by Tessa Clarke
“I love watching you come,” he said.
“I want you…now,” she managed to utter.
His lips creased in a smile. “I’ve been waiting. Come and ride me. Make me come too.”
She sank down so that she was positioned right on top of him and pressed the tip of his shaft against her pussy. He entered her, filling her completely, each inch of him a blessed relief. He lifted his hips to meet hers and she started riding him slowly, her hands roving his chest and her lips finding his. Then she sat up, leaning back while his fingers traced the outside of her nipples, and started to move faster.
“Turn around,” he said. “I want to watch that sexy ass for a few seconds.”
She flipped her legs over him and spun around so that she was facing his feet, keeping his shaft inside of her. Cupping her hand around his balls, she started riding again more aggressively, while he delivered spanks to her round buttocks. She was almost to the point of coming again when he gently turned her back around and rolled over on top of her.
He let his lips fall to hers, his tongue tasting her tongue as he slid in and out of her with tantalizing slowness. She felt as though she might go mad with desire. She pressed her hips up against his with increasing ferocity, making growling sounds of her own, until he grinned and bit her lip gently.
“Harder,” she cried.
His lips twitched again, then pressing his hands against the floor, he drove into her again and again, his eyes closed and head thrust back, until he gave a wild cry and came hard, jerking his cock into her pussy, and she let her own cries join his.
He found her hands and laced his fingertips through hers, and he rolled off of her, pulling her with him so that they lay face to face in front of the fire.
Her Dylan. Her shifter. It didn’t matter that it had only been one night. She had to tell him.
She gathered her breath and looked into his amber eyes. “I just want you to know that I love you, Dylan Blake,” she said. “Whatever wildness you want me to join you on, I’m in.”
A slow and beautifully wicked smile bloomed across his face. “For life?” he asked.
“For life,” she replied. “Even if you are a doctor.” Her lips flipped up in a wry grin, and Dylan proceeded to start tickling her in a way that somehow turned back into foreplay, and she was lost again in a starlit sea of desire with her shifter.
Sweetfall
The Cat Shifters of White Peaks
Book Three
Chapter One: Zoey
The White Peaks airport stores practically burst with heart-shaped red boxes, dangling red streamers, teddy bears, and buckets filled with bouquets of red roses. Zoey Miller gritted her teeth. She loved Valentine’s Day. She was an incurable romantic. If she had a boyfriend or a mate, she’d cook him a romantic dinner and leave a trail of rose petals to the bedroom where she’d be waiting, naked, to be the main course. But having to do Valentine’s Day—and worse, a Valentine’s Day wedding—alone, that was too much. At least she’d have her best friend Jolene to commiserate with at Alissa and Cade’s wedding.
It was too bad she’d missed the pre-wedding festivities, but the girls from her gymnastics club had done well at the meet, far surpassing her highest achievements before she had become “too curvy” to compete in a sport that required its athletes to weigh all of a hundred pounds.
She caught sight of herself in a window with reflective glass, her brown hair caught up in a high ponytail, and her wide hips poured into her favorite dark blue jeans. Too curvy, my ass, she thought. She could still backflip, cartwheel, and aerial all the way down the airport promenade in high-heeled boots, no less. She drew her shoulders back, thrust out her chest, and let her hips sway as she continued to the luggage carousels.
It wasn’t as if she totally lacked for male attention. It was just that as a shifter, she knew that none of the men she’d dated in the past was her mate, and she was tired of wasting her time with men who loved her tits and generous ass, but weren’t totally into her. She wanted a man to sing her a love song and mean it. Okay, he didn’t have to sing, but he had to love her like a love song and show her the best Valentine’s Day ever. And he had to be her mate.
Until then, she’d buy a box of chocolates for herself and spend some time with her imagination on Valentine’s Day.
