Falke’s Renegade pn-3

by Anna Leigh Keaton

  He smiled, but his look was just a little bit condescending. “You wish to be upset about the cast, so go on and get it out.”

  Rolling her eyes, she picked up one of the foot-longs and handed it to him. “It wouldn’t do me any good to say a thing, would it?” She pulled a bottled water out of the paper bag and offered it to him.

  “No, it would not.”

  “You’re limping pretty bad.” She opened her own can of cola and sipped.

  “I will for a few more days. Thank you for dinner.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They ate in silence, Javier eating two of the three sandwiches she’d brought him, while she took surreptitious glances at his body. The water droplets slowly dried on his golden skin. His chest was bare of hair, but just below his belly button a thin line disappeared into the edge of the towel. His thighs were heavily muscled, and she had the urge to just...bite him. Her teeth fairly itched to do it.

  “Oy, chata. Eat your sandwich.”

  She glanced at the half eaten six-inch in her hand.

  “You stare at me as if I am your dinner.”

  A little laugh bubbled out of her, and she finished her sandwich quickly.

  Javier reached into the bag of drinks, paused, then pulled out a box instead of another bottle of water.

  Heidi held her breath while he slowly turned it over in his hand. Finally, she looked into his face and found him staring at her with a confused expression.

  “We have already had sex. I do not think these will matter now if it is disease you are worried about. But I do not have any. You are the first woman I have had sex with since my wife—” He cleared his throat. “For a little over two years.”

  She shook her head. “Actually, that hadn’t even crossed my mind.”

  His brow furrowed and his lip curled. “Then you simply enjoy the feel of condoms?”

  “Ah, no. You’re the first person I’ve ever had sex with without one.” She shrugged. “Humans expect you to use them, and there are diseases that we can catch, even though our immune systems are better than theirs, so I have...until now.” She licked her lips. “I realized that—” she licked her lips again, “-there’s a small possibility that, you know...”

  “No, I do not know. What are you trying to say?”

  She took a quick breath and rushed out with, “I never thought I would have babies, because the only sure way would be with a catamount shifter. Because there were never any male shifters around I wasn’t related to, I never worried about getting pregnant before.”

  He stared at her, silent, his expression unreadable.

  “I’m sorry. I should have thought about it before we...” She waved her hand toward the bed.

  “You can get pregnant by a single shifter? You do not need two males to conceive?”

  “There was one other female in the Falke line that we know of, sometime way back when, and yes, she got pregnant by another catamount shifter. Just one.”

  “We are not the same species.”

  “I know, but that might not matter. I don’t know if a jaguar and a cougar could mate, but it’s not as if you’re pure jaguar, either. You’re a shifter. I’m descended from a shifter line. There’s no telling what might be possible. I should’ve realized it sooner, and for that, I’m sorry.”

  Javier set the box of condoms on the coffee table next to the empty sandwich wrappers and stared at it a long time.

  How could she have ever considered not telling him? To just go with it and hope to conceive? He looked so... She wasn’t sure what he looked like, but he wasn’t happy.

  “If something did happen,” she started slowly, “as a result of that first time, you don’t have to worry about it. I would never expect you to...uh...that is... I know you have a life elsewhere.” She bit her tongue when he turned a glare on her so fierce it could knock a person dead.

  Javier’s nostrils flared, the muscle in his cheek flexed. But then he blinked once and the anger cleared. “You will be the death of me, chata.” In the next instant his mouth was on her, a fierce possession she couldn’t—wouldn’t—fight. He ate at her mouth, sinking his tongue in again and again, while he buried his hands in her hair and held her steady.

  She jerked away from his mouth to grab a few deep breaths, but went up on her knees on the sofa next to him and nipped at his neck, his shoulder, that gorgeous, luscious chest. When she flicked her tongue over his nipple, he hissed, so she did it again.

