“Damn,” Grant grunted on another brutal thrust. “You feel amazing like this. Ugh, fuck yes!” He shifted his grip so one palm pushed against my lower stomach and the other slid further onto my back. The feeling was incredible, making my muscles clench hard, and a broken sob escaped my chest. In that very moment, I chose to look down at his masked face, and the expression there was what pushed me over the edge into an orgasm unlike anything I'd ever felt. Even with half his face covered, the awe and hunger burning in those dark eyes couldn’t be hidden. I could feel myself stretching around his knot, theresistance brief, until Grant bucked his hips again and locked us together. Our moans echoed each other, and I trembled from the overwhelming sensation of him pushing from the outside while rolling his hips to rub deep inside my channel. I could feel myself drooping, head lolling loosely on my neck, as the hand on my back moved somewhere to my left. My brain barely registered him holding the remote to control my camera until he lifted it to point at the tripod. “That’s all for now, chat,” he rumbled in the low voice of a man who was deeply satisfied.
Eyes never leaving mine, Grant lifted the small remote to the camera and pushed the button to shut the stream off. The constant dinging of tips coming in cut off with an abrupt swiftness. Our wild panting filled the void as we tried to compose ourselves. My arms finally gave out, and I slumped down onto Grant. His chest vibrated with thatmurringsound that made me melt and turn loose-limbed. “That was a dick move, turning the stream off,” I muttered. “Feckin' sneaky of you to steal the remote.”
He laughed. It was a warm sound that seeped into the cracks of the wall I tried to keep between us. I’d had sex without attachments more times than I could count, careless fucks that I tossed out on their asses before sunlight leaked through the window. Why I couldn’t muster the motivation to do the same to him eluded me. I never cuddled. But here I was, draped over his cooling body with his arms wrapped around me, his lips pressed to my temple as he breathed deeply through his nose.
“Lore,” Grant murmured. The crook of his finger pressed under my chin to lift my face to his. He may have me held hostage, but my eyes shifted to the side in a desperate attempt to avoid the soft gaze I knew he watched me with.
This was too far outside my comfort zone.
Grant and I were still stuck together, for crying out loud! I wanted to squirm away, but even the slightest shift set off allsorts of sparkling, pleasant feelings in my pelvis that had no business being there. Seriously, fuck this guy for being such a good lay. “Don’t feckin’ look at me like that,” my voice was petulant. I didn’t need to look to know he was smiling like the damn Cheshire cat. “It was just awesome sex, don’t ruin it by talking.”
“You know it wasn’tjustsex, Lore.”
Yeah, I did know. Male fox shifters only developed knots for their mates. Fucking bullshit biology, in my opinion. That didn’t mean I wanted to hear it from his punk ass mouth. Even though the evidence literally wedged itself up my channel and prevented me from escaping the truth. I sure as hell wasn’t giving Grant the satisfaction of saying he was right. “I should have feckin’ known better than to let you crawl into my bed,” I grumbled like the pouting child I was, despite the fact that I was the happiest I’d ever been in my whole miserable life right now. My arms wound themselves around Grant’s neck, and I snuggled deeper into his solid body.
Ever since I dove off that cliff, I vowed I would never rely on someone else to make me happy. But lying here with him, basking in the afterglow, something like happiness niggled its way into the cracks in the wall I built around the girl still hiding deep inside me. The one who still believed in unconditional love and loyalty outside of blood.
That part of me hoped Grant would live up to the lofty expectations I set for him.
Recovery
Grant
Why did she use something like “liar” for a safeword?