She was paying for her salted caramels when Jolene burst in through the airport doors, her bright blond hair flying behind her. Zoey blinked. Jolene looked completely undone, her jacket unzipped and her hair a disheveled, sexy-looking mess, but she was glowing. She was also wearing boots that looked two sizes too large for her.
Zoey stepped away from the counter, her purchase in hand, and cocked her head at her friend.
“Sorry I’m late,” Jolene exclaimed.
“Who is he?” Zoey said.
Jolene stopped short, then broke into a smile that could pretty much light up the whole airport. “He’s Dylan, Cade’s friend, and I love him. He’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met. Zo, I can’t even believe it.”
“He’s a shifter then?” Zoey said.
Jolene’s eyes widened as if she’d been caught stealing a car. “Why would you say that?”
“Because he’s Cade’s friend for starters, and because you said you love him. You just met him, and that force of emotion and connection is only possible if a shifter is involved.”
Jolene looked over her shoulder as if someone might be eavesdropping. “I don’t think he wants people to know,” she said in a low voice. “Please pretend you don’t know. I’m a terrible liar, and I’m only telling you because you know what it’s like…” she trailed off, as if uncertain what she was implying precisely. “You know,” she added.
Zoey felt a stab of tightness in her chest. She knew what it was like to be a shifter, to have instincts and wildness in her soul. She also knew what it was like to want to love like a shifter, to feel that all-consuming, burning desire for someone. But she’d never been loved by a shifter, so she wasn’t sure if she did know. But this was Jolene’s moment, and Zoey didn’t want to take away from it with her existential shifter meanderings.
“That’s so wonderful,” Zoey said. “I’m so excited for you. Where is he? When do I get to meet him?”
“He and Cade are working at a freeski event today. They’re meeting us at four in the upper lodge for the wedding rehearsal. Zo, He’s so unbelievable in bed, I don’t think we slept at all.” Jolene looked quite literally like she might burst from happiness and the exquisite sense of being fucked and desired so thoroughly. She checked her phone. “We need to get going. Alissa expects us for a quick lunch, then we have hair in town at one. The makeup artist is meeting us up at the lodge after the rehearsal.”
“Then lead on,” Zoey said. “You can tell me all about him on the way.”
She smiled broadly, but a sense of heaviness had descended on her heart. She wouldn’t have Jolene to commiserate with during the wedding after all. Jolene would be busy groping and making eyes at her new lover, and Zoey would be alone. She was happy for her friend, really happy, just like she was happy for Alissa. She was just so ready to find her one and only.
“Actually, just hang on a second,” she said to Jolene. “I need to grab another box of chocolates.”
Chapter Two: Flynn
Flynn Weir didn’t know if he liked it when women begged. He was used to it. He tolerated it. But he didn’t like it, and right now Renate Danforth, his best friend’s mother, was begging. She also had Flynn’s cock in her mouth, so that made it harder to say no.
She’d cornered him in his office with concerns about the transport of the wedding cake, just as he was wrapping things up so he could take the rest of the day and night off for Cade’s wedding. Now he was going to be late, as always, and he had no idea how to extract himself from the situation.
Renate was an attractive, well-kept woman, and he’d always been very polite to her, charming even, because Cade was one of his
closest friends. When Renate had undone her dress, revealing a very shapely body for a woman of her age and nothing but a white lace thong covering it, it had taken him a few seconds to collect himself. Unfortunately in those two seconds, Renate had undone his fly and taken his already rather erect shaft—he was a shifter after all—directly into her mouth and proceeded to start giving him a very accomplished blowjob.
Then, between strokes and sucks, she’d made suggestions that she wanted him to bend her over the desk and fuck her. In retrospect, he probably should have seen this coming. She’d been very friendly when he helped her with the snowmobiles last night, patting his chest and thighs affectionately many times. He had thought perhaps she was just tipsy.
