"I'd say it was a hit," Conner whispered in his ear. He nibbled Pippen's earlobe, making Pippen squirm. "Maybe Frannie wants some time with her newest little niece?" Conner suggested, reading Pippen's mind.
Right before Pippen was going to agree with Conner and offer his precious bundle to Frannie to hold while he got pounded in the supply room, the door to the restaurant opened. Pippen did a quick head count, most everyone was there already. He wondered if it was a customer who didn't know The Den was closed on Sundays and got up to tell him just that.
He didn't expect a cop to walk through the door and he especially didn't expect to recognize the man in the uniform, built like a bulldozer, looking amiably around the room with a curious expression. "Hey," he said, spotting Pippen. "You look familiar."
"So do you," Pippen said, feeling Conner come up beside him.
"Can we help you, officer?" Conner asked.
"Oh, huh, I'm actually on my way home, off duty, haven't changed yet. I was looking for—"
"Brock!" Oscar said, having turned around enough to see who was coming in behind him. He looked relieved to find a polite reason to leave Frannie.
Pippen was about to be offended on Frannie's behalf when he took a look at her face. She'd recognized the police officer as well but she wasn't wary as Pippen had been or happy like Oscar, she looked angry.
Brock shook Oscar's hand. "Hey man, sorry I haven't been around in a while. Been a little busy with that murder case at the free clinic. Add that to the bodies found in the street and it has been a nightmare at the precinct." He looked around the room. "Changed this place up. Looks good. Next door, too."
"Yeah, we're cleaning this place up, like I told you." He turned to Pippen and Conner. "Brock goes to the same gym as I do. He's usually the only guy around who can spot me."
"Oh, that's…great," Pippen said, still watching Frannie. Her shoulders were tense and her slice of cheesecake sat uneaten in front of her. She had yet to turn away from the door.
"How do you know her?" Brock asked, clearly meaning the curly-haired writer shooting daggers in their direction.
"That's Frannie," Oscar said, oblivious. "She's a friend of the pack."
Pippen looked to Conner. Brock didn't smell like a wolf shifter. "Are you…?"
"Lion," Brock answered the question before Pippen could finish.
"I didn't realize there were so many other species of shifters around," Conner said with enough edge in his tone that Oscar straightened.
"There aren't really. Brock here and maybe a few other lone shifters. No big packs, not yet. Lucian did a bang-up job of making it clear to most non-wolf shifters that they weren't welcome. I think they're just now coming back."
Brock rubbed the back of his neck with a massive hand. He almost looked a little embarrassed. "Yeah well, some of us never got the point. How's Stella?"
Oscar looked back at the redhead at the table. "Really good, thanks."
Pippen couldn't help but look back and for between Frannie and Brock like he was watching a tennis match. Finally, Frannie blinked lazily, as if she wasn't looking at anything of importance and turned from them, returning her attention to the shifter sitting across from her. Pippen noticed she still didn't touch her cheesecake, though.
"I'm going to go, I didn't know you were having a thing," Brock mumbled. "Will you be there tomorrow?"
"Sure thing," Oscar said, walking Brock out.
Conner placed his hand at the small of Pippen's back, leading him back to the table full of their family and friends. "What are you thinking, mate?" he asked. "I know that face, that's your plotting face."
Pippen smiled and wondered when he'd become so easy to read. "Nothing," he said, knowing Conner wouldn't believe him.
The old Pippen would have hated giving away any unintended information. This Pippen loved that he had found someone he could be weak with, strong with, simply be himself, forever.
THE END
Theirs to Love
MMF Bisexual Shifter Romance
(Wolf's Mate Book 5)
By
Kiki Burrelli
Theirs to Love
Copyright © 2017 by Kiki Burrelli
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Newsletter
Want to hear about new releases, discounts or sales and giveaways first? Consider signing up to my newsletter here.
Want to have access to new titles, for free, before regular publication? Join Kiki's ARC Team!
Please Visit me!
Send me a word by email at [email protected] !
Visit my Facebook page!
Hang out on my website, kikiburrelli.net
To my blindingly talented gay romance author friends.
You are an inspiration and help me so much every day.
Chapter One
Frannie
Octavio burst from the bushes like a princely gorilla. He stalked forward, feet as big as hubcaps, catching Esmeralda's frail arms, pulling her delicate frame flush against his strapping chest.
"I told you, darling," he susurrated. "If you run, I will chase you, always."
Esmeralda cursed her betraying body. She hated this great beast of a man and yet her place of womanly secrets was sopping wet, ready to accept Octavio's turgid—
"Frannie! Where did you put the sugar?" Finn, Frannie's older brother, screamed through her door. Her closed door. Frannie huffed, spinning in her secondhand black office chair one full rotation, landing back in front of her best friend, her laptop. She pushed a wild brown curl off of her forehead and studied the glaring white screen, waiting for it to open up and reveal its secrets. Though, she'd settle for it to tell her how the hell to finish this novel.
"...ready to accept Octavio's turgid, velvet-like—"
"Frannie?" Luke, Finn's mate and father of his child, knocked softly and called through her door with his low, alluring voice. "Please tell me where the sugar is. Finn has done so well looking everywhere."
