by Zoe Chant
God, he felt great. As the pulses died away, he lay atop her, knowing that she liked it. That was another great thing about her: she was big and strong and extravagantly built, which meant he never had to hold back.
She was perfect. Their lives were perfect. Except he wished she felt better—maybe it was time to call the doctor—wait, didn’t she say something. . . Mentally he backtracked to the start of their conversation.
Yeah, she’d said ‘About that,’ then they were kissing and everything else went right out the window as his dick took over.
“Shelley.”
“Mmm?” He leaned up on an elbow, loving her sleepy smile in her flushed, glowing face. She didn’t look fluish now.
“You said, about that. About what?”
Her eyes flew open. She sat up, pulling the bathrobe around her again, shoved her hands into the pockets, then she got up. He followed her into the bathroom and started running the big bathtub so they could climb in together.
She didn’t climb right in like usual, but looked around, then said, “Ah.”
And picked up something from the back of the toilet tank, and held it out.
Mick glanced down at a colored strip of paper. “Huh?”
Shelley glanced from it to him, and said softly, “If this is right, we’re pregnant.”
* * *
Shelley watched Mick anxiously as she said, “I know we talked about it—your grandparents being elderly, and no one else in your family—but I didn’t think it would happen so quick. I mean, what happens if the pilot gets bought?”
“Then we deal. Plenty of actors do. We might even write it into the storyline, who knows? But that can wait.” He reached for her to kiss her again, tender and lingering this time. “Wow. This is amazing.”
They got into the big tub. As he sank into the hot, swirling water, he chuckled deep in his chest, his ice blue eyes gleams of delight. “I was about to suggest some champagne, but I guess that’s out?”
Shelley shrugged. She’d never been much of a drinker anyway. “For the next three quarters of a year, yeah.”
Mick ran a hand through his pale blond hair, then said, “I can’t think of any Christmas present in the world that would make my grandfather happier. Shall we tell them then?”
Shelley said doubtfully, “It’s kinda early days. I mean, I haven’t even seen a doctor yet—though that’s going to happen real soon.” She considered Mick’s frail grandfather, then said, “But hey, if I get a green light, sure, let’s do it.”
He grinned, then his eyebrows lifted. “Nearly forgot. Dennis called, my old buddy from Sanluce. He and his Mindy are coming up for the wedding.”
“I think Jan met her,” Shelley said. “Said she was nice.”
“Well, nice or not, she’s apparently super-rich and Dennis wants to arrange a prenup. Asked me to find him a hot lawyer who does that kind of thing.”
“A prenup?” she repeated.
“I know, that was my thought, too. But he days she’s got megabucks, and sometimes I think rich people’s brains work differently. Anyway, that’s what he wants.”
Shelley grimaced down at the bathwater. What other people did was their business. But to her a prenup seemed to see the end of a marriage before it began.
Mick went on, “I’m going to be locked in the editor’s cave all tomorrow, and I know you’re seeing Tessa. Could you ask her to hunt up a suitable shark for Dennis? He wants the best.”
Shelley nodded. Tessa Mason, Mick’s manager, was unnervingly efficient, and she also seemed to know absolutely everybody in the L.A. film world. “Sure thing.”
She remembered late the next afternoon when she met up with Tessa to go over the social obligations before Mick’s film premier. “. . . And here’s another item: Mick’s friend Dennis is coming for Jan’s and JP’s wedding, with a plus-one named Mindy. We should probably count on flying them with us—I know Mick will invite them. And, maybe get their names on the list for the premier?”
Tessa was busy typing into her tablet. “Dennis O’Keefe?” A very brief, crisp smile, then, “I always wondered if I’d meet the legendary Dennis.”
“Mick has talked about Dennis?” Shelley laughed. “Of course he has.” He, Dennis, and JP LaFleur had been best friends since they were riding tricycles.
