Red (25 page)

His hands went to her hips, guiding and helping as best he could while she jumped his bones. Her movements grew erratic as her climax hit and he flipped them over and began a pounding rhythm of his own that drove her even higher. She became one long, never-ending, orgasm of pleasure as he claimed her body, pushing into her with more force than she’d been able to manage in the other position. She loved every minute of it. And when she cried out, it was his name on her lips.

His groan followed a moment later, her name sounding sweet when he said it in just that tone of total and complete ecstasy.

A knock on the bedroom door woke Trisha from a sound sleep. She was snuggled in Steve’s arms when reality hit and she realized where they were and who was likely knocking on the door. Her eyes widened in panic. One of her friends was out there and would likely barge in if she didn’t answer the door.

And then the jig would be up. They’d know she was sleeping with Steve, which wasn’t exactly in character for her. She’d never jumped into a physical relationship with a man so fast. Her friends would be surprised. And probably concerned.

Not to mention they’d tease her mercilessly.

The knock sounded again and Trisha scrambled out of bed, searching helplessly for her robe. She finally snagged it near the foot of the bed. She had laid it out on top of the comforter yesterday but hadn’t worn it and it had slid to the floor in a silky heap.

It took her a moment to sort out where the arm holes were and struggle into the difficult piece of fabric. She hopped toward the door, dodging other bits of their clothing that had ended up strewn all over the room. By the time she reached the door, the handle was beginning to turn. One of her friends was getting impatient. Dammit.

Trisha took hold of the slowly turning door handle and opened it, peeking through a small crack in the doorway.

“What’s up?” Trisha asked, well aware that her voice was scratchy with sleep. She blinked a few times at the light coming in through the window in the hall. It was later in the morning than she’d thought.

“You slept late, so I thought I’d give you a wakeup call. My father is sending the jet to take us home, so we need to leave in a couple of hours. Everyone else is already downstairs, eating breakfast.” Marcia looked suspicious, trying to get a look behind Trisha into the room. “Do you have company?” Marcia’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper as she grinned.

Caught, Trisha felt her cheeks heat with a blush. Damn her fair skin.

Marcia’s eyebrows rose as her grin turned into a full-out smile. “Well, good for you. Is it that hunky Steve? He was all over you yesterday. Is he as good as he looks?”

Trisha knew Steve could probably hear every whispered word with his shifter ears. “Yes and yes. Now give me a few minutes and I’ll join you downstairs for breakfast.”

Marcia backed away, giving Trisha an exaggerated thumbs up as Trisha closed the door and turned the little lock for good measure.

“Busted.” Steve’s amused voice came to her from the bed. After the light in the hallway, she couldn’t see too well. They’d closed all the curtains in this room and they were thick fabric that hid most of the light.

She sighed. “Yeah. This is going to be fun. Half of them will be high fiving me and the other half will be asking if I’m sure about all this.”

Steve stood and came over to her to take her in his arms. He was so warm. So strong. So comforting as he rocked her from side-to-side, hugging her, offering so much support without even being asked. He was a very tactile man, always touching her, stroking her skin, hugging her. She liked it. A lot.

“Don’t get on the plane. Stay with me,” he whispered, and she was so very tempted.

“I want to, but I have to face the music at home and get some things settled with my friends and family. But…” she looked up at his face, all shadows and angles in the uncertain light, “you could come with me.”

His lips widened in a smile and he bent his head to align their lips so he could place a tender kiss on her mouth. “Are you taking me home to meet Mama?”

“Something like that,” she agreed. “But don’t worry. She’s going to love you. Because you love me.”

Epilogue

As it turned out, Steve hit it off with Mrs. Morrow, who insisted on calling him Steven, much to his amusement. She was a dynamic woman who reminded him a little bit of his own mother, though she wasn’t a shifter, of course. For all intents and purposes, she was human, though Slade had confided that Deke probably had some mage blood in his lineage, though it was dormant. Whether that affinity for magic came from his late father or his mother, Steve didn’t know. That wasn’t one of his talents. At some point, Slade or his mate would meet Mrs. Morrow and be able to tell more, but it wasn’t a high priority.

Steve loved Trisha. It was as simple as that. Whether or not she had mage blood in addition to the amazing gifts of her father’s lineage didn’t really matter to Steve. No, what mattered most was that she loved him too.

One thing that had surprised Steve was the sheer number of people watching the Morrow home. There was all kinds of surveillance going on and it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end to be watched so closely. He’d had a talk with the admiral about it when he’d first arrived, it had bothered him so much.

“You get used to it.” Trisha’s father had shrugged. “About half of them are on our side, watching the watchers. The rest are mostly agents of foreign powers trying to figure out what’s going on with our Teams from my movements.”

“It can’t be easy living in a fishbowl. Especially with your abilities,” Steve had observed.

“It’s not, but if I’m to keep doing what I’m doing with the military at this level, then it’s something I have to put up with.”

“Uh, sir…?” Steve had an idea forming as he spoke. “Maybe not.”

“What do you mean?” The admiral looked interested.

“Do you mind if I take a little stroll around the neighborhood? I have a few contacts in the area and it might just be feasible to call on some of them to help give you and your family a little more privacy.”

“Supernatural help, you mean? What could shifters do for us?”

“More than shifters, sir. There are a few bloodletters who actually enjoy covert work, and several magic users that I know personally, in the area. One of them is practically a neighbor of yours. She lives a few miles away, but that’s no distance at all to someone like her.”

