Wanted Lion: Lion Shifter Romance (Black Ops Mates Book 6)

by Ruby Knoxx

  “Can I fuck you yet?” he asked, crooking his eyebrow, his lips dancing against mine.

  “Please!” I cried.

  He stood, his cock in his hand, wrapped in protection, and I bit my lip. God he was impressive standing there in front of me, completely naked, every muscle on display, and a rock hard cock ready for me.

  He kissed me, angling himself in and pushed down without waiting. I cried out as he filled me, stretching me and touching every deep part of me.

  “Shit, Leon,” I breathed. “Fuck, you’re big.”

  “You forgot?”

  He pumped into me, slow and deep at first, then pushing as deep into me as he could and raising my leg to his side. He held it there as his hips moved against me, grinding against my sensitive pussy, getting every last inch inside of me. His pace increased, his depth remained, my walls clasping him, never wanting him to leave.

  I braced myself on my elbow, holding onto the back of his neck as he fucked me deeper than I had every been fucked. His mouth moved down my chest, and my fingers were in his hair. He bit my breast, drawing my flesh into his mouth and holding it there. It was so juvenile, yet it was enough to send me off. My body pulsed against him, my hips moving with his, my vaginal walls clinging to him as I cried out my orgasm.

  He pulled out, pushing harder into me, long quick strokes of his cock inside of me. His hands lifted my hips and held them in the air as he thrust into me. He spread my ass cheeks as he fucked me, making my opening tighter over his cock, making me feel fuller of him. I watched him, my hand pinching my own nipples as he fucked me like that.

  Leon’s eyes were locked with mine, his lip curled in a snarl. I had forgotten how much his facial expressions could drive me wild. As I got close again, he dropped my hips and lifted my legs together, closing them and putting my ankles on one shoulder. My pussy squeezed over his cock, and that was enough.

  “Oh god Leon!” I cried, arching my back.

  Leon roared, his fingers digging into my legs as he thrust once, twice, three times hard and deep inside of me. His own body rocked with his orgasm. He pushed my legs up as he fell forward, his lips finding mine in a dozen tiny kisses.

  I had forgotten about those kisses. As my body felt the fuzziness of ecstasy wash over me, those little kisses felt like butterfly nudges, bringing me back to reality.

  I came to LA to remember who it was to be Justine Justice again. And damnit if being with Leon didn’t breathe life back into her.

  He rolled over, letting my legs come down, and I curled under his arm, as if I were attached by a recoiling string. We were both sticky with sweat, but I didn’t care. Everything in that moment was perfect.

  I had missed this. All of it. Leon was the last man I had been with. I missed everything about this, from orgasms that weren’t self-inflicted, to being held, to Leon. I had missed all of it. And there I was, after not seeing the father of my child for nearly six years, lying in his arms after having somewhat bumped into him for the first time only earlier that day.

  I didn’t know if I was just that in need of an itch to be scratched or if it was just Leon. Was it him I missed or not being alone?

  Whatever it was, it felt right being in his arms again. In arms again. I had spent so much time healing and being a patient while simultaneously trying to be a mother, that I had forgotten that I was also a woman, with needs and the right to address those needs. And my god—Leon certainly met them for me.

  I wanted to stay there in bed with him until the sun came up. I felt that same recklessness that I had when I first met him, wanting to run away and forget the world and just indulge in each other. Though not with the same whole-heartedness as before. A much bigger part of my heart was reserved, kept safely away from the free-flying self I had been those years ago. That part of my heart belonged to Kat and always would.

  Would Leon understand that?

  As I lay there with him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, I realized that I had jumped into bed with him without even telling him that he had a daughter. It was like I had forgotten her completely. How could a man do that to me?

  I needed to tell him. That was the whole reason I wanted to talk to him in the first place. I had my own questions, sure, but I wanted to give my daughter the option of having a father.

  Though even as I thought it, I wondered if it was a good idea at all. Had I really wanted to tell him about Kitty, or had I just wanted to see him again? He had been gone for so long, and I didn’t know if it would be confusing to Kat if all of a sudden a man appeared in her life. And what if he didn’t want to be around, and when she did ask about her dad, I would then have to tell her that he didn’t want her? I knew I couldn’t lie to her.

  When I decided to call Leon, I knew what I had to do. But now that I was lying in bed with him, I was confused. I felt like I was in a blissful bubble with him that I didn’t want to pop, but I had to. It was my responsibility to as a mom, right?

  I didn’t get a chance to make a decision either way. Leon kissed my forehead before standing up.

  “Where are you going?” I asked as he slipped from bed.

  “Just to use the bathroom,” he said, smiling down at me. “I’m not going far. It’s this first door out here, right?” he asked, gesturing to the door on the immediate left. I nodded, smiling.

  He was just about to leave my room when he stopped, flicking on the overhead light. It was brighter than I was expecting, and I groaned, blinking against it. Then I realized what he was looking at.

