Primal Song (17 page)

“I love you,” she gasped when he let her up for air. He rested his forehead against hers, their breath mingling, their gazes locked. “I didn’t want to because you scare the shit out of me, but I do love you, Ram.”

The skin around his eyes crinkled when he grinned. “Same here, baby. I’m never letting you go.” He squeezed her ass, tugging her even closer. “You’re mine, Daisy.”

She kissed him lightly on the lips. “And you’re mine.”

*

“I can’t believe you’re getting married to Ramsey Reinhardt!” Kitty squealed in Daisy’s ear.

She’d finally emerged from her haze of love and lust two days after being released from jail. As soon as Thomas let them out, they’d raced to Ram’s house—soon to be her home—and proceeded to christen every room. The big brass bed in Fleur’s old bedroom had become their favorite and Ram had enjoyed every minute of being handcuffed to the headboard.

She stared out the windshield of her cruiser, smiling at Kitty’s excitement. Going back to work as if nothing big had happened proved impossible. The entire department had cheered when she walked through the door. They’d plastered every available surface with still shots from the surveillance camera of Ram and Daisy kissing passionately.

Hell, it still made her cheeks burn to think of it, but she found it was more with pleasure and happiness than embarrassment. Her mother was ecstatic and already driving everyone crazy with wedding plans. Poor Zack Trahan had threatened to leave town if her mom didn’t give him some space.

“Measurements so I can get started on your gown,” Kitty said, breaking into Daisy’s thoughts.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Kitty laughed. “I said, you need to give me your measurements so I can get started on your wedding dress,” she said slowly and carefully. “Aunt Claudette is only giving me a couple of months to make it, you know.”

“But I thought you were coming down for the consultation and stuff?” Daisy asked, trying to hide her disappointment.

“I know and I planned to, but I had something come up and I won’t be able to get out there except right before the wedding.”

It was a plausible reason for Kitty not coming home sooner, but Daisy’s ears detected something else in her cousin’s voice—dread. She closed her eyes as some of her happiness faded.

She hadn’t been to see Monk yet, not after the arrest and euphoria, but it hadn’t been for a lack of thinking about him. Ram still insisted she couldn’t do anything to mend the breach between Monk and her cousin. Daisy didn’t like it, but she agreed. What had happened had hurt all of them. She might have forgiven Monk for being so arrogantly stupid, but Kitty might not. While Daisy understood his reasons, she didn’t know if Kitty would.

Instead of telling all, she asked, “You’re still coming to the wedding though, right?”

“Well, you know how things are, spring collections coming up and—”

“You promised to be my maid of honor,” Daisy reminded her with ruthless precision.

“I was eight when I made that promise.”

“And? I never asked anyone else and I never would. You’re like a sister to me. You
have
to be there.”

Daisy knew she was playing dirty, but there was no way she could get married without having her best friend at her side. If Kitty proved stubborn, she’d call Aunt Francine and cry.

“I—”

She didn’t hear what Kitty said because a stretched-out Hummer rounded the curved highway leading to Maison Rouge. Daisy stared at it. She’d seen them while in New York and New Orleans, but nothing like it had ever appeared in Maison Rouge.

The limo slowed to a stop on the road next to her car. The driver’s window rolled down and revealed an older man with a confused look on his face.

“I’m looking for Ramsey Reinhardt’s house. Do you know where it is?”

Of course they were looking for Ram. He was the only one in the entire tri-parish area who might know someone who’d travel like this. She instantly thought about the reporters who’d kept calling the station.

“I do,” she admitted. Something stirred in her stomach, a queasy knot of dread she tried to ignore. “Who’re you driving?”

The older man’s eyes rolled. “A gift from one of his band mates.”

The window at the back of the Hummer slid down and a heavily made-up face appeared. “Just tell him where we can find Ram, officer.”

Daisy’s heart stopped. “We?”

The female rolled her eyes and mumbled something like, “Stupid small-town cops” to someone else in the vehicle before turning back to Daisy. “Yeah, me and the other girls.”

“Daisy? What’s going on?” Kitty asked loudly, reminding her she held the phone to her ear. “I heard someone pull up and you growled.”

