“Anything in this room?” I asked for clarification.
He nodded his head excited.
“Okay then, I pick you.”
“What?” He asked in confusion.
“I want your friendship,” I told him.
“Sweet little shadow cat, you already have that.”
“Well, then I have all I need from here,” I told Bomber.
He stood immediately and then enveloped me in his embrace. “Gray is a lucky man, and I bet he doesn’t even know the extent of his own good fortune yet.”
“And neither do you. I am quite the catch, and out of everyone here, I chose you to be my best friend,” I said, waggling my eyebrows up and down at him.
“Oh, I’m quite aware of my luck. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be hanging out in my den of treasures.”
“Fair enough,” I laughed. We stood in comfortable silence for a moment while I contemplated my next move. “Bomber?”
“What’s up, girl?” he asked, shooting a playful wink in my direction.
“I don’t want to have a mushy conversation about it, unless that’s what you want. I just want you to know that you and Brace don’t have to hide anything around me. I already love you both so much, and your situation together, whatever it may be, I support it completely. Anyone who has an issue with you also has an issue with me.” For a split second, I could’ve sworn I saw tears swimming in his eyes, but he blinked them away before they could fall and become real. He looked lost for words, and I didn’t want him to feel like he had to say anything at all, so I changed gears and grabbed his hand.
“Come on, dragon boy, let’s go finish getting dinner ready before those boys come out of the meeting completely famished. You can tell me all about how many concussions you get from things falling on your head at night while we do that.”
Bomber chuckled. “Surprisingly, it’s never happened. My treasure has never attacked me. Still, this is just one of my hoards. If I were to have a space where I could put all of it, that might be a concern. My own uncle was crushed by his hoard ages ago.”
“Are you telling the truth?” I asked, not knowing whether to take him seriously since he and Brace seemed to have jokes about everything.
“Quite. Poor Uncle Fitz, went out guarding his hoard, rather poorly since it killed him,” he added with a bit of disdain in his voice. The silly buggar set a booby trap and got caught up in it himself.” He glanced in my direction and recognized my stifled reaction. “It’s okay to laugh. He earned it. One should never trap their own treasure trove.” He thought a moment. “Setting up traps around it is good enough.”
I rolled my eyes and waited for Bomber to lock his room back up before we wandered back down to the kitchen and finished preparing dinner for the members of the MC.
16
“It’s just some pasta, meatballs, and garlic bread,” Chantal whispered to me as we sat and ate what she made for all the guys.
“Sweetness, we would have been thrilled if you poured a can of soup in a pot and heated it up. This is going above and beyond,” Brace explained around a mouthful of pasta. Bomber slapped him in the back of the head, causing him to damn near choke on the noodles.
“You even had this lovely salad made up for those of us who aren’t heathens,” Bomber added to everyone’s amusement. You would think a dragon would be all about the meat and eating heartily. Not our resident dragon shifter. No, he was a damn vegetarian, wouldn’t touch the meatballs, and had simply added some plain pasta noodles into his salad instead of eating it the normal way like the rest of us. Oddly enough, he laughed every time someone picked up a piece of garlic bread. It made me second guess eating the damn thing, but my woman took the time to make it, and it smelled delicious.
“Thanks, Moonbeam,” I told her, much to the delight of my brothers who began their cat calls and mocking of my nickname for my woman. While they had seen her in her new leopard form, they couldn’t understand what she looked like before. I had been the only one to see her in her other form, the one that was liquid moonbeams and deepest shadows.
We finished eating, and I pulled my woman upstairs to my bedroom with me, leaving the assholes to clean up. Served them right for their taunting bullshit all through our meal. One day, each of those fuckers was going to find their mates and I couldn’t wait to be there to offer paybacks. I noticed Snow and Verity didn’t have a lot to say about me having a new mate. They’d just been through it not that long ago themselves.
“Are you upset with all the teasing your men were doing?” Chantal asked as I closed the door behind us and locked it.
“No, babe. I just wanted you to myself for a little while before the shit hits the fan. I’m sure it won’t be long now.”
Chantal sighed as she allowed her body to collapse into mine. I held her against me and placed a quick kiss on the top of her head. “Everything happened so fast earlier. I want some time to be able to just get to know your body, learn your curves, feel the way you respond to my touch,” I whispered against her hair which caused her to shiver in my arms. “I want you to feel every inch of me as I learn each and every bit of you.”
“That sounds perfect.” She took my hand in hers and led me to the bed where she proceeded to remove my cut with great care before she gently placed it on the edge of the chair that sat in the corner near the bed. Then Chantal slipped her fingers under the edge of the t-shirt I’d been wearing all day and allowed the tips of her fingers to trail up and over my skin as she lifted the shirt up my body until I took over and flicked it over my head and onto the floor. I returned the favor and helped divest her of the clothing she was wearing. Each of us taking turns, piece by piece as we teased through touch while ridding each other of everything that stood in our way.
Once we were both standing before each other, fully nude, Chantal traced her hands from my shoulders, down my pecs and abs, until she palmed my cock in her hand and gave it a pump to test my reaction. The already hard length jerked at her attention, begging for more. She smiled up at me, while wrapping her hand as far around my thickness as she could. “I thank the Goddess that I chose so well.”