“A female?” The admiral looked skeptical, but then the Morrow men all seemed to have a blind spot when it came to women and their strengths.

“Let me talk to her and I’ll see what she says. In any case, you should probably make her acquaintance. She’s part of the local hierarchy. Very highly placed, in fact.”

Steve didn’t want to say more until he’d spoken to Sadie. She was one of his oldest friends and he meant that in every way possible. Sadie had been one of his mother’s dear friends, for all that she was a witch. In that way—and many others—his mother had been very progressive. She judged a person on their own merits rather than allow stereotypes to interfere in her friendships.

Steve reconnoitered the area before visiting his mother’s old friend. They spoke briefly and she seemed interested in learning more about the situation, which was a start. She agreed to look into the magical use in the area around the Morrow’s home, and they would arrange a meeting to discuss strategy if she thought she could help. And payment. Witches didn’t work for free. Even good witches like Sadie.

Steve also made it a point to invite Sadie to his wedding. Once Mrs. Morrow had gotten used to the idea of her only daughter getting married, she had jumped into wedding plans right away. Steve was given the guest room conveniently located in the pool house while Trisha stayed in her room in the main house.

There was no getting past her brothers for midnight rendezvous, which was annoying. Steve would’ve gone insane if they hadn’t been able to sneak off together during the day to supposedly sightsee. The only sight he was really interested in seeing was his mate—naked and ready for him.

They managed to be together enough to calm the beast inside him, but he missed holding her at night while they slept. In only a few days, he’d gotten used to the feel of her in his arms, and now, sleeping alone, he knew something important was missing. Some
one
important. Vital, in fact.

Steve continued to work on the problem of all that surveillance and he went out to prowl at night a few times and ran across a few other shifters. Some of them, he knew. Redstone Construction had a big job site nearby and quite a few of the crew were people he had worked with in the past and knew well. He enlisted their help—once Sadie had laid a few preliminary spells on the area—to help clear out the
rodents
, as he liked to call them.

Without doing anything overt, between Sadie’s magic and the shifter dirty tricks squad, they were able to cut the number of watchers by more than half in just a few nights. Life at the Morrow house was getting easier, but Steve had another idea in mind to help the family. His new family.

He took them on a tour of the housing development already under construction a few miles away on the outskirts of town. It was a Redstone site and it was one of the special ones. The moment they set foot on the site, they were on protected lands. Magically protected.

And everyone working there was a shifter or Other of some kind. It was okay to talk freely, which was something they couldn’t do at the Morrow house, even now that the watchers had decreased in number.

“Redstone builds housing developments all the time,” Steve explained as he took the family on a tour of the site. Several of the homes were complete. Several more were in various stages of completion and yet others had been sketched out with the land cleared enough to begin work. “But a few of our projects, scattered around the country at any given time, are extra special. This one, for example, is going to be a shifter neighborhood, built especially for Others and run by a Council of Alphas of the various Tribes, Packs and Clans that decide to take up residence. Right now, there’s a small wolf Pack, a Pack of coyotes and several raptor Tribes that want to move in. We’re building homes to suit each of them. See the balconies on that house over there?” Steve pointed to a three-story home with high balconies as well as roof access.

“Let me guess,” Deke’s tone was bored, but Steve knew he was thinking back to the shifters he’d met in Las Vegas. Deke had been especially fascinated by the birds. “The decks and railings offer perches to bird shifters.”

Steve nodded. “The family who’ll be moving in there has teenagers. They’re just learning to fly, so they need different levels of relatively safe places to land. You’ll notice all the trees in close proximity to the house in back. We left the old growth specifically so that they had cover and plenty of sturdy branches to learn to glide from.” Steve pointed to another house as they walked down the street. “This one is for the local priestess. She’s an older lady who can’t handle stairs very well, so we built her a ranch-style house where everything is all on one floor. The bathroom has handrails and a special bathtub with a door so she can walk in without having to climb over the side of a conventional tub. She’s a sweet old lady and we want to make life as easy as possible for her—as she makes our lives richer, serving the Goddess and our people.”

“That’s so sweet,” Mrs. Morrow said, looking fondly at the ranch house. “It’s good to see your people take such good care of others.”

Steve let her words stand without comment, but he knew he was teaching the whole family about how shifter society worked. It was an important thing for them to know, since they would now be part of it to some extent. They’d be immersed in it if Steve had his way. But they didn’t know that yet.

“You’ll notice how we separated the raptors from the breeds that might want to hunt them. The priestess’ house will act as a small buffer zone—and a reminder that we don’t hunt each other in the neighborhood.”

Mrs. Morrow looked at him, clearly shocked. “You
hunt
each other?”

Steve laughed. “Only for fun. The youngsters especially like to chase each other around—like kids playing tag. But it rarely turns dangerous. Only if there’s instability or some kind of feud. But then the Alphas would step in and settle things. We all try to rub along together in peace as much as we can while not denying our animal natures. We’re all hunters and we like to chase things. We rarely kill. Our human sides are able to control the desire. And our human sides like our food cooked for the most part.” He grinned, inviting the others to laugh with him. They didn’t really understand yet, but they would. Eventually.

He took them around a corner and soon they were looking at another part of the sprawling neighborhood. This was the part he really wanted to show them.

“The wolf Pack house will be on the next street and that whole area back there will be the Pack section. A few big cat families want homes in this area behind us, and this street will be where all the Alphas live—at the heart of the neighborhood, each on the edge of his own territory. They’ll be neighbors and within close proximity to work out any issues between the different groups.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” the admiral commented, looking at the layout with a critical eye.