The Werewolf Nanny

by Amanda Milo

  “God is,” Lucan murmurs.

  “Then I’m praying for puppies!” Maggie announces.

  Lucan sits taller, moving his gaze as high as he can go on me until he’s looking at my throat. “I’m gonna stop helping.”

  Ginny and Charlotte are being unnaturally quiet during this exchange, but they’re sitting together on the opposite end of the table, watching Lucan and me with nothing short of hawklike intensity.

  Lucan has some trouble holding his fork, I realize, because his hands have mostly shifted to paws, but finishes the potato salad portion of his meal like a model citizen, only using his fingers and thumbs to punt his food onto the tines a few times. When he stays (primarily) human through the entire meal, I feel like he deserves a medal.

  Without warning, Ginny sets her cup of cranberry juice down with a snap. “All right. We’ve given you two lots of uninterrupted time. Spill.”

  “Yep,” Charlotte pipes in, staring at us earnestly. “We need details. Do you guys want to get m—”

  “Details about what?” Maggie asks, looking back and forth between everybody. “You mean Liam?”

  Charlotte is going to hurt herself rolling her eyes like that. “Forget Liam, Snowpea.”

  Maggie gasps.

  Ginny holds up her hands in a Time Out gesture. “For now, Maggs. She means for now.” Her gaze snaps to Lucan and me. “What’s going on with you two?”

  Lucan looks like he’s about to speak, but I lean forward, staring intently back at her. “What’s going on with you and Hudson?” Hudson, the maned wolf who made it clear he really likes Ginny but whom I’ve learned absolutely nothing else about. He spent loads of time with Ginny and Charlotte this last weekend while we were visiting the Pack. He looked panic-stricken when we left for home because he had to leave for home too—and he’s from a whole different pack on a whole different continent. I don’t know when they’ll see each other again. But he must have tried to work something out with Ginny, surely. Right? Until now, I haven’t pushed for any information.

  Ginny snaps her mouth closed and sits back. “Fair enough.”

  Charlotte looks to her properly cowed friend and huffs a Troops, we aren’t yet defeated! noise before she turns her attention to me, imploring, “Mom, we can help.”

  I feel my brows launch above my hairline. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Finn said we could stay the whole weekend.”

  Maggie claps her hands. “Can we—”

  Charlotte’s head drops back like it’s hanging off her shoulders by a thread. “ARRGH, YES, AND WE’LL GET TO SEE LIAM!”

  Maggie cheers even more enthusiastically. “I was going to ask if we could have ice cream, but I would like Liam to have ice cream with me, yes!”

  Charlotte slowly raises her head and slaps herself in the face.

  Ginny gives her a commiserating look, but she’s clearly resolute in staying mum.

  Lucan murmurs, “Are you going to eat that?”

  I don’t know if he’s asking Charlotte or Ginny but they both push their plates of spinach leaves and bacon topped with salted pumpkin seeds and grilled chicken in his direction, and he polishes off what they left of their late dinner like he didn’t just eat a 32-oz porterhouse steak. Which, as I’ve come to learn, is more like an appetizer to a werewolf. He’s slow to put his plate in the middle of the table—where the dirty dishes sit until it’s time to wash them, because there’s not enough room in the sink to fit them all, and there’s no such thing as stacking dishes in a werewolf house. Not unless you want to see a tower of plates take a crash to the floor the first time a pack of pups thunders through the living room hard enough to shake everything in the kitchen.

  “You guys ready for bed?” I ask them. “Do you want to sleep in the girls’ room or—”

  “Yes!” Maggie cries, and clambers down from the bench.

  “Wait, are you done eating?” Lucan asks.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He drags her plate over and inhales her mashed potatoes and the couple of green beans she left behind.

  “Welp, I’m just going to go get ready for bed…” Charlotte says, eyeing us as she eases off of her side of the bench. Like she’s giving us plenty of chances to shout from the rooftops that there are wedding bells in our imminent future.

  I give her a patient smile that tells her absolutely nothing and get a teenager’s groan in return as she drags herself out of the room, Ginny following—still mum—and Maggie bounces at the doorway, waiting for them to lead the way to the girls’ room.

