by Anya Nowlan
“I couldn’t ask you to do that. The Firm will have your asses for it,” Dice said, his gray and hazel eyes sparking with a fire that Meredith had come to expect in them.
Now, knowing about his son, it seemed to burn all the more hotter.
“Fuck them,” Rio said, snorting.
“Yeah. Fuck ‘em,” Ryker confirmed. “Way I see it, Spade doesn’t like any of us anyway. If he gets rid of you, Dice, then we’re the next ones to go. We all know that.”
A round of confirmatory murmurs sealed that assumption. Meredith sat up a bit straighter, feeling Dice’s hand squeeze her side.
“Maybe if we can take out this Rowen creep’s little hideaway then we can turn this into something that benefits us,” Rio noted.
“And if not, then at least we get to go out with a bang,” Prowler exclaimed, snickering.
Price didn’t seem quite so convinced but after a moment of contemplation, the other werewolf seemed to relent, shrugging his shoulders with a sigh.
“Sure, why not. It’s not like you fuckers can get out of there on your own anyway. I say we ride and kick some Arctics’ ass and get your boy back, Dice.”
“I appreciate that,” Dice said, a slight waver in his tone.
Meredith hadn’t discussed their options with Dice during the short moment she’d had alone with him, getting into the apartment and settling down, but one look at him now told her that before the squad started volunteering, there weren’t a lot of options to go on. If it had been just Dice and her then it would have been a definite suicide mission.
But I would have gone anyway, she thought resolutely. If there was even the slightest chance of getting my baby back, I would have gone.
There was no question in her mind about that.
“So, what do you say, Thor?” Rio asked, looking at the last hold-out of the group.
But Thor was already grinning, shaking his head as he peeled away from the group and stalked into what must have been his bedroom.
“You guys can go get yourselves killed, be my guest. I won’t have any part in this.”
“Can’t win ‘em all,” Ryker said with a shrug, though the looks that followed Thor into his room could have scorched the earth even in the desert outside of Abu Dhabi.
Eighteen
Meredith
As the door slammed shut behind Thor, the rest of the squad launched into a discussion about what they were going to do. It was quickly decided that Prowler would very ‘gently’ beat some sense into Rowen and get the coordinates of the compound from him. They’d leave in some hours, when it got dark, and snatch one of the transports afforded to them by The Firm.
It was too early to go yet as the city was buzzing with news and heightened security because of what had happened at Etihad Towers. Luck was on their side, however, as The Firm didn’t have any bases in the near vicinity and Dice had it on good authority that Spade had to be in the United States at the moment. That bought them some time, as no one in the squad thought that Spade would send anyone else to deal with ‘Shifter Squad Suicide’ if he knew what was good for him and The Firm.
Everything from getting out of Abu Dhabi onwards would have to be played by ear, relying on Meredith’s memory on the outline of the corridors and floors of the building and Rowen’s keenness to cooperate.
“We’ve done more with worse,” Price had said, and the rest of the squad seemed to agree.
I don’t want to know what kind of horrible things they’ve seen if they’ve been through worse already, Meredith thought with a shudder, ignoring the fact that she herself had gone through enough shit to fill at least a few horror novels’ worth.
Somehow, her own suffering didn’t really seem all that important now that she had another life to worry about. A life that she had barely been able to rejoice in the growing of.
When Meredith finally got Dice out of the living room area and into a separate bedroom, she was completely exhausted. The day – or night, rather - had been crazy but it wasn’t all of the action that got her so worn out. It was the constant knowledge that somewhere her child needed her and she couldn’t be there for him.
It weighed on her mind like nothing else.
“I need to look at that, Dice,” she said as he locked the door to the bedroom while she held a medkit in her hands. “But that went well, right?”
Any ‘normal’ soldier would have checked out his wounds the moment he could to avoid infection, sepsis and further damage. The Shifter Squad Nine guys seemed to barely notice the fact that they were bleeding profusely and some of them probably still had bullets in them.
Meredith had to guess that it was one part macho bullshit and one part shifter commando awesomeness. She’d seen it a few times with the werewolves of The Arctics, but never quite this pronounced. Meredith had half-expected Ryker to put his cigar out on the bruised and bloodied ribs of his that were showing from underneath his white dress shirt where he’d gotten hit.
“Sure,” he said, finally shrugging off the tatters of his jacket and unbuttoning his dress shirt. “It went better than I could have ever expected it to. Sort of makes me wonder how I’m going to end up paying for it.”
“Not everything has to be with some sort of an ominous undertone,” Meredith parried, honestly wishing she could believe that. “Maybe you just misjudged them. Maybe they’re nice guys.”
“Yeah, and maybe the polar ice caps are actually all a mirage,” Dice grumbled, his brows furrowing.
She saw the slightest wince go through him as he unbuttoned the top button, moving his shoulder in a way that wasn’t exactly comfortable. Quickly, she dropped the medkit on a nearby table and rushed to him, undoing the rest of the buttons herself and batting away his big hands when he tried to help.
“Stop it, I can do it faster and I’m not the one with a bullet wound in my shoulder.”
