by T. S. Joyce
Creed was so strong, so in charge around his crew, but here, he was letting her see a side of him she’d never seen before. Her fingers itched to touch him, but he was so big and powerful. Be brave for him.
Closing her eyes, Gia ran her fingers gingerly through his coarse fur up the sides of his face. “Are you afraid of water? Is that why you wouldn’t swim with me when I came here before?”
He grunted and rubbed his face under her arm, across her ribs.
“It’s okay. I’m afraid of wasps. I mean, deathly afraid. I can’t even run when I see them. I just stand there frozen. I can’t breathe or move a single muscle. I was stung when I was playing on a swing set at the park with my nanny, and now, fifteen years later, I still can’t stand them. Everyone is afraid of something, Creed.”
The fur retracted from her fingers as Creed shrank into his human skin. It was strange touching him when he Changed. A rush of power blasted through her where her fingertips connected with him, and when he was done, a shiver traveled up her spine until her shoulders shook with it. Her bones felt like they were vibrating, so she shook out her hands, then reached for him again.
Creed didn’t say a word, only hugged her waist and buried his face against her shoulder. His body was rigid against hers, and gooseflesh covered his skin, but he didn’t move to leave and find clothes. In her arms, he seemed content to just be.
“My mom was human, and my dad didn’t tell her what he was. She found out the first time I Changed that shifters existed, but she didn’t know what I was. Not really. She thought I was a demon.”
A helpless gasp left her lips, and she hugged him tighter.
“She tried to exercise me in her basement and make me normal. Make me into the human boy she’d wanted to give birth to. She wasn’t right in the head, and I had to hide my Changes. Sneak out, or it would upset her. She got crazier until one night on my seventh birthday, she said she’d tried long enough. And then she drowned me in the bathtub.”
Tears streamed down Gia’s cheeks as she shook her head, unable to fathom what he’d been through. Her parents had been distant, sure, but they would’ve never done anything like that. No one in their right mind would.
“I fought hard, but it was one of those deep, claw-foot tubs where the edges are hard to grip when they’re wet. The water was filled to the top and she was determined, and I couldn’t Change. I tried to call my bear to defend myself, but he was too scared inside of me, all curled up and unreachable. I wanted to live so badly, but my lungs were filling with water, and I could see her above the surface. Her eyes were vacant as she watched me die.”
“How did you get away?”
“I didn’t. Everything went dark, and I woke up later draped over the tub. I guess she left me there, and something in me pushed to crawl out of the water to air. She’d turned off all the lights and was sleeping in her bed like nothing had happened. I guess she planned to take care of my body in the morning. Or maybe she was just going to leave me there. I don’t know.”
Gia stroked Creed’s hair over and over to calm herself as much as to comfort him. She wanted to flinch away from the pain in his voice, but he needed to tell someone, and she was glad he’d chosen her.
“I called the police, and they took my mom away. As far as I know, she’s still in a ward, raving about ridding the world of her demon son. I visited her once after I’d aged out of foster care. I didn’t have any money, any resources. I was sleeping on the streets and begging money for food. I just wanted her to see that she hadn’t ended me. That I was still alive. She said I wasn’t her son. That her son was dead in the bathtub at 303 Janey Brook Road. She told me to go look in that bathtub, and I’d see the demon she’d left in there. Damon Daye found me the next week. I didn’t know who he was, but he took me to dinner at some fancy restaurant near an alley I’d been crashing in. He fed me and told me he’d just learned about my mom, and he knew who my father was. He wouldn’t tell me, but he knew. He paid for me to stay in a motel that night, and the next morning, he enrolled me in community college, even paid for my dorm room. He must’ve pulled some mighty big strings because I’d struggled with moving from foster home to foster home, and my high school grades were shit. But he told me that I had to prove my mother wrong. I had to make something of myself, and then someday, he would take me back to her and show her what a good man I’d become. He told me, ‘Good men make sacrifices for others,’ and he believed I would be great someday.” Creed’s voice cracked, so he cleared his throat before he continued. “So I worked hard, made the grades, and I graduated with an associate’s degree in Forestry. The second I was done, I came to Saratoga because Damon felt like the closest I would ever get to family. That’s where I met Matt, and I didn’t mind taking on the problem bears or how hard they make my life because, ‘Good men make sacrifices for others.’ No one ever believed in me until Damon, and every one of my crew has dealt with the same shit. All I needed was the faith of one person to turn my life around. I want to be that one person for them.” Creed eased away and kissed her forehead. “All the good intentions in the world, but I still can’t get in the damned water, though.”
