One Last Prowl: BBW Were Mountain Lion Shapeshifter Mail Order Bride Romance (Shifter Grove Brides Book 6)
Page 5
“I should have known you were up to no good, Austin. It’s fine, Slate! Have a good time! Make him call me in the evening before you go to bed! And you behave for Slate and Teresa, Marcus! I mean it,” Dahlia chided in that way that mothers do.
When the truck sped out of the driveway, sending the appropriate amount of gravel flying for a hotheaded airplane pilot, Dahlia put her other hand on her chest and took a deep breath. Squeezing her hand, Austin pulled her closer to him and tucked her into a hug against him. He kissed her forehead and let her stay there for a moment, composing herself. As he’d figured, for her, letting go of Marcus for a day was far harder than for Marcus to go off searching for an adventure. A mother’s heart always worried.
“You’re not used to letting him go out on his own, are you?” he asked gently, laying another kiss on the top of her head.
“No, not at all. I’d never do something like that in New York. And honestly, it’s not like he has any friends there to begin with, or at least friends with families I could trust. But here, it’s all…”
“Different,” he finished for her, smiling.
And it was too. Idaho was nothing like the big cities and Shifter Grove in particular was a town where kids could run around freely, dropping in on the neighbors and generally making a lovable nuisance out of themselves. It was the kind of town Austin had grown up in, and the kind that he hoped his future children could experience.
That thought hit him right in the chest, drilling into the base of his sorrow. His kids… at his age, he thought he would have had cub after cub already. That had always been the plan: settle down with his mate, raise a family, and watch the days drift by in the happy company of a big, raucous group of children and extended family. But that hadn’t happened.
He shook the sorrow off of him like water and tugged Dahlia by the hand to come along with him, the chilly nip of autumn winds gnawing at him while standing on the porch.
“I have another surprise for you,” he said with a devilish grin, closing the front door and locking it behind him.
“I should have guessed,” Dahlia laughed, following him dutifully through his big ranch house and into the kitchen.
There, pots were boiling and the whole place looked like a battleground. But Austin was clearly the general in this war and he was winning. With a victorious flourish, he swept across the scene, an epic tale of disarray and delicious scents to really tempt the taste buds.
“I am cooking dinner! And I am taking it seriously!” he announced.
“It looks like you’re attempting to brutalize the dinner, if you ask me,” Dahlia commented snippily, wearing a teasing smirk.
“Oh is that what you think?” Austin asked, feeling more playful than he had when he was a twenty-year-old, full of trouble and brilliant ideas. “I think you’re going to have to answer for that!” he called, pouncing on Dahlia and tickling her ruthlessly.
“Nooo! Austin, stop!” she wheezed through giggles, squirming in his hands.
Her lush, delicious body put anything that Austin was cooking to shame, and Austin was an excellent cook if he said so himself. Pressing Dahlia up against the wall in his pristine sandy-tiled kitchen, Austin kept her pinned between himself and the cool plane of the wall, his face inches from hers.
“Only if you say you’re sorry,” he taunted, his voice a low, purring growl.
“Never,” she bit back, her teeth grazing her lower lip expectantly.
There was that spark in her eyes that he’d yearned to see, shining so brightly that it could have led a man home through the stormiest seas. As if of their own volition, his hands grabbed for her, groping her maddening curves, and his lips attacked her like she was the nectar he needed to live. He kissed her firmly on the mouth and she responded with a mewling moan, melting into his touch.
Her hands fisted around the fabric of his plaid shirt, tugging at it to get closer to him, already standing on her tippy toes. And he, well, he couldn’t get enough. The thought of throwing her on the kitchen table and fucking her until both of them couldn’t walk anymore was a thought so appealing that it shadowed everything else.
Austin’s teeth were tugging at her lower lip and his hands were steadily making their way up her back under her shirt, now unrestrained by the veneer of good manners he had hidden behind, when a loud hissing noise cut into their blissful moment. It took a second for Austin to realize what it was, but when he did, he peeled himself off of Dahlia with a groan so frustrated that one would think he’d just lost a million dollar bet.
The damn potatoes were boiling over.
“We’re not done with this, missy,” he said sternly, giving her a glowering look that was marked with his tongue slipping over his lips ever so quickly, scooping up the last taste of Dahlia before he turned around.
“I’m going to open the wine,” Dahlia said, equal parts frustration in her own voice.
“I think that’s for the best,” Austin muttered, scooping a hand through his short-cropped brown hair as he quieted the offensive pot of vegetables.
His cock was straining against the front of his jeans and concentrating on cooking was a struggle worthy of a man much stronger than him, in Austin’s opinion. Dahlia’s eyes were fogged over with lust and that spark of life he’d gotten to burn in them shined only brighter, even though her throat was dry and her chest rose and fell heavily in the wake of their passionate make-out session.
