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  As though her tongue had a mind of its own, it reached out instinctively to lick the seam of Evan’s lips. He startled, but only for a second. A normal person probably wouldn’t have noticed, but Ashley wasn’t normal. She was a shifter, and she was sensitive. Alert.

  More alert than ever in her life.

  His taste matched his scent, a deep male flavor that was all Evan with a hint of mint. When his tongue came out to tease her own, she heard a slight high-pitched moan that startled her.

  Her eyes shot open as Evan pulled back. He was grinning from ear to ear.

  She noticed several things at once. She was squeezing the life out of his arms. Her fingers ached. Her entire body was warmer than it should be. Evan looked pleased with himself. Her sex came to life beneath the blankets, demanding contact for the first time in years. And, perhaps most importantly, she wanted him to keep going.

  “I want more.” She licked her lips.

  “I know you do, baby.” He raised one arm and brushed her hair from her forehead with the tips of his fingers.

  “Did I make that noise?”

  “Yep.” He smiled again and gazed into her eyes in that way he was developing a habit of doing. “And it was so sexy.”

  Her sex literally throbbed when he said sexy. She squeezed her legs together to hold back the ache. It didn’t work.

  “Kiss me again?”

  “Not on your life.” He chuckled. “I’m a good man, Ashley, but I do know my limitations.”

  She flushed deeper. Did he just turn me down? How mortifying. She closed her eyes and moaned for real this time. Embarrassment flooded her system. She released his arms and flopped her hands at her sides, wishing he would back away from her so she could endure her discomfiture alone.

  “Don’t freak out on me, baby.” He soothed her forehead with his fingers, brushing them over both eyelids as he stroked her skin. “I can smell your arousal. It’s intense and you know it as well as I do. It’s perfectly normal. The call of mates rules the body. But you could easily get carried away. Like I said, I want your heart and your mind, not just your body. And I want those parts first.”

  Ugh. Why did nature have to arrange for her to mate the only sensible man born on earth?

  He chuckled. “You do things to me I never thought possible.”

  I do things to him? Jeez.

  She swallowed. Words wouldn’t form. She concentrated on the V between her legs, unsure if she wanted the craving inside her to subside or grow. It was a conundrum.

  “God, Ashley. You make me lose my mind.” He sat up, his shadow leaving her space.

  For a woman who couldn’t stand anyone in her personal space or touching her, she sure felt bereft of his huge frame hovering over her.

  He turned so he faced away from her and she opened her eyes a sliver to watch his back as he took deep breaths. She’d made him horny. If he was half as horny as her, he’d be hurting.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, setting a hand on his back. “That was inconsiderate of me. It won’t happen again.”

  Evan jerked his gaze over his shoulder and frowned. “I hope it happens dozens of times, today in fact. I just wasn’t prepared. You caught me off guard. I need to rein in the…little head.” He cringed as he said it. “Sorry. I couldn’t think of how else to put it. Didn’t mean to be crass.”

  The little head. She doubted any part of this giant man was “little.”

  He sobered before he spoke again. “I’ll be ready next time. Don’t hold back on my account. Whatever you’re ready for, I’m here for you. I’ll live. I just knew you weren’t ready for more than that kiss this morning. Am I mistaken?”

  She shook her head. “That was my second kiss.” Now why did I have to go and admit that? Her face flamed.

  Evan’s eyes widened. His mouth opened but no sound came out.

  “With the exception of Paul Michaels. He kissed me on the playground in third grade. Said I was cute.” She grinned, hoping to cover up her complete mortification over the admission. What twenty-five-year-old woman hasn’t been kissed?

  He found his voice. “I’m honored. I hope I did it justice.”

  “More than.”

  To her startled amazement, he reached for her, lifted her with both hands, and pulled her to sit across his lap.

  To further her shock, she didn’t mind a bit. She loved the way he took charge and handled her so gently.

  “In that case, I shall kiss you again, this time a bit more thoroughly.” He didn’t lose her gaze as he spread one giant hand between her shoulder blades and steadied her on his lap. He took her mouth tenderly, but pressed into her, leaving nothing to the imagination.

  Like a starving man, he consumed her, his tongue entering her mouth and tangling with her own in a duel that would have made her giggle if she weren’t so consumed with need. Every cell in her body came alive. Her breasts swelled, seeming heavier than a moment ago. Her nipples puckered and brushed against the cotton of her T-shirt as though it were sandpaper.

  And the things that happened between her legs weren’t describable. Wetness, heat, tightness. She squirmed against his thighs, unable to dispel the consuming ache that built and built until she thought she would burst open from a simple kiss.

  How the hell was the connection of their lips sending fireworks down to her sex?

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing had prepared her for this moment. Everything they said about mating was true. Any doubt she may have held about the validity of Evan being her true mate fled the room. She’d never felt an inkling of this rampage of sensation flooding her body.

  She squeezed her thighs together as Evan continued to devour her mouth. She wanted more. She reached into him deeper with her tongue, mimicking what her pussy demanded below. Her clit throbbed and she knew the tiny nub was no longer protected by its hood. It brushed against her panties as she squirmed.

