He hangs his head. “Don’t want everyone to see how hard I am right now. Seeing you in that suit…” He hums a note in bliss. “Curves in all the most tempting places, Tessi.”
I sit down and dangle my feet in the cool water. I manage a small smile, but I wish he’d get in with me instead of hovering like a security guard. “Zorin, come closer so I don’t have to strain to talk to you.”
He sits on the chair.
“Tell me about your power, the one I saw out by the river.”
Zorin steals a glance at me, rubs his thighs, then braces his elbows on his knees and hangs his head. “I can break rock, shatter mountains, scale hulls and buildings, jump higher than any other shifter, and we can suck the light from the world and store it as energy if we want to. Our Night Stalking is a bit different from others. We cancreatenight.”
There’s only one other couple in the pool area with us, and they’re thankfully at the other end. It’s nice to have a moment to myself, but I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to.
“Would you please get in with me?” I ask. “It just feels like you’re making it obvious that you’re just protecting me. But that’s not what I want.”
Zorin clasps his hands together and rests his mouth against them. “You’re too tempting, Tessi. I will get in trouble. Viriden has made that clear.”
Yeah, but he doesn’t control me.
I ease myself into the shallow end of the pool, turn around, grab him by the chest of his vest, and pull with all my might.
“Tessi!” Zorin flails toward me. I step aside and let him fall into the water, then hang on as he submerges. Pulling myself to him, I blink through the water, find his mouth, and press my lips to his as bubbles rise in white streams from his uniform.
After a moment, Zorin finds my waist with his hands. He guides me against his body and kisses me back. When he settles onto the bottom of the pool, he wraps an arm around me, then reaches back, and pushes us upward again.
For a wolf Shifter, he swims better than I expect. Zorin forms his hands around my hips and supports me as we surface. I lock my ankles behind him and loop my arms around his strong neck, ready to hang on if he tries to push me away.
He rakes his short wet hair back with a hand, spraying mist into the air, and making his short brindle hair stand on end. Zorin doesn’t let me go or try to peel me off of him. He’s hanging onto this moment with me.
“Sorry about your armor.” I bite my lip. “But I’m not really.”
His bashful laugh makes me certain it was the right move. When I brace the sides of his face and draw his lips to mine again, I sense the most wonderful warmth radiating from him, not just his skin, but from his soul. I’m starting to think that the machine meant to test me tuned my skill. I’ve always had strong gut feelings, but I never considered them to be anything more than that.
“So what made you come here to the races, really?” I ask.
Zorin nuzzles my face. “To find you. It was as much a necessity as it was something I felt in my bones. I needed to behere. Like the universe wanted me here. Sometimes, I think it is our goddess sending us messages, guiding our lives. But she is not always with us when we need her.”
“You mentioned your nephew…”
Zorin closes his eyes for a moment, runs his fingers up my back. The tips of his claws rake over my skin. “He was taken because my brother and I are not enough. We need a female to be able to bring him home.”
When he opens his eyes again, I notice his irises have changed, and his eyes have taken on a paler blue, almost like they’re glowing. “I need to be transparent.”
“That’d be nice.”
Pressure grows between our hips, alerting me to just how turned on he is. “Tessi, I think you’d be great for Rhysan. You’ve already practiced with a pup on Earth. Radar is well-behaved and protective of you, which is what we want for Rhysan. But I am bonded to you now, so no other female is going to call to me.”
I smile. “I want you, too.”
“But we can’t be together.”
“Can we just forget that and enjoy this week and our time while we have it?” I ask.
Zorin binds me to him in a hug. His breath falls over my bare shoulder. For several long moments, he just holds me in the water.
I reach around his side and rub a hand over his toned back. He quivers ever so slightly like he’s restraining pain, trying desperately to hold himself together. “Hey, I’m here. Talk to me.”
He strokes my hair and inhales a shaky breath. “When I arrived here to find a mate, I had some things I had to ask of her.”
“Okay.”
