Gently I brush my mouth over hers. “Have you?”
Her breath shudders and she nods, her lips trembling. “I didn’t mean to. I told myself that I wouldn’t. But that was probably wishful thinking on my part. If I didn’t love you before you showed up here, then I was right on the edge of it. And you sealed the deal simply by being you.”
I’m not sorry for that. But there’s no golden chain around my neck. So she might love me, but Alicia and her beast must not be completely sure of me. She’s still wary, still holding back.
All right, then. She has doubts. So I’ll start tearing them down.
Alicia lets out a shriek when I abruptly haul her up, tossing her over my shoulder with her pretty little butt in the air and her head hanging down my back. Then a laugh shakes through her and she slaps my ass. “I can walk!”
“I know you can.” I start off down the block.
“Hey, wait. The hotel’s entrance is that way.”
“I know it.” And my cock’s aching for me to take her upstairs but this is more important.
“Then where are we going?”
“Not far.”
It’s only just after seven on a Sunday morning, in a small town with no private residences on this section of the main street. There’s not a car in sight on the road, no one on the sidewalks. Just me, carrying my entire future.
So I’ll give her a look at that future. The ranger station sits only a block down from the hotel, across the street from the city library. Behind the station, a small woodland park with walking trails for the public stretches south for about two hundred yards. While killing time yesterday, I made my way over here, took a look around.
I strike down one of the trails and the scent of Alicia’s arousal blooms into the air, as if an erotic fantasy just rolled through her head. Or maybe she’s just reacting to the way I’m carrying her and holding her, because fuck knows that I don’t have to fantasize about her before getting hard. Just a touch does it. A single look. And Christ, her pussy smells so damn sweet. So hot and wet. But although my dick’s as stiff as a railroad spike, I also notice she’s not acting on whatever fantasy she had. Not grabbing my ass, not teasing me with her saucy little tongue. Maybe because we’re outside.
But I didn’t bring her out here to fuck. Instead I carry her to the center of the park, where a picnic table sits beside a pond. A wooden bridge arches over a narrow stream feeding into the pond and offers a view through the trees of the district ranger’s residence.
In the middle of the bridge, I set her down. I kiss her briefly before turning her to face the house, pulling her back against my chest.
“So you like it—and wouldn’t mind living there?”
She laughs. “Sam wasn’t subtle, was she?”
No. But I’m not subtle, either. “I don’t care where we live,” I tell her bluntly. “All that matters is that you’re with me.”
Alicia gives a shuddering sigh and leans her head back against my shoulder, her fingertips absently caressing the forearm I’ve wrapped around her waist. “Is Ranger Farley still living there now?”
One day, when she’s more used to being a werewolf, she won’t need to ask. “Until the end of the month. I told him if he wanted to stay, I’d find another place. But he’s moving back to California to be close to his kids. You should be able hear him.”
Turning her head slightly, she holds her breath. After a moment she whispers, “He’s humming…and it sounds like he’s making breakfast?”
“He is.” I hold her tighter. “It won’t be long until you hear me humming in that kitchen, instead.”
A smile fills her voice. “Do you hum while you cook?”
“When I’m married to you, I’ll wake up singing every day.”
Her laugh is a delicate little snort. “Sure you will.”
“Yeah, probably not. I’ll wake you up by eating your pussy until you’re soft and wet, then make you come on my cock.” And she likes that idea as much as I do, because her body tenses and her weight shifts as if she’s squeezing her thighs together to ease the needy ache between them. Fuck, I need to get back to that hotel, need to get into her. But not yet. “And that would be enough for me, baby. Just waking up with you every morning, making a life with you in this town, then falling asleep with you in my arms. If you want kids, that sounds damn good, too. We’d play with them in that yard there, read a bedtime story to them every night, teach them to be as fucking wonderful as you are.”