“Who needs water, anyway,” she murmured. “I don’t care if you can’t get in.”
“But I want to. I want to get rid of that power my mom has over me. I’ve given her too much over the years. I want to go swimming with you and take a bath with you. I want to go up to the Hobo Hot Pool and float around in there with you until our skin gets pruney. I want to swim with our kid when he’s old enough.” He looked over her shoulder. “I want to swim under the falls and see the world from the other side of it. But every time I try, I fuckin’ freeze up and my throat feels like it’s filling with water again, and I can’t force my damned foot into the waves. And I like you.” Creed angled his head and watched her reaction. “That’s what I wanted to tell you tonight when I came to your trailer.”
Gia’s heart stuttered, and she gripped his waist, right where two strips of muscle delved over his hip bones.
“Bombshell, the claws,” he said, pulling her nails from his skin, then pulling her arms around his neck.
“Sorry,” she said on a breath. “Wait, you like me like friends? Or you have a crush on me?”
“A crush. That one. I have for a while, but I didn’t know how to tell you without it looking like I’m just trying for a relationship for our kid. It’s not that.” He shook his head and pulled her knuckles to his lips. “It’s more.”
“You have a crush…on me?”
“Gia,” he drawled out, rolling his head so far back his Adam’s apple poked out from his muscular neck.
“Me, too! I do, too! I’m crushing…on you. Shit. Let me start over.” She exhaled slowly. “I like you back.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s bad,” she admitted through an apologetic grin. “I doodled our names together on my daily planner earlier today when I was penciling in our doctor’s appointment.”
Creed laughed a loud booming sound, and she relished in the deep tenor. He was feeling better now.
“You want to play a game?”
The smile dipped from his face, but amusement still danced in his dark eyes. “What game?”
“The Secrets Game.”
“How do you play?”
“For every secret we tell each other, we have to take a step into the water.”
Creed shook his head. “No. Gia, I want to get in the water, but it’s not going to happen tonight. I’m sorry. No.”
Gia pulled her shirt over her head. The cold wind was like a slap against her bare breasts, but she steeled her resolve. “Then you can go first. Tell me a secret, and I’ll step back into the water, and if you want to stop, we can, and I won’t be disappointed.”
Creed’s humor was completely gone now as he shifted his weight from side to side in that wild way Easton had been doing in the woods earlier. Creed’s eyes glowed silver, reflecting oddly in the blue moonlight.
“I didn’t kiss
a girl until I was sixteen,” he murmured.
Gia stepped back by inches into the cold waves. “I got my first kiss when I was fourteen, but I didn’t feel like I’d ever really kissed anyone memorable until you. I still think about the first time you leaned down and pressed your lips against mine. I felt like I was falling, and you were the only thing holding me up. I got the same feeling when you kissed me on the landing. That stomach-dipping, excited feel, like when you’re going straight down on a rollercoaster and you’re scared, but at the same time, you don’t want it to end.”
Creed gasped then murmured, “Fuck.” Linking his hands behind his head, he closed his eyes and stepped into the wave, then back out. He opened his eyes, and they were wild and alarmed. His nostrils flared with the breath he heaved.
“Keep your eyes on me. I won’t let anything happen to you. Creed.” She waited as his eyes settled on hers. “I promise. Tell me a secret.”
