He’d known that anyway. It had just been the instinctive rage that swelled up inside him when he thought of another man, any man, wanting Miranda.
Damn, he was being stupid. It wasn’t as if he meant to claim her for himself, so what right did he have to get pissed off if someone else wanted to? But the thought of Miranda with another man… His claws curved out of his fingertips before he could stop them, and fur rippled over his skin.
Growling, he forced his wolf back down.
Ours, his wolf howled, hurling itself against the cage of his skin. Our mate.
Well, what did his wolf know, anyway? His wolf had selected Jazmin for him, long ago; his wolf was a stupid animal.
Or had it been his wolf? He couldn’t remember. Maybe it had mostly been his dick. He’d at least been in lust with Jazmin, once upon a time. He’d thought it was love. He’d been ready to spend his life with her. She’d had other ideas.
He sank down on the sofa and tried to ignore the sounds of laughter and happy chatter outside.
Finally he gave up. Whatever Miranda was cooking smelled delicious. Creel walked outside across the lawn and joined them all.
They immediately accepted him as if he hadn’t been inside avoiding them like a jackass for the last hour. Miranda quickly made him a burger and Hyatt handed him a beer.
Douglas glanced at Miranda and said to Creel in a low voice, “Hey man, your taste has really improved. And you could get used to the talking to herself thing.”
Creel flicked a glance over at Miranda. She was indeed talking to the air, then glancing over at Hyatt and Suki and nodding.
“Yeah, yeah, so you were right,” he heard her say with a laugh. “Don’t let it go to your head. No, you’re not always right.”
Hyatt seemed utterly riveted by Suki, who beamed at him, eyes glowing with happiness. Douglas and Sophia were having a great time, sitting on folding chairs and enjoying their burgers. Creel envied their easy air of intimacy. He expected Sophia and Douglas would be wearing claiming marks pretty soon.
Hephzibah and Rory weren’t doing quite as well. Rory stood and made awkward conversation with Hephzibah for a little while, then politely begged off early, claiming he wanted to take some night shots of the crescent moon. He drove off, and Creel thought that Hephzibah looked…forlorn? Confused?
A little while later, Suki said that she had to go, because she had to be at work in the morning. Hyatt insisted that he would drive behind her and see that she got safely to her house.
“Such a gentleman,” Suki said admiringly. “That’s so unusual around here.”
Hyatt positively beamed. “Well, only for a beautiful lady like you. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
“You got no game,” Creel coughed into his hand.
Miranda started laughing as Hyatt and Suki walked away, and she kept laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, my God, is he really that much of a romantic sap, or does he use terrible lines on absolutely everybody?”
Creel chuckled. “Little bit of both.”
After everyone else had left, Creel helped Miranda to clean up, and then he invited her for a run through the woods.
Was he just doing it for a cheap excuse to see her strip her clothes off? Maybe.
He stood there watching her luscious, curvy form, her pale skin gleaming in the moonlight, and then she sank down onto all fours. Fur flowed over her body and her ears curved to a point.
Creel realized he was grinning from ear to ear as he watched her take off into the woods. He shifted quickly and smoothly, dropping to all fours as fur rippled across his skin, his hands and feet became paws and his face lengthened into a snout. He let out a gleeful, full-throated howl and bolted after her, following her scent through the darkness and increasing his pace when he saw a flash of pale fur between the trees and the tip of her tail whisked out of sight.
When he caught up with her, they play-wrestled, rolling over and over in the leaf mulch. Then Creel sprang to his paws and yipped in invitation, looking back to make sure she was following as he trotted away in the direction of the lake. They ran effortlessly side by side, enjoying the mingling aromas of the woodland and the cool air playing through their fur.
When they reached the lake side, they stopped and shifted back into human form.
“Listen,” he said.
She held up her hand to stop him. “I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have invited them here without asking you. It’s your house, and I was out of line. It’s nice enough of you to let me stay here. I won’t impose like that again.”
“No, that was a really decent thing you did for Hyatt. It would be better if you checked with me next time, but I’m not mad that you did it.”
“I guess I was a little bit afraid that if I asked, you’d say no, and I couldn’t think of any other way to accidentally introduce them to each other,” she admitted.
He grinned. “I probably would have said no, and then I would have missed some of the worst sappy pickup talk I’ve seen or heard in ages, so good call on your part.”
She nodded and took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring as she drew in the mountain air. It smelled like pine and wood smoke from distant chimney fires.
Without thinking, he put his arm around her, and she sank in to him, leaning her head against him with a sigh of contentment.
Instinctively, he tensed.
She didn’t pull away from him. “It’s okay,” she said to him. “I know I’m not here forever. I’m just enjoying the moment. We shifters see so much loss and death that it reminds you to appreciate the beauty of every minute and every day.”
“I appreciate the beauty right in front of me,” he said, and he stared down at her. He reached for her face to stroke her soft skin, but then he hesitated.
“You won’t hurt me,” she said. “Listen, I’ve got a failing business, and I’m just hiding out here until my pack leaves. And you don’t want a life mate, and you’ve been honest about that. Realistically, I won’t be up here forever, so we couldn’t really have a permanent mating anyway. Once my pack leaves town, I’m thinking I might head out west and start over.”
