by T. S. Joyce
“You’re killin’ me today,” Drew said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re so damned cute.”
Hmm. Her face was probably going to hurt from smiling by the end of this.
They stood in line for cinnamon rolls, which were burn-your-fingers hot and served in thick paper wrapping. Frosting oozed everywhere, but Riley didn’t care. Drew made her comfortable, and twice he leaned in and sucked the sweetness from her lips. It was hard to be self-conscious around a man who was so amused with everything she said and did.
Drew talked animatedly between gooey bites of his own breakfast about the art of lumberjacking. He told her about the skyline and the processor, how they hauled the trees up by threes, and who manned which machine. He talked about the shit he got into with the Ashe Crew, and she made a mental note to play a game called beer pong after Harper arrived. As they meandered from booth to booth, he told her about how each woman had come to join the Ashe Crew, but in a way that hid their shifter identities by anyone passing by in the crowded market.
Drew couldn’t seem to stop touching her. A hand on her back here, fingertips on her cheek there, a sipping kiss at a booth that sold carved figurines. Drew bought her a wooden bear that was so small, she could carry it around in her pocket.
By the time they made their way to the furniture booth, Drew had been telling her funny stories for an hour, and now she felt like she knew each and every one of the Ashe Crew. And in a strange twist, she was actually missing them, and excited about the camping trip when she’d get to know the crew better. It didn’t matter that Harper was going to be raised in a trailer park out in the middle of nowhere. She was going to grow up with the strongest, most incredible role models.
“Where’d you get those eyes?” Drew asked as she knelt down by an old chair with a broken lancet arch and a hole where the seat should’ve been.
“From both my parents. My mom is from the Philippines, and my dad is a green-eyed Irishman. Their mixed genetics did something weird with me.”
“Not weird. Beautiful. It’s hard to look away from you.”
Riley scrunched up her nose. “Kids in school used to say I looked funny.”
“Ha!” Drew leaned down and whispered in her ear. “My chronic boner says you don’t look weird.”
Riley giggled and bit his neck gently. “I want this chair, but I want to pay for it.”
“This one? It’s broken, though. What about that pair back there,” he said, pointing deeper into the booth. “Those look like they’re in good shape.”
“But what’s the fun in that? I like fixing broken pieces. Someone else would just throw this piece away, but I can make it beautiful and useful again. I can make it a feature in someone’s home.” She was already ticking off a list in her head of what she would need to refurbish the chair and give it an updated look that would have customers clambering for it on her website. Perhaps a soft gray paint and distress to keep the rustic feel. She’d need to find the right material to reupholster the seat, but that would be fun, shopping the fabric store in Saratoga for the perfect one. When she looked up, Drew was standing again, but he was looking at her with the most curious, adoring expression.
“What?” she asked through a shy smile.
“You’re just…remarkable. I shouldn’t even be surprised that you picked the rattiest chair here to fix up.”
“Remarkable.” She dipped her voice low. “There ain’t no room in this here trailer park for words like that.”
He snorted a laugh and flipped over the price tag on the arm of the chair. “We’ll take this one,” he told a woman sitting beside the booth wall, reading a book with a steamy romance cover. Drew handed her a twenty dollar bill and didn’t even haggle.
“Wait, I wanted to pay for it. You have a lot to pay for already with your mom’s medical bills.”
Hoisting the chair gently with one hand, Drew pulled Riley against his side, and then his arm over her shoulder. He leaned into her and pulled her earlobe between his teeth, then released her. Oh, what that man did to her insides.
“Let me do something nice for you,” he murmured. “Earlier, you said today is the best. Well, it is for me, too. Talking to you about everything last night made me feel better. Made my bear feel less unruly. You did that for me.” He was whispering against her ear now, revving up her hormones into a frenzy, when he went still and rigid beside her, jerking them to a stop.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He twisted and looked behind them, then muttered a curse and spun them around to face a trio of wide-shouldered, powerhouse men who were headed their way.