“I almost lost my crew to Willa. There was this moment right after she’d Turned, and I was trying to keep her from killing Easton. She was almost dominant enough to disobey me and take my crew. It rattled me.”
Gia slid her sweats and panties down her legs and tossed them onto the beach, then took another step back into the waves. It was cold as frost, but she wouldn’t rush him or make him feel bad by crossing her arms over her chest and hunching into herself. Instead, she lifted her chin and said, “I touch myself while I’m thinking about you. It’s been only you in my mind since we were together five months ago.”
A growl rattled Creed’s throat as he paced the beach, ghosting the river’s edge. Inhaling shakily, he stepped into the water, then out. With a look of fierce determination at his feet, he stepped in again and stayed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispered.
“It’s just you and me, Creed, and I’d never hurt you. Never.”
“I haven’t been with a woman since you,” he gritted out. “Haven’t wanted to. Only want you.”
“Wait, really?”
“Gia! Step back.”
Right. Focus. She stepped back, the water lapping her ankles now. “I cheated off Willa’s homework all through middle school and half of high school, so my parents got really confused when I barely graduated college with a C average.”
“Ha,” Creed huffed out. “C team, C team,” he chanted breathily as he dragged his feet another step in. His abs flexed with every panicked breath, but when he looked up at her, he flashed her a brief, proud smile. “Last night, I couldn’t sleep, so I snuck into Matt’s trailer and snuggled you to try and feel the baby move, and then I went back to my place before you woke up.”
“Creed,” she said, laughing. “That’s naughty!”
“I’ll probably do it again tonight,” he admitted through a grin. “Step back.”
She shook her head slow. “I think we’ve gone far enough for tonight.”
Confusion rippled through his silver eyes until she sank down in the cold water, leaned back on her elbows and spread her legs wide. “Come here.”
Creed swayed on his feet, eyes riveted between her legs. He looked back at the beach, then back at her.
“Make me come, and you can sleep by me all night,” she whispered.
Creed padded through the shallow waves, eyes round as the moon above them. He fell to his knees between her legs in the surf. His giant hand palmed her slightly rounded belly, and he rubbed it, looking at her with such tenderness. “I won’t hurt the baby?”
With a smile, she shook her head. She was so fucking proud of him. He was on his knees in the water, waves lapping at his legs, but he wasn’t focused on that. He was focused on the safety of their child.
His erection was long and thick, jutting out from between his legs, and the sight of him like this—masculine, lithe muscles, ready immediately for her—pooled warmth through her middle that spread down between her legs.
He sat back and pulled her until she straddled his lap, the shallow water still surrounding them. Eyes locked on hers, Creed rolled his hips, pressing his dick between her slick folds.
Gia released the shuddering breath she’d been holding and closed her eyes to focus on the building pleasure between her legs. When she opened them again, Creed was smiling.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, then nipped her lip.
She loved the way he had said it with such conviction. She hadn’t felt beautiful lately. She’d felt bloated and swollen and restless, but here, naked in the moonlight, in the waves of Bear Trap Falls with the man who held her heart, she felt like a goddess.
His reward was one of those biting kisses that seemed to rile up his bear. A growl rattled through his chest, and he rolled against her again, this time gripping her ass and pulling her tight against his shaft.
“It’ll be hard to stay gentle,” he said in a gravelly voice.
He was hiding his eyes now, so she lifted his chin until he looked at her. “Why?” She rocked against him again, and a helpless sound came from his throat.
“Because,” he whispered, gripping her hair until her neck arched back for him to kiss the sensitive flesh there. “I’ve wanted to be with you since you left Saratoga.”
There he was again, putting all her insecurities at ease. He’d thought of her, as she’d thought of him all these months. She hadn’t been just a one night stand for him. She’d been more. Gia lifted off his lap and pulled a slow stroke of his shaft before she angled it at the mouth of her entrance. She slid down an inch, teasing.
