Dangerous Mating (Haven Hollow Book 1)

by Marlie Monroe

  She started pushing up into every thrust in an effort to take him even deeper. He swiveled his hips in a circle, grinding against her, and she couldn’t help the breathless moans he dragged out of her despite her best efforts to stay quiet. Her muscles tightened in preparation for another orgasm, the low buzz of sexual energy growing stronger every time he speared deep and touched all the long-neglected hot spots. Her stomach quivered and the tension coiling inside her snapped, and she came with a strangled cry. One hard spasm after another rippled through her channel and squeezed Carter’s cock.

  He redoubled his efforts, powering into her harder and faster, chasing his own release while her body quivered around him. Just when she thought she couldn’t take another hard stroke, he buried himself balls deep and ground against her, his hips working in a tight figure eight. A guttural groan poured out of him as he trembled and spilled inside her.

  She clung to him, sated and exhausted. “That was amazing.”

  “You’re amazing.” He kissed her softly. “I don’t know how I’ll ever keep my hands to myself now that I know what it’s like to make love to you.”

  “Who said you’ll have to?” Now that she’d had a taste of him, she definitely wanted more.

  Chapter Ten

  Over the next few weeks, Eliza went out to dinner with Carter at least once a week, sometimes more when their schedules lined up just right. Each time, Carter came home with her and spent the night. Every time they were together was better than the last. On the days they didn’t see each other, they texted back and forth, talking about everything and nothing at all. She looked forward to their dates, counting down the days until she could be with him again. The more time they spent together, the stronger her longing for him grew.

  Carter was so laid back and easy to talk to; being with him was almost effortless—which surprised her, considering their short acquaintance. It usually took her a long time to trust new people and yet Carter, and even his mom to a lesser degree, had wormed their way under her skin in short order. They were just so genuinely nice; she couldn’t help but be fond of them.

  Her affection for the Slades just made her situation at work that much more stressful. She didn’t know if the tension building at work was all in her head, or if the animosity she felt coming from some of her coworkers was the real deal. The only thing for certain was the number of times a day she overheard scathing comments about shifters. Nothing was directed to her personally, but she couldn’t help but feel the sting of each barb hitting home. Her daughter was a shifter. Her new friends were shifters. Carter was a shifter. She couldn’t stomach listening to people make them the butt of cruel jokes. Keeping her mouth shut and her head down had never been so difficult or so necessary in order to hold onto her job.

  To make a bad situation worse, she’d received two more notes, each one more violent and threatening. After the last, she’d dropped Audrey off at daycare and taken the notes to her local police station. Despite the menacing tone of the missives, they’d claimed there was nothing they could do since the sender was unknown and no one had actually been harmed. She’d left their office disgusted with humanity, late to work, and minus four hours worth of wages for absolutely nothing.

  Harlon rode her ass about being late and put a written warning in her file—which was a first after years of service. She swallowed the lecture with a grimace of distaste and then took her place behind the register. As the day wore on, she went from pissed to nauseous. Her head throbbed from what she assumed was a tension headache. At first, she blamed the queasiness on stress and anxiety. It wouldn’t be the first time her emotions twisted her stomach into knots. However, as the nausea grew stronger and her throat began to ache, she realized exactly what was happening. She’d caught some kind of virus.

  As if she had time to be sick.

  She cursed her crappy luck and sent a prayer up to whatever deity looked after single mothers that she could pump herself full of vitamin D and Echinacea once she got home and somehow wake up feeling better in the morning. After that morning’s warning, she couldn’t miss any more work.

  Determined to make it through her shift, she struggled to do her job efficiently and tried her best to ignore her symptoms. More than one patron commented on her pallor and asked if she was okay. While she appreciated their concern, having her horrid appearance pointed out over and over again didn’t improve her mood.

  Shortly before the end of her shift, a rush of customers swarmed the front end of the store. With the lines growing and no end in sight, she put her head down and focused on ringing up items and getting customers out the door as fast as possible. Quitting time came and went, while she struggled to keep it together long enough to get through the rush and reach the conclusion to her hellish work day.

  Just when the end was in sight, with less than three people standing in her checkout lane, her stomach contracted so violently she moaned and froze in horror. Gore rose up the back of her throat and shot out of her mouth and nose with volcanic force, spraying the conveyor belt and the food piled on top of it. Fire lit up her throat and nose, making her eyes water. She whimpered in distress, beyond mortified, and slapped a hand over her mouth, smearing the vomit around her mouth and up her nose.

  “Oh my God,” she cried. “I’m sorry. So sorry.” Sick and humiliated, she did the only thing that came to mind.

  She ran.

  Before she could reach the exit, she overheard Wilbur laugh and say, “She probably caught some disease from those animals she screws.”

  In a flash, her embarrassment turned to rage. For weeks now, she’d swallowed their crap and kept her mouth shut out of fear of losing her job. At that moment, she no longer cared. She wasn’t going to take any more of their shit.

  She spun around and glared at the other two cashiers’ on duty. “You can all take your shifterphobic bullshit and ram it where the sun doesn’t shine. I quit.”