“If you’ll just tell us where we can find Ramsey, ma’am,” the driver inserted with another roll of his eyes, “we’ll be on our way. I have eight of them back there and they’ve been driving me insane since we left the airport.”

“Eight what?” Kitty demanded to know, her sharp hearing picking up the driver’s voice, but not the woman’s.

The backdoor of the Hummer opened and a foot clad in a five-inch heel landed on the pavement of the highway, followed by another. And another. And another as women spilled from the limo. Their skintight dresses barely covered their breasts and asses. They all wore more makeup than Daisy had owned in her entire life and had bodies like the ones she saw on television.

“Kitty?” she rasped in a low tone as the flock of women started toward her car.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“I’m about to kill someone.”

*

Ram frowned at the lyrics he was working on, not sure he’d picked the right words. It was missing something, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He dropped his pencil on the sheet of paper and sat back on the sofa to look at Fleur’s painting.

He couldn’t write pissed-off songs when he was happy. And he’d never been happier than he was now. Daisy was everything he could ever hope to have in a mate. The last two days had been, for a lack of a better word, perfect. Just because she’d agreed to marry him didn’t mean she was meek and submissive.

In fact, he’d discovered his mate had a very strong dominant streak and he loved to let her exercise it in bed. He grinned at the painting and remembered how close he’d come to losing his voice beneath her brand of “retaliation”.

A knock interrupted his daydream. Heaving a sigh, he got up to answer it, figuring it had to be another one of the people of Maison Rouge. They’d been stopping by the past couple of days to wish him and Daisy well, or to meet him to make sure he was good enough for her. Ram found it frustrating, yet amusing the way the townspeople had reacted to Thomas and Claudette’s announcement.

He opened the door and grunted when he saw Monk standing there. “What do you want?” he asked without interest as he returned to the living room.

“Is that any way to greet the male who helped you win your female?” Monk asked as he entered and closed the door behind him.

Ram frowned. “What are you talking about? I didn’t need your help for anything.”

“
Au contraire
, who do you think let your future in-laws know you were at Daisy’s house?” he asked as he sprawled into a high-backed chair.

“What?”

Monk didn’t seem bothered by Ram’s ominous tone. “After we talked the other night, I started thinking you were right. The only way I’m going to work things out with Kitty is for her to come home.” He shrugged. “So I stopped by Daisy’s parents’ house the next morning and had a nice chat with them about the two of you.”

Ram blinked at the self-satisfied smirk in the other male’s eyes. He and Daisy had figured her parents had stopped by for an impromptu visit since Ram had parked his car out of sight but neither of them had thought for a single second Monk was responsible for it.

“Brilliant, huh?” Monk boasted with a grin.

“I don’t know whether to shake your hand or beat your face in,” Ram wondered aloud.

“No thanks needed. But when Kitty comes home, I want Daisy to stay out of it.”

Since he’d already talked about it with his mate, Ram had no problem agreeing. “Sure. But if you ever interfere in my relationship with my mate again, I’ll rearrange your face. Got it?”

Monk snorted. “No problem, man. Now that Daisy’s settled, I won’t have to worry about her temper—” The peal of Ram’s cell phone interrupted the rest of what the cougar had to say.

Ram grabbed his cell because the ringtone was Daisy’s. “Hey baby,” he said, ignoring Monk’s rolling eyes.

“Ram,” she said in a cold tone that made his skin pebble. “I think you need to come out to the highway, there’re some people who said they’re here for you.”

“Ram!” a female voice called out. “It’s Tiffany from Shooters!”

He froze, his eyes wide with horror. Shooters was the name of the club Saber always used for their album release parties. It wasn’t unheard of for their parties to leak over to one of the band members’ houses where it became a free-for-all of sex and drinking. Of course that hadn’t happened in at least five years, but the females were always clamoring for a “thrust from a Saber”.

“Yes, Ram,” Daisy said in a deceptively sweet tone that barely masked her cold fury. “Tiffany, Katherine, Tina—what was your name honey?—Jennifer, Amanda, Kimberly, Lydia and Beth are all waiting for you to come.”

