The little redhead squealed again, even louder than before, “Your Mate?! You mean the Wolf?!”
Valerie nodded, and then they both squealed again.
“Come meet him; he and his clan are right over here,” Valerie said as she grabbed her by the hand and started pulling her toward the tables they had pushed together.
Bam still sat frozen, watching the female that had entered the book/pastry shop. The pastries were downstairs, and the books were upstairs in the loft overlooking the coffee and sweets that Joanne offered to her book-loving customers. They were complimentary if you bought a book; if not, you were welcome to purchase them.
Bam watched her as she approached arm in arm with Valerie. She was stunning. She wasn't like the sun; she was the fucking sun. She was tiny, just a little over 5’ tall. But she was curvy and lush in all the right places with a tiny little waist that just accentuated her curves. She had thick, heavy, bright copper-colored ringlets that started curling the minute they sprung from her scalp and hung down to the small of her back, bouncing and flashing golden highlights as she spoke and moved her head. Her skin was peaches and cream, with a cute little sprinkling of freckles across her nose and just over the tops of her cheeks. And her eyes… her eyes were the bright green of cedar trees in springtime. And when she turned them on him, he forgot to breathe. His Bear forgot to breathe. If Avaleigh hadn’t slapped his shoulder, he may have turned blue and passed out. But he still didn't take his eyes from her; he just inhaled really deeply.
“Maverik, everybody, this is my friend. My best friend,” Valerie said, hugging the little female. It was obvious that they were very close.
Everybody said hello. Kaid, of course, recognized the little female as the one that he’d protected from the foxes in Vince’s Place the day that Vince had kicked him out way back before he’d found Delilah. And she recognized him. She immediately bowed her head in deference to Kaid, “Alpha. Thank you for your help in Vince's that day. I never got the opportunity to thank you.”
“You’re welcome, but no thanks needed. I’m glad to see that you’re none the worse for wear.”
She smiled and nodded at him.
Since everybody had spoken to her except Bam, and it was obvious that he was enthralled by her, Valerie said, “That quiet one is Bam. He’s a great guy, just a little shy.”
Delilah had been quiet ‘til now, observing, watching Bam’s reaction. Her Dragon had decided that she knew what the problem was, and since she was mated to the clan’s Alpha, and with her status as Queen, it fell to her to introduce them properly, “Little female, I am Delilah, Mate to Alpha Kaid. That male who watches you so intently, he is Bramley, we call him Bam. He is a good male, though he seems to have forgotten his tongue,” she delivered this last comment with a pointed look at Bam.
The little female smiled very warmly at Bam. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes from the big male, “Hello, Bam, Bramley. I’m Everly. You can call me Ever.”
Chapter 21
Bam forgot to breathe again. Avaleigh immediately understood. She leaned over to Bam and whispered, “Bam, your ever?!?
Bam didn’t take his eyes away from the stunning little female standing next to the table; he just nodded once, then twice. Then he closed his eyes, looking inside to his Bear and saw nothing but his Bear. No golden glow, nothing but his Bear sitting, looking at the beautiful little female through Bam’s eyes. It was clear he was enthralled as well, “Ours!” he told Bam excitedly.
We aren’t golden, he thought at Bear.
Don’t care! Stupid gold! Ours! he roared at Bam.
Then he knew for sure. She would have been his Mate had he been meant to have one. But since he wasn't meant to, they didn't have that golden aura that he’d come to recognize as an indication of a mated pair. He sighed sadly, his heart slowly dying in his chest. Then he looked at her again; she was so beautiful, so perfect. He couldn't just ignore her, not now that he’d actually seen her. He decided that he’d just admire her from afar. He’d watch over her. He’d make sure that she was always safe, and when she found the male that was destined to be hers, he’d make sure the bastard treated her right. If he didn’t kill him first.
Kill any other wants ours! Bear told him, snarling in his head.
Everly didn’t understand what had just happened. The big Bear was looking at her as though she’d just saved the world when she first came in, and now he wouldn't even meet her eyes.
