Marrying Her: The Keeping Her Christmas Wedding (The Keeping Her Series Book 5) (6 page)

Demon growled one more
time and then fell on her like the starving man he was.  He pounded into her
tight sheath and took those salt-tinted lips, claiming his mate all over
again.  It was lucky that Clytie was already so close because he was not going
to last long.

When he felt Clytie quake
and scream into his mouth, he thanked his fucking stars and let loose.  Then he
was shouting his own pleasure and she swallowed it down.

They kissed and clung
while their bodies cooled and he held her as tight as he could get her, not
caring about the sweat that cooled on their slick skin or anything else.

“Shit,” Demon said a while
later as something occurred to him and he pulled back.

Clytie’s lip twitched.  “Always
such a romantic,” she murmured, kissing his jaw line as he turned to look
around them in the bed.  “What is it?”

“I lost the fucking ring,”
he muttered.

Clytie started laughing. 
He took a moment to glare at her briefly, then started shoving aside pillows
until he found it.  The small piece of expensive as fuck rose gold looked
ridiculous in his hands.  He moved back over until he fully covered the still
laughing Clytie.  He grabbed her left hand and yanked it up, shoving the ring
on the ring finger before he lost the thing again.  He heard Clytie stop
laughing, and felt her go still, but he was looking at the ring on her finger. 
His mark – for all to see, human or shifter.  Yeah, he fucking wanted that.  He
turned intent eyes to her face and found the tears had started up again.

“That look,” she started
and had to swallow before she could continue.  She fingered the ring on her
hand, moving it to catch the light, and then her eyes went back to his.  Her
words as soft as the look she was giving him.  “This means something to you.”

“My mark,” he growled
out.  The satisfaction in his voice was answer enough.

She folded her ring hand
into a fist and tucked it close to her heart.  “I’ll marry you, Demon.”

Too fucking right she
will,
he thought.  Kissing her hard, he felt the weight of
her rejection finally slip off his heart, and let her go on thinking she
actually had a choice in the matter.

By the time Clytie and
Demon made it down for breakfast the house was overrun with Lionsgate pack. 
Save for Eli and Logan, everyone was there.  Clytie looked at the full kitchen
where Ian and Liam were gracing two of the bar chairs, while Cassandra and Mac graced
the other two. Ian was doing his best to make Cassie laugh and Ben was wielding
his spatula and flipping pancakes.  Miley was sitting on Lucas’ lap in the
living room, and Cleo and Shawn were standing close together against the woodland
backdrop spanning the wall of windows.  As usual, when she was around, Roxy was
standing with Cleo pointing out at the playground set you could just see around
the corner of the house. The guys had built it for her birthday.  It was a
thing of beauty for sure.  With a fort, excuse me
den
, fit for a wild
thing high up in the trees, swings, a slide, and even a teeter-totter and sand
box, all made by hand and decorated with wood carvings of mystical beasts and
forest creatures.  She had no idea how long it took them to complete, but she
did know they hired a local artist to help with the finishing work and
carvings.  When Demon had mentioned a playground set, she had pictured
something plastic that you screwed together, and she had thought it a sweet
gift then.  But the reality?  Yeah, she could see Roxy wanting to show it off
every time someone came by, even if they had seen it before.

Clytie took in the lot of
them and narrowed her eyes on her mate.  “Something I should know?”

Demon shrugged, his eyes
taking in the same thing she did.  Before he could answer Roxy was running at
them, Shawn and Cleo right behind her coming at a more sedate pace.  Roxy hit
their legs with a squeal and held her arms up.  Clytie laughed and Demon picked
up the seven-year-old, hefting her high so she squealed again.  Clytie laughed
and then turned to see that Lucas and Miley were no longer on the couch but standing
right in front of them with Cleo and Shawn beside them.  Everyone was smiling.

“Congratulations,” Lucas
said presenting his hand to take Demon’s, but his eyes were smiling and on
Clytie.  “This will be the first ever wedding in our pack.  I never got the
chance to express this when you mated, but I am thrilled that Demon found
someone I would be honored to call pack.”

“Thank you,” Clytie
licked her lips, touched by his words and the sincerity in his eyes, but
confused all the same.  “But I just agreed to marry Demon this morning; how did
you get here so fast?”  She turned suspicious eyes to Demon.  “When did you
make this thrilling announcement?”

“Never mind that,” Miley
said, seeing the look on Demon’s face and jumping in.  “Let’s see the ring.”

She heard Cassandra gasp,
before practically bowling over Ian as she jumped from her bar stool and came
at them.  She grabbed Clytie’s left hand and raised it, looking at what Clytie learned
was a rare champagne morganite surrounded by that spiraling halo of diamonds
set in rose gold.  She got wide-eyed and then they actually teared up when she
raised them to look at Clytie.  “Oh, Clytie . . .”

