by Terra Wolf
I rushed across the room, but my instincts told me what it was even before I got there. Her rings. The giant solitaire I got her for the engagement. The diamond-studded wedding band—even the pendant I got her for our three-month anniversary.
My bear growled. I dashed around the room, but the truth stared me in the face everywhere. Her new clothes tossed on the floor. Her old clothes missing from the closet. Her shoes—she was gone. Not just gone, but GONE. Gone for real. Gone with extreme prejudice, but why? Why would she just up and vaporize after a night of the best sex of our lives?
She broke the news and made me the happiest man alive. Then we tumbled onto the couch and fucked like rabbits. She swooned into a pleasure-fueled coma, and I carried her to the bedroom where she passed out. Where in that sequence of familiar events did she see or hear….?
My heart dropped my chest. She heard me. She must have. She must have heard me shouting at William. She said the team threatened to throw her out if she made a mistake, and she thought this pregnancy was a mistake. She must have put two and two together. She must have realized the team wanted to end the contract. She must have thought I was going to break it off with her. That’s the only reason she would have left like that.
But is that all she heard? Did she hear me Shift? I wanted to tell her when the time was right. Now she must be confused and scared. How did I let this happen?
I started running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I had to find her. I had to get her back if it was the last thing I ever did in life. I had to tell her everything. Exactly what I meant by what I said. How much she means to me. How I knew she was my mate. That ring burned a hole in my pocket. That ring would never grace another woman’s hand. I had to get her to see it somehow. I had to get her to accept it.
I planned this whole thing down to the last detail. I had to follow through on it. I had to go down on one knee in front of her while she brushed away happy tears. I had to ask her to marry me—really marry me. I had to show her that diamond and hear her answer. I wouldn’t accept anything else. I refused to believe it was over until I did that. It couldn’t be over. It couldn’t, not as long as I held that ring in my hand.
I raced out of the penthouse with no hat, no coat, no phone, no nothing. I didn’t call the limo. Screw the limo. I barreled down to the parking garage under the building and got out the Jag. I gunned the motor and hit Madison Avenue going full force.
The car purred down the street, all the way to the south side. I prowled down Mulberry Street, but when I saw the first vendors opening their shops to tourists, I realized. She wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t come running to her parents. She couldn’t tell them she was pregnant and running away from her husband.
So, I wasn’t her real husband, but they didn’t know that. We convinced them. We convinced ourselves. We were as married as anybody else, and now we had a baby on the way. Her parents would tell her one thing: Go home.
So where did she go? Where would she go where they wouldn’t tell her that? My bear paced uncontrollably beneath my skin as I rifled everything I ever knew about her but came up with nothing. I cast my mind back to her first interview. Her application form flashed before my eyes. I trained myself to remember details like that.
I flipped a U-turn at the next intersection and drove to the cheap apartment she listed as her previous address. I jerked the parking brake in place and took the stairs two at a time. I pounded on the door with my fist.
No one answered. I pounded again and shouted. “Open up and let me in.”
After what seemed like hours, the door opened. A disheveled girl in a threadbare bathrobe from the 80s glared at me. “What do you want?”
“I want to see Bianca.”
She pooched out her lips and shook her matted head. “There’s no Bianca here. Take off before I call the police.”
She tried to shut the door, but I stuck my foot in it to stop it from opening. “Please…. I have to see her. It’s important. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Her eyes shot open. “A matter of life and death! That’s a good one.”
I shoved the door further open. “It’s a matter of my life. I can’t live without her. I have to see her. Please, help me. I just want to talk to her.”
The girl glanced over her shoulder. So, it was true. Bianca was here.
I pressed my advantage while I could. “Please. Just once.”
She let go of the door. “You can talk to her. Nothing more, but if she tells you to leave, you have to go with no questions asked. Understand?”
I let out a shaky breath. “All right.”
The door sagged the rest of the way open, and she led me into her living room. There was Bianca on the couch in her old suit with her hair uncombed and bags under her eyes. She was tired. She hadn’t had enough sleep lately. That was my fault. I had to stop being such a selfish, horny asshole all the time. I had to think of her more.
I slowed when I saw her, but she wouldn’t look at me. She picked some fabric off the fraying couch arm. Then she flicked dust off her skirt. She sat perfectly straight and never relaxed an inch.
The girl waved her hand. “You better get this over with.”
She flopped into a nearby chair and curled into a ball to watch. I regarded Bianca from across the room and gauged my strategy. How could I approach this cold, distant creature? How could I ever explain how I really felt?
I took a step closer. “I guess you overheard my conversation with William. I guess that’s why you left. But it is not what you think it is. The paparazzi caught us in the coat closet. They’re trying to paint me as a bad boy again, and my brother and my team want me to get rid of you, but I told them no, Bianca. I told them I wouldn’t do it. I told them I would stand behind you, no matter what.”