“Kong,” Drew greeted the biggest. His voice had lost all humor.
The titan crossed his arms over his chest, tree-trunk arms flexing with the motion. “Beast.”
Tension sparked in the air between the two men, so Riley stepped forward, hand extended. “I’m Riley.”
Kong looked at her palm, then at her belly, encased in a skin-hugging tan sweater. “I know who you are. That’s the reason we came over here.”
“What?” Riley said, dropping her hand to her side.
“Look,” Kong said, swinging his attention to Drew. “I’m not pissed you kicked my ass. It was a good fight, and I respect you and your crew. I know you’ve been around in this community for a long time, and hell, my crew even likes going to Sammy’s and watching Dennison and Brighton play. Because I respect your crew and in the interest of staying on Damon Daye’s good side, I wanted to give you a warning.”
“What warning?” Drew asked low.
“A man’s been staying at the hotel in town and asking around about a woman with dark hair, green eyes, and pregnant. He caught up to a couple of my boys at Sammy’s last night and showed them a picture. Asked if my crew had seen her.” Kong swung his dark gaze to Riley, heavy eyebrows lowered. “It was you in that picture.”
“Seamus,” she said on a terrified breath.
Kong ran his hand through his short hair and gave her a sympathetic look. “I wouldn’t want nothin’ to happen to you or that baby you’re carrying. Be wary, yeah?”
Drew shook the giant’s hand and thanked him, then stood stock still, watching them as they left. “How’d he find you?”
“He must’ve followed the bus routes and figured out where I stopped. There were only three that left that night from Minneapolis, so maybe he found out which one I took and tracked me to Saratoga.” The world was spinning, and she swayed on her feet. Seamus was here, in Saratoga. “He’s hunting me.” Her voice came out small and weak, and she hated how fragile that man made her feel. “He’s out on parole, but I have an active restraining order against him.”
“That’s ballsy, him out in public like that trying to find you even when you have a restraining order.”
Ballsy, or the man had a superiority complex that made him feel like he was invincible. Prison had warped what little of his mind he had left.
“We should go,” she said, suddenly feeling watched. Out of all of the passersby in the marketplace, the odds of Seamus having talked to some of them were huge.
“Yeah,” Drew said, guiding her between two booths toward the field he’d parked the truck in.
She was in full-blown panic mode by the time they reached the pickup. Throat tightening, breath hitching, frantically scanning for danger, hugging her precious middle. Gads, Seamus had been fast tracking her down.
Drew set the chair in the bed of the truck and opened her door, then helped her in. Something above her senses was emanating from Drew and electrifying the hairs on her arms. When his eyes met hers, they were that wild and unsettling snowy color. “I won’t let him hurt you. I swear it, Riley. You’re still safe. I’m going to take you home—”
“Home?”
“To ten-ten, and then I’m going to gather some of the boys, and we’ll take care of Seamus.”
“Drew, this isn’t your fight.”
“The hell it is! Murderer doesn’t care about a restraining order
, doesn’t care about harassing a woman who is pregnant,” he said, ticking each off with his fingers. “Stalker who laid hands on you. Riley, I know you can take care of yourself. I know you can.” Drew cupped her cheeks. “But you have Harper, and we can’t just wait for him to come find you.”
“Yes, we can.”
Drew’s determined face faltered. “What do you mean?”
Seamus was here for her, and the Ashe Crew didn’t need any extra human attention on them. Did she appreciate Drew’s offer to save her? Hell yes. But if she was going to find the person she used to be again, she had to save herself. “I have a plan.”
Chapter Eleven
Sammy’s bar was busy for a Sunday night. It was a non-smoking bar, but that didn’t stop the occasional odd look she got from the townies, likely because she was about a hundred months pregnant in a drinking establishment.
