“You didn’t just spend the last hour with them.” Then she flashed him an evil grin. “But you’re about to.”
She turned and yelled out to the pack, who now had children swarming them like ants at a picnic, “You’ve got another alternative, if you don’t want to play kindergarten cop all summer long. Roman can come with me, deal with this warrant, and come back when he’s done. Benjamin can run things perfectly well until I get back! Until Roman comes with me, the kids and I are camped out here permanently. That’s going to put a real crimp in your social life. What do you say?”
Marcus was the only one who hadn’t been swarmed. He scowled at any of the cubs who tried to come too close, and they turned and happily ran off to bother other pack members. Climbing up them Nipping at them. Hanging on their hands.
She saw a couple of stragglers, Leland and Paul, heading towards the clearing. They were yawning and rubbing their eyes. They looked as if they’d just woken up.
“Those two,” Roman muttered to himself. “Always sleeping in these days.”
“Hey, Erika!” Leland called out. “What is this, field trip day? My car’s running great now, by the way.”
Chelsea repeated her little speech for them. “So what’s it going to be?” she called out.
A little boy whose nickname was Tom-Tom shifted to cub form, jumped into Leland’s arms, and began chewing on his hair. Leland let out a loud whoop – of joy.
“Kids? We love kids!” he yelled. “We never get to hang out with kids! We’re a week ahead in our work—we’re taking the day off! Who wants to go down to the waterfall and do cannonballs into the lake?”
Apparently, according to the children’s deafening screams of excitement, they all did.
“Cannonballs? Waterfall? That doesn’t sound safe,” Chelsea said nervously.
It was too late. Several of the pack’s girlfriends were already coming out of their tents, and Erika was enthusiastically joining in with the whooping and carrying-on.
“Tonight we’ll have a cookout. Hot dogs and hamburgers!” a shifter named Petrov yelled. More screams of excitement ripped through the air. Chelsea winced.
“Last one to the waterfall’s a rotten egg!” Erika yelled.
“Erika! You can’t go! You…you didn’t bring a bathing suit!” Chelsea protested. “It’s not ladylike!”
“Aw, the heck with ladylike. There’s no place for being ladylike out here,” Leland snorted, and Erika beamed, and Chelsea reluctantly found herself really liking him.
Except that now Erika and Leland were leading the happy gang of children and shifters away.
“But…but…” she protested. Everybody was already heading out of the camp.
“You didn’t eat breakfast!” Chelsea yelled after them.
“We’ll hunt our breakfast!” somebody yelled back.
Son. Of. A. Bitch. Her carefully thought-out plan was going down in flames. She could not possibly have failed any harder.
“Why aren’t you going with them?” she demanded of Roman.
He grinned at her fiercely. “Somebody’s got to watch our prisoner.”
Okay, so apparently it was possible for her to fail even harder.
“Prisoner? But…come onnn!” she groaned. Talk about adding insult to injury.
“Hey, sorry, but this was clearly another arrest attempt. On my property. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.”
She scowled at him. “Um, you did, in fact, make that rule.”
“Oh, right, so I did,” he said with a laugh “And I could break it if I wanted to. But I’m not going to. You know why?”
“Because you have to prove what a macho badass you are?”
“Everybody already knows that, trust me. It’s because I like your company. Now, let’s make coffee. And by the way, do you want s’mores for breakfast?”
“But you don’t have the ingredients,” she protested as they walked over to the pack’s supply tent.
“I got the ingredients. I knew you’d be back.”
Despite herself, Chelsea found that she was flattered. He hadn’t forgotten about her after all.
“Should we eat all that sugar this early?” she wondered.
“Better eat them before the kids get back and gobble up the rest of them.”
“Stealing candy from children,” she said, shaking her head chastisingly.
He laughed. “Hello, have you met me? Alpha asshole here.”
Minutes later, they were sitting by the fire-pit, setting marshmallows on fire. Roman watched in admiration as she built a gooey s’more sandwich and handed it to him. He bit down deeply and a look of bliss appeared on his face.
“Right?” she said.
“How have I lived without this in my life?” he asked, looking straight at her in a way that made her heart stutter.
She knew he was talking about the s’mores.
Wasn’t he?
“Now I get to make you one,” he told her. He stabbed a marshmallow with a piece of tree branch and shoved it into the fire, and together they watched the flames turn the marshmallow’s shell bubbly and crispy-brown.
Then he built her a s’more, and fed it to her, and she leaned forward, biting down until melting chocolate oozed from her lips.
The sticky sweetness invaded her senses, but even the richness of the chocolate was not as intoxicating as the sensation of his fingertips, slightly rough from manual labor, lingering on her lips. She caught her breath as a trickle of wetness escaped from her core and shivers of sensation danced up her spine.
Roman’s eyes were dark and intense as he slowly drew his fingers away from her lips and replaced them with his mouth, kissing her with slow, drugging intensity. She parted her lips on a sigh and his tongue tangled with hers, her senses overwhelmed by the flavors of chocolate and marshmallow and Roman’s musky, masculine scent. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close, and she could feel his heart hammering fast and hard in his chest in counterpoint to the lazy self-assurance of his kisses.