The feminine laughter that followed her words was cut off by the click of the call ending. Ram stared at his phone in horror. He didn’t recognize any of the females’ names, but when he’d fucked his way through the Shooters waitstaff, he hadn’t asked for them. Any of those females could be telling his mate about his wild past right now.

Suddenly Monk was in his face, his eyes bright. “What the fuck happened?”

Ram stared at the cougar, unable to focus on him. “I think my present from a band mate came in.”

The other male frowned. “And that’s why you’re as pale as a ghost? What kind of present is it?”

“The kind that’ll destroy my life with Daisy.” He sank onto the sofa and buried his face in his hands. “They’re groupies. Well, they’re waitresses at a club the band goes to frequently. I haven’t been there in years, but it doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure Trick, my bass player, sent them here to help with the sexual famine he obviously thinks I’m suffering from.”

Monk sprawled next to him. “And they’re no doubt telling Daisy all about the wild life y’all have back in LA,” he supplied without any inflection in his voice.

But Ram heard the condemnation in Monk’s voice. “Yes, dammit! I’ve had sex with a lot of groupies over the years. I’m in a rock band for fuck’s sake! But none of them matter, they never did. We all got what we wanted; just a quick fuck for fun and that was it. Daisy isn’t like that for me.”

“Have you told her that? Does she know she’s more than that?”

He squinted a dark look at the cougar. “She knows I love her.”

“But does she believe it?”

Ram stared at the cougar, looking for some hint that Monk knew something he didn’t. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re going to have to show her how much you love her or she’ll never believe you.”

The seriousness in Monk’s voice and face told Ram this would be the most important moment of his life. He had to make it count.

“I need to make a few calls and then I need you to drive me out to the highway.”

There was no way in hell he would let Daisy go because of some stupid stunt his friends pulled. He didn’t care what the females told his mate, she wasn’t leaving him.

Chapter Ten

Daisy was cold down to the marrow of her bones. Kitty must’ve called her mom and dad because as soon as she’d hung up with Ram, three squad cars rolled up along with her mama’s truck.

The stripping troupe stood next to the Hummer staring at the cops protecting them from a very pissed-off mama bear.

Her dad was doing his best to calm her mother but with little result. Daisy’s mama seemed determined to teach the “mate-stealing hussies” a lesson in manners. Though most of the females were shifters, none of them made a move to confront the pissed-off bear.

Her mama started to rant again, but Daisy stepped up and touched her shoulder. “It’s not their fault,” she said quietly despite feeling the need to go on a mauling rampage. “They’re doing what they’re used to doing.”

Sorrowful brown eyes lingered on Daisy’s face. “
Cher
,I’m so sorry,” her mom rasped, dragging her into her arms. “I will skin the lion for doing this to you.”

“It isn’t his fault either,” she sighed. “This is the kind of life he has. It’ll always be this way with women chasing him.” Daisy wasn’t nearly as calm as she let everyone think. Her fury burned like ice and settled deep in her bones. If these women thought they were going to take her mate, she’d show them why bears were apex predators.

“That’s bullshit. He’s your mate and he needs to do something about this.”

Daisy silently agreed. Ram needed to be here to settle this before she did. She didn’t want to think that he would accept his “presents” with open arms, but it was hard to let go of years of distrust toward men. On top of that, to have this happen in front of her colleagues and parents was like something out of a nightmare. At least when she’d cut things off with Kyle, they’d been alone. His harem hadn’t come out to taunt her and he hadn’t introduced her to them. Knowing each of the females standing next to the limo had touched, tasted and enjoyed her mate was worse than any pain she could have imagined.

She’d had to purposely turn off her emotions to keep from slaughtering them. The bear roared, furious and vengeful, but Daisy held her beast back. If she let the animal loose, she’d destroy what little dignity she had and wind up in jail.

The sound of a familiar engine roared along the highway. Daisy pulled out of her mom’s arms, determined to stand on her own. If he’d known about this, there was no way she’d take Ram back after this. They would be through. If she had to, she’d move. Maybe go to New York and get a job with the NYPD. Kitty would put her up.

Monk’s Mustang roared around the curve followed by three news vans. Daisy blinked. Great, just fucking great. Her mortification would be complete now, aired all over the country.