He’d already made noises about this not being a good idea, and that he thought she should get up, so they could talk. She’d met those with pleas of “just once” and suggestions that “Cade never had to know,” which wasn’t precisely what he was concerned about, although he definitely had no plans on telling Cade anything. It was also problematic that she was a shifter too and could become a panther in a second if enraged, and she currently had her teeth wrapped around his most sensitive of organs.
He cleared his throat. Difficult when he wasn’t totally disliking what she was doing with his cock. “Renate, I don’t think this is a good idea,” he repeated.
He had this conversation a lot, with a lot of women. Although he certainly took a fair number of them home to his bed, there was no shortage of women who seemed to think that sleeping with the part-owner of White Peaks Ski Resort was a good idea. He supposed his abs and reputation as a satisfying lover might also have something to do with it. Cade and Dylan jokingly called him the energizer bunny because of the way he worked, but he’d heard the women shared notes about his stamina and creativity in the bedroom. But he didn’t want to sleep with all of them. He wanted to find his mate.
Renate ignored him and continued her ministrations to his cock. Christ. He was almost ready to come. Coming would certainly stop her from doing what she was doing. It would also prevent her from hoping that he’d fuck her, at least for half an hour anyway—Renate knew all to well how long it took a shifter to be ready to go again—during which time he might be able to escape.
But he couldn’t do that. With effort, he wrenched his shaft from her mouth, and before she could grab it again, tucked it back in his pants and moved away. Renate let out an almost-scream and leapt to her feet, her amber eyes wild and perfectly preserved tits only a few inches from his face.
“Renate, I like you very much,” he started.
She pressed her nearly naked body against him. “Please, Flynn.”
“No,” he growled this time.
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you waiting for, Flynn? True love’s kiss to walk through the door.”
“You know as well as I do that someday it probably will,” he said with a bland look in her direction.
She gave him a terrible smile. “But you know as well as I do that that true love can die. And then what are you left with?” She almost shrieked these last few words. “I’ll tell you what you’re left with. Nothing.”
She broke down in tears, and Flynn took her, nakedness and all, in his arms. Cade’s father had been killed in an avalanche a few years before, and it was no secret that Renate had been completely devastated, as any shifter would be. Flynn wondered what he’d do if his mate died. At least now, he still always had the hope and expectation of finding his mate, even if it took a long time. How would he feel if he didn’t have that?
He patted Renate’s back awkwardly. “You know what the Shifter Council has been saying about second mates if your mate has died, Renate.” Flynn didn’t know if he believed it. It was pretty radical thinking, but two of the Council members had taken second mates.
Renate reached her hands down and cupped his ass. “Maybe I already feel that for you, Flynn.”
Flynn extracted himself from her arms. “Don’t mistake lust for love. I’d get dressed, Renate. My secretary could barge in here any second, and don’t forget she’s also Cade’s secretary.” This was a complete fabrication of course. Flynn’s secretary would never burst in on him.
Renate nevertheless began hastily refastening the buttons on her dress.
“I have to go and pick up the suits for the wedding,” he said, picking up the keys to his Range Rover.
“I don’t understand why the three of you don’t have people to do that kind of thing for you,” Renate said. “You can certainly afford it. I still can’t comprehend why my son is out standing on a freezing ski hill on this wedding day.”
“Because we like to do things ourselves,” Flynn said, taking Renate’s arm gently and escorting her out of his office.
Minutes later, he emerged alone into the brilliant sky- and snow-filled world of mountains that he loved. Hundreds of people in bright ski suits and helmets milled about the racks outside the lodge, waited in line for the gondola, and carried skis, toddlers, and coffees this way and that.
