Chapter 214: Teasing Voss
The water bottle she’d been holding splashed across Damien’s smirking face.
"Damien!" she hissed, her cheeks blazing crimson. "You know I’m more sensitive now!"
Her voice, though hushed, carried perfectly in the sudden silence that had fallen over the training ground. Every male within earshot froze mid-movement, ears perked straight up, faces flushing with embarrassment or arousal or both.
Victor’s head snapped around, his golden wings flaring. With swift, efficient movements, he delivered sharp cuffs to the backs of the heads of the nearest gawking trainees. Voss and Ivan followed suit, each smacking their respective students back to attention.
"Eyes on your opponents," Victor growled, his voice carrying dangerous undertones.
Dimitri’s answering growl was even deeper, a rumbling warning that had several of the younger beasts ducking their heads in submission.
Damien, undeterred and still dripping, leaned closer to Felicity. "Worth it," he whispered, his eyes gleaming with unrepentant mischief.
"You’re impossible," she muttered, but couldn’t entirely hide the small smile tugging at her lips. Her body still hummed with the unexpected sensation, a reminder of how her pregnancy had heightened everything.
Exile slithered closer, positioning himself protectively between Felicity and the training grounds. "Perhaps we should move our treasure further from these... distractions," he suggested, throwing a pointed look at Damien.
"I’m fine right here," Felicity countered, reaching for another dried mango. "Besides, someone needs to make sure you all don’t kill each other or these poor trainees."
Victor approached, his expression stern, but his eyes soft when they landed on Felicity. "We’re establishing a perimeter tonight. The scouts reported activity to the south, nothing concerning yet, but I want us prepared."
Felicity nodded, her hand unconsciously moving to her still-flat stomach. The gesture didn’t go unnoticed by any of her husbands, their protective instincts visibly intensifying.
"How much longer until we reach Bowral?" she asked, trying to redirect their focus.
"Two weeks, if the weather holds," Voss answered, his analytical gaze scanning the horizon. "One and a half, if we push through the night."
"We’re not pushing her through the night," Ivan stated flatly, his tone leaving no room for an argument.
Voss leaned in, slow and unhurried, the kind of movement that gave her every chance to pull back. He smelled of cedar and cold mountain air, and the combination hit Felicity somewhere behind her ribs like a fist wrapped in velvet.
His lips brushed hers, gentle and almost careful, a question more than a statement.
Felicity hummed against his mouth, a soft little sound of approval that made his jaw flex. She felt it under her fingertips where they’d drifted up to rest against his chin without her permission. Her fox ears twitched forward, angled toward him like they had their own agenda entirely.
That was nice. That was very nice.
But nice wasn’t what she wanted right now.
A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth the moment he started to ease back, and she caught the front of his shirt in one hand before he could retreat more than an inch.
"That’s it?" she murmured, close enough that her lips grazed his as she spoke. "That’s what you’ve got for me?"
His brow lifted a fraction, just a fraction. But his pupils blew wide, and the strategist behind those sharp features stumbled visibly over whatever composed response he’d been constructing.
She didn’t give him time to find it.
Felicity pressed forward and kissed him properly. Not the polite, testing brush he’d offered. This one had teeth behind it. Her mouth slanted over his, hot and deliberate, her tongue tracing the seam of his lips until they parted, and then she bit down, a slow, measured drag of her teeth along his lower lip that pulled it just far enough to sting before releasing.
Felicity grinned against his mouth. Her tail swayed behind her in lazy, self-satisfied arcs.
She wasn’t done.
She tilted her head, her nose trailing along his jaw, following the sharp line of it until her lips found his ear. Her breath fanned across the shell of it, and she felt his grip on her hip tighten to something that would probably leave marks.
Good.
Her teeth closed around his earlobe. Not hard. Just enough pressure to make the point. She tugged once, gentle and devastating, and let her tongue trace the curve before releasing him.
Voss pulled back like he’d been electrocuted.
His chest heaved. A flush had crept up from beneath his collar. His lips were parted, reddened where she’d bitten, and his gaze had gone glassy and unfocused in a way she had never seen on the man who always had a plan for everything.
He looked wrecked.
Thoroughly, beautifully, catastrophically wrecked.
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Nothing came out.
Felicity folded her hands in her lap and tilted her head, one ear flopping slightly to the side. The picture of innocence. Her tail curled around her own thigh, pleased and lazy.
"Need a minute?" she said, sweet as spun sugar.
A strangled sound escaped him. His hand was still frozen on her hip, fingers twitching like they’d forgotten how to let go.
"You..." His throat worked, "Where did you learn to do that?"
"Instinct." She gave him her most angelic smile. The one that made her look like she’d never caused a single problem in her entire life. "Fox thing, maybe."
Her other husbands watched from the sideline, each one wearing that particular brand of smirk that meant trouble was brewing. Damien stood with his arms crossed, jaw tight, attention fixed on her with the kind of focus that made her skin prickle. Victor had tilted his head, one brow raised, his gaze tracking every point of contact between her body.
But Ivan.
Ivan leaned against the fence post with his massive arms folded, and the look on his face was something else entirely. His mouth curved at one corner, slow and knowing, and his nostrils flared just slightly every time she moved. He wasn’t jealous. He was savouring it. The way she laughed, the way her tail flicked, the way her breath came fast and uneven from the sparring. His gaze swept down her body and back up again, as if he were memorising the exact shape of her flushed skin against the afternoon light, and the raw appreciation radiating off him hit her like a wall of heat.