by Fox, Piper
Wait, wait, wait.
“If you mated me, can I still have sex with other guys?” she asked.
Mallory’s eyes flew wide open as a very pissed off Ryan charged for her.
“You cannot,” he snarled as he grabbed her by the waist. She backpedaled until her ass hit something. The counter. No, maybe a table?
She forgot to care as his mouth claimed hers. Everything that had gone through her head disappeared as she drowned in desire and need.
His hands were everywhere at once. She gasped as his fingers stroked her between her legs, only dampening her underwear more. Her legs shook as his other hand pressed against her ass, holding her to him until she cried out in pleasure.
“You will not need another man with me as your mate,” he said on a growl.
She couldn’t catch her breath as stars danced in front of her eyes, her chest heaving in air. Turning her away, he bent her over a small wood table as he gripped her pants and pushed them down. His hand cupped her sex between her legs as he leaned forward, his cock pressed against her and his lips brushing her ear.
“This is mine,” he snarled.
She gasped at the onslaught of more sensations to her already aching core. Two fingers plunged between her folds to stroke her.
His words were a breath on her ear, “This is mine.”
His fingers retreated, leaving her cold and begging for more. His hands moved up under her sweater, pinching her already taut nipples.
“You are mine.”
She shivered as the head of his cock settled against her core as he spread her legs wide.
She cried out as he pushed his cock forward, stretching her once more, her body all too ready to accept him.
“Do you hear me, mate? Mallory, you are mine.”
The sting of his rough pace stole her breath and then her body embraced it, wanting more. Everything in her wound tighter, tighter, tighter. She forgot how to think, to breathe, to do anything except feel him within her.
“Yours. Yes. Yours.”
He thrust into her again and again and he pushed her over the edge; her legs wanting to allow her to fall but her mate not allowing her a moment of reprieve. She came for him again, her body pulsing around him until finally, when Mallory was certain she couldn’t come for him anymore, his own length pulsed within her, spilling himself inside her.
As he pulled her up, her back against him, he held her as his own orgasm still racked his body and his muscle still throbbed between her legs.
Slowly, she remembered how to make her lungs work and that was when she felt her own wits coming back to her. She realized what she’d said.
She said she was his. She’d agreed. She wanted to cry at the idea that she had lost control of herself. Why? That had never happened. What had she done? And then, slowly, she felt it inside her. The heat within her, something different and not unwelcome. A pulse that wasn’t hers, but it matched. It matched the man behind her, the one at her back.
The one who still filled her.
She didn’t know what the hell this meant, though.
She slid her hand down between her legs.
“Did I not satisfy you, mate? Far be it from me to deny you more.”
His own hand covered hers as he slid her own finger down to her own clit and rubbed.
No, that hadn’t been what - her thoughts broke off as he hardened inside her and her own finger was stirring the need within her all over again.
“No. That wasn’t it. I, I.” Oh hell, what was she saying?
He pulled out of her and she nearly cried out in frustration, need, want. He’d created a monster.
An insatiable need.
“Shh, mate. I will not leave you. But I think I like you better like this.”
He picked her up and set her on the bed. He pulled her boots and jeans off completely and let his hands run up her calves to rest at her knees.
Pushing her legs apart, he smirked.
“Already so needy. I think we can have fun with this, Mate. As long as you promise me one thing.”
She blinked. What? Promise?
“Promise? What?”
She couldn’t take her eyes off of his shaft, teasing her.
“You never question that you are mine and I am yours. I will make it up to you. My mistake of mating you before you understood, but know that my soul is yours and that you will never want another.”
She nodded. The truth of his words filtered through her. Mallory would have a million questions for him, but not right now. The rightness of it all soothed her. It filled her soul.
“I promise, I am yours.”
As if he could feel her, knowing her deepest desires, he leaned down and kissed her, positioning himself between her legs.
“Now, Mate. Let me show you what being mine truly means.”
He swallowed her moan with his own lips as he slid into her and her world dissolved into nothing but pleasure and feeling.
Chapter 8
Ryan woke up to the beautiful scent of his mate. Maybe she hadn’t exactly bought the whole mate thing yet, but he’d fucked her until she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Perfect.
Now he had to figure out how to deal with the fact she’d been sent here to try to get his company. He leaned over her and peeked out the window.
Yeah, maybe he’d just spend the next day or two pleasuring her before broaching the topic he was sure would cause some problems. They were snowed in though, mostly. She didn’t need to know his bear had no problems figuring out how to get down the mountain. He’d rather hibernate with his cock buried in his mate.
Yeah. He liked his plan. Sliding his hand down the curve of her stomach, he found his favorite spot between her legs. He was gentle though, knowing she’d be sensitive from the night before. Still, she responded to his touch just as he would respond to hers.
She let out a little whimper and moan that he quickly cut off with a kiss.