“It’s nothing,” he said with a grin, and looking up at him, Meredith knew he really thought it was nothing.
Crazy, loveable fool.
“It’s not nothing,” she grumbled.
“I’d take a hundred bullets for you, Meredith,” he whispered, planting a kiss on the top of her head as her hand traced over the tattoo on his chest bearing her name.
“You shouldn’t have to,” she responded, feeling entirely too weak and frail all of a sudden.
His hands snaked around her and pulled her close. He smelled like raw testosterone, masculinity, and not a little bit of sweat and blood. It was sort of mesmerizing, in a way.
“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t,” he chuckled. “So, Dean,” he said suddenly, making her look up at him once more and get lost in his eyes as she so often did.
“Yes,” she said, smiling gently. “I thought it was the only right thing to do.”
“It was,” Dice agreed, kissing her lightly on the lips.
Dean Alderson had been Dice’s father. He’d been a military man like Dice was and he died on a mission a few months into her meeting Dice. It had been a dark time for Dice, Meredith knew all too well. He had worshipped his father.
When she had found out that it was a boy she was carrying, the name was the easiest thing to figure out.
“I missed you so bad,” she whispered, getting up on her tip-toes to kiss him on the lips.
“Not as much as I missed you,” he retorted, making her gasp slightly.
His hands brushed up her back, sending a welcome tingle along her spine. As much as she’d tried to put it out of her mind, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the last time they’d been together. Now, having his bare skin underneath her fingertips again, it seemed like all her dreams were coming true once more.
It only needed one thing to make it perfect.
Her son.
“We will get him back,” Dice said, his words a solemn oath. “I promise you that.”
“I believe you,” she replied.
And then he kissed her and everything seemed just a little bit better for it.
Nine
teen
Meredith
Dice’s lips felt like silk against hers. There was something about their kisses that had always been so… perfect. Like they were meant to kiss one another.
She leaned into the kiss eagerly, her tongue darting into his mouth and tasting him hungrily. It had been too long since she’d gotten to enjoy his strong, commanding presence in full force. Though the stolen moment in the bathroom at the party had been hot as hell, Meredith felt far better just being alone with Dice in a situation where she didn’t have to fear a werewolf breaking in through the door with intent to kill them.
Not that they were ever really ‘safe’ anymore.
“Your shoulder,” Meredith gasped as Dice’s hands slipped under her butt and lifted her into his lap.
Her legs wrapped around his hips and she groaned as he squeezed her ass with both hands, his wide chest rising and falling heavily with his breathing.
“Forget it,” he growled. “It can heal in time, but if I don’t get to touch you for another minute, I might fucking fall over and meet my maker right here.”
“Awfully melodramatic, aren’t we,” she giggled, but her words quickly turned into moans as he pressed her against the wall, letting her slide down enough to feel the outline of his thick cock.
An excited flush lit her cheeks immediately and she ground against him shamelessly, her hands slipping over his chest and arms as if she were trying to relearn the contours of his body one more time. Everything was familiar and right and she loved the fact that there wasn’t even the tiniest bit of shame within her, just joy.
“I love you, Dice,” she whispered, and she meant every syllable of it.
Now and always.
“I love you too, baby,” he growled back, and she could hear the deep baritone of the bear beneath the man there as well, both of them promising their heart and soul to her at the same time.
There had been times, cooped up in the laboratories of The Arctics, when Meredith Wilder had been completely certain that she would never feel love or happiness again. Dice Alderson was making all of that disappear in the blink of an eye.
Or the touch of a hand, more like.
Her fingers slipped down along his body as he kissed her mouth and neck. She undid his belt and then the button on his pants, shoving her hand down the front of his boxers without a hint of modesty. Both of them groaned as her fingers gripped the rigid length of his cock and when she tugged up and down on it, putting pressure on it, Dice growled like he was about to shift right there and then.
“You’re not making this romance stuff very easy on me, baby,” he grumbled, pulling his face back from her neck and kissing her mouth again. “I thought I was supposed to be gentle with you.”
“I want you to be whatever you want with me,” she said, breathless.
The next moment, Meredith found herself on her back on the ridiculously oversized mahogany-framed bed that sat in the middle of the room, the silk sheets beneath her crumpling as she got up on her elbows. Dice shucked off his pants as she watched him, taking in every contour of his body and loving every second of it.
His shoulder was still bloody, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore and she could see the wound slowly closing. Shifters always healed faster when around others and Meredith knew that the healing would be even faster because she was close to him. There was something about the sacred bond of bear and mate that regenerated the animal far faster than simple medicine ever could.
If I could only distill it in a bottle, she thought, and then grinned slightly.
She had. Almost. Or at least she was very close.
But those thoughts disappeared from her when her mate, her bear, descended upon her, smothering her with ravenous kisses as he practically tore off her clothing. The blue dress had remained remarkably unscathed during the daring escape and she had to say her silent thanks to whomever the stylist was that had put her in something with a deep slit – it had made running that much easier. But while the dress had survived an encounter with The Arctics trying to kill her, it definitely was not going to live through Dice in a fit of passion.
