From Jennifer Ashley, With Love

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Shit,” she whispered.

  “Tickles?” he asked. “How about this?” Spike zipped his tongue where he’d warmed her with his breath. Myka’s squeak turned to a groan.

  “Stop it,” she said, sounding feeble, even to herself. “You have to stop it.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I thought you came to guard my house.”

  “No one’s getting in here without my say-so, love. I won’t give a rat’s ass if I’m kissing you, drinking you, or buried inside you.”

  “You plan to do all three of those?”

  “Hell yes. Myka I need . . . I need you.”

  Myka’s heart and body cried out for him in return. Her life had been so empty—she’d not let herself acknowledge it. She took care of other people’s horses, looked after her best friend’s kid, helped out her best friend’s mom.

  No one for her, nothing but a lonely house at the end of the day. No parents, no sisters, no brothers. No boyfriend, because the few relationships she’d started had never worked out. She’d never been able to trust a man enough to get close.

  Spike wasn’t a man. He was a Shifter. And he was licking her, moving his mouth to thrust his tongue into her cleft.

  Yes.

  Myka rose on her tiptoes, scooping him into her. His mouth was wild and wicked, tongue flickering into and out of her, whiskers burning her thighs.

  Myka writhed in rhythm with his tongue, her skin flushing and going cold, her head rocking back on her neck. She was going to come right in the middle of her living room, screaming out her joy and waking her neighbors.

  Myka pressed her fist to her mouth, muffling the first noises. Hot craziness started at his tongue and fired through her body, until darkness and light were the same, and nothing existed but his scalding mouth, his fingers on her thighs.

  His teeth scraped her flesh. “Let it go,” he growled. “Let it out.”

  No, I can’t. Hold it in, never show weakness, never betray yourself.

  He growled again, breath hot. “Come for me, Myka. I need you to come.”

  He closed his mouth over her again, tongue working, licking, sexing her. He was beautiful and strong, and his voice, his mouth, lips, teeth, hands, were driving her insane.

  “No. No!” Myka ripped her fist from her mouth as the last No turned into a wail, and her climax reached out and embraced her. Tears leaked from her eyes as she arched to his fabulous mouth.

  “What are you doing to me?” she cried.

  Spike dragged his tongue up to her navel, circled it, kissed it. The gorgeous heat went away, but then he was lifting her, shoving the jeans off where they’d bunched around her feet.

  “I was getting you ready,” he said. Myka felt his rough, blunt, fighter’s fingers between them, his jeans moving out of the way. “I needed you to come because Shifters are big, and I need you wet and open for me.”

  Big? How big?

  Oh.

  That big.

  His cock bumped her, thick and wide. Spike opened her thighs around his hips, lifting her and holding her with perfect strength while he slid up and inside.

  Myka’s eyes went wide. Hell, he couldn’t be that . . .

  Oh, my God . . . it has to stop soon . . .

  Oh, my God.

  The ferocity drained from Spike’s face in one instant. He looked at her with heavy-lidded eyes, the dark brown touched with gold. His lips parted, mouth softening.

  “Myka . . .” The word came out of him on a grating exhale. “You’re tight. Damn, you’re tight.”

  Sounds of ecstasy came out of Myka’s mouth and nothing else. Coherence had gone.

  Spike leaned her back, and she found a cool wall behind her. Then she was aware of nothing but Spike holding her steady, hands protecting her from the hardness of the wall, his heat engulfing her. His body was so tight against hers that his strength became her strength too.

  And his cock . . . Reaching inside her, bigger and harder than anything had a right to be, spreading her, loving her.

  She was going to die. No, she was going to live, and love every second of it.

  Myka wrapped her arms around Spike’s beautiful body and kissed his lips. Spike smiled into the kiss, opening her mouth, slanting their lips together, deepening the kiss.

  He thrust inside her in small pushes, the space too tight for much else. Each pulse made Myka moan, and Spike growled low in his throat.