  Her palms grew damp with sweat where she grasped the material of her pajama bottoms. She couldn’t move them. She had no idea where else to put them, and besides her brain cells were occupied commanding her pussy into action and sending her blood to her sex.

  As Evan tilted his head the other direction to provide her with a new angle, she became increasingly aware of another factor. His erection was pressing into her thigh, huge and as obvious as a freight train.

  Part of her screamed to reach out and touch it, learn it, feel its strength. The rest of her concentrated on the enormous size of his shaft. She’d heard no two men were alike. She knew rationally that some were larger than others. But from the force of the bulge at her leg, she had to doubt the masculinity of her previous jackass of a partner.

  She both longed to see his erection and feared the first time he entered her with it.

  She felt like a teenage virgin dabbling precariously close to second base.

  And considering the cold calculated way all her previous sexual experiences had been, most of them from behind, doggy style, she felt she almost owned that virginal status.

  This time it was Evan who moaned. He released her mouth, leaving it swollen and puffy. She didn’t have the energy to lick her lips. He set his forehead against hers and held her gaze. He seemed to constantly judge her through her eyes. And he was always dead on. He read her soul through the depths of her pupils with incredible accuracy, never missing his mark when he analyzed her feelings.

  “I love you.” His words startled her. “I know it’s absurd and quick and we barely know each other, but I know how I feel, and I don’t want to waste a moment of my life pretending anything other than that. Life is too short and filled with crazy twists and turns. If anything happened to either of us today, I’d want you to have known how I felt at this moment. I love you, Ashley.” He kissed her lips again, a gentle peck to solidify his words.

  She had no idea what to say.

  And he didn’t ask anything of her, not even with his eyes. He wasn’t disappointed and didn’t need reciprocation. In fact, he kissed her nose, her cheek, he
r ear. He nibbled a path around her face as though he’d won the lottery.

  “I have to get home. I have an assignment. I’m in the middle of a job.”

  “What is it?”

  He held her away from him and frowned. Finally he spoke again. “I won’t always be able to tell you what I’m working on. It’s usually confidential. And this project is no different. But I have a lot of papers to dig through and they will be arriving at my house at ten. It will take me a few days to organize the material before I have to hit the road again.”

  Deflated was the only way to describe how she felt. Her shoulders sagged against her will and all the air ran out of her lungs. He was leaving?

  “Come with me? To my place.”

  She lifted her face, inhaling oxygen back into her lungs. He wasn’t blowing her off after all.

  “I’d really love to have you by my side, at least in my home, while I work. Would you mind?”

  She found her throat, dry and cracking, as she tried to speak. “Of course.” Thank you, God. If he had walked out the door at that moment and left her sitting on her bed, a complete hurricane of emotions, she might not have survived the day. “Let me take a quick shower and grab some things.”

  He set her on her feet and held her steady in front of him before releasing her. Reluctance was the emotion she read on his face, a slight dip that happened between his eyes every time he was unsure of something.

  As she turned toward the bathroom, she let herself smile. She weighed less than she had yesterday, her chest lighter and floating above the ground, making her steps seem to hardly touch the floor.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When the doorbell rang at ten o’clock sharp, Evan steadied his little mate with a touch to her leg. She lay on the couch curled into herself, reading a book, or pretending to. The sound of the doorbell had stiffened her entire frame and he ached deep inside at what Damon had taken from her. “It’s FedEx,” he whispered as he kissed her forehead. He patted her thigh and stepped past her.

  The vision that met his gaze made him gasp as soon as he opened the door. He’d expected a package or maybe two, but not four gigantic boxes that bulged under the weight of too much information.

  “Evan Harmon?” the man asked. He held out an electronic tablet. “Sign here.” He hardly acknowledged Evan’s nod of confirmation that he was indeed the man to whom the delivery belonged.

  Evan signed and the young skinny driver jogged away, leaving Evan to drag the boxes inside himself.

  It took a few minutes and it was fucking cold out. Drifts of snow blew inside as he worked.

  “Jeez,” Ashley said as she approached him, pulling her sweater around her waist. “You said you needed to do some research. I thought you meant you had a file to read. This will take you until July.” She scanned the boxes.

  Even though he had yet to officially claim his sweet mate, he could already feel her emotions. Her words were joking, mocking his lack of foresight concerning the amount of work he had to do, but her shoulders relaxed, her arms hung looser. She was relieved, hoping it meant he wouldn’t leave her.

  His chest hurt, an actual pain he felt all the way inside. Not only would he have to leave this woman he loved, but he would undoubtedly spend months chasing her ex around the country until he nailed the bastard to the ground, and all the while he would be forced to lie to her about what he was working on.

  Shit. He’d signed an agreement. He’d stated emphatically he would not discuss this case with anyone. And he was certain that included Ashley. Besides, she would freak out if she knew what he was doing when he wasn’t with her. Talk about stress.

  Nope. He would have had to keep this project to himself even if he hadn’t agreed to sign a non-disclosure clause with The Council.

  “I admit it’s more than I expected.” He set his hands on his hips and took a deep breath before he proceeded to heave the first box over to the dining room table.

