by Tessa Clarke
Their voices blended magically making the performance far better than it would have been if she’d just sang alone, and Zoey faintly registered the flower girls, ring bearer, then Jolene walking down the aisle followed by Alissa. The congregation rose and cameras flashed, but Zoey watched Flynn. Watched him with the hunger and intensity of a predator. And he watched her back. It was possibly the sweetest most magical moment of her life.
When the last notes of the song faded, Zoey stepped away from the microphone, picked up her bouquet, and walked with limp knees to the center of the aisle where she was to meet Flynn and walk to her spot next to Jolene. Flynn approached, the intensity of his gaze hypnotizing. Zoey extended her right hand. Instead of taking it and folding it under his arm like he was supposed to do, Flynn took it and lifted it to his lips. Fiery bolts of energy swept down Zoey’s spine and thighs, and she wanted to leap on him and wrap her legs around his waist. Then he pulled her to him, tucked her hand into his elbow, and they walked down the aisle to join the others.
The ceremony passed in a whirl. It was beautiful. Alissa and Jolene both cried, everyone said all the right words, and Cade made a lovely speech. But all Zoey could focus on was Flynn and his extraordinary eyes, and the arc of electricity that seemed to join them even though they were now ten feet apart. And breathing. She focused on breathing. Then the ceremony was over, and Flynn took her arm again, and she was lost, her whole body vibrating with desire. Did he know too? He was a shifter, she knew that for a certainty. So he would know, wouldn’t he? His touch felt like magic, shaking her to the core of her being.
But as soon as the moment started, it ended. They were both swept away to other ends of the receiving line, and then off for group photos, their movements orchestrated by a busy photographer who seemed determined to keep them apart as she took shot after shot of the entire wedding party, the wedding party with Alissa’s and Cade’s families, the women alone, then the men alone. Still, Zoey was conscious of Flynn’s eyes on her, devouring her. He manage to slip her a few secret smiles, and she felt her body responding to him, inhaling his scent and sexiness, wanting more than anything for everyone else to disappear, for them to run wild, and alone.
Eventually, the photographer decreed that it was time to focus on photos of just Cade and Alissa, and Jolene, Zoey, Dylan, and Flynn were released. But as soon as they were let go, they were surrounded by a group of well-wishers and people who wanted to tell Zoey what an amazing job she and Flynn had done with the duet. She could sense Flynn trying to move closer to her, but every time he got within arm’s reach, another cluster of people moved in and pushed them apart. Women of all ages clamored around Flynn, touching his arm, standing too close, talking in that animated way that made it clear to Zoey that they wanted him. Flynn also seemed to be the go-to person for the staff and spent several minutes sorting things out with the chef and maître d. A tall, thin woman in a pink dress also seemed to be lingering on the outskirts every time he was talking to someone.
Finally Renate, looking resplendent in a slinky white dress, swooped in, looped her arm in Flynn’s, and guided him off toward the kitchen. He darted a look back at Zoey as he walked, but nonetheless went obediently.
“So is Flynn in charge around here or something?” Zoey mumbled to Dylan and Jolene who stood by her side. She just now remembered how Flynn’s scent had hung off of Renate, and how they both had been very late to the ceremony. Were they lovers? They must be.
Dylan snorted a bit. “I’m afraid so, as much as Flynn hates it. He’s a genius with numbers and people, and he has way more energy than Cade or me. It’s mostly his vision that’s brought the resort to where it is today. I just fix bones and make sure everyone gets off the slopes alive. Cade manages the ski school. Flynn oversees almost everything else. The trouble is, he can’t say no, which is why he’s always late.”
So could he not say no to Renate, or did he even want to say no?
“Can I get you two lovely ladies a drink?” Dylan said, his arm falling protectively around Jolene’s waist.
Zoey ordered another fifth of whiskey and Jolene requested a mojito. Dylan retreated to retrieve their drinks, leaving Zoey alone with Jolene.
“Did Dylan know right away when he saw you that you were his mate?” Zoey asked.
Jolene’s face flushed deeper with the happy glow that she’d been sporting all day. “He says he did. I didn’t know though, so we had to get around a few obstacles before we were able to find our way into bed.” Jolene gave a throaty laugh and got that faraway look in her eye again like she was reliving all of the things that she and Dylan had done in bed.
“Like?” Zoey prompted.
Jolene made a funny face. “Like Astrid,” she said, pointing at the skinny woman in the pink dress.
Zoey cocked her head. “Astrid was after Dylan? She looks like she’s into Flynn.”
“Oh she is. Astrid loves Flynn, but Dylan had promised to help her attract Flynn’s attention by posing as Astrid’s date, and I misunderstood.”
“Oh,” Zoey said. Even though this had all happened before she’d ever set eyes on Flynn, she felt suddenly ragingly jealous that Dylan was conspiring to help Astrid get together with Flynn.
Dylan returned with their drinks, and Zoey tried to quash the sense of hurt that she felt towards him now. He’d been nothing but nice to her.
“I need to go find Flynn,” he said. “Some guy just called the general line and said all of his doves are back in their roost. He wants to know if there was a problem. I have no idea what’s going on.”
