ThenameofKarmaKatz made a lot more sense knowing about North’s ability to connect his clients with their fated mates, and also the fact that he and his brother were, in fact, cats. It was maybe a little too on the nose, but humans didn’t know enough to be able to put it all together. Most of them were a lot like I used to be—naïve to the reality that was staring us right in the face.
Humans were not the most advanced species on the planet.
Now that I’d been inducted into the shifter world, I was taking full advantage of the perks. Such as the unbelievable strength packed into my mate’s body, allowing him to pick me up with ease and setting me down in his lap, knees notched on either side of his hips. It was hard to remember at times like this that his room at Karma Katz wasn’texactly private. A curtain over the door wasn’t about to stop anyone from walking in.
“Hi, baby,” he purred in that rough gravelly way of his that let me know his beast was close to the surface. “I missed you.” He dragged me even closer, until I could feel the evidence of exactly how much he’d missed me… which wasa lot.
I thought it would get easier once the “newlywed” phase was over, but ever since he’d marked me out in the woods, it had gotten increasingly harder to be apart from him. I could feel him there inside me, like I’d somehow grown a new organ in my chest cavity overnight, the purpose of which was to act as a direct conduit to my mate. A…mate barometer, I guess. It ensured that I always felt this urge to drop everything I was doing and find him. And I was the human! I couldn’t even imagine how much harder it was for him to fight his instincts.
Circling my hips to build up some friction, I coasted my lips over his, nothing more than a tease of a kiss. “Working is a necessary evil, so long as we have bills to pay,” I said. “We could always quit our jobs and live deep in the forest… You could hunt to feed me, we could keep each other warm at night, raise our children to be wild.”
His arms tightened like steel bands around my waist, and I was helpless to escape. “Don’t tempt me,” he snarled,before he claimed my lips, his teeth sharp against my tongue as the kiss deepened.
I knew we didn’t have much time before his next appointment, and I had every intention of making the most of it. He pulled away from me, leaving me gasping for breath, before he took my jaw in one hand and firmly tilted my head to the side. His lips trailed south down the column of my throat, licking and sucking the faintest of marks, until he reached my mating mark. He laved at the bite with his tongue, which sent a shiver of desperate need through me. A direct link to the mate barometer.
“Do we have time?” I panted, grinding against him.
“We’ll make time,” he vowed. He slid his hand straight down the back of my pants, fingers probing down the cleft of my ass, already growing slippery.
And then, at nearly the worst possible moment, the curtain was pulled back and Mace walked in. His hand was already over his eyes, no doubt because his shifter hearing had given him a heads-up about what was transpiring in here. “Dude, the customers can smell how horny you are all the way from the waiting room.”
My jaw dropped as shame heated my cheeks, no doubt a vibrant red. “Oh gods, are you serious?” I tried to push up from North’s lap, but his grip was iron, and he refused to budge.
“Are they jealous?” North asked, smirking.
Mace peeked between his fingers to make sure we were dressed, before he finally pulled his hand away. “Not jealous, exactly, but there are more boners in the waiting room than I’m comfortable with.”
North laughed, but I groaned in humiliation and buried my face against his neck. “I’m sorry!” I wailed.
“It’s not your fault, baby,” North said, running his hand over my back in a soothing circle that had me relaxing against my will. “Whether they know it or not, shifters are drawn here for a chance at finding their fated love. We’re just giving them a peek at what that true bliss looks like.”
My heart melted at his words, while Mace made a gagging sound. “You guys are disgustingly cute. I hate you both.”
North, totally unbothered, looked over at his brother with a raised brow. “You know, you don’t have to live in the dark. You should just ask… I wouldn’t even need to ink you with the image if you don’t want. I could just tell you what I see. Maybe it would give you a clue as to who they are.” His grin turned teasing. “Then you, too, could be this happy.”
Mace rolled his eyes. “I preferred you when you didn’t talk,” he goaded, before he headed for the door. “Your next client is here.”
That was my cue to leave. While North got to work on his next tattoo, I headed upstairs to his apartment to let him work. His place wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, but we didn’t need a lot of space. In fact, we preferred being practically on top of each other in every room, no matter what we were doing. I wouldn’t turn down a larger shower, though…
There was no guarantee how long one of his tattoos would take. Sometimes, like mine, it was small, black and white, with simple lines and not much detail. Other times, he might work for four hours and still ask a client to come back for a second visit. Either way, since I had some time to kill, I got started on dinner.
I wasn’t a great cook. As many jobs as I’d worked, none of them had been in a kitchen, but I’d felt so loved and cared for whenever North cooked for me. I wanted to show him the same care. Digging through his fridge, I pulled out some ground meat and vegetables. I figured I could handle making a sauce to go over some pasta. How badly could I screw that up?
As it cooked, though, it didn’t smell quite right. Not bad, exactly, but not like what I thought pasta sauce should smell like. So I dug through North’s spice drawer and pulled out a few jars, sniffing them, before adding a few atrandom. “Flavor is the spice of life,” I muttered doubtfully.
Just as I was upending a jar of smoked paprika, I felt a sharp tug on that tether hooked in my chest, and the sensation made me drop the jar in shock. “Oh fuck,” I cursed, fishing out as much of the spilled spice as I could, before abandoning it entirely. My mate was coming! I could feel his excitement and relief.
Quickly, I tiptoed over to the front hall closet and crawled inside, lying in wait. This was what jaguars did in the jungle. They would hide on a branch out of sight in the canopy and wait for their prey to pass beneath them, before pouncing on them, weaker animals no match for the cat’s sharp claws and teeth.
My giggle was muffled by the jackets hung on the rod above me. I would show my mate what a good jaguar I could be…
I heard his footsteps on the stairs and held my breath, my entire body buzzing, limbs poised to attack. The door opened. “Omega mine, I’m home,” North called, and I burst out of the closet, fully prepared to catch him off guard.
He wasn’t where I thought he was, though, instead off to the side—as if he’d predicted my sneakattack. “Roar!” he yelled as he caught me around the waist and threw me over his shoulder.
“Hey! No fair!” I yelled, squirming to get free, but that only earned me a smack on the ass that left my cheek stinging.
“You’ll have to be sneakier to outhunt the hunter,” he claimed proudly.