“Once or twice, mostly when Dennis has turned up suddenly and Mick drops everything to go see him,” Tessa said. “But I’ve followed his work—he won a prestigious prize in Europe last year, exposing Brent Ellerton’s criminal empire using Doctors Without Borders as a cover. It was quite the exposé—caused arrests on at least four continents. Including right here in Los Angeles. Last name for Mindy?”
“Uh, I don’t know. Mork? I think somebody said something about Mork.”
Tessa was somewhere between forty and sixty, African-American, with close cut salt-and-pepper hair. She spoke five or six languages perfectly, and in the months Shelley had known her, had never seen her flapped, even over on-the-set emergencies and sudden flights to Europe involving cast, crews, equipment, and visas. But she stopped, fingers poised over her tablet, and said, “Mindy Mork?”
“I know!” Shelley shrugged. “And apparently she wants a prenup, because Dennis asked Mick, and he asked me to ask you to recommend a real shark.”
Tessa’s face congealed into a cool, professional expression. “A shark? I’ll have a name and number by tomorrow. Anything else?”
Shelley finished up with Tessa, by which time she was beginning to feel that queasy sensation. At least she knew what it was now, but, she thought as she headed home, why in the world was she getting morning sickness at night?
A quick internet search had offered saltines and ginger to settle her stomach, so she stopped at a small store, and as she drove back down Sunset Blvd, she munched a cracker.
She’d just pulled into the garage when her phone rang. She pulled it out. “Hello?”
“I hoped to get you, Shelley, though I know you have to be as crazy-busy as I am.” Shelley instantly recognized that singer’s voice. It was Jan, her best friend ever since their theater days at UCLA. “Whatever happened to my simple wedding? Shelley, I am ready to run away to Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator.”
Shelley laughed. “Hey, don’t tell me you’ve got evil guys attacking again. That was my wedding.”
“Almost not wedding. No! No evil guys. Do not even talk about evil guys. My wedding shall have no evil. Thank you for the reality check. Townspeople who are hurt because So-and-So was invited but they weren’t, the cake person quitting because of the ever expanding number, and my dress coming back three inches too long are nothing compared to evil. But we did have a close call,” she added in a low voice. “He had to rise.”
Shelley thought back to her own wedding, which had nearly not happened when Jan had been kidnapped by a ruthless dragon shifter who’d wanted to take JP LaFleur’s dragon hoard.
Weird. Six months ago, the only crazy stuff Shelley ever saw was on the movie set when she did her stunt work, but ever since she’d fallen for Mick, she’d been pulled into his secret shifter world. The elegant musician JP LaFleur was a phoenix—a benevolent sort of dragon, but when danger threatened the town JP’s family had watched over for generations as mayors, he became a fire dragon: big, dangerous, and apparently very hard to bring back to human form.
But Jan was able to handle him. Shelley let out her breath in a whoosh, wondering what kind of close call would require the fire dragon. One thing for sure, they weren’t going to talk about it over the phone. “Tell me when we get together, okay?”
“Sure thing. And that’s why I called. I want to lock down your arrival time.”
“We’ve scheduled the private plane for five, and, um, is it going to be a problem to add two more? Dennis and Mindy. Is her last name really Mork?”
“It’s Maurek. Em-aye-you-arr-ee-kay. They explained that over dinner,” Jan said. “She used to get made fun of as Mork as a kid, but she and Dennis call e
ach other Mork and Menace. It’s adorable.”
“Did you like her?” Shelley asked.
“Yes,” Jan said, sounding surprised. “Why, has something bad happened? No, not if they’re coming, and by the way, JP would be hurt if Dennis was anywhere in North America and didn’t come. But what’s with Mindy? I hear something in your voice.”
Shelley decided not to mention the prenup stuff. Jan didn’t need any more to deal with, and it wasn’t anyone’s business. “Nothing but tiredness from a day of running around getting ready for the film premier,” she said, hoping she sounded casual. “Just wondered what Mindy’s like.”
“She’s somewhere between your size and mine, with frizzy hair that looks great on her, and a kind of bright, happy expression that’s hard to explain.”
