jungle. Until the Pride's haven was secure, he couldn't take Lily there-and he couldn't forge her bond until she had a safe place to greet her lioness.

"So what's the deal with Hawk?" She asked.

Jude glanced over. Lily hugged her door, only looking away from the road to look at the dark trees they passed as they drove along a stretch of road edged by state forest.



       
         
       
        

That was one more obstacle. The biggest one. He could burn the world to the ground to make it safe for her, but none of that would matter if she didn't want the life of a lion shifter's queen.