Riley shook her hands out and reminded herself for the tenth time that Drew was sitting at the bar watching her inconspicuously. And so was Bruiser, Tagan, and Kellen. And also some of the Gray Backs, whom Drew introduced her to, and a lone Boarlander named Harrison. And Skyler and Everly were playing pool in the corner, watching her like hawks…er…like a falcon and a bear. Now that she thought about it, there weren’t very many humans in here. She couldn’t predict the future, but if Seamus tried anything, she imagined her new friends would rip him a new asshole—literally.
She took another sip of her orange juice and crushed ice and smiled at the fact that Drew had asked her three times today if she was craving anything he could get for her. Doting bear. Was it possible to fall in love with someone after knowing them for such a short time? She hadn’t really believed in love at first sight, but now she was second guessing everything. No one in her lifetime had come close to affecting her like Drew did.
She cast another nervous glance at Drew, but he crossed his eyes and gave her a goofy smile. With a giggle, she sucked down the last of her juice and stood. They’d been here for forty-five minutes already, and her bladder was currently on a forty-minute timer.
After a quick piddle party, she looked in the bathroom mirror and pursed her lips in disappointment at the fear she saw in her own eyes. She was stronger than this. Lifting her lip, she snarled like she’d heard Drew and the other bear shifters do when he’d gone to the Ashe Crew with the truth of why she’d run away from Minneapolis. The human-sounding noise that rattled up her throat didn’t sound very threatening, but it sure made her feel braver.
The door opened and Drew stepped through, then locked the door behind him.
“What are you doing?”
“You,” he ground out, approaching in two long strides.
He lifted the hem of the gray, skin-tight sweater dress Brooke had let her borrow from her old stash of maternity clothes and pressed Riley against the bathroom wall.
“I hate that he’s going to be this close to you,” Drew gritted out as he pushed her panties to the side.
He captured her lips with his and brushed his tongue against hers. “Can you come fast for me?”
With a needy sound, she bit his bottom lip and nodded.
Drew cupped her sex, then slid his finger into her. His palm brushed her clit just right, as if he’d already learned her body. Her breath hitched as she wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and rolled her hips with every stroke. Warm tendrils stretched from between her legs to her middle as pressure built with every thrust of his finger. When he added a second, she was gone. He caught her cry with his mouth, kissing her hard and swallowing down the sound of her pleasure.
He kissed her once, twice, before his lips went soft. His jaw moved as he sipped her, tasted her, adored her. And when the last of her aftershocks had subsided, he put her panties back into place and straightened the hem of her dress. She leaned heavily on the wall like a tranquilized moose while he washed his hands with a cocky smirk. Before he left, he kissed her on the cheek and said, “Kong called. They’re bringing Seamus now. He’ll be here in five minutes. Oh,” he said, turning back at the door, “you look fucking beautiful tonight. That dress, woman.” He shook his head and grinned like she’d undone him. Then he spun and left her noodle-legged in the bathroom.
By the time she stumbled her way back to the table where a new orange juice was waiting for her, she was ready to face down Seamus so she could hurry and go back to ten-ten and beg some cuddles from Drew, who had proved last night he was awesome at them. Plus, he’d promised her a foot massage when she’d complained on the way over to Sammy’s about her heels hurting.
Two minutes later, Kong walked through the door, followed by one of the men she’d seen him with at the flea market, and Seamus.
His soulless eyes were dark as night and narrowed to slits as he searched the bar for her. His crop of unruly dark hair looked unwashed, and a three day beard shadowed his jaw. Winter blasted through her veins when his empty eyes landed on her.
You can do this.
Careful not to look at her friends, she let her terror show on her face and stood. “What are you doing here?” she hissed out as he approached.
He jammed his finger at her chair and ordered her to “Sit.” Like she was a fucking Doberman. What had she ever seen in him?
