by Zoe Chant
Leah smiled helplessly. God. He was so, so different from Rob. “Nope, it doesn’t hurt anymore, not since the very beginning. And I just fed Emily, so you’re probably not going to get a surprise shower.”
Jeff laughed, and then lowered his head so the end of the laugh tickled her right between her breasts. She drew in a surprised gasp, and then let it out on a moan as he kissed her on that so-sensitive skin.
He spent a long time exploring her breasts, leaving her panting with renewed arousal by the time he was done. But he didn’t move right to her pussy this time. Instead, he kissed and stroked what seemed to be every inch of her body.
Her temple, and then her cheekbone. The side of her neck—she shivered. Her shoulder, and down her arm to the inside of her elbow, where he sucked lightly at the thin skin there and made her squirm with pleasure. The palm of her hand, which she’d never realized was so sensitive. Her hipbone, her inner thigh, the side of her knee. A soft kiss to her sensitive toes.
“You’re beautiful,” Jeff told her. “I’ve looked you over from head to toe, and I want you to know that I think your whole body, every inch of it, is absolutely gorgeous. And anyone who told you differently is probably blind.”
Leah choked on something between a laugh and a sob. Jeff immediately moved up the bed to pull her into his arms. She said, “Thank you.”
He kissed her deeply. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in, feeling his whole long, muscled, naked body up against hers.
He groaned, and she remembered that he’d been giving her all of the attention so far. “What do you want?” she murmured in his ear.
“What I want more than anything in the world right now is to be inside you,” he murmured back. “But I don’t have a condom, so I’ll wait for that.”
Wait? She wondered if Jeff was looking at this as more than a one-time thing. The thought made the happiness inside her swell even further.
But she shook it off to focus on the problem. “Well,” she said, “after I got pregnant, I was...a little paranoid. I never wanted it to happen again without everyone involved being on board. And so even though Rob wasn’t—wasn’t interested, and even after he left, I just thought it would be smart...”
“Leah,” Jeff interrupted, smiling, “are there condoms in the other room?”
“In my overnight bag,” she admitted. “I put some in there after Emily was born.” And in the nightstand, and in the medicine cabinet, and...a thought occurred to her. “I hope they’re not expired.”
“Let me go check. Very quietly, I promise.” Jeff hopped out of bed, tugged on his pants, zipped very carefully, and went out the door.
Leah smiled at the sight of him being modest for Emily. Even though she was asleep, and ten months old. It was so sweet and thoughtful, even when she was sure he was so turned on he couldn’t think straight.
Jeff returned a few minutes later, brandishing a little box of condoms, triumphant. “Not even expired,” he said. “I checked, we still have three months.”
“You better not take three months to come back here, then.” Leah stretched pointedly, feeling a little daring displaying her body like this. These days, she was more used to covering it up. But Jeff had said that she was beautiful, and he’d looked at her like she was sexy, so...
And sure enough, his eyes went hot. “Three seconds, more like,” and he was back on the bed in less than that, kissing her hotly while he undid his pants and tugged them off again.
Leah’s body went from zero to sixty in that three seconds; it was no time at all before she was moaning into Jeff’s mouth, her pussy tingling. She hadn’t had a man inside her in so, so long... “Please,” she moaned.
“Anything,” Jeff said.
“Please, I want you inside me.” She tugged the box of condoms from his hand and pulled one out with fumbling fingers. He took it and tore it open, pulling back so that he could put it on.
His body was truly magnificent, Leah thought, feeling a little dazed at the sight of it again. The thought that, at least for tonight, it was all hers...
She reached for him. “Jeff, I need you now.”
“Yes,” he groaned, and came to her. He kissed her deeply as he tugged at her hips, his fingers sure and warm. She spread her legs, panting with anticipation.
“I was going to tease a little,” he whispered into her mouth, “but I can’t wait. I have to do it now.” And with one swift motion, he pushed inside.
Leah moaned, long and too loud. But she couldn’t help herself; the feeling of being filled so thoroughly and completely was overwhelming. Jeff was bigger than any man she’d ever been with, and the way he pressed against every sensitive spot inside her was overloading her body with pleasure.
Then he pulled back and thrust in again. Leah clamped a hand over her own mouth to keep a yell from escaping. It felt so good.
Jeff was making low, hungry noises as he moved inside her, pressing kisses to her neck, her jaw, her fingers over her mouth. “Leah,” he groaned, and thrust hard inside her, making her clamp down on him in blinding pleasure, then stayed buried deep for a long moment. “Leah, you feel amazing. Like silk. You’re so beautiful, I could stay inside you forever.”
Leah wished he could. The way he felt inside her was more than just physical. They were joined, in a way that made her feel closer to Jeff than she’d ever imagined she could feel with another person.
Then he moved again, and all of her thoughts were carried away on a rush of sensation. She bit down on her fingers to stay quiet, making strangled noises as the intensity built.
Jeff tugged her hand away and kissed her. Leah pulled him in, digging her fingernails into his back. He groaned at the sensation, and thrust harder.
Leah tore her mouth away and gasped as he hit the perfect spot—once—twice—and then she was coming so hard she curled around Jeff’s body, clenching down on his cock as her muscles seized with orgasm.