Slowly, he removed his fingers and released her lips.
“Good morning, Mate,” he said.
Her words came out breathy and broken. “Good. Morning. You. Have. Oh, God.”
He smirked. “What? I have what? Having a hard time thinking, mate?”
Her body shivered.
“So responsive,” he mused.
Ryan allowed Mallory to calm her panting, even if he wanted to take this further. They probably should talk about the elephant in the room. The complication.
“So, I was curious. How does this complicate things?” he asked.
She rolled over. “What? Complicate things? I mean, I guess we need to talk about where we will live and I, well. Maybe it would be nice to know anything about you. Besides your first name.”
He smirked. “That’s not what I’m talking about. And you know damn well where I live, I assumed you lived around the same area. Why wouldn’t you? Or did you fly in from another state?”
Her brow furrowed.
“What? Why would I know where you live? I mean, I do now. Which, this cabin, it’s a bit small. Do you live here all year?”
He studied her face.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Was she playing for fun or did she think he was dumb? “You work for the company trying to buy my shop, right?”
She shook her head no.
“No. I don’t buy anything. I’m in property law, but I’m behind a desk. I wouldn’t be trying to buy anything. What use would I have for a shop? Well, wait. What kind of shop? You don’t look like a baker.”
Ryan’s brown knit together. “No, I’m not a baker. Who are you exactly?”
She pushed herself up, her breasts teasing him as the blanket fell away.
“I’m Mallory Johnson. My gran told me to meet her up at her cabin-” she broke off. “Oh my God, she probably thinks I’m dead.”
He studied her. “Your gran? There are no other cabins for miles. I own this land, or rather my clan does. This is my cabin. Who is your gran?”
She hesitated
. “Ruth, she owns the-“
This time he cut her off. “Your gran is Ruth? The self-proclaimed matchmaker in town? She sent you up here on a fool’s errand and you bought it. She doesn’t have a cabin, or rather, she doesn’t have one anywhere near here. This town is small, and she knew I was back for a week or two. When did she tell you to come up here?”
Mallory gripped the blanket, pulling it up. He reached a hand out to her to stop the movement. He didn’t want her covering up herself.
“Well, I told Gran I needed a break from the city. I told her I hated men, hated my job, hated my life, and she offered for me to come visit her up at her cabin. The directions are in my coat pocket. I swear she sent me here to this cabin. Why would she have done this to me?”
A laugh bubbled up before he could stop it. “That meddling old witch.”
Mallory glared. “She isn’t a witch.”
The bed shifted as he adjusted and reached for a strand of hair hanging in her face.
“Who knows what she is, but one thing is certain: she has created more matches for the shifters in these mountains than any other person. Fate herself doesn’t have such an astonishing record.”
A myriad of emotion played across his mate’s beautiful face.
“Wait. So Gran lied? She sent me out here for you?”
He nodded. “It appears so. And if not, then I should thank her for giving you the worst directions ever.”
He leaned over and kissed her neck.
“How could she do that to me? She had to know I could get stranded. What if I had driven off the road and died?”
Ryan didn’t stop though. He simply tried to kiss away the concern. Her scent swirled with a mix of emotions. He only wanted one scent though, and the more he kissed her, the stronger that one got.
“But you didn’t and here we are and even better you aren’t some vulture trying to take my shop. You are a lawyer, though. Perhaps fate gave me two gifts in one.”
Ryan kissed a trail down her neck to her collarbone down further. Slowly, he moved his hand to cup her breast.
She sighed as she arched into him.
“What? Two? Being your mate isn’t enough?”
His tongue flicked against her nipple.
“Oh, it’s enough. But perhaps you will be helping me when we get back to Anchorage,” he said, moving his tongue lower.
“Wait. I don’t want to go back,” she protested.
Sliding his hand lower, he stroked between her legs.
“Why? That’s where my life is. Yours too, from what I can tell.”
She heaved in a breath. “I hate my life there. I didn’t get the promotion—” she cut off on a moan.
“Tell you what. We can talk about the future later. Right now I want to hear my mate screaming my name. The snow outside won’t let us go anywhere for a while anyway.”
He claimed her lips and cut off any more protests.
He’d thank her gran later for sending Mallory, even if he hated her meddling ways.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “But when the snow melts we talk.”
He laughed. “That could be a very long time indeed.”
Chapter 9
“How did I get so lucky?” Ryan asked in between kisses.
His hands slid up her thighs pushing up her skirt as he settled her on the desk in his office.
“I don’t know. It’s not like you deserve it.”
Mallory loved her mate’s insatiable appetite. Even if it was supposed to be a lunch date, this meal was much better.
“Wait, Ryan. You get that I only got them to go away for now. They are buying up all the competition and this will only distract them for a year or two.”
His fingers pushed aside her panties and suddenly she couldn’t remember what the hell else she was going to say.
