Page 49 of Lion Conquers All
He’d said he would staybythe door. What’d happened? Did his lion take over and decide to destroy her house like an untrained dog and then haphazardly pull her out of bed and sleep with her…and how the hell had all of that not woken her up?
To be honest, she was strangely much less anxious waking up with Aarav’s lion that she would’ve been had it been him. His lion didn’t elicit any bad memories or pose any threat to her—except the obvious one of eating her.
But Reyleans didn’t eat people. At least notgoodpeople. She was pretty sure they’d made somebadones disappear. Still, she didn’t think that they’d eaten them.
She looked back at the lion. His eyes were open, and he was staring at her.
“What the hell happened to my wall?”
No response. No look of shame. He kept staring at her. And she knew perfectly well he could understand her in his beast form. All the others could.
“Don’t play dumb with me. I’ve been around your kind long enough to know you know exactly what I’m saying.”
The lion licked his lips and his legs tightened on her back.
What the—
His head moved toward hers and a huge sandpapery tongue slid from her neck up the side of her face. It wasn’t slobbery like a dog. It didn’t really feel bad at all, it scared her a little cause his mouth was open and coming toward her face. She hadn’t fought though. She froze again.
He licked me.
Then he did it again. The other side of her neck, all the way up her cheek to her hairline.
“What are you doing?”
He gave her face a couple more licks and tried to lick a little further down her neck, nuzzling his face closer and closer to where her breasts were mashed to his chest.
“Hey!” He still didn’t respond like he could understand her. She was starting to doubt her knowledge. What if Aarav was different? What if cats weren’t the same? It’s not like she’d questioned Kann or Saul or Tor about their differences.
The lion shoved his enormous snout toward her chest again, like it was a saucer of milk he couldn’t ignore. The only thing really slowing him down was his giant tusk-like front canines. He was being so careful not to hurt her with those teeth.
She popped him on the nose, and hechuffedlike he was surprised she’d struck him. Then he nosed his way past her hands and licked her damn face again.
She couldn’t stop the laugh that rolled up from her chest. It felt so good. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d really laughed.
“You’re crazy. You know that, right?”
His front paws squeezed on her back like a hug and kneaded into her tight muscles, like a house cat would do. She could feel his claws, but they were retracted. He was being so gentle.
His cat was playing with her. Genuinely playing.
He took another swipe at her face with his tongue.
She laughed again, swatting at his nose.
Without thinking, she grabbed one of his tusks like it was a handlebar for his face and pulled until she could stare him right in the eye. “You were a very naughty cat. Have you seen my wall?”
She let her gaze drift to the wall and then back to him.
The beast shook his head back and forth like he was telling herno.
“No?”
He shook his head again and continued to knead her back with his paws and then he started to purr.
Damn the purring. It was like some sort of opioid for her system.Not this time.She shoved against his chest, letting him know she wanted off his chest. He didn’t hesitate to allow her to move, which she very much appreciated. Bonus points to the cat.
“You can’t distract me with that purring every time.”
