by Meg Ripley
He closed the distance between them and kissed her, crushing her lips beneath his as his shaft pressed hard against her abdomen. The ebony dragon flashed through her mind and a jolt of desire shot through her like lightning.
“Shift for me, Cade. Please.” She didn’t know exactly how to articulate what it was she wanted. There was suddenly a burning need deep inside her to experience his real being. She wanted to see him, to touch him, even to feel him against her.
“Hope, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please,” she whispered again.
“Alright, but you have to keep your distance. It isn’t safe…”
Reluctantly, he took a step back, and then another. She watched as his muscular frame gave way to magnificent scales, and the tan coloring of his skin turned to an iridescent shade of black. His eyes though, they were the same; the same brilliant green eyes filled with desire stared down at her. He was watching her, trying to read her response while he fought to maintain control.
She closed the distance between them and reached up to graze her hand along his solid chest. A roar rumbled in his throat and he took a step back. He was afraid he’d hurt her. “It’s okay, Cade. Please.”
She could feel the way he held himself in check, not moving, barely breathing. She reached for him again, but as she did, he withdrew from her and in a flash, he was human again. She could see the same heat in his eyes that had radiated from the dragon’s emerald orbs.
“Hope, I can’t believe…” but he couldn’t finish his sentence. He lunged for her instead, pulling her hard against him and covering her lips with his.
She pulled away first. She wanted to taste him, to feel his hard length between her lips. She dropped to her knees before he could catch her. She ran her tongue down the length of him and glided back to the tip, circling the ultrasensitive ridge.
“Oh God, Hope,” he groaned as his hips rocked forward.
She opened her mouth, hollowing her cheeks, and drew him in, savoring the steely hardness covered by smooth flesh. His hands were at the back of her head a moment later and she felt him tremor as he struggled to keep control. She worked him in deeper, taking him into the back of her throat.
“God damn it, Hope, I need to fuck you—now,” he growled as he grabbed her beneath her arms and lifted her up, clear off the ground like she weighed almost nothing.
He captured her lips as he guided her down to the ground, and she felt him against her. Just like before, he drove in to the hilt in one, hard thrust and she wrapped her legs around him. She loved the way he couldn’t contain himself with her. She’d never felt more desirable than when he couldn’t wait a moment longer to have her. She wondered if it would always be this way between them, and somehow, she knew it would be. The same sense she’d so quickly come to trust told her so.
Her fingers roamed over his back as she tilted her hips to meet his every thrust, his pace growing more frantic with every moment that passed. He broke their kiss and gazed at her. Brilliant green and crystal blue locked on one another as he leaned up on one powerful arm and slipped his free hand between them. The second he found her clit, her hips rocked wildly and she cried out as the pressure mounted within her.
“I want to watch you, Hope. I want to see you come for me,” he whispered as he rubbed the sensitive bundle of nerves in tight circles.
Her nails dug into his shoulders as her moans turned to cries, and her cries turned to screams of pleasure as her back arched clear off the soft carpet of grass beneath her and her body splintered into a thousand pieces, floating high in the clouds despite never leaving the ground.
“You’re incredible, Hope. I love you. I’ve always loved you,” he groaned as he reached his summit and toppled over the edge.
She knew exactly what he meant, though it made no sense. “I’ve always loved you, too,” she whispered as her body started back down from the heavens.
****
“We should head back,” she murmured after a long while had passed. She’d laid there wrapped in his arms for an hour or more, and she would have been happy to stay there for all of eternity just feeling the rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek. But Lexi would be there soon, if Steven hadn’t arrived with her already.
She’d sensed something familiar about Steven. He’d come to the house with Genevieve once, a friend from the local community center, her mother had said. She’d told her mother something was different about Genevieve and Steven after they’d gone, and she had told her to hold onto that feeling, that it would serve to be incredible useful to her one day.
Her mother had been right. The same sense that had told her about Genevieve and Steven had also spoken to her about Cade. If she’d refused to listen to it, she never would have wound up with her perfect match. Whether it was destiny or fate that had brought them together, or a special kind of magic that worked its mysticism throughout the universe, she didn’t know. She didn’t care. She’d found her mate, and her life had been changed forever.
He nodded reluctantly and they both stood, gathering their clothes up off the ground. She slipped into her T-shirt and jeans, though she didn’t want to get dressed. She wanted to stay there with him, touching him, tasting him and feeling him drive deep inside her again. He wanted it, too, but they would both have to do their best to keep themselves under control, at least for a short while.
He went to gather her up in his arms, but a strange sensation washed over her. She’d been looking for it, searching her mind and her body for whatever secrets they held. How could she have been what Genevieve had said and not known it? All her life, she’d had the power to do so many amazing things. Hell, she’d worked in a magic show and never knew she possessed the ability to create magic on her own? It was almost too crazy to believe. Well, it was too crazy to believe, but it was hard to deny when a dragon was the man she knew in her heart she was destined to be with.