  Sweat dripped between them, Spike’s skin slick with it. Myka glided her hands over his tatts, leaning down to lick the swirl of dragon wings across his shoulders.

  Naked, entwined, the ache between her legs both beautiful and agonizing, Myka kissed him, licked him, kneaded him. She loved Spike’s hair, the sharp stubble of it. She liked it against her fingertips, under her nuzzling nose, against her lips and tongue.

  She was coming again, Spike’s loving tearing her apart. Myka’s cries rang out into the quiet living room, his growls becoming sounds of need, then shouts.

  Finally he was pumping up into her, she rising and falling against the wall, sheltered and protected by his arms.

  “Feel my seed,” he almost snarled. “Take my seed. Myka. Mate.”

  Myka’s answer was another cry, hoarse in her throat. Spike’s shout mingled with hers, then his eyes glowed golden, Shifter, and heat scalded her inside and out.

  Then they were falling, down, down, the rug coming up at her, but Spike was holding her, shielding her from harm. She landed on top of him, he still inside her, his eyes that wild Shifter gold.

  “Mate,” he said again, and he held her hard, arms across her back. “My mate. Myka.”

  His voice caressed the name, his embrace not letting her go.

  Myka collapsed, her heart beating swiftly, her body both pliant and tight. She knew she should worry about that word—mate—but right now, the world was bliss, and she surrendered.

  * * *

  Morning came way too soon. Myka woke in her bed, facedown near the edge, her head hanging off the pillow. The muffled windows were dim, and rain, blessed rain—they hadn’t seen hardly any of it this year—pattered on the roof. Against Myka’s left side was the solid strength of a male body, warmth, the scent of lovemaking.

  Spike had lifted her and carried her into her bedroom after their descent to the living room floor. He’d laid her on her bed, slid himself over her, and showed he could sex her just as excitingly in the ordinary man-on-top position.

  After that . . . ecstasy had spiraled into astonishing joy, which eased down into sleep and wicked dreams.

  Myka turned over, Spike’s arm remaining possessively around her. She studied his face, relaxed in sleep, the lines of tension erased.

  She had a naked Shifter in her bed. One of those frightening creatures that had to be controlled with Collars, who fought with gritty violence even when they played at fighting each other.

  Then again, Spike was just a man, one who worried about his son and grieved the passing of his son’s mother, even though he’d barely known her. He’d sat with his grandmother watching television shows that probably hadn’t interested him to help her get well, and he’d followed Myka tonight when he worried that someone was trying to hurt her.

  Tracker, he called himself. Caretaker was more like it.

  Myka had learned a long time ago to take care of herself. She’d be dead, or in prison, or in a mental hospital if she hadn’t. And yet, to surrender, if only once, to this man’s strength and protectiveness was . . .

  Peaceful. Astonishing. A taste of happiness.

  Spike opened his eyes, liquid brown in the dim room. He didn’t look sleepy or groggy, but perfectly alert.

  “Hey,” he said. He brushed back Myka’s untamable hair. “You’re pretty in the morning.”

  “Now I know you’re crazy.”

  “You’re all rumpled from making love with me. That makes you beautiful.”

  “Bet you say that to all the girls.” Myka said it teasingly, but a sudden pain laced her heart.<
br />
  He brushed back her hair again, fingertips light. “Haven’t been that many girls. Not in my lifetime.”

  Hard to believe. Spike didn’t have conventional man-prettiness, but he was sexy. Hard body, hard face, eyes that could be hot with fighting rage or warm and dark, like they were now. And his tatts. Myka had never been attracted to heavily tattooed men, especially not one as inked as Spike, but the dragon that spread across his back was graceful and beautiful, the jaguars on arms and chest as fluid. The tattoos moved with him, perfectly balanced, a part of him, not just ink on skin.

  “Shifter females aren’t thick on the ground,” Spike said, his voice quiet. “Most are looking for a mate for life. They want someone strong in his clan, not a tracker who has to answer to others and puts his life in danger every day.” He shrugged. “They can afford to be choosy.”