He tumbled her back onto the ground, one hand cradling her head to protect her from the impact, and ran his hands down her sides, over the plump outer curves of her breasts, the dip of her waist and her soft, generous hips.
She was achingly aware of the rigid length of his erection pressing against her core, and found herself rolling her pelvis against him, seeking the heady friction her body yearned for, cried out for. She flushed, feeling wanton, but she couldn’t help herself.
Roman drew back and deftly unbuttoned her shirt, slipping it from her shoulders and weighing her heavy breasts in his big palms. He lowered his head to suckle on the pale, creamy flesh where it spilled over the top of her lacy bra—the one hidden touch of frilly femininity she’d allowed herself when donning her practical, no-nonsense sheriff’s outfit that morning.
His low groan, almost a growl, rumbled through her, making her nipples furl and bud against the fabric of her bra and lighting up her nerve endings. White-hot licks of lust ignited and tumbled through her like shooting stars.
Roman ripped away her bra and discarded his shirt, then returned to her, suckling at her throat, massaging her breasts wrapping his arms around her back and holding her close so she could feel the hot, hard planes of his muscular chest and taut stomach against her skin. His breathing was rapid and as he pressed his hips against her he made low, effortful noises of hard-won restraint. A pulse throbbed between her thighs and she moaned, running her fingers into his long, silky hair and holding his head against her breast, where he played his tongue over her nipple and tweaked it gently between his teeth.
Roman’s hands went to the fly of her jeans, and shame hit her like a dash of cold water. She sat bolt upright. Roman drew back as if stung, as if smarting from rejection. But then his eyes softened as he took in the way she’d crossed her arms defensively over her body, turning her face away to hide the tide of hot blood she could feel rising in her cheeks.
“Why are you hiding yourself from me?�
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Because you’re so gorgeous. So sexy. Because you’re toned and tan and delicious. Because you have a body made for sin. Because you’re sex on legs and I’m…not.
She swallowed and forced herself to speak. “It’s just…your reputation precedes you.”
He gave an irritated little growl. “Is this about the whole outlaw thing again? Because I thought we were past that.”
“No! No… It’s just I’ve heard about your love life. Leggy blondes. Beautiful brainless bimbos. I’m not exactly your type.”
“That’s true.”
She nodded dully.
“You’re definitely not brainless. You are beautiful, though.”
She glanced at him. The firelight reflected in his eyes made him look as if he were burning up from within.
“It’s okay,” she muttered, reaching for her shirt. “You don’t have to say it. ‘You have a beautiful personality. You’d be so pretty if you just lost a few pounds…’”
Roman’s hand clamped around her wrist like a vise, bruisingly tight. “Don’t you dare say that about yourself,” he said, and there was real anger in his voice. “Who told you that?”
She swallowed. “Oh, you know, ex-boyfriends…”
He snorted. “You might not be brainless, but you obviously have terrible taste in men.”
She ventured a shy, tentative smile. “Nothing’s changed there, then.”
His eyes narrowed and she felt a thrill run through her that was part fear and part excitement. “It seems to me that you need to be taught another lesson,” he said, his voice almost a purr, and before she knew what was happening he’d yanked down her jeans and panties and pulled her across his lap, her bare rump in the air.
She squealed and wriggled, then quieted when he gave her a light, brisk tap on the ass.
“I’m going to spank you three times,” he told her gravely. “Once for the smart remark about me. Once for the stupid remark about your body. And once for fun.”
As he spoke, he ran his fingers down between her buttocks to part her pussy lips, which were swollen and slick with desire. She shuddered and squeezed her thighs together against his fingers, wondering if she’d come before he even got inside her. Her body was thrumming with arousal and need.
Roman brought the flat of his hand down on her buttock with a sharp crack, making her squeal and writhe in his lap. His huge erection twitched against her belly through the denim of his jeans and he gave a satisfied grunt.
A second slap in the same spot as the first stung her sensitized skin, sending a wave of heat washing over her and making her bite her lip and squeeze her eyes shut as she fought for breath.
A third blow, swift and sweet, had her tensing and moaning, teetering on the verge of orgasm from the mixture of pleasure and pain and the unbearable anticipation.
Then Roman was discarding his jeans, positioning her on all fours and drawing her back against him, rubbing the head of his cock against her swollen slit and whispering incoherent words of encouragement and desire into her ear.
One side of her body was hot, glowing with the flickering heat of the fire, her buttock singing from the spanking Roman had given her. The other was caressed by cool breezes, a sensual contrast that made her all the more aware of the warm skin of Roman’s belly and chest against her back.
He worked the head of his cock against her, using the slickness of her arousal to lubricate himself, then pushed inside in a slow, steady motion that stretched and filled her.
Chelsea moaned and clenched around him, her orgasm building inside her in magnetic waves as she pushed back against him, desperate to have him all the way inside her.
Roman stilled for a moment, his chest heaving against her back as he fought for control. Then he began to move in smooth, confident thrusts that stoked her passion steadily higher until she shuddered and cried out, spasming around him in overwhelming muscular waves.
