She leaned back and spread her legs, inviting him in. He climbed over her, pressing his head against her opening. “Do you have a condom?” he asked her.
“Shit,” she moaned, throwing her head back.
“I’m sorry, baby.” He started to move away.
“No,” she growled, wrapping her legs around him. She was so hot for him, she didn’t care. She pulled him to her, and he relented.
“Summer. Baby. You don’t know what you mean to me,” he said, pushing into her.
Her mouth dropped open as she instantly came hard on his shaft. Her body throbbed, clenching him with her release. “Oh, Summer,” he growled. “Your pussy feels so good on my cock. I can’t hold back.”
“Take me, Chance.”
With that, he growled and pulled out. Summer moaned at the loss of him, but he turned her over on all fours and sank back inside her again. Both of them sighed as he pushed himself deep into her. He gripped her hips and slowly started to pump into her in an agonizingly slow rhythm. Summer thought she’d lose her mind with need until he started to move faster and harder.
As he thrust, holding her curvy hips tight in his hands to position her just right, she started to come and didn’t stop. Over and over, he pounded into her, and over and over she came, mewling and moaning like a wild thing.
He panted behind her, growling, his fingertips digging into her flesh. “I’m going to come inside you,” he growled. “I’m going to fill you up. You’re mine, baby. You’ll always be mine.”
Summer’s body responded in a way her mind couldn’t understand. She wanted his come inside her. She wanted him to fill her up and claim her as his own. With three more thrusts, he growled and came hard. Hot and wet, he filled her with his seed. She felt her body suck it in and take it deep, welcoming whatever he planted inside her.
She was beyond mind, functioning on pure instinct. At that moment, she knew that she and Chance belonged together. Chance fell down on the bed and gathered her in his arms. It felt so good to be adored as Chance seemed to adore her. Maybe, just maybe, she could let herself accept it. It would be so easy to just give in to what her body wanted, and let Chance love her.
Chapter 11
Chance woke the next morning next to Summer’s sleeping form. He turned to her and wrapped his arm around her waist, sinking his nose into her neck. The smell of her skin invigorated his senses. She’d wanted him the night before. She’d wanted all of him. Could he tell her she was his mate? Would she accept him?
Summer began to stir and turned to him. She smiled, her eyes still closed. He rained kisses down on her forehead and cheeks. Feeling himself grow hard, just from the sight of her smile. “Good morning,” he whispered in her ear.
“Morning,” she said, stretching. She opened her eyes, and looked into his. It sent a thrill through him to see the light in her caramel-colored eyes. Summer was unbelievably beautiful. Everything about her made his heart sing. If he could, he would ask her to be his wife, right here and now. But he knew that it wouldn’t be appropriate to move so fast with a human. She didn’t know what it was like for shifters, knowing exactly who you belonged with by instinct.
“Want to go out for breakfast?” he asked her.
“Maybe some coffee,” she said, blinking. She sat up and looked around. “That man, last night. He was one of the miners who were fighting the first day we went here. I was kind of tipsy last night. God. Did we have sex without protection?”
“Yes. You wanted…”
She rubbed her forehead. “I know. It was my idea. I’ll deal with it later. Anyway. That man. I’m beginning to think that maybe he had something to do with the poisonings. He was so threatening to me. What do you think?”
“What did he say to you?”
“He told me to stop poking around where I didn’t belong. Then he tried to drag me into an alley.”
“I know that man. Randy Wade.”
“He was harassing a shifter in the breakroom the first time we went to the mine. Remember?”
“I do remember. I’m going to make a few calls. We need more evidence, but I think this is a good lead.”
Summer stood and went to the shower while Chance made some phone calls to the sheriff’s department and to the mine. He learned more about Randy Wade. Chance needed to bring him in and close this case. No more shifter families would be poisoned on his watch.
When Summer came out of the shower, she looked fresh and clean, but her face was drawn into a frown. “Chance, I need to go back to Missoula,” she said.
“What?” he said, standing abruptly. His heart sank, and he felt he could barely breathe. Finally, he had a decent lead on this case, Summer had returned his affection, and now she was going to leave.
“I got a call from my department head. I have to get back to the university. Environmental oversight found that the mine is clean, and I’m running out of money. I’ve been wrong all this time about the mine. That drunk jerk from last night is probably behind all the poisoning. He worked at the mine. He would have had access to arsenic. I feel like an idiot, but I do have to get back to my job.”
“But you’re a consultant on the case,” he protested.
“Sure. About the mine. But the sheriff’s department isn’t paying me. My job is done. I’ve got to go home.”
“Summer…” He wanted to tell her that she was his one true mate. He wanted to tell her how much he loved and adored her. But all that came out was, “Please stay.”
She walked toward him and lifted up on her tiptoes, planting a soft, sad kiss on his cheek. “I can’t, Chance. I wish things could be different. I’ve developed…feelings for you. But we’re from different worlds. I work three hundred miles away from here. You could never live in the city. We can’t do some long distance thing. It wouldn’t work for either of us. Best just to cut it off and try to forget it ever happened.”
