She tried to center herself. “Morgan,” she said, her voice quiet and a little husky. “This isn’t real, is it?”
He gazed at her for a moment, and she thought his eyes looked sad. A sense of longing seemed to swim in their blue depths. He shook his head. “No. It can’t be. I can’t let myself want you.” He reached out and took her hand, engulfing it in his own. He was so big; so capable. So in control. He always had to be in control.
“You…want me?”
“I’ve been lying to myself pretending that I don’t. Kissing you… Touching you like that… I realize now I’ve wanted you from the very first moment I snapped at you and you told me to go screw myself.”
She snorted. “So…five minutes after we first met?”
He laughed ruefully at that. “Something like that,” he said. “And that’s the reason I can’t be with you. I want you too much,” he said tenderly. “That kind of want…it weakens a man.”
She looked up into his beautiful blue eyes, trying to find the right words, and after a moment they came to her.
“Morgan Rosemont, you’re a complete and utter moron. And I deserve better than a complete and utter moron. So let go of me.”
He gaped at her open-mouthed for a moment before she yanked her hand away, got up off the floor and went to jab aggressively at the fire with the poker, wishing she were jabbing him.
Chapter Nine
Valerie lay half-dozing on the sofa in front of the fire. There wasn’t much else to do. It was cold outside, and there were no books to read, no TV to watch, nowhere to go. She was hungry, she was bored, and it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Valerie had a stubborn streak in her a mile wide. Maybe that was why she’d never given up on Morgan. She hadn’t given in to the bullies in high school who’d taunted her about her weight, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to give in to them now.
Morgan had gone out to hunt again. He’d let her know that there was a chance she was going to find out what squirrel stew tasted like.
Well, things could be worse, she reasoned. They only had two more days out there. Morgan had stoked the fire again before he left, and she was warm. And Morgan was doing all the heavy lifting, running out and fetching food for them while she stayed inside, warm and dry and smelling the delicious scent of woodsmoke.
There was a lot of woodsmoke, she realized. In fact, her eyes were watering.
She sat up. The room was filling up with smoke.
The wall behind the stove was on fire. Yellow and red flames crawled up the wall toward the ceiling, and thick, acrid smoke burned her nose and stung her eyes.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she leaped to her feet, grabbed her overcoat from where it was draped over the sofa, and rushed to the door.
She grabbed the doorknob and yanked – and the door didn’t move. It was stuck.
She ran over to the window and tried to push it up. The window was stuck shut too.
The room was so smoky now that she could barely see or breathe. She pulled her turtleneck up over her nose so she could breathe through it. She had to find a tool to break the window, and fast. She sank down to her knees. She could crawl over to the fireplace and grab a poker – but the smoke was so thick there…
She heard a pounding sound on the door, and then the sound of splintering wood.
Then she felt strong arms scooping her up. Morgan. He’d come back for her.
She collapsed in Morgan’s arms as he rushed her out of the cabin, muscling his way through the splintered door. Outside, the rush of cold, fresh air hit her like a bucket of water being dumped over her head. She coughed and coughed, blinking frantically.
“What happened? Valerie, are you all right?”
He set her down, but held on to her as she coughed and kept blinking her stinging, burning eyes.
She looked up at him. “I woke up and the cabin was on fire. How did that happen?”
“Sometimes wood stoves do that. The wall might have overheated.” He looked back at the cabin with a scowl on his face.
She shook her head. “The door… I couldn’t get the door open. Or the window.”
The cabin was fully engulfed now, consumed by the roaring fire. She’d left her gloves and hat behind.
“They must have swelled shut from the heat.” He shook his head. “When I saw the cabin, I thought…” His voice shook for a moment, then he cleared his throat and looked away. “Anyway, you’re all right.” He looked at her closely as if trying to reassure himself. “You’re all right.”
Black smoke from the cabin swirled up into the sky. Valerie hugged herself and stamped her feet.