  “Finn took their bags up when we got here,” Lucan says to me, tilting his plate to prevent it from screeching as he slides it towards the middle of the table with the other dishes. Werewolves are sensitive to sharp or irritating sounds—and one thing that continues to strike me as interesting when I dine with the Pack is how absent the clatter and squeaks are of silverware on plates or bowls. “Do you want to check on them to make sure they have everything before we… go up?” Tentatively, he dismounts from the bench and stands, turning his face away even though he’s asked me a question.

  I stand too, getting right in front of him, and when he still won’t—or can’t—turn his head and look at me, I step to his side until I’m in his line of sight.

  I watch as fur floods down his arms, his nerves are getting so strong.

  Leaning myself against him, I fit my head under his chin and murmur, “Hey. What’s the matter?”

  Tentatively, his arm comes around me before he crushes me tight against him. “I’m not sure,” he says into my hair, “but I think I’m overthinking—everything. I might be overthinking everything.”

  “Why don’t we go upstairs,” I start, planting a kiss on his collarbone, “and spend the night connecting in your room after we check on the girls for the night?”

  He’s quiet for a long moment and very still against me. Then, “By connecting, do you mean—”

  “Sex. After that power nap, I’m pretty darn awake and you’re ridiculously handsome.”

  His swallow whaps his Adam’s apple into my temple. His kiss mashes my hair against my scalp, forcefully goofy, excited—messy but affectionate. “If you’re waiting for me to object, don’t waste your breath. I’d follow you anywhere, for anything, anytime. And also—you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  My cheeks heat. Because I know that he means it—he believes it. “Gosh, thanks, Lucan.” Then I gasp, because he’s slid down my body, wrapped his arms around my thighs, and the whole world turns upside down as he hefts me over his shoulder.

  “A—fireman’s carry—really?” I pant around the unforgiving muscle of his shoulder.

  “No, actually, a fireman’s carry is different,” he says. “I’d wear you over both my shoulders and hold one of your arms to keep you secure.”

  “Then—what’s—this?”

  He pops me on the butt—and I’m not sure if it’s deliberate, but he spanks me right where the increased blood flow can do the most wonders. “Don’t know its official name. This is how we carry deer home if we don’t feel like dragging them with our teeth.”

  “Flatterer,” I tell him as he makes his way to the stairs.

  “You should feel flattered. You are dear to me.”

  “Lucan, another pun? NO,” I laugh.

  He chuckles softly, something I feel all over my body. “Well, what else can I say?” His voice deepens, and he caresses my rear end, making me bite my lip to stifle a moan. “You’re one hot meal, and I’m going to enjoy eating you in a minute.”

  Grinning, I tuck my face against his back, inhaling his shirt and anticipating what’s about to come.

  Me.

  CHAPTER 47

  LUCAN

  Normally, I look forward to teaching Sunday school. I love working with the kids, they’re so vibrant and enthusiastic, for everything.

  But I have a hard time pulling away from Susan in the predawn hours. I only manage to separate myself from her and get dressed because we ne
ed to check on Maggie.

  “You make this feel like Christmas morning,” I tell the back of her neck, nuzzling at the spot as she belts my robe around her naked, well-used body. “I’m feeling that same level of excitement, like you’re hamburger cookies and chaffles mixed together.”

  Susan stops and cocks her head in that way she does when she’s encountered something that seems really strange to her. “I’m not sure if I’m more disturbed that someone made something called a hamburger cookie, or the fact that it’s your Christmas tradition. Lucan, that’s weird.”

  I sniff her hair right behind her ear and kiss the spot. “Wait til you try them. Especially if you stack them between chaffles.”

  “And those. I’m not even sure what those are.”

  I nip her earlobe, making her suck in a breath. “I’ll show you.”

  I’ve got a pair of sweats clutched in my hand, but I haven’t put them on yet. Standing naked at her back, I’m debating whether I have the prowess yet to bend her over the bed and get her to the finish line in under five minutes.