Meredith could pinpoint the moment when the seams at her side ripped in shreds and she arched her back with a squeal as he tugged the remnants of the gown out from under her. The bra suffered much the same fate and then she was left only in her stocking and flimsy thong, with Dice kissing a determined trail down her chest and stomach.
He stopped at her nipples, circling around them with his tongue, and then moved on down to her navel, sucking on it slightly and making her giggle. She’d always been a little bit ticklish and he remembered too damn well.
“Dice! Don’t do that,” she pleaded with laughter.
“Do what?” he asked innocently, while his rough palms smoothed down the length of her legs, pressing his fingertips against the soft flesh.
“You know I’m ticklish!” she exclaimed, propping herself up a little to look at him.
The blaze in his eyes could have kept her warm during winter.
She bit her lip, spreading her legs for him without him asking. All she could think of was having him inside of her as soon as possible.
Grinning, he pushed aside the thong, inhaling deeply. His long lashes fluttered over his cheeks for a moment as he seemed to revel in the scent of her heat and desperate desire for him. Dice looked like he had just arrived at the gates of heaven and knowing what was to follow, Meredith had to agree with him wholeheartedly.
“I guess I’ll have to make you squirm some other way then,” he said, his voice raspy.
For the most fleeting moment, she saw his eyes flash brown, before the gray and hazel was allowed prominence once more. But then, she didn’t have the brain power to notice anything else, because his tongue slicked over her wet pussy and Meredith fell back into the covers, purring with delight.
He sucked on her clit while thrusting two fingers deep within her, spreading her for him. She was already wet as hell for him and almost begged for him to take her right away, but common sense prevailed. He’d always been big, huge even, and Meredith knew that simple enthusiasm wasn’t going to be enough to easily fit him.
Plus, how could she object when it felt so good!?
“Oh my god, Dice,” she mumbled, feeling the tightness in her core become more and more pronounced, until her hands were fisting in the sheets and she was tossing and turning so hard that Dice had to grab her by the hips to keep her down.
“Dice!” she whined, completely out of breath now as her orgasm built.
“Cum for me, baby,” he commanded, and she let go of the tension eagerly.
It exploded over her, taking her vision and her senses along with it. All she could see was sparks of light behind her closed eyelids as her back arched off the bed and every muscle in her body seemed to be straining and flexing. A long, throaty moan escaped her lips as she crested and it was only absently that she noticed that Dice was taking off her thong now and spreading her legs wider around his powerful thighs.
He hovered above her, waiting patiently with the head of his cock pressed to her entrance. When she could finally focus again, now tearing her nails out of his sides where they had embedded during her release, he grinned down at her.
“Ready for this, baby?” he asked, his voice perfectly calm.
“Always,” she murmured, still happily wrapped up in a haze of post-orgasmic bliss.
Her eyes rolled back in her head as Dice pushed into her for the first time, slow and steady, splitting her open around his cock. She gurgled nonsensical pleads and words, her hands wrapping around his chest and clinging to him tight. When he pulled back slightly and thrust forward again, sinking a few inches deeper, Meredith thought she was going to pass out immediately.
He captured her lips with his and kissed her, long and deep as he worked himself deeper into her. Every stroke became less painful and more bursting with wicked pleasure until all that remained of the pain was the delicious tightness that followed every time he fil
led her up with his huge, veiny cock.
Her thighs clenched around his waist and every motion of her body was urging him to keep going, to be with her in the moment. Looking into his eyes, she could see such intensity and love there that it almost took her breath away.
“I knew you’d come back for me,” she whispered in the heat of the moment, burying her face into his neck and planting dozens of kisses on his slick skin while her nails raked down his sides.
“I’d never leave you,” he said, the promise almost painful in his words. “Nothing could keep me from you.”
A little whimper passed over her lips and then she found herself straddling him, staring down at him. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead and chest. She ran her fingers over his chest, feeling the curls of his dark chest hair beneath her fingers as she rocked back and forth on top of him, rubbing against him slowly.
She couldn’t help but grin when she saw the kind of reaction he was giving her, his eyelids hooded and his lips parted. Meredith had no shame in admitting that she’d imagined him just like that more times than she could bear to count over the time they’d been apart.
Making little circles with her hips while trying to control her own need, she decided to play the same game that he’d taunted her into before.
“Cum for me, baby,” she said, purring out the words.
His eyes shot open and he sat up so quickly that Meredith yelped in surprise. His carved body was hard against her as she molded against it, being pressed to his chest and with her hands around his neck. Dice started thrusting up into her and where she had thought she had all the control before, she was happy to relinquish it once more.
“Only if you do it too,” he said.
She didn’t need to be told twice.
Within a few of those long, deep, impossibly delicious motions, Meredith was screaming at the top of her lungs, hanging on for dear life as another massive orgasm claimed her. But this time she didn’t leave him behind. The small muscles of her pussy milked him mercilessly and when Dice gritted his teeth, ready to blow his load, Meredith kissed his mouth needily.