Damn did it feel good to ignore his inhibitions and go for what he wanted. It was made all the better that his need was so clearly doubled in Dahlia. He was determined to make this night count. Whatever it took.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Austin
Though Austin had no idea by the end of his cooking session if he’d made the right recipes—considering how damned distracted he was by Dahlia—in about twenty minutes the dining room table was set and waiting for them. A candle was lit in the middle of it, one of those squat, fat ones instead of the fancy long ones, since he was a simple man and favored function in all things. Austin carried in two plates loaded heavy with steaks and mashed potatoes with gravy and vegetable sides.
“Voila!” he said, placing the plate in front of Dahlia and falling into his own seat with a satisfied thud.
“A man of many talents, I see,” Dahlia said, peering at him over the glass of Merlot, her ocean blue eyes so inviting that Austin was more than willing to go and drown in them at the drop of a hat.
“I have my secrets,” he tossed out casually, though the look she gave him made him immediately regret it.
“Do you now? Well, you know mine, show me yours,” Dahlia said, cocking a brow as she cut the first piece of her juicy steak. “Austin! This is amazing!” she cheered, digging in for another bite.
Austin watched with revered interest as the piece of meat disappeared behind her ruby lips, and he wished to be that fork for a moment in time. That train of thought was quickly cut short by his stomach growling at him as if he had just hiked the Appalachian Trail without a snack in sight.
“Glad you like it, Dahlia. I figured we were overdue for some home cooking that didn’t include warming up leftovers from the diner,” he said, chuckling.
At the same time, his mind was roiling about uncontrollably, trying to formulate sentences. His dark past clung to him like a cape he couldn’t take off and he knew from past experience that whenever he tried to explain it or himself, he ran out of words far faster than he liked to.
How do you tell someone that you’re perfectly broken and might never be whole again, especially if that someone’s a woman you desperately want?
The grim thoughts were not given much time to take hold. He got another bite or two in before he found Dahlia peering at him through lowered lashes, expecting him to spill the beans.
“Come on, Austin. You know I don’t like secrets,” she said, beginning to lose her appetite as worry engulfed her now as well.
“Okay,” he started, pouring himself some more wine. “You were curious
“What do you mean?” Dahlia asked carefully, forgetting about the meal altogether.
With a sigh, Austin let it flow out of him like the frayed edges of a bad dream. He kept his eyes on his glass, knowing that if he looked up and saw the sadness in Dahlia’s expressive eyes, he might lose his voice completely.
“We were young, Amelia and I. I think I was twenty-four when I met her, and she was a few years younger. I knew immediately. How could I not! She was the one. But she was human and had no shifter background, so I couldn’t just pounce on her and tell her that she was my woman for life and that was how it was going to be. So I took my sweet time.
“I wined and dined her, I got close with her father, I did all of those things, fully aware that I would at one point need to tell them that I moonlight as a were mountain lion, not so different from the predators that sometimes kill their animals. She was a ranch girl and thought it was so great that I knew my way around cattle and loved country life as much as she did.”
The note of sadness in his voice was so heavy by now that it scraped at Austin’s ears. But he couldn’t clear his throat now. If he tried, he figured he might not say another word at all. His body vibrated slightly with shivers, cold, and hot flashes that went through him at dizzying speeds when he thought back to the one he had lost. To the future that could never be.
“So we’d been seeing each other for a few months and I was madly in love. I was completely lost in her and she loved me right back. You know how it is. It’s supposed to only work one way, that the shifter falls for the mate, but I’ve always thought that there’s some magic there that grabs both of the people involved. I can’t believe so many otherwise rational, gorgeous women would choose to live with us shifters otherwise,” he said, chuckling at his own weak attempt at a joke.
He knew he was stalling and Dahlia did too. She reached her hand over the table and put her palm on his, supporting him with her warmth and presence.
“Tell me, Austin,” she urged, and he complied.
“We were driving to her house after having dinner one night. It was raining. An absolute downpour, couldn’t see a damn thing. It was dark and I had promised her father that I would get her home by ten, so we kept pushing. I had the ring ready and had everything figured out by then, but I had to get her father’s blessing. They were just that kind of family, and I respected that. But the weather got so bad that I had to stop by the roadside and hope for it to clear out. So we had time to talk, the two of us, away from everything.
“Back then, shifters weren’t common knowledge like they are now. We were something to be feared, something unreliable and alien. There was no SassyDate and no dragon rock stars, you know? Anyway. I looked into her green eyes and I decided I would tell her. Right then and there. And so I did. The next thing I knew, she was screaming at me, crying and in hysterics. I knew it would come as a surprise, but the dread I saw in her… I’ve never seen anything like it. I felt like a monster.
“She demanded I take her home and I tried to, starting the car in that damn rain again. I should have stopped and talked to her, but I thought it would be better if I gave her a bit of time to cool off, get her to her family. But the storm was so bad that the roads were horrible and a few minutes later, a driver trying to pass us by—thinking he was impervious to the rain—ended up careening into my truck and sending us rolling over on the roof four times. Amelia flew out of the truck along with the seat. I got a concussion and five broken ribs that were better by the next morning. There wasn’t anything I could do by the time I came to,” he finished, his voice dying into a whisper.