  My newfound skills are too unpracticed though; my lack of confidence has me hesitating.

  Susan turns a sultry look over her shoulder that has my jaw dropping open and my already interested cock lengthening and getting rude with her rear end. “Before we do breakfast, maybe we should take a shower.”

  Blinking to clear my thoughts, I straighten. “Yeah. We should have time for showers.”

  Susan turns around fully, wraps her arms around me, and brings her hips indecently close to mine, backing me up to the wall. She slides her hands to my shoulders, adding light pressure that manages the power of railroad spikes—because I stay glued right where she’s got me. She leans in close, her sapid morning breath making my mouth water. “No. I mean we can shower together.”

  “Ohhhh.” I stare at her neck like I want to devour her. Because I do.

  “Look at me,” she whispers—and obediently, my eyes fly up to lock on hers.

  She kisses me.

  My hands come up to cup her face and I growl into her mouth, “Maggie’s probably still asleep, right?” Actually, she’s a pretty early riser. But the girls’ room has a guest bath, so she’s got that need covered. And there’s a ton of puzzles and games for her to quietly play with while she waits for the house to wake up. “She’ll be fine for a few more minutes.”

  Eyes bright for the brief second I meet her direct gaze, Susan grins at me. “She will. And this won’t take long. Hold me up.”

  I frown. “Hold you… up?”

  “Uh-huh.” She slides her arms around my neck and hops to bring her hips to mine, her knees banging into the wall as she crosses her legs to hang on to me.

  My palms land on her generously swelled derrière, and I jerk her tighter to my front, supporting her and using her to tease myself. Under my robe, she’s as naked as me.

  And she’s hot as a forest fire and three hundred thousand times more wet.

  “Susssaaan,” I groan into her shoulder. My cock is pounding, riding between her slick thighs, begging for entry. “Lose the robe. Please.”

  It piles between us for a moment, caught. And then it’s shoved to the floor in a heap. Her breasts pillow my chest, her nipples two stiff points mashed against me.

  “Turn us around,” she instructs, her mouth close to mine.

  I do as she says, and when her back is braced against the wall, I can’t help the wild thrust—but then I roll my hips. A technique Susan taught me she liked last night.

  My cockhead bumps her, runs along her seam—slips inside her. She’s slippery and soft and squeezing in the best, most welcoming way.

  The exhale I make into her neck is choppy, stuttered, and hoarse.

  She drops her chin, bringing her mouth to my ear. “Take me,” she whispers. And I can feel her lips stretch and curl up in an enchantress' smile.

  Hands sliding to the backs of her legs, I grip her hard and take her harder. Forcing the breath from her lungs with each pounding connection of my pelvis to hers, I nearly go at her rough enough to send her through the wall.

  Tipping my head back, sucking in air like up til this point in my life it’s been stringently rationed, I meet her eyes.

  Her gaze is rapt on me, staring back with huge pupils and hunger. But… something’s missing. “Can you come from this?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “No, but I love feeling you. And watching you,” she adds. And I think she means it. But I don’t want her to just enjoy the view.

  Wrapping my arms tightly around her lower back, I haul her hard against me, making her gasp, and walk us to the bed where I bend her over it like I imagined, slide my hand between the bedspread we just set to rights five minutes ago and her front, and I inexpertly fumble to find her clit.

  Sensing my waning confidence perhaps, or simply saving us some time, she clasps my wrist and smooths her fingers down until they cover my fingers, and she guides me to find her, showing me how to touch her exactly like she needs.

  THIS JUST IN: hottest experience of my life happening right here, right now.

  “Susan!” I growl against her back, curled over her, my shaft between the cheeks of her ass, wet and throbbing and ready to get back inside her. I imagined that I’d lovingly take in the view of her back and hips and whatever I could see of her breasts if I got them swinging hard enough as I rode her from behind—but now that I’m actually here, on top of her, feeling her shudder and break apart under me and whimper my name?

  I’m not going to last two seconds. If I so much as open my eyes and see her under me, I won’t last long enough to get back inside her.

  Her nails dig into my hip, reaching for me, urging me to properly mount her.