He was her Mate. She had no doubt of that, but suddenly he seemed completely uninterested. Maybe he didn't want her because she was a Fox. Some shifters had problems with others that weren't their kind. Maybe he was like that. Then she realized that Valerie was excitedly telling her about some furniture or something they’d bought this morning, so she focused on her friend. Valerie waited a long time for her Wolf to notice and accept her, and Everly had held her and cried with her many a night over that Wolf. So she planned to be as supportive as she could possibly be and help her celebrate her happiness as well. Her friend was happy, and she was going to focus on that.
“That is so exciting!” she said to Valerie.
“It is! I was thinking that I needed to call you, so we could get together. I haven't seen you much lately, I miss you. And I wanted to share everything with you. I mean, you cried with me, I want you to celebrate with me, too.”
“I will, and I’m so excited for you. I’ve just been trying to keep my distance a bit.”
Valerie didn’t say anything for a few moments, then, “They’re bothering you again, aren’t they?”
Bam’s head jerked up, Someone bother our Mate, his Bear near shouted in his head.
Not ours, Bam answered. No gold, Bam reminded him.
Bear roared at him so loudly that he visibly winced, Protect Ours!
“Yeah, they’ve started to sabotage my shop. They cut my acetylene lines, they let all my oxygen out of my tanks. They’ve even started to disfigure my copper. They’re determined that I give in and pay them their protection fee,” Everly admitted.
“Is that all?” Kaid asked her.
She didn’t answer, but met his eyes and shook her head no, indicating that wasn’t all.
Most of the clan had turned their eyes to Bam, who was snarling. It started low and rumbly and was steadily growing louder and more intense.
“What else?” his Bear’s growl caused his words to be nearly completely unintelligible.
Everly realized that in spite of the danger coming off the huge Bear in waves, she was not the least little bit afraid. And, he was looking at her again. She liked that part. She opened her mouth to answer and just couldn't find the words to explain. Instead she said, “This is supposed to be a happy day; let’s talk about Valerie and Maverik.”
“NO!” Bam shouted, slapping the table. Kaid let out a low rumble, causing Bam to reign it back in.
“Tell me,” he said only marginally calmer.
Kaid stood then, reaching his hand toward Bam, “Come on, Bam, take a walk with me. Let me tell you about how I met Everly.”
Bam hesitated, but Kaid was insistent, so he got up and followed Kaid outside.
Conversation around the table returned to happier topics. Laughter and smiles filled the rest of the visit.
When Kaid returned, Bam was not with him.
Avaleigh immediately sat up, “Where’s Bam?”
“He’s fine, Ave. He’ll meet us at home,” Kaid told her.
She stood up, looking through the front windows to see if she could see him.
Kaid reached over, took her hand and pulled her back down in her chair, “I promise. He’s fine.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but the look on his face convinced her that he was telling her the truth.
Bam had followed his nose to the metal building that he had known for some time held the scent of the woman that would have been his Mate. He walked around the outside, investigating, sniffing. He determined that there were five male foxes who each pissed around the
perimeter of Everly’s building, trying to mark the territory as theirs. He rounded the perimeter again, taking his own time pissing all round it, clearly challenging them to continue trying to claim it or her as theirs.
Kaid had explained what had happened that day that he’d been kicked out of Vince's. Bam remembered it clearly. That was the first day he’d scented her, in the booth that he’d picked up to help right the bar after Kaid had fought the foxes. The rage that he’d felt when Kaid had told them they’d had their hands on Everly was a level he’d never experienced before. It had taken an order from Kaid to calm him down. And even then it wasn't a complete calm. The only thing that had given him any relief was that Kaid agreed that it was a good idea to go over to Everly’s and investigate a bit. See what he could do to make her safer. He made his way back around to the front and slid the front doors opened. He stepped inside, and his mouth dropped open at what he found there. There were huge metal sculptures. All welded and created by Everly. They were exquisite. Some were just lawn sculptures; others were fully functional fountains, so big that he could actually swim in them. Well, maybe not swim, but he could certainly lounge in the water. Each was delicate and intricately designed. He spent his time walking around the inside of her workshop, putting things right. Repairing the hoses the fox skulk had slashed. Repairing the vent valve on the oxygen tank that they’d broken. He picked a few corners and strategic places in her shop and marked them, too. His intention was that if they returned, they’d smell his mark, and know that she was under the protection of a Bear now.