Jeff kept thrusting, and each movement sent further shocks of pleasure through her. As she clenched down harder, he shuddered, thrust in one last time, and came with a groan.
There was a long, long moment where they stayed exactly where they were, connected as closely as two people could be. Leah could taste Jeff’s sweat on her tongue, feel his heartbeat racing against her chest. Heat came off of him, and his cock softened inside of her. She never wanted to let him go.
Eventually, though, they had to separate. Jeff pulled back slowly, though, with a rain of soft kisses, as though he was just as reluctant as she was to draw away. And once he’d disposed of the condom, he came back and cuddled up to her, pressing up against her back, his arm tucking her close against him.
“Mmmm,” Leah said.
“Sleep,” Jeff murmured in her ear. “I’ll be here.”
And with that, Leah relaxed and slept.
***
Jeff woke up early. He hadn’t slept much, just catnapped throughout the night, waking up whenever Leah moved or sighed.
He was buzzing with awareness of her. He felt like he could sense the shape of her next to him without opening his eyes, like he could feel her sleeping presence.
Jeff knew it for certain: Leah was his mate.
He’d never been sure whether true shifter mates actually existed. His parents weren’t mates, but they were definitely proof that you didn’t need to be mates to fall in love and create a family. They were both disdainful of the idea: People say they’ve got this mystical connection, his father would say, but I think that’s just an excuse to pretend relationships aren’t hard work. You’ve got to buckle down and make a marriage, it doesn’t just fall out of the sky already perfect.
Jeff believed the last part wholeheartedly. After all, even if you did meet your soulmate, they would’ve had a whole life before you. There’d be things you’d have to work out between you no matter what.
But he’d always wondered. If so many shifters said they’d found their mates, they couldn’t be wrong, could they? He’d thought that maybe it
was because his parents weren’t both shifters: his mother was a snow leopard, but his father was human.
Not all his siblings were shifters, either, but the two of them who were leopards had done the same thing his parents had: met humans, fallen in love, and gotten married without any word of a mate-bond. Jeff had started to think that his parents were right. After all, his siblings had happy marriages and beautiful children, so what more did they need?
And then Grey Landin had moved up to start working alongside him at Glacier, and he’d brought his mate Alethia with him. That’s how he’d introduced her: This is my mate, Alethia.
And the two of them had something.
Jeff didn’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t anything he could see, or smell, or touch, but he knew. Grey wasn’t complete without Alethia, and vice versa. They were part of each other.
And Leah was part of him.
He’d known from the second he saw her, fallen to her knees in the snow, that he had to help her, had to stay with her, had to be near her. But he hadn’t realized what that meant until last night, when he’d been deep inside her for the first time and realized, Yes. This is how we’re meant to be. Part of each other. Inside each other.
Now he just had to tell her.
Jeff laughed at himself a little. This was going to be a doozy. How did you tell somebody about shifters? He’d grown up all his life with the understanding that in their tiny ranger community, most everybody knew about shifters.
It wasn’t even like the park was packed with shifters. Glacier was a known snow leopard community, sure, because it was probably the best area of the United States for snow leopards to live. But snow leopard shifters were incredibly rare, so there were still only a couple dozen of them around, counting Jeff’s whole family.
But there was a bear or two living in cabins in the mountains, and Jeff knew old Mr. Thatcher was a hawk shifter, and his daughter was as well. And over the generations of shifter presence here, the knowledge had gradually spread around the other families living in the area, so it was an open secret.
And Jeff had sure never been tasked with telling someone about shifters for the first time. He wasn’t the type of guy to keep secrets, so he didn’t have a lot of experience revealing them.
He was going to have to figure it out, though.
Jeff leaned in, inhaling Leah’s delicious scent, and kissed her lightly on the temple, then silently got out of bed.
Before any dramatic secrets were revealed, they were definitely going to need some breakfast.
Emily was still asleep in her Pack-n-Play, so Jeff padded soundlessly past her and started prepping breakfast with as little clatter as he could. Apples, oatmeal—oh, he had to build up the fire to warm the milk.
That caused an unavoidable amount of noise, and by the time he had it roaring up again, Emily was blinking her eyes open.
“Sorry,” he told her. “I should’ve kept it down, I know.”
She looked around, and then her little face crumpled and she started to cry.
Jeff finished up with the fire as quickly as he could, but by the time he got over to the Pack-n-Play, Leah was coming through the doorway to the bedroom, yawning.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” she said to Emily, picking the baby up and holding her close. “You slept so well! Good job.”
Jeff was arrested for a long moment by the sight of them—his mate and her baby girl, both of them so beautiful.
It took him a long moment to shake himself out of it, but then he strode over to enfold them both in his arms.
That was even better. Leah smelled delicious, that warm smoky scent that was his mate, and Emily had that indefinable baby scent. He pulled them close and knew that he had everything he could ever want in life, right here in his arms.
“Mmm, good morning,” Leah murmured.
“Good morning,” Jeff said into the curl of her ear. “I was just getting breakfast started.”