Day- and season-pass sales at White Peaks Ski Resort were way up again for the third consecutive year, and if they got the go ahead from the bank, the resort would be expanding beyond the Starfall Chutes next year. Flynn felt a little surge of adrenaline at the prospect. He loved what he, Cade and Dylan were turning this resort into. Of course, depending on what terrain they decided to open up in the expansion, he might have to give up his private hideaway on the mountain.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. In recent years, he’d often put the needs of the resort ahead of his own, which was why business was booming. It wasn’t as if he had a sweet and hot little mate to share the spot with. He’d never taken any of his many dates to his cabin, to that private little part of himself that felt like part of his soul. But the hope of spending the night in his cabin, naked, with a woman who could fulfill his needs and drive him wild with lust made him reluctant to give up his place. He just had to find the right woman—one who could make the long trek to his tucked away piece of heaven, one who was as insatiable in bed as he was.
He thought about Renate’s comments about having people to do things for them. His hunger and preference for the outdoors was a key part of the reason he still guided many of the snow cat tours that were part of the White Peaks Adventure Engine spin-off of the resort. Besides, it wasn’t as if he, Cade, and Dylan were totally used to being rich yet. The resort had only started to make money hand over fist in the last five years, after they’d implemented changes when they took over. Part of the reason the resort was so successful, in his opinion, was that all three of them were still working on the ground and had an intimate knowledge of the resort experience and employees. Most of their staff didn’t even know they were the owners.
He seriously hoped his mate, if he ever found her, shared his love of adventure and the outdoors.
A woman caught his eye as he slipped behind the wheel of his Range Rover. She was striding—almost skipping really—along one of the many snowshoe paths that weaved in and out of the woods that surrounded the base lodge, her eyes raised to the sky, and her long ponytail swinging behind her.
There was a euphoria in the angle of her body, her voluptuous curves, and the grace of her movement, like she was a tight ball of energy just waiting to be released. His lynx senses shot to the fore, and he sniffed the air as if hoping to pick up a hint of her. His body and cock felt electrified in a way that they hadn’t for many years, if ever. If he had time, and she wasn’t about to disappear into the woods, he would pursue her, but as it was, because of Renate, he was already running late as usual, and today was Cade’s wedding.
He couldn’t be late for his best friend’s wedding.
But after the wedding… after the wedding, he would find her.
Chapter Three: Zoey
Zoey sat outside the hairstylist on a park bench in the brilliant but thin winter sun, eating salted caramels, savoring their sweetness. Her hair had been finis
hed first, a smooth and stylish chignon with few flounces, just the way she liked it. Alissa and Jolene, who both had considerably more and curlier hair, were taking longer, and since they both had stars in their eyes from their recent exploits with their sexy shifters, were deep in conversation about how unbelievable shifters were in bed. So Zoey had opted to sit outside where she was happiest, other than in the gym of course.
Her quick walk around the ski resort had been great, but Zoey wanted to shift and go for a run, feel the wind in her fur and work out some of the tension she was feeling. But she rather suspected that Alissa wouldn’t be thrilled if she ruined her hair. Besides, she had no idea where she would go running anyway. In Denver, she lived on the edge of town and had quick access to the backcountry. Although the backcountry was clearly closer at hand here in White Peaks, she still had no idea where the best place to go was, or whom she might run into on the way.
Part of the trouble of listening to Alissa and Jolene’s conversation was that she had shifter appetites too. She wanted—no, needed—that kind of mind-blowing sex, and yet no human male had seemed able to provide it. She’d only been with another shifter once, many years ago. The sex had been phenomenal in a physical sense, but since they both knew all too well that the other wasn’t their mate, they both had held back emotionally. So Zoey had never had the kind of coupling that Jolene and Alissa were going on about. And she wanted it more than anything.
She popped another salted caramel into her mouth. No sense letting them go to waste. She might have to buy a third box. A man across the street caught her attention. He was bobbing and weaving along the crowded sidewalk, heading in the other direction. Something about the grace and energy of his movements appealed to her. She also noticed that he wasn’t wearing a jacket in the minus ten temperature. Her eyes fell to her own open jacket. She’d always wondered if being a lynx shifter meant she was warmer than humans in colder weather, if part of her warm fur coat remained when she was in her human form.