Evan winked at me. “We can do that one later, I promise.”
He shifted so fast that I barely registered it. His wolf approached to nuzzle my throat, scent marking me again.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. Well, I tried. Thanks to the size of him, they didn’t meet in the middle. “Please don’t drop me.”
He chuffed before pulling back and lowering himself into a crouch. He didn’t have a human tongue, but he didn’t need one.
I’ll keep you safe, sweetheart.
He would. I knew that.
But I wanted to keep him safe too, and I had no idea how to make that happen without leaving with the Clarksons. After our conversation last night, I couldn’t do that willingly. It’d break Evan’s heart.
It’d break mine too.
I straddled Evan’s back, my fingers diving into his thick fur. “So soft.”
He made that chuffing noise again.
“Are ye laughing at me?”
“He is,” Logan said. “But maybe you should shut him up by telling him you want him to watch you jack off in this form. He won’t be laughing then.”
Evan growled at Logan, snapping his jaws at him warningly. Logan was right, Evan didn’t think it was funny. But I did.
Kinda hot too.
I leaned forwards, bringing my mouth to his ear so the other nosy fuckers didn’t hear. “Not a bad idea.”
Evan whined, looking over his shoulder at me. I giggled. “Sorry. Probably mean to turn you on when we can’t do anything about it. Look at it this way, you can use all that pent-up frustration to keep us safe.”
He made a grumbling sound. I was getting better at translating them. That one definitely meant ‘fine, but we’re fucking later when this is done.’
At least, I hoped that was what it meant.
“Hold on tight,” Finn said as Calan shifted. “He won’t be running at full speed as Logan and I are staying in this form, but it’ll still be fast.”
I twisted my hands into the fur around his shoulders until I was sure I had a good hold. “Okay.”
“Lean forwards,” Logan advised. “Try and get yourself as flat as possible. It’ll allow Evan to move faster and won’t make you feel as sick.”
A thread of unease went through me as I flattened myself against Evan’s back. God, what if we got there and I vomited in front of everyone? That’d be embarrassing.
You’d think this would be something I’d experienced before, what with having grown up in a shifter clan, but it wasn’t. Carrying someone on their back was seen as a weakness to jaguars, for both parties involved.
As for letting a human ride them? That was never going to happen.
It was just another stark difference between the Clarksons and the McCarthys. I really wished I’d noticed more of them earlier.
Maybe then I wouldn’t have kept Evan at arm’s length for as long as I had.
No more. Evan wasn’t getting rid of me now. I’d cling on metaphorically as hard as I was physically.
The only warning I had that he was about to move was his muscles bunching under my fingers.
Then, he was flying.
Not literally. That wasn’t possible, but it may as well have been. Trees blurred as Evan shot past them, Calan at our side. I couldn’t see Finn or Logan, but I knew they were close.