  I’m driven to nip her on the shoulder before I bend my knees and grab myself, bringing my tip to her entrance, making a slow tease at her lips that has us both biting back exclamations.

  I push into her hard enough to scrub her across the comforter. Only her thighs being trapped at the end of the bed stops her movement. She’s probably going to have rugburn by the time I’m done, no matter how fast I manage to embarrass myself.

  “The scent of your blood makes me even crazier,” I admit, panting.

  Susan goes still. “I’m bleeding?”

  I don’t even have to look down at my red-stained cock for confirmation. I can taste her blood in the air.

  She rushes to sit up. “Oh no! I hope we didn’t make a mess of your bed.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She frowns at me. “Lucan, it’s going to look like a crime scene. We either need to get towels, or move this to the shower.”

  I lick my teeth, my cock pounding for her. “To get to the shower, we need to be decent enough to pass four bedrooms.”

  She glances down at my shaft and smirks at me. “I’ll get the robes. Let’s do shower sex. I promise you’ll like it.”

  I believe her, so I follow.

  And, it turns out, she’s absolutely right.

  CHAPTER 48

  LUCAN

  Breakfast is fun. (Chaffles with hamburger cookies, prepared by me for Susan and then everyone who comes tripping down the stairs once they scent meat.) The whole house feels like it’s vibrating with excitement, no doubt everybody’s waiting to hear when our Mating Ceremony will be. Under my breath, I tell Susan, “Perhaps we should have done more talking than… Actually, no, what we did was perfect. But these mutts want answers. They may pester us for them.”

  Susan, rather than being daunted, just smiles at me. I wouldn’t have a clue that she was feeling nerves of any kind if I couldn’t hear the way her heart starts pounding harder when she asks, “When would you like to have our Mating Ceremony?”

  My own heart starts racing like a chipmunk on speed. “I think we need somewhere private to have this conversation.”

  “All right then.” Her chin goes up bravely. I know that, for her, the concept of being bound to a man again is scary. But you wouldn’t know it by th
e love shining in her eyes as she stares at me. I hold her gaze, my whole body heating. She says, “We’ll have to schedule another visit to the parsonage, and this time, actually do some talking.”

  I lean in until my lips are nearly on top of hers. “Other things too, right?”

  Her arms come around me and her hands slide into my trouser pockets—and then she’s running her fingers over my length quickly before giving me a surprise squeeze, her incendiary move completely hidden between us.

  I kiss her, hard. A promise. We’ll finish this later.

  We file out of Night Howl with the crowd, Susan craning her neck to locate the girls, making sure they’re still okay. They’ve been studious about playing with the Pack kids this morning, God bless them, giving Susan and I a surprising amount of alone time. Everyone assembles on the lawn, dressed and ready to walk to church. I offer Susan my arm, and she takes it. It feels so right. Having her here, my mate—not just with me, but with all of us, surrounded by my family—this is perfect.

  Maggie skips up to Sue, with—no surprise, Liam tagging along at her side. Charlotte and Ginny are with a group of girls about their age, and Finn jogs towards us from the direction of Half Moon, grinning at us like an idiot.

  “Awf, Sue—you look like you’re limping,” he calls cheekily.

  “I am,” she calls back, and to my shock, she tosses him a suggestive grin that has him stopping in his tracks. “I’m sore. Really sore, in all sorts of places—if you know what I mean.” She winks at him.

  She’s exaggerating, or at least leading him to believe we did more than we did, but it doesn’t matter. She’s well rewarded for her teasing. Finn’s mouth is hanging open. He pans his attention to me and utters a low, “You dog.”

  I shake my head at both of them and draw Susan close to press a kiss to her temple. “Are you really sore?” I murmur, even though Finn is close enough he’ll hear me anyway. I’ve got manners. I try to give us the illusion of privacy.

  “Yep,” she replies, a smile evident in her voice. Evident on her face too, when she turns to look at me. I hold her eye contact, searching her, and she places her hand on my chest, sliding it beneath my jacket and holding it right over my heart. “And I don’t regret a thing.”