Free Lynx Northern Shifters 3 by Joely Skye Page A

right up to Trey appealed although the lynx in him felt wary, nervous. Trey simply waited him out. Jonah rose again and walked over to Trey who crouched by the fire, heating water for coffee, though all of Jonah’s coffee was years old and stale. Trey apparently craved caffeine after he’d shifted. One of the few personal details he’d offered.
There should have been resentment about how one-sided their conversations had been, but Jonah couldn’t find it in him. Mostly he was grateful to have company, to have someone who was interested in him. He brushed his chin against Trey’s shoulder and, when that contact wasn’t rebuffed, laid his head there. He couldn’t help himself, he purred. Contact with Trey made him purr, he realized. Rarely had his chest rumbled to life like this.
Trey laughed, but not at him, it was a full-body laugh and he shifted his feet so that suddenly his arm was slung around Jonah’s narrow shoulders, and Trey buried his face into Jonah’s neck. Jonah continued to purr, he couldn’t stop while Trey ran fingers through his fur.
“Beautiful and silky,” Trey declared and they sat like that for a while, Jonah soaking up this attention of Trey’s, his entire body relaxing in Trey’s hold as his fingers ran over Jonah’s body, over fur and muscle and bone. It felt beautiful. He felt beautiful, just as Trey had described him.
Finally Trey withdrew, leaving one palm on Jonah’s back as he said, “Come on now, Jonah, go shift for me so we can talk. Though I’m glad we had the chance to run together.”
The human contact, the fingers, Trey’s breath against him—they all brought his longing to be human to the fore and he didn’t want to wait any longer. With one long lick to Trey’s neck, which Trey willingly accepted, Jonah stalked to the back room and flopped onto the floor. With the least struggle he’d ever had, his skin and bones went fluid and his mind went black before he shifted to human.
He woke dazed. The room was warm, as if a fire was on and someone was with him. That hadn’t happened for ages, and it took a few seconds for his brain to catch up, for him to recognize that at long last, he had a visitor. The visitor was Trey, a large man with the bluest eyes and the greatest interest in Jonah.
He was kind, Jonah had to remind himself. Aaron had been fascinated by Jonah, but in a sick way, a violent way. Two years into her relationship his mother had recognized what a mistake Aaron had been, but by then it was too late and Aaron had used the power of his knowledge of Jonah’s lynx over them. He’d stolen his mother’s money. He’d beaten her, he’d beaten Jonah.
Jonah pushed up to sitting and shook himself. Aaron wasn’t here, would never be here or anywhere else again. It was only Trey, also a shifter, who had no interest in using any power over Jonah—that he could tell. Trey seemed to actually like Jonah, and the idea he had a friend was almost overwhelming.
He felt his dick harden and his heart rate kicked up. Shit. Not this , not when Trey had been so kind to him. Jonah grabbed clothing and yanked it on, covering himself, trying to get himself under control. His lynx had completely forgotten this phenomenon. But every time he shifted to human, Jonah became aroused. Too much blood circulating around, he’d decided in way of explanation, but he knew that was no real cause.
He was used to taking care of himself, and in the early days when his family was around and this had started, he’d taken to shifting outside, to his mother’s dismay.
But he stupidly hadn’t shifted outside today and this place was too small to be masturbating unobtrusively in the back room.
Fuck. He was so furious with himself he began to shake. Jonah tried to think of other things besides Trey who would be put out, if not downright repulsed, by his obvious attraction. Maybe Jonah would be attracted to women if he ever met any, but his wet dreams had men, not women in them, so he was rather