  His hands still in her hair, he gently guided her down his body, letting her lick and kiss each rippled muscle along the way. He smelled of hotel soap but beneath that he tasted of pure male. A flavor she had never experienced yet would never, as long as she lived, forget. She pulled his towel open when she reached his bellybutton.

  “Oh.” His cock was impressive. So long and thick against his abdomen, a tiny drop of silky fluid glistening at the tip. Flicking her tongue, she tasted that salty little drip and moaned as her pussy clenched. She didn’t understand her reaction to him, to his very essence, but it was undeniable. If she could take him into her, body and soul, every bit of him, maybe as she grew old alone, she would always have the memory of these few days with him.

  Dipping her head, she took his cock into her mouth, suckled, licked, groaning when his fingers tightened in her hair. She wrapped one hand around his shaft—no way could she take him all into her mouth—and stroked. At the same time she cupped her other hand under his ball sac and gently tugged, squeezed and rolled them.

  Javier sighed and dropped one hand from her head. It slid under her blouse, under her bra, and he cupped her breast, pinching her nipple.

  When she hummed her pleasure around his cock, he thrust up just a little, so she took him as deep as she could while stroking him with a tight fist. He plucked her nipples harder, rolled them between his fingers. Her pussy pulsed with each tug, each tiny bit of pain he imposed, and she sucked for all she was worth.

  “I will come if you do not stop,” Javier warned, his voice low and gravely, so sexy.

  Heidi sucked harder, dipping her head again and again, stroking him hard, squeezing his balls that had grown tight and puckered. She wanted him to come. She needed to drink him in. All of him.

  The fist in her hair tightened, tugged, the pain making her moan in pleasure. And then he shouted, the sound primal, and his warm seed spurted into her mouth. When it hit her tongue, she cried in shocked surprise as an orgasm rocked through her. She swallowed everything he gave her then collapsed next to him, panting, her head resting on his thigh.

  Javier gasped in deep breaths, the hand in her hair gentling, his other hand cupping her breast now in a tender grip.

  After a few minutes, their breathing slowed. Heidi didn’t understand what had just happened. She’d come from him playing with her boobs? Impossible. She wasn’t that experienced with men. There weren’t many in Leavenworth to choose from, and rarely did any she’d slept with actually give her one orgasm. Javier had given her multiple earlier that day, and now, with only his hand on her breasts, she’d come while giving a blow job—something, up until just a few minutes ago, she’d always found rather distasteful.

  “Are you all right, chata?” Javier pushed her hair away from her face when she turned her head to look up at him.

  “Yes. You?”

  He chuckled. “I am all right.”

  She grinned and pushed herself onto her knees. She was going to stand, go wash her face, but instead she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder, hugging him hard, emotions too numerous and confusing to understand battering at her.

  Slowly, Javier raised his arms and wrapped them around her in a loving embrace.

  It took all of her will not to beg him to stay, holding her, forever. She didn’t know why he had to leave other than to fulfill his promise to Axel. She frowned at what was left of his cast in the trash can.

  What was his hurry? She was sure they could work it out with her family.

&nb
sp; They’d have to understand. The attraction had been fast, even for her, but she’d never been one to sit idly by when there was something she wanted.

  Beyond her desire to have babies, she wanted him and no one else. More than she’d ever wanted another person. If he would just agree to stay, he would resolved all her fears of growing old alone or having to leave everything and everyone she knew and cared about for the remote chance of finding a partner, companion and lover. A mate.

  He was so strong, yet behind that gruff shell he had a tender, albeit wounded, heart she wanted to know, to hold safe. Closing her eyes and resting her head against his chest, she listened to the steady pulse of his heartbeat.

  She longed to share with him all her own secrets, her passions, her life. With him she need not hide who she was or fear discovery. With him she had hope.

  Oh, God, she thought as she breathed in his scent. How would she manage the next fifty or sixty years of her life alone, or pretending with a mere human male, after she’d experienced Javier? When he left, her life would be empty.

