Tired and discouraged, she glanced at the room where the cubs were sleeping. Naomi was out for a walk with Baldwin, who’d showed up with a handful of wildflowers that could have been a dozen long-stemmed roses from the way they made Naomi smile.
Dakota tucked her week’s paycheck into the empty coffee can and put it back on the top shelf of the cupboard.
Saturday morning she woke up to find the cabin empty and a note left for her on the table. “Baldwin is taking me & the cubs to town to do some shopping, C U later.” Naomi had made a heart where the “A” in Baldwin went, and ended the note with a smiley face.
When Dakota checked, all the money in the coffee can was still there – along with a hand-written note from Sarah. “This doesn’t mean we’re staying!” she’d scrawled. Dakota stifled a smile, her mood lightening a little.
She was pretty sure they were staying.
She made herself a quick breakfast, then headed out to find Miles.
When she found him, he was standing behind his cabin, stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat, chopping wood. He set down his axe when he saw her approaching.
“Hey,” he said with a weary grin.
“Hey, you.” She marched up to him, took a deep breath and gathered her courage. “You feel better when you’re with me,” she said to him. “All those fights are making you tense and angry and driving your wolf crazy, but when you’re with me, some of that goes away.”
His smile grew a little wider. “You’ve really got to stop keeping your thoughts bottled up like that, babe.”
She ignored his attempts to defuse the situation with a joke. “And I feel better when I’m with you,” she said. “But you’re avoiding me. Even though it would help you to have me around.”
At that, his gaze dropped. “I’m trying to spare you,” he said. “And that’s not me coming up with bullshit excuses. You’re a good person. You’re all sunshine and light and caring. I feel like I’m the darkness that’s going to poison everything good about you.”
He reached down and brushed a lock of hair from her cheek, and left his hand there, touching her lightly. She felt a tingle of arousal at his touch.
He stifled a groan. “I can’t tell you how much I want you, Jamie. I’m fighting to stay away from you, and that’s draining me even more. I thought I could start courting you, be with you…but after this week, I feel I’m drowning. Too many fights. No time to take a break. It’s…” He sucked in a raspy breath.
“If you’re stressed out, you don’t have to talk, you don’t have to joke around, you can just…sit with me.” She reached up and pressed her hand over his. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here, Miles. There’s family stuff that I can’t talk about. Why don’t we take things day by day? And stop making things harder on yourself. If you want to spend time with me, then do it. Come by my cabin when I get home. We can walk in the woods and just sit there and not talk or…”
He let out a low growl and pulled her to him.
“You’re right. No more talking. I’m sick of fighting this,” he said.
She thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he bent and scooped her effortlessly into his arms. The breath caught in her chest and her tummy gave a happy little flip. Dakota wasn’t petite. She wasn’t dainty. But in Miles’s arms, she felt utterly feminine.
Without another word, he headed for his cabin in long, powerful strides. Once inside, he kicked the door closed behind them and lowered her to her feet, letting her slide slowly down the length of his body. She shuddered and bit back a moan of arousal. He was all heat and hard muscles, and a trickle of moisture dampened her panties. Her lips parted as he gazed down at her, his pupils blossoming wide with arousal.
“Jamie…” he said.
And he bent his head and kissed her.
The brief twinge of guilt at hearing him call her by a name that wasn’t hers was snatched away by the firm heat of his lips moving against hers. His kiss was thorough and sweet, exploring the taste and feel of her with gentle nibbles and thrilling slides of his tongue against hers. She ran her palms up his naked back, fingers exploring the firm muscle, then whimpered into his mouth as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her more snugly against him. The substantial bulge of his erection pressed against the softness of her belly, and her pussy clenched at the thought of him pushing inside her, moving above her.
They broke apart, their breathing harsh and their hands still lingering on each other’s bodies.
