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“The night we met.” She pulled away from him and stared up into his eyes. A long strand of hair tickled its way across her face, and she blew it away impatiently. She looked earnest, her brows furled in concentration, and he fought the urge to touch her sweetly. To sweep the hair from her face and kiss her lips.
“I didn’t seduce you, Julian. I had no clue you were a Castille. I’d been sent to The Grand Hacienda to meet with a contact.” She paused, and his eyes flew open at the catch in her voice. “I should have left instead of staying for that last drink. Something kept me there. Fate? I don’t know; you were a complication I so did not want.”
“I pulled you away from the bar,” he said huskily, his eyes fixed on her lips.
Her tongue darted out, and he watched, fascinated, as it swept across the plump redness, leaving a sheen of moisture in its wake.
“Onto the dance floor,” she finished, and smiled, poking him in the chest. “You moved with such grace, your energy was unique. I knew right away”—she paused, and the way her breath caught in her throat made him ache—“that you were shifter,” she whispered.
His hands crept up to her shoulders, and he pulled her into the crook of his arms. There was no resistance, and he groaned softly as her body slid against him.
Slowly, they moved together. There was no music, no sound except the breaths that fell from their lips. He had no idea what was going on in Jaden’s head, but in his mind’s eye, he was back at The Grand Hacienda, the air was flush with the Caribbean, and heat was all around them.
He felt his cock swell and shifted his body in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort, but all it did was spread a host of sensations along nerve endings that left his skin on fire. His body was suddenly tense with need.
Her arms went around his waist, and when she ground herself against him, it felt as if he were coming apart. “I wanted you so badly that night. I don’t give a damn what you remember, it wasn’t just me. You felt the same way, and I thought . . .” Her whispered words echoed into the quiet.
“What did you think?” he asked.
Her gaze swept upward, and, for several long moments, they stared at each other in silence. After a bit, she moistened her lips, and spoke. “I knew you were a shifter, I could sense it, and I’d never felt such a connection before. My jaguar wanted you in a way that hurt.”
“Why did I not recognize you as such?”
“I wear a cloaking charm when on assignment.” She looked away. “It’s not always stable in times of great . . . emotion. It slipped from me the moment I claimed you.”
Julian stilled at her words. The raw honesty that he sensed grabbed the little bit of his soul that still existed. Her pain was huge, and he felt every bit of it.
He asked the question that he wanted most answered. “Why did you claim me as your mate?”
She bit her lip, and he could see her confusion, her pain. “I’ve thought about it a lot. Why would I screw with my future and mate with a man I knew nothing about?” Her eyes widened. “I don’t have an answer other than it felt right. In that moment, I knew you were the one to complete me. It was like I had no control. I was weak and let my body lead me down a path that has been filled with nothing but pain. When you saw what I was.” She bowed her head, and he felt her shame as her voice dropped to just above a whisper, “When you rejected me . . . I can’t even describe how that made me feel.”
Julian didn’t know what to say. Everything was true. All of it. That night . . . he’d had the best sex of his life, several times over in fact. Something about her had been different; he was a fool not to have noticed earlier.
For the longest time, he’d avoided anything that was otherworld, especially the
shifters. He was a refined CEO of a major conglomerate known the world over, and a shapeshifting jaguar had no place in that world. Not with him, anyway.
It spoke to a heritage he had no interest in, a legacy he would never claim.
Julian grimaced. Fuck, Mr. Cosmic Mojo had kicked his ass thoroughly.
He remembered coming down from the heady release of an overwhelming orgasm and knowing that something had changed. He’d seen the air move around her body, shimmering as it played along the soft golden skin that he’d just tasted. Her eyes glowed, and he’d sensed the animal that lay just beneath her flesh.
She was wild, untamed, and, to his horror, represented everything he did not want to recognize in himself.
Julian groaned and closed his eyes, wishing the memories would fade. He still saw the hurt and disbelief in her eyes when he’d tossed ten one-hundred-dollar bills onto the bed and asked that she leave immediately.
That was the last time he’d seen Jaden until that night in Belize before the portal had gone AWOL, along with him.
She exhaled raggedly. “I watched you from afar like a pathetic loser. I knew your every move, who you slept with, who you dated.”
She turned to him, and the silence in the room fell heavy on his ears. Her eyes glittered dangerously, and he saw her shame. What it cost her to confess to him.
“It killed me because you belonged to me even though you had no clue. I was the one-night stand of regret. A mistake to forget about. A dirty shifter.” She shrugged and ran her hands through the long bands of hair that fell about her shoulders. “And here we are, and everything still sucks.”
“I am one dumb-ass son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, you are.” He sensed her anger, mingled with pain, and realized that he felt the same.