“You can’t stay out here in the cold,” he said. “We need to head back.”
“Won’t that forfeit your position as Alpha?”
He hesitated. “It shouldn’t. Honestly, I’m not completely sure. As you saw, the pack rules aren’t clear on what happens when an Alpha chooses a human mate. But I’m not going to let you freeze to death.”
She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve and looked around the clearing. The tool shed was out – there was barely room for one person to stand in there, much less sleep inside. There had to be something they could do. “I’m not giving up. Can’t you make us, like…a lean-to or something?”
“Hmmm. I can make us an igloo,” he said. “Are you ready to really rough it?”
“Really? You can make an igloo?” she said, amazed.
“Heck, yeah. Me and my dad used to go out on camping trips all the time. We’d have igloo-building contests.” He smiled, and his eyes lit up as he pictured some long-ago memory. “We were damn good. We got it down to an hour and a half. Not as fast as the Arctic wolf shifters, but not terrible.”
“Huh. That’s the first time you’ve ever mentioned your dad,” Valerie said.
He glanced at her, and she saw his eyes go dark. “Not much to say,” he said abruptly, and strode off to the tool shed. He emerged with a big knife, and set to work, slicing rectangular blocks out of the hard-packed snow.
Valerie stood near the burning cabin for warmth, and watched, fascinated, as he quickly built them a shelter. He hacked out block after block of snow. He set them in a circle, then carved several of the bottom layer of blocks to make a sloping surface that would support the next row.
“It’s like watching a National Geographic documentary,” she said, shaking her head in admiration.
As Morgan worked, they heard the sound of snowmobiles approaching.
His family, and Arthur, roared up to them and scrambled off their snowmobiles. Honoria rushed over and threw her arms around Valerie, hugging her. “I thought you were dead!” she said loudly, stepping back.
“Nah, I’m too tough to die.” Valerie grinned. “But thanks for your concern.”
“We saw the smoke. What happened?” Nelda demanded.
Morgan glanced at the cabin, which had mostly collapsed in on itself. Surrounded by snow, there was no danger of the fire spreading. “The wall behind the stove might have overheated,” he said. “The cabin and the stove are pretty old and not very well built.”
“You all right?” Hud rumbled, trying for a look of genuine worry.
“Why wouldn’t we be?” Morgan said coolly, meeting his gaze.
Hud nodded, bowing his head slightly. “Alpha,” he muttered.
CoraBelle and Elmira looked around the clearing.
“They didn’t mention that shed,” CoraBelle said to Boothe. “He’s using a tool to make that igloo. Doesn’t that disqualify him?”
“Leave it, CoraBelle,” Boothe said irritably. “It’s not enough to challenge him on.”
“So you’re not conceding?” Elmira looked at the igloo with annoyance.
Morgan grinned at her. “Not by a long shot,” he said.
Chapter Ten
Once the structure was complete, Morgan stretched out a hand to indicate that Valerie should go inside. She eyed the igloo skeptically. But Morgan had put it together efficiently and decisively, p
acking the spaces between the blocks with snow and smoothing the walls with his large, capable hands to compact the powder into ice.
Besides, since the cabin had burned, it was this or brave the elements. So she got down on her hands and knees, trying to ignore the stinging of her bare hands in the bitterly cold snow, and crawled inside. It wasn’t the most dignified of positions, and she just hoped Morgan wasn’t staring at her ample backside as she wriggled into their makeshift shelter.
It was a blissful relief to be out of the biting wind, and almost at once Valerie began to feel a little warmer…but only a little. Her teeth were chattering, she was shivering even bundled in her cozy winter coat, and her hands were achingly cold, the tips of her fingers numb. Her nose was like ice and her cheeks felt as if they’d been slapped. She thought wistfully of the crackling fire in the cabin and wished frostbite of the paws on stupid shifters with their stupid mating contracts.