“I’ve wanted this so badly…” Miles’s voice was low and husky, almost a growl as he ran his hand up over her breast to open the top button of her shirt, then moved down to the next. Dakota gasped. The air was cool on her flushed skin as he parted the fabric and exposed her ample breasts, the creamy globes spilling over the white lace of her bra. He sucked in a fevered breath and she could feel his arousal building with every throbbing heartbeat.
She should have felt self-conscious, bared to his gaze, but she didn’t. From the heat in his eyes and the way they lingered on her curves, she was left in no doubt that he wanted her. That he thought she was beautiful.
Then they were kissing again, mouths clashing and hands exploring each other’s bodies. Miles ran his hands down her back and squeezed her ass, then pulled her up into his arms, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist so he could turn her and press her back onto the bed, settling himself between her parted thighs.
Dakota hastily stripped off her shirt and discarded her bra. Before she could finish undressing, Miles was naked and unbuttoning her fly, tugging her jeans and her lacy panties down over her hips, discarding her clothing in an inside-out bundle on the floor. He was almost clumsy in his haste, but his eagerness only made her more excited.
He drew back for a moment and looked down at her, his eyes dark with lust and slashes of color high on his cheekbones. Then he dipped his head and took the rosy peak of her nipple into his mouth, rolling and teasing it between his lips before biting gently and wringing a tortured groan from Dakota.
Supporting himself on one hand above her, he ran the other down her body, caressing the soft swell of her belly and the curves of her hips before reaching the triangle of damp curls at the apex of her thighs.
She gasped and wriggled as he gently parted her folds and sought out her clitoris, rubbing the sensitive nub in tight, rapid circles that made her gasp and clench her thighs around his hand. His fingers moved easily between her slick folds, and she squirmed as he pressed one long finger into her dripping channel. He moved his finger in and out, then added another, setting up a rhythm as his thumb continued to strum her clit.
She gasped and wriggled under his touch, biting her lip to hold back a groan as tension began to coil in her belly. Miles curled his fingers, beckoning to her orgasm, then he withdrew his deft, clever touch. She mewled a protest, left panting with unfulfilled arousal.
He kissed her again – a deep, hungry kiss, full of passion and desire and days of bottled-up need, and she groaned into his mouth when she felt the head of his thick erection, slippery with precum, probing her.
She dug her fingertips into the taut globes of his ass, urging him inside her with whispered pleas.
When he entered her, they both moaned, the sensation almost too good to bear.
“God, Jamie, you’re so tight…”
Again she felt a brief flash of discomfort and wanted to say, “Dakota. Please, call me by my real name…” But when he started to move inside her, coherent speech became impossible. Lucid thought fled. She was lost to the sensation of Miles driving into her body with forceful, greedy thrusts.
She scraped her fingernails up his back, feeling the muscles bunch and relax underneath his smooth, sweat-sheened skin. With every thrust of his hips, he drove himself to the hilt inside her, and the sweet tension coiling inside her wound tighter and tighter. His every gasp and groan sparked tingling excitement between her thighs. His face was set in harsh lines of concentration, his brows drawn together and hi
s lips slightly parted.
For a moment his rhythm stuttered and he held himself still above her, biting his lip and breathing hard, holding on to his control by a thread.
The sight of his desire for her etched on his face was so unbearably erotic that Dakota clung to him and cried out helplessly as something broke inside her and pleasure swept through her like a storm.
Her orgasm was too much for him, and his control snapped. He clutched the backs of her thighs, fingers digging into her soft skin as he pounded into her, frantic with pleasure, releasing himself inside her.
Chapter Fourteen
Naomi raised an eyebrow as Dakota tiptoed in through the front door at five a.m.
“Er…I went for a walk in the woods and got lost?” Dakota suggested.
“Of course you did. Wait, shifters don’t get lost. So walk of shame, I take it?”
“That would assume I feel shame.”
Naomi held out a cup of coffee to her. “Drink this, you shameless wench. The cubs are all still asleep. Baldwin and I helped them do their homework last night. John’s starting to get excited about learning to read.”