“That sounds creepy—like a Stepford Wife.”
“Oh, not at all. Opposite,” Jan said.
“Cheerleader?” Shelley wrinkled her nose. A super-rich cheerleader who wanted a prenup? I already hate her, she was thinking, and tried to squash that down.
“No! I’m describing her wrong. Wait and see—I think you’ll like her. I did. Now, tell me, did you try the pregnancy test?”
“Yes, and it showed positive. How did you guess it might be that? I thought it was way too early.”
Jan squeed, then laughed. “One thing I’m learning as Mrs. Future Mayor is how much people talk, and when these women got onto pregnancy, and all its varieties, the one thing that seemed universal was that when they have the flu none of them want to be touched. You hurt too much.”
“That’s true,” Shelley said, thinking back to the few times she’d been really sick.
“But craving sex when you think you have flu . . .well, there’s a good chance it’s not actually flu.”
“Got it in one.” Shelley grinned as she opened the car door. “Speaking of which, I think I’ll go fill the bedroom with candles, so whenever Mick does get home, we won’t waste any time.”
She walked out of the garage into the quiet house, thinking about on how fast Mick’s beautiful house had become home.
Then she saw him, and as always, her entire body lit like July Fourth fireworks—and she saw in his sudden smile that he felt the same.
They walked into each other’s arms and kissed, then he said, “You looked a little solemn. Anything wrong?”
“Oh, no. Just the opposite.” She repeated her thought, to see him utter a soft chuckle.
“And here I’ve been coming around to thinking of it as home, too. Until you moved in, it was just an address, a place to keep my stuff. Home was reserved for my grandparents’ little place in Sanluce.”
They walked hand and hand into the vast living room. Mick said, “You know my third mistake lived here just long enough to decorate and then jetted off to Europe, leaving me with divorce papers and fifty thousand dollars in decorators’ fees. Want to get rid of it all?”
Shelley looked at the beautiful Spanish tile, the Mediterranean style furniture, simple yet artistic, and perfectly suited to the spectacular Southern California view out the window, and shook her head. “Oona might have been a total flake in relationships, but she had really good taste. This is perfect for entertaining.”
“Roger that.” He laced his fingers with hers as they walked together, hips bumping, down the hall to the other wing, which had been completely shut off.
Here were five beautifully proportioned bedrooms, looking out over the hills on the north side and into the garden and over L.A. on the south.
Mick said, “Looks like it might be time to actually do something about these rooms. Paint or wallpaper? Carpet or tile? You said you like decorating, and I hate it. Do you want to take it over and surprise me?”
“Surprise you?” she said, gazing hungrily up into his blue, blue eyes.
She shoved him back against the wall hard enough to bring a startled laugh out of him. Then heat flared in those eyes as she raked her nails down his chest, stopping at his belt.
She pulled the leather strap as she said, “My idea is, we first make this place lived in by doing it in every room. Maybe twice. Starting with this wall right here.”
She yanked his pants down. “Surprise,” she said, deep in her throat.
His hands were already at her waist. Ten seconds later she kicked free of her jeans, already wet and slick.
Still standing with his back to the wall, he slid his hands over her ass, molding and caressing before he pulled her to him. She straddled his feet, reaching up for a hot, hard kiss.
Then he lifted her. She was six feet tall, but he lifted her like she was a featherweight. It was incredibly hot. She tipped her hips, finding the head of his rampant cock, and with a grunt of sheer bliss, she hissed as he buried himself in her to the hilt.
He backed from the wall just far enough for her to get her ankles locked around his waist, and then, with wall-thumping enthusiasm, they got busy on her plan.
Chapter Three
After so many days surrounded by nothing but ocean, and then long stretches of barren land along the Baja peninsula, to Dennis, the California coast looked like something Pixar might have designed. The entire coast was outlined by lights in every color of the rainbow. It was beautiful . . .
And the thing about a boat is, it’s also a lot of hurry up and wait.