Morgan joined her inside, his high cheekbones flushed and his blue eyes bright, and suddenly the igloo seemed too small. He took her hands in his and rubbed them briskly, chafing a bit of warmth back into them.
Valerie pulled one hand free, dug into her pocket and produced a chocolate bar.
“Where did that come from?” Morgan asked in amazement. Then he nodded. “Honoria. When she hugged you.”
“Yes, and she whispered in my ear that I owed her big time and she expected a new iPhone for Christmas.” Valerie grinned at him. “I like your sister. She’s sneaky and devious. Reminds me of me.” She peeled off the wrapping and held it out to him. He shook his head. “I can eat my food raw. You go ahead.”
As she ate the bar, her hands were shaking.
“You’re frozen,” he said, his brow creasing with worry. “Maybe we should head back after all.”
Valerie clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering and shook her head stubbornly. “No way,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”
Morgan rubbed her arm, then scowled. “You’re shivering,” he said.
“N-n-no, I’m not.”
Morgan hauled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’ll keep you warm. I won’t have you catching your death of cold. You’re my mate – however temporarily – and it’s my responsibility to take care of you.”
She couldn’t deny that she felt warm and safe clasped against his broad chest, encircled by his big, muscular arms, and the sheer size of him made her feel dainty and feminine. It was an unfamiliar sensation, given that she’d always taken up more space than the mean girls at school and people like Nelda seemed to think she should. She snuggled closer against him and felt her shivers begin to subside.
She looked up into his blue gaze. “So your dad taught you how to build an igloo, huh? You must have really loved him.”
His expression became shuttered. “I don’t really want to talk about it, Valerie,” he said, but he didn’t loosen his embrace or stop rubbing his palm up and down her back as he shared his body heat with her.
She met his gaze. “My parents died when I was a little girl. I don’t even have memories of them. If I did, I’d talk about them just to keep their memories alive.”
His hand stopped its soothing circling.
“What’s the point of remembering?” He closed his eyes for a long moment and then met her gaze again.
“I just wish that you could have seen the look on your face when you talked about making igloos with him. You looked…happier. Carefree. I’ve never seen that look on your face before.”
“End of conversation.”
“For you, maybe. I plan on continuing to talk. You know me, I’m unshuttupable. In fact, I think that—”
“I do know one way to shut you up,” Morgan said.
And with that he covered her mouth with his, kissing her thoroughly and possessively.
When he pulled back, his eyes were dazed with desire and Valerie was trembling all over – no longer because of the cold.
They were silent for long moments, their gazes locked, then their mouths clashed again and they were clutching at each other, breathing hard, unable to keep their hands from exploring each other’s bodies.
Valerie fisted Morgan’s hair in her hands, holding him against her as they kissed and nipped and licked, while Morgan pushed her coat back from her shoulders, discarding it on the packed-snow floor of the igloo. He covered her plump breasts with his palms and groaned, then pinched her nipples through the thick knitted fabric of her sweater, making her whimper with desire. She tore impatiently at his shirt, feeling the heat of his skin beneath, his shifter metabolism more than a match for the sub-zero temperatures.
Morgan ripped his shirt away and yanked her sweater roughly over her head, holding her close and devouring her mouth as he fumbled with the catch of her bra. He whisked that away too, then rode her down onto the ground, laying her back against the padded softness of her coat and covering her body with the hot, muscular planes of his chest. He burned like a furnace.
Valerie moaned and writhed against him, parting her thighs to invite him to lie between them and rolling her hips wantonly when she felt the hard length of his cock pressing against her pussy. She thought she might die if she didn’t feel him inside her soon. She was almost ready to beg.
But there was no need. Morgan drew away for long enough to push down her jeans and his slacks, and she kicked the denim over her feet so she could wrap her legs around his hips, inviting him inside her.
