Switching Gears: Coyote Bluff Series Book 3

by Lea Barrymire

  Flicking her tongue along the shell of his ear gained her a growl. She whispered “Fuck me.”

  Zeke’s body tensed for a split second and then he was moving. He leaned back on his knees, grabbed hers and shoved them apart, pushing them up and out to open her pussy to the air. The heat of his stare was enough to combat the chill. He growled again, deep and needy.

  “Keep your knees there.” He commanded before releasing her legs.

  Two rough fingers invaded her folds as he pumped quickly in and out of her cunt. The wet, sloppy sounds echoed around them. Warm liquid ran between her ass cheeks as she gushed again. Amie whined and tossed her head. “Harder.”

  “You’ll take what I give you. Grab your legs and don’t let go.”

  Oh, Gods. Her channel clenched around his fingers as she obeyed.

  No warning. One moment he was finger-fucking her and the next he was thrusting his oh-so-hard cock deep into her sex. She squirmed, the pressure and stretch almost too much to take, but he held her hips and drove into her again, keeping her from escaping.

  “This is what you wanted? Wanted me to fuck you into the dirt?”

  “Yes. Gods, yes.”

  She held onto her thighs with all her strength because he’d told her to, as he took her hard. Her back scraped against the ground, sticks digging into her skin. Every pump of his hips slammed against her ass and pushed her into the ground, then he dragged her body back to him and did it again. She opened her mouth and let the moans pour out, knowing full well she was filling the silent woods with enough noise to scare off anything alive.

  Zeke changed the angle of his hips and the next invasion threw her into a fast orgasm; she screamed as she came. Her body clamped down on his cock, shuddering around him. Zeke leaned forward as her muscles spasmed, no longer holding onto her hips with strong fingers. He slid his hands under her shoulders and gripped them. His hips pivoting fast and hard against her ass.

  “Give me your neck.”

  She tilted her head without thought and came again when he clamped sharp teeth on skin. She grabbed his biceps to ground herself as her mind was wiped clean of thought. Pleasure so strong it brought tears to her eyes tore through her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t tell if she lived or not. Amie’s teeth rattled as she shook with the intensity of it.

  A howl, muted by her neck, signaled Zeke’s release a moment before she felt it deep inside. Hot cum bathed her channel as he slammed once more into her body. His frame shook just as her had moments before and a groan followed his animal’s call.

  Chapter Twenty

  The way his heart raced after running all night through the woods after game couldn’t even compare to what it was doing now. It was almost as if he was coming to after fainting or something. His brain was muddled, he ached all over and he finally took stock in the state of the two of them.

  “Hell. Are you okay?”

  He tried to scramble off her but she gripped his thigh hard and growled. “Don’t move. I’m enjoying the aftermath of that fantastic thing we just did.”

  Her voice was raspy, probably from the amount of panting and screaming she’d done. He couldn’t help the boost to his ego. His Amie had come undone under him, crying out and, damn, hadn’t it been amazing. “But, I don’t want you lying in the dirt.”

  She laughed breathily. “Stop thinking. I’m fine. I like the dirt. It smells like us and nature.”

  Zeke did try. But his cock was slowly softening, still nestled between Amie’s amazing ass cheeks, and she smelled like him. Yep. The dick knew it was close to heaven, and was trying to rise again. If he was going to let her get off the ground then he had to get up. With a quick pushup and a modified burpee, yeah he worked out sometimes, he was standing and then was hard pressed to not drop right back down on his mate.

  Amie’s creamy thighs were spread wide, her juices glistening on her shaved pussy and darkening the soil below her. Cum trickled from her, dripping his creamy seed onto the wet dirt. Hand prints were still pink on her flanks from where he’d gripped her. Dark brown dust and small clumps of grass covered her silky skin. Debauched was the best way to call the look, and it looked good on her.

  A whine made him laugh. He knew his cum and their combined sweat had to be starting to dry on her skin. Even he was starting to get itchy. “Come on. Let’s go to the little stream and clean up, then we can head home and do this all over again, but in bed.”

  “Don’t wanna.”

  The childish response was cute, but the way she kicked her legs in protest had him laughing. “Why?”

  “Because I’ll have to see people and they will look at me.”

  He hadn’t thought about how others would take her return. “So?”

  With a hmph she turned over and gave him the same look his mom used to give him when he had said something dumb. “So. It means that I am uncomfortable going back to Coyote Bluff when I’d been stupid and childish. I don’t want to see the anger or the head-shaking because of my leaving. I don’t want to face Skip after I went against his wishes and left town, and I surely don’t want to see Connor or anyone else that had been my friend.”

  Shaking his head and tsking at her got a handful of dirt thrown at him. “What? They aren’t going to look at you any differently than they used to. Sure, you did something stupid, again, but come on. Think about what you would do if it the situation was different. If Margie had run from Connor and tried to save the group. Would you treat her differently when she came back? We are all family, and, sure, there are a few with more marbles missing than the rest, but most of us are nuts. What fun would there be if we were all socially normal?”

