Untamed: An Alpha's Promise (Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance) (6 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

She chewed her thumbnail ragged on the way home, pushing the Jeep harder than she had in months as she raced for Parker, for safety, for things that made sense. In her bag was the pregnancy test she’d bought as soon as she’d left his parents’ house. She’d texted him as she pulled out of the drugstore parking lot:
On my way home. We need to talk.
Now, with a white-hot rock of anxiety lodged firmly in her chest, she sped towards the desert sanctuary and prayed that her body was merely reacting to stress.

He was pacing in the kitchen when she came in, the same anxiety she felt all over his face. When she moved to embrace him, he squeezed her tightly and buried his face in her hair. “You had me really worried,” he murmured into her curls.

“It’s okay. I just had a rough day, and then I went and saw your parents…” She paused. “A rough day doesn’t begin to explain it,” she corrected herself, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill for the hundredth time that day. “Christopher threatened to fire me.”

She felt him tighten against her and heard his angry intake of breath. “Why?”

“Because I wouldn’t break things off with you. He said I have to end it with you or lose my job.”

But Parker sensed she was hiding something before she even got the courage to look him in the eyes. “Christopher’s an asshole, but that’s not everything, is it? What’s wrong?”

“Parker, I—” It couldn’t be a worse time to say anything.
He’s going to be even more upset when he hears this
, she thought.
This isn’t the right time for this…

“Baby, come on…” He tipped her face up, his green eyes searching hers for hidden hurts.

It burst from her. “I think I’m pregnant!”

For a moment he said nothing. “Are you serious?” he asked in a strangled voice.

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes filled before she could blink away the hot tears.

Instantly he pulled her against him, back into his safe embrace. “Don’t cry,” he begged hoarsely. “Please don’t cry.”

“How can we have a baby?” she wept. “How can we bring a child into this… this
mess
? We’re not married… we’re not officially Mated… I’m about to lose my job and both our fathers are—” Her tears soaked the front of Parker’s shirt as he stroked her hair and tried to calm her down.

“Baby, please… it’s okay… please don’t cry. Hey… look at me.”

She shook her head and bawled harder, pressing her face into his chest and sobbing great heaving sobs.

“Charmaine.” He rarely said her name, only when he was very serious, and it made her look up. Gently he wiped her tears, his thumb swiping them from her flushed cheeks. He kissed her damp eyelids, then cupped her face between his strong hands and looked her straight in the eyes. “First of all, you don’t know for sure that you’re pregnant, right?”

She shook her head. “No. But I’m pretty sure,” she replied miserably. “I bought a test on the way home and I was going to take it before I told you. I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Oh, Baby…” He smiled sadly and kissed her again. “What about
you
worrying? You should never go through that alone. We’ve got to talk about these things.”

“It’s just really bad timing.”

He grinned wryly at that. “Our whole relationship is bad timing. I think that’s just life. Or our life, anyway. But I promise it’s going to be okay.” He rubbed his nose against hers until she smiled, and then he kissed her again, so sweetly she thought she’d start crying all over again.

“Now what? Doctor’s appointment?”

“I have a pregnancy test in my purse,” she sniffled.

“Good. Let’s go take it.”

“You mean…
together
?” She froze with the box halfway out of her bag, still hidden in drugstore plastic.

“Yeah, of course.” He looked confused.

“It’s not instant, you know. You do it and then it takes…” She removed it from the bag, ripped open the package, and quickly scanned the directions. “Three minutes.”

He chuckled. “That’s pretty instant.”

“Okay, but…” She blushed. “I’m gonna pee on a plastic thing. It’s kinda weird for you to watch me.”
Awkward…

Parker smiled gently. “I’m going to watch you give birth to a baby, either nine months from now or some other time,” he reminded her. “I don’t think watching you pee is such an issue. And I can stand outside the door if that would make you feel more comfortable.”