  With that said, she continued out the door and into the late afternoon sunshine. A wave of heat blasted her from above and below, rising up from the scorching asphalt surface of the parking lot, and hit her like a Mack truck. Her stomach burbled in warning. She stumbled to her car, leaned against the trunk, and emptied what little remained in her stomach onto the ground. Once the urge to vomit passed, she wiped her mouth on the hem of her shirt, got into her car, and rolled the windows down to air out the sweltering interior. She fired up the engine and turned the car toward Haven Hollow to pick up Audrey.

  While she worried about transmitting whatever virus she had to the baby, she had no choice but to risk it. She’d just have to take whatever precautions she could and hope for the best.

  During the long drive, she broke out into a cold sweat at the thought of what she’d just done. Not only had she spewed vomit all over her work station and some poor woman’s groceries, but she’d quit her job. No matter how much she disliked her coworkers, there were better ways to go about quitting than the way it had happened. Now she had no job, no prospects, and a very high likelihood of receiving a bad reference from the only position she’d held since high school. She wasn’t sure how things had spiraled out of control so fast, but she could worry about that in a day or two, when she didn’t feel like crawling under a rock and dying. In the meantime, she had a little girl to fetch and a bed back at home calling her name. Hopefully Audrey would be in a good mood, because the thought of caring for a cranky baby made her want to cry.

  She pulled up in front of the community center, parked, and dragged her tired, sick, body into the building. At the last minute, she made a detour into the ladies room to clean herself up a little. There wasn’t much she could do about the smell, but she could at least wash her hands and splash a little water on her face. The cool liquid was a relief against her feverish skin. It also made her realize exactly how hot she’d grown during the drive over. It was no wonder she was woozy.

  She turned off the water and patted her face dry with a paper towel. Her head swam and her vision wavered.
She grasped the edge of the sink and gawked. The reflection in the mirror looked like something out of a horror movie, complete with pale, waxy skin and dark half moons under her eyes. She looked almost as bad as she felt. Thankfully it was early in the day, so the chances of running into Carter were slim—a good thing since the sight of her at present would probably scare the hell out of him.

  She balled up the paper and pitched it into the bin on her way out. No sooner than she stepped through the door, she spotted Carter standing at the service desk, talking to Joanna. A groan of dismay slipped from her throat. She didn’t want him to see her.

  Carter looked over his shoulder, the start of a smile on his lips as if he already knew who he’d find behind him. Their gazes clashed. Carter’s eyes widened and his mouth went slack. He rushed over to her, concern stamped across his face. “Eliza. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered automatically. “I’m just coming down with a cold or something.” She swayed on her feet, lightheaded.

  “Whoa there.” Carter put his arm around her, steadying her. “You don’t look okay. You look like a stiff breeze would blow you over.”

  “I really don’t feel well.” She leaned into him and sighed. “I need to get Audrey and go home.”

  “I’m not sure you should be driving.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m sure you can. Your one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. One of the stubbornest too. There’s no shame in letting someone help you.”

  “Never said there was,” she muttered.

  “Good. Then you won’t mind letting me take care of you until you’re back on your feet. You’re going to need someone to run errands and help take care of Audrey…”

  She shook her head. “That isn’t necessary.”

  “Eliza…” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I love you, but I swear you test my patience some times with your absolute refusal to let me to do anything for you.”

  She opened her mouth to contradict him, only to slam it back shut as the magnitude of what he’d said hit home. “You… You love me?”

  He stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “Of course I love you.”

  She searched his eyes for the truth and found unwavering conviction in his steady gaze. She smiled through her discomfort. “I love you, too.”

  He leaned down for a kiss.

  She lifted her face to him, ready to feel his lips on hers, until she remembered the state of her mouth. She grimaced and turned her face away. “I can’t,” she said, full of regret. “I threw up.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s all right. We have a lifetime of kisses in our future.”

  They did, didn’t they? She nodded. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Me too.” He kissed her temple. “The only thing I like the sound of more, is you agreeing to come with me so I can take care of you and Audrey for the new few days. You’ll have to call in to work. There’s no way you can work in your condition.”

  “I quit,” she blurted out.

  “Quit your job?”

  She nodded.

  “Why? Did something happen?”

  “I lost my cool. I threw up all over my workstation and then one of my coworkers made another snide comment about shifters and I just snapped. I couldn’t help it.”

  Carter’s expression turned grim. “I’m sorry you were put in that position because of me.”

  “It wasn’t because of you,” she was quick to reassure him. “No one at work knows about us. I’m not friends with anyone there. Apparently word got back to them about Audrey though. Probably from the busybody I had watching her.”

  Carter’s brow wrinkled. “They were giving you shit because of the baby?”

  She shrugged.

  “That’s bullshit. I’m glad you quit.”

  “Yeah.” She couldn’t regret quitting—the negativity in that hellhole was killing her—but she was worried about the consequences. Her bills wouldn’t pay themselves.

