He trailed kisses over the soft swell of her belly, then took her breasts in his large, warm palms. He bent his dark head and suckled on her nipple, circling it with the tip of his tongue, sending quicksilver threads of lust straight back down to her clit. She moaned and threaded her fingers into his hair, holding him against her breast and parting her thighs to allow him to settle more snugly between
He lifted his head and gazed directly into her eyes, his gaze smoldering in its intensity as he positioned the head of his cock at her still-twitching entrance. Her flesh was plump and swollen from his ministrations, but she was slick and ready for him as he slid inside her. She groaned with satisfaction at the feeling of being filled by him. His answering moan thrilled through her.
He began to move, slowly at first but then flexing his hips harder and faster as they moved towards shared bliss. Daisy urged him on with little moans and he replied with hoarse, half-incoherent murmurs of love and desire. The world narrowed until it was nothing more than the feeling of holding Ryker in her arms as he moved inside her, his hot breath on her face, and the pounding of their hearts, so in sync she couldn’t tell one from the other.
Ryker’s gaze never wavered from hers, even as his breath became harsh and choppy and his features contorted into an expression of orgasmic pleasure-pain. His shouts of release hurled her into her own climax, and they clung together, shuddering, as the breathtaking bliss rolled on and on.
Afterwards, as she fell asleep in his arms, she thought smugly, He forgot to ask me about the secret.
Chapter Sixteen
Friday
“Crud, I forgot to tell Jasmine,” Daisy muttered as she hurried up the school’s front steps. She needed to tell Jasmine about how popular her jacket design had been on social media. Ryker had told her that it was still trending, whatever that meant. Jasmine would probably know, and it would make her feel good.
Ryker had also told Daisy lots of other things that morning as he drove her to school. Things like how he missed her when she wasn’t there. How sweet she smelled. How much his mother loved her.
But he hadn’t gone that extra step…he hadn’t asked her to stay after the investors’ meeting. Was there a reason for that? Was Daisy different, or did he sweet-talk all his girlfriends like that?
Mrs. Finster was standing in the hallway, tacking up a bulletin advertising an upcoming PTA night. “Hey, have you seen Jasmine? I need to talk to her,” she said.
Mrs. Finster turned to her with a glum expression. “So you heard, eh?” she said, shaking her head unhappily. “I don’t know what she’ll do now.”
“What? No, I didn’t hear. What happened?”
“She got in a fight with some kid this morning, and she was expelled.”
“No way!” Daisy cried in dismay. “For just one fight?”
Mrs. Finster raised an eyebrow. “No, this was the final straw. You know how she is, Daisy. She gets in fights all the time. Defaces school property. Threatens other kids.”
“But…a big part of that tough act is just survival around here,” Daisy protested. “Kids who are perceived as weak get beaten up and picked on. I’ve only ever heard of her threatening bullies, and she sticks up for weaker kids. And she’s got so much talent, and she really does care about other people and…” She glanced out the window, through the bars, and saw Jasmine walking angrily away.
She hurried out the front door, ran down the steps, and caught up to Jasmine.
“Wait up,” she said. “What happened today?”
Jasmine glowered at the ground and kept walking. “Billy tripped me in the hallway, and I wasn’t in the mood, so I clocked him.”
“Why weren’t you in the mood?”
Jasmine’s reply was an angry shrug.
“Hey, Ryker’s company is getting tons of compliments on your jacket design,” Daisy said, jogging to keep up with Jasmine. “You should be in art school. There’s a private art school in North Cedar Park. Maybe Ryker’s company could write you a recommendation and—”
“Art school costs money,” Jasmine snapped. “We don’t have money. We’re not even going to have a home soon. My grandmother got fired from her job at the nursing agency yesterday. For falling asleep on the job. After they made her work for twenty-four hours straight. And you’re going to be late for class,” she added, glancing back at the school.
