Feral Passions - Complete

by Kate Douglas

  In all that time—all the plans they’d made for the wedding, all the laughter and meals with their friends, the private times like this when they sneaked out of the office in the middle of the day and raced to the condo she shared with him for a quickie that was anything but quick—in all that time, she hadn’t really believed it.

  Why would anyone like Zachary Royce Trenton love a woman like her? She wasn’t blind. She saw herself in the mirror every single morning, a neatly attired yet obviously plus-sized blonde with a loud laugh that matched her full-figured size, a somewhat raunchy sense of humor, and the ability to organize even the most disorganized businessman and make his office run like a well-oiled machine.

  That had to be the only reason he wanted her. The sex was beyond wonderful, and he always seemed to be enjoying whatever they did, but there was a bit more of her than most men generally found attractive. Zach said she was lush, sexy, and voluptuous. She figured those were his politically correct terms for fat. She knew she didn’t look horrible if you ignored the pounds that no amount of exercise seemed to affect, and she was always—as her grandmother used to say—well put together, but still …

  Zach said he loved her, and he talked about their future with stars in his eyes, but who did he really see by his side? Did he honestly want a woman who might make him a laughingstock among his wealthy, physically attractive, and active friends? A woman who never went out in public in a bathing suit and never played golf because of the way she looked in the shorts?

  Did Zach really love her? Did he love Meg Bonner in spite of her imperfections, or did he merely love what she could do for him and his very successful company?

  On that depressing thought, she quietly stepped out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her. She’d left a stack of paperwork on her desk when he’d grabbed her hand and, amid his laughter and her flustered protests, tugged her out of her chair, out of the office, and into his private elevator to the parking garage.

  She glanced at her watch. Damn. They’d been gone for over two hours! She really needed to get back to work, especially since she was going to be gone all next week. She gathered up her things and quietly slipped out the door.

  With any luck, the upcoming week at Feral Passions Resort down in California’s rugged Trinity Alps might help her find answers to her questions. She needed time away from Zach, a chance to interact with her girlfriends, to indulge in some time for herself without Zach’s overwhelming presence.

  It was impossible to think rationally about their relationship when he was around, though she’d managed to compartmentalize her emotional life from her work life. Personal assistant Meg Bonner kept it together because that was her job, but fiancée Meggie Bonner had a hard time questioning what the hell was going on in her personal life whenever she was with Zach.

  Zach owned her heart whenever he was near, but when they were apart, it was too easy to see they really didn’t have anything going for them beyond the fact she was head over heels in love with the man. Maybe Zach loved the hero worship. Maybe he needed a woman who thought he was flawless, or he had to have a woman who looked at him with open and wide-eyed lust whenever she glanced his way.

  Except she knew Zach wasn’t a narcissist. He was an honestly wonderful guy, but did he really love her? It was an honest question, one she really needed to find an answer to before they married next month, but it was too hard to figure out just what was going on when she was with him.

  Which was why this week away was so important. Time to think without Zach clouding her thoughts. Meg had never heard of the resort before, but Elle and Jules swore that Feral Passions was the ideal place for their bachelorette getaway. Darian had agreed, so all four girls were going to spend an entire week in an isolated resort on a wolf preserve.

  Wolves? Now that had caught her attention. She’d always loved wolves, but so had the rest of their “gang of four,” as the parents called them. Except Meg’s, of course. They barely knew she was alive, much less had friends, but those amazing friends had kept Meg on the right track for twenty of her twenty-five years. She was five when she met Jules, Elle, and Darian waiting in line on their first day of kindergarten, the only girls in a class dominated by stinky boys.

  Now? Now she felt as if she paused at a fork in the road where she really wasn’t certain which way to go. The boy in question was definitely not stinky. Her friends were still single—no one had a boyfriend, though Jules had gotten close to marriage about a year ago—so Meg was the first to make this journey. Except she, Megan Ann Bonner, the one who would not be stopped at anything she attempted, felt as if she paused with one foot raised and no idea where to plant it. No idea which road to take, much less how to move forward.