He looked deep into her eyes, trying to judge the truth of her words. She gazed back at him, her expression open and sincere, and he saw the way her pupils dilated, scented the damp arousal between her thighs.
With a harsh groan of surrender, he bent his head and kissed her.
She responded by twining her arms around his neck and kissing him back with unabashed passion, pressing her body wantonly against him and moaning into his mouth. Her flesh was warm satin as he ran his hands down her spine and cupped the generous swell of her ass.
They didn’t stop kissing as they sank down to the ground together, limbs tangling and mouths clashing. Creel rolled on top of her, settling between her thighs and working his hips so that the length of his erection slid against her slippery core.
She mewled with need and sank the tips of her fingers into his taut, muscular ass, urging him to push inside her and take her.
But he held back. This might be the only time he’d get to be with her. He wanted to savor it. He wanted to sear the memory of her body into his mind; record every movement and every touch so that he could replay them on lonely nights when Miranda was far away and his life was empty again.
He reached behind himself and pulled her hands away from his body, wrapping his fingers around her wrists and pressing her hands against the ground to either side of her head. Her eyes were glazed with passion and her lips were slightly parted, her breathing harsh and uneven.
He dipped his head to kiss the side of her throat, nibbling at the sensitive flesh above her pulse point them moving lower to scrape his teeth gently along her collarbone. She sighed and squirmed, and he ghosted kisses over the upper slope of her breast before he took her rosy nipple between his lips and suckled on it. Her reaction had him harder than a rock and pulsing with urgent desire.
*
* * * *
Miranda moaned and threaded her hands into his tousled honey-blond hair, wrapping the strands around her fingers as though anchoring herself to Earth. Stars went supernova in her belly and her upper thighs were slick and sticky with the juices of her arousal.
She moaned as Creel trailed his lips over her ribcage and kissed the gentle rise of her belly, dipping his tongue into her navel with a ticklish flicker that made her yelp…a yelp that trailed off into a broken groan as his fingers found her wet pussy.
She wriggled and parted her legs for him, and he parted her sopping-wet petals and found her clit with the ball of his thumb, circling it until shudders played over her skin. She bit her lip against a hoarse groan. When Creel took his fingers away from her aching flesh and replaced them with his mouth, she cried out and bucked against him.
Creel worked the sensitive nub, circling and flicking it with the tip, then stroking it with smooth, slow swipes of the flat of his tongue. As he kissed her pussy, he slid a finger inside her, working the thick digit into her tight, grasping sheath. A whole-body shudder took her and she clenched around his finger as he slowly withdrew it, dragging his fingertip over the sensitive nerves of her G-spot with excruciating slowness.
He added a second finger, and Miranda tightened her fingers in his hair, hips arching up off the ground as he worked her clit and her insides fluttered and spasmed and the sensation between her thighs coiled and tightened.
She could have screamed with frustration when Creel pulled away, leaving her empty and bereft, but the loss was short-lived.
He settled on top of her, hitching her knee up over his hip so she was wide open to him. He held himself over her with one hand, while with the other he fitted the blunt, precum-slick head of his cock against her greedy slit.
Miranda moaned in response and arched her spine, inching his cock inside her so that he hissed in his breath and shuddered as he struggled for control.
Trembling with the effort of holding back, his biceps bulging as he held himself above her and his face set in harsh lines of concentration, he pushed slowly inside her. When he was balls-deep in her welcoming body, he dropped his forehead against her collarbone and groaned – a soul-deep sound of completion. And then he started to move.
With every thrust, he stoked her higher, the rigid length of his throbbing cock teasing the silky walls of her sex. She locked her heels behind his knees and worked her hips to meet him, out of breath and dizzy with arousal.
Her eyes fluttered open and she gazed up into his face, watching him in the faint, glimmering starlight reflected from the lake. The textured silvery scars on his cheekbone and jaw just highlighted the golden perfection of his skin, now sheened with sweat.
And then she squeezed her eyes shut and cried out again and again, because the sensations he was stoking in her body kindled and caught, and she went up in an orgasmic conflagration that burned away all pretense and left her raw and naked and shivering in awe of the heat that had passed over her.
Moments later, Creel gasped and shouted, twitching as he emptied himself inside her and speaking muffled cursewords into her hair.
Chapter Ten
Creel lay on his side in bed, deep in slumber, and the sunlight pouring in through the window bathed him in a golden glow. Miranda paused for a minute to admire his brawny, muscled form. His skin was smooth and tanned, and the slashes of white scars that curved around his ribcage merely added to his rugged perfection. The smooth, round globes of his butt cheeks…she could drool over them all day long.
She tore her gaze away and dressed quickly, then walked into the kitchen to put some breakfast on the griddle. Mixed emotions swirled deep inside her. Last night had been incredible. Delicious. And it couldn’t last. How would she feel when her pack left town and it was safe to move out? Would Creel still want her to go?
The front door banged open, and she started, halfway expecting to see Terrence or some other pack member come to snatch her away again.
But it wasn’t Terrence. It was a shifter who looked so much like Creel, it had to be his twin brother Benjamin.
