“Unless you have the key, yes,” Betty shrugged, not sure she should have told him that but doing it anyway. After all, if he had really intended to abduct her he would have done it by now, wouldn’t he? Obviously, he was hoping she would eventually go willingly, and she was going to keep letting him think that.
Betty returned her attention fully to the omelet she was cooking, finishing it up and placing it on a plate. She garnished it and added the hash browns she’d been cooking in another pan, then grabbed the toast as it popped up from the toaster, deftly cutting it and moving to the refrigerator to grab a few pats of butter. Plate completed, she cast Ted a smile as she slipped past him to deliver the food to her customer.
“Do you have new help in the kitchen, Betty?” asked Wayne Michaels curiously as he eyed Ted looking out the door behind her.
“Oh, him?” she smirked. “No, that’s just my friend letting me know that he’s here. I was about to ask him if he wanted to eat as well?”
“Sure,” said Ted with a smile. “I always enjoy your cooking.”
“Well, I’m going to just turn the sign now to say we’ve closed, but don’t let that hurry you Wayne, okay?” she said. “I’ll probably be busy, but if you need anything Crystal is here to be of help. You can let yourself out when you’re ready, all right?”
“You must trust this guy, eh?” Ted teased.
“More than I trust you,” Betty smirked, arching her brow.
“Hey, now, that’s not very nice,” Ted complained.
“Should I trust you?” she asked him, still smirking.
“Nope,” he answered, taking her by the shoulders from behind. “Most emphatically not.”
“Wow—maybe I should just take this food to go?” said Wayne. “There’s way too many pheromones floating around here.”
“Funny,” Betty said with a little frown that quickly turned right back into a grin again. She couldn’t help but smile while Ted was standing behind her like he was. A bubble of happiness welled up inside her that she couldn’t seem to quell. “Well, we’re going to go. Do you need a doggy box?”
“Yes ma’am,” Wayne grinned, and Betty moved to get one for him. “And here’s the money for the meal as well, since you seem to have forgotten about that completely.”
“Damn!” she said contritely. “Thanks, Wayne.”
“Not a problem,” he chuckled as he put his meal into the box. “You two enjoy your afternoon.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Ted with a wicked smile. Betty pretended to punch him in his stomach. “Ouch! I guess she wants to play rough. That can be arranged, sweetheart.”
“Shut up,” Betty grumbled, and locked the door behind Wayne when he left.
“What do we do about young-girls-are-us?” Ted whispered in Betty’s ear when she returned to his side. He took her into his arms, joining their foreheads as he liked to do yet again.
“She’s in the break room—we go upstairs.”
“Should we let her know I’m here so she doesn’t come looking for you?” Ted wanted to know.
“Good idea,” Betty chuckled. “She’s already way too concerned about adult things for her own good as it is. I don’t think we need to give her a show.”
“Don’t bother, Betty, I can hear his voice,” said Crystal as she poked her head out the door. “You must sing bass, don’t you—whoever you are?”
“Yes, I can sing bass,” he agreed. “Now be a good girl and watch your show.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a salute, and she turned and shut the door again.
As soon as Crystal wasn’t looking, Ted turned back to Betty and lifted her into his arms, carrying her towards the stairs he’d seen on the other side of the kitchen before. At the top, he found a bathroom in one door, and a small bedroom in the other. He took her into the bedroom and closed the door, setting her on the smallish bed.
“Remember that thing you said you wanted in reality?” he said then. “I’m about to make your wish come true.”
Betty’s throat felt thick with desire. She couldn’t seem to formulate any words to reply to this statement. But then Ted was kissing her, so she really didn’t need to. He seemed to have that effect on her a lot. But she didn’t really mind, since they seemed to communicate well enough through other means.
Ted stood over the bed, gazing down at her hungrily as he dropped his pants. Then he sat down on the edge, cock standing at attention, and cast Betty an inviting smirk. Taking the bait, she got up, threw off her clothes, and stepped between his legs, chuckling when he rolled his eyes.
“It might work a little better if your legs were over top of mine, you know,” he told her.
“Yeah?” she smirked, kissing him. “Ask me nicely.”
Instead, he picked her up and deposited her right onto his cock, pressing up inside of her and making her groan. They laughed when she said, “Damn, that was pretty nice!”
“I thought so too,” he agreed huskily.
Then they stopped talking, preferring to use their lips for other things. Ted held Betty still on his cock by clamping his arms around her back, kissing her sweetly, just a soft brushing of the lips, several times, until she groaned with frustration. Her pussy was throbbing with need, and her mouth longed for more, and she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Come on, Ted!” she complained.
“Ask me nicely,” he told her.
Instead, Betty bit his lip, stretching it insistently. He let her put her tongue into his mouth at last, and she sighed with relief as she surged down onto his cock at the same time. Ted grabbed her by the ass and began to drive upwards into her, again and again, making her moan into his mouth.
“Yeah!” she said, and her voice was much higher than usual. “Like that! Like that!’
“You like that?” he asked at a slightly higher pitch as well. “Hm, you want more of that?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“How about this?” he asked, and he stood up with her. Betty flung her legs around his hips while he surged forward, slamming them into the wall. He used it to excellent effect, pinning her to it so he could fuck her senseless there.