Clytie felt her own eyes
start to fill with that one look of happiness from her cousin.  “I’m getting
married!”

Then they both squealed
and jumped into each other’s arms, ignoring the way the males moved away as
fast as possible, and barricaded themselves behind the kitchen island.  Clytie
was too busy celebrating with her cousin and best friend a milestone in her
life that she had never really expected to reach for herself.  And mainly
because she refused to settle for anything but the real thing.

“Let me see the ring,”
Cassie said, wiping away her happy tears while Miley moved closer so she could
see, too.  With Miley and a slightly less enthused Cleo looking on, she raised
the ring hand.  Cassie grabbed it and turned it this way and that.  Then they
all turned to look towards the kitchen at Demon.  “How did you manage to get
the perfect ring?”  She kept going, and you could hear the clear surprise in
her voice.  “I mean without my help?”

Demon was drinking coffee
as far away from them as he could get without leaving the open area of the
great room and kitchen.  He shrugged.  “I described Clytie to the sales person,”
he muttered, and then when they all blinked at him without saying a word, he
growled a little under his breath, “What?”

“You described her?”
Cassie asked, her head going to the side as she studied Demon, then at the
ring, and back at Demon.  “What did you say?”

He huffed a bit but
Clytie felt his eyes hit her and she knew he had to see the question on her
face as well.  “I just told her about you.”

“Oh, I can tell you what
he said,” Ben said from his place by the now crowded island.   “Mac and I were
there for that bit of poetry.”  From the way he said it and the way Demon hissed,
she didn’t know what to expect but it was not what she got.  “He told the
little human that Clytie was short, curved like a fucking dream, and while she
had a temper she also liked to laugh.”  Demon put down his coffee and started
towards Ben with intent.  Ben moved around the island ahead of the beast
stalking him. His smile had an evil curve to it.  “He also said she had a light
inside her that warmed everyone who came into contact with her.”

“He did not say that,”
Cassie said, her mouth falling open.

Clytie had to agree, that
didn’t sound like Demon.

“Okay, he didn’t,” Ben
said laughing as Demon stopped and growled at him. Clytie rolled her eyes and
sighed.  Then Ben lowered his voice in a growly impersonation of Demon.  “He
said ‘she lights up the fucking room just by stepping into it.  Now can I see
some fucking rings?’ Then he said, ‘That’s her, right there.’ And pointed at
that one.”

That Clytie believed, and
if she wasn’t already crying, she would be now.

“Oh,” Cassie said, her
own eyes dampening again as she turned and smiled big at Clytie.  Miley had a
soft look on her face when she patted Clytie’s ring hand.

“It’s beautiful,” she
said quietly.  “And it’s perfect for you, but then the description was right on
so it would be, wouldn’t it?”

Clytie opened her mouth
but nothing came out.  It was not lost on her how having such acceptance and
kindness made her feel after seeing her biological family again.  She smiled at
the other woman but was distracted before she could speak.  Her eyes were drawn
to the look in Demon’s eyes and the macho farce unfolding in the kitchen. 
Before Demon could go after Ben with intent, or any of the other males that
were now looking at him with varying shades of teasing intent, Clytie walked
into the kitchen and into her mate’s arms.  They wrapped around her like they
always did – immediately.  Demon forgot about everyone else and just hugged her
close.

“Thank you, Demon.  Don’t
kill Ben.”  She heard Ian cough the word “whipped” behind her and held a
stiffening Demon tighter, “Or Ian.”

It was Crow who spoke
from the door before anyone else.  “We have humans at the gate.”  And that was
that.  Everyone was all business.  Well, at least the men were.  They
disappeared with quick kisses all around and headed for the control room. 
Cassie took over the pancakes and the women took over the kitchen as the men
went to investigate, well, the men and Cleo.  Liam and Ian stayed where they
were.  Watching the women in varying degrees of lechery (Ian) and awe (Liam).

Ian smiled a big smile at
Clytie that promised nothing but mischief, while Liam watched them all and said
nothing, his eyes taking in everything as if he had never seen the like before.

“Do I get to kiss the
bride?” Ian asked, his eyebrows waggling suggestively.  Honestly, if he was not
so very young and pretty, some woman would have killed him years ago.

“No,” she said bluntly,
and then had to smile when he looked so disappointed.  “I like you too much to
sick Demon on you.”

