Accidentally Yours (Coyote Bluff Series Book 1) (20 page)

A groan laced with his wolf’s satisfaction rolled deep and loud from his chest as Ian pumped two more times, extending his pleasure and selfishly shooting more of his cum into her. He and his wolf wanted everyone to know who she belonged to. With his scent deeply imbedded in her body, no one would question it.

On wobbly arms he bent down and pressed a kiss to Cammie’s forehead, nose and lips. She was still breathing hard but her mouth formed the most sensual smile he’d ever seen. When her eyes slid open and they were still darkened from their shared passion, he nearly came again.

“You are so sexy.”

She laughed and took a deep breath. “So are you.”

His softened cock slid from her and they both groaned. Before she could get up he scrambled off the bed. “Wait, I’ll get you a cloth.”

Rushing into the bathroom he wanted to fist pump, whoop and holler about finally finding his mate. He quietly snickered.
Yeah, that would be the mature thing to do.
He quickly found where she kept the towels and waited impatiently for the water to heat. With a hot washcloth and towel in hand he climbed back on the bed.

“Let me.” He reached for her, spreading her legs open and gently wiping away their combined liquids. If he happened to wipe some of it along her legs and not quite clean it off, well, he did want her to smell of him. He threw the dirtied cloths on the floor and scooped Cam into his chest. “I want to do this every morning.”

She snuggled deeper into his embrace. “Yeah, me too.”

Cammie groaned into the pillow she yanked over her face when her stomach let out a loud grumble.
That’s a sexy sound for you right after the best orgasm of your life
. She pulled the covers over her head too just in case her body flushed with the blush she felt heating her cheeks.

“Hungry?” Ian’s hand smoothed over her
stomach. Warm lips pressed to her shoulder and the unmistakable feel of a tongue sliding warmly over her skin had more than just her stomach hungering. Before she could throw off the covers and see if he wanted to sate the renewed heat blooming in her belly he continued. “I’ll go make breakfast.”

“Mm, a man who cooks? Nice. Coffee first.” She mumbled, refusing to
completely uncover her face and look at Ian. “Need caffeine.”

His chuckle burned through her body. “Yeah, I remember the grumbling in the mornings.”

She paused, too addle-brained to remember and then it struck her. She sat up, pillow flying off the bed, and smacked his arm. “You’re a jerk.” He blinked at her a few times and then tilted his head like Titan used to and she burst out laughing.

“What the hell?”

She snickered. “You look like Titan when you do that.”

He grinned. “Yeah,
’cause I am Titan. Now, what did I do between offering you breakfast and the hit to my arm that caused the reaction?”

She felt the warmth of her blush. “I remembered that you’d been here for days, and well, it took me by surprise again.”

His laughter pulled her in until she was doing the same. He leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “You, my dear, are not a morning person, but I still loved waking up with you in my arms.”

She stammered, tried to answer him, but he’d said
loved
in a sentence about her and her brain cells went on overload. She wanted to smile and say she’d loved it too. That she’d had the best night of her life. That’d she’d felt safe and secure, protected. No, instead she tripped over her own tongue and nothing worth hearing came out.

The lack of coherence or reply didn’t seem to faze him. He rolled over, climbed from the bed in all his naked glory and wandered into the hallway. Before heading down the stairs he turned his beautiful eyes on her. “Don’t be too long. I make a mean omelet.”

Flopping back onto the bed Cammie let out a huge sigh. She didn’t know if it was from relief or consternation. The man of her dreams, literally, was walking down her stairs to make her breakfast. They’d shared the best sex she’d ever had. So what was her problem?
I am hooked already and falling further in love by the second
.

Yeah, that was the problem. She’d been used before. Part of her brain was cheering her on to believe every single word and let Ian sooth a place deep in her heart that was bruised by Ron and his abuse. The other part—the part that remembered all too well the smooth approach her ex had taken and how easily she’d fallen in love—wanted to smack the stupid grin right off her face.

The most amusing piece of all of this was the lack of concern over his ability to turn into an animal. She’d taken that in stride. Was it because she’d spent so much time warming to his furry side? Or that she just felt safe with him and it didn’t matter if he was a shifter?

She huffed. “Maybe it’s because you haven’t dealt with reality yet and you’re heading to a mental breakdown.”

She jumped when her whispered comment was answered from downstairs. Ian’s voice echoed along the hall. “You aren’t going crazy. Now, get your fine ass down here for breakfast before you talk yourself into a corner.”

She rolled over, grumbling. “Fine, but the coffee better be perfect.”

His laughter pulled a disgruntled smile to her lips as it rolled through the house. Damn man and his ability to make her feel happy. How was she supposed to keep her heart from melting all over him if he kept being so freaking awesome?

