Free JaguarintheSun by Anya Richards

felt it too, the soul-shaking certainty
that she’d surrendered everything she had and was to him, received the same
from him in return. Somehow what should have been just sex had morphed into the
most tender and loving experience she’d ever had.
    The hard shell she’d so diligently built around her heart
had melted beneath Xbal’s passion, leaving her so vulnerable a newborn baby was
better protected from pain than she was right now.
    It frightened her more than anything else she’d ever had to
face, made her realize just why she’d avoided getting involved with him. And
the surfeit of emotion pissed her right off too.
    Thank Sol for that last part because her anger—at herself
for allowing this to happen, at him for being so open to it—gave her the
strength she needed.
    Still holding her so tightly she could barely breathe, his
cock still firmly embedded in her body, Xbal was carrying her to his high,
four-poster bed. Cassie let herself savor the sensation of being his just for a
moment more, knowing everything was about to blow up. She had to get away. If
she didn’t, if she remained in his arms, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to
let him go.
    And staying wasn’t an option.
    As he climbed the two steps, bringing them up to the level
of the mattress, Cassie drew a deep breath, preparing for battle. He laid her
on the soft counterpane and, still standing on the top step, planted his hands
on either side of her shoulders, so he was looking down into her face. By
Sol , if having Xbal cradled between her legs and being surrounded by his
strength wasn’t enough to make her want to surrender, the tender heat in his
eyes was like a barrage aimed straight at her heart. There was no option but to
burst the bubble of intimacy surrounding them. Deny the bond she already knew
they’d forged.
    “That was a good fuck.” She kept her voice level, forced
feigned amusement into the words. “You know your way around a woman’s body,
I’ll give you that.”
    She expected surprise or anger from him, but the only
noticeable reaction was a sharpening of his gaze and his voice was soft when he
replied, “I’m learning my way around yours, finding a path into that fortress
you call a heart.”
    His admission was shocking, sent another wave of anger and
fear into her bloodstream. Damn him for saying it aloud, for laying it out in
words so it couldn’t be ignored or passively negated.
    “Don’t even try it.” He didn’t need to know he’d already invaded
her heart and soul as he took her body. The fact she would forever be his, as
she had never been any others’, was her secret to hold. “I told you from the
beginning it’s just one afternoon. And just sex.”
    For a long moment he said nothing in reply. Although she
didn’t see any change in his expression, she was suddenly more aware than ever
of the primitive nature beneath his urbane exterior and her heartbeat
escalated.
    “Do you still really believe that, Cassandra?” With an
almost leisurely tilt of his hips, he pushed his cock deeper into her, fusing
them even tighter together. “Can you really lie to yourself so effectively?”
    “It’s how it has to be.” By Sol , she wouldn’t cry. No
matter how badly she wanted to. No matter how saying the words tore at the core
of her being, shredding her emotionally. “I’m not lying. There can’t be
anything more between us.”
    “Why?”
    The single word was like a gunshot cracking in the room,
startling her with its ferocity. All she could do was shake her head, biting
her tongue so as not to give in and tell him the truth. There was more at stake
than just the two of them, their needs and feelings. What she was going to do
when she left him was actually illegal, the instigators—including her own
parents—liable to punishment so severe she didn’t dare tell anyone what was
planned. Yet it had to happen. The fate of the entire world, both on this side
of the Veil and the other, depended on