Frannie rolled her eyes. For once it would be nice for someone to stick up for her, for someone to think every single thing she did—even looking for sugar—was magical. For once, she wanted the rainbows to fly out of her ass. Was that so much to ask?
"We're out!" Frannie replied through her closed door. "And I'm writing," she added peevishly turning back to her screen. She inhaled, centering her focus back on the story at hand.
"...Octavio's turgid, velvet-like coc—"
"Baby girl, you hiding any vodka in there?" Daryl's gravelly voice sounded.
Frannie pushed back from her small desk. Rolling on uneven wheels across her messy floor she avoided the piles of laundry and books and landed against her bedroom door. She remained seated and opened the door a crack, peering up at Daryl standing in the hallway. He was older, with long, mostly gray hair and blue eyes that always twinkled. Daryl was the oldest wolf shifter Frannie knew and also happened to be Luke's father. He also told the best stories. With narrowed, searching eyes, she took in his untucked black T-shirt and blue jeans stained with motor oil and dirt.
"You realize it's eleven in the morning, right?" she asked through the crack.
"Yeah, that's why I'm here. Liquor stores are all still closed."
"And why do you just assume I keep alcohol in my room?"
Daryl leveled a glare at her that was one hundred percent fatherly. "Because you live in a house where most of the people have super hearing and you don't want us to know how many times you refresh your cocktail during a writing night so you keep the liquor in your room."
Frannie shot mental daggers at him before pushing back while holding onto the doo
rknob. She wheeled back far enough for Daryl to enter. "On the dresser. Take it and be on your way."
Daryl patted the top of her head. A gesture that he intended as affectionate, but that annoyed Frannie since it just frizzed her hair. "You're a good friend," he said after grabbing the bottle and leaving.
"Alcoholic!" Frannie yelled facetiously down the hallway. She stood up and moved to the back of her office chair, pushing it back to her desk where her laptop waited. Somehow, no words had been magically written in her absence. She sat down again with a thwop and wondered why she thought it would be a good idea to change her genre. She wrote shifter romances, she did pretty okay writing shifter romances. Years of saving royalties had allowed her to buy the house she and everyone else was living in. So then why did she decide to start writing historicals instead? You need to follow the trends, Frannie, her writing friend had warned her time and again. She did well, for now. But what if that money dried up and Frannie had nothing to offer her new makeshift family? She had to follow the trends, no matter where they went.
The words already on the screen taunted her as she re-read them. Did they even have hubcaps in the 1800s? She was pretty sure they didn't. Did they hand out literary awards for anachronisms?
Opening her browser, she began searching for the 1800s version of the hubcap.
...as big as horseshoes.
...as big as steamboats.
...as big as the debt I'll be in if I don't finish this fucking book!
She was being dramatic and she was aware of that much. It wasn't like she didn't have money saved, but things could happen in a moment. Life could change in an instant. Still, she had enough saved that she wasn't in danger of losing the house or anything like that. Luke and Daryl both worked and helped with the bills as well, though she didn't like taking their money despite the number of mouths she was responsible for feeding having multiplied exponentially in the last year. It also didn't help that most of those mouths were of the paranormal being variety and required more food than the average person. She didn't like taking their money though because Frannie felt like it was the one thing she could offer to her makeshift family. She wasn't strong like Luke, or wise like Daryl, she wasn't even streetwise like Sorell or Pippen. But she had money and could spend it on keeping her family happy. Frannie didn't miss her old life, the one she had before shifters came in and exploded all over it. They'd brought friendship to her lonely life and a relationship with her old and new family members that she'd never had. Which was why she found herself writing so far out of her comfort zone, to chase that almighty capitalist dollar.
Her cell phone barked, her notification that she had a text message. Through a series of pats over her wrinkly comforter and pillows she found her phone in her unmade bed and read the latest text from Pippen.
Emergency, 911. Come to The Den now!!!!!!
Frannie rolled her eyes and set the phone down. Pippen was probably out of spinach or ginger or something like that.
You should at least respond.
She read the text again.
What if it was real, and he was in actual trouble? She gasped. What if the baby was also in trouble?
She jumped to her feet, grabbing the nearest hooded sweater. She pulled it over her head, trying to ignore the way it was a little tighter over her midsection than it had been when she first bought it. She slipped on her ballet flats and grabbed her keys hanging by the front door. "I'm going to The Den!" she called to the rest of the house, though for all she knew, she could be alone right now. "Keep your phones on in case there is trouble!"
Minutes later she turned into The Den parking lot. The asphalt was still black and most of the lines were still blindingly white. One of the last things Felix had done before reopening was repave the parking lot. The new restaurant was becoming more popular as a great family restaurant as well as a chill place to relax after work.
Formerly a pub called Howling with a bad reputation, the business had always acted as a front to the largest wolf shifter pack in the area. In those days it had been the cover to a large drug ring, but these days the restaurant itself was the pack's main source of income outside of pack member support.