Betty was so mindless right that moment, he could have done anything as long as he didn’t stop, but Ted was too mindless himself to realize it. This was carnal, and fantastic, and completely animal passion. Her long fingernails bit into his flesh, drawing blood. His mouth came down to her throat and clamped onto the side of her neck, leaving a slight bruise. And when they came Ted almost couldn’t hold himself up against the wall as Betty let her legs drop. He had to catch her so she wouldn’t fall.
“Gods, woman, that was—”
“Intense?” she supplied tiredly.
“—the appetizer!”
Betty’s heart thudded harder than ever as he lifted her up and flung her back onto the bed. She barely had a chance to crawl up into the pillows before he was on her again, his cock seemingly harder than ever. She was breathless as she waited for him, and he didn’t take long to fulfill the words he’d just spoken.
Ted grabbed Betty’s legs and slid her slightly down the length of the mattress, so that her head was almost buried in the pillows. Then he tossed them both aside deftly before he plunged inside her again. Betty was still too worked up from before, so that with each thrust into her he made, she couldn’t help but moan, loudly letting him know how much she liked it.
The bed squeaked furiously on its ancient hinges, the headboard banging the wall with wanton abandon. Betty spared a thought for what might happen if it finally gave up the ghost, but it only lasted a moment before she realized she didn’t care.
When Ted came, he roared—in a human manner, not a liony one—his release, and fell on top of her, staying buried there. Betty’s arms flew up around his back and she held on, not wanting him to move away even in the slightest.
A knock came on the door.
“What?” Betty wanted to know.
“It’s five o’clock
, Betty,” said Crystal. “We should get going soon.”
“Damn!” she groaned, casting Ted a look of apology. “I gotta go. Duty calls.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, his hazel eyes shadowed as he nodded and moved off of her.
“We’ll be down shortly, Crystal, okay?” Betty told her then.
As they got dressed, neither of them had a lot to say, but they kept looking at each other, their eyes admitting that they’d rather have stayed right where they were. It was too bad there wasn’t another storm to offer them an excuse to remain.
“Well, I guess there’s six dogs to get ready today,” said Betty just for something to say. “Your buddies seem to have run off with the other two.”
“Probably ate them, knowing Nero,” Ted scoffed. “Sorry about that. I’ve told them not to do it again.”
“Ted? Why haven’t you tried to abduct me again?” Betty wanted to know.
“There’s more than one way to abduct somebody,” he smirked, drawing her in for a kiss. “I have decided that I’d much rather steal your heart.”
Betty kissed him back, her face masking the sharp pain these words shot through her system. Because she knew she couldn’t afford to let him. She knew she couldn’t let down her guard. And she knew her heart was already his.
He left then, and she followed behind a few minutes later, when she was certain that he would no longer be there. Crystal took one look at her face and cast her an empathetic glance.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Not somebody you would bring home to Allie?”
“You’ve got that one right,” Betty sighed. “Come on, let’s prep the dogs.”
They both heard the snowmobile start and drive away, and they headed out for the outer room. Betty made quick work of harnessing the dogs while Crystal donned her snow gear and stepped outside to brush all the snow off their sled.
“But what’s the matter with him?” she couldn’t help but ask once Betty came out with the dogs. She had such a poignant look that Betty felt tears well up in her eyes.
“Nothing really,” she shrugged. “He’s just the Romeo to my Juliet, I guess you could say.”
“Because he’s a lion, right?” she nodded.
“Well, you have to promise to keep this to yourself, okay?” she said, and Crystal nodded. “He’s the crown prince. That’s why I couldn’t possibly bring him home. Allie would never willingly let him through the door.”
Crystal took this in and sighed. “Well, that sucks,” she replied.
“Yeah, it does,” Betty agreed. “It really, really sucks.”
They returned home in silence, and didn’t tell Allie much of anything about their day. Betty went in to the computers and began to study artifacts as usual, focusing mainly on the Raven. It felt strange to treat this like any other day, surreal even, and in the back of her mind she was always aware of Ted. Of where he was, and what he was doing. She knew that he felt her too.
We can’t keep going on this way, Ted, she told him as she lay in her bed that night. I’m not going to become another Allie, pining for you for practically twenty years after just a few sweet weeks of love. We need to find another way.
For the longest time he didn’t answer. She almost thought that he wouldn’t. But just as she was drifting off to sleep, his deep voice whispered in her head: Just give me time, sweetheart. I’m not going to let you go. There has to be a way.
Chapter 7
Over the next few weeks, Ted spent most of his afternoons visiting with Betty and Crystal. Sometimes he and Betty would disappear upstairs for a bit of private time, but there were other times when they spent time with Crystal as well. They had even taken to playing board games together there.
As the weeks turned into a month, Betty realized that her period had not shown up, and she was both elated and frightened by this fact. Of course, she was quick to let Ted know all of her thoughts concerning this occurrence. She pretty much had taken to telling him everything all the time.