He lifted his head for a second. “Shut up and just kiss me, mate. We will worry about the future tomorrow.”
A moan escaped her lips as his cock pressed against her slit, the pressure already building as she anticipated him.
“Fine. Tomorrow.”
Maybe for once she didn’t care about what the future held as long as he was in it. So far, she’d quit her job and already had two other interviews. She’d fixed Ryan’s problems with the vicious corporate buyers, and that was good enough.
Her arms wrapped around his neck as he pushed into her.
Yeah, tomorrow was just fine.
The End
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Did you enjoy this? Check out Piper’s Bears of Crooked Creek series!
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About the Author
Piper Fox writes short steamy paranormal romances for sassy, strong-willed women who love sexy alpha men, fated mates, and insta-love. When she's not writing... oh, who is she kidding, she's always writing or reading in her favorite genres - paranormal and sci-fi romance.
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Check out these Piper Fox series
The Ironhaven Wolf Pack Series
The Dragon Space Order Bride Series
Bears of Crooked Creek
Seven Brides For Seven Demons
The Last Warriors of Dilaria
The Immortal Hunger
Sorcery and Silver
Margo Bond Collins
Sorcery and Silver
“Someday,” I said to Wolf as I wiped engine grease off my hands and onto the legs of my dirtiest pair of jeans, “I am going to spend New Year’s Eve at a party. I will have my hair and nails professionally done.” I glanced down at the accumulated dirt and grease under said nails. “I will wear a beautiful, sequined dress, and I will have an absolutely wonderful time.” I glanced around at the empty desert stretching away into the distance. “Instead of spending the beginning of every year in the middle of nowhere, killing monsters.”
Wolf gave me that lupine grin of his and shook his head.
“Yeah. You can laugh at me all you want, but I’ve seen you in your human form. Naked.”
He made a sound that was remarkably like human snickering.
“Okay.” I stepped back from the engine. “I think I’ve got the damned thing running again. Let’s see how far we get this time.” The sun had been dropping toward the horizon for hours now—the sun setting seemed to take an especially long time out here in the middle of nowhere. It finally dipped below the horizon entirely, casting dark shadows everywhere. I slammed the van’s hood down over the engine, praying that I wasn’t doing so prematurely and that we would be able to get off this particular stretch of highway.
Hell if I knew where we were going after that, though.
But, as usual, the Calling had come as an almost irresistible compulsion to move in a certain direction. I knew at the end of it, there would be monsters. Creatures I needed to kill in order to help keep the rest of humanity safe—and safely ignorant of the monsters in their midst.
My compulsion was definitely a curse—but at least it was a curse that allowed me to do some good in the world. It came with some limitations, primarily geographic ones. I couldn’t leave the southwestern United States. There was a little wiggle room around that. I had actually gotten to the Canadian border in Montana a couple of times, so I suspected the family legend was a little off—it might be more that I could only travel through whatever had been considered the Wild West at one point. The Pacific Northwest wasn’t available to me. I’d aimed for Seattle once, but I hadn’t been able to make it there before I’d had to turn back, vomiting and reeling until I hit the Southwest again.
Even worse than the geographical limitations—or at least, more likely to kill me—was the allergy to silver. Given how often I ran up against werewolves (not counting Wolf), that wa
s a real liability.
The family curse had come from an ancestor of mine. Ruby Silver, a demon-hunter back in the 1880s, ran into a demon with a twisted sense of humor. She’d been with two other couples at the time, and everybody there got a curse. They differed only in the metal the others were allergic to. The cursed couples’ descendants called each other “cousin” and trained together—because nothing brings people together like a common curse—and eventually, some of the descendants even married one another. So some of us were actually blood-related. I lost track of all of the convoluted connections.
Anyway, now my cousins and I all dealt with demons and monsters in the Southwest. Well. Actually, it was just one cousin, singular, at the moment. My other demon-hunting cousin, Gracie, had died in the battle that landed me with a werewolf companion a few months ago. A werewolf in wolf form—I had thought “permanently stuck in werewolf form” until Christmas Eve, when he had shifted into human form long enough to pull my stupid ass out of a silver mine, where I had gone to take out a vampire that was just starting to terrorize a small mountain town in Colorado.
From there, we’d gone to see Daddy for Christmas. Nothing about him had really changed—he was still drunk, still mourning Mama’s death more than twenty years later. But he was still the best fighter any Silver heir had ever trained with. So whenever I felt like I needed a training refresher, I always went back to him. And sometimes, like this Christmas, I went simply to visit my father.
Then last week, we ran into… well, a woman I’d never met before, but I could have sworn was one of the cousins. Only one family member at a time takes on the curse, and I was pretty much certain that she was Gracie’s replacement. But unlike the other cousins, I had no idea how she fit into our family tree, such as it was.