“As do I,” I offered with a smirk. She tugged playfully on my cock as she laughed at my egotistical response. I gripped the sides of her face in each of my hands and gently tilted her head up so that our eyes locked on another’s. “I am thankful that I had to go back out that night, that I smelled the blood in the air, and was able to be there for you. I wish I had been sooner to keep you from the damage you endured, but nothing will ever make me regret the fact that you chose me, or that I answered your call.”
She tried to speak, and I knew by what I was feeling coming off of her that she wanted to warn me about what kind of trouble she may have landed at my doorstep, but I didn’t want to hear it. We were going to be fine. I knew it in the same unconscious way my body knew how to breathe. Everything would work out for us. In order to keep her thoughts at bay, I bent and brought my lips down to devour hers as I leaned in, allowing my hands to trail her body from her shoulders to her luscious ass that was on display before I picked her up. Chantal’s legs immediately wrapped around my waist bringing our groins into contact with one another and suddenly, slow and steady was out the window as I felt her wet heat against the most demanding part of me.
“Gray, I can’t,” she hissed against my lips. I knew. She was feeling it too.
“We’ll go slow later,” I agreed with her before sinking her body right onto my thick cock. She adjusted to my size with a hissed breath and then began to move slowly up and down my shaft, using her thigh muscles against my body as leverage. It was the hottest fucking thing I’d ever experienced. There was no wall helping to hold her up, just our bodies working together because we couldn’t wait any longer. As much as I wanted to marvel over the mechanics of what we had going on, I needed more. She needed more too. I sprang into action, and twisted to allow us both to fall to the bed, Chantal on her back, me on top of her. I wrapped my arms under her le
gs, bringing her thighs up my chest, knees draped over my shoulders as I pounded into my woman, hitting that spot over and over that was causing her panting breaths and those beautiful liquid silver eyes to roll back in her head.
“Ah, Gray!”
“That’s it babe, come for me.” My words were a demand that she met without protest. In the next moment I felt the flutter inside her before those muscles clamped tightly around me in waves of pure ecstasy. I wasn’t done yet though. We had taken things too fast during our mating because the call of the bond was too strong to ignore. I didn’t have that sense of urgency riding me this time. “Yeah, baby. That’s one.”
As she came back down from her orgasm, I flipped her over onto all fours and mounted her from behind. One hand reached up to tug on her nipple, the other cascaded down her torso until I was able to strum her clit with my fingers as I slowly slid in and out of her body from behind. “You feel me everywhere?” I asked her before licking, sucking, and nipping at her neck all around the slight marks left by our mating bite.
“Gray, yes! Right there. Please?” That last was a question. I knew exactly what she wanted but her body and mind were a jumbled confusion of sensations as I expertly plucked, teased, plunged, tormented, and nipped in various places all at once.
“What do you want, Moonbeam? More of this?” I pressed harder on her clit, swirling her engorged little button around with her own wetness. A needy sigh was the only response she gave. I pinched and pulled the nipple in my other hand, tormenting the little bud until just this side of pain straightened her spine and had her panting for breath. “More of that?” I asked huskily as I allowed my teeth to scrape across the shell of her ear. “Or do you want it harder?” I asked before slamming home into her, balls deep, and unrelenting as I pulled back out and slammed back once more.
“Yes, all of it,” Chantal cried out. I continued toying with her clit as I brought the other hand away from her breast and down to her hip to use as a hand-hold while I guided her body on and off my dick with each slam of my hips into her backside. Her shoulders slumped with the force, elbows buckled, and then she was ass up with her shoulders and face lying on the bed as I picked up the pace.
“This what you need baby? You need it hard and fast?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she hissed out with each thrust I made into her.
“I feel you,” I told her as I leaned over her body to nip at her shoulder blade and then the nape of her neck. “You’re about to tip over and come all over my cock again, aren’t you?”
“Gray, yes! Please, don’t stop.” She just did manage to get the last word out as I bit down on the tender spot between her shoulder and neck opposite the side where our mating bite had been. She screamed my name as her body squeezed tight around me and milked my own release into her.
We both took a few moments to come down before I pulled out, lifted her up, and managed to slide her up the bed so that her head rested there on the pillows. “I’ll be right back,” I told her. I got off the bed and went to the bathroom to clean the sticky remnants of sex from myself. I brought a warm washcloth back to help clean her up as well, and then I collapsed in the bed with my body wrapped around my mate’s. It was the best night’s sleep I’d ever had with her tucked against me. The guys could talk about how pussy whipped I was all they wanted. I’d never willingly give this up. Having her there with me was everything I never realized I was missing. If only we could have remained in that blissful bubble. The ugly side of life always has a way of coming to call when you wish it would hold off just a little longer though.
It was only 6:30 in the morning when the pounding on the door started. I tucked Chantal into the covers as I rolled away from her to see who the fuck was disturbing my sleep. “What?” I hissed as I opened the door to find Knox standing there.
