by Terry Spear
Then they signed off.
“Well, that’s great news,” Blake said.
“I’ll say,” Nicole agreed.
Blake and Nicole started reviewing security videos while Kayla went back to work on her promo videos, and Landon left to do whatever he needed to at the lodge.
“Nothing.” Then Nicole looked up from the monitor. “We don’t have security cameras in the bathrooms.”
“No, by law, we can’t have any in there.” Blake was looking at her now, realizing just what she was saying. “They go there after they’ve eaten and before they hit the slopes. We just figured they were making a pit stop before they went skiing. Hell, they could have stuffed their trash in there, and the janitorial service just got rid of it.”
“Even if they drop their meal trash off now in the men’s restroom, and you go retrieve it, the guys will leave Silver Town before we can get the analysis back,” Nicole said.
“But I still have to do it.”
“Unless you want me to,” Nicole said.
Blake chuckled. “Actually, we can have the janitorial staff grab the bags after they’ve used the men’s room, and we’ll take it to the office to sort out.”
“Okay, that works for me. I wonder what they do after dinner. We know they use the men’s room after breakfast and lunch, but after dinner, they head up to their room.”
“We didn’t watch the security video in the lobby that would catch who might go to the restroom late at night,” Blake said.
“Right. We were thinking they were using the big dumpsters outside.”
They pulled up the security video for last night, and sure enough, Rhys was headed into the men’s room in the middle of the night with a full backpack, and it had lost most of its contents by the time he left the restroom.
“And the janitorial staff cleans it out when?” Nicole asked.
“Early, before the restaurant opens. They clean the restrooms then and check on them periodically throughout the day. So they would be emptying out the trash if it was full enough.”
“And Rhys and his coconspirators would see that the next time they had a meal and left off their trash.”
“Correct. Which means tonight we need to come down after whoever attempts to dump their trash and seize the contents.”
Nicole looked at the security videos for the other nights. “You know how I said these guys had such a routine? Every night at three in the morning, Rhys heads down to the restroom.”
“There’s nobody in the lobby, just the night staff, so no one’s really paying attention to a guest who uses the restroom down there.”
“Tonight, we will be.”
* * *
Before they had dinner that night, Nate joined the whole family for drinks at their house while Roxie and Kayla cooked T-bone steaks and baked potatoes, and Blake and Nicole made a salad. The family had made Nate feel at home, too, as they encouraged him to tell some of his Army Ranger stories.
Roxie and Kayla had put up purple balloons with black paw prints and purple and white streamers. Blake wondered when they’d done all that, but Nicole was smiling broadly and looked happy to be celebrating their mating.
“Congratulations,” Landon said, serving everyone champagne. “Welcome to the family, Nicole, and you too, Nate. Now, you’re stuck with us.”
Nate smiled and raised his glass of champagne to Landon, telling him he was good with it.
Everyone cheered Blake and Nicole, and he was glad they all loved her as much as he did.
When they finally sat down to dinner, Landon began cutting up his steak. “We have a proposition to make to you and Nicole, Blake. Once Nicole’s case is resolved and you are ready to leave the lodge, you and Blake can have the guest room downstairs until your house is built and you’re ready to move in.”
Blake smiled. Nicole blushed.
“Do you think we’ll be making a little too much noise up there for you to get any sleep?” Blake asked.
“Hell, yeah. We’d expect nothing less,” Landon said, toasting him with his wineglass.
“Yeah,” Roxie said. “We agreed on it. Since Landon has the master suite, that means only Kayla and I will have to share the upstairs bathroom now. We thought we might find mates locally who already had a place of their own, so this wasn’t exactly planned. But it should work out perfectly for the two of you. The guest room has its own bathroom too.”
“I was the one who suggested it,” Kayla said. “I’m a really light sleeper.” She winked at Blake.
He laughed. He figured he and Nicole could slip away from his and her work whenever they had a chance, once this situation with Nicole’s suspects was resolved, and return to the house when the rest of the family was at the lodge working. Sometimes, Kayla liked to work out of the house, but maybe he and Nicole and she could work out more of a schedule until their own house was built.
That was something else they had to look into—house plans. Of course, building a house together could create a lot of conflict in their lives. He hoped they could agree on what they wanted.
“That works for me,” Nicole said, squeezing Blake’s hand.
Blake was glad his brother and sisters had suggested it. He’d been so wrapped up in being with Nicole that he hadn’t thought about what they’d do once she was done with the case.
“Nate, if you like, you can continue to have a room at the lodge free of charge until you get settled, since you’re family, too, or you can stay in Blake’s room, if he’s agreeable. That’ll give you some time to get moved here and figure out where you want to live,” Landon said.
“Thanks. That’s really generous of you.” Nate didn’t say one way or another what he wanted to do.
Blake didn’t blame him. The guy probably needed his space to get to know the pack and Nicole’s new family before he decided what else he wanted to do.
Once they finished dinner, Nicole, Blake, and Nate said good night to the others, then walked back to the lodge.
“Do you want me to look for the trash in the middle of the morning?” Nate asked. “I’d be happy to take care of it for you.”