Zoey tipped her glass of whiskey back and downed the whole thing. “I’ll go get him,” she said. “Where is he?”
“He’s probably in the office, the door just to the left of the kitchen there,” Dylan said. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Zoey said brightly. “You two love doves just grope each other for a bit, or something.”
She placed her glass on a table and marched away in the direction that Dylan had pointed. She would just go in and be forthright with Flynn. If they both knew they were mates, there was no reason they shouldn’t be finding some quiet corner to start getting to know each other. Of course if he didn’t know they were mates, that would be a problem. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it.
But he had to know. Didn’t he? Her heart fluttered a bit precariously at the prospect.
The woman in the pink dress—Astrid, Zoey recalled—had her ear pressed against the door of the office when Zoey arrived. Astrid turned and gave Zoey a hard look, as if to establish Zoey’s clear interloper status. Zoey’s instincts, already on overdrive, sharpened, and she felt her hackles rise.
“I need to talk to Flynn,” Zoey said, intending to push past Astrid.
“He’s mine,” Astrid breathed, then hesitated. “I mean I’m talking to him first. I was here first.”
“It’s about the wedding,” Zoey said. “And some doves.”
Astrid’s eyes almost gleamed. “We let the doves go, he and I, together, before we came up here. Doves shouldn’t have to fly at night.”
Zoey smiled. “Great. But if you don’t mind, I’ll just check in with Flynn.” She raised her hand to knock at the door. Astrid pushed in front of her, bumping the door, and knocking against Zoey.
The door started to swing open as Astrid spoke in a hot whisper, her face close to Zoey’s, “I saw you looking at Flynn during the ceremony. Just so you know, he’s taken. He asked me to help him with the doves. He asked me to save a dance for him tonight. I’m sort of his date.”
The door had swung further open, and a swathe of skin had appeared—a single leg and the curve of a female ass, which expanded to reveal a very naked Renate in Flynn’s arms. Zoey’s eyes must have widened because Astrid whirled and let out an agonized moan. Flynn released Renate immediately and shook his head.
“Oh my God,” he said. “Sorry, excuse us.” He bent and snatched up Renate’s fallen dress and held
it in front of her. “We’ll be out in a minute.”
Astrid burst into tears and ran off.
“Don’t worry about it,” Zoey said, giving him a hard look. “The dove guy called. The doves all made it home okay, in case you were worried.” She injected a bit more heat into the last portion of her sentence than was necessary, and turned and walked away, choking back her own tears. It was clear that what she thought were secret smiles and hungry looks during the ceremony and photos didn’t mean anything. Flynn was probably just being friendly. She thought he was her mate, but maybe he felt differently.
She thought maybe she heard Flynn calling her name, but with the hubbub of the crowd, and the music coming from the jazz ensemble, she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t turn back.
Dylan had another fifth of whiskey waiting for her when she returned. She plastered a bright smile on her face and went to stand next to Jolene. Dylan and Jolene had been exchanging torrid glances and touches before she walked up and even though they turned to her and included her in the conversation, she felt like an intruder. She was pretty sure they would much rather be having scorching sex in their room right now.
Alissa and Cade had returned to the reception room their faces aglow with joy, and the magical, romantic décor had started to feel oppressive.
“So would you describe Flynn as a ladies man?” Zoey said to Dylan, taking a sip of the whiskey.
“Flynn?” Dylan said. “The ladies love Flynn. There’s never a day that goes by that someone isn’t leaving their panties in our office. And he has to spend a lot of time entertaining the guests, male and female. The ones that cat-ski pay top dollar and they expect their guide to show them a good time after hours too. I expect there’s a lot of panty throwing then, too. And of course there’s Astrid.”
Jolene dug her elbow into Dylan’s side slightly, and gave Zoey an apologetic look. Jolene knew her well enough to know that her questioning wasn’t idle.
Dylan caught the slight movement and looked from Zoey to Jolene, then straightened up and cleared his throat. “What I should say is that I don’t know. Flynn doesn’t talk about his exploits like some guys. Women love him…for obvious reasons. But he’s a very private kind of guy. I haven’t even seen him kissing a woman publicly, and he’s pretty upfront about looking for the one.”
The one. Was Renate Flynn’s one, or just one of the bevy of panty throwers?
Zoey shifted her gaze to the three-story floor-to-ceiling windows in the reception room. Darkness had fully established itself, and she longed to be outside, running, clearing her head. She’d gone from being completely aroused to restless and antsy.
“I’m just going to step out and get some air before dinner,” she said.
She shifted behind the lodge out of view of the windows after she’d removed her pink dress and shoes and stowed them carefully in the crack between the snow and the building. Then she leapt over the orange fence that marked the out-of-bounds area for the resort, ran to the edge of the chutes, and stared over them, all of her cat senses alive and embracing the crisp, cold air, and the scents and sounds it carried.
She galloped along the edge of the cliff, her nose gathering information. Three cats roamed here regularly. Cade, Dylan, and Flynn. She could smell them all clearly, and when she found tracks heading away from the lodge, she started to follow them. Cade’s and Dylan’s large tracks were indistinguishable from each other except by smell, but Flynn had a shorter stride length and the unmistakable signs of fur around his prints. Exactly like her own.
