Page 122 of Beasts of Mine

I slid my fingers deeper into his hair and kissed him again before he could decide he needed to give me more room. Malek answered immediately, his mouth covering mine while his palm spread across my lower back and the low sound in his chest deepened.

When his thumb brushed near my gland again, a stronger shiver ran down my spine.

Malek stopped immediately. One moment his mouth had been on mine; the next he was perfectly still, breathing hard with his forehead resting against mine. His arm loosened around my waist, giving me room without dropping me completely.

“You okay?” Malek asked quietly, his golden-brown eyes searching my face while his thumb moved once against my side instead of anywhere near my gland.

It took me a second to find my voice.

“Yes. That wasn’t a bad shiver.” I assured Malek, still holding onto the back of his neck while my other hand rested against his chest. “Very much the opposite, actually.”

The tension eased from Malek’s shoulders.

“Good.” Malek murmured, a quieter purr returning beneath the word as his hand slid gently from my hair to the back of my neck. For a few seconds, neither of us moved. His forehead remained against mine while we caught our breath, and I became painfully aware of the aftermath—the warmth in my face, the sensitive ache in my lips, his scent covering the side of my neck, and my own sweetened scent mixed thoroughly with his.

I probably would have kissed him again if something hadn’t moved through the leaves somewhere behind us.

That was when I remembered we weren’t alone.

Tavian had moved several yards away and was studying the canopy with such determined concentration that there was absolutely no chance he had actually found something interesting up there. Luca stood closer to the water with one hand resting against a tree, considerably better at pretending he hadn’t been watching, although the deeper warmth in his sandalwood-and-herb scent gave him away.

I cleared my throat. Tavian turned immediately.

“Tavian.” I pointed one warning finger toward him while my other hand was still resting against Malek’s chest, which probably ruined most of the threat.

“I know.” Tavian pressed his lips firmly together and raised both hands, his amber eyes bright with everything he was apparently fighting not to say.

“You’re doing surprisingly well.” Luca told Tavian, dry amusement slipping into his voice while he glanced between us.

“That sounded almost sincere.” Tavian narrowed his eyes at Luca before apparently deciding it was safer to accept the compliment than test my patience.

I laughed, and Malek’s quiet purr vibrated once beneath my palm before he finally let me go.

Getting back to work after that took more effort than I wanted to admit, but I managed it anyway. We ate beside the stream not long afterward, using a broad patch of exposed roots above the water where the ground was reasonably dry. Tavian produced fruit from his bag and looked so pleased when he offered me some that I almost refused on principle now that I knew exactly what the gesture could mean.

Almost.

“Don’t make that face.” I warned Tavian as I took a piece from his hand, catching the immediate satisfaction that brightened his features.

“What face?” Tavian asked as he offered the remaining fruit toward Luca, widening his eyes in an attempt at innocence that might have worked better if I hadn’t already met the leopard version.

“The one that says you’re mentally adding this to some courtship scorecard.” I bit into the fruit and pointed the remaining half toward Tavian while he tried not to grin.

“There’s no scorecard.” Tavian assured me as he settled back against the root, though his mouth was still twitching when he said it.

“He would make one if you gave him the idea.” Luca told me as he accepted a piece of fruit from Tavian and leaned comfortably against the trunk behind him.

“Then I take it back.” I informed Luca as I took another bite, deciding the subject was safer if I stopped feeding Tavian’s imagination.

After lunch, I followed the stream farther northeast. The forest changed subtly as the ground rose, with more exposed rock along the water and fewer broad muddy banks. A flash of blue sent me crouching beside the stream for nearly twenty minutes until a small kingfisher finally returned to a branch above the water. Later, Tavian spotted movement high in a flowering tree and quietly pointed out the direction without trying to drag me toward it. Luca found a clear section of bank where I could kneel without putting my equipment in mud, and Malek stayed far enough behind that nothing seemed to notice him until he wanted it to.

Agreeing to court them hadn’t made any of them forget why I was there. If anything, they seemed even more careful about working around me now, which should have made concentrating easier if Malek’s scent hadn’t still been clinging to my neck.

By late afternoon, the shadows had grown longer beneath the canopy, and the patchy sunlight reaching the water had shifted from white to a warmer gold. I had filled most of one memory card, changed a battery, and added enough notes to my field book that the corner of the page had started curling from the humidity.

I checked my watch while Tavian stood farther upstream studying something beneath an overhanging branch.

Five twelve.