Daisy groaned. She didn’t want to leave things like that with Jasmine, but she was about to miss the first bell. “Email me at Ryker’s company,” she said quickly. “We’ll figure out something.” And she turned and raced back into school as the first bell rang.
* * * * *
“So what are you going to do after the investor’s meeting?” Walter asked Ryker. “How are you going to ask Daisy to leave?”
Walter, who was sitting in his living room, heard a sharp, angry intake of breath on the other end of the line.
“Who says I’m going to ask her to leave?” Ryker demanded.
“You mean you want her to stay? But the whole relationship is just a fraud to fool the investors,” Walt reminded him. “You don’t actually like her. You said she’s a spoiled princess and a snob.”
“And then I found out she wasn’t. She’s not spoiled – she’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met. She gave up her inheritance and left everything behind rather than be forced into an unhappy marriage. She works at a school in the worst neighborhood in the city, with kids who are dirt poor, and they love her.”
“But you two have nothing in common.”
“We have plenty in common,” Ryker said indignantly.
“Like what? She doesn’t like sports.”
“She likes horses, and cooking, and skinny-dipping in the lake. And the most important thing that we have in common is –each other. I’ve never felt more relaxed with any other woman than I do with her,” Ryker said. “I can just sit there and be myself, and that’s enough for her.”
“She’s not your usual type,” Walt mused.
“I never had a usual type before,” Ryker said. “I just never bothered dodging any of the groupies who threw themselves at me.”
“And who knows how she’d fit in with your family, coming from such a different background,” Walt continued, as if he hadn’t even heard a word Ryker had said.
“My mother loved her before she even met her.” Ryker’s voice held a hint of snarl. “Why are you so down on her all of a sudden? Have the investors said something?”
“What if they had?” Walter dodged the question.
“I’d tell them to kiss my furry tail. I’m sick of letting them run our lives,” Ryker growled.
“They’re on the fence about her at this point,” Walt said.
“Well, I’m not. I know Daisy hasn’t been here for long, but already I can’t imagine my life without her. In fact, I’m going to tell her that tonight. And if the investors don’t like it, we’ll find new investors, or we’ll pull together as a pack and find a solution. Thanks, Walt. You didn’t mean to, but you’ve helped me see that Daisy is meant to be my mate.”
Actually, that was exactly what Walt had meant to do – not that he’d had any choice in the matter. What the Harrison women wanted, the Harrison women got.
Walt heard a click, then a dial tone.
He turned to Harriet, Marge and Carlotta, who were whooping with joy and dancing around. He looked at the expansive livingroom with furnishings imported from Italy and cut-crystal vases of fresh flowers. He was living beyond his means. One wrong move with the investors…
“Okay, it worked. I hope you women are happy,” he grumbled. “Daisy’s a risk as far as the investors are concerned. She’s got a great pedigree and she’s currently popular with the public, but then she’s rebelled against her family, and she speaks her mind a lot more than they’d like.”
“La la la, I can’t hear you, I’ve got to get ready for tonight, need to make sure he doesn’t blow it when he asks her to be his mate,” Harriet said, hurrying to the door with Marge
following.
After they left, Walt glanced anxiously at his wife. She looked up at him with shining blue eyes, and her silky blond hair rippled like a golden waterfall. “You do understand what it will mean if we don’t get this investment? We won’t be wealthy anymore. We’ll be…” He gulped. “Poor.”
Carlotta reached out and seized his hand. “Walt, I love my lifestyle, but if I didn’t have that, you know what I’d have that’s even more important?”
Please don’t say a good divorce lawyer, please don’t say a good divorce lawyer…
“I’d have you. And your crazy family. That’s worth more than all the diamond bracelets in the world,” she said, and Walt found himself blinking away tears.
He threw his arms around her and pulled her up against him for a passionate kiss.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she added, “I do love my diamonds. But I could be happy without them, and I could never be happy without you. Oh, dear, do you have something in your eye?”
