Blue Moon Brides: The Complete Series (57 page)

Oh, yeah.
She didn’t know if she was coordinated enough to pull this off, but she’d try. She lowered herself down onto Jackson, her body taking him one slow inch at a time. Luc popped free of her mouth with a harsh groan. She leaned up, recapturing him and slowly lifting off Jackson. Up, then down, riding Jackson in a slow, erotic wave.
Oh.

She wished she could see Jackson’s face. She could feel him
there
, though, and when she looked up through her lashes at Luc, his face was fierce and intent. Focused on her and what they were doing.

She could hear the erotic sounds of wetness and Jackson’s harsh curse as he arched up to meet her. His fingers found her clit and pressed as he surged deeper inside her. Luc’s fingers tightened in her hair, his eyes drifting close.
Vulnerable
. She loved having these two men this close, the trust between the three of them. Anything was okay as long as they all wanted it. Wanted each other.

“Make her come,” Jackson said roughly.

Luc dropped his hand between them, finding her clit. His fingers worked together with Jackson’s. Everything they did was for her. About her. She’d thought she’d be giving back to the two of them while exploring a fantasy and yet, instead… they gave her everything.

“Now,” Luc ordered gruffly, his fingers pressing a spot just to the side of her clit. With a muffled cry, she gave in to the pressure building inside her. The orgasm swept over her, one sweet, hard throb after another. Behind her, Jackson surged into her channel once, twice, as he came with her.

Luc stiffened, his hips jerking, and then she was swallowing him as he came.

When he pulled free of her mouth, she collapsed on the bed. Jackson ran his hands over her back and her butt, soothing, touching. Slipping free of her body, he spooned around her. Luc reached over and switched off the light, plunging the room into darkness.

They’d rendered her boneless.

It had been perfect.

“Oh, my God.” She wasn’t going to win any prizes for articulate praise. Or poetry, compliments, or paeans to Luc and Jackson’s all-round awesomeness.  She still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up in bed with these two men who made her feel so precious.

“Because you said
yes
,” Jackson said, as if he’d read her mind.

“And because you were meant for us,” Luc added.

“Or you were meant for
me
,” she said.

“True, honey.”

“I’ll settle for you being all mine.” Rough assurance filled Jackson’s voice.

“Should I be worried?” She could hear the laughter in her own. She wasn’t afraid of him. He wasn’t vanilla at all and he pushed her sexual boundaries but… he made her feel. With him.
For
him.

“Sleep,” he whispered gruffly. “Me and Luc will keep watch. There’s nothin’ gettin’ past us tonight.”

His fingers tangled with hers as she finally gave in to exhaustion and let sleep tug her down. He had to be tired too, she thought. Instead he was all fierce focus on what needed doing.
Strong
. Doing the right thing in his world, but playing by a rulebook she didn’t have or even get. A rulebook that says
keeping her
was okay.

As she drifted off, she would almost have sworn he whispered something. Something that sounded a whole lot like
I love you.

Chapter Eleven

When she woke up, it was just past dawn. The sun was coming up and the birds were going nuts in the tupelo trees, talking mating songs of their own. She slipped out of bed, leaving Jackson sprawled out on the sheets, and padded toward her porch. The open front door was her first clue that her quarry was out there. That, and the scent of coffee.
Her
coffee.

She stepped outside and the morning somehow managed to be pretty and peaceful and
loud
all at the same time. Welcome to the bayou. The werewolf lounging on her porch swing, however, didn’t look particularly surprised to see her. He smiled, though, and she was putting that gesture in the break-through column. He looked less Tall, Dark, and Grumpy and more Tall, Dark and Satiated. Less lonely. It was a good look for him.

She dropped down onto the swing beside him and snagged the mug from his hand.

“I might not have been done with that,” he protested mildly.

“My house,” she said mildly. “My coffee.”

Unfortunately, the coffee was pitch black and strong enough to put hair on her chest. Werewolves apparently didn’t know how to make coffee right.

“
Oui.
I’m a wolf. I understand possession.”

“Uh-huh.” God. He’d taught her a thing or two about
possession
last night. When she moved, she felt where he’d been deep inside her body.

