Deuce (Swamp Desires Book 1) (7 page)

“So tell me about this Adele. I am assuming that she is a shifter as well.”

“Yes she is; she shifts into a white wolf.”

“You know about the local legend about a white wolf, don’t you?”

“I agree, Deuce. She has to be the one to tell you. I can see that since she has come into your life, you are much calmer. Your beast seems to be under better control now. But I can sense a restlessness in him as well.”

“He is restless. He wants to stake his claim on her now. But, I want to take this slowly with her. I do not want to force or push her into something she may not be ready for. We agreed to take it slowly and get to know each other. When we go out at night, she comes with us. Our animals work very well together. My beast loves working with her. I look forward to each moment I get to spend with her. I wake up every morning with a smile knowing that I will see her.”

“I hope everything all works out for the both of you. You deserve to be happy. We all do. I am so glad that I went with my gut and found Dean. I am so happy and so much in love. I have some news to tell you. I did not know it was possible, but I am pregnant.”

“Wow! That is great news, cuz. I am so happy for the both of you. Congratulations.”

“I am a few weeks along. I still cannot believe it. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever be a mom. We are so happy and everyone is happy about it also.”

“This is great news, Jos. Our family needs good things happening. You are the first of us to find your mate and start a family. If all goes well, hopefully I will be next.”

“Deuce, we want you to be the godfather of the baby. You are the one I am closest to. It would mean so much to us if you would be the godfather of our child.”

“Oh my God, do you honestly think that I would tell you no? I never, ever could tell you no for anything. You always had me wrapped around your finger since we were little. You are more a sister to me than you are my cousin.”

“Awe, you are going to make me cry, and lately I have been crying at almost everything. I look at you, Bastien, Pierre, and Zander as my brothers. We are all we have ever really known while growing up. Yeah, we went to regular schools, but we never could fit in with the ‘normal’ kids.”

“Yeah, we could never really have any friendships with the other boys. The only ones we could relate to were the shifter kids. And those were so few, that we only had maybe two friends.”

“Nowadays, there are so many more shifters than there was a hundred years ago. Being part of the supernatural world is the norm now. Humans are so fascinated by the allure of the supernatural, but there are still some out there who will hunt us down because they fear us.”

We ride the rest of the way in silence, listening to the news on the radio. Of course, they never talk about missing people on the news. We finally arrive at the grocery store. We head in and each of us grab a cart. We head to the meat section first. Joslyn grabs five of each kind of meat there is, except for liver. Then she heads to produce. She then heads to drinks, and grabs all
Coca-Cola
products. Skylar’s favorite and the only thing she will drink is
Coca-Cola
. She proceeds to go down each aisle and fills up both carts to the top. We could not possibly fit anything else into these grocery carts. Holy
merde
! This is a whole lot of groceries. But it feeds eight people. Finally, she grabs five cases of diapers for the babies. She puts them on the bottom of the grocery carts.

As we are just walking around making sure that she has not forgotten anything, she confirms that she has gotten everything she needed to get at the store. In fact, that morning Gabriel went to town to grab milk and eggs, so that was two less things she had to get.

We head to the check out and begin the process of unloading it all so it can be wrung up at the register. It takes the cashier around thirty minutes to ring all the groceries up. The total comes to eight hundred dollars. They do this once a month. The food usually lasts the entire month. Everyone contributes to the grocery bill every month. The cashier ended up having to get another cart to load the groceries into. So we are pushing three carts to the SUV. We start loading the car up. It takes us a while to load everything into the car. We start with the sodas and diapers first. Then move on to the other stuff. Lastly the bread goes on top of everything so it does not get crushed in the process of its ride home.

Once we are done, I look into the car. The only places to sit are the driver and passenger seats in the front. The SUV is packed full. We could not fit anything else in there even if we tried. I laugh and shake my head. “Umm, Jos, please tell me we are going to have help unloading this when we get back to your house,” I plead.

“Of course. Gabriel, Blaze, Dean, and Matthias will help bring it in and help put it all away. There is no way in hell I am bringing this all in on my own. No way in hell,” she replies.

I chuckle. “They would not let you bring it in all on your own, and neither would I. I could call my brothers if I had to.”

We stand there for a few minutes just trying to relax a little bit. We bring the carts over to the cart return. We head back to the car and I notice a very familiar car pull up next to us. I walk over to the car and open the door for the driver. The driver looks startled at first until she realizes who just opened her door for her. She smiles the biggest smile I have seen. Her eyes light up when she smiles. Man, she is just so damn beautiful. She takes my breath away. She turns off her car and grabs her purse and keys and gets out. She leans into me and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I hug her back and give her a kiss on the cheek. It feels so good to have her in my arms. My body instantly reacts to our closeness. I try to keep my hormones under control, but around her it is almost impossible. If I could, I would hold her in my arms forever. But I know my cousin is looking at me, waiting for me to introduce them. Well, here goes nothing. I really hope that they like each other.

“Joslyn, I would like to introduce you to Adele.” “Adele, this is my cousin Joslyn.”

“Nice to meet you finally. Deuce has told me so much about you,” Adele says politely.

“It is so nice to meet the woman who has captured my dear cousin’s heart,” Joslyn says back.

“Since he has told you about me, what do you do for a living, Adele?” Joslyn asks.

I hold her hand while she talks to my cousin. They seem to be getting off on the right foot. Thank God. I was so worried that they would not get along. But, knowing Joslyn and her tiger, she can be very temperamental. Add in the pregnancy hormones, who knows what she will say or do. But so far, she is doing great with Adele. To watch Adele talk about her job is priceless. She is so passionate about helping those kids. Her face just glows when she is talking about it.