“Damn allergies,” Walt muttered, blinking frantically, and he hurried off to get a tissue.
Chapter Seventeen
“First of all, I have a confession to make,” Ryker said as he spread a blanket out by the swimming hole.
“You brought me all the way out here to make a confession? You couldn’t confess in your living room?” Daisy looked at him quizzically as she sat down next to him.
“No, I didn’t bring you out here just for that reason. But I wanted to get this out of the way first. Oh, don’t worry, it’s not a terrible confession.”
He cleared his throat. He seemed unusually nervous.
“Now I am worried.” Daisy stared at him. “What is it? You like to wear ladies’ clothing? You’re involved with another girl? You’re wanted by the law?”
“Good God, woman. Settle down. Hell no to all of those.”
“Well what, then?” she demanded impatiently.
“I’ve been watching your rom-coms,” Ryker blurted out. “It started out with me thinking I’d hate them, but I wanted to at least give them a try so we’d have something we could do together, and you kept telling me that I didn’t have to, but damn it, I started watching Love Actually and I needed to find out what happened.”
Daisy reared back. “Good Lord. This changes everything.”
“It does?” Ryker said with alarm.
“Yes, now I have someone to watch my favorite movies with. Cadence and Larissa hated those movies,” Daisy said with a sigh. Then she brightened. “Okay, confession time is over. Now what? Swimming? Food? Hot sex?”
Ryker cleared his throat again, then looked Daisy in the eye. He was worried about something. She’d never seen him look like this before, and she felt a twist of worry in her gut. What could be wrong?
“I don’t want you to leave,” he blurted, and seized her hand in his. “Ever.”
“Ohhh,” Daisy breathed, and relief washed over her. “I don’t want to leave either.”
The words rushed from Ryker’s mouth, tumbling over one another. “I know in the beginning, this was all for show. But there’s always been more than that…at least for me. I just didn’t admit it to myself at first, mostly because I thought a girl like you would never want a guy like me, so I didn’t let myself hope for more. But the truth is, the minute I laid eyes on you at that restaurant, I felt something that I’d never felt before.”
“Me too,” Daisy said. “When you think about it, if we could survive a first date like that, we must be meant for each other.”
“My parents always told me that when you meet the right one, you’ll know right away. And as soon as I saw you, I wanted to be with you. And the more time that I’ve spent with you, the more sure I was. It’s not just because you’re beautiful, and sexy, and sweet, and funny, and my family loves you. It’s just…you’re the one. You’re my girl. I want to fall asleep next to you every night for the rest of my life. I want to wake up to you every morning.”
Daisy felt her throat swelling as she struggled not to cry tears of happiness. After a lifetime of feeling like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit, she finally felt like she belonged. She was loved. She was needed. And she loved Ryker, and his pack, so much that it made her ache. She felt more at home walking through the door of Ryker’s little one story country house than she’d ever felt walking through the massive double doors of her pack’s antebellum mansion.
Now he just had to do one more thing, if he wanted her to stay forever.
“So, what you’re saying is…” Daisy prompted.
“Jeez, I’m terrible at this.”
“No, you’re doing great,” she assured him.
“Ok, what I’m trying to say is that I—”
“Hurry up, you moron! While you’re still young enough to have cubs! Ask her to marry you!” a woman’s voice called out from behind a stand of bushes. Harriet.
“What the hell?” Ryker roared, and spun towards the sound.
“Quiet, you fool, you’ll ruin it!” That was Lem.
“Who are you calling a fool, you old coot?” Harriet’s voice was aggrieved.
“You, you fool!” Lem groused at her. “You see anyone else here?”
Ryker let go of Daisy’s hand and leapt to his feet.
“How in the hell did they sneak up on me?” Ryker demanded. “How did I not scent them?”
“Well, there’s stuff they could have sprayed on themselves to mask their scent,” Daisy said, but Ryker didn’t hear her, because he was shifting into wolf form as she spoke.
