Primal Bonds (Shifters Unbound #2)(25)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

“Why don’t you shift back?” Sean asked Andrea. He was looking down at her, eyes glittering with the anger of a male interrupted from doing a favorite male thing. “You can shift back and run off home. You didn’t need Kim to fetch your clothes.”

Andrea smiled at him. “Maybe I just wanted to have a few more minutes alone with you.”

“Don’t tempt me, love.” Sean’s voice shook. He leaned to her, nuzzled her cheek, breath hot. “I want much more than a few minutes.”

Andrea licked his chin. “Then don’t waste them,” she said, and kissed him.

Sean let himself get buried in her kiss, his mouth roving her throat and neck, down to her soft, tight br**sts. But Kim was far too swift in fetching Andrea’s clothes, and they had to part, Sean shifting to save himself embarrassment from just how damned desperately hard he was.

“Excuse me, what the hell are you doing?” Andrea demanded half an hour later.

Andrea had been hot and horny while Sean walked her the few steps home and accompanied her upstairs. Once in her bedroom, instead of pursuing their interrupted mating, Sean shifted back to his human form and dressed himself. He’d laid the Sword of the Guardian across the top of Andrea’s dresser, and now he’d opened a drawer and started removing her underwear.

“Sean.” Andrea planted her hands on her hips. “I asked, what the hell are you doing? Trying to figure out what size I wear?”

“I’m cleaning out a space for my own clothes.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m moving in here, love. While you’re dreaming up Fae warriors, I need to be with you to stop the dreams.”

Andrea huffed out a breath. “Glory can do that. I’ll have her sleep in here with me.”

“Glory’s not here, is she? Trust me, she’s off looking for Dad, and when she finds him, she’ll hole up with him awhile.”

“What? Leaving poor, helpless me all unprotected?”

“She knows you’re protected. By me.”

Andrea snapped her brows together. “You can sleep in the spare room.”

“That’s not on, love. I can’t wake you up if I’m not sleeping with you. If you’re summoning things or they’re using your dreams to make a hole from Faerie, I’m going to be right next to you to stop it.”

Goddess help me. Sean cuddling up to her the last couple of nights had warmed and soothed her, but what they’d done in the clearing had left her burning. The memory of his firm arousal pressing to her so-slick opening hadn’t faded, and in fact excited her even through her anger. If he got into bed with her tonight, she’d never be able to hold herself back. She’d give in to him completely, and then the mating ceremony would be a mere formality. Shifters did have casual sex without mating—all the time—but this wouldn’t be casual, and both of them knew it.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Sean turned from the dresser. “To keep you safe. What else? And to figure out that’s going on. That Fae appeared in the trees while I was home grilling burgers. No warnings—he was just there.”

“Don’t look at me; I don’t know why.”

“That’s why I’m going to hang around you, to find out why.”

Andrea sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands.

One second later, she sagged against him on the mattress, his thigh against hers, his arm around her shoulder. “We’ll figure this out, love,” he said. “I won’t let you be hurt.”

“That’s not it. I mean, that’s partly it. I thought that when I came here, my troubles would be over. Instead, I’m more confused than ever. I have a Feline who likes to climb through my window and go through my underwear, I have nightmares that scare the shit out of me, and now a Faerie creature pops into existence because I dream his voice. Instead of peace and quiet and shopping with my aunt, I’m shot at by humans and pursued by a Feline who’s on the edge of mating frenzy.”

“Welcome to Shiftertown,” Sean said. “And I don’t want to force you, love, no matter how frenzied I am.”

“You’re a Shifter male. It’s what Shifter males do.”

Sean raised his brows instead of growling in rage, showing her once again that the unreadable Sean wasn’t behaving like he was supposed to. He took away his comforting embrace and rose from the bed. “Those bloody Lupines that raised you must have been right a piece of work.”

“My stepfather is a kind man.” A dart of pain pierced her heart. Her stepfather, Terry, wasn’t strong; Andrea knew that, and yet he’d been simple and loving. She missed his warm smile, his embrace, even the way he liked to put onions on absolutely everything he ate. She’d cried and clung to him when he’d put her on the bus in Colorado, leaving behind the only Shifter who loved her. But Terry hadn’t been allowed to come with her, by both human and Shifter law.

“The fact that you didn’t run to this Jared, tail between your legs, makes you remarkable, love,” Sean was saying.

“Huh. According to my pack, it made me ungrateful, untrustworthy, defiant, and bitchy. They thought my mating with Jared would be good for me, because I’d be moving up. The fact that Jared is a sexist, sadistic pig didn’t matter very much. Except to me.”

“Andrea.”

Andrea looked up in surprise. Usually Sean called her love or lass, and never spoke to her in that quiet voice. “What?”

Sean watched her with a guarded expression. “You shouldn’t have been able to resist Jared at all. Not with you so low in the pack. Not with him so high in the hierarchy and that determined. And you’re not afraid of me, are you?”

Not in the way he meant. Andrea was afraid of the way she reacted to Sean—the wanting that beat through her blood whenever he was near. Sean brought out the playful side of her as no other male ever had. She wanted to tease him, flirt with him, buy him underwear, tumble with him in the woods. She wanted him to chase her; she wanted to turn the tables on him when he caught her and take him down. Then she wanted to make love to him—deep, passionate, longing love, which she would have done in the clearing if they hadn’t been interrupted.

Sean was trying to pin her with his dominant stare, his blue eyes hard and hot. She met that stare, which—he was right—she shouldn’t have been able to. Not according to all Shifter instincts and laws of the pack.