Instead of rushing downstairs with bed
-head and morning breath, Cammie headed to the shower. She spent the time waiting for her conditioner to tame the snarls with her mind dissecting the prior twenty-four hours. So much had happened, been thrown at her, but none of it felt more important than the fact that she had a gorgeous shifter man making her breakfast after giving the best orgasms of her life. The attacks from Ron, the fact that the town was teeming with animal-people, that her bosses could turn into something fuzzy—none of those things made her pause as much as what she was feeling for Ian.

After rinsing and wasting enough time under the shower for the water to run cold
, she still hadn’t figured out what she even really felt, let alone a course of action. Toweling off, she peered into the mirror over the sink. She expected to see something different. Like the last few days had changed her enough to affect her appearance. The eyes that stared back were exactly the same. Her skin hadn’t aged and, after leaning in until her nose nearly touched the glass, no new wrinkles seemed to have popped up. Amazing how little a life-changing bout of events affected the physical, even when it had shook her mentally to the core.

“Are you coming down for food or staying up here to hide?”

Cammie screeched, scrambling backward from the sink toward the shower and brandished her hairbrush in front of her chest as a weapon. A moment passed as her heart tried to climb out her throat, before she could gather enough brain power to realize Ian had asked the question and was still staring at her as if she’d gone crazy. His eyes slowly changed from the arched eyebrow of confusion to the scowl of understanding.

“Sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you would have heard me coming up the stairs, but I still should have said something before startling you.” He looked like he’d step into the small room but paused and stepped farther into the bedroom instead. “I’ll just head back down. Food is ready when you are, and I have coffee ready.”

Cammie, breathless and fighting the urge to cry, nodded. “Okay. I’ll just get dressed.”

An upset Ian wandered out of the bedroom and she let him go, even when every cell of her body craved to call him back so she could explain. She wanted to tell him that her fright had nothing to do with him, that Ron had really freaked her out and that no one had ever made her feel as safe as Ian did. But instead she took the coward’s way out and let him go. She didn’t even lie to herself about the reasoning behind not voicing her thoughts. She didn’t want to get her heart stomped on again so soon. Ian had the ability to easily crush her with nothing more than a cruel word and she wasn’t ready to hand that kind of power to anyone.

Cammie sighed. So instead of throwing her thoughts and feelings out there she let the man who’d saved her, snuggled her, kept her safe, walk out of the room like he was at fault.
Really friendly and caring of you.
Her internal sarcasm had her snorting. But her internal monologue did do something for her. With a single decision to throw her caution out the nearest window and approach Ian, a relationship and his statements with a fresh heart she felt something click inside her mind. With the problem solved her chest felt lighter and she grinned.

After throwing on comfortable jeans and a
T-shirt, Cammie headed downstairs to grab some breakfast, a dash of caffeine and to step up and be an adult. She needed to stop treating Ian as if he planned to hurt her and grab hold of the happiness he offered. It wouldn’t kill her to fall in love, even if it didn’t last, and while she figured out if they really could make something of the chemistry between them she’d have a good time.

Seize the day, bite the bullet, take the less-trodden path. She’d run out of euphemisms by the time she’d reached the first floor but they gave her enough bravery to walk into the kitchen with her head held high. She stopped two steps inside the room and gaped.

Ian stood facing the stove, spatula in hand, cooking scrambled eggs. He looked so right in her kitchen. It was so domestic, something she’d craved for so long Cammie was once again fighting tears. How she’d wanted to find exactly the picture she was seeing. Her heart wanted to share itself with a partner, to fall hopelessly in love with someone who would do the same.

While swiping at a single tear which had escaped the wide-eyed blinking she grumbled. “Stupid hormones, stupid heart.”

Ian stilled and turned slowly. A beautiful smile slid from his lips as he frowned. “Why are you crying?”

She wetly laughed as she launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Good tears, well, emotional tears. But for a good reason. I’m sorry I’ve been so weird about you, me, us… whatever.”

He stood stock still for half a moment and then pulled her tightly to his chest. A rumbling sound vibrated under her cheek. “You make being virtuous hard as Hell, Cam.”

She snorted. “Right. Like after this morning you need to watch my virtue.”

He grumbled and then unwrapped her, sliding his hands to her shoulder and slowly pushing her away from his body. “It’d be so easy to make you mine. You don’t know how hard I’m fighting the wolf to not claim you, put my mark on you for real this time.”

He clamped his lips tight until they turned nearly white. Replaying the last things he said a thought came to her. “That mark on my shoulder the other morning? You bit me in my dream and it left a mark after I woke up?”

