“I’m going to do bad, bad things to you in a minute,” she threatened when she could speak, toes curling at his unrepentant smile.
“Open that pretty mouth.” He painted her lips with another juicy slice, then, pupils dilated, watched her act on his request oh-so-slow.
Kirby swallowed the first bite he offered, came back for the last of the slice, licking her tongue over his skin to get every bit of the juice. Neither woman nor cat was impressed when he withdrew his hand.
“Go a little higher,” he purred . . . and only then did she realize she’d cut through denim with her claws, was digging into the skin of his thigh.
Skin pulsing as her blood rushed to it, she retracted them. “I’m so sorry.” Control was obviously a learned skill. “Did I hurt you?”
“Want to kiss it better?”
Kirby’s eyes dipped to the erection straining the zipper of his jeans and, heart kicking, she decided to take the dare. But she hadn’t even lowered her head an inch before he halted her with a kiss that tasted of ripe, juicy pear and Bastien.
Moaning, she melted into it, her entire body humming in anticipation. She’d been waiting for him so, so long and now she ached. “Bastien!” An infuriated cry, his lips no longer on her own.
“What’s the rush?” He fed her another bite. “I want to play.”
Swallowing the fruit, she decided his idea of play might make her certifiable. She’d about decided to pounce on him and damn the consequences, when the solar-powered comm built into the wall chimed an incoming call.
Bastien turned lazily to glance at the code . . . and was on his feet with feline quickness. “Emergency code,” he said, answering the call.
Out of view of the camera where she sat at the table, Kirby was still able to see the scared girl on the viewscreen—a girl, who, it turned out, had crashed her car and needed a ride home.
“I broke the rules,” she admitted, voice trembling, “and went to a new club on my own. There’s no one else around.”
Kirby glimpsed the dark street behind the teenager, felt her stomach knot.
Bastien, however, didn’t lose his calm. First, he made certain the girl wasn’t injured, then got the exact details of her location. “I’ll have someone there asap.” He was already pulling out his phone as he spoke. “Will the car need to be towed?”
“Yes.”
In the next few minutes, Kirby heard Bastien arrange a rescue with a man named Teijan, as well as a tow, all the while reassuring his anxious young packmate. He kept her on the comm line until she was safely picked up by a handsome, dark-eyed man in a crisp black-on-black suit.
“Thanks,” Bastien said to the other male. “Sorry to interrupt your date.”
“No problem—it was going downhill anyway.” A lithe shrug. “I’ll get your misbehaving cub home.”
Call ended, Bastien finally sat back down.
Feeding him a slice of pear, Kirby said, “Is she a relative?” She was curious to know everything about him but wary of pushing too hard, even though her newly awakened cat rolled its eyes and said she was being silly. It was hard for her to trust instincts that had been dormant for a lifetime.
Bastien coaxed her into straddling his lap before saying, “Not blood, but she’s pack, and pack’s family.” A simple statement that encapsulated so much. “I’m one of the emergency contacts for her year group.” He pretended to bite her fingers when she fed him a second slice. “I also happen to be the one least likely to tear her a new one during the assist—I wait till after.”
She went to pick up another piece of fruit from the plate to find he’d already snagged the last slice. “So,” she said, the feel of his thighs beneath her a slow seduction, “you have the right to discipline younger packmates? I thought that was up to the alpha.”
“We all take responsibility for the cubs.” He touched her lower lip with the slice in his hand, coating it with juice before licking the stickiness off in a very feline way, all flicks and licks. “This time, the offense is bad enough that she’ll be brought up before the maternal females.” He shuddered. “I’ve been there, and it’s not a comfortable place to be.”
Kirby had so many questions, about these “maternals,” about life in a pack, and when Bastien didn’t seem annoyed or tired by them, she kept asking, kept learning.
“Will I have to be part of your pack now?” She’d fallen in love with DarkRiver through his words—to be part of such a close-knit “family” . . . she couldn’t imagine it.
Bastien went motionless, his focus acute and eyes human—yet she could feel the cat brushing up against her. “Normally, no,” he said. “You’re lynx, and from outside the territory.”