Fuckers! We kill, his Bear told him. They scare ours.
We will protect her, Bam told Bear, snarling as he thought about her being afraid. But she is not ours, we are not golden, he reminded his Bear again.
Don’t care! Ours! Bear roared at him.
A while later the clan left Joanne’s Books & Goodies, to find Bam outside securing loads in both trucks. He’d apparently taken his own truck down to the building supply store, bought what he needed, brought it back, and loaded it into the work truck, then gone back for another load in his own truck. Now he was outside tying both loads down properly.
As Valerie and Everly said their goodbyes, everyone else did, too, promising to get together soon. She started to walk away, cross the street and head to her workshop, but she stopped. Turned back to Bam, “It was very nice meeting you, Bramley. I hope I get to see you again soon,” she stuck her hand out for him to shake, stubbornly refusing to allow him to ignore her.
Bam looked at her hand, then looked up at her eyes; she was watching him, smiling warmly at him. Slowly he reached his hand out toward hers. He gently took her small hand in his, “Nice to meet you, too, Ever,” and he met her eyes, clinging to her hand as the electricity of their touch zinged up both their arms. They both gasped their surprise, eyes never leaving one another.
She smiled again as she pulled her hand reluctantly from his. He held on, not wanting to let her go. When it became apparent that she was trying to pull free, he finally let go and watched her as she crossed the street and walked toward her shop at the end of it, turning to wave at Valerie again as she went.
Maverik and Valerie walked toward his bike. He’d planned to take her back home with him, but she had to go to work at her brother’s bar that night. “Let me drive you, darlin’,” Maverik told her, “I’ll come back later and pick you up, so you can get your car.”
“But I won’t get off ‘til 2AM, Mav; you’ll have to come out in the middle of the night,” Valerie said.
“So? If you don’t let me, I’ll just come hang out in the bar all night anyway. That way I’ll be there when you get off,” he smiled at her.
“Fine,” she chuckled, loving that Maverik wanted to take care of her, “but if you don’t mind, I’d like to go home for a bit now, maybe catch a nap before I have to go in.”
“Course, darlin’, I’ll take you now.”
She climbed on the back of his bike, and he drove her back to her place above the bar. He hated leaving her there, but he knew that Vince lived across from her. Their doors were only a few feet apart, so he knew she was safe.
When they got there, he parked the bike, got off and escorted her upstairs to her place. He made it his business to walk around her place, checking windows, ensuring the door had been fixed properly. He opened her cabinets, looking to make sure she had enough food in them. He opened her refrigerator making sure she had milk and butter and anything else he may think she might need. “What are you doing?” Valerie asked him.
“Huh? I’m looking,” he told her.
“Looking at what?” she asked.
“Looking to make sure you have everything you might need,” he answered.
She laughed, “Maverik, I’ve taken care of myself for a long, long time. I think I can manage.”
He sobered immediately, “I know that, Valerie. But I should have been taking care of you long before now. Humor me, please. If I need to go a little overboard, let me. Okay?”
Valerie walked over to where he stood in her kitchen; she walked right up to him and didn't stop until she was chest-to-chest with him, “Okay,” she said, as she took his face in her hands, pulling him down to her for a kiss, “Whatever you need is fine with me.”
He wrapped her up in his arms, holding her tightly, kissing her, loving her. “How did I live a moment without you, Valerie? Promise me I’ll never have to again,” he begged.
She pulled back a little, so she could look him right in the eye, “Never, my love, never.”
He walked her backwards, kissing her more passionately with each step. He backed her against the wall in her small living room, pressing himself against her, grinding his hips into her. She raised a leg and wrapped it around his hips, he grabbed her leg and lifted it higher, pulled back and slammed his hips against hers. She moaned, placed her leg back on the floor, reached for the button at the top of his Levi’s and popped it open, sliding to her knees in front of him.
He watched her as she slid down the wall, bracing both of his hands on the wall and keeping eye contact as she smiled up at him, “Your turn,” she whispered.
His Wolf growled low and sensually in his throat.