  She hoped Feral Passions and a week of utter indulgence would help her discover if what she and Zach had was good or bad, right or wrong.

  She hoped time at Feral Passions would help clear her head and at the same time give her single besties the time of their lives. While they played, Meg prayed she’d either find the strength to actually look for another job and break off her engagement, or accept the fact that Zach actually meant what he said. That he loved her. That he wanted to marry her.

  That he thought she was absolutely perfect. Yeah. Right.

  What a joke.

  Elle Marcel left her client’s office and headed toward the coffee shop at the bookstore. Darian and Jules were probably getting tired of waiting, but the man she’d just spent the past hour with had needed more than the usual go-get-’em-you-can-do-it pep talk. He really was just as bad at marketing and promotion as he thought—worse, even—but it wasn’t lack of confidence. It was flat-out lack of ability.

  Maybe she needed to write this guy off. She definitely needed a new job. Shouldn’t a life skills coach have better, well, life skills? Yep, simple. She was on the wrong career track.

  She’d really wanted to be a veterinarian. Animals were much nicer than people. If her lease allowed, she’d have at least a dozen cats and dogs. Her grandmother said she had the “family gift” for healing critters, which was true. Weird, certainly, but she could actually heal injured animals. Unfortunately, she lacked any gift for advanced math, a necessity for the right studies to succeed in vet school. Like her poor marketing guy, it was her lack of ability holding her back, and didn’t that just suck?

  “Hey, Elle. You just getting here, too?”

  Startled, Elle spun around and then laughed. “I am. Dar, you’re never late. What’s up with our favorite greater Portland weathergirl?”

  “Don’t even talk weather. The current chief talking head in news wanted me to postpone my week at Feral Passions so he can take his girlfriend to Cabo. I told him no way, that I’d scheduled this week over a month ago and the reservations were nonrefundable. However, his ego is tender, and he’s the producer’s favorite. It required more diplomacy than telling him to stuff it.”

  Elle linked arms with Dar. “You could charm the balls off a bull, sweetheart. I don’t see you having any trouble charming that jackass.”

  “That’s the problem.” Dar pushed open the door to the coffee shop. “If he had balls, there’d be something to charm.”

  Elle snorted. “Well, that makes it tough.” Laughing, she led the way into the coffee shop. “Look. Jules is already here.” Elle hauled Dar across the small shop, and both of them got hugs from Jules.

  “I’ll go order for us, Elle.” Darian went over to the counter while Elle took a seat.

  “It’s been way too long since we all got together,” Elle said, “but I feel guilty doing this without Meg.”

  “Yeah.” Jules sighed. “But Meg’s the reason I called this little meeting.”

  “What?” Elle sat back in her chair, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

  Jules shrugged. “Wait until Dar’s back. I’m worried about Meg. We need to talk.”

  Trak stomped out of the main dining room at Feral Passions and looked around the grounds for his kitchen crew. This week’s group
of women was going to be showing up for the last breakfast before checking out in another couple of hours, but the stove was cold, the coffee not made, and there was no sign of Brad or Cain. Wils and Ronan were still gone for at least another week—but Brad and Cain had promised to hang around until the other guys got back.

  Unless something had happened to Cherry. “Crap.” He hadn’t thought of that, so he shot a quick glance toward their window upstairs. Dark. No one was home, and Cherry was fine. He knew that. Irritated and really wanting to punch something, he stood a moment longer, staring at the windows on the second floor. This had all been a hell of lot easier before the guys actually started finding mates, even if that was the ultimate reason they’d built this frickin’ resort in the first place.

  “Mornin’, Trak.”

  Shit! He spun around so fast he almost tripped over his own feet. “Lawz? What the hell are you doing here? I thought you had a job over in Humboldt County this week.”