Ian hadn’t been planning on explaining for a while but of course his wolf and his mouth were destined to fight his brain. Admitting to her that he wanted to mark her wasn’t bad enough,
no
, he had to say something about a permanent mark. He mentally sighed while his wolf whined.

“I won’t lie to you. I want to, but I won’t. Yes. I’ve never heard of it happening before, but somehow my dream bite manifested a connection for a short period of time between us. A real one would bind us together forever.” He watched her face, trying to decipher what she was thinking and failing miserably as she stood, stone-faced for long moments. When the silence had gone on for too long he kept talking. “I’m sorry. I really am. I wanted to be smoother about this, gain your trust, have you fall in love with me like I am with you and then broach the subject of marking and claiming you.”

His anxiety ramped up as she remained quiet. Her scent hadn’t changed much, but that didn’t seem to be calming his inner beast. Had he just shot himself in the foot with the only woman he’d ever wanted?

When Cammie stepped back and added more space between their bodies Ian thought his heart was actually breaking. An ache unlike anything he’d felt before tore through his chest and only by clamping his lips down and biting the inside of his cheek did he keep from howling at the pain.

“Stop thinking. I can see your mind tearing apart my actions. I told you I was sorry for being weird about us. I’m not going to go against that the minute you spring some more paranormal stuff on me. Feed me. Then I want to talk, and I want all the truth. Even if I have to take notes, you’re spilling everything.”

Ian blinked twice, trying to
reconcile what he’d heard with the blank look on Cammie’s face. Did she really mean it?
Only one way to find out
. He nodded and turned to plate the eggs he’d cooked her.

A warm palm settled on his back and every ounce of concern melted away. She pressed her chest against his arm before reaching past him to grab the cup of coffee he’d prepared for her.

“Stop worrying. Thank you for the coffee.” A light press of lips followed her words.

While he buttered a slice of toast for Cammie
, he chided himself.
You’re acting like you’ve never dealt with women before. Buck up, buttercup.
He grinned. He was acting like a twenty-year-old virgin seeing his first woman. Cammie was meant to be his. She felt the connection each time they touched. He’d explain things, let her see he was sincere and they’d be fine. With that thought he carried an overloaded plate to the dining room and placed it carefully in front of a quiet Cammie.

“You eat, I’ll talk. Deal?”

She nodded. “Fine. But if I ask questions, no more beating around the bush.”

He winced. “I will do the best I can, but there are—
”

“Things you can’t answer because we aren’t together? Right?” She grumbled something under her breath that sounded remarkably like ‘stupid paranormal books have
that
part pegged.’

He wanted to laugh, but a thought struck him. “You’ve read a lot, right? Shifter romance
s?”

She blushed and he wanted to chase the color with his lips. Shaking off the rush of lust
, he watched her closely, grinning when she nodded.

Arching a brow at her and looking pointedly at her plate he waited. When she huffed and stabbed a chunk of egg with her fork
, he kept talking. “I haven’t read any, but I bet some come close to reality. I’m sure there are a few shifters out there banking off their knowledge. They have things like claiming bites? Mates? Packs?”

She nodded again and had stalled mid chew. He wanted to kiss her. She looked so adorable with the look of intense interest and the slight color from her embarrassment still coloring her cheeks. Her lips were so soft, the memory of how they yielded to his had his cock filling and pressing against the zipper of his jeans.

Snapping fingers in front of his nose jerked him back from the fantasy kiss. “You were staring off and grinning.”

Cammie was shaking with suppressed laughter as she shoveled another forkful of food into her smiling mouth. She motioned for him to continue with her empty utensil.

“Most of what I’d suppose you’ve read is real. Obviously shifters exist, as do packs or groups of us living together. Coyote Bluff is a great example of that. We tend to live together for safety and companionship. Mating is real, but not as mystical as I’d bet the books talk about. Although, like I told you before, there are people we can find that would make good mates. That charge we feel between us is evidence to how strong our connection can be.”

He paused and watched a still-attentive Cammie shove the last of her eggs in her mouth and nod.

“If we decide to take a forever mate we can bite them, mark them with the scar and our scent. It’s a connection far more final than a marriage. Divorce can occur but once a pair mates it’s almost impossible to leave each other.”

“Do you die if something happens to your mates?” She’d finished her breakfast and sat staring into her cup of cooling coffee.

“No. But our animals can go crazy with the loss of our mates.”

The look of concern in her eyes when she finally glanced up had him moving before he knew what he was doing. He scooped her off her seat, turned and sat with her cradled on his lap. He pressed his lips lightly to her parted ones, breathing in the slight gasp of surprise that whispered warmly over his mouth. What started as comfort quickly changed to passion when Cammie stroked her tongue over his bottom lip. He growled with need and took over the kiss, turning it carnal, devouring the little noises she made.