  Next to the door, a few inches above the light switch, was a picture of Kitty and me at the beach, from right after we moved. Mom and Dad had come down with us to get us settled in, and we all went to check out Venice beach. Dad, ever the photographer, had snapped one of me holding Kitty in my arms, her sandy cheek pressed up against mine in a big cheesy grin, showing off her missing front tooth.

  Leon’s eyes began to move around the room, which of course, was decorated with framed pictures of Kitty all throughout her life, from when I very first could hold her after my recovery through birthdays and my parents’ anniversary. He slowly turned, his eyes taking in the photographs on the walls and on my dresser until his eyes fell on me.

  His mouth tried to form words, questioning, his eyebrows furrowed together. No sound came out, but the questions were blatantly obvious.

  “Leon,” I said, pulling the covers over my chest and sitting up. “I probably should have led with this, but I have a daughter.”

  “You have a daughter,” he repeated.

  “Well, yes. But more importantly, we have a daughter,” I corrected. “She’s yours. Her name is Kat, but I call her Kitty. She’s so smart, and she looks like you in so many ways. She’s at a friend’s house tonight. But, if you’re open to it, she has room in her life for you.”

  Leon didn’t say anything, just continued to look at me.

  “Look,” I said, not sure what to say. “I mean, you have a choice in this. I know you didn’t ask for her, and I didn’t tell you. I made this decision on my own. It was such a miracle that I didn’t miscarry or anything in the accident, and so I kept her. It was hard to be pregnant while going through my recovery, but I think that’s why we’re so close. We went through a lot together.”

  “You have a daughter,” Leon repeated.

  He was struggling with this news. I supposed I couldn’t blame him. He only just learned that I was alive, and now I was telling him that I had a kid as well.

  “I haven’t said anything about you,” I said. “Not yet. I didn’t want her to get her hopes up or anything. I don’t know. I have no idea how she would react to you. I guess what I’m saying, Leon, is that you have an out, if you need. She doesn’t need to know if you don’t want to stick around.”

  I held my breath, needing to hear a response from him. Kitty didn’t need to know now about Leon, but I knew that one day she would ask. And on that day, I wouldn’t be able to lie to her. I would have to tell her that her father wasn’t man e
nough to handle being a father, that was all there was to it. If he didn’t want to be there, that was.

  Leon just stared at me, unmoving and silent. His eyes didn’t move from me, and I felt almost like I was on display, like he was studying me for something, trying to figure out if I was lying, trying to catch him into playing happy families with him or something.

  I shifted nervously, waiting.

  “Leon, say something,” I said.

  After a few seconds, he exhaled audibly. He began dressing himself, no longer looking at me, only looking at his clothes as he pulled them on.

  Without so much as looking back, he left.

  Chapter 7 – Leon

  I had to get out of there. It was too much. I couldn’t even comprehend what I was hearing.

  Me? Have a daughter? Logically, I knew how, but nothing else inside of me understood it. How on earth could I have had a daughter? I hadn’t seen Justine Justice in nearly half a dozen years. And yet there was a walking, talking, breathing being in the world, the result of my genes?

  It was too much. I just found out that my mate was alive, that it was just misfortune that had kept us apart for so many years. That was something I was just getting my head around. And it was something I felt like I could fix. After taking Justine to bed again, feeling how good it was to be inside of her, to be near her, to feel her breath on me—everything in me knew that I had a chance at trying again with her.

  It had only been a little while that we were together, maybe an hour, if that, but I felt like that was ample, more than enough time to break the news to me that we had made a child together. We had come together and brought life into this world. That wasn’t something you just happened to mention after hooking up with someone. Was it?

  All of these thoughts were swimming through my mind as I put on my clothes. I had to get out of there, get my head clear, get some fresh air. Anything. I just couldn’t be in that apartment anymore. As I walked out, I saw signs of a child living here everywhere.

  How had I missed them? I had been so afraid of seeing that she was living with someone, that she had found someone else to settle down with, that I hadn’t wanted to look around before. And I was so set on not seeing evidence of a man around the house, I never even thought to consider that perhaps there might be a kid around the house.

  But sure enough, as I walked down the hall of her apartment, there were drawings and photos framed, a bedroom door ajar that I couldn’t even look in, and a fridge filled with kids paintings and photos. There was even a toybox in the living room. How could I have missed it?

  I wasn’t proud of it, but leaving was the only thing I could handle doing at that moment. And so I left her there. I left Justine Justice and Kat.

  As I found myself on the ground floor, the pizza was just coming through the door. A middle-aged man sporting a pink and blue hat reading D-Rose Pizza.

  “Pizza for Justine Wilson?” I asked him.

  He looked at the label on one of the boxes. “That’s the one.”

  I fished into my pocket for my wallet, pulled out fifty dollars, and paid for the pizzas. “Keep the tip.”

  “Thanks, man,” the pizza guy said. “Do you want these here?”

  “Take them on up,” I said before leaving the building. Food was the last thing on my mind. There were far too many other important things to think about. Like the fact that I had a kid.

  I pressed a button and watched the lights of my car flash before I got in. With the key in the ignition, I turned it on, startling as Alice Cooper reminded me that her lips were “venomous poison”. I turned off the music and rested my head on the steering wheel.