The strange sensation stayed with her, and she let it guide her. She took a step back and closed her eyes. Her body felt as light as air and she let the gentle breeze take her. The wind gusted, but she pushed back, keeping her body precisely where she wanted it, hovering close to Cade—and a few feet off the ground. She could fly! She’d given up on every bit of magic in the world, and now she could fly. Could the world possibly hold any more surprises?
A tiny thump, low in her abdomen. It wasn’t possible—it was far too soon. But she could sense it.
Not ‘it’, but her.
THE END
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Lion’s Love And Honor
Part One
Saved By The Alpha Lion
When Charlie Flax gets wind of a burst of troubling criminal activity interrupting his family’s planned move, his pregnant wife Natalie urges him not to worry; after all, things like this tend to happen in their little Southern California town during the summer, but it always dies down by fall.
The other members of his pride hear the same from their mates, but something about their letters and calls doesn’t sit right with the Marine. After seven long months, he’s eager to return home and see what’s really happening for himself.
The truth is worse than he could imagine; a group of rogue lions has moved into their territory and are trying to wrest power from their matriarchal clan. Natalie and their unborn cub have been threatened and targeted so many times that she no longer leaves the house unless she’s surrounded by people capable of astounding violence.
Charlie is furious, but before he can form a plan, he’s face to face with a lion shapeshifter from the gang—and he has some dangerous decisions to make. What do these lion shifters really want—and how far are they willing to go to get it?
“Flight One eighteen now boarding first class passengers at gate three B; would first class passengers on flight One eighteen to Puerto Vallarta please begin boarding at gate three B now?”
Charlie was standing next to the ter
minal’s enormous conveyor belt, staring blankly at one spot and waiting for his vermillion duffle bag to float before his unfocused eyes. He was distantly aware that he hadn’t moved in a full minute—maybe more—but he was too absorbed in the task of trying to monitor every change in his environment to care about how strange he looked. Evan wasn’t around yet to remind him to be “normal,” so he was happy to keep twitching his ears toward the sound of rapidly moving feet even though the tiny human bones in his ear canal weren’t nearly as sensitive as the ones in beast form. He wanted to be alert, but his eyes were fatigued from the flight, and it was starting to make him jumpy.
Captain Roberts, please call gate seven; your co-pilot is holding. Captain Roberts, please head to the nearest courtesy phone to speak with your co-pilot who is holding at gate seven.
The announcements were clashing with his train of thought more solidly than usual, and he knew why; automatically, his right hand moved to the pocket of his jeans, where Natalie’s letter was folded into a compact rectangle already worn from being handled so much. He’d memorized its contents, but he kept pressing it to the tip of his nose to try to drag a few more particles of her scent into his lungs. Even months into her pregnancy, she still retained the same base scent: warm honey and sharp, sweet smoke, a heady aroma that warned of an intensity he knew could be fatal. She was the strongest person he knew, and the brightest; she often taught him something in her missives or phone calls without even meaning to, and never backed down when she knew she was right.
I got into a fight with Ariel while she was helping me pack up the basement because she wouldn’t believe that bears don’t really hibernate. My mother called and complimented me on my all-fruit dressing; she usually hates avocados, I was so surprised. Did you see that news story about all those diners that got sick—can you believe that waiter thought salt in coffee was a harmless prank? Grade school mistake.
This time, however, her letters had been cheery but sparse; they lacked the bubbly detail that usually padded out the thick envelopes she sent weekly, and sometimes even twice a week. Natalie no longer spoke of her chance meetings with old high school friends, or whose wife was having a hard time dealing with loneliness; now it was just pregnancy symptoms and a series of oddly detached retellings of incidents around their neighborhood. Their last phone call—right before the plane took off—had been the worst.
“Nat, I know something isn’t right.” His hand was sweaty so the slim black cell phone kept threatening to squirt from his grip. Evan was buckling into the seat next to him and fixating on the threads at the hem of his shirt, but Charlie knew he could hear every word. “I can hear it in your voice. I see it in your letters. Evan says Ariel isn’t acting right, either.”
“Charlie, everything is fine,” Natalie said soothingly for the fifth time in as many minutes. “A few busted windows, some kids jumping other kids…you know it happens.” The gentle rasp of her voice was carefully avoiding taking on heavy undertones, but Charlie could almost see her anxiously winding her dark brown hair around one finger as she paced around the living room. “We’ll start the move again when you get here. It’ll be fine.”
“Why did you have to stop the move in the first place?” Charlie asked. “I don’t understand that. The boxes were all finished five months ago. You said someone damaged the truck?” He remembered when he was younger having his property stolen or smashed when people found out he was a shifter. It was illegal, but it never stopped them, and the cops were often in on the games, since the shifter population intersected with the inner cities so often.
“The axle is bent,” Natalie answered, interrupting his reverie. “I want you to take a look at it before I get it messed with first. You know I’m useless with that sort of thing.”
Charlie closed his eyes, trying to keep the panic from spilling into his voice. His broad chest was tight with anxiety. “No, I don’t know that, Nat. Are you kidding me? I was with you when you made our old mechanic cry.”