“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver,” Dakota said, sipping the coffee. She watched a truck driving up to the center of the clearing. “I wonder who’s here on a Sunday morning at five a.m.”
Naomi joined her, and they watched half a dozen men troop over to Jefferson, who trotted up to them in wolf form and shifted into human form. After they spoke, the men all went to the meeting house, and Jefferson ran to Miles’s cabin.
“It could be nothing,” Naomi said, her forehead puckered in worry.
“Mmm. No. It doesn’t look like nothing.” Miles and Jefferson were headed to the meeting house now.
Dakota waited until they were all inside, then said, “I’m going to go listen in.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“No. When has that ever stopped me?” Dakota quickly pulled off her clothes and shifted into wolf form. Naomi sighed and joined her, and the two of them slunk through the clearing and crouched down in a clump of underbrush near the cabin.
Dakota only had to get within a hundred yards of the cabin to be able to hear them.
“There’s too many of them,” one of them said. “Just give them the girl and maybe they’ll back down.”
She felt a clutch of panic. Were they talking about Sarah? They couldn’t have Sarah.
“No, they wouldn’t.” That was Anders speaking. “We give in to one of their demands and they’ll demand more.”
“It’s off the table anyway,” Miles snapped. “We’re not handing over a thirteen-year-old girl. She is under our pack protection.”
Her grandfather must have sold her again. Or maybe he’d demanded that she be returned to him. That wasn’t happening; he’d let those cubs grow up in a hell of abuse, he’d sold Sarah to be a child bride…Dakota would die before she let him take her back.
“If they send Ludwik’s men up here, we’re in trouble,” argued a voice she didn’t recognize.
“We’re stronger than they are,” Miles said. “We stand firm. Unless you want to leave our pack alliance.”
“I’m going to have to,” the man said. “It’s too risky.”
“You realize that means you can never turn to my pack for protection again. And you are banned to the eastern territory now. You can’t come into the town center ever again. If you want to enjoy the benefits of civilization, you have to be willing to defend it.”
Dakota had heard enough. She headed back to the cabin with Naomi following her, and they shifted back into human form and got dressed.
Naomi was trying teaching Dakota how to make a cheese omelet that didn’t taste like boiled rubber, when they heard a knock on the door.
Dakota could sense Miles before he even walked in. He stood there, his expression serious.
“So you two were eavesdropping.”
“Of course not,” Naomi said quickly, ducking her head and gulping.
“Hell, yes.” Dakota walked out of the cabin and shut the door behind her. “These kids are in my care, Miles. Who wants Sarah now?”
Miles frowned. “Her grandfather apparently sold her again, and your pack sent word that if we don’t put her on the next bus home, they’re coming up here to declare pack war. They were kind enough to say we can keep the other ones until Mary’s old enough to sell. When she’s thirteen. Don’t worry, I told him to shove his hairy head up his ass.”
“They must be bluffing,” she protested. “I mean, they sent me up here as a death challenger. Obviously they don’t want a real fight.”
He shrugged. “Looks like both sides of the pack might reunite and come up here to join with Fargo and the other troublemakers in the east.” At her look of alarm, he said firmly “Which would be good, because we’d take them out for good.”
“How many packs are leaving your alliance?”
“Just the one. We’re fine. I’m going to be posting extra security at the schoolhouse.”
She wanted more information, but Miles just turned and abruptly walked away. She felt a twinge of hurt at that. They’d just spent an incredibly intimate evening together, and this was how he treated her now? It felt like rejection, but she knew how Miles was. He took all the responsibility on his shoulders, and believed that sharing it would be a sign of weakness.
* * * * *
Monday morning, Miles had scheduled an emergency meeting in town with all pack and pride and clan members, to be held at the meeting house. Anders and Baldwin piled into the truck to take Dakota and the cubs to school. They were going to the meeting right afterwards.
There were four wolves sitting out front for security. They were from the Clearwater Pack, who were allies of Miles.
