by Zoe Chant
Jaron shook his head. "No, sir." He glanced at Gloria, shyness becoming bolder at whatever he read in her eyes. "I have everything I need."
Alec's sharp blue gaze flicked back and forth between them. "And just to double-check, you're both fine with sharing accommodations?"
Jaron glanced at Gloria, clearly willing to leave the decision up to her. Gloria nodded firmly.
How long had it been since she'd just gone for what she wanted? And ... she wanted this. She wanted it more than anything.
***
The snow was falling again, but much more lightly, when they stepped outside into a crystalline stillness. Gloria couldn't get used to how quiet it was in the country. A snowy hush lay over everything. The crunch of her boots was the loudest sound.
Axl and Tara walked down the porch steps with them, Axl carrying a sleeping Lexie tucked under his coat. "You can't miss the trailer," he said, pointing. "It's right there by the barn. Looks like Alec shoveled out the path and left the lights on, too." He smiled fondly. "My brother is conscientious about that sort of thing."
Gloria was still feeling too overwhelmed to be able to properly thank them, but Tara clasped her in a firm hug. "I was telling the truth earlier," the redhead murmured into Gloria's ear. "Every one of the women on the ranch knows what it is like to be alone. We all found home here. I don't know if this will be home for you, but we recognize a sister when we see one, and we'd never have turned you away."
"I don't know if we should be worried about all this female whispering," Axl said to Jaron, grinning.
Tara turned around to whack him playfully in the arm with the back of her hand. "Why don't you worry about getting our daughter inside before we all freeze out here?"
"Your wish is my command, love," he said, nuzzling against her hair, and put his free arm around her, steering her away. "Good night, you two. Merry Christmas."
"Good night!" Gloria called, waving to them as they crossed the yard with their breath trailing like smoke clouds in the glow of the Christmas lights. She turned to Jaron and stuck out a gloved hand. He smiled and took it.
The trailer was even smaller than she'd expected, a little aluminum one, wearing a large hat of fresh white snow. When Jaron opened the door, warm air greeted them. An oil heater was going full blast. The trailer was too small to have a separate living and sleeping area; it was all one small, narrow room. The bed had been folded out, taking up most of the floor space, and neatly made up with flannel sheets. Gloria's suitcase sat in the middle of it.
"Didn't they say one of the couples used to live here?" Gloria asked as she removed her suitcase so they could sit down and take their boots off; there was nowhere else to sit except the bed. "Remy and Saffron, or Crystal and—oh, it's hopeless, I can't keep everyone straight. Anyway, this looks like a nice place to spend the night, especially compared to sleeping in my car in the middle of a blizzard. But it would be awfully crowded living here, even with just two people."
"I dunno, it's pretty cozy in here." Jaron looked around. "I grew up in a cabin in the woods not much bigger than this, with my parents and some cousins."
"That sounds hard to deal with."
He shrugged. "You only know what you know."
True. Gloria had spent most of her life in medium-sized towns. Big cities like Atlanta intimidated her, but so did tiny little towns like the ones she'd driven through to get here, the sort that were just big enough for a gas station and a Dairy Queen.
If she were picking places to spend Christmas Eve, a ranch in rural Pinerock County wouldn't even have been on the list.
And yet, here she was. Loving it.
"Who would have thought," she said quietly, looking around at the trailer's interior as she took her coat off, "that having my car break down in a blizzard in the middle of nowhere would be the best thing that's ever happened to me?"
"Best thing?" Jaron repeated. "Really?"
"Yes." She got up and checked to make sure the blinds on the trailer's small windows were firmly closed. The windows were furred with frost, and she could feel the cold coming in through the glass, but the heater was making the interior of the trailer toasty.
Turning back around, she let the coat fall to the floor. "So," she said, with a hesitant smile. "What's the best thing that ever happened to you?"
"This," he whispered.
