Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)(32)

“They won’t,” she promised. “I’ll take care of them. I won’t let their mates go to sleep on them.”

“Your confidence almost makes me believe it.”

With a frown, she eased back and captured his gaze. “Do you trust me?”

Tobias dipped his chin once.

“Good. Then hear me, Tobias Silver. I swear on the ring that you gave me I won’t let you or your family down. None of you will hibernate this winter.”

Tobias leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, gently at first, then harder when she let off a soft moan. He liked her noisy. She could tell because his control slipped any time she made a sound of pleasure. He pushed his tongue past her lips, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled him in closer. She could never get enough of this connection with him. He nipped her lip and trailed biting kisses down her jaw and to her neck, and when he rolled on top of her and looked down at her, she could see it. He wouldn’t give up the word “love” easily, but damn, that man could make her feel it. His hair was shorter on the sides. He must have gotten a haircut while she was Changed. It was still longer on top, though, falling forward in front of his eyes. The green there had darkened to caramel brown. Hello, bear.

Up on locked, flexed arms, he offered her a small, sexy smile before he lowered himself and kissed her again. Vera ran her hands over the taut curves of his shoulders and triceps, then ran her nails down his back and gasped when he rolled his hips against hers in response.

“Pants in the way,” she panted, trying to shove them down his hips.

“Woman, stop,” he murmured through a smile. “I’m trying to take this slow with you.”

“Don’t want slow.” A growl rippled through her, and she clapped her hands over her mouth.

Tobias’s eyes danced as he stared down at her. Gently, he pulled her hands away from her mouth. “Let her out, Vera. I love it when you growl.”

Let her out? Okay. Vera closed her eyes and opened her mind to the animal, just enough so she could see what was happening between her and Tobias. She should feel this, the bond she shared with her mate. This wasn’t just bringing gifts and making each other feel safe. This was loving each other, and her fox had never known love. Not from her and not from her maker, Jonathan. It was scary to relax enough to let her animal in. What if she forced a Change and took her body? But when she felt the fox, it wasn’t like that at all. She was…stunned.

Tobias brushed his finger just under her eye. “Those eyes,” he whispered, looking awed. “Gold like a sunset on the water.”

Vera’s eyes rimmed with tears at the rightness of this moment. Tobias’s bear was here, and so was her animal, and this was what it was supposed to be like. She wasn’t just a human anymore. She’d fought it for so long and had suppressed the scary side of herself, but right now, she accepted all of it. What had happened to her, what she had become. If she’d stayed human, she would still be working in some lab somewhere with an easy, bland life instead of here with Tobias, feeling all these emotions and this depth of happiness. Her joy was more potent because she knew how truly awful things could be.

The fox had given her Tobias.

There was no more accidental snarling as her fox sat inside of her, a quiet observer to Tobias’s affection.

He smoothed her hair, and when he cupped her cheek, Vera squeezed her eyes closed and nuzzled against his palm.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.

And for the first time in a long time, she felt beautiful. How could she not with her mate looking at her like this. Even fox-eyed, he was accepting all of her. The new her, not the her that had died the day Jonathan bit her for the first time.

She lifted up and kissed him as a single tear fled the corner of her eye. And when he pushed his tongue against hers this time, a soft humming sound she didn’t recognize rumbled from her chest. And the only feeling she got from her animal was happiness. A first.

Tobias pressed his hand between her breasts and froze as she hummed on, a distracted smile on his face as he watched her with deep approval etched into his striking features. Leaning down, he kissed her where his hand had been and trailed his lips down to her belly button. Vera inhaled sharply as he grazed his teeth against her hip. She remembered the pain from his claiming mark, but that was over and done, and now, Tobias used that sexy, gentle bite of his to tease. To work her into an inferno and make her beg.

Gripping his hair, she pushed him down between her thighs and arched her back when his lips moved against her sex.

Her ring glinted in the lantern light as she ran her fingers through his hair, and she closed her eyes at the overwhelming happiness that filled her. When Tobias dipped his tongue inside of her, she moaned and spread her knees wider for him. Hooking his arms around her thighs, he pulled her closer as a growl rattled his throat. With each push of his tongue, the pressure between her legs built and tingled until it felt so good she lost her words completely. Please. That was what she meant to say, but instead, only a whimper came from her.

Tobias sucked gently on her clit, then dipped his tongue back inside her, and she was gone. Falling, falling, the lantern was too bright, and she squeezed her eyes closed as an orgasm pulsed through her. She was too sensitive now, but when Tobias thrust into her again, the next throbbing sensation was even better. Her body trembled and twitched by the time he pulled away and ran biting kisses down her inner thigh to her knee.