“And I never got to know the new one!” Natalie retorted, her voice shrill. “I’m afraid of pissing this one off, too. Charlie, I don’t get what the big deal is. You’ll be home soon, and you’ll have all your answers then.” Her forced nonchalance snapped something inside him, and suddenly he was shouting.
“The big deal is that something crazy is happening and my wife is acting like it isn’t!”
A red-faced man twisted around in his seat to look at Charlie after he finished, and Evan laid a hand on his broad shoulder. The marine swallowed his anger with extreme difficulty and lowered his voice.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into the phone. “But I’m scared. Evan is scared, because Ariel won’t talk to him about their garage burning down— he had to hear it from Riley. You’re not telling me what’s stopping us from moving, and I know it’s more than the truck, because we have more than two friends with trucks and SUVs. And I’m hearing about people—grown men and women, not just kids—getting beaten and left in the streets. What’s going on, Natalie? And why won’t you tell me about it?”
The silence stretched on for so long that Evan turned to look at Charlie, his brown face forming a question when he didn’t hear Natalie speak. Charlie was about to ask if she’d hung up on him when she drew a deep, shaky breath and slowly let it out.
“Charlie. I…just trust me, okay? You’re right. You’re absolutely right, but I need to you trust me. Okay?”
It was the raw quality of her voice that finally broke the shell of tension around his heart and allowed him to relax. “Okay,” he answered. “Okay. I trust you.” Even though this is killing me.
“Thank you,” Natalie said, and there were tears in her voice. He realized then that the weight of holding this back from him was killing her, too. Whatever this is had better be worth it.
His bag came crawling by him on the carousel just as he snapped out of his memory, and he almost didn’t catch it in time. Charlie thrust one long arm out and closed his fingers around the bag’s thick strap just before it disappeared behind the curtain to be spun around the carousel again.
“Nice catch, Flax,” Evan said behind him. He’d already located his suitcase and was pulling it behind his body as he strolled up to Charlie, his wiry frame far too relaxed given their situation. “Got everything?”
“Yeah.” Charlie slung the bag across his shoulders and playfully popped his friend on one of his narrow shoulders. “How the hell are you so calm, Reynolds? You’re like a wind-up toy whenever we’re on deployment, and you’re the one who told me about all the attacks. Are you high?”
Evan grinned and fell in step beside his taller friend as they headed for the exit. “Just on life, Flax. Besides, we’re finally home. That means we can get to the bottom of this.”
Charlie looked sharply at Evan, whose dark chocolate face was mostly hidden behind a pair of huge sunglasses, but he could still see the grim determination on his face. “You sounded…very certain about that,” he said slowly, dragging his green eyes up and down his best friend’s stoic expression. “Did you find out something more when you called Ariel in the bathroom?”
Evan gave a single curt nod that set Charlie’s heart racing.
“Well why didn’t you say so!” Charlie yelped, and several people in the crowd ahead of them turned toward his raised voice. He felt blood rush to his cheeks and he cursed himself for losing control of his volume again.
A man caught his gaze in the crowd, short and incredibly tanned, with dark blue eyes and a full mouth pinched together in what seemed to be surprise. His sandy blonde hair was being lovingly ruffled by a lovely copper-skinned woman with black curls who seemed to be trying to style his wavy coif, but he was staring so intently at Charlie that he was ignoring all of her muttered instructions. Charlie felt a curious ripple of power pass between them, and it intensified as they got closer. Eventually the charge was unbearable, and he broke their gaze and lowered his head as they hurried past the couple. What was that about? Charlie thought, but as
soon as they were out of the doorway and under the blazing Southern Californian sun, he grabbed Evan by his forearm and pulled him into the shade of the parking garage to their right, the incident driven from his mind.
“Okay.” When they’d stopped, Charlie pushed both of his hands through his short black hair excitedly, willing his pulse to reign itself in. “Tell me. Tell me what you know.” It’s the cops again, he thought. Trying to find a reason to stamp out the shifters, like last time.
“It’s more stuff about the abductions,” Evan said slowly, his voice cautious and deep. He slid the sunglasses from his face, letting his brown eyes pierce Charlie’s as he spoke. “And it does seem like they’re targeting younger people…but it’s not just jumping, and it isn’t random.”
“What do you mean?”
Pain and anger flashed across Evan’s dark brown eyes, and Charlie caught the scent of the feline beast stirring beneath his skin. “The young men being attacked are sometimes being taken, and they turn up weeks later across the country, or are found with their memories gone, and part of a completely different pride. They can only be identified by their fingerprints. And sometimes they’ve been…mutilated.” Evan paused and swallowed hard.
Charlie shook his head slowly, trying to understand his best friend’s implications. “Mutilated?”
“Like…eunuchs,” Evan finished. “Only some of them, though. And the women…sometimes they’re raped, and if not…they’re mutilated too.”
Charlie shuddered, and the icy terror he’d banished from his blood only hours before came rushing back to fill his veins and freeze his muscles in place. “So, someone is trying to wipe us out with a cull,” Charlie said vehemently. “It’s the lawmen again. They hate us, Evan. They don’t under—”