  Surely Axel would see that, understand that Javier could be her one. It wasn’t as if Axel had asked permission when he and Gunnar decided to take Dakota as mate. And he’d eventually accepted Beth as Kelan and Reidar’s mate despite his first confrontational encounter with the opinionated, well-armed scientist.

  As Javier’s arms tightened around her, his big hands gently rubbing her back in a tender motion of comfort, she realized she didn’t want him. She needed him. And that scared the hell out of her. She was a Falke. The only female Falke in a hundred or more years, brought up alongside shifter brothers who’d made her into a rough and tumble woman who didn’t need anyone or anything to survive.

  Yet she couldn’t bring herself to let Javier go.

  Chapter Ten

  Heidi called Beth to let her know she wouldn’t be home to help with dinner, dodging all the “where are you” questions rather effectively, though her sister-in-law was no dummy. Beth knew what she was up to, especially when Heidi asked her to cover again the next day at the clinic. Beth would call if there was anything she couldn’t handle, but her parting shot before hanging up was to tell Heidi not to do anything she wouldn’t.

  She’d placed that call almost twelve hours ago. Dawn was just starting to highlight the hills outside the window, and though Heidi wasn’t sure she’d done anything her sister-in-law wouldn’t have done, she’d done a lot that was new to her.

  Javier had touched, tasted, licked, suckled every part of her body, and she’d returned the favor with relish. Forget missionary style or even her on top, the only things she’d been familiar with in her otherwise limited sexual experiences. He’d taken her against a wall— God, he was strong—bent over in the shower and from behind while on her knees. That last position had been her favorite.

  She’d surprised herself in how willingly she surrendered to his more dominant style of foreplay and sex. Who knew letting go could be so much damn fun?

  And just when she was getting used to his wilder nature, he demonstrated his elusive tender side too. She’d awakened to his cock pressed to her pussy as he spooned her and fondled her breasts. When she whispered his name, he’d slid into her and spent the last hour rocking against her, nuzzling her neck, nipping her flesh, whispering how beautiful she was. Her orgasms were numerous. Fast ones, hard ones, slow-burning ones that seemed to last forever.

  Heidi rolled over to lay her head against Javier’s chest, their bodies sticky with a sheen of perspiration. He pulled her tightly against him and kissed the top of her head.

  “That was a nice way to wake up,” she murmured, wrapping her arm over his stomach and throwing her thigh over his.

  “Mmm. Very nice.”

  “Are you going back to sleep?”

  “No. I am awake. But you go ahead. You must need your rest.”

  Tipping her head back so she could see his face, she frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

  He smirked. “I should think you would be exhausted.”

  With a snort she dropped her head back to his chest. “You think awfully highly of your prowess, don’t you?” Her comment lost all heat when she yawned.

  He chuckled. “Rest, chata.”

  “I’m awake. Could really use some coffee though.”

  Javier sighed. “In a few moments. Let me hold you for now.”

  Heidi closed her eyes and reveled in the feel of his strong arm around her, his lips against her forehead and his warm breath ruffling her bangs.

  “Do you believe your fathers will ever mate again?”

  Heidi’s eyes popped open at the question. “Uh...”

  “They still have each other, and they are not very old.”

  Old enough that I don’t care to think of them having sex. She shook her head. Pushing up onto her elbow, she said, “My family believes there is only one mate for each pair of shifters. They call it the one. If my mom was their one—which we all believe she was—then no, they will never mate again.”

  She’d never even contemplated the thought of her fathers dating again. They’d been with her mother for over thirty-five years. And they’d brought her and her brothers up with the belief in the one.

  Axel and Gunnar had felt Dakota was their one the day they met her, and Kelan and Reidar had decided Beth was theirs, even though she had the scientific knowledge to destroy the Falke family and their way of life. Surely it couldn’t be a myth. The emotions were too strong. All four of her mated brothers had talked about it.

  “Do you believe there is only one match?” Javier asked.

  “You mean for me?”