  “Tell me about it,” I muttered as the chorus continued to reverberate through my head.

  I put the car in gear and pulled out of my parking space, just wanting to get back to my own apartment. My bachelor pad. The next day, I would call Justine and apologize. But for now, I just needed some space. She had to understand that that was a lot to drop on someone, right?

  ***

  I pushed the pillow over my head, trying to block out the sunlight. My alarm had gone off ages before, and I just wasn’t ready to face the day. My body said otherwise.

  I was in the midst of this debate between body and mind when I heard a pounding on the door.

  “Come on, man!” Maxen called.

  “Damnit,” I muttered as I rolled myself out from under the covers. I fished in the top drawer for some pajama bottoms and put them on before I wandered out of my bedroom to the front door. Sunlight was streaming through all the tall windows of the apartment. One of the many perks of being an ops was that the apartment was completely paid for and the most luxurious place I’d ever lived, as well. Something I would have to give up if I acknowledged that my mate was alive. Just another thing.

  I didn’t want to think about it.

  I opened the front door to find Maxen in a tank and joggers, hopping lightly from one foot to the other, a water bottle in hand.

  He stopped as he surveyed me.

  “Jesus,” he said. “You look like shit.”

  “I look better than you,” I grumbled.

  “What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing. You just woke me up.”

  “Well, get your ass dressed because it’s jogging day.”

  “Rain check,” I muttered, ready to close the door in my buddy’s face.

  “No way, dude,” he said. “I jogged my happy ass all the way over here from the beach. The least you can do is hold up your end of the bargain.”

  “There’s no bargain,” I said. “You asked me to jog, I said yes. Not a bargain. There’s no trade.”

  “Don’t care,” he said, starting to hop back and forth again on his toes, jogging in place. “Get dressed. You’re going.”

  I grunted, though really didn’t have the energy to argue with him. I knew he was right. I did need to get out and do something, even if I didn’t want to face the world. To go outside and be a part of the day felt like I needed to address the night before, and I certainly wasn’t ready to do that. But I might feel better after a workout with Maxen. At least, it couldn’t hurt.

  I brushed my teeth and got into some shorts and a shirt, pulling on an arm band to carry my phone and bank card in case we stopped anywhere. We headed out, jogging the few blocks past his apartment building and to the beach. We had been talking about beach jogging for a while. It wasn’t something new to me, or to Maxen, for that matter. But recently, he’d been complaining about getting a little lax on his work out regiment since leaving the ops.

  I didn’t say much as we made our way along the beach, sticking to the soft, dry sand, trying not to leave Maxen behind, who, after the first mile, was panting pretty heavily.

  “Rest?” he asked, the only word he could manage to get out.

  I chuckled. “We’ll keep walking though,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said, trying to catch his breath as we slowed our pace to a slow walk. He drained his water bottle, which I knew he would regret soon enough.

  “So what’s up with you, man?” Maxen asked when he could finally breathe enough to string together a sentence.

  “Nothing,” I said. I was tempted to tell him that since he could breathe again, maybe we should pick up the pace. But truth be told, I didn’t have this jog in me at all. Part of me was still wishing I was in bed.

  “Usually you don’t shut up during a run or a workout,” he said. “And you’re the one getting us out of bed, not the other way around. What gives?”

  “Nothing,” I repeated, not even believing my own lie.

  “That sounds like horse manure if I ever heard it,” Maxen said.

  I guffawed. He wasn’t wrong. I shook my head. How could I admit that I had a mate? After so many years of being with these guys, of working next to them, of calling them my brothers, and swearing that there was no mate out there for me, turning on a dime? Not only did I have a mate, but I’d had one for years.

  I sighed. “F
ine,” I said. “You want to know the truth?”

  “I’d be pissed off if you weren’t giving me the real deal,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said, drawing in a long breath. “So, I’ve always said that the ops was all I needed in life, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s because I had a mate and she died before I found the ops.”

  “Holy shit,” he said, his pace slowing to a complete stop. “Really?”

  I nodded, turning. “Soon after I met her.” I threw an arm over my head, reaching for the elbow with my other hand and stretching the muscle out.

  “Man, I am so sorry. I had no idea. I don’t think any of us did.”

  I switched arms. “You wouldn’t have. I never talked about her. I just wanted to forget her. And the ops came around, and I had something that specifically didn’t want me to have a mate. It was the perfect way of keeping my mind off it. Well, this was what I thought, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I found out yesterday that she isn’t dead.”

  “No,” Maxen said, sounding vaguely like a high school girl finding out the latest gossip. “You’re kidding! That’s amazing!”

  I tried to give him a smile as he clapped a hand in the middle of my back.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I built my entire life around the idea that I wouldn’t have a mate, ever. My philosophies, how I think, how I act, how I live, and what I’ve dedicated myself to. I have spent the last six years solidifying the idea that I would never have a mate. And I’ve learned to be okay, even happy with that.”

  “Wait a second,” Maxen said. “You’re telling me that your mate essentially came back from the dead, and you’re not willing to drop everything for her?”