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Devon was a very different creature from Levi’s ex, though, wasn’t she? His hellcat didn’t rely heavily on others. Didn’t hold them responsible for her happiness. Didn’t need a man to feel “complete.” Devon had her own life, and she lived it fully.
It hadn’t been easy for Tanner to wangle his way into said life—even now, she held him on the periphery of it. He didn’t like that, but he couldn’t exactly blame her for it. What reason would she have to open her life fully to him when he wasn’t offering her what she needed?
Tanner crossed to her and twisted her stool so that she was facing him. “Next time you feel like going somewhere during work hours, you tell me,” he said, his voice low.
“So that you can tag along?”
“Yes.” Insinuating himself between her thighs, he placed a kiss on the gentle curve of her mouth. Her lips parted on a soft sigh, but he didn’t accept the silent invitation. He pressed a kiss to the other corner, breathing in her delectable scent.
Catching sight of the small black infinity symbol on the hollow of her ear, he flexed his grip on her hip. Whenever demons formed the anchor bond, they left such symbols on each other as a message to the outside world that these people were under the protection of someone who’d fight to the death to avenge them—any anchor would.
He brushed his thumb over the symbol. “I don’t like that you wear someone else’s mark on your skin.” Nor did his hound, as it happened.
“It’s an anchor mark,” she said patiently.
“I still don’t like it.” He gently collared her throat, deliberately concealing the symbol with his thumb, and her pupils swallowed the color of her eyes. “Didn’t like it before I knew how it felt to come deep inside you. And I really don’t like it now.”
He swooped down and took her mouth, sinking his tongue inside. He ravished and feasted until his head spun with her taste and his cock was hard as a steel spike. Keeping his hand curled around her throat, he slid his other down her arm, took her hand, and dug his thumb into the center of her palm right over the mark. “It’ll always be there, you know.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“I can.”
She shook her head. “Your demon will pull away from me soon enough.”
“But it won’t cease being protective of you. Not now that you matter to it.” Not even if her feline pulled away first. He brought her hand to his mouth and nipped the heel of her palm. “And I really don’t think it’ll cope well when you take someone as your mate. I know I won’t.”
She swallowed. “One day, you’ll find someone who matters enough to you that the idea of having a mate won’t seem so bad.”
He knew his smile was somewhat bitter as he said, “Some people are better off alone, kitten. They’re just built that way.”
“And some people, especially when they’ve been alone for as long as you have, just get so used to it that they don’t know how to be part of something. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “I’m a lost cause, kitten.”
He wasn’t lost, Devon thought. He was just surrounded by so many protective walls that he’d emotionally isolated himself, and now he didn’t know how to be any different. “I still maintain that someday someone will come along and change things for you.” Devon would probably hate her on principle, but she’d like to think she’d still be happy for him. “And she’d better be good to you, or I’ll kick her ass.”
His lips curled slightly. “You’d kick someone’s ass for me?”
There wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for him, which was just plain sad. “If the situation warranted it, sure. You’d do the same for me.”
“I’d kill for you. I will kill for you.” His eyes went so cold and flinty she almost shivered. “As soon as I find out where Asa’s friend is, I’ll fucking destroy him.”
And then he closed his mouth over hers. She instantly caught fire, and in mere minutes they were both naked and more than ready to fuck. He took her right there on the kitchen floor, yanking her body to him each time he thrust forward, burying himself as deep as he could go.
The tension built and built until neither could take any more. His cock thickened, her pussy quaked, and then they were both coming. Coming hard and long, until every bit of pleasure was wrung out of them, and all they could do was collapse.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
For a while, they simply lay on the kitchen floor, their fingertips idly stroking one another. Once they caught their breath and recovered, Tanner carried her into the bedroom, flicked back the covers, and settled her on the mattress. He then slid in beside her and pulled her close. “You all right?”
