“Let me get used to people being here first,” Daphne had said, blushing. “So why is me being your mate a big deal, exactly? I mean it just sounds like being your girlfriend.”
Alex had hesitated only a moment before answering her. “In the eyes of my kind, we are basically, for all intents and purposes… at least engaged.”
Daphne’s eyes had widened. “But you said it was reversible.”
Alex had nodded, holding onto her firmly but carefully, not wanting to scare her with his strength. “It is, which is why I’m waiting until you’re ready to ask you to marry me. But for right now, shifters smell my scent-mark on you and know that we are inseparable, basically man and wife. If you decide to leave me—to stop being my mate—it’s like getting divorced.”
“We need to discuss—once more—you telling me things outright instead of waiting for me to ask about them,” Daphne had said, looking up at him with her hands on her hips.
Alex had laughed. “We aren’t legally married, and if you want to leave, you can. It’s only amongst shifters that there’s a difference. When, and if, you’re ready to get married, we’ll do that.”
“A compromise, then?” Daphne’s dark eyes had sparkled.
“My parents were mates and they were married. To live in the world you have to have both. I want you to be ready for the bond that means more to you.” Daphne had curled up in his arms and nuzzled his neck.
***
Next to him in the bed, Daphne stirred, murmuring softly in her sleep. Alex’s arms tightened around her and he kissed her neck, nipping softly. “Mmm,” Daphne smiled, stretching against the length of his body. Alex breathed in her scent and felt the rush of desire that her pheromones gave him.
“It’d be a shame to spend all day sleeping when you’re on a vacation,” Alex murmured in her ear, letting his hands wander over Daphne’s body.
“I thought the whole point of a vacation was to spend it however you wanted,” Daphne said, half-moaning as Alex’s hand moved to cup her breast. He teased one of her nipples, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger until it obediently hardened. Alex nibbled along the line of Daphne’s shoulder, closing his eyes to appreciate the scent of her body.
“Yeah, but you can sleep anywhere,” Alex reminded Daphne, turning her over onto her back and covering her body with his own. “You can sleep anytime. This is supposed to be for us to relax and spend time alone together as new mates.”
“Sort of a honeymoon?” Daphne raised an eyebrow. Alex moaned as one of her hands slithered down along his body to wrap around his cock; she stroked him slowly. “We still haven’t talked about what the hell I’m going to do with my life.” Her hand tightened, almost—not quite—to the point of pain. Alex groaned, nipping sharply at her neck.
“You—you can be my charity coordinator, or Oberon Industrial’s coordinator,” Alex suggested quickly, knowing that he wouldn’t have the ability to think clearly soon. Daphne’s hands on him were already making it difficult for him to think at all. “Your own money and benefits, your own job. Still in charity.”
Daphne murmured something that sounded like agreement. Alex slid his hands down along her body, caressing and teasing, until he came to her already-wet pussy. He stroked her wet folds, kissing her hungrily as he traced up and down along her labia.
He pushed her hand away from him and guided himself up against her entrance, teasing her for one long, lingering moment with the tip of his cock. Alex thrust into Daphne slowly, filling her up inch-by-inch, savoring the feeling of her body wrapped around him, the wet heat of her and the scent of her arousal. He paused as his hips pressed flush against Daphne’s, breathing slowly; he wanted this to last. He began to move slowly, rocking his hips, and in a moment, Daphne fell into his rhythm, pushing down to meet his thrusts, her hands trailing all over him.
Alex could smell the scent of Daphne’s rising arousal, felt her muscles tightening around him as they moved together. “You know,” he murmured, kissing everywhere his lips could reach, thrusting deeper and deeper inside of her, “you don’t have to work.” Daphne chuckled, her thighs tightening around him, her hands trailing over his back.
“You are not getting out of this,” she murmured, twisting her hips down against his. “If I have to deny you sex, I’m going to have a job.”
Alex reached down between his body and Daphne’s, his fingers sliding along her folds until he found her clit by touch. He stroked and rubbed in counterpoint to his thrusts, nipping sharply along the column of her throat up to her ears.
“You couldn’t go a week without this,” he told her, his voice a low growl. Alex could feel his pleasure mounting. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer. He could tell that Daphne wouldn’t last very much longer either, he could feel the erratic spasms of her muscles flexing around him, feel the way she was getting wetter and wetter. He brought his lips to hers and kissed her hungrily, rubbing her pleasure center while he thrust into her, barely holding back as he waited for her to reach orgasm first.
In a matter of a few moments, it seemed, they both hit their climax, moaning into each other’s mouths, gripping each other as if for life itself. Alex thrust into Daphne’s body a few final times, hard and fast, feeling her tighten around him, feeling her body arch into his. He collapsed against her, panting slightly, tingling pleasure lighting up his nervous system.