So Flynn was a lynx too.
But he was tied up with Renate somehow, and he was a ladies man. Even if he was her mate, she wasn’t sure if she wanted a mate like that.
She would run off her sorrow, then she would return to her best friend’s wedding with a smile.
She set off in the dark, following the tracks. She ran hard for fifteen minutes, the tracks generally skirting the edge of the cliff. Occasionally Cade and Dylan’s tracks would veer off to the right and down into the chutes, like they were hunting or something. The scent of mountain goat hung heavy in the air. But the main trajectory of tracks continued northwest, and Flynn’s tracks rarely veered.
As much as she tried to forget him, to wash his sexy smile, grey eyes, and cut body from her mind, her heart and mind pulsed with him as she ran. Flynn, Flynn, Flynn.
After a time, she became aware that the lights of the lodge had become a tiny pinpoint behind her.
She also realized that something was following her.
Chapter Six: Flynn
Flynn ran hard in the deep snow. Zoey—his mate, he still marveled at this—had a significant head start, and if he was to find her and tell her that he loved her, he needed to move fast. If he only could have gotten rid of Renate earlier, he would have been able to head Zoey off before she left the lodge.
Great. He felt like he was late to one of the most significant events of his life: being with his mate. Zoey. Not only a shifter, but a lynx shifter, her beautiful tracks carving a clear message in the path of white.
He picked up his pace, sucking in the fresh air and the freedom. Out here he didn’t have to answer to all of the wants and needs of the resort employees, of his friends, of the women who seemed to follow him around, or of Renate.
Renate had been anything but embarrassed when he found her in her very comely slip and garters in her hotel. She’d tried to pin him in her room, and when that was unsuccessful, declared that she had a bunch of boxes for the wedding: the embossed place cards, baskets of red petals for the flower girls, and the wedding rings of all things, already tied to the ring bearer pillow—so she begged him to stick around while she dressed and help her to the gondola.
Cade and Alissa’s wedding was one of the first up in the Timber Wolf Lodge, and White Peaks was trying to style itself as a destination wedding location, so he could hardly just leave those items behind. Besides, as he reminded himself—again—it was Cade’s wedding.
It was definitely time to hire more staff he decided.
Having Zoey walk in on Renate’s display was more than unfortunate. The woman was relentless; he’d only been hugging her because she’d broken down and declared that she would never find anyone again and was so lonely. But Zoey, probably understandably, had gotten the wrong impression. He would find her and then he would spend the rest of the night—and his life—proving to her that he was hers and only hers.
He doubled his pace.
After about ten minutes of solid running, he could sense that he was getting closer, her delicate and lovely scent lingered in the air, and occasionally he could make out her shadowy form ahead of him in the dark. It had started to snow lightly, and the flakes played tricks on him, making him think he was approaching, when in fact he was still a good distance off. Damn, she was fast, and she must have sensed him behind her, for she’d increased her own speed. But she was staying directly on the path to his cabin, following his tracks, never deviating.
He thought about her perfect pert beauty, the pure clarity of her voice, and her curvy body in that dress. Those breasts, and that ass. She’d made him hot with need during her song. Their song. He wanted her right now. Damn the wedding and everyone back at the lodge. His paws pounded the snow, and he rounded the curve of the drop into Griz Canyon. The familiar dark speck of his cabin appeared on the horizon, and just ahead of him was a grey, loping lynx.
He slowed his pace a bit, uncertain how to approach her, and watched the grace and power of her movements in her animal form. How was it possible he could love someone so instantly and know without a shadow of a doubt that she was the one? He’d understood it in theory, but not at such a visceral, physical level. His whole body keened with need.
She continued doggedly on, never slowing. She must know he was behind her. She must also know it was him. But still she ran.
Slowly he began to close the gap.
Chapter Seven: Zoey
She’d known i
t was Flynn behind her for a while. The winds had carried his scent to her, and even though her whole body screamed at her to come to a stop, her heart, still hurting from the discovery of who her mate was, what he was like, forced her to press on. She wasn’t sure what her game plan was. In order to get back to the wedding, she would have to turn around and confront him, or ignore him completely. But she could also smell that he was ready for mating. His need burned off him like a beacon, and she supposed she probably smelled the same way. They were animals now. What if his instincts took over and he forced her? She wasn’t sure if she would even object.
But a cabin had appeared in the distance, and her curiosity was piqued. Was that where this well-trod path led? And whose cabin was it? They needed to get back to the wedding. They would be missed soon, and yet still she continued running.
The cabin was only a few yards away when Flynn’s scent intensified, and she could hear the faint pad of his paws in the snow. He was faster than her, and would be upon her in seconds. Her ears, attuned to the sounds of big cats, heard the quiet dig in of his paws.
He landed on top of her, flattening her, his paws soft and claws pulled in. They rolled over and over in the snow, batting and nipping each other, their eyes gleaming, and their want for each other growing, Zoey’s body and instincts betraying her fury. She couldn’t let this happen.