“It’s just so unfair that I can’t be with you unless I betray her,” she sobbed as she laid on his chest in the upstairs bedroom. “I wish there was something we could do.”
“This makes it more important than ever to join our clans,” said Ted insistently. “I’m not going to let my child grow up away from me as well.”
Ted said this because in all the time he’d known Crystal, a growing resentment was stirring inside him. He hadn’t mentioned it to the two women, who seemed oblivious to the glaringly obvious truth, but after learning about his own child, that ire blossomed into full-blown anger. That night, he decided, he was going to confront him about it.
When Ted went home, however, his father wasn’t there, and he didn’t see him until the following morning. All night long he was fuming mad that he had so casually discovered the existence of a sister he never knew he had. After preaching to him for years about how family was more important than anything else, the man should have had the decency to tell him about her.
King Caius was sitting down in the caves as usual, giving orders to all of his men for the day. The surge of annoyance Ted still felt welled inside of him so much that he approached the throne with a scowl, interrupting him.
“Father, why did you never tell me about Crystal?” he demanded hotly.
“Crystal?” Caius asked, confused, and waved all the other men away with one brush of his hand. They scattered, leaving father and son alone. “Who is that?”
“Your daughter, of course,” Ted scowled. “Your scent is all over her, and so is the scent of Allie. I’m really amazed that Betty hasn’t noticed it herself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Caius said resentfully. “If Allie ever birthed my child, it’s certainly news to me. Do you really think I would have left her alone all this time if I knew she had mothered my child?”
“Well, you’re certainly stubborn enough to have done,” Ted scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Besides, I just met the girl yesterday myself. The resemblance is rather striking.”
“If what you say is true, then maybe I’ve been sending all of you out after the wrong girl,” he said then.
“That’s hardly the point,” Ted grumbled. “You know my feelings on the matter. I’ve voiced them many times. You two both want the damned artifact, and you are in love with each other. This whole war could easily be put aside.”
“Bah!” he scoffed. “The only reason you’re saying so is because you want a polar bear of your own. No, I’m sorry, but it looks as though you’ve just given me the leverage I need to get that artifact back. There’s no mother alive today who wouldn’t do anything she could to keep her own daughter safe. You will go and take this Crystal girl, and you’ll bring her here. And this time I won’t accept any excuses from you. I expect you to deliver the girl yourself, Theodore. I don’t want any child of mine to be defiled by the men. Understood?”
Cursing his wayward tongue for getting his half-sister into trouble and probably getting him into some serious hot water with Betty as well, Ted gritted his teeth as he gave his father a nod. “It shall be done as you command,” he agreed.
“Today,” Caius added.
“Today,” Ted repeated gravely. And he went to begin his day.
*****
Betty and Crystal both came to the restaurant again the next morning. Betty herself was feeling a bit melancholy because her night hadn’t yielded many results in any regard. She hadn’t learned anything about the artifacts she was studying that she didn’t already know, and more importantly, she still couldn’t figure out a way to be with Ted.
She wasn’t sure why that had suddenly become so important to her, but it was. She wanted to become a permanent fixture in his bed, and she wanted it desperately. But who could blame her? He was smart, charming, witty and gorgeous. And he really, really, really knew what he was doing!
“Is the mystery lion coming here today as well?” Crystal teased as they stepped inside and beg
an to prepare the kitchen for the day.
“I don’t really know,” Betty sighed. “The last thing I heard from him was ‘I’ll figure out a way for us to be together’, and then he didn’t visit me for the rest of the night.”
“What do you mean, visit you?” Crystal asked, confused.
“Telepathy, remember?” Betty smirked.
“Wow, that has got to be the coolest thing ever,” she said then. “So what, you guys can talk to each other whenever you want? That’s almost like having a cell phone inside your head. Wicked!”
“You should probably be able to do that someday, I would think,” Betty told her. “I mean, Allie told me that your father is a lion, and you are also a polar bear now. So the odds would go way up, don’t you think?”
“Allie told you about one of my parents?” asked Crystal curiously. “But did she tell you anything about my mother while she was at it? You know that she’s never really talked about my parents before.”
“That is true,” Betty had to agree. “I have no idea who either of your parents are. I can’t get past Allie’s scent on you to get a scent of your mother, and of course I’ve never met your father that I know of, so I wouldn’t be able to identify him either. Although, since he’s a lion I may very well have encountered him before.”
“You know, I bet that’s why she waited so long before she finally decided to let me become a warrior for the Clan,” said Crystal speculatively. “She has always known I had intuition and other heightened senses, but she’s been keeping me glued to her hip my whole life. I was amazed she finally let me touch the Raven at all.”
“So was I, to tell you the truth,” Betty agreed. “But after the raid two years ago, when the artifact was taken for a time, we need every warrior we can get—especially one with as much potential as you. I’m very glad she finally came around.”
It was about that time that Betty realized that they were not alone. Turning around, she saw Ted standing in the doorway with a tense look on his face. The smile fell from her own as she went to him, wrapping him into her arms.
“Ted? What’s the matter?” she wanted to know.
Unbreak My Heart: BWWM Romance (Brother From Money Book 20) Page 19
