Page 66 of Of Magic and Murder

He shifts his hold on me, grabbing my upper arms gently, using his impressive strength to pull me fully into his arms without squeezing so hard that it hurts. Once our bodies are all but flush against each other—and there’s no way to deny how much he wants me—he drops his forehead against mine.

“Pen… listen to me. If we do this, it’s forever.” Like me, he doesn’t spell it out. When it comes to a possessive shifter and their mate… now that we know who we are to each other, there’s only one thing he can mean as he tells me, “I can’t just have a piece of you and not be so greedy that I don’t want the whole damn thing. If you let me fuck you, I’m going to claim you. Tonight. Now.”

The second that I was pulled against him, I reached for his buttons. To hear him say that… I stop fumbling with his shirt so that I can look at him as he tells me what to expect from an alpha wolf shifter desperate to claim his mate.

“I’m going to bite you,” he says. “I’m going to bond you to me. Make you mine so I can keep you. I need you to understand that.”

What if I do?

It all comes down to this. I can stop what we’re doing right now and walk away. I’ll regret it, of course, and forever think what if, but, once again, he’s giving me the choice.

Because he wants me.

All my life, people have wanted something from me. My ability to see ghosts. My cursebreaking. Not him. Riordan just wants Penelope.

His sweet witch.

I fist my hands in his shirt. “Promise?”

“Promise what?”

“That you’ll keep me.”

Something almost feral moves across his face. “For the rest of my fucking life.”

I kiss him again and return to trying to get him out of that silk shirt without ruining it.

His hands find the buttons of my blouse, and mine finally succeed with his shirt before he suddenly stops.

“The curse.”

I blink up at him.

“If we bond, it might break.”

“Yeah? And? It’s supposed to, isn’t it?”

“If that’s why you’re doing this⁠—”

“I’m a cursebreaker, but I’m also a woman, Riordan.” I take his face between my hands. “I want you.”

His eyes close. When they open again, there’s so much naked need in them that my heart aches.

CHAPTER 18

MATE

did mother, cousin, and gus have to leave so

Those two could bounce without fur on?

Gus is pretty sure… yes.

— gus

“Ineed you,” I promise him. I think I always have, but as the mating dance wraps around us almost as effectively as Riordan’s curse… it’s time I finally stop fighting it. “Tell me I’m lying, and we both walk away. But if I’m telling the truth… you have two seconds to get me naked and on that bed if you want to claim your mate tonight.”

It’s less than one before his hands are on me again. We’re both completely naked, though I’m not so sure how that happened. Maybe it was magic; later, I’ll laughingly say that, distracted by my beautiful mate’s sculpted chest, tapered waist, and gorgeous dick, my magic worked all on its own to remove our clothes for us. Either way, it doesn’t matter.