“You can stay,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. “I’m sure there’s something you could do here.”
“No. There’s no work for an environmental biologist in this town. I have to go home. I’m sorry. There’s no other way. I could never be happy if I didn’t have my work.”
She began packing her things as tears slid down her face. Chance couldn’t stand the sight of her sadness. It only accentuated his own. He couldn’t lose her. Life without her would be an empty shell.
But he had to go put a stop to Randy’s murdering hatred of shifters. No more kids would be harmed because of him. Chance stood at the door, not wanting to walk away, but he knew he had to go do his job. He gripped the knob and gave her one last look. Torn between love and duty, Chance felt his heart breaking in two. A tear welled in the corner of his eye as he opened the door and walked out.
“Goodbye, Summer,” he said. She looked up at him with shining, tear-filled eyes. “Until we meet again.” She shuddered as tears fell down her cheeks. He closed the door behind him.
Out in the cool mountain air, he trudged down to his truck. He had a murderer to stop and had to focus on the task at hand. The vision of Tim’s little daughter’s sunken face flitted through his mind. No matter how much he wanted to go back to Summer and beg her to stay, he had an important mission to attend to.
He got in his truck and drove across town to where Randy lived. He’d told deputy Hurly that he would be doing an incognito search at Randy’s house. If Chance found evidence, they’d draw up a search warrant and make the arrest. Everyone was ready to move as soon as he gave the word.
With Summer leaving, Chance could barely concentrate on what he needed to do. But he knew he had to pull himself together. Summer was his mate. That would never change. Right now, what mattered was protecting children from the evil men who hated them for their shifter nature.
Chance parked his truck off the road on the back end of Randy’s property. His bear shifter senses could detect things his human senses could not. It was a cold day, so Chance undressed in the car and left his things on the passenger seat of his tru
ck. With a roar, he shifted, his body contorting from the form of a tall man into an angry bear.
Chance’s bear growled and roared to go back to Summer. The animal in him almost refused to move and tried relentlessly to gallop up the road and back to his mate. But Chance’s human mind directed the grizzly onward, through the forest. Even the bear wanted to protect the community and the shifter children.
Trotting through the pine forest, he came to the edge of Randy’s land. He’d made sure that the man would be at work that day and expected the place to be abandoned. Randy wasn’t married anymore, as his ex-wife had left him several years before and had gone to live in Billings near her sister.
Chance opened his bear senses as he approached the house. The scent of pine and car oil bit his nose as he came in range of the garage. Randy had an old house in need of repair, but his massive shop looked as if it had been built within the last ten years.
Tasting the air on his tongue, Chance made out the distinct scent of almonds coming from the shop. It didn’t seem right. Why would Randy have so many almonds on his property? Chance came to the entrance of the shop and sniffed at the door. The smell of almonds became even stronger.
After shifting back to human form, he gripped the doorknob. It turned easily. Chance had to roll his eyes. Randy was so confident that no one would figure it out that he didn’t even bother locking the door.
Inside, Chance found the regular evidence of shop projects. A band saw, a project car smelling of oil, some guns, a pile of antlers. Hmm? As a game warden, he could use them as a legal excuse for being in here. He sniffed out the scent of almonds until he found a metal barrel sitting in the corner.
He crouched down and read the label. Industrial arsenic. Criminal mastermind, Randy was not. Chance heard the sound of crunching gravel outside as a truck came to a stop in the driveway. Shit. He couldn’t make an arrest naked. He quietly slipped out the back door, shifted, and ran into the forest. As he trotted away, a gunshot blared through the air, the bullet buzzing past his ear.
Chance ran faster. With a gun, even an idiot like Randy could take him down, in human or animal form. While shifters recovered fast from illness and injury, a bullet could still kill. He made it back to his truck, threw his clothes on and called in to deputy Hurly.
The sheriff and the deputy were ready to move in with a warrant for Randy’s arrest. Now there was enough evidence to prosecute him for the murder and poisoning of shifters in his community.
He drove quickly around the other side of the property and met the sheriff’s cars speeding into Randy’s driveway. They had their guns out, pointed at Randy, who had a gun pointed at them.
Chance skidded to a stop and jumped out of the truck with his rifle at the ready. Ducking down behind the sheriffs’ vehicles, he joined deputy Hurly. “He’s raving about shifters,” Hurly said. “This guy needs to be stopped.”
Another shot buzzed through the air. Randy ducked back behind the shop, shouting that he’d rather die than see shifters get equal rights.
“Let me disable him,” Chance said, aiming his rifle at the corner of the shop.
The next time Randy pointed his pistol around the building, Chance aimed and fired at the man’s hand, knocking the gun from his grip. Randy screamed, and the gun went flying. The sheriff gave the order.
Everyone moved in at the same time. The sheriff pushed Randy to the ground, reading him is rights as he handcuffed him.
After Randy was shoved into the sheriff’s car, they all made their way back to the sheriff’s department to book him. A feeling of pride swelled in Chance’s chest, and he wanted nothing more than to tell Summer about what had happened. Then it hit him all at once that she was gone.
