Page 49 of Purrfectly Outfoxed

“Besides that.” He grins. “I was thinking about last year. About how terrified I was. I’d just found you, found this home, and I was so scared I’d lose it all.”

“You didn’t act very scared. You came in here full of cocky bravado, acting like you owned the place.”

“I was faking it. That’s how you survive out there, you know? You put on a show. Pretend like rejection doesn’t hurt. Pretend you don’t care if they kick you out or put you down or send you on your way. But inside I was—” He stops, staring at the ceiling, searching for the word. “Inside, I was terrified. Not about getting caught. But about being in a place I actually wanted to stay. About having something, someone, worth losing.”

“So much for being the cunning, unbreakable trickster,” I say, reaching over to tangle my fingers with his. “You’re a giant sap, Jasper the fox.”

He grins at me, lazy and unguarded. “Only for you, Tabby-cat. Only for you.”

“Good. Because we’re stuck with each other now. Foxes mate for life. No getting rid of me and our litter of cub-kittens now.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Best thing that ever happened to me.” He leans in and kisses me, and it’s so full of love I think I might just die a little.

And then he’s kissing down the side of my jaw, down my neck, hands already under my shirt. I let out a purr—not the fake, performative one, but the real thing, something primal that’s hard wired into me—and arch into his touch.

“Do we risk it?” I say, though I’m already shoving his boxers down.

“Babies are asleep.” His hands are on my hips, fingers hooking into the waist of my pajamas. “We have a fifteen-minute window at best.”

“Then we’d better hurry.”

We shuck off our clothes while desperately kissing and touching. I’m already slick for him, every part of me, tuned to his body, and when he hauls me onto his lap, and I straddle him, I whimper at the contact, at the way our pieces always slot together like we were engineered for it.

He lines himself up and I sink down on him and the world becomes a pinpoint—his hands tugging my hair, the dull rhythm of our bodies, everything tuned to the frequency of need. He holds my hips, worships every line of me, and I grind down, eager and greedy, taking him as deep as he’ll go. My inner walls shudder around him, and his breath breaks in a gasp.

“God, Tabitha?—”

“Don’t you dare knot me,” I pant into his mouth. “Not unless you’re ready for litter number two.”

He laughs, but he’s close, I can tell—his knot already swelling, the fox instincts pulling at him the way my feline instincts do at me. I want it. I want all of him, and I want to mark this life as ours, messy and beautiful and completely unplanned.

I clench around him, and he swears, knuckles white against my hips. “You’re evil,” he manages. “You’re going to undo me.”

“That’s the idea,” I say, just as one of the babies starts crying.

“Ignore it,” he begs, voice desperate as he ruts up into me, knot catching at my entrance already.

“Are you insane? If we ignore it, we’ll be stuck together for twenty minutes. Remember last time?”

He grins. “Worth it.”

The wail from down the hall spikes as the other two join in, and I sigh, adrenaline and orgasm colliding in a way that is, against all odds, hilarious.

“Parenthood,” I murmur, sliding off him before we get stuck and grabbing my pajamas.

“There’s always next time,” he promises, grabbing his boxers to join me. But I see the way he looks at me. It’s like he’ll never stop wanting me, not in this lifetime or the next.

We haul ourselves out of bed—again—and make our way to the nursery where three tiny chaos monsters are demanding attention at two in the morning.

And as I pick up Amber and Jasper grabs the boys, I realize something, that I’m not tired at all. I’m alive in a way I never knew was possible, every cell vibrating with love and exhaustion and the certainty that—against every law of fate and probability—I got exactly what I wanted. The family I never thought I’d have. The mate I never knew I needed. And these three howling little miracles that have his eyes and my stubbornness, and probably the genetics to rule some future shifter universe with an iron paw.

A year ago, I was a stray pretending to be a pet, terrified of being found out.

Now I’m a mate, a mother, a daughter.

I’m home. I’m happy. And I wouldn’t change a thing.