“No kidding,” Cassie
mumbled, flipping another pancake on the ever-growing stack.  Roxy dragged one
of the big heavy solid wood dining room chairs over to the stove so she could
help.  It was not the first time she had seen the small child do that, at least
this time she was not staring open-mouthed at the child’s shape-shifter
strength.  Cassie tucked her up close on the chair and helped her pour the
already mixed batter.  Between the pouring and the flipping. she wasn’t sure
which made the most mess when Roxy did it.  Clytie was wondering why Cassandra
seemed overly satisfied at each spill and dribble when she had to know Ben was
going to lose his mind.  She liked a clean kitchen as well as the next person,
but Cassie’s mate took it to OCD extremes.

“You do know that Ben is
going to see this mess eventually?” she asked Cassie, watching another glop of
batter hit the stove top.

Cassandra threw an evil
smile her way and waggled her eyebrows.  “Oh, yeah.  And I’m not even going to
wipe it up before it dries like that.  He’ll go
insane
.”

“And this is a good
thing?” Miley asked absently watching them, but her eyes seemed to stick to
Clytie no matter what was going on.

“Absofreakinglutely.”

“May I ask why you are
trying to drive one of your mates out of his ever-loving mind?” Clytie asked,
watching Roxy stick her tongue between her teeth and concentrate on pouring the
batter perfectly, and splattering it around the pan anyway.

“Two reasons,” Cassie
said, starting the next rasher of bacon going.  “One, he swore left and right
that he was
not
up to something, when clearly he was very much in the
know if he was freakin’ ring shopping, and two,” she reached over and covered
Roxy’s ears with both her hands.  Her smile got decidedly wicked.  She waggled
her brows again, “When he gets mad. 
Bow chicka bow wow
.”

Liam spewed his coffee
all over the island.  Ian wiped at his arm and looked at him in disgust.  “Dude,
what did we talk about?”

“Victoria’s Secret
models?”

Ian smacked him upside
the head.  “The other thing,” he muttered.  When Liam just looked at him, and
then his eyes immediately went back to Cassie at the stove more than once, Ian
sighed.  “Attempt to be cool.”

“Right,” Liam answered,
but you could tell his mind was on other things.  Cassie caught his glazed eyes
and rolled her own, going back to the pancakes.

“What,
by all that is
holy
, is happening here?”

Oops.  Ben is back. 
His
eyes took in the mess in his kitchen, then the evil grin his mate was flashing
him, and narrowed.

“Yes, dear,” she asked, “you
wanted to say something?”

Everyone heard the low
growl before he started prowling forward.

“Who was at the gate?”
Clytie asked, trying unsuccessfully to mask her laughter.

Mac came in behind Ben.  “Your
sister is here.  Crow didn’t recognize her.”

Clytie lost her smile.
 Why
would he?
Clytie thought.  Her sister had avoided her new home like they
carried the plague.

Mac gave her a
sympathetic look, then switched his attention to Ian.  “Jordan is with her.” 
He gave Ian a hard look.  “Off limits to you, cub.” His voice was no nonsense
and the promise of mayhem was in his smoky eyes.

Clytie looked at the boy
man in all his golden muscled glory, with that face and those eyes, and the
suggestive smile.  “Oh, no,” she muttered, hearing her sister coming down the
hall, while everyone but Demon piled into the family room. 

“I don’t know why you
never told me about this place.”  Even Clytie could hear the heated whisper and
Jordan’s answer.

“I figured you would come
see for yourself if you really wanted to know.”  The tone was pure teenage
angst, but the voice was both totally female and smooth as silk – pure Jordan. Clytie
could almost feel the sharpening of male teenage eyes at her back.

“You don’t have to be
snippy, young lady.  I have a lot on my plate.”

Before Jordan could say
anything else, Demon led the two women into the room full of shifters, which
felt weird, like two worlds colliding.  Sara looked around at the large
assembly of the Lionsgate pack and halted in her tracks, her eyes getting very
big.  Jordan was right behind her.  She was used to Mac and Ben, but this would
be the first time meeting most of the rest of the pack.  Clytie was proud; the
teenager managed not to let her mouth hang open, but it was a near thing.  “Oh,”
she snorted out a little laugh and came to a stop, “hello.”

“
Hello,
” Ian
purred the word back, and more than one pair of male eyes turned to glare his
way.  Though Clytie thought privately that Demon’s was the scariest, what with
the growl he added in warning.  Ian didn’t even notice; he was too busy
drinking in the long length of Jordan’s stellar legs in her short denim skirt,
black tights, and knee-high boots to pay attention.  Poor Liam choked on his
coffee again, his eyes gazing over at the sight of her beautiful teenage
niece.  For her part, Jordan was looking around the room with a small smile on
her face, going from hotty to hotty as if she was trying to choose the hottest
man in a room full of major fire starters.

Sara just looked stunned.