  Meaning they wouldn’t choose him. Spike didn’t sound angry when he said it, or sad. Just resigned.

  Myka remembered his statement last evening on the porch swing—Dumb-ass fighter, that’s Spike.

  “If all they see is a dumb-ass fighter,” she said, touching his face. “Then they aren’t looking.”

  He stiffened. “Don’t do that.”

  Myka stilled. “Don’t do what?”

  “Say things like that, while you look at me like that and touch me like that.” He growled. “I won’t let you out of this bed. Not today, not for a long, long time.”

  Why didn’t that sound like a bad thing? She touched his face again, turning it into a caress along his sandpaper whiskers.

  Spike closed strong fingers around her wrist. “You have your meeting at the stables. What time?”

  Myka sighed, rolled over, and looked at the clock on her nightstand. “Shit. Now.” She completed the roll, sliding out from under Spike’s arm, and came up with her feet on the floor.

  Spike got out behind her then closed his arms around her body. He pulled her back into him and kissed the top of her head.

  They stood that way, swaying a little together, Myka closing her eyes to savor the warmth and strength of him at her back. If she could believe he’d be at her back all the time, watching over her, supporting her . . . her life would be as perfect as it could get.

  Spike kissed her cheek then nuzzled her, hands coming up to cup her breasts. He drew both nipples gently between his fingers, and kissed her cheek again.

  “Let’s get you there,” he said softly.

  He stepped away, taking his blissful warmth with him, and gave her a little push on her butt to send her toward her bathroom. There, he proceeded to take a shower with her, soaping her entire body before they made love one more time against the tiled wall.

  * * *

  Myka hastened into the dusty office at the stable yard, five minutes late, panting and hoping she didn’t look as though she’d had fantastic sex all night and again this morning. The rain had gone, clouds breaking up. In a few hours the city would look as though no rain had fallen on it at all.

  The grim faces the other four trainers turned to her when she walked in told her that they neither noticed nor cared about her wild night, nor were they having a productive meeting with the stable owner.

  The bottom line, the stable owner told Myka and the other trainers, was that he needed them to come up with half a million if they wanted to make a down payment and stop him negotiating with the developers. If they thought they could get him the money within a week or so, he’d wait, but he couldn’t afford to keep the stables open anymore. He needed a large influx of cash to pay his deceased father’s back debts and move on to more profitable ventures.

  Half a million was a ton of money, and even pooling their efforts, the other trainers, all male, said they couldn’t cover it. Neither could Myka, whose savings consisted of some of her riding prizes in the past plus bonuses from owners happy that she’d helped them sell a horse for a good price.

  Nowhere near enough to make a dent in five hundred grand. She could put her house up for sale, but considering the market nowadays, there was no guarantee she could sell it quickly, nor make enough even to cover what she still owed on the mortgage. All in all, a depressing meeting.

  Spike waited for Myka at one of the outer corrals near her truck. He’d called his friend Ellison as soon as they’d finished showering, and Myka had heard relief in Spike’s voice when Ellison reported that all had been quiet in Shiftertown. Jordan had been up early demanding breakfast, and Dylan had actually cooked for them all.

  “I’ll spend the rest of my life paying for that,” Spike had growled when he’d hung up.

  Now he was leaning on the top rail of the square corral, watching the two horses inside. Both were Quarter Horses that belonged to a wealthy businessman who paid Myka to make them winners. The gelding had retreated to the far end of the corral, keeping his rump against the bars, while he watched Spike. The mare had planted herself in the middle of the corral and was giving Spike the evil eye.

  “She’s a queen bitch,” Myka said, approaching. “Great cutting horse in the ring, when it counts, but when she knows it’s just practice, she’s a devil. She’s put me on the ground more than a few times.”

  The mare glanced at Myka, dismissed her, and moved her gaze back to Spike. Her eyes were wider than usual, her nostrils flaring as she took in his Shifter scent.