“Is there anything else that you can do other than help special needs kids?” Jos asks.

“Well, I am a certified midwife. I have been certified for over seventy years now,” she replies.

“Really? You will come in handy when I am due to deliver in eight in a half months. If that is fine with you?” Jos asks.

“Of course; I would be honored to deliver your baby. It is normal for us to want to keep our existence within the shifter community. Most of us are immortal, anyway, so we may have multiple children over the course of our long lives. So I completely understand you not wanting an outsider in for this,” she states.

These two women are so important to me. I just learned something new about my sweet Adele. I know she is the only one of her kind, but I want to know why. Hopefully, she will tell me soon. The suspense is killing me. But then she has not asked me why I am what I am and how that came about. So we will cross that bridge in time.

“When you get a chance, Adele, you need to come over to the house sometime. The rest of the family would love to meet you. Deuce has told them all about you. I am sure that you have already met the family “Leader” Skylar. She is the head of the family; she keeps us all in line so to speak,” Joslyn says.

“I would love that, Joslyn. I have heard so much about everyone. I would love to be able to put faces to names. Yes, I have met Skylar. She is very special. I would love to get to know her better.”

They continue to chit chat about girl stuff. Okay, this is too much for me to handle, but it is something I need to get used to. Although this is new terrority for me, I am loving every minute of it. I can see Adele and Joslyn becoming really close. They seem to have hit it off and they have a lot in common.

I know I have always told myself that I was not looking for my soul mate. But, I firmly believe, in my soul, that Adele is my forever. I never thought I could let anyone in and give my heart fully to someone. But, I feel that I can, and will, do all those things with Adele. It feels right, holding her hand, looking into her deep brown eyes. Even though we have not been intimate yet, it still feels right to me. The intimacy will come later, but I do not want to rush things with her. I am not one to fuck and run, so to speak. In fact, with her, I enjoy just being in her presence.

In the past week, we have shared a few chaste kisses here and there. I long to do more, but when the time is right. Everything has to be perfect—the mood, the atmosphere—everything has to fall into place. It has to be something that we both want to happen, not just one of us.

“So, Joslyn, what else do you do?” Adele asks.

“Well, Deuce here has enlisted all of us to investigate the sex trafficking problem in this town. So, I am trying to get hold of the local covens to speak with them. We have come to realize that some of the women that are being held are shifters of some kind and they are being imprisoned with silver. Which prevents them from shifting, and it also keeps them weak and easy to control. It seems that a few of these women are potential mates for Deuce’s brothers. So now it is personal, and of the utmost importance that we find these women and put an end to this problem.”

“Oh my! I will help in any way that I can. I have been searching the swamps with Deuce and his brothers on a nightly basis. But, I will keep an ear out for anything that may help us.” She sighs.

“Well, my dear, it was so nice to meet you, but I have a car full of groceries that need to be put away. I will leave you and Deuce alone for a few, then we need to get these groceries back to the house.”

“Again, it was so nice to meet you. I look forward to spending more time with you and the others real soon,” Adele says.

***

Adele

Joslyn walks away to her car and starts it. Deuce pulls me into his arms and hugs me. I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him closer. I seem to never get tired of being in this man’s arms. I wake each day with a smile on my face from just thinking about him.

“Deuce, I am cooking crawfish stew for dinner. Why don’t you come have dinner with me tonight?”

“I would love nothing more than to come have dinner with you tonight. Why don’t I bring dessert? I made a couple of homemade chocolate cheesecakes last night when I got home.”

“Hmm, that sounds yummy. Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts.” 

“What time shall I come over, baby?”

“Dinner should be ready around seven.”

“Sounds great, and I am looking forward to it, my love. Until I see you later. I hope the rest of your day is great.”

He leans in to kiss me. The kiss starts out chaste. But, I pull him in and deepen the kiss. He instantly reacts and takes control of the kiss. I place one hand behind his neck and the other on his back. He has done the same. Each of us are trying to get as close as we can to each other. Our tongues duel in a passionate dance that I have never felt before. I can feel the electricity running throughout my body. The kiss is slow and torturous. It seems to go on forever, which is fine with me. I do not care that we are in a public parking lot making out. As long as he is with me, nothing else matters.

He pushes me up against my car and I wrap my leg around his. I wish there were no clothes between us; the offending material is starting to get on my nerves. His kiss is driving my senses wild. Every sense is on fire from his kiss and his touch. He lowers a hand to grasp my ass and grabs it tightly. The kiss becomes more heated and rushed. Slowly, he breaks the kiss and leans his forehead against mine.

“Baby, you have no idea how much it hurts to stop. I could ravish you here and now. But, we are in public, and my cousin is waiting for me. Sadly, I have to let you go for now, but I promise you, we will continue this later this evening.”

“Hmm, I look forward to spending time with you alone for a change. Since we have met, we really have not been alone. So, this evening shall be very interesting indeed.”

He slowly lets go and I watch as he walks to his cousin’s car. He gets in, looks back to me, and winks and smiles. I blow him a kiss and watch them leave the parking lot. Once he is gone, I slump against my car, trying to catch my breath.

Man, he just takes my breath away. Deuce is the total package to me. He is sexy as hell, an awesome kisser, and he has the biggest heart. Most men would not worry about what is going on in their town, but not him. He wants to make this town a better place for people to raise their families in. He does his part in taking care of the criminals. This man, since the first moment I laid eyes upon him, has melted my cold heart. I have been so closed off from the world. Yes, I get up and go to work, and I love my job, but I feel that now I have something more to look forward to.