Viking's Gift

by Anne Marsh

  And… maybe it is. Or not over entirely, but more like when you turn the page in a book and start a new chapter. I can’t forget what came before and what comes next depends on it. Holding Dee in my arms, however, I want… to try.

  I want these feelings.

  I want her. To hold, to stroke, to comfort, to fuck, and probably sometimes to yell at when she puts herself in danger and threatens my abilities to keep her safe. I want her all, the good and the bad, the sweet and the sass.

  “Dee,” I say, pulling her closer until her face is pressed against my bare chest. If we have to talk, naked is definitely the best way to do it. “Dee.”

  “That’s my name,” she says and then she waits. I have so much to tell her and yet I have no idea how to start.

  I want to tell her everything and nothing. I want to see her smile light up her face when I come through that door and I want to know that she’s waiting for me. I want to be the one who comes home to her.

  I want to hold her and fuck her until she’s screaming my name and there is no more room between us for these memories of mine.

  I roll her beneath me. I’ll fucking summarize.

  “I love you.”

  She narrows her eyes. “You do?”

  “Yes.” Perhaps I should borrow a page from her book and plan this shit—because her answer is not what I was expecting. I lean up on my elbows and narrow my eyes. “That’s all you have to say to me?”

  She shoves her hand at my shoulder. As if I’d get off her now when we’re talking. “A moment ago you were all sad about your dead wife. Now you want to profess your love for me?”

  “Is that a problem?” I brush my mouth over hers.

  “Maybe?” She sounds breathless, so I kiss her again, slower and deeper. Kissing’s better than words anyhow.

  “I’ll fix it,” I promise rashly. “Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”

  She whimpers. “You don’t fight fair.”

  I fight to win.

  “Kari is gone,” I tell her. “Don’t tell me I have to lose both of you because then I would have nothing left to come back for. Help me figure out how to make a home with you.”

  Dee’s eyes tear up, wet tracks streaking down her face. Shit. This is not what I wanted, to make her cry.

  “You matter,” I say fiercely. “We matter. Anything else has to be something we can work out. I’m going to have to leave sometimes because that’s what my job calls for, but I want to be able to come back to you.”

  I grab her notebook and scrawl my name across the first blank page I find. “See? I’m right here. You won’t forget me. You’ll hold me to my promise to come home.”

  Dee flings her arms around my neck. “Yes.”

  One word. So many wonderful fucking opportunities.

  “Tell me again,” she demands.

  “That I’ll always come home to you?” I nip her bottom lip. “Or that I love you? Or is there something else I’ve forgotten to say?”

  “All of it,” she says fiercely, wrapping her legs around my hips. We’re not going to be talking for long, not unless we can use our lips, tongues, and teeth. “I love you.”

  “And I love you.”

  She’s my second chance, my best chance, and I pull her close and show her just how much she means to me.

  The End

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  Have you met my other werewolves?

  “You don’t have to do anything. I’m gonna take care of everything.” I mean it, too. While sinking my dick inside her tops my current wish list, I also intend to make this good for her. She’s had a shit deal in life, and I absolutely want to kiss her better. The way I see it, all she has to do is enjoy. I’ll do all the rest. I’m practically a Boy Scout and she can pin the medal to my goddamned chest later. First, I have my mate to kiss.” ~ Jace Jones

  To keep the peace between two rival wolf packs, Cajun werewolf Jace Jones agrees to become the alpha of The Breed pack and motorcycle club. There’s just one catch: he needs to mate the former alpha’s daughter and he’s damned certain she hasn’t chosen him. His new mate is sweet and sexy as sin, but she’s also been brutalized by the pack and the last thing she needs is one more wolf in her life. But before he can take his place as leader of the Breed, he’ll have to teach his woman her place… in the club, in his arms, and in his heart.

  Werewolf bikers? Pass. Keelie Sue Berard has spent a lifetime trapped in the motorcycle club’s misogynistic world, first as the alpha’s daughter and then as a mate. She’s kept her mouth shut and her head down trying to survive, so she’ll do whatever it takes to walk away free to live her own life. But Jace terrifies her. He protects her. He owns her. And now he wants her…

  * Excerpt from Wolf’s Heart *

  Cute as a button and sex on a stick shouldn’t go together. Kind of like peanut butter and jelly with chocolate—either on its own is fucking great, but sticking them together is all kinds of wrong. The little werewolf parked on the other side of the desk somehow manages to be both cute and sexy at the same time. She makes me want to lick her. Makes me want to wrap her tight in my arms, hold her close, and get inside her every way I can.

  Keelie Sue Berard doesn’t want my feelings.