Blake was all for it, but that was because he wanted to keep her for himself in the room all night long.
Nicole gave her brother a big hug and smiled up at him. “Yes, thanks. You are the best PI partner ever.”
Nate hugged her back. “I’m enjoying this new job and working with you on it.”
“Good.” Nicole wrapped her arm around Blake’s waist. “You’re an extremely valuable member of the team.”
Nate laughed. “Yeah, because I’m doing trash detail so you can stay with your mate all night. But I’m happy to do it.”
Smiling, Blake slipped his arm over Nicole’s shoulders, and when they made it back to the lodge, they said good night to her brother, then headed up to their room. All he could think of was making love to his mate, and he was pretty certain the look of hunger in her eyes and the smile on her lips said she was thinking along the same lines.
* * *
Nicole couldn’t believe Blake was her mate as they entered her room. Not a PI partner or a hunky wolf who co-owned the lodge but her mate. She couldn’t have been more thrilled, and she was finally settling into her new life. Though they needed to build a place of their own and she needed to move her household goods here from Denver. She supposed she could put it all in storage in Silver Town until they could build their home.
As soon as she locked the door to the room, thinking only of ravishing Blake, she got a call from Laurel Silver and she put it on speakerphone.
“You’re the PI on this case, and you are the one who solved how Silva’s tea set went missing. We don’t want to mess up your track record. Instead of sneaking the tea set back into her shop tonight and chancing getting caught, my sisters and I would love for you to pick up the antique tea set at our h
otel and take it to her at her tea shop. We’ll come in right behind you to wish her a happy birthday,” Laurel said.
Blake smiled at Nicole.
“Sure, I’d be happy to.”
“Thanks. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Even though Nicole had thought she might stay behind to work on the pseudocide suspects’ case, after Laurel called her, Nicole knew she had to go and play this out. Especially since the missing tea set had been her case, and she liked happy endings. They ended the call.
Blake began helping her out of her hat and gloves and scarf.
She unzipped her ski jacket and slid her arms out of it. “Now that Nate is here—not to mention Clay is still looking into the case—they can both watch over the men. Roxie said she was driving the three of us women to the party.”
Blake ditched his hat and gloves, then pulled off his ski jacket. “I’ll help your brother with the case in the meantime.”
“Okay, thanks. I feel bad making you all work while I’m off to a birthday party.”
“It’s part of your missing-tea-set case that you’re finishing up. Besides, if me assisting you with your case helped in any way to convince you to be my mate, it’s all good.”
She smiled. “I love you. All I thought was that I’d be working with a human PI and doing my job. I never expected to move into a new place to join a mate. But the more time I spent with you, the more time I wanted to spend with you. Because of all the time I spend away from home on cases, I kind of feel that my apartment is no more than a way station. With you and your family and mine living here, it will be a real home. I haven’t really had that in years.”
“I feel the same way about you and your family joining us. As much as we enjoy being with the wolf pack, we’re still new to the pack. The Silver Town pack promotes family, so now we’re not just a bunch of single wolves but family. And we have our own autonomous family too.”
“And,” Nicole said, pulling his sweater over his head, “if we don’t start using some protection, we’re going to be expanding that family.”
“Any problem with that?” Blake raised a brow, his mouth curved up a bit as if he liked the idea of seeing her carry their babies.
“Not for me.” She smiled at him.
He scooped her up and set her on the bed, then removed her snow boots and socks. “Good.” Then he lifted her sweater over her head and kissed her belly as if kissing the babies that might already be there.
Which made her wonder just how many she’d have, since he had three siblings and she had one. She wrapped her legs around him. “Hurry up, slowpoke. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“And a busy time ahead of us tonight.” He smiled.
She chuckled. “We can’t keep taking naps to make up for it.”
“Sure we can.”
She smiled and ran her hand over his crotch, his erection straining for release, jumping to her touch. He groaned, but that prompted him to hurry and remove her ski pants. He shucked off his pants and his boxer briefs, then removed her panties and bra.
Then they were in bed together, kissing, panting, rubbing against each other in a frantic way. She thought about their next-door neighbors and how she and Blake would have to keep the noise down. Which was one good thing about making love in his bedroom in the house when his siblings weren’t around. She couldn’t wait to have a place of their own for that reason alone. She didn’t know who was staying in the room on the other side of them. She hoped it wasn’t a family.
Then she heard groaning and the bed hitting the wall rhythmically next to them. Not a family.
Blake smiled at her, and then they were back to kissing, touching, and rubbing their bodies together in a frenzied, passionate way, his hard body pressed against hers. He felt so good against her. Protective, sexy, heating her blood to fiery lava. Raw need surged through her as he began to kiss her jaw, then her throat, his warm lips giving her passionate, lingering kisses down to her breasts. She loved him and loved the way he made love to her.
She was feeling all his gorgeous muscle groups, loving how strong and able he was. And all hers.
He moved from her breasts to kiss her mouth again. She began kissing his, their kisses growing bolder, more insistent, their tongues dancing, stroking, twirling, tips touching. He smelled like a bit of heaven. Being with him like this felt so right, so good. His hand swept down her belly, and before she knew it, he was tackling her clit, making her body sing to his touch.