Rising from the bed, he took her in his arms, and Gloria was treated to an encore of the panty-melting kiss she'd experienced earlier. Except this time, they weren't separated by what had felt like a dozen layers of winter clothing. Underneath his coat, he was wearing only a light plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She couldn't imagine how he wasn't cold, but his body felt like a furnace, hot and hard and pressed against her, all firm hard planes with strong muscles rippling every time he moved.
His mouth captured hers in a series of scorching kisses that left her weak-kneed and wet, leaning into him. God, if this was what having a shifter mate was like, no wonder the other women had been wrapped around their mates half the night. He hadn't even touched her yet, beyond the strong arms wrapped around her—one hand on her back, the other just above the curve of her ass—and she was already shivering with her need for him.
Jaron dipped his hands under her bottom and picked her up. Gloria gasped against his mouth, and then wrapped her legs around him. He was so strong! Lost in his kisses, it felt like she was weightless, soaring through the air—
—until the back of his knees hit the bed. Gloria felt them go off balance, flung out an arm to try to stabilize them, and whacked her elbow on the wall instead. They tumbled onto the bed in a startled heap.
"Are you okay?" Jaron asked breathlessly.
"I was just about to ask you the same thing." Gloria giggled and sat up, rubbing her elbow ruefully. "Okay, so it's not very big in here."
"And I'm a big guy. Sorry about that. I could've hurt you if I fell on you—"
"Jaron." Gloria cupped his face in her hands. "Stop. I'm not breakable. And the bed is where I wanted to be anyway."
His eyes darkened with arousal, his breath quickening. Still, he was infinitely gentle as he touched her face, drawing her to him for another kiss.
But Gloria didn't want gentle. Not now. She wanted to be taken. Ridden. She wanted to break the springs in this mattress, to punish the trailer's suspension even harder than the rough road to the ranch must have done.
She climbed into Jaron's lap, kissing him back with mad abandon. Her hands were all over him, combing her fingers through his short hair, working her other hand under the loose tails of his shirt to feel the scratch and burn of the coarse blond hair curling on his stomach.
Jaron fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, finally getting it loose and pulling it down over her arms. Breaking away from her hungry mouth, he trailed kisses down her bare shoulder in the wake of the sliding, silky fabric.
Her bra was next, though she had to reach back to help him with the clasp. When the cups slid away from her breasts, Jaron made a small, inarticulate noise in his throat.
Gloria drew back, steadying herself with one hand on his shoulder. He was gazing at her naked torso with a look of sheer wonder, like a man gazing upon a goddess.
"Jaron ..." Gloria began, a suspicion dawning on her. "Have you made love to a woman before?"
The look of panic in his eyes said it all.
She leaned forward to kiss him, but more gently. "Relax," she murmured. "Nothing you do here is wrong." Well, unless you drop me again, she almost added, but managed to squash her inappropriate urge toward flippancy; she didn't think he'd take it in the playful sense it was intended. Later, when they knew each other better, she could tease him out of his serious demeanor. For tonight, he needed to know that she was taking as seriously as he was.
"I want this, more than you would believe." She began undoing the buttons of his shirt. "Just do what comes naturally. I want you to take me, Jaron." The next words came up from deep inside her, from some primal part of her soul;
she didn't even know she was going to say them, but they felt infinitely right on her tongue. "I want you to claim me."
Jaron's breath caught in his throat. He surged forward, caught her up in another kiss, and there was nothing at all tentative about it this time. A low growl rose in his throat, and it vibrated through her, going straight down to the hot core of her.
When he laid her back on the bed, she went willingly, letting him lay her out before him. He undid the button on her jeans, kissing her belly. The panties followed the jeans, and then he was between her legs, tasting her salt.
Oh God. She threw her head back, her breath hitching.
He tongued her folds and her hot nub, sending waves of pleasure through her, but pulled away before she'd had nearly enough. Gloria raised her head, panting, molten heat pooling in her core, and watched him undo his pants and strip them off. He wasn't wearing underwear, so there was nothing to stop his fully erect cock from springing free, massive and thick, with a drop of moisture beading at its tip.