He curved an arm around her shoulders, tugging her closer. “Yes or no. That’s all that matters in our world.”

He said
our
and she felt like she was part of that group.

“Last night?” With Luc, every conversation had undertones.

“Was somethin’ special,” he said. “I’d feel bad if you were havin’ regrets now.”

“No regrets.” To her surprise, she meant it.

“I’m glad you’ve decided to keep our Jackson.”

“We haven’t talked much about where we’re headed,” she admitted. Jackson had thrown out
fated mate
and
forever
, but those were just words.

Luc flicked her cheek gently. “You already decided to stay with us, and you’re definitely keepin’ him.”

She had no idea how the man managed to look lethal and sweet at the same time. It was a gift.

“Starting a relationship after just two days is crazy.”

“Some things are meant to be.” He got up and took the empty mug with him. When he came back, he handed her a fresh cup of hot coffee fixed the way she liked, laced with cream and sugar. Almost, she thought she spotted a smile in his eyes. He was way too serious. Maybe that came with the
leader of the Pack
title. Maybe it was just Luc.

“You really believe the blue moon picks out your brides.” It was the strangest dating service she’d ever heard of. On the other hand, Jackson’s brothers—with the notable exception of Luc—seemed happy with their women. More importantly, the women seemed happy. She was looking forward to getting to know them better.

“
Oui
.” He didn’t look unsure at all.

“So it’s your turn.”

“Not every wolf finds a mate,” he said.

“Why not?” That seemed unfair.

Luc shrugged. “Some of us are not destined for mates. Some of us look in the wrong places or are blind or…” A small smile curled the corners of his stern mouth. “Pig-headed asshole was the phrase you used. But I’ve already found my mate,” he continued.

“Oh, God.” She’d had sex with him—and he had a wife? Mate. Whatever.

“She left me.” Luc’s crooked smile made him look years younger. “So I’ve had my chance and you could argue that I’ve already blown it.”

She considered him over the rim of the mug. “You’ve never struck me as a quitter.”

“Nope. Not me.” He set the mug down and stood up. “Which why I’ll be doin’ some huntin’ now that the rest of the Pack is settled.”

~*~

She slipped back into the bedroom carrying two mugs of coffee. Unlike Luc, Jackson had a sweet tooth and he liked even more sugar in his coffee than she did. Or at least that was the way he’d taken his yesterday.

Two days and her entire life had changed.

For the better. That was the kicker. She hadn’t realized that she had a Jackson-sized hole in her heart and her life until her bayou bad boy had insisted on having his chance.

“Hey,” she said, shutting the door behind her. He was awake and sitting up in the bed. Had he been about to come and find her? Part of her hoped so. The rest of her was plenty happy to find him still in bed. His hair was tousled, like someone had been running her fingers through it, and his eyes held a heated gleam that was pretty damn promising.

“Come over here,
shug
.” He shifted over, making room for her, and she went.

When she set the mugs down on the bedside table, he lifted her onto his lap with that little growly sound she loved so much.

“I want to ask you somethin’,” he said and her heart clenched.

“Okay.” God, she hoped he hadn’t changed his mind. That last night hadn’t made him look at her differently. No matter what he’d promised her, she knew that sometimes, when it was the morning after, things just looked different. Letting go of him wasn’t something she could imagine, however.

“I wan’ us to date,” he said.

Wow. She hadn’t seen that coming. Sex, yes. Forever and ever and happily ever after, plus or minus a few vampires? Yeah. She’d had that in her planner as well. Dating? Not so much.

“I know I rushed things.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, dragging her closer. She could feel the thick ridge of his erection pressing against her butt, so there was hope for them after all. “I want another chance, a chance to get it right. I want more than two days,
shug
. I’ll court you right.”

His words got to her as much as the man did. He was gruff and blunt and earthy. He was also
hers
, according to what he himself had said and that damned blue moon of his.

“I’m not giving you back.” She needed to draw that line right now.

“Excuse me?” He growled the question in her ear, but she could hear the hope there. Yeah. He wasn’t on board with waiting and dating any more than she was. Not that she didn’t appreciate the sentiment, but they both knew what they wanted.
Who
they wanted.