“Need you both downstairs. We found a leopard. Think it might be the one, but we need her to identify him, if it’s possible.”
“How?”
“Snow and Thian went at the asshole in holding last night. Knew he wasn’t telling us everything. The bastard knew exactly who he had hired to help him in the abduction plan.”
“He gave us a name already,” I argued.
Knox nodded his head. “He did, but he gave Snow and Thian the real name as well as where we might find the bastard hiding. Seems he was trying to hold back that information so he had something to give his employer.”
“How do you think the council will take that?”
“Fuck how they’ll take it. They’re all dead men walking as far as I’m concerned. The problem is, we have the fucking leopard, but the vulture got away, and man, I have to tell you, I have a bad feeling this is going to run a fuck of a lot deeper.”
“All right, we’ll be down,” I told Knox before shutting the door and turning to take in the beautiful sight of my woman lying there bathed in the moonlight that hadn’t quite managed to hide from the impending sunrise yet. It was like the moon’s light sought her out because she belonged as part of the heavens instead of a creature that I could belong to. I shook the thought off, and walked over to the bed, still completely nude. “Chantal,” I called out gently as I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Mmm,” she mumbled in her sleep.
“You have to wake up sweetheart, we have some things we need to do.”
“It’s so early,” she complained. I grinned at her as I reached around and smacked her ass. “Ouch,” she hissed. “That wasn’t a good way to wake me up.”
“Would have bit that ass and a whole fuck of a lot more, babe, but we have things to do.” That finally got her attention.
“What things?”
“The boys brought in a leopard they think might have something to do with what happened to you.”
“Okay, let me get dressed,” she told me as she moved off the bed ready to head to the bathroom to get cleaned up. She hesitated long enough to turn back and plant a swollen-lipped kiss on me. “Maybe if we’re quick, we can make good use of the shower first?”
The tease darted off toward the ensuite bathroom then, and damn if I didn’t follow her. It took a little longer than it should have, but eventually we made it downstairs to the lower level where they had the leopard held in the trunk of a vehicle one of the boys had been working on. I only knew that’s where he was because of the incessant banging that was coming from inside. Chantal didn’t waste any time. She moved over towards the vehicle and leaned in, sniffing the air.
“He’s definitely in there, that smell is too strong to just be lingering.”
“It’s definitely the same leopard?” Knox asked, just to confirm.
“Yes, I’ll never forget that scent as long as I live.”
“Prez!” The prospect, who I had been referring to as ‘Kid’ because of his baby face, called out from down by the door. “We have guests at the gate,” he called out. We all turned toward the prospect in unison.
“What kind of guests?” Knox asked as he started to head that way.
“The important kind,” the kid responded. Jesus, he was going to be another Brace.
I followed Knox to the door to await our newest arrivals, and Chantal came to stand tucked up into my side. I’d be damned if we tried to hide her at this point. I wanted that fucker to walk into our compound knowing exactly who she belonged to now.
“Prospect!” I called out, getting the kid’s attention.
“Yeah, VP?”
“Need you to get gone and stay scarce until one of us calls for you,” I told him.
“Did I do something?”
“Don’t question that shit right now. Your VP gave you an order. Grab an empty room and stick to it until you’re called.” Knox’s tone brokered no argument from the kid.
“Remember what we talked about yesterday,” Chantal told him as he passed us. I watched as understanding dawned in his eyes and he hustled to get up the stairs. We didn’t know how the council knew about Chantal and her sisters, but if there was a way for them to ferret o
ut the bloodlines that would produce another set of shadow cats, we didn’t want to take the chance of giving them a male who was destined to help produce the next generation.
“Thanks for that,” I whispered in her ear before turning my attention to the man who stepped out of the pretentious vehicle and made his presence known immediately.
“Who is in charge here?” he called out as if we were all his peasants.
“I’m the President of the West Michigan Chapter of the Dark Leopards MC. Name’s Knox, how can I help you?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Not a fuckin’ clue,” Knox bantered back. Our President knew, but he wasn’t going to pander to the asshole’s ego. We all watched as the cunning panther took in the scene around him and the hostility bleeding out of the pores of the men around the lot. Then he changed tack, softened his stance and smiled widely at Knox before thrusting his hand out to him.
“I’m Raven La Croix, panther, and member sitting on the Council of Feline Shifters,” he introduced himself.
“Oh shit, I thought it really was called the Council of Cats,” Brace interjected, much to the amusement of everyone else in the room except Raven and his entourage of two minions he brought with him.
“What can we do for the Council today?” Knox ignored Brace and watched, along with the rest of us, as the man’s eyes skimmed over everyone present and landed on Chantal.
“Chantal?” he questioned. She stiffened beside me, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge his question. The reddening of his cheeks told me, even if his emotions weren’t being projected out to me, that he was one step away from losing his cool.
“You don’t need to address my woman,” I told him.
“Your woman?” He scoffed. “And who would you be?”
“I would be the man who was there when she needed rescuing from a botched plan to kidnap her. You know the one?” I questioned. “The one put into motion by you and your cohorts from what we’ve gathered.”
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