  Amie sat there on the ground, picking specks of dirt and leaves off her legs. Zeke wasn’t sure she’d say anything at all, but, after a moment, she nodded and looked up at him with hope shining in her beautiful face. “You really think they aren’t going to hate me?”

  He couldn’t take it any longer. He plunked down next to her and lifted her into his lap. The squeak was cute, but the heel into his groin was not. “Watch it, I’m trying to be an emotionally supportive mate. All this squirming and flailing is making it hard to hug you and hold you for moral support.”

  After settling her in his lap, and rubbing his now-hard cock against her bottom for good measure, Zeke pulled her head under his chin. He knew a goofy smile curled his lips, but he didn’t care. The light purr rumbling his mate’s chest was testament enough to how much she trusted him.

  “Now. I know Coyote Bluff wants their resident nutball back. Do you really think I could have gotten here, found you, set up trailcams, and have gotten permission to be on this land from the pack that lives here if I didn’t have help from Skip? Connor started tracking you the moment they knew you were gone, Pete was just about tripping over himself to tell me he’s the one that scoured the cabin for the paper. And of course all the women are in on it. Didn’t you smell us all the other night?”

  A light blush crept up Amie’s neck and she burrowed deeper in his embrace. “I didn’t know if y’all were here helping the pack here find me and run me off again. That’s what my dad would have done.”

  “Oh, honey.” Zeke hugged her all the tighter. “We are nothing like the scum of a sperm donor you call dad. Coyote Bluff takes care of family and you’ve been part of the family since you moved in. You can’t get away from us that easily.”

  “You really want me.”

  Her words were so low that even with shifter hearing he almost didn’t pick up on the statement. His heart tried to break and burst all at once. Living through the hell she had was bad enough, but to finally hear the conviction in her voice, to know that she finally accepted that Zeke hadn’t been lying… well, he was one happy camper.

  “I love you so much Amie Dorner.”

  *****

  The words stuck to her tongue. Zeke loved her. And said it so freely. She could hear herself responding, but it was just in her head. I love you too, so much. The moment passed,
he kissed her on the top of her head and slowly started to rock her while she still sat in his lap.

  “I, um…”

  “You don’t have to say anything back. That’s the nice thing about statements like that. I wanted you to know.” He kissed her again.

  Blowing out a huff she tilted her head back and leaned away enough to see his face. “I know. But I want you to know too. It just doesn’t do the feelings I have justice. I love you too, but it’s so much more. My heart beats for you. My soul, our soul, feels whole when you’re with me. There needs to be a bigger statement. I mean I love lots of people. But I can’t live without you. This little stunt taught me that. We would have come back sooner rather than later because I couldn’t survive without having you with me.”

  Zeke looked thoughtful for a moment. “How about we just make up our own saying? It can be something funny, cute, Latin? Something that only we know what it means and it can be more than just loving. Because babe I feel exactly the same way. I would have crawled here on hands and knees to find you if I needed to.”

  She laughed. “Like a spy movie? The red curtain covers the rooster’s ass.” Snorting was so ladylike, not, yet she was full-on Porky Pigging while thinking about it. “Blue rainbows taste like toast.”

  Zeke pinched her ass cheek. “No. Something cuter, but now you’ve got me thinking of stupid things too.” He sighed, and rolled his eyes. “What do you say? Go home?”

  Amie thought about it for half a second before nodding. “If anyone says a word to me that’s mean I’m holding you accountable for it.”

  He grinned. “Oh? I’ll give you an orgasm for every mean and hurtful thing anyone says about you leaving. How about that?”

  The look in her eye must have clued him in because he put a finger up and continued. “But you are not allowed to goad anyone into saying anything, and you can’t pay them in any way to do so either.”

  “Okay. Deal.” She secretly wondered if he had a phone with him in the truck because he hadn’t said she couldn’t text anyone and let them know that she needed them to berate her. Playing fair was for stupid people. And if anything she’d gone through in the last few weeks had taught her, she’d learned that playing the odds, pulling pranks and definitely NOT playing by the rules was the way to go. She would never have gotten Zeke, wouldn’t have found a way to connect with her kitty and probably wouldn’t have located such a great vacation place.

  “Whatever you are concocting over there better stop. You look like the cat that ate the canary, or the evil scientist just ready to scream it’s alive. Be nice to me. I’ve been through a lot lately.”

  Patting her mate on the cheek only got her a scowl. “I’ll be nice. And I’m going to be good from now on. Promise.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “Right. Mm-hmm. We will be starting the prank jar as soon as we get home.”

  “Yeah good idea.” She looked around the clearing and noticed the sky was just beginning to lighten. “Want to run in animal form for a bit?”

  “Really?” The word was laced with shock.

  “Really. My kitty and I are buds. We’ve come to a bunch of understandings. And she wants to race your coyote.” Zeke didn’t even answer her in words. He lifted her and placed her hastily on the ground next to his hip. The moment his hands were away from her body he started shifting. Laughter bubbled in her chest. “Well that answers that.”

  Letting the shift take her was so easy this time. The bobcat stepped forward in her head and the human side took a step back. One moment she was human the next she was stretching her paws and digging claws into the dirt. Even the shift in vision didn’t bother them. Seamless, painless, perfect. They purred for the pure joy of doing so.