  “Can I help?”

  He grinned over his shoulder, the box balancing precariously in his arms. “You wouldn’t be able to push one of these an inch, my love.” He set the box down. He didn’t want her near them anyway. He hoped he could set up shop at the table, be able to work in the dining room, keep an eye on her in the living room and kitchen and still avoid her eyes wandering in the direction of the files.

  He plopped the first box in a corner and returned for another. “Sit.” He pointed at the couch on the way by. “You’re obscuring sensitive information,” he teased. Maybe if he made light of his predicament, she wouldn’t grow suspicious.

  When he reached her, he physically turned her toward the living room and pointed at the couch. He hated her near the boxes, let alone between himself and the files. Even though he hadn’t seen the contents yet, he considered them dirty. Disgusting. He wanted to vomit thinking about what he would learn inside them.

  Ashley lowered herself onto the couch, but she sat straight and tall as she watched him drag each box across the room. He was a fit man, but it was a workout.

  Before he opened the first box to get to work, he wandered back over to her side. Her scent had already permeated every crevice of his home. He loved it and cursed it at the same time. He had no idea how he was going to concentrate enough to actually work. “How about I set you up a room you can turn into a studio?” Was that presumptuous?

  Hell, if he converted the spare room across from his ridiculous, secret, Damon-hunting hovel into a studio, they could actually see each other more or less across the hall and he could keep his project out of sight.

  “I’d like that.” She smiled and set her hand on his cheek.

  He leaned into the touch, loving the feel of her skin against his. His worries surrounding this unconventional wooing were dashing from his mind. She might not be ready to rush to the finish line, but she wasn’t unaffected by him either. He was sharp enough to know she needed him as much as he did her.

  It was only a matter of time.

  “I have to get to work. You good?”

  “Yes.” She lifted her book off her lap. It was for pleasure, but she had a few textbooks with her also. She intended to study at some point.

  Evan stood and rubbed his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath as though fortifying himself for what lie in those boxes. All that did was fill him with more of her scent. He backed away as he exhaled and only managed to miss falling over the coffee table by an inch.

  Klutz.

  •●•

  Ashley watched her mate bustle around opening boxes and pulling out files. She peered up at him over the top of the couch. She held a book in her hand, open, but she hadn’t read a single word—not even before FedEx arrived. She wasn’t sure the book was right-side up.

  All that mattered in the room, the house, the planet was Evan and the way he moved around unpacking files. He was huge, especially compared to her. Broad and strong. How much time did he spend in the gym? His muscles bulged across his arms and chest as he heaved a box onto the dining room table.

  “Did you play football?”

  “Huh?” He lifted his gaze and stared at her quizzically, his head cocked to one side. And then a smile spread and he chuckled. “If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me that.” He resumed scrounging around in the box he’d set higher. “But, nope. God made me this way. I like to work out. Lift weights. Run. But I never played football, much to the dismay of the high school coach, who hounded me every year trying to recruit me for the team.”

  “Guess that’s what tall people get about basketball.”

  “Yeah, no one ever asked me to play that sport for some reason.” He winked at her and then heaved a stack of papers onto the glossy table top. “I have two left feet. I did nothing but trip over myself in gym class.”

  Ashley warmed inside. She loved this. This getting to know him. Watching him.

  “How about you?”

  “No. I never played football either,” she teased.

  “Really?” He lif
ted an eyebrow. “I’d have pegged you for a linebacker for sure.”

  “Yeah, guess the coach thought I was too scrawny. I never played a sport. I never left the art room. If my hands aren’t covered with paint, my shirt isn’t stained, and my hair isn’t dripping with some acrylic substance, it wasn’t a good day.” She sat up straighter, letting her book fall closed in her lap.

  “That’s great, having a passion, I mean. Besides you, I’m not sure I know what my passion is yet.” He paused, leaning on the box and staring her in the eye.

  And just like that the temperature rose in the room. Heat crawled up Ashley’s neck. She bit her lip and held his penetrating gaze. He wanted her and she couldn’t help but love the feelings it evoked inside. The ball of lust that had formed in her stomach yesterday continued to grow.

  Somebody wanted her. Not just anybody, but the sexy hunk of man currently suffocating her with his presence.

  Ashley. Broken. Ruined. Fucked up beyond all recognition. And yet, Evan couldn’t see any of that. All he saw was his mate. She read it in his eyes every time he looked at her. He wasn’t putting on an act to be nice. He wasn’t wooing her out of some grand sense of pity. No. He really wanted her. And the idea still boggled her mind.

  Evan broke the connection. He shook his head as though he realized he’d been in a trance and turned back to his work, sitting on the nearest chair and opening a file. He tapped a pencil eraser on the table in rapid succession and then bolted up once more. “I have an idea.” He held one finger up as though indicating she should hold on a sec, although she had no idea what she was waiting for.

  Evan grabbed a black computer bag from next to the wall, yanked out the laptop and whipped it open on the table like it would self-destruct if he didn’t hurry. He typed furiously for several minutes, pausing now and then to stare at the screen. Whatever the hell he was doing, it made her curious. But he was on a mission and she didn’t interrupt.