“If you want to date, fine. We can have a trial period on our relationship.”

“Uh-huh.” He shifted her in his arms so he could kiss his way down her neck, licking the pulse point beating so rapidly at the base of her throat. “You have a plan for that?”

“Thirty years,” she said breathlessly. “With an option to renew.”

He smiled against her throat. “I love you too.”

“Is that what I said?” Werewolves had selective hearing. Just to make sure he was really paying attention, she ran her hands down his shoulders and over his chest.

“
Oui
,” he said, all male confidence. “You love me, just like I love you.”

“Crazy,” she sighed, tugging his face down to hers. Kissing seemed like the best idea she’d had in a long time—right up there with keeping him. “Crazy but true.”

“Crazy good,” he whispered against her mouth and then he kissed her.

“Crazy perfect,” she said as he rolled her underneath him, clearly in agreement.

Captured

by the

Pack

ANNE MARSH

Chapter One

Gianna hit the sidewalk, moving quickly. It wasn’t too late—barely nine o’clock—but the Baton Rouge city streets were already dark. Sometimes, even in the safest of cities, bad shit happened. Her expensive and admittedly upscale neighborhood should have been poster child safe, but her car battery had died unexpectedly and without warning a block ago. One minute she’d been zipping along, running over the day’s cases in her head, and the next…
nada
. She’d coasted to a stop by the side of the road. Since she was less than a dozen blocks from home and her tow service was an hour out, walking sounded good. She’d had a long week at her law firm.

The weather had already cooled from the baking heat of the summer months. It was time for sweaters and fires, apples and pumpkins and all the stuff she never had time for. Maybe this would be the year she made time. The senior partner’s words replayed in her head.
Take some time off. Get out of town for a while.
He’d sounded like a bad movie, but the concern had been genuine and she appreciated it.

Her involvement with the case had been an accident. Her firm did a certain percentage of
pro bono
work, one of the many qualities that had drawn her to them in the first place.  When a local biker gang had threatened a nice old granny and her not-quite-so-nice grandson, Gianna had obtained a protective order for the pair and then gone one step further when the gang had continued to stalk and threaten. Local law enforcement had tried to arrest the offender, who had run straight into the heart of bayou country.

The running and the subsequent arrest had come with an unexpected bonus. Gianna had met Cruz Jones, the local sheriff in Port Leon. He’d been instrumental in helping take down the defendant when the offender had ended up in Cruz’s jurisdiction. Jones was a big, good-looking man, laidback and with a sense of easy humor. He definitely went on the list of dating possibilities as soon as she got her personal life straightened out.

Convicting the guy and his bully best friends should have been a case of open and shut. Instead, everything had gone to hell. Despite not playing by the rules, the defendants were still on the streets and…yeah…downright unhappy with her.  She’d had threats at the office that she’d duly turned over to the Baton Rouge police department. The brouhaha likely would die down in a week or two—since she’d passed her bar exam, she’d received more than one threat from the losing parties—but something about this particular case triggered every protective instinct she had.

They’re goin’ to hunt you down, bitch.
The feral look in the defendant’s eyes as the bailiffs had dragged his unwilling ass out of the courtroom to start on his five years almost made her think…that
hunt
wasn’t a euphemism. No. That was crazy and she’d left the crazy behind the day she’d turned eighteen and moved out of her parents’ house.

People didn’t beat up people in her world. They didn’t go gunning for you or lay in wait for you or key your car when you wore Michael Kors suits and three-hundred dollar heels. She wasn’t naïve—not after growing up the way she had—but the hurting that went on in her firm and the courtrooms was on a whole different level. People played head games or took their anger out on your yearly bonus rather than on your skin.

Twilight and October made it easier than usual to play Peeping Tom on families through their open windows. Those happy faces crowding around the dinner table gave her a pang of
something
. She didn’t need a husband or kids, but she had no one waiting for her at her place. She’d been lover-less for ten years because she hadn’t had time to deal with her personal life. Hadn’t
made
time because, honestly, she had no idea where to start on the mess she’d made. She’d gone to Vegas and…she might be married. Possibly. Or maybe not, but she hadn’t been able to track down her partner in crime from that evening and ask him what
he
remembered. And, since her own memories were more than a little fuzzy, her Vegas records searches had turned up zip.

