"Both," Jo said dizzily. "I've got an implant, both, please, oh,God!" As if the words were the permission he needed—and they were—Colton's fingers between her thighs went from teasing and maddening to deliberate and demanding. Pleasure ricocheted through Jo's body, building in agonizingly wonderful waves, then snapped into release that made her cry aloud with its power. She hadn't yet come down from the aching throbs before Colton had her underwear, and his, out of the way, and her thigh up over his hip as he pressed his cock at her entrance.
"Yes? Jolene, is this?—"
"Yes! Oh, God, yes, please, now, before?—"
His thickness slid inside her, driving them both hip to hip and cascading her over into new waves of release before the first ones had completely ended. There was so little room in the sleeping bag, but the constraint was wonderful, in its way. It kept them so close, the sharp rolling pulses of his hips intohers sending shivers and pleasure through her whole body until they finally came together in a crescendo that left Jo mumbling happily against Colton's chest, and his arms holding her tight and warm and safe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tangled, warm and sated with Jo in his arms had not been how Colton expected to begin the morning, but if there was a more perfect waytobegin it, he couldn't imagine what that might be. He knew they should probably get up and take advantage of the daylight to get farther west, to find civilization and reassure everyone they were all right, or at least try to turn his phone back on and see if there was any signal, but lingering in 'bed' for a while sounded…
…well, it sounded good, if not exactly 'so much better.' There were people who would be worried about them, and Colton would spare them as much worry as possible.
On the other hand, another hour or so probably wasn't going to matter all that much either way. He nuzzled Jo's hair, and she sighed contentedly before murmuring, "So this 'mates' thing, that's why my first thought when I saw you was 'I wanna marry this guy?'"
Colton chuckled very softly. "Sort of? Humans would call it love at first sight, for sure. It's just that for shifters there's not any of the doubt humans have about whether it's completelycrazy to see somebody for the first time and think 'I'm going to marry them.' It's like…coming home."
"Yes!" Jo pushed up on an elbow so she could see him. Her smile was bright and beautiful, and her eyes shone. "Yes, that's exactly right. I never felt so immediately comfortable with someone before, not like that. Itislike coming home to somewhere you really love, and it's familiar and safe and perfect." She flopped back down, because there really wasn't room in the sleeping bag to be propped up, and Colton kissed her hair.
"Yeah. Like that. I just…let's be real," he said with another soft chuckle. "I would have asked if I could come back to see you, but I hadn't been planning to tell you I was a shifter, much less about fated mates, ninety minutes after we met."
"You waited two whole days for the fate thing." Jo rubbed her nose against his chest, the gesture affectionate. "But no, I get why. I mean, I get why you didn't want to tell me about that when we were stuck together for two days, and no, I wouldn't have expected you to mention the whole chimera thing short of having to jump out of an airplane, yeah. No. It's kind of ratcheting the 'getting to know you' thing up to eleven, isn't it?"
"Or a hundred and twelve," Colton agreed ruefully. "On the other hand, my chimera is happy."
Jo managed to put an eyebrow waggle into her voice: "I bet he is."
Colton laughed aloud right against her head, which made her laugh in turn. "Loud!"
"Sorry! But that wasn't what I meant!"
"No," she said, tilting her head to grin up at him before nestling in again. "I didn't think it was. Why is he happy?"
"He thought I should tell you at the airport. So now he's gotten his way, even if I was slow about it from his perspective."
"At the airport," Jo echoed, amused. "That would have been a little much. And dangerous. You wouldn't want to prove it to me by shifting there, and I'd have thought you were a nutjob if you'd told me without being able to prove it."
"See?" Colton said aloud to his chimera. It pretended to be sleeping so it could ignore him, and he chortled and kissed Jo's hair again. "See, I knew I was making the right choice there."
"You did. About all of it. And part of me doesn't want to get out of this sleeping bag, Colton. Part of me wants to just stay out here in the wilderness so you don't have to go back to New York."
He groaned softly and tightened his arms around her. "Yeah, I know. It's going to take me a while to move my practice out here?—"
"What?" Jo pushed up again, her deep green eyes wide with astonishment. "To do what?"
Colton blinked uncertainly. "Move…move my practice out here? Montana doesn't have bar reciprocity, so I'll have to re-take the exam and study state law, but the truth is I can probably still maintain most of my practice in New York. The kinds of cases we do?—"
Jo jolted in to kiss him, silencing him thoroughly. Colton made a happy, if startled,oomphinto the kiss, and when it broke, Jo put her forehead against his, her eyes closed. "I wouldn't have asked you to move."
"Well…no, but…law practices can move. Ranches can't."
Jo squeaked like a sob had caught in her throat and hugged him hard. "Wow. I hadn't even gotten that far. I—wow."
Colton smiled almost apologetically. "In your defense, I've had two days to think about this. I've known since the moment we met that I would do anything to stay by your side."
"That's still…that's still pretty wow," Jo whispered. "Mr. Perfect doesn't usually appear out of nowhere and sweep a girl off her feet, you know."
"You'll think I'm less perfect when I introduce you to the other nine thousand people in my family," Colton said wryly.