  “So… Let’s go get Audrey and you can both come home with me.”

  “Oh. I don’t know.” She was so tempted to take him up on his offer. “I don’t want to get you sick.”

  “I’m a shifter. Our immune systems are much stronger than humans.”

  Well, that was a relief. Maybe she didn’t have to worry about Audrey getting sick either. “Still though…” Pride demanded she not let him see her at her worst.

  “Just say yes, Eliza. I can’t stand the thought of you sick and alone in the city, when I have a big empty house and more than enough energy to give you all the TLC you could ever need.”

  How could she say no to that? He was so sweet. Would it really be so bad to let someone take care of her for a change? “All right. But you have to tell me the second we become an imposition.”

  “That’ll never happen.”

  “Promise me,” she insisted.

  “I promise.” He kept his arm around her and led her down the hall. “Now that’s settled, let’s go get Audrey and go home.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Going home with Carter had been more than a little nerve-wrecking for Eliza. She didn’t know what to expect or how to act in his house, which brought back unpleasant memories of bouncing back and forth from one foster home to another when she was a child, and put even more stress on her already overtaxed and ill body. Audrey sensed her mother’s anxiety and sickness and was clingier and crankier than usual.

  Carter set her up in his bedroom and fussed over them, fetching things for Audrey and holding the baby when Eliza made one mad dash after another to the bathroom. By that point, there was nothing in her stomach to throw up, but that didn’t stop her body from trying to repeatedly turn itself inside out anyway.

  Within a couple of hours of arriving, all her worries about Carter and his expectations of house guests had been put to rest. As far as she was concerned, the man had the patience of a saint. Anyone who could juggle a fussy baby, while holding her hair back as she retched into the commode couldn’t be anything but wonderful.

  Once her stomach gave her a temporary break, exhaustion settled over her like a wet blanket. She crawled into bed with Audrey and closed her eyes, hoping for just a few minutes of peace.

  When next she opened her eyes, her head ached and her throat burned. For a moment, she was disoriented and unable to remember where she was. When her memories rebooted, she blindly reached out for Audrey and touched nothing but the cool bed sheets. She jerked upright, her head spinning at the fast movement, and threw her legs over the side of the bed. She stood on trembling legs and stepped forward, only to smash her big toe into something hard and unforgiving.

  Pain blasted through her foot. She swore and sat back down, rubbing her sore toe.

  The bedroom door creaked open and light spilled into the room from the hallway. Trish walked in carrying Audrey. “Hey Eliza. How’re you feeling?”

  “I…” She released her foot and shook her head, trying to jostle herself awake. “Maybe a little better. I’m not sure.” She ached all over and felt like she hadn’t slept in a month, but at least her stomach was calm for the moment. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “A few hours or so. It’s almost ten.” She sat on the foot of the bed. “I hope you don’t mind, but Carter asked me to come over and sit with the baby while he ran out to pick up a few essentials for you and Audrey.”

  “No, of course not. I appreciate everything you and Carter are doing to help us out.”

  “That’s what family’s for, dear.” Trish held onto Audrey as the baby strained forward, reaching for Eliza. “Audrey just had her diaper changed and chugged down a bottle of milk. She might be ready to go back down if you’d like a little company.”

  “Yeah,” Eliza agreed. “That would be nice. I woke up missing my little cuddle bug.” She took Audrey off Trish’s hands and snuggled her daughter close. Audrey fisted her hands in Eliza’s shirt and rubbed he
r face against her chest and neck.

  “Well, unless you need something, I’ll leave you to rest and go back to watching my program in the living room until Carter comes home. He should be back any time now.”

  “We’re good. Thanks Trish.”

  “Don’t mention it. Just call out if you need anything.” Trish rose to her feet and left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

  Eliza stretched back out on the bed with her girl lying on her chest and rubbed Audrey’s back until her daughter’s breathing turned deep and slow and her own eyes became too heavy to keep open.

  The next morning, she awoke to the sound of Carter’s voice and Audrey’s excited babbling. With a groan, she rolled onto her back and opened her eyes to a room filled with sunlight and the sight of her two favorite people. There was a white crib at the foot of the bed that hadn’t been there the night before. Carter was in the process of installing a bright, jungle-themed mobile on one end, while Audrey lay on her back inside and gazed up at him in wonder.

  “Morning,” Eliza said, her voice crackling. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Good morning.”

  “Hey sleepyhead. I was starting to think you were going to sleep the day away.”

  She frowned and wiped the sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “A little after noon.”

  “Wow.” She hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since Audrey was born, much less slept past noon. “You didn’t have to take care of Audrey by yourself all day. You should’ve woken me up.”

  “You needed the rest.” He smiled over at her. “Besides, Audrey and me have been passing the time just fine. We went grocery shopping and picked up a few things I didn’t think about last night. Speaking of which, I bought you some cold pills and headache medicine, but you were both sleeping so soundly when I got back that I decided not to disturb you.”

  “Did Audrey sleep through the night?”

  “She woke up around three, but a bottle put her right back to sleep.”