  A big doofy head bumped into the cat’s rump a split second before her coyote licked a slobber trail up her neck and face. If it’d been another animal, friend or not, she’d likely have taken a paw to the side of their head, but she’d put up with a bit of doggy breath and grooming by her mate.

  After another nudge with his head, Zeke tilted his head back and left out a howl of triumph, joy, something. His tail was up, ears forward and the intelligence in his eyes spoke volumes. Bobcats typically didn’t vocalize but this time she felt the need to yowl with her mate, to let the world know they were together. Her call was more like a scream, eerie and frighteningly loud. But it sounded perfect to her as Zeke howled again in concert with her.

  Because she didn’t believe in being fair, even in a race, the cat bounded off in the direction Zeke’s scent led her before he’d finished his call. It cut off behind her with a weird bark and she put more energy into sprinting. Her body was like a spring, coiling and throwing her forward through the underbrush. She chirped, something usually reserved for communicating with mates or offspring, and because it pulled an answering yip from Zeke, she did it again.

  Joy was running through the trees with your mate hot on your heels. Amie laughed silently as she watched through her cat’s eyes. Maybe Fate had decided she deserved happiness after all. Or maybe she’d needed to come to the realization that her mate was more than just a boyfriend, or more than someone thrown into her life. That she really loved Zeke for the man he was. It had nothing to do with them being compatible, shifters, or anything. He understood her, and far more importantly, accepted her with all her flaws.

  Either way she wasn’t letting him go this time. He was stuck with her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Panting while tangled in a heap of legs and arms was probably Amie’s favorite way to shift back to her human self. They’d run for hours, playing, tumbling and roughhousing together. The sun was starting to set and they needed to get back. As they’d relaxed a thought had dawned on her and nearly made her jump up. Zeke had come looking for her. And she’d trusted him immediately. But he’d come with the pack. They, her cat and human side, had never once anticipated a trap when he’d hung from the tree. Not once. She trusted them and knew they wouldn’t hurt her. Her pack. It was a weight off her chest to know they weren’t after her, were truthful and honest and were her pack.

  But with that knowledge still came the worry about how they’d take seeing her again. They could be trusted, but would they accept her back? Even as Amie’s heart flipped in her breast from the epiphany she worried. What would the others say?

  “Stop thinking about them. And no, I can’t hear your thoughts so pull your eyebrows down off your forehead. I just know how you think. You’re all fluster and bluster but under that is a soft squishy kitty.”

  Should she be pissed at him? Because, come on… squishy? But even as Amie tried to muster some sort of attitude about his words, she melted with the look in his eyes. Love shone so brightly it felt like looking at the sun and feeling its rays on her skin. Warming under the emotion felt so right.

  “Whatever.” Before she could roll her eyes strong fingers dug into her sides and she couldn’t help but wriggle and squawk loudly. “Stop. Zeke, stop it. I hate being tickled.”

  “Not until you admit I’m right.”

  She tried to fight him off, tried to escape, but he’d pinned her with his legs and moved far faster than a big guy should be able to. Her tears from laughter and the gasping for breath didn’t stop him either, and somehow his movements went from purely tickling her to every once in a while stroking a taunt nipple or quickly-heating pussy.

  “God, stop it. Okay, okay.” Gasping for enough oxygen was like trying to suck in a thick milkshake. “You’re right. Stop. I said it. You’re right.”

  Zeke chuckled but stilled his horribly talented fingers. “I’m right about what?”

  Shit.

  “Amie. I’m right about what? Because that’s part of this torture.”

  She pursed her lips. Stupid mate knowing what she was thinking. “You didn’t specify what you were right about either.” She hedged as she tried to extricate herself from his legs and arms.

  The rumble in Zeke’s chest moved through her body and pooled hotly in her c
ore. And the breeze carried her desire on the wind, salty and musky. A blush wrapped itself around her chest and neck, creeping along her skin until her ears burned with it.

  “God you smell good. I want to lick you for hours until your voice is gone from screaming out my name. But I’m getting off topic. I. Was. Right. About what?”

  Huffing, even though a silly grin tugged at her mouth, she answered, “Fine. You are right about me being squishy. And that I worry about what others think. And that we’re mates. You’re right about it all.” She leaned away from his chest enough to be able to see his eyes. “Happy now?”

  He didn’t answer her with words, instead he wrapped his arms tightly around her, dragging her lips to his. Even as he stole her breath from her, she could feel the smile against her mouth. She gave in to the kiss, tangling her tongue with his, nipping his lips. Joy and passion fueled her response.

  Amie whined when Zeke softly disengaged from the kiss. “Why are you stopping? Kiss me.”

  He laughed. “Nope. Time to go home. We have worried everyone long enough. And I’ll make it worth your time. Promise. Think of it,” His strong hands kneaded her flesh, warming her from the inside out as he continued. “A hot shower, warm food, soft bed.”

  Sure, that all sounded good but, then again, so did hot monkey sex on the ground. She moaned as he swept rough finger tips over a breast, skimming her nipple. Maybe if she wiggled just right he’d forget about home. “Sex now. Shower later.”