  Lawz merely shrugged. “So did I. They ran into some sort of snag with the county, have to do a few more studies before we can get moving. Then Brad called last night and asked me if I could cover for him. He and Cain wanted to take Cherry away for a couple of days.”

  “Oh, really?” Trak folded his arms across his chest. “So why didn’t they ask me?” He knew it wasn’t Lawson’s fault—he merely glared at his brother on general principle. Lawz could be such a pain in the ass sometimes. He might be older, but he seemed to move in his own world with a totally different set of rules. Sort of like another guy who drove him nuts.

  A thought popped into his head. “It’s Cain, right? This was his idea.”

  Lawz merely laughed. “Worry about Cain later.”

  Trak bristled. He actually felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rise. “What’s so funny?”

  “You.” Lawz grinned at him like he was the biggest joke going. “Look at you, going all alpha on me. This is exactly why they didn’t say anything. Cain will never be your favorite wolf in spite of the fact he’s damned good at his job. Hell, he’s the only one who’d even consider doing the job. Face it, not another pack member here would consider working as your enforcer, so you’d better remember that before you blow your top.”

  “I never blow my—”

  Lawz held up his right hand. “Look, Trak, neither one of them wanted Cherry to feel guilty for making you mad. She knows you too well, knows how fucking anal you can be about the details when we’ve got people coming in, and if she thought you didn’t approve, she’d have refused to go. They’ve been mated for almost two months and still haven’t gotten that honeymoon you said they could take, and the guys were feeling really bad about that. All that girl’s done is work! They’re gone. They’ll be back when they’re ready. Get over it.”

  Trak took a couple of deep breaths. Counted to ten. Counted to twenty and exhaled. “Okay. So who’s going to make breakfast?”

  Lawz hooked an arm around Trak’s neck and hauled him back into the lodge. “Guess,” he said.

  Trak growled. But he followed Lawz back into the lodge, and that pissed him off even more.

  CHAPTER 2

  “So this is where you disappeared to. I should have guessed.” Zach leaned over Meggie’s desk and kissed her. He loved the way she got all flustered when he surprised her like this, though he’d been awfully disappointed to wake up and discover she’d left the condo. Didn’t she realize he’d just been taking a break before round two?

  Once they were married, he hoped she’d understand that when he closed up shop in the afternoon, he meant it. He owned SeaSun Integrations, and he was well aware when they could afford to leave early. When the office was closed, they could go play. There wasn’t anything on the docket for now, and he’d given his construction crew paid time off for the next two weeks. As successful as SSI was and as hard as the guys—and that included the women shipbuilders—worked for him, it was the least he could do.

  Meg shoved all that glorious blond hair back from her face and smiled at him. “Where did you think I’d go? One of us has to work, and besides, I hear the boss can be a real slave driver.”

  “Aw, he’s not that bad.” He leaned close. “He’s smart and absolutely adores the woman he’s going to marry. Kiss me, Meggie. I miss those luscious lips.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she kissed him. Maybe he really needed a private room off his private office. One with a bed. A large bed, soundproof walls, and … no. He’d never get anything done. He licked the seam of her lips until she opened for him, and he groaned into her mouth.

  He knew he’d never get enough of her.

  When they finally broke the kiss, both of them were breathing hard. Leaning his forehead against hers, he whispered, “I love you, Ms. Bonner. Cannot wait until you’re Mrs. Trenton.”

  She reached for him, wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck, and kissed him again. “I love you, Zach. So much it frightens me.”

  “No need to be frightened.” He couldn’t understand why sometimes she sounded so unsure about them. In every other aspect of her life, Meg was the epitome of self-confidence, a strong-willed, self-assured woman, one he admired beyond measure. “Honest, Meggie.” He kissed her again. “We’re going to be so good together.”

  She looked at him with those stormy-gray eyes, and for a moment he was certain he saw doubt. He wished he knew how to reassure her without making himself look like an absolute basket case. She had no idea what she did to him. For him. No clue about the power she held over him. His life had been lost in a deep, black hole before Megan Bonner, a beautiful woman with a mind like a steel trap, came into it.