Ten more blocks and she’d be home safe.

Something dark flickered in the corner of her eye.

Someone
cursed, a harsh, foul-mouthed word she recognized instinctively.

Keep moving
. The unexpected, unwelcome
shush
of sound behind her meant she had company. Her heartbeat picked up even as her head jumped into the game, analyzing. This was an expensive neighborhood, the homes set back from the street and surrounded by hedges and old oaks. Telephone poles stretched overhead and there was plenty of empty lawn everywhere she looked. The sidewalk came and went, the shadows stretching over well-manicured grass.

She dropped to one knee and listened. Pretended to be tying her shoe and never mind that her heels didn’t come with laces.

Feet padded softly behind her, the quiet slap more doglike than human. She listened for another heartbeat, counting the rhythms that overlaid each other. More than one set of feet and almost certainly canine. She’d never had a problem with dogs here, and she’d paid plenty of attention. One of her least favorite childhood memories involved taking refuge on top of a dumpster behind the trailer park while a neighbor’s dog lunged and snapped. Yeah. She was so
not
into a repeat.

She snuck a quick peek over her shoulder as she got to her feet and started moving again. Something darted closer in the shadows thrown by a hedge of sweet olives. Then another shadow moved in, nearer than the first. The streetlight clicked on, illuminating…fur? A feral dog pack? God, she had no idea what she was dealing with here.

An enormous dog nudged out of the shadows. Did they have wolves in Louisiana? She eyeballed the distance to the nearest house. Two hundred yards and the front windows were dark. Banging on the front door would be unlikely to yield good results. Walking faster, she groped in her bag for her phone and her mace pepper gun. Call 9-1-1. Point the trigger. That was a two-step plan she could work with.

Wishing she’d stayed in the car wouldn’t help. Wishing never did.

The smooth voice of the operator was a welcome relief. “9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

She inhaled, fingers wrapping around the gun. “I’m being hunted by a pack of wild dogs.”

The moment of stunned silence on the other end wasn’t completely unexpected. Gianna was a lawyer. She knew exactly what kind of calls the woman on the other end of the line usually processed. Shootings, stabbings, and bloody mayhem were the dispatcher’s day-in-and-day-out. Dogs, however, were more foreign territory.

She scanned the shadows behind her. “At least four dogs, sixty, maybe eighty pounds each. No visible tags.”

Her estimate might be on the light side. These animals were large and brutish, muscles moving sleekly beneath their fur. They were also fast. The pack split, flanking her on either side. Jesus Christ. They were herding her.

The operator regrouped fast. Gianna gave her that. “What is the location of the emergency?”

“I’m at the corner of Teal and Sanchez. I’m approximately four hundred yards from the open space.”

Open space summed it up, a slice of odd-shaped land the developer had turned into a neighborhood park. In addition to a play structure painted in primary colors, the local kids had access to three tire swings and a truckload of sand. There were also a couple of benches for the parents and some trashcans. Unless she’d developed a MacGyver talent, nothing there would help her fend off a dog attack.

Reacting, not thinking, she dropped the phone and slammed her back against the hedge as the first dog lunged at her. Whipping the gun up, she thumbed off the safety, took aim and fired. Her world narrowed to the patch of sidewalk in front of her and the animals racing towards her. Aerosol goodness exploded out of the can, hitting the lead dog in the eyes.
Score one for me.
The animal growled and fell back, pawing at its eyes.

Shit. Could dogs communicate? Four of the biggest dogs she’d ever seen moved in, trapping her in a loose ring. With the hedge at her back and their teeth at her front, there was no way out but through them. She’d practiced shooting the pepper gun with water cartridges, but fifteen minutes in her backyard hadn’t prepared her for this.

The operator was still doing her thing, a tinny, too-far-off voice blah-blah-blahing out of the cracked iPhone. “What is your name?”

Holy hell. She needed to skip to the “send help now” part of the operator script. “Gianna Lynn. They’re lunging for me.”