  He nodded.

  Yes, and it’s you.

  Instead of saying so, she shrugged and pulled away from him. “Axel says mate recognition is instinctual, like animals. I’m just a carrier of the gene. I can’t shift, so I don’t have the animal instinct males do. The one is who they mate with, the woman they want to have as mother of their children.”

  She glanced into the trash can next to the bed to see several used condoms, and her heart clenched.

  “I won’t have any children, so it doesn’t matter who I marry or if I ever do. And it’s not in my nature to search all over creation like my brothers must to find the one compatible person.” She headed toward the bathroom to put space between her and Javier, to hide her pain from the one man on Earth with whom she would gladly mate if given the choice.

  But it wasn’t her choice to make. It was his, and he’d apparently made it years earlier...with a woman named Isabela.

  Heidi would never mate, never have children. Not without Javier. And Javier was leaving. He’d already shared a life with his one.

  “I’m going to grab a quick shower, and then you want to go get some breakfast? I’m starving and seriously need coffee.”

  Javier rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand, and gazed at her. “Yes. Something other than hotel room coffee would be welcome. Is there anywhere that has steak and eggs?”

  “I know the perfect spot. But I need to stop at my dads’ for a change of clothes. How about I show you around Leavenworth today...unless you’re ready to leave.”

  Javier stretched his injured leg, pointing his toes toward the television on the low dresser across from the bed. “I think I need one more day before I am ready to drive.”

  She smiled at him. “Good.”

  He threw the covers back. “I will join you.”

  “No.” She held her hand up to stop him. “If we both get in here, it’ll be another hour before we eat, and I’m hungry.” Shutting the bathroom door, she locked it for good measure and heard him chuckling.

  Her smile faded. One day reprieve...only one more day.

  * * *

  After a quick stop by her parents’ home, Javier held the door for Heidi to enter a diner called simply Joe’s. The aroma of hot grease and coffee assaulted his senses, and his mouth watered. Several older gentlemen called out to Heidi, and as they made thei
r way to one of the few empty tables, she stopped to give tender hugs, pats on the shoulders, and had a friendly word for each of them, politely introducing Javier along the way.

  “Heidi!” A wiry man in his sixties wearing a dirty apron came from behind the counter, and she wrapped him in a hug.

  “Hey, Joe. How are you doing?” She kissed his bewhiskered cheek.

  Javier slid into a vacant chair at a small table against the wall and watched Heidi’s innocent flirtation with the restaurant’s proprietor—he assumed this was the same Joe. The old man smiled at Heidi, obviously taken with her.

  The other men in the room watched Javier, not the byplay between Heidi and Joe. Some openly stared while others took quick glances as they sipped their coffee. Javier nodded respectfully to those who made eye contact. This small town seemed to watch out for its own, and Heidi was clearly a loved member of the community.

  A few moments later, Heidi approached the table he’d chosen with a coffee carafe. She grinned at him as she poured him a mug, and then one for herself. “He’s digging out his biggest steak right now.

  Three eggs to go with it?”

  Javier gave a single nod.

  A few grumbles from the men at nearby tables had him looking up when Heidi made the rounds, refilling the patrons’ coffee mugs. He heard, “Just because you’re cute, you get whatever you want,” and he frowned.

  Heidi laughed. “I’m having the special just like you, Bill.” She laid her hand on a portly man’s shoulder. “But look at him. You think two eggs and a slice of ham are really going to satisfy him?”

  Amid the guffaws, Javier smirked.

  Finally, Heidi sat across from him and lifted her coffee mug to her lips. She smiled, and he asked, “What is it about the special?”

  “Heidi’s the only person we know that can get something other than the specials to eat here. Joe’s smitten.”

  “Joe’s old enough to be my grandfather.” Heidi directed her response to the gentleman who’d commented. “He’s just looking out for me.”

  “We’re all old enough to be your grandfather. That don’t mean— Hey! Why’d you kick me?”