He reached down to wrap his fingers around his rigid length, lowering his head to kiss her breast and tease her nipple with his tongue. The tiny bud stood up as sharp and hard as a diamond, and the bite of ice in the air had nothing to do with it. She simply ached for his touch. He suckled, his eyes closed and his brows knitted in blissful concentration as he guided his erection between the petals of her pussy and pushed inside inch by torturous inch, groaning as he did so in a way that made her clench around him and dig her fingers into the smooth muscles of his back.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, letting him even deeper inside her, and as he began to thrust, she ran her hands down to his taut, flexing buttocks, urging him on with moans of pleasure and incomprehensible words of desire.
They moved together in a sweet, frantic rhythm, their breathing harsh and syncopated as waves of welcome heat radiated through Valerie’s body, weakening her limbs and coiling in her belly until she cried out, thrashing her head from side to side as she pulsed and spasmed around his hardness.
She saw him falter, and then he stilled and withdrew, his chest heaving and his face set in hard lines as he struggled to hold back. His cock stood up painfully hard against his belly, the shaft sticky with her juices and a pearly drop of precum on the quivering tip. His length looked dusky against the paler skin of his stomach and thighs, engorged with blood.
Biceps bunching and hands clumsy, he urged her to turn over, positioning her on her hands and knees. Feeling utterly shameless, she hollowed her back and parted her thighs, offering herself up to him. His satisfied grunt as he pulled her back against him stole her breath, and then he was bracing her hips with his hands and thrusting inside her again.
She clutched screwed-up handfuls of her coat and scrunched her eyes shut as he pounded into her, his belly slapping against her back, the bulky muscles of his thighs pressing intimately against her own softer flesh.
He reached around with one hand to strum an intoxicating rhythm on her clit, his big fingers unbelievably skilled and nimble as they played over the knot of singing nerves.
Valerie pushed back against him, and the throbbing waves of her orgasm drew him into a long, shuddering release that left him quivering above her as his heart pounded against her spine.
As he wrapped her in his arms, her skin pink and glowing, she reflected that he’d certainly followed through on his promise to keep her warm.
Chapter Eleven
The sun was climbing in the sky. Morgan had dug out a clearing near the igloo and made a bonf
ire for Valerie. After a breakfast of chocolate bar and roast rabbit, she was pleasantly full.
She held her hands out in front of the fire as Morgan paced back and forth in the snow, a frown creasing his forehead.
“Stop pacing,” Valerie said. “You’re making me tired just watching you.”
He walked over and sat down next to her, still scowling.
“Why are you looking so stressed?” she asked.
“I’ve never been away from work so long before. There’s a million things I should be doing.” Morgan stared off into the distance, seeing nothing.
“Arthur has been working for your company for twenty years. You’ve left things in good hands. Or paws.”
Morgan continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “I have expense reports to review, city planning officials to meet with, I need to read over the appeal of that zoning decision on the new wing...”
“Morgan,” she said sharply, and he focused on her again as if seeing her for the first time.
“Yes?”
“Obviously I’m terrible company and not interesting enough to hold your attention, but I’d still rather see you focus on something besides work. Even if it’s just for a few minutes.”
“You’re not terrible company,” he said with a puzzled frown. “If you weren’t interesting, why would I call you up after you’ve gone home from work?”
“Because you can’t stop thinking about work, even for a minute.”
“It’s not work I think of when I call you,” he muttered, or at least it sounded like that was what he was saying.
“What?” Valerie said, startled.
“Nothing.” He shook his head and looked away. “I have to keep my focus on work, Valerie. My pack depends on me. My family depends on me. The reason I’ve achieved the level of success that I have is because I devote all my time and energy to the success of the company.”
“No.” she shook her head insistently. “You’ve reached the level of success that you have because you have very good instincts. You always pick the right place to build your hotels; you anticipate where the crowd will be before anyone else can. You’re known for being tough but fair, and scrupulously honest in your dealings. You have an exquisite eye for design and you stay on top of all the latest trends in the hotel business.”
Shifters of Silver Peak: A Very Shifty Christmas Page 6