~~~
Owen watched her face as he made love to her. Clare was so expressive. Her face told every emotion that she had. Told him when she was close to coming and when she loved something he was doing to her.
Taking her breast into his mouth, he suckled at just the tip, making her body tighten and milk him. There had never been a woman like this one, and there never would be again. Rolling to his back, he took her with him, watching her face as he plunged deeper within her. His cock felt like it was being strangled as it adjusted to her.
When she began riding him, moving her hips back and forth like she was riding a bronco, he moaned as he reached for her breasts, holding them in his hands as she sped up and then slowed down.
“I’m coming, Owen.” He felt her come, almost tasted her pleasure on his tongue when she cried out. And when she’d had her fun, dropping over him, he rolled her to her back and took her hard. Not just filling her with his cock, but touching her as deeply as he could so that she’d know that he wanted a child as much as she did. “Owen, fill me.”
He couldn’t have stopped himself from coming if he’d had a gun to his head. As soon as he threw back his head, emptying into her like he so needed, he howled. Owen didn’t remember if he’d ever done that before, howled during sex, but this was special, she was special, and they were creating a child.
Breathing hard, he rolled over. Her body splayed over his and he rubbed her back. Owen could feel his heart pounding, and smiled when she sat up and looked at him. There was a face, he thought, that he could get used to seeing every day for the rest of his days.
“I should have thought of this question before, but when I have a baby, what will it be if he’s supposed to be a wolf. A baby or a puppy?” He thought about teasing her, but he just couldn’t. Instead he told her what he knew. “I see. And what happens if it’s a full-blooded wolf, like you are?”
“It won’t be. It might have a great deal of wolf in him—and I’m not saying him because that’s all I want—but he will have some of your DNA there as well. And to be honest with you, I’d love to have a little girl as much as a son.” She laid her head back down on his chest and he looked to his right when he saw the bear and tiger just coming onto his land. Instead of telling her to cover up, he put his hand over her mouth and told her to look. They were friends of his, and he knew that they could hear him if he spoke out loud. That’s Donald and Peter. Donald is the tiger. They roam here because they live in town in an apartment and don’t get a place like this. I think there might be others too, that roam the rest of our lands, but I don’t know everyone. They’re friends of my family as well.
How will I know when they’re unwelcome visitors? He nodded to his left and she could see the pack standing down. So they protect you all the time. They didn’t watch us, did they? Oh, please tell me that they didn’t.
He supposed he should tell her that everyone within a mile had heard him howl, and that they knew that they’d created a child, but all he said to her was that they’d only just arrived. Which was the truth.
As soon as the other creatures were out of sight, the two of them got up to get dressed. He’d brought their clothing out after she took off running, and laid it by a tree for them. Dressed, they made their way back to the house. Skyler had held dinner for them, and they sat in the kitchen with him and ate as well. Finally, when they were all stuffed, Clare turned to Skyler and asked him what he was. When the man blushed several shades of red, Owen laughed. The man was a wonderful cook and friend, but he was the shyest man he knew.
“My lady, I am a snake.” She looked at Owen and he nodded. “There are only a handful of us left, I’m afraid. Snakes are…how shall I put this...? Snakes are not as sexy as a young pup or even a cat. And unlike other shifters, we can only breed with other pureblooded snakes. For that reason, the number of us is dwindling.”
“I’m so sorry about that, Skyler. Have you ever been married, or mated, whatever it’s called?” He said that he had, at one time, had both a wife and child. “But they’re gone now then?”
“My wife died some years ago. She was hit by a car. Not as her other self, but as a human being. The man that hit her, he’d been on a drunk then, celebrating the birth of his own son. His and mine, I found out later, had been born on the same day, but different years apart.” She asked what happened to his son. “He died not long after he was born. A nurse at the hospital where he was still yet lying in his crib took a pillow and smothered all the children in the ward that night. Three others were snakes, and the others were cats and pack animals.”
“I’m so terribly sorry, Skyler.”
He stood up, and she did as well. As she hugged him tightly, holding back the tears, Owen watched them. Finally, after several quiet moments, Skyler hugged Clare back, and she left them both in the kitchen a short time later.
“She isn’t like other women that I know.” Owen agreed with him. “I thought that she’d make fun of me, tease me out of my grief, but she hugged me.”
“Yes, because she is a wonderful person.” Skyler told Owen that she’d make a great wolf. “I agree, but as you know, she’s breeding, and we can’t take that chance now.”
“Yes, I could smell it on her. You’re a very lucky man, sir.” Owen told him he was as well. “Why is that, sir? She is but my boss.”
“She’d not think of you as anything but a friend. You’re like her brother, and that to her, is more important than anything you could do for her.” Skyler looked in the direction that Clare had gone. “Skyler, when she comes back in here, I’d not mention her crying. It tends to make her a little more embarrassed than you are when people ask about you.”
“Yes, I can see that now. I like her, Owen. I truly do.” He looked at him, and Owen could see that it was more than like; he loved her as much as he did, but in a different way. “I think I shall find out her favorite foods while she is breeding. Something to tempt her pallet. Also, drinks—she must have plenty of fluids while breeding as well.”