Gloria leaned forward to wrap her fingers around him, guiding him toward her wet, ready entrance. She arched her body to meet him and he slammed into her, pushing her down against the bed. She pushed back eagerly, meeting him thrust for thrust. Pleasure was rising in her so rapidly that she knew she wasn't going to last long. Jaron, head bowed and sweat matting his short blond hair, seemed to be fighting for self-control just as hard.
They strove together, riding the rising waves. Jaron brushed his open mouth across her shoulder, and she gasped, shivering as his teeth raked her skin.
There was an instant's hesitation, and she sensed that, even with lust driving him as hard as it was driving her, he was waiting for the answer to an unspoken question.
"Yes," she gasped, digging her fingernails into his back. "Yes, Jaron, yes; don't stop now!"
He shuddered in response and thrust forward, pushing into her as his teeth clamped onto her neck. There was a sharp spark of pain and then a surge of pleasure so blinding it wiped out everything. She was united with him in an endless moment of ecstasy, dimly aware of his staccato thrusts as he arched into his own orgasm.
He relaxed slowly, and so did she, the two of them melting together, their newly united bodies easing into rest.
Jaron was the first to stir as his softening length slid out of her. He pushed up on his elbow and looked down at her with an expression of wonder and delight. This changed to a slight frown as he brushed a thumb across her collarbone, where she felt stickiness and a brief flare of something that wasn't quite pain or pleasure; it was more like pure compressed intensity of sensation.
"What's it look like?" she murmured, reaching up to touch it with her fingertips. Already the edges of the cut flesh had knit together. It didn't really seem to be bleeding much.
"Beautiful," he whispered. "Everything about you is beautiful."
Gloria thought of the little silver scars on the other women's necks. It was beautiful, a shared symbol that only shifters knew about, the outward manifestation of a ritual as old as shifterkind.
And now it was hers too.
"Hey," Jaron said softly, looking up at the clock on the wall. "Guess what time it is?"
"I don't know." She felt too relaxed and lazy to move.
"It's after midnight." He leaned down to kiss her just below the claiming mark, and a slow surge of pleasure rolled through her, almost like a second orgasm. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," she whispered back.
Then she nearly jumped out of her skin, or at least into Jaron's arms, as a sudden, loud peal of music rattled the trailer's walls, coming from somewhere outside. It was so loud that it took her a moment to recognize "Carol of the Bells," with the volume cranked all the way up.
Both of them sat up and turned toward the wall of the trailer facing the yard. There was the sound of a slamming door, and then a male voice shouting, "Just wait'll I get the speakers warmed up, Remy, you son of a—"
This was followed by a female voice, also yelling across the blaring music: "Alec, if I hear a single jingle bell down there, you're sleeping in the barn tonight!"
And, from the other side of the yard, a voice that Gloria recognized as Tara's: "So help me, both of you, if that woke up Lexie, you two get to put her back to sleep!"
Gloria and Jaron shared a speaking glance that sent them both collapsing into silent giggles. They peeled themselves off the bed and crept to the window, peeking out into the winter-still yard just as the music cut out. On the porch of Remy and Saffron's house, Saffron was standing in a bathrobe, holding up an electrical plug victoriously. Remy, at the bottom of the steps, turned back and threw out his arms in an exaggerated "Hey!" stance.
Saffron unplugged the other end of the cord from the stereo, rolled it up, and went back into the house, taking it with her.
Someone else—Gloria couldn't see who, but it was coming from a window of the main house, so it was probably either Charmian or Daisy—gave a tiny cheer.
At the top of the snow-covered steps leading up to his house, Remy turned around and pumped his fist in the air. "Merry Christmas, Circle B clan!" he shouted.
There was a chorus of "Merry Christmas!" echoing around the yard, and a couple of stray moos from the cattle, then a moment of silence, followed by a single female shout of, "And now, can everyone just go to sleep!"
Convulsed with quiet laughter, Jaron and Gloria collapsed back onto the bed.
"Is it always like this around here?" Gloria asked.