Slowly, she lowered herself to the chair. Seamus took his seat and spun it backward, then slammed it down onto the cracked concrete floor. “I bet you thought you were safe from me, didn’t you? I told you I’d find you, you little cunt. You’re mine. That baby is mine—”
“No, she isn’t,” Riley gritted out. “I’m a surrogate, you idiot, just like I’ve told you. I’m having this baby for someone else.”
“Horseshit!” he yelled. Looking around, he lowered his voice. “I came here to get my family back.”
“I’m not your family, Seamus. We’re done. We were done the day you brought that poor man into my apartment and made me a part of murder—”
“And I said I was sorry for that in the letters I sent you from prison.”
“I didn’t read your letters, Seamus! I testified against you. Do you not remember that? How could you not think we’re over when I was the one who worked the hardest to put you behind bars? I’m not yours. I never really was. Please let me go.”
Seamus slammed his palms down on the table and donned an empty smile. Leaning back, he dragged his hands over the smooth metal surface and shook his head. “You still love me.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m not having this argument. I hope you can move on with your life,” she said, standing. “I hope you can try to make up for the harm you’ve done somehow, but I will never, ever be a part of your life again.”
Riley spun on her heal and strode for the hallway that led past the bathroom and to a back exit. Drew’s truck was parked in the back parking lot.
A steely grip clamped around her arm and shoved her backward against a wall. “Don’t you walk away from me again, Ri,” Seamus said, his breath hot against her face.
She whimpered and closed her eyes as she tried to escape his lips. Pushing against him as hard as she could, she jerked her knee upward and caught him in the groin the second his mouth touched hers.
Seamus’s weight disappeared, and he slammed into the opposite wall so hard the sheetrock caved in. Drew was there, hunched in front of her, shifting his weight from side to side with the grace of a panther. His hand was behind him, resting on her stomach, but she was all right. Harper, too, if the ninja-kicks going on in her belly were anything to go by.
“We’re okay,” she murmured, grasping his hand just to feel safe again.
Drew lurched forward so fast he blurred. He caught Seamus around the neck and lifted him off the floor.
“Drew,” Tagan barked out. “Let him go. The police are on their way.
Seamus was struggling now, turning red in the face and making choking sounds, his boots kicking desperately, hitting the wall in a rhythmic clunk, clunk, clunk.
“We took pictures of everything,” Tagan said. “Me, Bruiser, Skyler…three separate camera phones with proof that this asshole followed her across state lines and stalked her to this bar. And Kong has already said he and his men will make statements about how aggressively he was looking for Riley. He’s going back to jail where he can’t hurt her. Drop him.”
“Drew,” Riley murmured, sliding a hand up his tensed back. “Let him go. Let the police have him.”
He stood frozen for the span of three heartbeats, then cast Seamus to the floor like a ragdoll. The growl that emanated from him was intimidating enough, but when he turned, his eyes were almost white.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
Dragging him deeper into the hallway, back where the fluorescent lights didn’t reach, she pulled him to her. He buried his head against her shoulder, hiding his eyes from the crowd gathering in the hallway, and hugged her tightly. She didn’t have to worry about Seamus. When she looked over at the commotion at the other end of the hall, Bruiser had him pinned down. Sirens wailed in the distance.
“I can’t,” Drew gritted out in a strange voice.
“You can’t what?”
“I have to Change.”
She shoved open the back exit, but flashing red and blue lights blinded her. Riley pulled the door closed again and rubbed her cheek against his in an affectionate gesture she’d seen the Ashe Crew do with their mates. “You can’t Change now. Bear, I need Drew for a while longer. I need him.” She eased back and kissed him softly. “Please.”
The growling softened, and moments later, Drew’s shoulders relaxed under her palms and he rested his forehead against hers. His eyes were dimming by the second, and by the time the door was thrown open by the police, he looked human once again.
He’d controlled his animal tonight as he’d said he would for her. He’d already changed from the out-of-control brawler who had attacked Bruiser that first night. But more than that, he’d trusted her to come in here tonight and fight beside him, not behind him.
“You did so well,” she whispered.