Ever so slowly, her eyes swiveled around to my face. She was listening. I had her on the hook. Just a little bit more, and I would be able to get through to her. I’d be able to get everything off my chest. No more secrets, no more lies, no more contracts. Just her and me and our cub.
I took the last little step. I stuck my hand in my pocket. It was still there. I still had a chance. The words rushed out of me faster than I wanted them to. I couldn’t stop them. “I love you, Bianca. I want to make it all okay again, the way it used to be. Come home. Come home with me. I’m begging you.”
I turned to look at her friend, pleading her with my eyes to give us some space. This was my moment. My bear paced back and forth, waiting for Bianca to be ours again. Just as we made eye contact, she looked at Bianca who nodded slightly in approval of her absence.
Her face remained as impassive as stone, but her pupils dilated just the smallest amount. This was it. I had to do it now or die trying.
“Bianca, I haven’t been completely honest with you. This started as a business arrangement, but it quickly became so much more. I know that now. And a major reason I’m sure is because,” I paused, breathing deeply before laying it all on the line, “I’m a shifter. It’s you, Bianca. You’re my mate.”
Her head whipped towards me as her eyes opened in surprise. “You’re a what? How did I not know this? Why wasn’t it in the contract? I guess that’s what I heard…” and her voice trailed off. Her eyes softened for a moment as she looked at me.
“A shifter, yeah, bear to be exact. My whole family is. It’s the reason Benjamin has Harper, she’s actually my sister’s but she has issues with the Change. But that’s a whole other story I guess. Though she’s getting help now. But yeah, Shyft’s properties main clients are people like us. People like our baby. Our cub.”
“Cub? You mean…”
“They’ll be like me, I mean most likely anyway. I know I should have told you sooner, but the whole family is so secretive about it.”
“I don’t care what you are Dillon. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Well then here goes nothing.
I pulled out the velvet box and snapped it open. I dropped on one knee in front of her and h
eld out the ring. “Marry me, Bianca. Marry me for real and make me the happiest man in the world. I love you. I love you more than life itself. I can’t stand you leaving me now. I can’t face the future without you by my side. I know this has been dysfunctional and anything but what you had expected or signed up for. But please, say you love me, too. Say you’ll be mine forever and we’ll raise our cub together and be a real family. Please, Bianca. Please marry me. Love me. I need you.”
She stared at the ring so long my heart ached. Then she lifted her eyes to my face, tears brimmed against her eyelids. Her mouth contorted when she tried to smile. She raised her hand, but she wouldn’t let it touch my cheek.
“Yes. I love you more than anything. I never wanted anything but to love you and share your life. I love you. All of you.”
20
Bianca
I checked my lipstick in the dressing room mirror. Dillon paced back and forth and shrugged his big shoulders inside his coat. “You look fine. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
I straightened up and turned around to face him. “I know. I’m just checking.”
He put out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go knock ‘em dead.”
I had to smile. We could always knock ‘em dead as long as we did it together.
After Dillon had proposed to me, he called his PR team and fired every single one of them. He was sick of how they were dictating his life, and I couldn’t blame him for it. Hiding his true self from the public was one thing, but hiding our family? No way. A week later he had an entirely new team in place, a team that he trusted and understood how important I was to him. The team worked tirelessly to spin the gala in our favor.
Dillon also had worked everything out with Abraham and his family. He explained to them that I was pregnant and how his bear chose me as his mate. Abraham remembered how abruptly he fell for Summer and supported us one hundred percent. Benjamin and I had become closer as well. And Harper was just icing on the cake. I also learned more about Celeste and her recovery. She was getting better and had even visited Harper a few times under Ellis and Benjamin’s supervision. Things seemed good.
I wasn’t used to having a big family. Or being part of a clan, but things were working out. Everyone had their place, even me. And I wasn’t the only human either, which certainly helped.
Dillon strode down the hall and out from behind the partition. A long table spread out on the other side, and floodlights glared down on the microphones set there. He pulled out my chair until I got settled into place. Then he took the chair next to me.
Cameras clicked, and microphones whined in the sea of indistinct silhouettes beyond the floodlights. Voices boiled out of the crowd. “Can you confirm you were messing around in the gala coat room? Are you pregnant or not? When’s the big day?”
Dillon held up his hand for quiet. I didn’t have to stoop to answer these questions with him around. He would always protect me. “We called this press conference to answer all your questions. You’ll leave here with no more innuendos or mysteries to sling around. I can confirm that Bianca is pregnant. As soon as we know the due date, we’ll let you know, too, so you can start counting down the days.”
A titter of laughter rippled through the crowd. I bit back a smile. He always knew how to work an audience.
“I also want to dispel any myths about the gala,” he went on. “We went into the coat closet to get some privacy and quiet. Bianca wanted to tell me the great news that she was pregnant without a lot of strangers overhearing. I admit I kissed her a few times when I found out.”
I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over at him. He turned at the same moment and smiled at me. Our hands migrated across the table to interlock our fingers. A mystical hush fell over the room, all except the clicking cameras.
