Page 37 of Murder Mittens

I raised a brow and regarded him with my coolest expression. “Really, Sebastian?”

“Really. We can test it. When you least expect it, I will roar at you, and I will see if you purr. If you purr whenever you hear me roar, I have successfully conditioned you to be happy when I roar.”

I struggled to find a problem with being conditioned to purr when he roared. “Okay. You can test it. You’ll probably win, because your roars do make me happy, especially if I’m the reason you’re roaring. It’s such a nice roar. Why wouldn’t I purr when I hear it?”

“I underestimated how much my roar motivates you,” he admitted. “And I’m debating how to handle the problem of your scars.”

“At least you think they’re a problem. Everyone else thinks I’m the problem for not accepting them. Sorry, but I’m not accepting damned scars that make my baby brothers cry when they see me, not when I can work to get them removed.”

“Well, they are a problem. You’re unhappy with them. I wasn’t lying to you. What those scars represent is sexy to me. It shows the world you’re strong—and those who flinch because of them are weak. I’m thinking I’ll go with a blindfold. As in I blindfold you. Then I can do whatever I want, which honestly, really appeals to me because I am a lion and wish to rule over all.”

“I see we’re moving straight into the realm of the kinky on our first adventure. I’m blaming my mother for this one, because she’s probably the reason I am as I am. My brothers would never come up with such a scheme, and my father enjoys trying to goad my mother into killing him. Their foreplay is attempted murder. Or that’s what it sounds like. Lynxes are loud.”

Sebastian’s sly smile only served to increase my desire to rip him out of his shirt immediately. “Then let’s play a game, Harri.”

While I loved when he snarled Wells at me, the way he growled my name left me breathless. “What game?”

“Since you enjoy breaking the mold so much, my goal is to make you make as much noise as possible. Your goal is to purr for my enjoyment. But should you do anything other than purr, I get to gag you.”

My laughter escaped before I could stop it. “You’ve been waiting years to gag me, haven’t you?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Well, I wasn’t making you roar by simpering and fluttering my lashes at you, that’s for sure. That has something to do with my guess.”

Sebastian chuckled. “You’re right. You weren’t making me roar through any simpers or lash fluttering. Want to play my game?”

“Hell yes. I’ll show you where my sewing supplies are, and you’re free to use whatever you need, and the rope is in the closet.” I pointed at the entry closet, which I used for random storage. “And if you’re slow about it, I’ll let my virus off her leash, and she knows exactly what she wants to do with you.”

“You act like you’re going to be capable of keeping your virus leashed by the time I’m done with you.”

“I have very good control, thank you very much.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Only a fool challenged a lion.

The lycanthropy virus often dictated a lot about my life, ranging from who might or might not be an eligible partner, how I needed to behave around the uninfected, and how I behaved around the infected. More often than not, I went through most days battling with my virus over the little things, although we tended to agree on key aspects of life.

From the start, my virus had fallen for Sebastian. After so much rejection and heartbreak, it took me a lot longer to accept anyone could possibly want me, with or without scars.

Most learned how to avoid flinching, but Sebastian had never needed to learn.

They deformed me, but he saw beyond them like others couldn’t.

With the help of a pair of handcuffs he’d wrapped in fabric, some cord he’d dug out of my closet, and the ruins of his poor shirt, as he decided against damaging my quilting supplies on his quest to evict us both from the pool of unmated lycanthropes, he took control and maintained it with a ruthlessness my virus adored.

It hadn’t taken him long to get me yowling from frustration and need, and I understood my mother a lot better than I had before Sebastian had gotten his hands on me. After I landed my first and last bite, which involved clamping my teeth onto his wrist and holding on tight. I thought I’d done well, lasting over five minutes until he freed himself and lived up to his threat to gag me if I couldn’t keep quiet or behave.

Once gagged, I purred, and the louder I purred, the harder he worked to make me purr even louder.

By morning, he reduced me to a limp noodle of a mess, and when I tried to purr, it came out more as a tired groan than anything else. His solution to the problem of my small bed involved him draping me over him, and he enforced his choice by holding me close to him and tightening his grip whenever I attempted to escape.

I tested him a few times because I could, but I stayed because he was warm and comfortable. Being too tired to move also factored in my decision to stay put.

Clever, tricky man.

To add insult to the situation, he wore me out so badly I failed to notice being moved to my daddy’s truck, which Sebastian drove. Apparently, my daddy’s truck had heated seats, and the lion had stolen my blanket off my bed, which smelled strongly of him.