  I’ve seen her at the Breed’s clubhouse—seven times—and can’t name one single time when she hasn’t been trying to fade into the background. Keelie Sue doesn’t like drawing attention to herself, but I can’t look away from her.

  The cute part is the way she’s piled her hair on top of her head in some kind of messy twist anchored with a number two pencil. Wayward strands escape their captivity to brush around her cheeks, and I fight the urge to pet the soft skin beneath the curls. Lunging over the desk isn’t nice, and I’m trying to turn over a new leaf where Keelie Sue is concerned.

  Sort of.

  Sex on a stick is where her blouse comes in. She must be going for office professional or some shit, because the blouse is a plain, utilitarian white. Kind of isn’t the best color for her because it makes her look pale, but it’s made out of some sort of silky fabric that clings to her boobs. Better yet, the front dips into a modest vee with a big-ass bow that plants right over the soft, sweet place between her breasts. Not that I can see more than the three inches of throat she’s exposed, but I have a filthy imagination and I’ve spent way too much time mentally stripping Keelie Sue naked. Clearly, she has no idea that she’s starring in my fantasies, because she proses on (and on) about receipts and P&Ls, waving a second pencil at the endless columns of numbers marching across her computer screen.

  Fucking numbers.

  Thirty-two years old and I can take apart a wolf with my bare hands, make him wish he’s dead twice over and force him to acknowledge my domination. Instead, I’m sitting on an office chair, getting a lesson in first grade arithmetic. My inadequacies when it comes to adding and subtracting are one of several reasons why my challenging for Alpha seems like one of the worst fucking ideas I’ve had all year.

  I already have a pack, and I’m number two wolf there. My brother is Alpha, and he rocks the leadership position. He sent me to infiltrate the Breed and get close to the top wolves. As far as I know, the Breed are the only wolf pack that is also a motorcycle club—and they get up to twice as much shit because of it. Still, accepting a permanent place in the Breed pack feels like cheating on Cruz. Wolves move on, form their own packs or take their own territory, but Cruz and I are family and family matters.

  “Any questions?” Keelie Sue’s gaze darts away from the numbers on her screen, meets my own eyes briefly, then drops submissively. Apparently our lesson on the economics of running a ten-bay garage is over. Thank God.

  “Got a couple,” I drawl.

  I drop my own gaze fro
m Keelie Sue’s pretty eyelashes (since she never lets me look at her for long, that’s my usual view) to her throat. The pulse there beats fast and hard. I make her nervous.

  Kind of want to change that.

  If I become her Alpha, I’ll be in charge of protecting her. Of making sure she has everything she needs and that she stays safe. Part of me—the part straining against my zipper—has definite ideas about how to accomplish that.

  “Okay,” she says, sounding more than a little scared.

  Honestly, I’m not sure what has her panties in a twist. She’s good at her job. I, on the other hand, am the moron who can’t add—or remember to complete his paperwork. Who knew that running a werewolf pack came with forms? Fucking sucks, to be honest. I’m better suited to playing number two and bad cop.

  Since she’s already made her feelings for me clear—I’m the big bad wolf come to eat her up—I’m not feeling the incentive to behave. I shove out of my chair, stroll around her desk, and stop when my thighs bump against the back of her chair. She squeaks, and my dick gets harder. Not nice, but true. She’s cute when she’s flustered. She also turns this intriguing shade of pink that makes me wonder how far her blush extends… and that brings me back to my mental happy place of unbuttoning her blouse, stretching her out on her desk, and replacing all this boring-as-fuck paperwork with a little worshipping of Keelie Sue’s sweet body and a whole lot of hot, nasty sex.

  I set my hands on the back of her chair and let my fingers brush her shoulders. I can feel the heat of her through the thin fabric, and she smells good. Like flowers and sunlight, or something poetic like that. All I know is that I want to lick her from head to foot. Or from bottom to top—I’m flexible.

  She sucks in a breath. Lets it out. See? That’s cute right there, the way she tries to get control of herself. “Mr. Jones?”

  I lean in closer, my mouth brushing her ear. Little pink pearls dangle from the lobe, and I tug gently. With my teeth. Isn’t as if I can stop being a wolf, even for her. “When you call a guy Mister, you put ideas in his head.”

  “Really?” Her voice comes out a little shaky, but I don’t think she minds my present position too much. Her body kind of melts into mine just a little, the straight line of her spine relaxing.

  “Uh-huh,” I growl and lick where I bit. “You got fantasies, Keelie Sue? Because I’ve got a few.” I decide her little squeak means tell me more, big guy and since I feel downright helpful, I adjust my erection and tell her exactly what I’m thinking. “You call me mister and I start imagining I’m the boss in this office and you’ve been a bad, bad girl. Since you need to learn a lesson and I’m a giver, I’m gonna ease up that pretty skirt of yours and pull down your panties. Maybe I just look at you a bit, until you’re wiggling and wanting more, and then I spank your butt pink.”