Chapter 12
The days at the university began to run together, and Summer couldn’t stay focused on her work. Her mind constantly drifted to Chance and her time with him in the country. She missed him and had stopped pretending that she didn’t.
She cleaned up the last of her experiments in the lab and closed up her equipment at the end of another long day. With a sigh, she locked the door in the hallway of the university. She loved her work and couldn’t live without it, but there was a gnawing emptiness that had begun to eat away at her stomach. She knew it was because she missed Chance. She’d blown it with him.
They hadn’t spoken since she’d left three weeks ago, and she was too embarrassed to call him. She’d read that the man who had harassed her in the street had been arrested for the murder of Balor Von and the poisoning of the Owens family. She’d even seen Chance’s face in the papers.
In the last few weeks, the Shifter Protection Act had passed in the House and had been signed into law by the President. Crimes against shifters were getting stiff punishments. The government wanted to crack down on the hate crimes before they got out of hand and divided the country.
Summer walked down the hallway of the school, her shoes clopping on the polished linoleum. Outside in the dark, cool night, she made her way through the parking lot to her car and got inside. She sat behind the wheel and checked her phone for the first time. There was a message on the voicemail, waiting for her.
“Summer Madison. This is the DA, and I’d like to ask you a few questions about the investigation you participated in several weeks ago involving arsenic poisonings. Give me a call back at your earliest convenience.”
Summer put the cell phone back in her purse and pulled out of the parking lot. She hadn’t expected to be called in on the prosecution against Randy Wade, but she supposed it made sense. She had been involved with the case from the beginning. Maybe they wanted to call her as an expert witness.
When she got home to her cozy little apartment in the suburbs of town, she kicked off her shoes and poured herself a glass of wine, plopping down in front of the television. It had only been three weeks since she’d left the country, but it felt like a lifetime.
Then she thought about it for a moment. Three weeks. Her mind began to buzz. Three weeks. With a gasp, she stood and went to her calendar. Three weeks. She put her hand to her forehead, remembering the last time she’d been with Chance. They hadn’t used protection. Shit, shit, shit.
Without another thought, Summer charged into the living room, put her shoes back on and grabbed her keys. In less than ten minutes, she was at the drug store with a pregnancy test in her hands. She plopped it down on the counter, defying the woman ringing her up to look at her sideways.
She took the test back home and paced around her apartment before she finally went to the bathroom to take it. The three minutes she had to wait, staring at the thing, were the longest three minutes of her life. What had she let happen to her?
A moment later, the pink outline began to appear in the circles. Two lines. Positive. Fuck. Summer gasped, backing away. She was pregnant. Not only was she pregnant, she was pregnant with a shifter child. Chance’s shifter child.
Panic rose in her chest, and she wanted to scream. She’d never done it without protection before. In the heat of the moment, she’d practically begged Chance to come inside her. I’m an idiot! She picked up her phone and began to dial his number, but then set it back down on the table. She couldn’t talk to him now. She had to think.
Unable to sleep all night, she called in sick to work and then contacted the DA about the case. She had to think about something other than the fact that she was pregnant with Chance’s baby.
Later that morning, down at the DA’s office, she gave her full account of the events of the investigation. The DA seemed satisfied with her information and asked her to be a witness for the prosecution. She couldn’t refuse, but the possibility of seeing Chance was incredibly good.
Between now and the trial in a few weeks, she would have to figure out what to do. Her feelings for Chance were too strong. And she already loved the baby growing inside her.
As the days passed, Summer began to feel more and more attached to the baby and knew that she would raise the child, no matter what happened
. The day before the trial, Summer received a call from the copper mine.
Assuming it was about the case, she answered the phone.
“Hi. Summer Madison?”
“Yes?”
“This is Emery Leland, the owner of the copper mine. We met before during the investigation into the poisonings. It was brought to my attention that you’d been here doing environmental tests on your own dime.”
“Yes. That’s right. I actually found Balor Von in the woods while doing water tests. I’m not sure I should answer any more questions with the trial tomorrow.”
“Oh, this isn’t about that. I’m calling because we have an opening for an environmental biologist at the smelting plant. Considering you have been so passionate and diligent in your effort to protect the environment, we thought you would be a perfect fit.”
“Are you offering me a job?” she asked, so stunned she had to sit down. Her head felt dizzy from shock and the progressing pregnancy.
“I am.”
“Wow. That’s unexpected.”
“You were the first person we thought of when our current biologist gave notice.”
“I’m pregnant,” she blurted out.
“Congratulations! That’s wonderful news,” he said.
“Would that be a problem?”
“No. Not at all. Your entire job would be to ensure safe working conditions. And we have a wonderful maternity plan here. We’d love to have you.”
“Well. Thanks. I’ll have to think about it. Can I let you know in a few days?”
“Yes. I look forward to speaking with you again. We want someone with your dedication to the environment to work for us here.”
Summer said goodbye and set down her phone. Stunned that the conversation had just happened, she shook her head. The realization that this could be everything she’d asked for surged in her mind.
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