When Owen left the kitchen to get started on investments that he needed to look into, he could hear Skyler talking to himself, making a list of things that he was going to need in the coming months. He was sitting at his desk when his cell rang. Picking it up, he was surprised to hear Randolph speaking to him, like they were in mid conversation.
“So, as you can see, there is my problem.” He asked him what he was talking about. “Your in-laws. Someone pointed out that they’d been running around town and making no bones about getting your wife to give them money.”
“They’re both in jail. Arrested on trafficking and receiving stolen merchandise, namely your diamonds. And a lot of other things that I don’t remember. What I do remember is that most of it had to do with your having them bring things back and forth from other countries to here.” There was dead silence at the other end of the call, so much so that he was sure he’d been hung up on. “Randolph, are you there?”
“Yes, yes. Where would I—? What does it matter to you where I am? Are you sending the police after me? Is that your plan now that I know that they’ve been arrested?” Owen told him that he could care less where he was. “Is that right? Well, I have news for you, young man. They’ll never take me alive. I can tell you that. You just stop bothering me.”
“You called me, you moron. And if I were you, I’d be looking in to a good attorney. Or someone that has more smarts than you do. Also, since I know for a fact that you’re not out of the country as you’ve been warned to do, you should be making peace with some of the ghosts that would like a part of you too.” Randolph started to bluster, talking about his life and the things he’d done that were good too. “If you say so. Frankly, I could care less what you think you’ve done or not. All I care about is that my in-laws are going to sing like canaries. And you’re going to be at the top of their list to turn over.”
When the line went dead, he laughed. It was funny really, the lengths that some people would go to in order to have it all. Owe
n was nearly worth billions, and it made him ill when he thought of it all. And as soon as he could, he was going to pull up a few more tea cups and watches and take them to be sold. He and his wife had a plan, and he wanted to make it work.
Looking at the buildings downtown, he found three that he thought would make a good art studio, and next to some of them was space for the perfect gallery. He knew that Caleb owned a great many of them, and Owen would, if he’d allow it, buy whatever was needed to make his mate happy.
When he’d done all he could there, he started looking for places to buy ornaments. He wanted the perfect tree in that he wanted it to be imperfect. No two ornaments, as with snowflakes, would be alike. Owen wanted bright lights, in every hue made. To blow up things in his yard so that Conrad would be happy. There were other items he wanted as well; the search had told him that it wasn’t just little things that he wanted, but larger ones as well.
When he closed his computer for the night, he went up to bed armed with a long list. As soon as next week, some of the items that he’d ordered would be coming in. Their tree was going to reflect it was their first one together, and next year, he was excited that they’d have a child to buy for as well.
Chapter 10
They’d been arrested. Con and Ava were in jail, and Randolph had to figure out not just what they’d said to the police and Feds, but what they would tell them if they’d not talked to them as yet. How many lies would be told to save their own assess? To Randolph’s way of thinking, they’d not need lies, but the truth. That would be enough for them to put him away for a long time. If not forever.
Every day he thought about Benson. His poor body had not just been beheaded, but he’d been cut to ribbons too. It had been slow, the police told him, and methodical. Whoever the woman had been, she’d been extremely pissed at the man, and had wanted revenge in a horrific way.
He’d had no choice but to let the police deal with his body. It had surprised him that they didn’t arrest him, with everyone knowing who he was now. But they’d only had him wait in another room and told him to shut up.
The maid had come into his room to service it and had fainted. There wasn’t any way for him to just pull her into the carnage and kill her too, when several people just happened to be coming out of their rooms at the same time. But, unbelievably, they had taken one look at him and at Benson and declared that there wasn’t any way he’d done it. Something about the height of the blood splatter.
“The note, do you know who the woman is that he’s talking about?” Randolph had told him that he didn’t. But Benson was his footman, and he met more people than Randolph did. “So, you’re saying that you might have known her.”
“No, I’m saying that he knew more people than I did. What are you implying? That I hired some broad to kill my best friend? No, I didn’t. He was the only person in the world that I trusted.” The cop asked if he was going to run. “Do I strike you as a person who runs from trouble?”
“You strike me as a man who would cause trouble, then leave so that someone else takes the hit for it.” Randolph said nothing. “I’m telling you this now, contrary to the note, you run, and we’ll come for you.”
Randolph wanted to tell him that he was much more afraid of the woman who had killed Benson than he was of a cop. And jail or prison for that matter. But he said nothing, and waited on the hotel to find him another room, on a different floor. The good part of it was, however—if a person could find good in this—that the Feds were picking up the tab for his extra stay. Just to keep him around, they told him.
The room was bugged, of that he had no doubt. He would also bet his last million on the fact that there were cameras everywhere. Even the shitter. So he said nothing, did nothing that would bring them back to his room. Not even answering his phone when it rang for him. But he did watch television—a sport, he’d come to realize.
