by Chant, Zoe
She had just a single second to hope that she hadn’t woken the baby up, and then he was thrusting, hips rolling forward hard into her, making her eyes roll back in her head, then pulling back, and just as she caught her breath, he slammed forward again.
It felt like nothing she’d ever experienced. Flynn inside her, and his hands hard on her hips, his breath harsh in her ears, letting himself go for the first time. He sped up as he went on, tilting her hips up, going in short, sharp thrusts that jolted pleasure through her, seeming to find the last rippling waves of her last orgasm and stirring them up into a stormy sea.
Lila hadn’t expected to come again—she usually didn’t—but there was no escaping the rising tide of pleasure in her. Her fingernails dragged along his back, making him groan in pleasure. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, her hips canted up to meet his cock as it thrust into her—again and again and—
Feeling another scream rising in her, Lila took Flynn’s word and bit down hard on his shoulder as she came again. “Fuck,” Flynn said, like it had been shocked out of him, and his head dropped to her shoulder, his hips jerking against her as he came, too.
They shuddered together, sweaty and shocky and overwhelmed, for several long minutes.
Finally, Lila caught her breath enough to say, “Wow.”
“Wow is right,” Flynn agreed. “God. I never thought—” He stopped.
“What?” Lila asked.
He breathed into her neck for a second, and then lifted his head to say, “I always thought I’d hurt a woman, especially a human woman, if I really let go.”
Lila smiled. “Flynn,” she said, “you are an animal in the sack. But I think you just saw the evidence that I love it.”
She did. Her whole body felt like it was vibrating a little. And she could feel the echo of it in Flynn, that same overloaded pleasure, like all the nerves had been temporarily shorted out.
He kissed her temple, hard and sincere, and then her mouth, more softly. “I love you,” he murmured.
“I love you,” Lila said back, and then felt tears rising in her eyes, impossible to stop as they spilled out onto her cheeks.
He was kissing them away instantly, saying softly, “Lila, Lila—don’t cry—”
“I’m just—happy,” she managed. “And it’s—I haven’t said that to a man since Michael died, and I just—I never thought I’d have anything else. Let alone something so—”
So much more. She didn’t want to say it out loud, because she didn’t want to say anything against Michael’s memory. He’d been the husband she’d needed, sweet and kind and funny, something to take her out of the intense and almost joyless determination she’d had to have a family, or else.
And she’d loved him. She had.
But Flynn—
This was definitely something she’d never thought she’d have. Ever.
“I love you,” he rumbled, his voice so deep that it almost felt like the sentiment was rising up from the earth to take over her body. “Never doubt that.”
“I never will,” she told him, and she knew it was true.
***
Grant woke up crying in the middle of the night, and Lila was about to roll out of bed and go get him when Flynn reached over in the dark and caught her shoulder.
“I’ll get him,” he murmured. “You go back to sleep.”
It didn’t have quite the intended effect, though, because while Flynn got up to see to the baby, Lila lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and marveling at how lucky she’d somehow gotten.
Grant’s sobs increased in volume for a moment—Flynn was probably changing his diaper, Lila thought, and smiled to herself. Even without the handsome part, the brave and strong part, and the part where he was the other half of her soul, just having a person who would get up in the night and change the baby so she didn’t have to was fantastically amazing.
The cries slowly quieted down, and eventually stopped. Flynn came back into the room and slid carefully under the covers.
“Thank you,” Lila whispered to him.
“Hey, you were supposed to go back to sleep.” He kissed her temple.
“Too happy.”
“Lila,” he said—not like he wanted a response, but like he was just saying her name because he could. He pulled her into his arms, and she burrowed into the warmth of his chest and closed her eyes.
***
In the morning, Lachlan dropped Sophia off and Elizabeth called, all in the space of about thirty seconds.
“Can you—” Lila asked, holding up her phone, and Flynn nodded, no problem, and went to get Sophia unpacked and settled in with some blocks while Lila answered.
“I can come by today,” Elizabeth said in a rush. “You have Michael’s laptop?”
“Right here,” Lila said. “You really think you’re going to find something?”
“I really do,” Elizabeth said grimly. “I have a couple of younger pack members who’re willing to make statements about some of the things that Victor’s done, and from what they’ve said, Michael was close enough to Victor to have communicated with him about certain things. I’ll be there in an hour.”
So then they had an hour to kill. Hanging up, Lila looked around the living room for something to do that wasn’t just sitting around worrying.
“Hide and seek?” she suggested.
“Yeah!” Sophia jumped up. “I wanna be It!”
“All right! We’ll hide.” Lila looked at Flynn, eyebrows raised.
“Grant’s on my team,” was all Flynn said, and off they went.
Lila had played a lot of games of Hide and Seek with her daughter, but with Flynn, it was a different game. He made a point to hide somewhere where he could peek over the top of the shelf he was crouching behind and meet Lila’s eyes, and then it was all—silly flirtation.
Because she couldn’t help but cast a longing look his way, and then—with a glance to make sure Sophia’s back was turned—stretch out her arms as though she were reaching for him across some impossible chasm. He bit his lip to stifle a laugh, and then put on a mock-alarmed expression when Sophia started hunting around the area where his bookshelf was.