  Her face turns crimson, her hands clenching against the fabric of her skirt, working the neat lines into something less pristine. I’ve wrinkled her, and I love it.

  “You think it’s gonna hurt?” I brush my mouth against her ear, drinking in her shaky inhalation. “You’re wrong. It may sting a little, but you’re gonna love it. It’s gonna feel so good you’ll be arching up into my hand, wriggling like a little cat instead of the wolf you are. And then when we’re perfectly clear about who’s in charge in this office, I’ll make you feel even better, and that’s gonna take me kissing everywhere I spanked. So if you don’t want me bringing those fantasies to life, maybe you should think about calling me Jace.”

  She hesitates, like she actually has to think about it, or maybe she’s imagining me putting her over my knee and paddling her butt, because the sweetest scent of arousal teases me. Keelie Sue likes something about me all right, and her like makes me want to get closer. Hell, just let me get my fingers on her creaming pussy and I’ll make her feel right about all this. About me.

  “Jace,” she whispers finally. The way she says my name tells me plenty. She’ll call me whatever I want because I’m dominant and because, yeah, I turn her on. I want to push her, to chase her and drive myself in deep while she comes around me, milking my dick. Since that isn’t happening, I need to get my shit together. The chase is fun, but I’m not into rape.

  “See? That isn’t so hard.” I abandon the back of the chair and curl my fingers around her shoulders.

  I have zero idea why I want to fuck her so badly. Sure, she’s gorgeous and she has nice tits, but there are plenty of females with the same assets just waiting for me to walk into the clubhouse and pick them. It makes me sound like a cocksucking bastard thinking that, but those women and me? We know the sex is a transaction. They let me use their bodies, and I let them leverage my place in the club to get whatever it is they want. Power, revenge, drugs, a little cold hard cash… I understand those rules.

  Keelie Sue, however, isn’t in the rulebook.

  Hell, she isn’t in my league at all, and I’ll be the first to admit it.

  She’s nice, she’s smart, and the only thing I have to offer is dirty sex. If her daddy wasn’t Big Red, she wouldn’t get within a mile of the club. I might see her when I’m out riding and I might admire her rack, her ass, or her pretty face, but I’d keep on riding. I damned certain wouldn’t stroke my fingers over the soft skin of her throat. Not the way I’m doing now.

  “You had a question?” Her fingers flex on her thighs, and she stares down at them.

  Yeah. I have a question all right, but I need to do this right.

  “What’s it take for a wolf to get a date with you?”

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  More by Anne Marsh

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  BLUE MOON BRIDES BOXED SET: BOOKS 1-5

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  The Fallen

  BOND WITH ME

  HIS DARK BOND

  SAVAGE BOND

  Warriors Unleashed

  VIKING’S ORDERS

  AT THE VIKING’S COMMAND

  BOUND BY THE VIKING

  VIKINGS GIFT

  Assignment: Caribbean Nights

  SWEET FOR A SEAL

  HER ONE BEST SEAL

  THE TROUBLE WITH SEALS

  STILL HER SEAL

  Billionaire Racers Mafia Romance

  XANDER

  Smoke Jumpers

  BURNING UP

  SLOW BURN

  When SEALs Come Home

  BURNS SO BAD

  SMOKING HOT

  SWEET BURN

  YOURS FOR CHRISTMAS

  HEATED

  ONE HOT SEAL

  HER FIREFIGHTER SEAL

  HER CHRISTMAS SEAL

  WHEN SEALS COME HOME: BOXED SET 1

  WHEN SEALS COME HOME: BOXED SET 2

  The Hotshots

  FIRED UP

  SEALs of Discovery Island

  WICKED SEXY

  WICKED NIGHTS

  WICKED SECRETS

  BEFORE HE WAS WICKED (Free prequel!)

  SEALs of Fantasy Island

  TEASING HER SEAL

  P
LEASING HER SEAL

  DARING HER SEAL

  About the Author

  After ten years of graduate school and too many degrees, Anne Marsh escaped to become a technical writer. When not planted firmly in front of the laptop translating Engineer into English, Anne enjoys gardening, running (even if it’s just to the 7-11 for slurpees), and reading books curled up with her kids. The best part of writing romance, however, is finally being able to answer the question: “So… what do you do with a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures?” She lives in Northern California with her husband, two kids and four cats.

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  Copyright © 2016 Anne Marsh

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, with the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover design by The Killion Group, Inc.

  Formatting and ebook design by Geek Girl Author Services.

  Contents

  Viking's Gift

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Werewolves and Bikers!

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