Read Online Southern Shifters: Purred Promises (Kindle Worlds Novella) by R. E. Butler - Free Book Online Page A

before Mona and Dillon realized they were gone, but Dillon called from the kitchen, “Don’t even think about it. Dinner’s waiting.”
    They both groaned quietly at the same time and then laughed together. “You heard the man,” she said.
    “Eat fast.”
     
    * * *
     
    The night, although it had started off unexpectedly, turned out to be a good one. Once they joined Mona, Dillon, and their kids for dinner, the conversation stayed very light. Jair was still absorbing all that Veron had shared with him. Although the tiger in him didn’t want to believe that his mother had purposely withheld important details , he could tell that Veron was being honest. Jair wished he could talk to his mom and find out why she’d made the choices she had , but he couldn’t contact her without risking her harm within the pride. Even though his half-brother was the leader, it didn’t mean that their mother was allowed to bend the rules. Exile from the pride meant being cut off entirely.
    Genesis leaned on his shoulder as he drove them home. “Thank you for standing by me tonight,” he said.
    “What you said earlier was right. You and I are starting a family, and I want our family to always stand together, no matter how difficult things become. If you’d wanted to leave, I wouldn’t have given you any grief about it.”
    “Hearing him out was the right thing to do.”
    “Yes, but it wasn’t easy. If your mom had told you about him all along, would you have wanted to meet him, get to know him?”
    “I don’t k now. I wanted a dad so badly when I was a kid. Jenner had it easy in a way, because his dad died. But mom never told me who my dad was until I shifted into a wolf. She ’d always said that she had an affair with a male from another pride, and that they had parted ways amicably. The kids would tease me about being a bastard. I hated it. I hated Veron before I even knew that he was a wolf. And then once I found out what he was, I was devastated. It was one thing to be a slightly strange -smelling tiger, but to be a wolf in the pride… I’m lucky the pride was progressive enough that they didn’t kill me on the spot.”
    “Could they have?” Her hands tightened on his arm , and the tangy scent of her worry filled the truck.
    He slipped one arm around her and drew her close. “Fifty years ago they probably would have. Oddities aren’t welcome with the purebloods. My mom might have even been killed too, for having sex with a wolf.”
    Shivering, she rubbed her cheek on his shoulder. “I’m glad we don’t live fifty years ago.”
    He was, too.
    Jair carried Genesis’s bags into the house and set them on the floor. She leaned over to pick them up , but he stopped her, pressing her upright and against the door. Cupping her face, he stared into her eyes and watched the passion that flared to life as they touched. Lowering his head, he brushed his lips against hers, growling as she parted her lips. He kissed her, dancing his tongue against hers slowly. She gripped his wrists and purred as he tilted her head and deepened the kiss. She chased his tongue with her own, moaning in her throat as he pushed her coat and his plaid shirt off her shoulders. The material caught at her elbows , and she released her hold on him to shake herself out of it, letting it fall to the floor. Easing one hand down her side, he slipped his fingers under the hem of the tank and touched her soft skin, skimming his fingertips over her stomach as he swept them up toward her breasts.
    She tilted her hips, brushing her lower body against his erection. He tugged the tank up over her breasts and pulled the cup of her bra down to expose her to his questing fingers. Easing away from the ir drugging kiss, he plumped her breast with his hand and kissed the nipple, drawing it into his mouth slowly as she arched against him with a groan.
    Tugging on the other cup, he freed her breast and pushed the tank out of the way so he could feast on her sweet flesh. He