Her Lonely Mastiff

by Summer Donnelly

  “Me? Why don’t you ask your precious human what the fuck was wrong with her? She took on a mother fucking mountain lion!”

  “I think she figured out we’re shifters.” Quinn’s voice was quiet. Laced with regret. Just once he wanted a woman to see him as a man again. The pain of his long-ago decision wrapped around him like vine tendrils.

  At eighteen, he’d thought he understood the ramifications of his signature on a piece of papers. Hadn’t reckoned on falling in love with a girl crazy enough to take on a full-grown Mastiff. Couldn’t even imagine wanting kids. Pups. Whatever the fuck they’d be.

  But then, he had scented Lacey’s fear. Watched in awe how practical resourcefulness had won out over fright. Had witnessed her fire and energy as she tried to protect him from Cree’s cougar.

  Quinn knelt by Lacey. He felt her arms and legs, looking for broken bones. “You could have killed her.” He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized no bones were broken. “You okay, Lacey?”

  His touch was gentle. Quinn knew he was a big man. He wasn’t good with delicate little things like wine glasses. Old furniture. Human hearts.

  “She had the wind knocked out of her. That’s all.” Cree James narrowed his eyes. “You know the rules about campfires in the mountains. We don’t need another fucking fire.” He spat the words out. Cree’s fear of fire was well-known in the community. “Wasn’t the one that destroyed Pigeon Forge bad enough?”

  “This was a small fire. Barely warm enough to keep her from freezing to death.” Quinn promptly put that image from his brain. Thinking about death and Lacey in the same breath was too much, especially while he held her cool dazed body in his arms. “You know I’d have put it out properly. But no, you just had to be an asshole about the whole thing, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t know you were coming to her rescue.”

  Quinn raised his eyebrow. “Your nose stop working after our sparring match?” Quinn cursed himself a fool for responding to Cree’s call earlier. Had he run away from Lacey and used Cree’s need to run off steam as an excuse?

  “You know you’re more pissed off at yourself than you are me, dickwad,” Cree said, folding his arms across his chest.

  The bitch of it was, Quinn acknowledged, he was right. He never should have kissed Lacey, no matter how tempting her pretty pink lips were. He never should have run his fingers through her silken hair. And he double-dog never should have made her orgasm.

  And yet, he would carry the sweet sound of her release in his mind forever.

  Memories cascaded over him of her moans of pleasure followed by the silky wet sounds his fingers made as they’d stroked her sweet pink clit.

  Nope, he reminded himself. Shouldn’t have happened.

  Luckily, Cree was there to disturb his memories.

  “How are you going to get her back to your place?” Cree asked as he went to kick snow over Lacey’s campfire. “Fuck-all it’s cold. How do humans stand this?”

  “Knock it off. I’ll get rid of the fire after she wakes up, okay?”

  “You’re naked, and she’s unconscious.” She wasn’t anymore, but Quinn hovered. Still worried. Her eyes had opened briefly, but they’d been unfocused. Barely there. The danger was still close.

  “Thanks to you.”

  “Hah. Hardly. I didn’t tell the little human to get in the middle of our argument, did I?”

  Lacey stirred in his arms. “Gather some wood for the fire,” Quinn ordered. He lifted Lacey up and placed her near the miniscule fire she had managed to create. He grunted with approval of her makeshift shelter. For a city girl, she had done alright for herself.

  Cree opened his mouth to argue but closed it and did as he was told.

  Once the wood was gathered and the fire was well stoked, it gave off a decent amount of heat. Quinn turned to Cree. “Run down to my cabin. Get the snowmobile out of my garage and get back up here. I’ll stay with Lacey to make sure she stays warm. Then I’ll get her back to her cabin to rest.”

  “Why don’t I stay here?” Cree asked, an annoying smirk dancing around his lips.

  “Because in human form, this cold will get to you, too,” Quinn said. “I’ll shift and keep her back warm while the fire keeps her front warm.” He shrugged. “And hope she doesn’t go into shock or anything.”

  “I can shift. My cat likes to cuddle.”

  “Fuck you,” Quinn returned, but his voice lacked any real heat. “A human waking up to a big cat just might give her a freaking heart attack.”

