But she had! And she realized he’d come to try to make up for being absent.
And, truthfully, she couldn’t summon anger with the news she’d just gotten.
She was dying to share, but she nursed some doubt that he’d be as thrilled as she was.
She discovered when she finally looked away that the noises she’d been listening to with half a mind were the sounds of Etienne and Hank unloading a utility trailer.
She looked a question at Rafe.
“My deputies, Etienne and Hank. I guess I didn’t get around to introducing y’all?”
She studied his face realizing finally that he looked completely exhausted. “You ok?”
Some of the tension left him. She hadn’t even noticed he was tense until then. “Yeah. More importantly, how are you doing?”
I’m pregnant! Instantly leapt into her mind but she tamped the urge to announce it. She shrugged. “I was a little stiff and sore for a couple of days, but I’m fine now.”
Rafe winced. “I’m sorry as hell I couldn’t get by to check on you before ….”
Clearly, he really was and he was concerned she would be pissed off with him. She smiled up at him. “I can think of a few things you could do to make it up to me …,” she said teasingly.
Something flickered in his eyes and then a broad grin transformed his face. He settled one hand on her hip and took a step toward her. But then he stopped and whipped a look around at his deputies. “You guys start clearing along the driveway! I’ll be out in a minute.”
Embarrassment flooded Stella’s face with color. She hadn’t meant that!
Well, she had, but she’d been teasing. She hadn’t expected him to take her up on it right then and there!
With his men outside!
He waltzed her back and kicked the door shut with one boot. “Now. Where were we?”
Stella couldn’t help but chuckle. “You aren’t serious?”
“As a heart attack,” he growled, crushing her against his length and proving it with a sensual assault on her mouth and throat that completely convinced her of his sincerity.
Scooping her up when he broke the kiss, he strode purposefully toward the bedroom, dropped her in the middle of the bed and immediately started removing her clothing.
He managed to get halfway out of his shirt once he’d stripped her bare before he completely lost his patience and sprawled over her.
He nuzzled his way down the center of her body, pausing to explore both breasts long enough he had Stella groaning before he continued his journey and burrowed his face against her belly.
“Hmmm.”
“What?”
“Bun in the oven. Damn I’m good! We need to tie the knot before your dad gets here with his shotgun.”
Stella’s eyes widened. “What?”
Grinning, he moved upward once more and silenced her with another long kiss. Within moments they were both nearly as frantic to find release as they had been the first time they’d been together. The world and its troubles faded away as they pulled a cocoon of carnal pleasure around themselves, luxuriated in the joy they felt at one another’s touch.
The joining of their bodies was an act of excruciating pleasure and when they managed to reach the pinnacle of rapture in sync, it was the most amazing thing Stella had ever experienced.
They twined around one another in the aftermath, and Stella enjoyed being held in the comfort of his embrace almost as much as she’d enjoyed the culmination.
“Seriously, though, baby … I honestly don’t need a ring to seal the deal. You’re mine as far as I’m concerned and I’m yours, but I’m thinking your father might have other ideas once he tumbles to the fact that he has a grandchild on the way. What do you think? I mean—does he have the power to shrivel my cock? ‘Cause I aint’ gonna worry about it otherwise. We’ll do what we want to do.”
Stella couldn’t help but chuckle, but she pushed away to examine his face to see if he was serious. She couldn’t decide whether he was or not or even how he felt about what he’d said. “You seriously think you got me pregnant with that one time we had sex?”
He gave her a look. “I seriously know I did. A were knows when his woman is breeding.”
She stared at him in surprise. “A were?”
He caught her shoulders and pushed her down on the bed as he rolled on top of her. “Don’t play coy, baby. I saw the look on your face. You know. Granted, I thought for a bit that you were just in shock and refused to believe your eyes, and maybe you didn’t get a really good look, but you did, didn’t you?”
Stella studied him a moment and finally shrugged. “Well, I was in shock, and I tried to convince myself that I hadn’t really seen what I thought I had.”
“But granny Hood had told you all about the werefolk around here, I’m guessing because you weren’t afraid of the big, bad wolf. If you had been you would’ve been long gone by now.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” she responded. “I’m pretty smitten.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Smitten, huh?”
Stella grinned. “Yeah. Pretty smitten. A little pissed, actually. I didn’t get to announce the baby.”
He grinned back at her. “Because I’m a lot smitten and I wasn’t about to let you get away! If knocking you up was the only way to capture you ….”
Stella looked at him in surprise, but then she laughed. “It was a trap? You dastardly villain!”
“I’m the sheriff in these parts, ma’am! Watch who you’re calling villain!”
“You’re … seriously not upset I’m pregnant?”
He shrugged. “Well, I’ll admit I’m a little … annoyed that I’m not going to have you all to myself long before we’ve got a cub grabbing all the attention, but I figured it was the best way to convince you that I was bound and determined to have you. So I guess I’ll get over it.”
Stella didn’t know what to think of that speech, but she figured she had plenty of time to get to know him and figure out what made him tick if he was as serious about hanging around as he seemed to be. In any case, the noises from outside were getting louder—which meant the guys were getting closer and she figured they need to practice at least a modicum of discretion. “I guess we need to break this up for another time. The guys are going to be beating on the door any time now.”
He shrugged and gathered her close again. “That’s their problem. I’m alpha. And I ain’t done courting yet. They’re just gonna have to wait their turns.”
The End.
Big Bad Wolf Page 4