Within seconds he was an enormous gray wolf, fur standing on end, bristling with rage. He turned and ran towards the bushes. The last thing Daisy saw was Ryker chasing his father’s large, grizzled older wolf and his mother’s smaller wolf. She wasn’t sure what he’d do to them if he caught them, but it was obvious from their wildly churning legs that they did not want to find out. Ryker’s father ran with a limp because of some workplace injury from long ago, but he could apparently run damn fast if he was properly motivated.
When Ryker looked back over his shoulder, he saw Daisy sitting there still in human form, head thrown back, laughing so hard that there were tears pouring down her cheeks.
* * * * *
Ryker walked up the front steps with Daisy as students and teachers streamed into the school on either side of them.
He grabbed her arm and took her to the side of the big double doors, just outside the metal detector.
“So, about dinner tonight at my mom’s house,” he said.
“Yes?”
He cupped her chin in his hand, tilted her head back, and grinned down at her. “Just so you know, I’m going to ask you to marry me. Obviously it’s going to have to be in front of the whole pack, because if I try to do it in private, they’ll just crash my proposal and ruin it.”
She felt a rush of happiness sweep over her, and looked up at him with a huge, goofy smile that threatened to split her face in two.
“Just so you know, I might actually even say yes.”
“I think that would be an excellent decision on your part.” He bent down and kissed her forehead. “Love you,” he said, and she felt her breath catch in her throat. It was the first time he’d ever said those words.
“I love you too,” she said. And she meant it. She loved his kindness and generosity to his family and everyone around him, she loved how he interacted with the cubs at her school, she loved how sexy he was, she loved how he made her laugh, and she loved how he loved her.
“Oh my God, Ryker Harrison?” one of the parents cried out.
Daisy winked at him. “I love you enough to put up with that for the rest of my life,” she added. “If you don’t want to be swarmed by autograph seekers, you’d better make a run for it.”
She walked into the school, feeling as if she were floating on a cloud of happiness.
She’d just settled into her classroom when a call came over the loudspeaker, summoning her to the principal’s office.
Okay, which
one of my students is in trouble now? she thought with annoyance as she walked down the hallway.
To her shock, when she got to the office, she saw two police officers standing there with scowls on their faces.
“Daisy Bennett?” one of them said. “I’m Officer Donovan.”
“Yes, how can I help you?” she asked.
“You were recently photographed with a jacket featuring artwork done by a graffiti artist named JKat,” he said. “How can we contact Jkat?”
“Why?”
He scowled. “Ma’am, just answer the question.”
She felt a sudden surge of protectiveness. “I’m JKat,” she said.
The principal stared at her, his eyes widening in surprise.
“No she isn’t,” Mrs. Finster piped up. “I know who JKat is.”
“Mrs. Finster, leave it,” Daisy said, shaking her head. “I’ll deal with this.”
“You’re under arrest for defacing public property,” the officer said, taking his handcuffs off his belt.
Oops. “What, exactly, did I allegedly deface?”
“The Caring Souls Nursing Agency, and six cars in their parking lot.”
Uh-oh.
So, Jasmine had lashed out by defacing the nursing agency that had fired her grandmother. Crud. She didn’t want to turn Jasmine in and have her sent to juvie… Maybe she could talk to Ryker and come up with some alternative.
“Jkat is one of our former students! She spray-paints our school all the time! Daisy is not Jkat!” Mrs. Finster protested, leaping to her feet.
The officer shrugged. “We’ll sort it out at the station.”
Well, I definitely did not think that one through, she thought ruefully as she was led out of the school in handcuffs.
As he marched her towards his car, she was dismayed to see a photographer there, snapping away.
And the investors’ meeting was in two days. Would this ruin Ryker’s chances of getting the loan? How badly had she messed things up for his pack?
The Mating Game: Big Bad Wolf Page 11