Creed’s kisses trailed across her collar bone, then down until he pulled one of her nipples into his mouth. He sucked hard and brought a cry from her lips. Fuck, he remembered what she liked. His tongue laved against her oversensitive bud rhythmically, slowly, drawing each shaky breath from her. She slid down another inch and reveled in the feel of her man inside of her again. She never thought she would have another shot at this, but Creed was giving it to her.
He moved to her other nipple, trailing biting kisses as he went, his hands gentle as he ran his palm up her spine and gripped the back of her neck. Enough. She wanted it all. No more playing or teasing, she wanted all of Creed. He sucked her bud hard and released it to the cold air. Angling his head, he kissed her, lips crashing against hers like waves breaking the shore beneath them. He plunged his tongue into her mouth as she settled over him, taking all of him. A growl rippled through him, and he gripped her neck harder. Holy shit, Creed was hot like this. The layers of his carefully maintained control were slipping away to reveal the beast inside of him, snarling and feral, hungry with lust that only she could sate.
She rolled against him and moaned as the pressure in her middle intensified. Creed wielded a powerful grace with every thrust into her, and she was losing control. Falling, falling. Eyes rolling back in her head, she gave him her neck to suck as a tingling sensation filled her. “Creed, oh my gosh, Creed!”
A snarl ripped through him as he spun her so fast her stomach dipped. Her shoulders hit the sand, and the water lapped at her arms and hips, but he never broke their connection. His lips were on hers, moving, sucking, biting, tasting. He pulled out of her, and then thrust back into her again. In and out, faster and faster, and she was gone now—not falling anymore…floating.
“Fuck,” Creed gritted out as he slammed into her.
“I’m going to come,” she panted out mindlessly as she arched her back against the sand and clawed his back. One more thrust, and she detonated around him. Stars sparked her vision, and the moonlight expanded until everything was bathed in blue and blinding. She shut her eyes against the intense light and held onto Creed as her body pulsed around him. Creed would keep her safe from what the moonlight was doing.
Creed stroked into her again and froze with a feral sound in his throat. Warmth shot into her, heating her from the inside out. Throbbing jets burst from him as his hips jerked. His arms were taut and flexed, bulging from trying to keep his weight off her. His hips moved slower, smoother as his release pulsed in rhythm with
hers.
And then his lips were back, kissing the tip of her shoulder just under her collar bone, the base of her neck, under her chin, and then her lips.
“I have one last secret,” he whispered against her ear as he smoothed a damp strand of hair from her cheek.
“Tell me.”
“I’m glad you’re pregnant.”
It was sandy and wet, and the chill was creeping into her veins, but his words stopped all of that. His words were a blanket. “You are?”
He smiled down at her, fingers smoothing water drops from her face. “Our baby brought you back to me.”
“I have another secret, too.”
His lips curved up in the corners, exposing those dimples she adored. “And what’s that?”
Gia ran her palm down the sloping curve of his shoulder and pressed her lips against his arm, hiding her face from him so she would have the courage to say something she’d never told any man. “I love you.”
Chapter Nine
Creed had messed up. He threw his feet over the edge of the bed and jammed his elbows on his knees as he stared at the silhouette of his sleeping mate. She’d told him she loved him—loved him!—and he’d frozen up and denied her the same words.
No one had ever said that to him in his entire life, and Gia had given them with such honesty in every word, he knew she really did. She loved him, and dammit, he loved her, too, so why the fuck hadn’t he been able to spit out the words instead of letting them stay lodged in his throat like that?
Because she’d shocked him.
He’d never uttered those three words to anyone else, and his moment had come, and like an idiot, he had let it pass.
And Gia was so friggin’ sweet about it. She hadn’t been able to mask her hurt completely, but she’d changed the subject and talked on and on as if nothing was wrong. She’d told him a dozen times she was proud of him for facing his fear of deep water, and still, he hadn’t been able to say it back.