She let out a sigh that was almost a groan. “God, I could get used to hearing that in the morning.”
Get used to it, Jeff wanted to say, because I want to say that to you every morning for the rest of our lives.
He could picture it so easily, the three of them in his little house, waking up early to get pancakes started. Leah dancing Emily around the kitchen while the smell of breakfast filled the house. Maybe more kids someday, chasing each other around the room. Leah coming up behind him to wrap her arms around his waist and kiss his neck...
He was getting ahead of himself. Even though he felt like that was a sure thing, Leah still didn’t know anything about it.
“I’ll take care of this little lady while you get breakfast, then,” Leah was saying. “She has a stinky diaper, don’t you?”
Emily giggled.
“Yep, that’s a yes all right. Whoa.” Leah yawned hugely, and rested her forehead on Jeff’s shoulder for a moment. “Tired. What time did we go to bed last night?”
“Very, very late.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She kissed Emily on the nose. “Big nap for you today, honey. But diaper first.” Leah pulled away—was it just Jeff’s imagination, or did she seem reluctant to let go of him?—and went to get the diaper bag.
Jeff went back to prepping oatmeal. Him with breakfast, her with the baby...he didn’t need to picture this happening in the future. It was happening right now. He should be whistling, he thought, he was so cheerful, but the smile tugging at his mouth wouldn’t let him.
Breakfast was oatmeal made with almond milk, with chunks of apple and a bit of the sugar from the sealed containers in the cupboards. It was delicious.
“We’re living well for stranded in a cabin in the snow,” Leah said after her first bite. “You weren’t kidding when you said you could cook.”
“I can cook more than oatmeal, I promise you,” Jeff said, amused. He glanced out the window. “Hopefully we won’t be stranded for much longer. The snow’s stopped.”
And as he spoke, a ray of sunshine broke through and hit the window, sending a long golden strip down the burnished wood floors of the cabin.
“And the sun’s come out.” Leah was smiling. “Great. I don’t want to trespass on these poor people’s property any longer than we have to.”
“They will definitely be compensated,” Jeff promised. “No need to worry about that.”
Leah finished her oatmeal and sat back, jouncing Emily on her lap. “So how are we going to get out of here? The snowplows will come through, and...do you have a truck or something? How did you get so far out here in the snow last night?”
He wouldn’t find a more obvious opening than this. Jeff pushed his own bowl aside and said, “No, I don’t have a truck. Leah, there’s something I want to tell you about me.”
***
Leah was wallowing in the laziness that was sitting around and letting someone else make you breakfast.
Sure, she had to change and nurse Emily, but she could’ve done that in her sleep (and she was pretty sure she had, some nights in those first few months). Other than that, she felt like a woman of leisure while Jeff chopped apples and boiled milk.
Jeff wasn’t just a man with an attractive body, she thought as she watched him move around the kitchen. He was also graceful. He had a supple strength to his movements, like everything he did was carefully calculated to use just the right amount of power...but if he’d wanted to, he could’ve unleashed an enormous strength.
It was incredibly hot.
Equally hot was the fact that he really could cook. It wasn’t like Leah hadn’t believed him, but she wasn’t used to men being able to cook anything more than barbecued hamburgers and cold cereal. Jeff delivered perfectly-textured oatmeal—which wasn’t as easy as he made it sound, using plain oats from the cabin cupboards without any packaging directions—with just the right amount of fruit and sugar.
Leah devoured it, hungrier than she’d realized. All that walking in the snow last night had used up a lot of energy...not
to mention the most amazing sex of her life. She smiled to herself over her last bite.
Then it occurred to her to ask how they were going to get back to civilization, and somehow that question led to Jeff saying, “Leah, there’s something I want to tell you about me.”
Leah frowned. What on earth could he be talking about?
A dozen ideas crowded immediately into her brain, each of them worse than the last. Maybe he was secretly married?
No, that was just her paranoia. They’d been talking about how they were going to get out of the cabin in the snow. Unless his secret wife was a snowplow driver, that couldn’t be it.
Well, there was only one way to learn what it was. “I’m listening.” She gave Emily an apple slice to gnaw on and focused all her attention on Jeff.
“It’s a bit of a...family secret,” Jeff said, looking a bit shy. Even in the face of dark family secrets, Leah couldn’t help but melt a little at the sight of it. He was so confident and competent otherwise that watching him be unsure about something was like seeing something special, something that was usually hidden.
“See, some of the people in my family are...special. Unusual.”
Leah could not imagine what this was leading up to. “Special how?” she asked cautiously.
“We have a supernatural ability.”
A supernatural ability?
He looked absolutely serious. Leah frowned. “Jeff, if you’re kidding around with me, I want you to know that I do not put up with stuff like that.” Or she hadn’t since Rob left, anyway. She’d decided right out of the gate that she’d never date anyone who liked to mess with her head ever again.
“Leah, I swear to you I’m being completely honest. This isn’t a joke.”
His face wasn’t showing any smile, or anything but a straight and unwavering gaze. Leah stared into his deep gray eyes.
For some reason, she couldn’t believe that he was joking. She didn’t know why, but she believed him, even though by rights, she should be telling him he was crazy.