“Ohmigod,” she moaned out as he circled her nubbin, then stroked it again. She was climbing toward the peak, and she dug her fingers into his biceps.
His dark gaze caught hers, and he smiled a little before he brought her to the top. She tried to stifle a cry of pleasure while he surged forward to drown out her cry with a deep, stroking kiss.
She pulled at him to join her, spreading her legs for him, and when he centered on her, she wrapped her legs around him, and he pushed deep.
He felt so perfect, his erection thick, hard, and long, thrusting into her, their kisses hot and eager.
He angled himself and dove in, making her reach for the top of the world again. The pleasure stoked her all the way to the top, and she climaxed again, shattering. He came apart, too, groaning with completion, filling her with his hot seed.
“God, I love you,” he ground out, still pushing his cock into her until the very end, then collapsing on top of her in a loving, satisfied way. He gave her a smirk.
“You are the only one for me. I love you, my sexy wolf,” she said.
And then he pressed soft kisses against her cheek, not done showing her just how much she meant to him.
* * *
Early the next morning, Blake and Nicole had showered and were getting ready to head down to breakfast once Roxie arrived to monitor the cousins in the next room. In the meantime, Nicole was listening to the suspects snoring. She would be glad to finish up this case. She had a lot of time invested in it and had uncovered a lot of interesting information about the case, which had only piqued her curiosity more. But she loved getting resolution in a case too.
“Did you know that testosterone and estrogen are released during sex, and that helps keep the body looking younger and more vigorous?” Blake said.
She glanced at Blake and smiled. “I thought you were looking up house designs.”
“I am. I was just sharing what Kayla told us.”
Nicole laughed. “Okay, so what else did your quiet sister say?”
“You get a good workout—toning your abs, back, butt, and thighs while thrusting.”
Smiling, Nicole shook her head. “I could see Roxie saying that.”
“Kayla often surprises us.”
“Is that a recommendation for another romp between the sheets?”
“Always.”
“Roxie’s on her way soon. So we’ll have to hold that thought.” She called Nate, hoping she didn’t wake him too early. But she had to learn if he had found anything. “Hey, are you awake?”
“Are you kidding? You’re talking to an Army Ranger.”
She chuckled. She should have known he’d say that.
“I found their trash from dinner and have already turned it over to the sheriff. Peter said Blake called him in the middle of the night and I called him at an ungodly hour in the morning—that we were conspiring against him.”
Nicole laughed.
“He sent CJ to pick up the evidence. Maybe we’ll get something if the evidence you turned in doesn’t pan out.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ve got wall-monitoring duty until Roxie shows up. See you later.”
Nicole glanced at Blake, still concentrating on the monitor. She hadn’t even discussed with him if he wanted to have an actual wedding ceremony, and she realized they hadn’t talked about the kind of house they wanted or about taking a honeymoon. There were
so many decisions to be made.
A wedding wasn’t a priority for her. Building a house and having a place of their own was more important.
Though she’d never talked to her mother about having a wedding when she found a mate, she suspected her mother would want her to. “Wedding or no wedding? Just a justice of the peace?” she whispered to Blake.
“Wedding. They often have them at the pack leaders’ estate. They have a great hall there for feasts, ceremonies, parties, you name it. It would be great fun and a super way to celebrate our union in a human way.”
She was surprised he’d really want one. “Okay, sounds good. Your sisters can be my bridesmaids.”
“And your brother can be one of my groomsmen, along with my brother.” Blake considered the laptop again. “What kind of a house do you want?”
“Two-story? All the bedrooms upstairs? Or us in a separate suite, game room/family room upstairs where the kids will have their rooms? Or a sprawling one-story so we don’t have to heat and cool two floors, and we could have one wing of the house as ours and the kids can be on the other side of the house?”
“Two-story so everyone can get their exercise. We’ll have a master bedroom and bathroom suite downstairs, and the kids will have the upstairs bedrooms, bathroom, and game room.”
She knew couples often got into squabbles when trying to agree on building a house together. She hoped they wouldn’t. She would rather she had all her conflict with her cases, not her mate.
* * *
That afternoon, Nicole went with Kayla and Roxie to the Silver Town Inn to pick up the restored tea set and enjoy Silva’s birthday party. Her jaw dropped when she saw the beauty of the tea set, and she pulled her phone out to compare it with the picture of the one Peter had sent her. The tea set was clean and bright and looked like it was brand new.
“That is beautiful.” Nicole showed the Wolff sisters the before photo of the tea set, and they were just as impressed with the restoration.
“Silva’s going to love this, and it will make up for the distress she’s had over her missing tea set.” Nicole was ready to return Silva’s tea set to her and wish her a happy birthday. She was glad to be included in the wolf pack fun. And so were her mate’s sisters. She’d really felt she needed to be watching her own suspects, but Nate would take charge, and Blake and Landon were helping him with it. They all insisted the ladies go to the party. Nicole was still feeling guilty about it when they arrived at Silva’s tea shop.