The gun’s weak-ass LED light lit up the nearest dog’s face when she aimed the muzzle again. Lips peeled back from its teeth, the fucker looked almost like it was laughing at her. Undistracted by the gun’s light—the manufacturer was
so
wrong on that count—the dog paced toward her.

~*~

Fuck, but Luc hated the city. There were too many humans and, since The Breed had claimed Baton Rouge as their territory, there were also far too many wolves who would just as soon tear out his throat as have some kind of civilized conversation.

Not that Luc was jonesing for conversation, civilized or otherwise.
Non.
His wolf snapped and growled, the beast too close to the surface for quiet. Fate was a son of a bitch for the wolf shifters because, if a male didn’t find his true mate and bond with her, eventually shifting back from his wolf form became impossible. Luc had seen his Pack brothers mated and saved. Now it was his turn because each time he shifted, it took longer and longer to come back. If it had been just him, he would have let it all go. Running wild in the bayou on four legs wasn’t such a bad end. His brothers, however, wouldn’t let him slip away even if he’d been willing to dump his responsibilities as Pack Alpha on their broad shoulders.

He was the Alpha, the goddamned leader of the lot, and so here he was in Baton Rouge rather than deep in the bayou with his Pack, looking for a female he’d met, fucked and mated ten years ago in Vegas. In this particular case, what happened in Vegas had definitely stayed there. He’d let Gianna go, because she’d deserved better than a lifetime stuck with his surly ass, but now…now, he needed to reconsider that decision. Each day the shift from wolf to man got harder and harder. He was hanging on, but will power could take him only so far. Maybe there was something the two of them could work out. Maybe the miracle had occurred, and she really was in the market for a werewolf mate and happily ever after in the Louisiana bayou.

And maybe hell had frozen over.

Which was why he’d stood outside her house—a very nice piece of upscale property—waiting for her to come home from work like he shifted into a pet poodle and not two hundred pounds of feral wolf. Hell. Maybe she’d bring him one of those little pink collars with the faux diamonds and bells, because he didn’t like this situation, with him needing her and her needing absolutely squat from him. He’d kept an eye on her these last ten years through a private security detail he’d hired to keep her discreetly safe. Their reports emphasized her success in the legal profession. She’d be an Alpha there in her own way in another year or two.

She was smart, driven—and always, always on track. So, the fact that it was now thirty-four minutes past seven o’clock was a red flag he couldn’t ignore. Gianna arrived home like clockwork at seven. Fuck. He shouldn’t have dismissed the security detail until he’d actually made the hand-off and taken her himself. The cause could be simple. Car troubles, a late night at the office, a slow takeout pick-up. Whatever. But…Gianna liked her schedules.

He was part wolf. He never ignored his instincts. He’d backtrack her route, house to office. Ten blocks later he had his answer. Gianna was on foot, suggesting car troubles were indeed the root cause of her delay. What he
hadn’t
expected was to find her starring front and center in an ambush.

The stretch of sidewalk was perfectly ordinary, bordered by ruthlessly pruned green hedges and lots of big-ass trees and houses. This was most definitely not the kind of neighborhood where shit went down. Nevertheless, Gianna had her back to a hedge, a small gun in her right hand.

She fired, the pop pop pop an unmistakable call-to-arms, although instead of bullets, the muzzle launched a cloud of vapor. Unfortunately for his mate, using pepper spray to face down a werewolf attack was like adding A1 to the steaks and thinking that might put off the lions.

The stink of the wolves told him plenty. The Breed ran a ruthless biker gang out of the city’s dive bars. They made their money from a combination of drug-running, arms dealing, and old-fashioned intimidation. When the gang rolled up on their bikes, the local business owners ponied up their cash rather than risk a beat down. And that was
without
knowing that the shakedown came from a bunch of wolves. Baton Rouge wasn’t Luc’s territory but he’d still come up here once, maybe twice a year.

Because fuck him if he could walk away from his mate entirely.

She’d sent him a message, asking to meet. Not directly, of course, because she was pretending he didn’t exist. She also hadn’t said
why
she wanted the get-together. Instead, she’d sent not one but three private investigators after him, which was only fair since he’d pretty much done the same to her. None of those men had found Luc because he hadn’t wanted to be found.