After a few long moments, Alex came back to himself, his breathing slowing and his pulse gradually going back to normal. He pulled himself up and looked down at Daphne. “So, what are we going to do today?” he asked, kissing her lightly on the lips.
“Well, yesterday we went sightseeing, the day before we did the beach—why don’t we take today to just lie around in bed all day?” Daphne pushed her hips down against his.
Alex laughed. “Not very exciting, is it?” he nuzzled against her neck, kissing Daphne’s pulse and letting out a low, contented growl at the scent of her.
“We can make it exciting. Besides, I think we’ve both had enough excitement for a while.”
Alex nodded, seeing Daphne’s eyes darken with the memory of all that had happened to them both. Eric had been executed. His blog posts had never gone live. There was no more danger from him. Ben had been able to take care of all of the internet postings but it would be a long time before they were able to live down the scandals that Eric had been able to concoct before the elders had intervened.
“You can make it exciting, can you?” Alex grinned. “We haven’t tried it in that big bath tub they gave us with this room yet, you know.”
Daphne chuckled. “That has some real possibilities to it,” she said.
Alex slipped out of the bed, taking Daphne by the hand to lead her to the bathroom and the waiting tub. He may not know for sure how their future would unfold but he knew that they loved each other, and for a while that would be enough. One day, they would get married but for now, he could just enjoy Daphne as his mate, and without Eric in the world, he didn’t have to worry about anything.
THE END
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BOOK FOUR
ROSA FOXXE
THE BEAR'S
MATE
About This Book
Nicki Bryant is both sexy and smart. She has no time for men as she strives to climb the ladder of success.
However, her feelings change when she meets Max and she finds him very sexy for a white man. Almost too sexy, as if she was hypnotized by his scent and she finds herself acting out of the ordinary. Little does she know, Max has a secret.
And once Nicki looks at the wrong file at work she discovers a world she never even kne
w existed and her life begins to turn upside down.
Max promises that the secret he has to reveal will save her life but in order to discover the secret she must also become... The Bear's Mate.
Chapter 1
Nicki Bryant rushed down the sidewalk in her high heels, her form fitting red dress looked tight and fine but did nothing to help her make up the time she'd lost by sleeping through her alarm clock. What was a young Black professional to do? She checked her watch over and over. She was in so much trouble. Mister Donovan wasn't the kind of boss to forgive mistakes just because you had a pretty, heart shaped face and deep, passionate eyes.
Not that she'd tried. Well, maybe once.
She only started this job with Finnegan and Kellogg two weeks ago. She was one of the youngest attorneys in the history of the firm and she still needed to prove herself. Showing up late—especially this late—was not the way to impress her bosses.
It was already after nine o'clock on this bright, sunny Monday morning. Usually the three city blocks from her apartment to the office weren’t a problem. Back in college Nicki ran track and three city blocks wasn't even enough to get her winded. Most days she even had enough time to stop for a coffee and a danish. Not today. Today, as she'd bounced her way out of bed in her frilly pink panties, there wasn't even time to do anything with her long auburn hair except put it up into a ponytail.
She stopped for a moment to check her reflection in a dress shop window, figuring the few seconds it would take her to straighten her dress and recheck her makeup wouldn't make a difference now. To her dismay, she found she was wearing two different earrings. One yellow, the other, pink.
Could this day get any worse?
The offices of Finnegan and Kellogg were on the top three floors of an eight-story building near Manhattan's downtown area. The sign out front, surrounded by carefully planted flower arrangements, listed the businesses renting space inside. An accountant, a private investigator, two different land surveyors, and Finnegan and Kellogg in letters that were just that much bigger than the others to indicate their import.
It had taken Nicki two years after completing her J.D. Degree in Law to land a job there. She'd applied to seven different firms and gotten interviews at each one in turn. Her grades were impressive, her resume stacked with all the right sorts of things, and even her references spoke highly of her. Still, nothing had happened for her and she had been stuck waitressing for months to make ends meet. That was nothing new for a girl in Nicki's position, or with her fine skin tone. Doors closed on her all the time.
She wasn't going to let it stop her. It didn't matter how many rejections she would have to suffer. At the age of thirty-two, she was still young and frisky and eager to get into the wonderful world of courtroom drama and legal briefs and civil suits.
Just thinking about it turned her on.
With a sigh, she went inside to face the music.
The building's lobby had a security desk opposite the revolving doors. Behind it was a wood paneled wall nearly covered with a painting of a deep forest where sunlight played through branches across a deserted path leading into shadow; that painting had always freaked her out, like it meant something ominous and dark. Like things were hiding in the shadows under those still life trees that were just waiting to pounce on anyone who might come traipsing down that dirt path.
Past the security area was a hallway with three sets of elevators that led up to all eight floors and an extra stop at roof level. She usually took the stairs up to work, to keep her toned calves and slim waistline in shape but not on a day when she'd overslept.