"I don't know," Jaron said, his face going serious. "I'm not here much. I'm not really a part of the clan, just an ... an honorary member, I guess, because my former clan alpha Gannon is one of them."
"Oh," Gloria said, completely lost. All this shifter and clan stuff was going to take some getting used to.
"Never mind." Jaron stroked the side of her face. "I have you now, and I feel like I'll never be lonely again."
She felt that way too, at the moment—though she'd been around enough to know that people did need their families too. Even a soulmate wasn't quite enough. Families, and friends, and clans. It was lovely to be invited to spend Christmas with the Pinerock clan, but they weren't her clan; she was a welcome guest, but only a guest.
But now that she and Jaron had found each other, they had all the time in the world to find the place where they belonged.
No matter what, they had each other ... and right now, right here, it was enough.
Jaron got up again to turn down the heater. Gloria snuggled down under the covers. Jaron slipped into bed beside her, and there was a little bit of pleasant squirming until they managed to get themselves into a comfortable spooning position, with Gloria as the little spoon.
"Sex is nice," Jaron murmured sleepily into her hair.
Gloria giggled into her pillow and reached up to lace her fingers through his, where his hand was draped over her hip. "Yeah," she murmured. "Yeah, it is."
As the snow piled up outside the trailer, she fell asleep in her new mate's arms.
***
Not a creature was stirring ...
In the newly built little farmhouse, with its pretty stone walkways and Saffron's carefully tended garden hidden by the fresh blanket of snow, Saffron and Remy made love quietly so as not to wake the cub asleep in his bedroom downstairs.
Tara and Axl were doing likewise in their house next door. She muffled her cries in his shoulder as she came, and he cradled her in his strong arms—the sheriff bear, the first of their clan to take a mate, the one who had paved the way for all the others.
Cody and pregnant Crystal had already admitted they were both too tired tonight, laughing quietly in the darkness of Tara and Axl's guest bedroom. They contented themselves with kissing and a little playful nibbling, and a promise of more to come tomorrow, and fell asleep as they always did, wrapped up in each other's arms.
In the main house, Gannon and Daisy slept curled tightly together, side by side in the guest bedroom downstairs. Little Fern slept
beside the bed in a cradle that Baz had used when he was tiny, passed down from Remy and Cody's parents—an heirloom of love, those long-gone grandparents still looking on, protecting their grandchildren with the work of their hands.
Upstairs, Alec and Charmian sat awake, watching the snow fall. Their little dog Bucket, shut up in the bedroom for most of the day since he wasn't used to having so many people in the house, lay on the foot of the bed, curled up and content.
Alec looked out on the ranch, surveying it as its alpha ... and occasionally glanced at his mate, his co-alpha in her own right. Her dark skin was glorious in the soft luminescence of the falling snow, begging to be touched. Unable to resist, he lightly brushed the soft skin at the nape of her neck with his fingertips, just below her closely cropped hair.
"What?" she asked softly, looking at him with a gentle smile.
It was only like this, away from the others, that Alec could see how soft his mate could be. Like any alpha, she put up a front of strength for the clan. The ability to see into an alpha's heart was reserved only for their mate ... as he knew she could see into his heart, into the soft and secret places that he kept hidden from the others.
And from those secret places of hidden softness came a confession. "I fully expect you'll make my life hell for this," he said, smiling, "but I have a terrible secret to tell you."
"Oh, no." She tucked her bare foot under her hip. "What is this terrible secret?"
"I didn't get you anything for Christmas." He brushed the corner of her mouth with his knuckle. "I'd like to say that it's because I couldn't find anything that was worthy of you, my mate, my everything ... but actually ..." Alec smiled wryly. "It's really more like, I got so busy with ranch business that I didn't even realize how close Christmas actually was, until it was too late to order anything and have it shipped here in time. I stand prepared to receive my punishment."
Her mouth tugged up in a smile, curving under his touch. "Well, perhaps I should make my terrible confession first, before any punishments are handed out. I didn't get you anything either."