He checked his phone again. Still not in range.
He dropped it impatiently into his pocket and leaned against the bow as cool air ruffled his hair. He reflected on how weird it was that, when they had no definite goal, he was happy to drift along. But now that he had a destination and dates lining up, he felt the same impatience that drove him when he was hunting down a story.
“Getting antsy, Menace?”
He turned his head, and there was Mindy, her marvelous cloud of soft hair lifting in the wind, her big brown eyes turned up at him in question. Love detonated in him so fast and hard it knocked against his ribs from the inside, but it was a hurt he wanted to feel all his life.
As he grinned stupidly down into those eyes, he wondered how he could have possibly been blind to the fact that she was a dog shifter. She had the same honest gaze as a dog, the happy anticipation of someone who looks out on the world from a clean soul.
“I know what to do,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his arm. “I’m in the mood to lick an ice cream cone,” she drawled like Marlene Dietrich. “Know where I can find one?”
If it hadn’t been for the crew all on deck, he would have left a vacuum trail getting down to the cabin. As it was, he suspected they all knew where Mindy and Dennis were going—and why—but he didn’t care.
The second they got the cabin door shut, he threw himself back on the bed, and then she was on him. In the few seconds it had taken to get from the bow down to the cabin he had stiffened like an eighteen-year-old who’s been away from girls all year.
Mindy grinned lasciviously as she unzipped his pants, and fingered his cock free. She started at the base, running her fingers enticingly through his pubic hair, the little noises of pleasure she made jolting him with pure lust.
Then with one hand she massaged his balls as with the other she took hold of him, running her hands over him as his dick jumped, his hips twitching with anticipation. “Mo-o-o-r-k,” he groaned.
“M-e-n-n-n-a-c-e.” She laughed like a pirate, then licked all along the shaft, paying attention to every vein, every curve. The twitches intensified as his breath came in gasps.
She licked round and round, flicking her tongue over and around the head . . . and bit the tip.
Heat zapped through him, nearly launching him off the bed.
At that moment she opened her mouth and engulfed him, and sucked. The pulses were already starting. She rode them with sucks, and tongue teasing, letting go only to run her mouth up and down his shaft until he was bucking like crazy. When he built to frantic pumping, she returned to take him once again, and pulled him with tongue and teeth over into white-hot, shattering orgasm.
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And rode him all the way down, making cute little grunting noises that nearly set him off again. When the last faint pulse died away, he flopped back, cooling in his own sweat as she crawled up beside him.
“Still antsy, my menacing tiger?” she murmured, nuzzling his ear. “Want another go round?”
“Gah,” he breathed, nearly in tears. God, she was amazing. So smart, and sexy, and funny, and beautiful, and giving.
He wanted her as his wife. He wanted the proposal to be the best moment she’d ever had. In an awesome place, with all his friends there—the people he wanted to make into her new family, as hers seemed to be idiotic enough not to realize how totally special she was.
He wanted to make it the most romantic, magical day of her life.
* * *
Mindy curled into Dennis, her head on his chest, listening contentedly to the slow pounding of his heart, and the happy rush and hiss of his breathing.
How could she get so lucky?
During the first part of their sea journey, she’d tried keeping a list of all the subjects they talked about—music of the world, art of the world, how music and art were tied into culture, how music to dance to and music to listen to sometimes cross-bred.
History. Biography and autobiography. Journalism and what really was objectivity? Animals—shifters—how the world was far stranger than most people in their organized homes and habitual lives ever realized. Or wanted to realize.
She kept the list until she realized that they rarely repeated a subject, and when they did, it was because one or another of them picked up on a point and rambled onward, like a road leading to ever more exciting vistas. He listened to her intently, and even when they argued, it was never rancorous—it was two people with very different life experiences.
He was never boring. Unlike so many of the guys she’d dated. Dennis didn’t brag about his cars, his possessions, what a hotshot he was at work. She’d gotten thoroughly sick of the words “player” and “game” in reference to jobs.