A few of the newest pack members used to live at Frannie's house, as a part of the pack Luke led. She missed bumping into them in the hallway, but the lines between the two packs were blurring so much Frannie sometimes thought of her little house as a pack annex to this pack instead of its own entity.
She searched the lot before getting out of her car. These days, she saw shadows everywhere. After she was sure there wasn't anything too suspicious she got out, walking around the lot, happy to see that it was already full of cars despite it not quite being lunchtime. Pippen hadn't responded to any of her follow-up texts but she had a pretty good guess about where she could find him. Walking around the building to the back entrance she went straight into the kitchen. Sure enough, Pippen was there with a sleeping infant strapped to his front as he chopped a pile of vegetables almost as tall as she was. Stella, resident redhead and adorable wolf shifter, stood further back behind a steaming grill. She held a spatula in each hand and was flipping and scraping the grill top as fast as a hummingbird's wings.
"What is the emergency?" Frannie asked hurriedly, though she was beginning to suspect the "emergency" was more of the "no spinach" variety.
Pippen eyeballed her, his dark eyes lingering on her messy topknot, sweater, and black yoga pants. "Have you gotten dressed for the day?" he asked quietly.
Frannie bristled. "Yes."
"I can't imagine what you wore to bed if that's what you're wearing to walk around in civilization."
Ouch. "Parenthood must be making you mean," Frannie replied, leaning forward to kiss little Felicity on the forehead.
Pippen gave her a peck on the cheek as she pulled back. "I'm not trying to be mean, baby, I just thought I'd given you enough time—"
Frannie stepped back from him with staccato footsteps. "Enough time to what?" She smoothed a curl back and looked around warily. "Stella? What is he talking about?"
Pippen smiled, worrying her further. "If you were a shifter, I think you would be a fox because you can spot a trap faster than anyone I've ever met."
Chapter Two
Frannie
Frannie almost spared a minute to bask in the compliment before dwelling on the part about it being a trap. "Well, this was fun," she said before turning around, heading to the back door. Reaching forward, she was about to swing the door open when it opened suddenly. Unable to pull back in time, her hand landed on the broad chest of a man so muscled she wondered briefly if he would even fit through the doorway. Her palm warmed instantly and her fingertips tingled. She pulled her hand back feeling like the man she'd touched was a live electric fence. She knew this guy.
She had to look up at him, a fact that instantly annoyed her. How did anyone have the right to be so tall? Sure, shifters were generally larger than normal humans, but that mostly counted when it came to muscle mass. Besides, she wasn't positive the man in front of her was a shifter. All she knew for sure was that he was a police officer, hung out with some of the wolf shifters from the main pack that operated out of The Den, and that the few times she'd been around him he had set every nerve ending she had ablaze. Oh, and he was super-duper hot. Frannie scratched her neck nervously.
"Sorry about that," the man's voice rumbled. Frannie wanted to close her eyes and dance to it.
"No problem," she mumbled instead, attempting to walk around him before realizing there simply wasn't space on either side of him to squeeze. "Could you...?" She motioned with her hand for him to step aside.
"I—uh—I thought..." he stammered.
"Hey, Brock, don't mind Frannie, she just forgot that she agreed to have lunch with you today," Pippen said brightly.
That wide smile wasn't fooling her. Her phone barked and she spared it a glance.
Pippen: Ten free breakfasts. Delivered on demand.
Frannie's fingers
flew over the keys.
Frannie: Fifteen and I hate you.
"If you two want to go out to the dining area there is a table all set up for you. Andrea can tell you our specials," Pippen replied, bouncing on the balls of his feet to soothe the gurgling baby in his pack.
Steel gray eyes looked at Frannie questioningly. Frannie smiled sweetly. "After you."
Brock examined her for one second longer and she was thankful it wasn't for two seconds longer since she'd barely kept herself from squirming under his gaze already. Eventually, he followed her instruction and went through. Following behind, she could ogle him freely. Dressed in a dark blue cotton shirt that was stretched tightly over his chest and shoulders, his broad back was perfection. His dark blond hair was cut close, almost military style, and his face was clean-shaven, not that she could see that from the back, but she remembered his gorgeously sharp jawline.
She hadn't ever thought of herself as shallow, but there was no way she could stop appreciating his muscle definition. He was truly, disgustingly, fit. Not with huge, bulbous muscles like some of those guys who have trapezius muscles so large they swallow the guy's neck and biceps that look like sausages about to explode. No, this guy was well-proportioned.
He was also very solid.
"Ooph!" Frannie bounced off of his back, grabbing the table to keep herself from falling. "Sorry, I was distracted," she mumbled, refusing to look up at his face. This man, shifter or not, was so out of her league they weren't even the same sport. What was Pippen's goal by setting them up? She thought Sorell—her friend and Pippen's best friend—was the masochist among them, so why had Pippen signed her up for a morning of torture?
"Pippen has your table set up here," Andrea, shifter and waitress extraordinaire, said with a sing-song tone and eyebrows almost waggling. "Our most exclusive table, complete privacy," she said, this time with a legitimate waggle in her eyebrows.
Wolf's Mate Mpreg Romance Box Set Page 66