She remembered him from years ago. He had a claiming mark on the left side of his neck now.
Benjamin stared at her, startled. “Miranda?” he said.
So at least he’d remembered her. Then again, Creel had been the one she’d always hidden from, all those summers ago. Even though he and Benjamin looked exactly alike, she’d always been able to tell them apart, and Creel had been the one who’d always called to her heart, from the first day she’d laid eyes on him.
The bedroom door flew open before she had time to answer him.
Creel came barreling out, half awake and all naked, and stalked over to his brother. “I thought I scented you,” he said with a low, angry snarl in his tone. “But then I thought no, there’s no way that piece of shit would show his face in town. But here you are. Now get the fuck out.” Thick fur rippled over his whole body, and the bones of his face shifted, lengthening and then retreating as his wolf struggled to free itself.
“I’m just going to…um, I’ll…um, go get the newspaper,” Miranda said brightly, and hurried out the front door, still wearing her pajamas.
She smacked herself on the forehead as she walked away from the house. The newspaper. Right. Very smooth. There was no newspaper in Greenlands. What was she going to do, drive a hundred and fifty miles to the human city of Manchester to get one?
Benjamin’s car was parked a short way from the front door, next to Creel’s.
She lingered in the front yard and, driven by curiosity, strained to hear them. Even though her half-shifter hearing wasn’t that great, they were yelling so loudly she could make out most of what they were saying.
“Reconcile, my ass! I will honor their memory by myself!” Creel bellowed. “I don’t want to hear you say their names again.”
“I’m staying at the Timberlane Lodge, if you—”
“What part of ‘get the fuck out’ do you not understand?” Creel roared.
Creel’s brother stalked out of the house and walked past Miranda. He climbed into his car and drove off with a screech of tires and a spray of gravel.
Miranda waited a few minutes, then went back inside.
“Is everything okay?” she said.
Creel’s face had gone dark. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped. “Ever. At all.”
“I see,” she said, stung to her core by his cutting tone and the raw anger crackling through the air. He’d always shielded her from his fury before. Now he was letting it hurt her; it felt like hot sparks swirling out of a fireplace. Her temples began to throb.
He fixed her with an angry glance. “Who are you, and why are you really here? My brother knew your name. How does he know you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said coolly. “Ever. At all.” And she turned and walked out the front door, not waiting for him to offer her a ride to work.
Was she being unreasonable? She didn’t think so. She had accepted that they were going to have a short-term relationship. Her candle shop was failing hard, and as long as her cousins knew where she was she would never be completely safe. At some point she’d have to leave the region and travel cross-country, create a new identity and find a pack that would take her in.
So she didn’t expect a romantic proposal from Creel, but she at least expected common courtesy. They had just spent an incredibly intimate night together, and now he was biting her head off because of some family drama that she’d somehow got caught up in.
* * * * *
Miranda’s grandmother was sitting on the front steps when she walked up, with Hank by her side. Hank waved at her cheerfully. He had an open throat wound from when he’d been killed by bandits several years earlier, right when the territory was first populated.
“There you are,” Miranda said. “I was about to go down to the graveyard searching for you. I don’t even want to know what you guys have been up to, do I?”
Her grandmother smirked and fluffed her hair. “That depends. Are you in the mood to lecture and chastise me for my moral lapses, while I alternately ignore and mock you?”
“Most definitely not.” Miranda struggled to keep the bitterness from her tone.
Her grandmother raised an eyebrow. “What happened? Those losers hassle you again?”
“No, Creel’s just being…himself, I guess. Snappish. Surly. It’s fine. I knew what I was getting into.”
“You want us to do some haunting?” Hank asked hopefully.
“No! Good heavens, I don’t know which of you two is the worse influence on the other.”
“Me,” they chorused simultaneously, which brought a smile to her lips.
“You sure you can handle him?” Her grandmother asked, looking worried. “We were going to go finish up with Hank’s ex-son-in-law – he’s just about ready to leave town, we figure one or two more haunting sessions and he’s out of here – but we can stick around, if you want.”
“No, I’m completely fine. You go get rid of that jerk. I’m sure his ex-wife will appreciate his absence.” She waved them off and went into the shop.
Hephzibah peered at her curiously as she walked through the door.
“I am admittedly not an expert at deciphering emotion, but my studies thus far have indicated to me that, based on your demeanor and facial expression, I should offer you an alcoholic beverage at this point and ask you if you want to talk.” She looked at Miranda expectantly. “Did I read the situation correctly?”
“That was absolutely fantastic,” Miranda said, forcing a smile. “Most people don’t start drinking alcoholic beverages quite this early, but I would not turn down a cup of coffee. Do we have any left?”
“Yes, we do, I will go make some.” Hephzibah walked to the back of the shop, looking pleased with herself.
Well, at least Miranda had been able to make somebody happy this morning.
“By the way, the shifter Rory who came to the cook-out. Did he leave early because he was feeling unwell?” Hephzibah called out from the kitchen. Miranda detected something new in Hephzibah’s tone. “I could make some medicinal tea for you to deliver to him.”
His Curvy Mate (Alpha Prime Book 2) Page 7