  He’d barely begun to emerge from the horrible deaths of his parents and only brother in a stupid plane crash on their way to a ski vacation in Tahoe in a storm. His poor mom must have been terrified. She hated that plane, hated the fact that her husband insisted on flying even after a heart attack that had almost killed him. Zach wondered if his dad took the Beechcraft just to bug her. He’d been cruel like that, to his eldest son and the woman who loved him in spite of himself, but that cruelty was the reason Zach hadn’t been with them. He’d had it with the criticism and overbearing personality that were probably why Robert Trenton had been so wildly successful.

  But it was also why Zach hadn’t wanted anything to do with his father’s business or his money. Why he was so proud of his own success and so excited about sharing that success with a woman smart enough and sexy enough not only to understand his goals, but to help him succeed. He cupped her face in his hands, tilted her head so that she looked at him when he knew she wanted to look away. He wished he knew what she was so afraid of. He was nothing like his father. He loved her for the woman she was, and all he asked was that she love him back. “You, Meggie Bonner, are everything to me. Don’t ever forget that. Please, don’t ever doubt me.”

  Her lips parted, and her eyes filled with tears. He hoped like hell those were happy tears. If Meggie ever left him, if she walked away, he didn’t think he could handle the pain.

  Sunday morning

  Meg checked her watch, looked at the clock, double-checked to see if she had all her luggage, and looked at the clock again. Almost five in the morning, about the time she was usually getting up, but she was ready to go and waiting impatiently. Elle was driving, mainly because she was the only one of the four of them with a larger sedan that was comfortable for long trips. It was an older Mercedes her dad had given her—twenty years old and still ran like a dream.

  They’d be sharing the driving because it was going to be a long trip—almost eight hours driving straight through, but with stops along the way for meals and breaks, they figured ten or more. It was long enough that Dar was calling it a road trip and said she wasn’t even thinking about their destination—what she really wanted was a chance to get away from the guys at the station who were mostly a bunch of misogynistic, narcissistic jerks, and if the guys on the website were the ones at the resort, they were truly fine-looking me
n. Elle said she didn’t care how good they looked as long as they were big and strong and made her feel petite. That was going to take a really big guy—she was easily six feet tall and freely admitted her proportions pushed the limits on generous. Jules had been quiet about what she hoped to find at Feral Passions. She hadn’t dated much after her last boyfriend. The relationship hadn’t lasted very long, but she didn’t seem to miss him and hadn’t had much to say about him.

  Meg glanced toward the bedroom. She was going to miss Zach. She’d thought about waking him for a kiss, a chance to tell him she was leaving, but he’d worked late last night, and she hated to disturb him on his day off. It would only be a week, but they’d never been apart, not since he hired her right out of college. Not more than weekends in the beginning. Then they’d started dating, and she’d stayed at his place on a lot of those weekends and moved in after he proposed.

  She figured he’d suggested it because her lease had been up. He’d said it made sense because they’d be living together as soon as they married.

  Living with Zach was good. Better than good. Sighing, she glanced at the clock again. The girls weren’t due for at least ten more minutes, but after all the talk about going, all the reasons she kept giving herself for wanting to get away from Zach for just a few days, the reality of what she was doing scared her. She hadn’t expected that.

  What if she realized that she didn’t miss him, that she was happier without him? What if one of those really good-looking men suddenly looked better to her than Zach? Honestly, she couldn’t imagine any man possibly matching him, much less surpassing him. She was such an idiot, choosing to leave him just to see if she really loved him.

  Except that wasn’t the real question at all. What she really wanted to know was if Zach really, truly loved her. What if he didn’t? What if he changed his mind? What if he realized he was happier without her? Meg figured the odds of that happening were greater than her ever changing the way she felt. Heart thudding in her chest, she grabbed the back of a kitchen chair for balance, needing the stability, the anchor to keep her from running back into the bedroom, to keep from …