Before he noticed that she had even stood up, Dahlia was at his side, wrapping her hands around his wide shoulders. She pulled his head to her and he rested it on her shoulder, taking a few deep, soothing breaths. Whenever he actively thought about Amelia, his world would crumble a bit. But when it had completely collapsed and taken everything down with it before, this time it was just a tremor, the deep-set pain of a time long past.
Subdued were the sickening, harassing pangs of guilt that had kept him clinging to any vice he could find for ten years. Before, every time he talked about her or spent more than a second thinking about the love he had lost, he would be a mess for days and weeks, if not more. But with Dahlia there, it was like her touch was healing and his lungs filled with air again.
“It was my fault,” he said quietly. “That’s my secret.”
“You couldn’t have changed a thing. Whether you’d told her or not that night, the outcome would have been the same. We can’t fight fate,” Dahlia said softly, resting her forehead against Austin’s.
He took a deep breath, letting her scent fill his lungs. Somewhere deep within him, his big beast stirred, beckoned by her smell and the sensation of skin against skin. No one had managed to call to that mountain lion within him, that great predator who could rip limb from limb if needed. All the women he had been around over the years had perhaps only enticed the man in him, not the shifter, not the whole package. But here was Dahlia, with her soft-spoken ways, her delicate hands, and the way she fretted over every little thing. Even when he told her the most horrible thing he kept in his past, her presence still soothed him like sunshine on a rainy day. It was uncanny. He couldn’t lose it.
“Is that what you tell yourself as well?” Austin asked, pushing himself away from the table a bit so he could scoop Dahlia into his arms and pull her into his lap.
She snaked her hands around his neck, not fighting the intimacy. Warmth spread through Austin and he felt the cold grip of horrific memories slowly loosen around him, letting him struggle free toward the soft light that was Dahlia.
“Well, it’s always easier to preach than it is to live by the word, isn’t it?” she said, chuckling.
A shadow of sadness entered her eyes and Austin cursed himself for bringing it up. He hated seeing her worry for even a second, and the air was thick with his depressive thoughts already. He stroked his thumb over her cheek softly, making her smile a little.
“At least we don’t have to be broken alone, hmm?” he said casually, though the humor died in his voice.
She nodded in that tiny little way she had, barely a motion of her chin, just enough to make her long hair tumble over her shoulders and spill on her breasts. There was plenty left to be said between them, but for now, Austin enjoyed the silence. The tenseness of the words spoken evaporated as he sunk into Dahlia’s blue eyes and the predator within him came to life, seeing what he wanted and deciding to take it. There was plenty of time to be sad, angry, or confused, but right now, Austin demanded a taste of happiness.
And the only slice of joy he truly knew was sitting in his lap at that very moment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dahlia
It started with a kiss, and a moment later her hands were latching onto Austin’s shoulders, her thighs were straddling him, and the delicious dinner was another thing forgotten in the wake of her need to fuck the ever-living shit out of him.
And she wasn’t a crude woman usually. But she really needed that man right then and there and there was nothing she was willing to do to change that.
“Austin,” she whispered feverishly, her nails digging into his flesh so hard she thought she’d rip through the shirt.
“Yes,” he murmured teasingly, his Herculean body rising up from the dining room chair and locking her legs around his waist like he’d never taken a step without her clinging to him.
“I need you to fuck me now,” she said, gasping at her own forwardness.
Oh my God, what am I saying…
But that bashful thought was brushed away as Austin growled his approval and grabbed her ass with both hands, squeezing her buttocks. Moaning into his mouth, her tongue desperately entangled with Austin’s, Dahlia didn’t even care where he was taking her. For years and years, she had felt guilty for feeling any kind of desire. She’d admonished herself for appreciating the physique of a famous actor and avoided reading the steamy bits in romance novels because it felt like she was cheating on Arthur by doing it.
Yet, only when met with the possibility of finding true happiness again did she realize the one thing that seemed to have escaped her for five years. Arthur would have never wanted to see her unhappy, to keep herself locked away like a nun because life had decided to cut their love on earth short.
Caring for someone else would not lessen her love for him, nor change it. She had a heart big enough for not just one maddening love story in her years and she would be damned if she’d let this one slip out of her fingers.
Yes, there were other issues, issues she didn’t quite want to deal with yet. There was Marcus to consider, and he would always come first. And there was the fact that she didn’t live anywhere near Austin. Add Austin’s muddled past and a whole plethora of other problems, not the least of which was that even though rationally she knew it was all right, emotionally she still felt pangs of shame. There was plenty left to sort out.
Tomorrow, she thought feverishly, kissing Austin again and again. Just tonight, don’t think about it.
He carried her to his bedroom and when she was thrown on her back on the soft sheets, she grinned wide. Austin stood before her, calm, collected, and so, so scrumptious that Dahlia really had to consider the option that perhaps this was her heaven. She scurried up on her knees and scooted to the edge of the bed, pulling Austin’s shirt out of his pants and pushing it up until he pulled it off his hard, toned body.
Staring in amazement did not do him justice. She wanted to say something, anything, to tell him how good she thought he looked, but no words came over her lips. And how could they when she was already salivating with the need to taste and explore every dark ridge and dimple.
-->