The game continued like that, with Flynn and Lila tossing glances back and forth over Sophia’s head, little nonverbal jokes and moments of frank appreciation, like when Sophia found Flynn and he lifted her over his head and set her and Grant on his shoulders, lifting each of them with one hand like they weighed nothing and balancing them there without any apparent difficulty.
It was so—so fun. Lila had missed having fun like this, without being the only adult, the one who had to supervise and make sure everyone was enjoying themselves and no one-year-olds were accidentally harmed when they were pressed into service as props.
Eventually, though, the real world had to intrude again: Elizabeth’s Lexus pulled into the driveway, and the game came to an end.
Lila surveyed the disaster the living room had become and looked at Flynn. “Will you keep an eye on them?”
“Of course I will,” he assured her, and she went to answer the door.
Elizabeth was dressed in another immaculate suit—navy blue this time—but she looked exhausted, deep rings under her eyes, and very pale. “Do you want anything?” Lila asked her, a little alarmed. “Water? Food?”
If anything, she turned paler, and shook her head vehemently. “No. Thank you. Do you have the laptop?”
Lila did. They sat down at the kitchen table together, Elizabeth staring at the screen, Lila unable to stop herself from looking over her shoulder.
Elizabeth started looking through Michael’s spreadsheets. He’d done some work for Victor with—taxes, or something; Lila wasn’t great at math and had never wanted to hear much about it. Michael had loved numbers, though, and he’d worked into the night on those spreadsheets sometimes. After he died, Lila had opened up some of them in a fit of nostalgia and hadn’t been able to understand a thing.
But Elizabeth looked like she unders
tood. She looked like she was having a revelation.
“Is that—is that what you need?” Lila asked, heart in her mouth.
Elizabeth nodded, looking up and meeting her eyes. “I want to put Victor away for Michael’s murder, and I think there’s enough evidence to do that. But it’s not just Victor, it’s his entire family—if he goes to jail, it won’t matter much, because his father will just come out of retirement, or pick someone just as bad to replace him.”
She turned the laptop screen towards Lila, pointing at some of the columns. Lila still didn’t understand it, but Elizabeth explained, “This is one of a few documents showing how Victor’s family has been cheating on their taxes for many, many years now. They’re committing fraud on a large scale. This is plenty to get a federal investigation going, and once that’s in motion, there’s nothing they’re going to be able to do to stop it.”
“Oh,” Lila said weakly. “Oh, that’s—but will it take a long time?” She had a vague sense that federal trials took months, if not years.
“It depends. But if they’ve got federal agents staring over their shoulders, they’re not going to want to be found kidnapping children, are they?” Elizabeth pointed out.
“Oh. I suppose not.” Lila stared at the spreadsheet some more, but the numbers didn’t resolve into any smoking gun.
She looked at Elizabeth instead. “Why are you doing this, really?” she asked. “You had to know what kind of man Victor was before now. Right? Why wait until now to start working against him? Why was it okay before, but not any longer?”
Elizabeth was quiet for a long moment. Finally, she said, “I wasn’t lying before. Finding out that Victor had your husband killed was a wake-up call. I didn’t want to work for someone who was willing to murder his own people. But there was another wake-up call soon after.”
She took a shaky breath, and Lila waited, wondering.
“I’m pregnant.”
Lila’s lips parted. “Oh.”
Elizabeth nodded. “The father is—well, one of the people who’s done some bad, bad things for Victor. I have terrible taste in men. And I was just thinking about what would happen once everyone knew, and how I’d be raising this child in this pack full of—anyway. I knew I had to get out, but I also knew what happened to people who tried to get out. So—” She waved a hand, indicating the laptop and the plan in general.
“Are you going to go somewhere else, still?” Lila asked. “Or stick around for the case?”
She shrugged. “They’re going to need me as a witness, so I can’t go far. But oh, it makes me sick even to be near the pack house these days.” Her mouth twitched, almost invisibly. “Of course, lots of things make me sick these days.”
“I remember that,” Lila said with a smile. “Well, if you need to—if you really don’t have anywhere to go—” She hesitated. This wasn’t even her house. She was here on charity; she couldn’t turn around and offer that charity to someone else.
But was that even true anymore, now that she and Flynn were together? This was Flynn’s childhood home. It belonged to his mother. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to just stay here? If Flynn wanted to?
Lifting her chin, Lila took the plunge. “If you need somewhere to go, please think about coming here,” she said. “It’s a big house. There’s extra room.” There was a room upstairs that had been Flynn’s mother’s sewing room that they weren’t even using.
Elizabeth stared at her. “We aren’t friends,” she said faintly. “Why are you offering?”
“I just—” Lila reached out and took Elizabeth’s hand. “I know what it’s like to be a single mom. It’s hard. It’s so, so hard. So if I can help someone out, help them through that, I want to do it. And besides—” She smiled a little. “Maybe we’re not friends now, but I think we could be.”