Dillon snapped out of his trance. “Anyway, now you know exactly what we were doing in there. You know why we left suddenly when we came out. I think that’s probably all you need to know.”
Excited talking broke out on all sides, but Dillon pushed back his chair. He raised me to my feet, and in sight of everyone, put his hand behind my back and kissed me. Then he steered me back around the partition and away.
The press conference exploded the minute we disappeared. Voices shouted. One reporter stuffed his head into the corner and dictated copy into his phone pressed against his ear. “Bianca Dawson looks better than ever, and the couple remains rock solid in their commitment to each other and their future family.”
I didn’t hear any more. Dillon hustled me down the hall, past the dressing room, and out the back door. The limo stood in the alley behind the building, but no screaming fans clustered around it. Dillon yanked the door open, and I ducked inside. The next minute, the limo whispered away from the curb and disappeared into the evening traffic.
I sank back in the seat. Dillon gazed out the window for a minute, but as soon as the other cars swallowed us up and no one followed us, he turned his piercing eyes on me in a way I couldn’t deny. I knew what that look meant. He was coming after me.
He slid across the seat and cast one thick arm over my shoulders to draw me into his embrace. His lips hovered before me, so inviting, so warm and tingly and exciting. I could let myself get drawn into his magnetic presence. I didn’t have to play the good girl part anymore. Everybody knew about us, and we knew about us, too.
He was my husband, and I was his pregnant wife, and we were going home and….to our home. What could be more perfect than that? He turned me on like I couldn’t believe, and being pregnant awoke hidden powers in my soul I never knew were there. An insatiable hunger for him shattered all my thinking. I couldn’t do anything but respond.
He inched nearer, nearer. His breath filled my nostrils with his manly scent. Even before he kissed me, I slipped my hand inside his blazer against his crisp new shirt. His muscles tensed when I dragged my fingertips over his sides. I loved the way he shivered all over in aching delight. Was he hard right now? All I had to do was feel a little bit lower, and I would find out.
I liked to tease myself. I liked to wallow in the anticipation. He excited me so much I wanted to explode screaming right that minute. My pussy twitched under my dress. When would he caress up my thigh to find the sweet patch of moistness inside my panties? When would he finger my clit to make me moan into his mouth?
How would he play it? Would he make me get on my knees to suck him hard in the back of the limo? Would he bend me backward to lick me to flaming orgasm? All the thousand ways he could do me enchanted my dreams.
His lips touched mine, and my blood burst into flame. He tilted his giant bulk over on top of me to pin me to the seat. My knee hitched up around his waist, and he scooped me toward him full of his animal kisses and his unstoppable passion.
Just kissing him tormented me in brutal ecstasy. I could kiss him forever, and now that I wore his ring, I could. We could fall into bed and never leave it. We could kiss morning, noon, and night, and only stop when Antonio brought us our meals. We never had to get out of bed for the next nine months.
Before that kiss reached its apogee, the limo parked in front of our building. The time came for us to put our weight on our own feet and walk. Just a little bit farther, and we would be home. HOME! How that word melted my heart now. This penthouse, this palace in the sky, gave me more of a home than I ever knew in my life. My heart sobbed in gratitude for Dillon’s love, for all the years to come.
Just before the elevator stopped at our floor, Dillon’s hand shot out. He popped out the emergency stop button, and the car braked in mid-air.
“What are you doing?” I cried.
He shot me a wicked grin. “We’re not finished yet. There’s still one more thing to do.”
“What?”
He descended on me faster than the eye could see. He scooped me up into his arms and kicked the button with his knee.
I screamed out loud. “What are you doing to me?”
“I’m carrying you across the threshold,�
�� he rumbled. “We won’t be officially married until I do that. Now keep still. I don’t want to drop you.”
I couldn’t stop my laughter. He couldn’t be doing this. The car vibrated the rest of the way to our floor. When the doors slid open, Dillon stumbled into the apartment.
I screamed louder than ever. “Put me down! You’re insane.”
“I’ll put you down, all right.” He gave a demonic laugh and headed for the bedroom.
I shrieked with glee, but he wouldn’t stop until he got the bedroom door open. He pushed the bed curtains aside and laid me on the bed. Our lips locked, and he let out his breath. “There. Now we’re married.”
I sank back on the pillows, out of breath. “We were married before.”
He shook his head. “No, we weren’t, but we can make up for lost time now.”
He inched forward to kiss me one more time.
“Dillon?”
“Yes?”
I slithered my arms around his neck. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Bringing me into the clan. Making me family.”
“You are family. You’re my mate. Forever.”
About the Author - Terra Wolf
I love to write about romance that isn’t your typical love story. My books allow my imagination to run free and explore every possible idea I have. That makes writing less like a job and more like a fantasy come to life.
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Taken By The Tiger
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Terra Wolf
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©2018 Terra Wolf
Taken by the Tiger
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