Roman let out a low growl and slipped his hand over her soft belly and down between her thighs, finding her clit with his fingers. As he upped the pace of his thrusts, driving into her with a series of harsh groans, he rubbed her to climax, locking his arm hard around her waist as she crested again. He thrust into her with mindless abandon, burying his face in the hair at the nape of her neck, shouting out his release as he came explosively inside her, his whole body shuddering and sheened with sweat.
Chapter Sixteen
“Those kids are gonna be back any minute,” Chelsea sighed, lying there in his arms.
“I know. We need a proper house; there’s no damn privacy around here,” Roman said, his fingers tangling in her hair.
“A house? Aren’t you allergic to those?” she asked.
Roman shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, they make caravan houses…” He buried his face in her hair. “You could stay with us, you know. Travel. It’s never boring. And the pack loves you, despite the fact that you keep trying to arrest me. Or maybe because of it.”
The pack loved her. Not him.
This was a man who moved on all the time.
And for that matter, he didn’t know everything about her. She’d left out one important fact, and it was the one that tended to set men running. Well, it set everyone running, really.
Chelsea swallowed hard.
“I want to settle down,” she said. “I want a home. With a regular pack, where I could hope to start a family someday.”
There was a long silence.
“I see,” he said. “I understand that. It makes perfect sense.”
But he didn’t say what she longed to hear. What she needed to hear.
He didn’t say, me too. He didn’t say, I’ve changed. I want a family too. I want to settle down.
She felt a cold, dark loneliness descend on her. As if sensing it, he tightened his arms around her and pulled her close, but it wasn’t enough. She was with him now, but for how long?
They could hear the voices of the kids coming through the forest; they were headed back. With a sigh, she sat up and began pulling on her clothes.
* * * * *
Roman thrashed on his bed, then sat bolt upright, breathing hard. Chelsea was already sitting up, watching him.
“You all right?” she asked him.
He nodded abruptly, sweat beading on his forehead.
Images flashed through his mind. His father showing up drunk to his mother’s funeral… The day Roman’s mother had died of an undiagnosed heart defect had been the last day he’d ever seen his father sober.
Images from the wreck… Roman’s father, drunk and driving a pickup truck, had plowed in to a van returning from a shopping trip and killed the entire family inside as well as himself.
Bodies scattered across the ground. Pack members looking at Roman, who was the spitting image of his father, with hatred in their eyes.
His mother’s pack had offered to take him in, but he’d refused. Roman hadn’t wanted to be near anyone or anything that reminded him of family.
Breathing hard, he looked at Chelsea. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he choked out. She laid her hands on his arm, and he felt the panic and pain start to subside.
“You’ll be all right.” Her voice was calm and soothing, like balm on burned flesh.
“I’m not all right, that’s the problem. I’m just… You’re good. I care about you. I don’t want to hurt you,” he groaned. “That’s why I can’t have a family. I’m not strong enough for it.”
And he didn’t want her to hurt him. What if something happened to her? Could he survive the loss of his mate? His father hadn’t.
She looked him in the eyes.
“Roman Kincaid, you are stronger than you know, and I don’t just mean physical strength. You fear nothing. You care about your pack. You may bitch about what a pain in the ass they are, but you love them like family. So you do have a family. Whether you’re with me or not, you’ll be okay, because you’re the kind of person who carries on to protect what he cares about.”
“Th
ank you,” he whispered hoarsely. His heartbeat was returning to normal. He’d never calmed down that quickly after a nightmare before.
He lay down and pulled her up against him, and within minutes, amazingly, he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
Chelsea sat up and yawned and stretched, working out the pleasant aches in her muscles. She could hear the happy chatter of children outside, and she scrambled to get dressed so she could go out and join them.
Roman and most of the pack had already left for work. Roman had left her a coffee can vase filled with wildflowers.
Erika was sitting outside by the campfire, with the children. Several of the children’s parents had come to join them for breakfast. Everyone seemed to be having a great time.
Roman had told her that they always left at least one pack member at the camp site to watch over their stuff during the day. They used to leave the camp empty, but odds and ends had started vanishing from their camp. They’d scented a human having gone through some of their tents after their stuff was stolen, and hadn’t wanted to deal with the human authorities about it. Instead, they just took turns guarding the site.
Today was Marcus’ turn. He was glancing around the camp site at the kids and parents with a wince of dismay on his face.
He grunted a greeting, and handed her the cup of coffee.
“Morning,” he muttered, and walked off without bothering to pour himself a cup.
“Yes, it is,” she said to his retreating back.
He grunted a greeting and handed her the cup of coffee.
“Morning,” he muttered, and walked off without bothering to pour himself a cup.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed.
“Good morning, Aunt Chelsea!” Pansy called happily.
“Oh, so it’s auntie now, is it? Yesterday I was lunch,” she said, settling down next to the little girl.
“Sorry about that—she’s still got those puppy teeth,” said the woman sitting next to Pansy. “I’m Rosie. It was lovely for my husband and me to have a night off. Did it work? Is Roman going to turn himself in?”
Mate Marked: Shifters of Silver Peak Page 9