  Cree nodded, and Quinn momentarily wondered what memory he’d just triggered. “Just do it, Cree. She doesn’t deserve this.”

  Cree’s green eyes looked at Quinn. “You know it’s against the law to keep her,” he finally said.

  “I am just as aware of Shifter Law as you are.” Quinn paused, unwilling to see the pity on Cree’s face. “Just go get the snowmobile. The keys are hanging on a rack. The sooner I get her home and on the mend, the sooner she gets back to her life in the city.”

  In the space of a heartbeat, Cree shifted mid-jump. “Stupid show off,” Quinn muttered. He slid next to Lacey, cradling her ass into the juncture of his legs. He flinched at the cold of the snow against his bare skin but wanted this one perfect memory to hold the rest of his life.

  With a sigh, he shifted into his Mastiff and began warming them both.

  Lacey

  Awareness seeped in like the cold from the snow under her hip. Gradually at first, a mere sensation of cold until finally, it was a blaring alarm clock with no snooze button.

  The fire was at her front and Quinn’s heat at her back. Except for the wind on her cheeks and the annoying cold under her right hip, she was warm. Warmer than she could ever remember being and would have gladly stayed the night there all night.

  She shouldn’t have snuck a peek. Quinn had thought she was unconscious. And maybe, for a minute there, she had been. But then her senses had cleared, and she’d been hyper-aware there were two naked men in the vicinity.

  That was very bad of her, and she was sure her mother would have scolded her. With a wagging finger and everything!

  But really. She couldn’t help but look. Right?? She wondered what Hadley would have said if she’d seen the two prime specimens of masculine grace and beauty that had gathered wood. Naked.

  Son of a bucket, they were good looking! Lacey was lucky the dim forest light had camouflaged the burning in her cheeks. She’d known Quinn was handsome. Full of muscles. But seeing his long legs licked by flames. The play of his back muscles. The bulge of the Adonis Belt that made Lacey want to trace it with her tongue.

  And if that was how Quinn was built in below freezing temps, Lacey wasn’t completely sure she could handle him at room temperature. She grinned. She would sure love to give it a try, though. Heat grew in her core, wiping out the discomfort of the cold and the pain from having the wind knocked out of her.

  She wanted Quinn with the single-minded intensity of a three-time Olympian in last chance search of a gold medal. Already she imagined her body yielding to his. Finding room for his hips. His shoulders. His cock.

  Lacey snuggled between the Mastiff’s overwhelming warmth on her back and the toasty fire at her front. She wasn’t particularly comfortable, but the soul-deep fear she was going to die was gone. And as her adrenaline drained, thoughts poured in.

  What had Cree meant when he said Quinn couldn’t keep her? She wasn’t up on all the latest Shifter news. Lacey made a mental note to look it up online when she got back to civilization.

  The rattle and roar of the snowmobile was as ugly and unwelcomed as a dropped stitch in a knitting project. Lacey realized they needed to get back to civilization, if you could call the rustic cottages civilization, but she didn’t want to leave.

  Eventually, Quinn realized they were both awake and aware. Knowledge of his shifter status was an unspoken wedge between them.

  “You’re a shifter,” Lacey stated, her voice pitched low.

  “Not
now, Lacey. We’ll talk when we get back to the cabin.”

  Lacey was momentarily stung. She’d kind of liked Quinn calling her Trouble. But hearing her name on his lips now felt like goodbye. She tried one more time. “Okay, but you know. You’re totally a shifter, right? I’ve never met one before. Heard about them, though.”

  Cree pulled into the clearing, fully clothed and carrying an extra helmet. Worried green eyes cast north towards where Quinn stood. “You’ll put the fire out.”

  Quinn nodded, already kicking snow onto the dying flames. “I’ll take her home.”

  Cree shook his head, a sly grin on his face. “I’m already dressed. You run home like a good puppy. I’ll drive her back.”

  The two men stared at each other and Lacey could practically smell the testosterone in the air.

  “Jeeze oh Pete,” Lacey said, grabbing the helmet out of Cree’s hands. “I just want to be warm and dry. You two can measure your manhoods another day, you hear?”

  Cree blinked at her, his mouth barely breaking into a grin. “Did she take a look at our dicks?”