Elizabeth was still staring at her like she was some kind of alien life-form. “Thank you,” she said, finally. “I’ll—I’ll think about that.” She shook herself minutely. “But now I have to get back. Can I take this with me?” She pointed at the laptop. “I promise you, I won’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”
“All right,” said Lila. “Good luck. Tell me if I can help with anything about the case.”
“I will.” Elizabeth stood, picking up the laptop, and then hesitated. “Really, thank you,” she said, more quietly. “It means a lot to me to know that you’re—that you’re offering your support.”
Lila smiled a little. “My pleasure,” she said sincerely. “Drive safe. And I promise the morning sickness won’t last forever.”
“That’s what all the blogs say,” Elizabeth said on a sigh. She hefted the computer, coiled up the charger, and strode out the door, no sign of the shakiness and vulnerability she’d displayed a moment ago. Lila heard her Lexus start up out in the driveway.
A minute later, Flynn appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “That’s quite a situation she’s in.”
Lila nodded soberly. “I hope all of this works out. I really—I really hope so.”
She bit her lip, feeling tears prick at her eyes. Flynn was across the kitchen in a second, pulling her into his arms. “Hey. Hey, what is it?”
“Just thinking about—how much trouble there is out there. How hard it was for me. How Victor wants to kidnap my kids. How Ronan’s family might be coming after us. And now Elizabeth, all alone and pregnant and afraid of what’s going to happen—she put on this brave face, but she was so clearly afraid—” Lila shook her head. “It’s just a lot. There’s just a lot that could go wrong. That has gone wrong.”
“I know one thing that’s gone right,” Flynn said into her hair. “This is right. This is the most right I’ve ever felt, standing here with you in my—”
“Mom! Flynn!” Sophia’s voice rose up above the sudden wail of an upset baby.
“—arms,” Flynn finished, pulling away with a rueful smile. “Let’s go fix some easier problems, shall we?”
“That sounds perfect,” Lila said with a sigh, heading for the living room to see what small disaster needed their help.
Chapter 12: Flynn
Flynn pulled up to the sheriff’s office with deep determination.
Feeling the way Lila had curled in his arms, tense with worry, the way she'd said, So much has gone wrong—
He wasn't going to sit around and wait for someone else to maybe solve this problem or not. He was going to do something to take care of this asshole and his henchmen, so that his mate and kids could be safe.
He'd called Ronan to come watch the house while he was away. He wanted a dragon shifter right on top of the place twenty-four seven, until Victor was taken care of for good.
Meanwhile, he was going to go talk to Malachi.
When he came into the station, Malachi was behind the desk, on the phone.
“How many?” his boss was saying. “Yeah. Okay. Don't engage yet. Let me know if they move at all.” He hung up, looking over at Flynn. “That was Reid. Couple more lions poking around near town.”
“We have to do something,” Flynn said grimly. “I'm done sitting around and waiting for them to come to us. Victor's lawyer came by and she says she's going to put some things in motion, but who knows how long that'll take, and in the meantime my mate and kids are in danger!”
His voice rose at the end, and he only realized what he'd said after Malachi's eyebrows hit his hairline.
“Your what now?” Malachi asked after a pause.
“Uh.” Flynn collected himself. “Lila's my mate. Turns out.”
“Huh,” Malachi said slowly. “That would've been a hell of a surprise a couple of days ago, but now I have to say, it's not so unexpected as all that.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Flynn waved his hand. “Whatever. You can give me shit for suspecting them and then making an about-face later. Right now we have to deal with Victor, before he attacks us again.”
“You're right,” Malachi said heavily. “We've been standing guard with the expectation that eventually he'll
see that he can't take us down by himself—and then because we wanted to wait until we knew who his allies were before we provoked an all-out war. But now we know, and if Ronan's right, the dragons will be using different methods, anyway. It's time to give Victor the thorough defeat he deserves.”
Flynn sat down. “Great. Let's make a plan.”
***
He and Malachi spent the afternoon going over the pattern of sightings of lions in the woods, the times Victor had shown up personally and made some kind of attack.
“He only attacks women and children,” Flynn said disgustedly, looking at the reports Malachi had written up of all of the incidents. “He never comes after one of us, someone who could fight back fairly. He's a goddamn coward.”
“Well,” Malachi said slowly, “I suppose we know what we can do to draw him out.”
Flynn snapped to attention. “No. No way.”
“Not kids,” Malachi hastened to say. “Absolutely not kids. But if one of the women were willing—maybe the mayor would do it; she's as powerful a shifter as any of us, but Victor wouldn't necessarily know that.”
“That would be all right,” Flynn said reluctantly. He didn't like the idea of standing back and letting anyone else put themselves in danger, no matter who they were, but the mayor could take care of herself, and she wasn't a human.
Or Flynn's mate.
He straightened his shoulders. “So how do we set this trap?”
It felt good to have a plan.
***
“I don’t know if this is going to work,” Katie said reluctantly, when they explained the plan at the meeting that night.
It was at home—at Lila’s place, this time.
Flynn supposed he might actually be able to call it home, now, the way his brain had been automatically trying to do ever since he’d realized they were mates. After all, Lila lived here, and he was her mate. Did she want him to move in? Or would she rather that they all moved into a new place together?