  Spike looked human—mostly—but the mare’s little brain was telling her she should be worried. Or should she? Humans were wusses, only useful for bringing her food, grooming her, or telling her how good she was.

  Spike growled. The sound was soft but floated across the corral to the pricked ears of the mare. The mare’s head jerked up, eyes now ringed with white. She whirled around, kicking dirt behind her, and ran the few yards to gelding’s corner to try to hide behind him.

  Myka laughed. “Karma,” she called to the mare. “Gets you every time.”

  Spike gave the horses one last growl and led Myka to her truck.

  As Myka drove back to Shiftertown, Spike listened to her tale of the meeting. She tried to speak lightly, but her distress came to him through her voice, the tightening of her lips and eyes, the change in her scent.

  The stables were important to her—they were her territory, Spike sensed, more than her little house was. Her house was where she slept and kept her stuff. The stables were her life.

  Good thing Spike would be able to do something about that.

  When they reached Shiftertown, a car that had been dogging them ever since the stables abruptly pulled around them and raced off.

  Damn it to hell. “Follow him!”

  Myka shot Spike a startled look but stepped on the gas. The Shifter was good, though. He darted through traffic and swung onto the busy Airport Boulevard, heading into town and toward the I-35.

  “Forget it,” Spike said. “Back to Shiftertown.”

  Myka took the next turn and went around the block without missing a beat, heading back the way they’d come. “One of Gavan’s?” she asked. She gripped the wheel with tight, white-knuckled hands. “He’s really serious.”

  “He’s screwed. Drop me off at Liam’s.”

  Phone calls were too tame for Spike’s fighting blood. He needed action, to kill, to protect, and he needed it now.

  Myka asked no questions but drove to the house, following his directions. She understood why he was pissed off, and through his rage, Spike knew that he’d been right about her being the mate for him.

  The Morrissey house teemed with activity. Connor was in the backyard looking after Katriona, Kim already having left for her office. Sean and Andrea were in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast—or at least Sean was cleaning up while Andrea rested her pregnant body on a chair and gave him encouragement.

  Liam sat on the edge of a sagging sofa on the back porch, watching Connor set up blocks in the grass for Katriona to knock over.

  Liam rose when Spike came charging up. Connor too looked up, tensing, glancing behind Spike to Myka.

  “Sp
ike,” Liam said, keeping his voice neutral. “Top o’ the morning to you.”

  “Cut the rustic Irishman crap. I want that damned Feline dead. Gavan wants to get rid of weak Shifters so bad, let’s start with him. Round up the other trackers and bring Sean. We’ll need the sword.”

  “Whoa.” Liam raised his hands and fixed Spike with his leader stare. “Calm yourself, lad. What’s he done?”

  “What’s he done? He’s threatening my family to make me play his games. He had Myka followed home, then an asshole followed us this morning. If you don’t want to kill him, fine. I’ll do it myself.”

  “No you won’t.”

  Spike’s anger grated in his throat. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because Gavan didn’t send the Shifters after Myka,” Liam said calmly. “I did.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Feral rage made everything red.

  “You sent them.” The words came out harsh and staccato. “What the fuck?”

  Sean stepped out onto the porch behind Liam, leaving Andrea inside. Connor scooped up Katriona and carried her a little way away. Keep the females and cubs safe from Spike the dangerous fighter in case he loses it.

  “It’s my job,” Liam said. Sean didn’t move, but his distance from Liam was perfect for backing him up. “Every human coming to Shiftertown gets checked out.”

  Spike knew that. Liam even had found out everything he could about Kim, his own mate, when he’d first met her. Spike had been sent on such reconnaissance missions himself.

  “You didn’t ask me,” Spike said. “You didn’t tell me. You just did it.”

  “You were busy.”

  Spike wanted to kill him. The push was there, rising in him like black mire, urging him to lock his hands around Liam’s throat and lift the man off his feet.

  Spike held himself back by willpower alone, a tiny part of his brain telling him to keep himself planted where he was.

  But he could best Liam if he fought him. He knew it.