My fingertips trailed up and down the bumps of her vertebrae as I stared up at the ceiling and kept my other armtucked behind my head. Lore nestled even closer to my side, throwing her leg across my hip as her cheek pressed to the back of her hand, which lay on my right pec. Her other hand slipped beneath my arm and wrapped around my shoulder closest to her. Honestly, I was a bit shocked to find she was clinging to me like this. Half of me expected Lore to throw me out on my ass as soon as I cut off the livestream. Instead, she had hauled me up from the foot of the bed without replacing a single piece of clothing—aside from the mesh bolero that never came off—and situated me where I now lay so she could fall asleep half-draped across my body. Whatever doubts I had over being her mate were solidly thrown out the window when I knotted her, but instead of the trepidation I expected, all I felt was a bone-deep sense of homecoming. We weren't bonded yet—neither of us carried each other's mark—but I might as well be.
Lore was not at all what I expected. Looking back on all our interactions now, it was laughable to think she was someone I could convince to fall into whatever trap Andrea tried to set. Her own bodyguards barely managed to keep Lore out of trouble. She did whatever the fuck she wanted. Even lying in this bed with her felt like sleeping with a lion. I was bound to get mauled eventually. But it was well worth the risk, even if she rejected me. Never in the limited experiences of my life had I met a woman like Lore Brennan, and I would be hard pressed to find another one with this voracious appetite for life.
She was… stunning.
Lying here by her side, touching as much bare skin as possible, my body felt sated and relaxed as my fox reveled in the sensation. Contentment, maybe for the first time in my life since losing my parents, radiated in my chest and lulled me to a comfortable sleep. My fox was anxious by nature, always pushing at my skin from the inside to shift and take over, even though the skill itself was challenging for me. Now it feltat peace, like it had finally wandered into a warm cave from the bitter cold. It wasn’t like fox shifters were common in the small community. Of the approximate five percent of the world's population identified as some species of shifter, foxes were less than point-zero-one percent of that. Maybe it was just the closeness to the same kind of primal that sent this oozing calmness through my veins.
Lore sighed happily and snuggled into my side like she was burrowing in. “Mmmm.” The sound vibrated against my chest, and she pressed those soft lips into my skin. “That was the best sex I’d had in alongtime. Which is impressive, by the way.”
Humor lit her tone, but I could feel a scowl lower my brow at the thought of her body count. I wasn’t delusional in thinking Lore was an inexperienced lover, but my fox growled low at the thought ofourmate with anyone else. The flip in attitude was immediate. I must have been louder than I thought because Lore chuckled lightly and smacked me on the chest. “Aw, is someone jealous?” she teased.
I didn’t like the route this conversation was taking. And I had something else to say, not related to our relationship. “I need to tell you something… about Andrea.”
She scoffed, resting her cheek against my chest again. “Wow, way to ruin the mood. If I had a boner, it would have deflated faster than a balloon stabbed with a knife.”
The unexpected retort forced a surprised laugh from me. “Not a visual I wanted to have, but here we are.”
She grumbled low but didn’t move. “So, tell me what you need to tell me.”
I hated to snuff the post-orgasmic glow around us, but this was important. I should have led with this before we fucked for an hour. “Andrea is looking to dismantle the Red Riot. He knows you’re the one who killed Frank. Along with shutting down the auction, he thinks he has enough to warrant help from theAssembly to launch an all-out war. I think he’s trying to lure you out and… kill you.”
“I know.”
“You know he’s coming after you, or you know he’s bringing help?”
Lore shifted to prop herself up on an elbow, her hand still resting on my sternum while her fingers drummed restlessly. “I know he’s running off with his tail between his legs to drag over some friends from overseas to gang up on me with. There’s someone I’ve been trying to lure out for a while now, and I think Andrea will be able to bring him right to my door.”
“I’m confused. I thought you were here under an alias. What’s changed?”
Her shoulder lifted in a half-hearted shrug, and her eyes shifted toward the far wall. I watched as her stare took on a darkness I’d never seen in them before. Lore always seemed to have this devil-may-care outlook on life, unaffected by the world she moved through. For something to haunt her like this… I felt like I had to know.
“Tell me what you’re hiding from.” I kept my voice low, like I was talking to a skittish animal. To soften the blow, I raised my hand to cup her face with all the carefulness of cradling delicate glass. “Whatever you’re carrying, you don’t need to do it alone anymore.”
