Jillian knelt down. It was unfair that he was already dressed, even though his clothes were almost as delectable as the rest of him. She laid her hand against the front of his charcoal gray trousers and heard him suck in a breath.
Doing this for him, she felt powerful. She could undo him just as easily as he could her; could make him fall apart at the seams right then and there.
She unzipped his pants and freed him from his boxers. He was gorgeous—hard for her, all for her. She took him into her mouth without a moment’s hesitation.
Theo tasted incredible: musky and sweet. Jillian felt like she could get drunk off him as her tongue glided up and down the steely length of his shaft, feeling the heat and desire beneath the silky skin. He settled his hands down in her hair and she loved that, too. He didn’t control her movements, he only made her feel like he couldn’t stop touching her and would never want to. She’d never felt so sexy in her life. Was this what she’d been missing out on all those years when she’d fumbled through lackluster relationship after lackluster relationship?
No, she decided. No one else could ever be Theo. It wouldn’t be like this with anyone but him.
“Jillian—”
His hips stuttered forward as she tightened her lips and brought him to his
release. Then he slumped down onto the floor with her.
“Like I said. You, Jillian Marcus, burn me up.”
She laughed and moved over next to him, curling up under his arm. “You know, as much as I wish we were somewhere else, there aren’t many houses where the kitchen floor would be this spotless even up close. Tiff’s always paid the cleaners really well. My apartment, on the other hand, is a mess.”
“Then when we’re there, we can stick to the bed.”
She smiled. “But I was just thinking: it’s a shame that everything you know about me comes from seeing me here. I did the best I could to leave this place behind. I have my own life. My real home, it’s not anything like this. Fewer animal-skin rugs lying around, for one thing.”
She paused to figure out what to say next and then clapped a hand over her mouth, suddenly horrified.
“Oh my God! You don’t know any werebears, do you?”
“Not personally,” he assured her. “And I haven’t heard of any dying in mysterious hunting accidents, either, if that helps.”
“Can I still eat meat? Are there cow shifters and pig shifters and... chicken shifters?” She wanted to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had never eaten a person, which wasn’t a worry she thought she’d wake up to. Life threw you some curveballs, didn’t she try to tell the kids at the center that?
“I shudder to think what my family would have to say about the concept of chicken shifters.”
“That’s a no?”
“Think about the number of pork buns you saw me eat last night and you’ll have your answer.”
“I don’t know,” Jillian said. “Maybe you’re just an unusually cruel and callous person. Maybe pig shifters are the sworn enemies of dragon shifters and you’ve got some Hatfield and McCoy thing going on.”
“Dragons feud with everyone, though it mostly doesn’t come to bloodshed anymore, thankfully. But,” he said, trailing his fingers up and down her bare shoulder like he was tracing something there, drawing a constellation between her freckles, “the folklore in my valley was always that shifters came about because of the spiritual connections people had with particular animals. Their beloveds: horses and dogs and cats. The creatures they thought were strong, impressive: lions, tigers, bears—”
“Oh my,” Jillian said.
Theo looked at her blankly.
“Sorry. I forgot about the homeschooling. I’ll explain later.”
“People longed to be what they admired or loved or even what they feared.” His voice had taken on a storytelling tone, as if he were reciting, and she tried to picture a tiny Theo sitting around some campfire hearing all this. “The dreaming made the shifting happen, for the people who got the dreams in their blood. For animal shifters, at least. Dragons, unicorns, griffins—not to sound snobbish, but my family said our dreams were more aristocratic, more thoughtful. That we came from people who loved ideas. Fantasies.”
She unbuttoned the top button on his shirt. “Do you think of yourself as a particularly cerebral person, Deputy St. Vincent?”
“Not when you’re doing that,” he said wryly. “But you see what I’m saying. People don’t generally long to become something they’re about to cook for dinner. Deer shifters are the closest I can think of, and even now you don’t see that many of them.” He lifted her head up, his thumb against her chin. His eyes were warm. “You aren’t afraid to just dive into it.”
“I like knowing everything I can.”
“And almost everything you go to, right away, is about how to treat other people fairly and not hurt them. I really do want to see where you call home, by the way. I’ve told you enough about mine.”
“You’ve told me about the place you used to call home,” she corrected. “As far as I know, right now you live in a featureless motel room.”