  Quinn’s eyes crinkled around the edges with humor. “Seems that way.” He held his hand over the remains of the fire, seeking any escaping heat.

  “No, I didn’t.” Lacey set her chin mulishly. She was no young deb getting scolded by her grandmother.

  “Really?” Quinn’s raised eyebrow of disbelief called her on her fib.

  Lacey shrugged, deciding she was no longer going to deny the obvious. A pain hit her chest as she realized this was probably the biggest life lesson of all. Stop denying the obvious. “Well, what did you two expect? Next time, put some dang clothes on,” Lacey said with a toss of her hair.

  “They must be in my other pants,” Quinn said with a roll of his eyes.

  Lacey narrowed her gaze, taking in the way the cold tightened Quinn’s skin. Making her want to warm them both in front of a bedroom fire. With her hands.

  “Can we get out of here?” Lacey asked Cree. She didn’t want to remain, haunted by the sheer perfection of his body without being able to touch it. Taste it. Own it.

  “You got it,” Cree said right before he gunned the throttle, and they took off in a spray of snow, exhaust, and Cree’s laughter.

  Chapter Seven

  Lacey

  “All vets pay with their life. Some all at once. But some, like Quinn, pay by inches over their lifetime.”

  Even an hour later, Cree’s parting words still hung in the air. Haunting Lacey.

  She was showered. Warm. Safe. Dressed in a pair of cozy flannel pants decorated by llamas and paired with a matching top. Lacey sat in a bay window and watched Quinn’s house for a sign of life.

  Nothing. It was as still and dead as a winter’s night.

  “How about another cup of tea?” she asked Zoe. The cat merely purred from her warm spot in front of the fire.

  As the tea warmed her, other events fell into place. Of course. The giant dog she’d tripped over the first morning here. She paused. Wait. Had it been just that morning? Lacey walked over to the front door and opened it. Sure enough, there was her Mastiff. Quinn.

  All vets pay with their life. Some all at once. Some by inches.

  She grabbed the pants he had left on the porch after their kiss. “Get dressed and come talk to me,” she ordered her voice sugar over steel. This was a non-negotiable. She closed the door to give him a moment of privacy but really. What was the point? She’d already seen every square inch of the man.

  He walked in. Tall, half dressed, his dark brown eyes shied away from her direct gaze.

  “I didn’t realize there were Mastiff shifters,” she finally said to break the silence. She handed him a cup of steaming hot chamomile. “The press likes to focus on the bears and bigger cats.”

  “Do I look like an herbal tea drinker?” Quinn asked, but he fell silent over Lacey’s stern look of reproach. He sipped the hot beverage quietly.

  “Why a Mastiff?” No reason to avoid the elephant in the room. Wasn’t that her revelation for the night? Don’t avoid what’s clearly right in front of you.

  Quinn shrugged. “We’re loyal. Protective. Run herd on our men.”

  “Stubborn. Hard to train.”

  A small grin kicked up on the side of Quinn’s mouth. “That, too.”

  Lacey sat facing him, wincing as Zoe used a little too much claw as she climbed onto her lap. Zoe kneaded some biscuits before settling in for a little snooze.

  “Why is your cat glaring at me?”

  Lacey took a look at Zoe’s small calico face. “That’s her happy look,” Lacey returned. She waved her hand to indicate the general area at large. “Is all of Maxwell Mountain occupied by shifters?”

  “Mostly. This was my hometown coming up. It made sense to come home when I was done. My folks were gone by then. As a Gunny, I met most of the shifters at one point or another. First one showed up. Then another. Eventually, word got out.

  “The cabins?”

  “I rent them to other shifters. The agency I work through is supposed to weed out humans who accidentally find my ad.” He smiled and tilted his head. “It does raise the question how you got here.”

  “My friend Hadley booked it.” Lacey frowned. “Could she be a shifter?”

  “Unlikely. Although they’ve been training some women recently for covert ops. Intel. Things like that, but for sheer brutality, they prefer males.”

  “There’s not a lot of you, is there?”

  Quinn tensed. “I don’t think this is a good time to discuss the high mortality rate of shifters, do you?”

  Lacey nodded, conceding the point. “And Cree?”