It was half an hour until school was due to open, and as usual the cubs were grumbling about it, but less than they had the week before. Now it just seemed like normal cub whining rather than outright mutiny.
As they walked through the doorway, Anthea greeted them with a huge, bright smile. “Jamie, so good to see you!” She beamed at the children. “And the precious little angels. It brightens my day just to have them here. Come on, come on, let’s get to class!” She opened her eyes really wide.
John took a step back, staring at her suspiciously.
Dakota felt alarm ripple through her. Anthea had either gone off the deep end or she was sending them a message.
She stood still in the entryway for just a moment and sniffed at the air. She scented several unfamiliar males in the back room, along with a group of cubs – and the scent of fear. The men must be back there listening, she realized.
“Oh, darn it, kids, we forgot your lunches!” Dakota sang out. She shot Sarah a fierce look. “All of you guys go back out to the car and get them. Now.” She glanced at the front door. “Those guards must have betrayed us,” she whispered to Sarah. “Run past them and get Miles.”
Sarah quickly shepherded the children back out the door and they ran after Miles, who was pulling out of the parking lot. She heard the screech of tires as Miles slammed on the brakes.
“How many of them?” Dakota whispered to Anthea.
“Four. Armed with knives. Holding half a dozen kids hostage,” Anthea whispered back. She inclined her head towards the door. “Too many of them for me to take on alone.”
“Well, let’s go kill them, shall we?” Dakota kept her voice low.
Anthea smiled and her fangs descended. She shot up in height and exploded out of her clothing as she shifted into bear form, towering seven feet tall. Her eyes blazed with fury, and cruel black claws curved from her paws like three-inch-long daggers.
Dakota dropped to all fours, bones shifting and cracking, and she and Anthea burst through the door to Anthea’s classroom.
Two of the scumbags holding the children hostage were in wolf form. They paced back and forth in front of half a dozen shifter children, who were lined up against the back wall underneath an incongruously cheerfu
l frieze of happy ducklings.
One little girl gulped back a sob, and the bigger of the two wolves turned and snarled ferociously at her. She clapped her tiny hand over her mouth, trembling violently, with fat tears swelling in her eyes and spilling down her face. The boy next to her, pale-faced, put his arm around her shoulders, and she buried her face against his T-shirt.
The other two men were in human form, holding silver-coated blades. Dakota could smell the silver from across the room. One of the cubs – a skinny boy with a wild explosion of ginger hair and so many freckles he looked like a join-the-dots puzzle – was bleeding from a deep slash to his arm. One of the bastards had cut him.
Dakota heard a deep, primal growl from beside her. It raised her hackles and went straight to a primitive part of her brain that screamed “Danger! Predator!” She was very glad that Anthea was on her side.
The wolves turned snarling, their hackles raised. They were both much bigger than Dakota. And even though Anthea outweighed the pair of them combined, and was mad enough to rip their heads off and wear them as earrings, the bad guys had one factor in their favor – or rather seven factors. Dakota and Anthea’s first priority was to get the cubs out of there unharmed. The two big, snarling wolves and the men with the silver blades would kill the children without a second thought.
Dakota crouched low and growled at the smaller of the two wolves. His lip curled back, exposing vicious yellow fangs. He narrowed bloodshot eyes at her and his ears flattened against his skull. Then he leaped. Anthea spun, lashing out with her gigantic paw and knocking him out of the air. He hit the wall with the sickening crack of broken bones and slid to the floor. The other wolf sprang for Dakota, bowling her over.
One of the men with knives seized a tow-headed boy around the waist and lifted him off the floor, pressing the razor edge of his silver-coated blade against the child’s throat. Anthea turned towards them. She thumped down onto all fours and rumbled a warning.
Dakota and the wolf struggled, twisting and snarling. He raked his teeth down her side and flipped on top of her, shifting into human form so he could get his hands around her throat. Two could play at that game. Dakota shifted too, and kneed him in the balls, hard.
Shiftily Ever After: A BBW Paranormal Romance (Alpha Prime) Page 10