He’d become good at flipping the channels with one finger and eating with the same hand. Yesterday he’d been able to flip the remote in the air and catch it behind his back. Boredom was his best friend now. And he’d been dreaming up new and amazing ways to entertain not just himself, but the men he was sure were watching him.
Pausing on the news as he flipped through the stations again, he watched as Ava was taken from a lovely home. It was one of the Winchesters’, he knew that, but which one didn’t become clear whose until he saw Con and Ava’s daughter on the front steps with one of the men he’d met. Ava’s daughter had called the cops on her own mother. Then in the next segment, Con was taken from the hotel that they’d been staying in.
Con looked like a man that had taken a bad hit of something as he was brought out. His hair was mussed up, his face puffy. And he was limping badly. He wasn’t sure if the cops had done that, but when someone shoved a mic in front of him, Con went on and on about possessed logs and trees that were out to get him. Clearly a man trying to use the insanity plea to get out of prison.
Things for the Macintoshes were not going as they had hoped, he thought. He looked around the hotel room he was in and realized, not for the first time, that despite appearances, they weren’t going so well for him either.
He was in a luxury hotel room at no cost to himself. Room service was abundant. He ate very well and could even, if he was inclined to do so, go to the gym that was on his floor and enjoy it. But he didn’t give them the pleasure of watching him work out.
Even the maid who came in was polite, as well as the person who brought his food to him. They would come in and not say a word, all the while taking the lids off his tray, serving him coffee, making up the bed, fluffing his pillows, and refreshing his towels. Since she never asked him to hang up the towels he used so that they could conserve energy, Randolph dumped them on the floor when he was done, even the ones he didn’t use, and stepped on them. Yes, it was childish, but he was bored.
Dinner wasn’t as enjoyable as it had been when Benson was here. He would comment on the calories that Randolph needed to burn for the foods that he ate. The desserts that he’d order were just to hear Benson fuss at him. Then with all that, Benson would sit down and enjoy whatever he hadn’t eaten. It was why Randolph had always ordered so much food when he knew the younger man was coming by.
His cell phone vibrated, but he didn’t answer it. When he’d had the police in the room he’d been staying in, they’d asked for it. Being as distraught as he’d been, it never occurred to him that they didn’t need it. But now that he thought on it, he was sure that they’d cloned it, and were waiting for him to make some sort of arrangement for a pick up or something.
Randolph also stopped wearing the clothing that he’d brought with him. The ones that had been dry cleaned by this hotel as part of their “executive services.” He was sure they’d been tampered with somehow. He figured they’d been bugged as well, and some sort of tracking device was recording his every movement. That was why his second pair of jammies was now hanging in the shower, soaking wet.
He’d been in the bathroom taking a piss when he looked around. There weren’t any cameras that he could see. Nothing to indicate that they’d been listening to him. But he’d had the most overwhelming feeling that not only was he being watched, but they were doing it while he stood there with his johnson out letting his bladder go.
So, in somewhat of a frenzy of activity, he had ripped off his suit and put it in the tub. Then he nearly ran to the closet and tore those suits off the hangers to dump them in as well. Filling the tub with water had taken a lot longer than he’d thought it should have. But when he was finished, all his suits, underwear, socks, and everything else was dumped in the tub as he stood over it, breathing hard and naked.
Since then he’d been wearing a robe and nothing else. As things dried he would put them in the drawers, but did nothing to put them on. Randolph was reasonably sure that he’d ruined all his beautiful suits with the hot water, but as he knew nothing of transponders or anything like that, he figured that hot was better than cold. He
wasn’t even sure that’s what they were called. He only knew that he didn’t want them near his body any longer.
The news was running again when he started his hourly ritual of channel surfing. They were talking about the Macintoshes again like there was nothing else going on in the world. When she said that they were being questioned about a number of murders that had happened, as well as some smuggling, Randolph straightened on the couch and turned up the volume.
“...no word yet on the death of Mr. Crass and his involvement in their supposed deaths at this time. But the FBI still has them sequestered in separate cells, and are questioning them about a great many things. At this hour we are still awaiting word on what charges will be brought against them, and why all their clothing, computers, and phones were taken out of the hotel just hours ago.”
“You’re not helpful, my dear.”
Randolph had started talking, not screaming at the television, he realized. At first it had been just that, screaming at the newscaster to tell him what he wanted to hear. But after that, he’d just settled down and decided that it did him little good. None of it did.
This morning he’d thought of getting his gun and ending things. He didn’t have one anymore—they’d taken that from him as well. But he was sure, now that he’d had time to calmly think on it, that he would have done it. Right there, where they could have gotten the best shot at him when recording his activities. Pulling the deck of cards toward him, Randolph played a game of solitaire as he thought things through.
He couldn’t actually kill himself any other way but with a weapon. He’d thought of his belt, but before he could do much more than bruise himself, they’d be in here. Or perhaps not. It depended, he supposed, on how much they wanted him alive. But for now, death was preferable to sitting here awaiting his fate while they had their thumbs up their asses.
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