She smiled again, thrilled with the power she held over this sexy, dangerous male. She unzipped his jeans and slid them down his hips, leaving them loose around his knees. Valerie leaned forward, cupping his balls in her hand, and using the other to stroke the length of his cock. His beautiful cock. To her thinking, cocks were not usually something to be considered beautiful, but his was. It was big and swollen, the skin smooth and tanned, matching the rest of his naturally tanned body. The head was full and thick and just slightly darker than the shaft. It was magnificent. Hot and velvety to the touch. With a tiny drop of precum balancing on his slit.
Valerie leaned forward and, while keeping her eyes locked on his, lapped it away.
It was his turn to moan now. “Valerie, darlin’, I’m not going to last long. It’s been a long time since anybody other than my own hand’s touched me.”
“Why?” she asked him, truly not understanding, “I’ve watched as women threw themselves at you; you could have had any of them.”
He closed his eyes, inhaling shakily as her sweet, soft hand stroked up and down the length of his cock again, “After I saw you, knew if there wasn’t you, there’d never be anybody.”
“But you didn’t want me,” she said.
His eyes popped open, “I always wanted you. I was so fucked up.”
He closed his eyes again as she stroked him. When she paused again, he whispered, “So fucking afraid. I had nothing left but my Wolf. If you betrayed us, I’d have been shattered, no coming back from that.”
“I’ll never hurt you, Maverik. Never.”
For the first time ever he looked at her with all the fear and vulnerability he carried around inside him, and it floored her when he begged her, “Please don’t hurt us. I won’t survive it.”
“Never,” she whis
pered again before leaning forward and taking him in her mouth. She licked the head, sucking it slowly into her closed mouth, letting it pop through her lips and rest on her tongue. Then she sucked again while running her tongue back and forth across the opening in its tip.
Maverik moaned and did his best not to thrust his cock down her throat; he knew he was big, and he didn't want to hurt her, but fuck she felt good.
She sucked a bit harder and took more of him into her hot mouth, running her tongue up and down the under side of his cock as she slowly took more and more of him. Just before the head of his cock bumped against the back of her throat, she pursed her lips around him and pulled her head back slowly. When his cock bounced free of her mouth, she immediately stroked her hand up and down the length of him, now slippery from being in her mouth.
She looked up at him, and she smiled at him, “I love you. I belong to you.”
He reached a hand down to caress her face and jawline, “I love you, too. You have all of me, Valerie.”
She leaned forward and slipped him back into her mouth, holding the base of his cock with one hand as she wrapped the other around his thigh to balance herself as she began sucking him into her mouth and then pulling her head back off him, effectively fucking him with her mouth, using her tongue to lave the under side and especially the sensitive area just where the head of his cock blossomed from the rest of it. He was growling, thrusting his hips, lost in the sensations she gave him. There was no way she could take all of him, so she used her hand to stroke the base and meet her lips each time they came close so that all of his cock got attention. When she’d pushed him almost to the point of losing control, she slowed, allowing his cock to touch the back of her throat, she used her hand to stop his thrusting, then relaxed the back of her throat. Slowly she pulled him forward with the hand around his thigh, and he felt the head of his cock slip past the back of her throat. He looked down at her, alarmed that she might choke and found her watching him, and he could feel her breathing steadily through her nose. She pulled on his thigh again and nudged the head of his cock just a little further. Then she swallowed, and he about fucking lost it. He snarled and just barely pulled back, then pushed forward again. She swallowed again and laved the underneath of his cock with her tongue, at the same time she began purring. Fuck me! Lioness purrs! his Wolf thought, as he watched their Mate adoringly through Maverik’s eyes. He snarled again and caught just the hint of a smile around his cock as she did it yet again. He moved his foot closer to the wall and pushed a little further in, then at her urging, pushing with her hand, he picked up a little rhythm, barely moving though it was more than enough. Her manipulations made him feel things he never had before. His breathing got choppy, his chest heaving, he felt a tingle at the base of his spine, his cock was swelling even more. He looked down at her, “Valerie, I’m gonna cum, honey. I can’t hold it.”
Maverik's Ashes Page 20