"You're very late." Larry, the security guard said to her. He tipped his beige cap and smiled at her, his wide baby face at odds with his pro linebacker body. Muscles strained at his uniform shirt as he handed her the clipboard with the sign-in sheet on it. Behind him, security cameras showed different scenes from inside the corridors of the upstairs halls. "Mister Donovan isn't going to be happy with you." He added with a smile.
"I know, I know." Nicki scrawled her name in the next line on the logbook, then hesitated at the spot where she was required to write her entry time. "I don't suppose we could fudge the time back to eight o'clock, could we?"
His smile slipped a little and his one eyebrow quirked. "That'd be against the rules, Miss Bryant. You know I can't—"
"Bend the rules." She finished for him. Larry was definitely eye candy that she enjoyed seeing every morning, big and strong and cute for a white man, but he had such a stick up his ass when it came to doing things by the book. Every guy had his price, though. "What if I told you my evening was free and I was looking for someone to have a drink with?"
She batted her eyelashes at him in case he missed what she was offering. Hey, she said to herself, there were a lot of ways for a girl to get ahead in life. She had never slept with anyone to get where she was, and she knew she never would, but that didn't mean she didn't like to have fun. If she could get Larry to fudge the logbook this one time in exchange for a date that was okay for her. She would have asked the guy out eventually, anyway.
He thought about it. Nicki could see the wheels turning behind those cute eyes of his, and then there was a moment when she knew for a fact that he was going to tell her no and there would be no chance of her trying to sneak in and pretend she had been there all day.
Then he nodded slowly, and took the clipboard back from her to fill in the rest of her line himself. "Just don't make a habit of it." He lowered his voice to say. "Meet you at seven?"
She was so relieved she could have kissed him right there, and with a few drinks maybe even done a little more. Just a little. She had to save something for a second date. "Seven it is, Larry. Where at?"
"You know Nadine's? Over on Sullivan Avenue?"
"I know it." she said, surprised. "I didn't know that you knew it."
"Hey, I have a life outside of work."
"Can't wait to find out. You don't mind dating a Black woman, you lily white man?"
He shrugged like it was no matter to him. "As long as she's as hot as you, why would I mind?"
Nicki smiled at the compliment. "Thanks, Larry."
"No problem," he said. "Hey, I like your earrings."
Right. Mismatched earrings. Late for work. She flew down to catch an empty elevator car that was just about to close its doors. Now she just had to convince her bosses upstairs that she'd been here all morning, just too busy for them to notice. Maybe this day wouldn't be all bad after all.
The elevator music was Hall and Oates, and she hummed along to it from the first to the third floor, where the car stopped and the doors opened with a little ding. She cleared her throat and stepped to the back corner as a man got on, closing the door with a stab of his thumb at the elevator buttons.
He turned to Nicki, a white man with a chiseled jaw and gray eyes and dark hair that swept back in waves above his ears. He was wearing a plain white dress shirt and khaki pants. His shoes were a shiny black with tasseled laces. Not a lawyer, that was for sure.
"You going to the fifth floor?" He asked her, his voice smooth and deep.
"Uh, yes." She said, not sure why she had hesitated. He nodded, and turned back to face the elevator car.
"Don't I know you?" She asked him. She'd seen his face before; hard to forget someone with those kind of movie star looks, like George Clooney, only younger.
"Might have seen me around." He said, still facing forward. "I work in an office on the second floor."
"Oh. You're an accountant?"
He chuckled and then turned around, facing her eye to eye, standing very close. He smelled nice. Like hot cinnamon.
Mmm.
Oh, dear God, did she do that out loud?
His smile said that yes, she had purred, and yes, he heard her do it.
"I'm not an accountant." He said, his voice a little smokier than before. "I'm a private investigator."
A stray thought slipped across her mind to ask him how private his inves
tigations got, but she bit her lip instead. She was already going on one date tonight.
Well. That didn't mean she couldn't line up another with the hot private dick from downstairs…
Her eyes slid down to the front of his pants before she could help herself.
The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened, making her jump, her eyes snapping back up to his. He winked at her and turned to leave.
"My name is Chris McCann." He said to her. "Call me if you ever need…anything."
Oh, damn, she thought to herself. She might just need something from him. If he looked at her with those depthless eyes again she'd probably ask him for it, too.
Come on, Nicki, she said to herself. Mind on business now.
Mind on guys, later.
The private investigator had turned left off the elevators. She stared after him, watching the way his pants outlined his ass as he walked away, before kicking herself in gear and heading the other direction. The partners and big wigs had offices down the hall to the left. New hires got to work out here in the maze of cubicles. She'd have to put in a long few years of running errands and writing up legal motions for just about everyone else in the firm. That was all right with her. She understood the need to make her bones.
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