  Quinn stood and walked to the window. A light snow still fell, shrouding the world in a pristine curtain of white. “Cree is an unauthorized shifter. He runs the Lusty Leopard in town.”

  “Unauthorized?”

  Quinn nodded, looking grim. “When we sign on the dotted line for Uncle Sam, they registered us. Part of the agreement is that we cannot have kids. They told us our DNA is too fucked up to even impregnate a human woman, but Cree is proof we aren’t.”

  Lacey had several things to say. First was about the idea that as shifters they were somehow not “human” anymore, but more importantly that they were registered. “So, there’s a government agency that follows up on you all?”

  “Supposed to be. Some pencil-neck showed up here my first week out of the army and asked me a bunch of questions. Haven’t seen another one, since.”

  “But Cree is unauthorized. That means he’s not registered, right?”

  Quinn nodded, tension appearing on his broad shoulders. “His father was a shifter who served with me. Didn’t make it back. And his mom.” Quinn swallowed. “Well, that’s his story to tell. The government knows about Cree, but as long as he stays to the mountains, they leave him alone.”

  Much to Zoe’s disgruntlement, Lacey set her aside and rose to stand behind Quinn. “He means a lot to you?”

  “I’m the only father figure the kid has.”

  Lacey smiled. “He didn’t look like a kid.”

  “When you’re my age, twenty-five seems like a kid.”

  Quinn yielded beneath Lacey’s touch, and they faced each other. “I’m twenty-seven. Do I seem like a kid, too?”

  Heat swelled between them as their eyes met. His coffee-dark. Desperate. Afraid. Hers golden-brown. Calm. Confident.

  “You are the most exquisite woman I’ve ever met, Trouble. You call to me here.” Quinn’s hand covered his heart. “You call to me here.” His hand went to his forehead. “And you call to me here.” His hand covered the growing bulge in his jeans.

  Lacey smiled, pleased he was back to calling her Trouble.

  She placed her smooth, pale hand over his chest. Beneath her smooth, capable fingers she felt the steady pace of his heart. “It’s the same for me, too, Quinn. All my life, I was just a screw-up.”

  “You? But you’re perfect.”

  Lacey chuckled, the s
ound rusty and uncomfortable. “Oh, Mother would have a field day with that. I was too fat to be a debutante. I was too smart for vapid conversation at the best country clubs. I was not pretty enough to catch my Mrs. And they were aghast when I went to work at an animal rescue.” She shrugged. “Eventually, I took the classes and became a certified veterinarian technician.”

  Quinn’s hand shook as he pushed a curl away from her face. “Like I said,” he whispered, his voice whiskey rough. “Perfect.”

  The scorching heat between them popped and fizzed like static electricity on a dry winter’s afternoon. Too hot to be ignored.

  Lacey took a step closer, the tips of her breasts barely grazing Quinn’s abdomen. He inhaled sharply and then visibly relaxed. So close. They were barely a hair’s width from touching.

  Awareness pounded through in time with each breath. Each heartbeat. Lacey swallowed, feeling her throat tighten with emotion. She shivered as awareness blanketed her senses, and a chill went up her spine.

  Her hand lifted, linking their fingers. Quinn flexed his fingers. Stretching the delicate tendons that lay between each digit. Lacey gasped as the sensation made her shiver.

  With her other hand, Lacey traced the line of his wide, scarred hands. Worked her way up his wrist, delighting in the friction from the scattering of arm hair. She swallowed as her nails traced the outline of his bicep. “You’re beautifully formed,” she whispered, helpless desire in her eyes. Her sexy yet impossibly lonely Mastiff.

  His coffee-dark eyes were wild. Quinn was a beautiful scarred-up male. One who would gladly give up his own life to protect his mate. Lacey closed her eyes, unwilling to read what his eyes were clearly telegraphing.

  “Look at me,” Quinn urged his voice a deep rasping rumble within his chest. “I want to see what you’re feeling.”

  Lacey shook her head, sudden embarrassment catching her off guard.

  “Why?”

  “I’m afraid.” Her voice lowered. Grew husky. Breathless before his steady gaze.

  Quinn

  “Of me?” The idea was untenable. He was born to protect her. Shield her. His handful of Trouble was never to feel fear, especially from him. His hands clenched and released with the desire to protect.