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as
much as she belonged here, beneath him, around him.
    Part of him, as she’d been
since the first day she’d loved him.
    Her fingers fisted in the blankets
as she rocked back, taking him deeper until pleasure gained a sharp
edge that sliced through her, laying everything bare. That edge cut
deeper as he nudged her hair off the back of her neck and bit her,
then began to move, slow and strong.
    Perfect.
    She wanted it to last forever, but
of course it couldn’t. Zola closed her eyes and reveled in the
slick thrust of his cock, the heat of his skin, the flex of his
muscles. Too soon, she was trembling.
    He whispered one dark, quiet
entreaty. “Come.”
    She did, with a helpless moan that
didn’t drown out the sweet sound of their bodies slamming
together as she tumbled into bliss. He bit her again, arms shaking as
his thrusts sped until he went rigid and followed her over the edge
with a choked sigh.
    Her name.
    I love you. The words echoed in her mind, but she collapsed in a sweaty,
trembling tangle of limbs without giving them voice. Too fragile. Too
old and too new. So she pushed them down and ignored the lion’s unhappy
rumble.
    Walker would be theirs soon enough.
She wouldn’t let him go a second time.

Chapter Four

    Walker woke with Zola draped over
him, a living dream that had haunted him for years. His third time
waking and reaching for her, and she came to him as readily as the
first, wrapping her legs around his hips.
    “ Slow.” More than a
whispered promise to her, it was a pledge to himself. They’d
both waited so long, and they deserved to have each other in every
way imaginable.
    He kept his pledge until she bit his
ear and whispered, “Mine.”
    He lost himself then, surging deep. Mine. More than a word—a claim, one that matched the way her
body welcomed his. Pleasure overwhelmed him, pure instinctive
satisfaction.
    Completion.
    He belonged here, exactly where he
was.
    Afterwards, he licked the sweat from
the hollow of her throat and smoothed her hair back. “Do you
have classes tomorrow?”
    A sleepy shake of her head as she
stroked his back. “Never on Sundays.”
    One of a hundred tiny little details
he didn’t know, and he relished the opportunity to learn
everything about her. “Just us, then?”
    “ Unless we want to start
making arrangements to bring the pride to New Orleans.” Her
fingers slid up to tease the back of his scalp. “I have money.
We can find them a place to live.”
    Money was the least of it. “So
do I. The problem is how much red tape is involved with a move like
this. That’s part of why I wanted the wolf council’s
help.”
    She chuckled. “I did not
immigrate...naturally. There is a thriving business in New Orleans
that focuses on nothing but making red tape disappear.”
    “ And if they’re like all
the other thriving businesses like that all over the world, you don’t
just walk up to them with an envelope of cash.”
    “ No,” she agreed,
laughter still bubbling in her voice. “You send Alexander
Jacobson. He will do it, because I’ve recently taken on a young
woman of his acquaintance as a private student, and he’s
feeling very grateful.”
    He joined in her laughter. “I
see how it is.”
    “ Mmm.” Her hand stilled
as she yawned, then nuzzled his chin with sleepy affection. “Rest.
You’ll need it if we’re to do this again in a few hours.”
    “ I need you more than I need
sleep.” He kissed her temple and slid out from under the
covers. “I’ll be right back.”
    Walker made his way down the hall
toward the bathroom in the dark. As he approached the half-open door,
his skin prickled, the hair on the back of his neck rising.
    Something was wrong.
    Though he could see well, he wasn’t
familiar enough with Zola’s apartment to notice anything
visibly out of place, and he heard nothing. Not a damn thing to fuel
his indefinable sense of wrong .
    Still, it remained.
    He flipped on the bathroom light,
and his blood chilled. A bag of dirty