“Okay.”
You’re not even pregnant,
she scolded herself as she forced herself to smile at Parker
. You’re just paranoid, and your period was late because you’re stressed. You need to pee on the test stick, get this over with, and go cuddle in front of the fire with your gorgeous boyfriend.

“I’ll give you some privacy if that’s what you want.” Parker kissed the top of her head and left the room, and Charmaine gathered all her courage and opened the package.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

The next five minutes were the longest of Parker Kreuger’s life.

He’d left the bathroom to give her some privacy while she did the test (why it would have been so weird for him to stay, he didn’t know, considering she’d seen
him
pee about a hundred times), only to have her frantically call him back in just seconds later. His knees ached from pressing against the tile floor as he kneeled beside her while she wept through the whole process. She didn’t seem to want to leave the safety of the bathroom and she wouldn’t let him leave, either, so he set the timer on his phone for the required three minutes and they stared at the stick in silence.

“I’m not… pregnant.” Her quavering voice broke the silence. She looked so vulnerable sitting there naked on the toilet seat, shoulders hunched, her hair falling around her like a veil. “I’m just late.”

“What if you’re not just late?” he probed gently, smoothing her hair back. “Do you want to have this baby?”

“It’s your baby.
Our
baby. Of course I’ll have the baby. I just don’t know how good I’ll be at this…” Tears spilled from her blue eyes. “I’m only twenty, Parker. I’ve never babysat in my life, and I don’t even have little brothers or sisters. I’ve never even changed a diaper. All I’ve ever done is sell farm machinery. What if I’m horrible at this?”

She was breaking his heart. He’d been so stupid, thinking about how sexy she would look and how proud he was going to be to know she was carrying his baby, and she was worried about the real things: how to take care of an infant, whether they would make good parents, how difficult it was going to be to balance careers and raising children. They really hadn’t discussed any of it, not yet. They’d discussed it in the abstract many times in bed, but this was different. This was real. She wouldn’t even agree to move in with him, and now she was having his baby?
Fuck!

“You’ll be so good at it,” he promised. “You’re good at everything.”

“I’m not pregnant, anyway,” she sniffled, squeezing his hand. “But I love you for saying that.”

“Should we check?” He needed to know. He wanted her to be pregnant, wanted this to be happening, not just because it meant they could start a family but because he knew about the loophole in the treaty and knew what the pregnancy would mean for them.
Freedom
.

“I can’t look.” She looked like she was going to be sick, and it felt like a kick in the gut. He knew she wasn’t as excited as he was about this but he wanted her to be a
little
excited.
She would be if she knew
, he chided himself.
She’s just in shock
.

“You read it.” She thrust the stick at him and he took it from her trembling fingers. Inhaling deeply, he closed his eyes for a second, said a silent prayer, and brought the plastic up to his face.

And there it was, digital confirmation.
Pregnant
.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

He forced himself to speak first. “We can do this.”

She was ashen, stunned. “Oh my God.”

“We’re already know we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. We already said we’d have kids, someday. So we’ll do this a little earlier… it’s ok—“

“My parents will kill me.”

Your parents will kill
me, he thought just as she said it.
If someone else doesn’t first, like Jamison.
But she didn’t need to know there had been rumblings of dissent within the pack, that he worried each day about his Beta building a faction against him within his own pack. There was enough on her plate.

He took a deep breath. He hated saying it with every fiber of his being--even thinking it made his stomach turn--but he couldn’t bear to see her like this. “If you really can’t handle this right now, then I’ll support you…” he began slowly, “whatever you decide…”

“No!” Her eyes flashed at him, the first real anger he’d seen from her since the night they met. “Never. Don’t even think a thing like that!”

He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “I’m glad you don’t want to. I don’t want that either, but I would never force you to do anything you weren’t comfortable with.”

“Parker…” she lamented. “How can you be so sure?”

“Easy,” he said softly. “You’re the woman of my dreams. I’ve been in love with you since I was a teenager, when I first saw your eyes in a dream.” He traced the curve of her jaw, the swell of her bottom lip. “Let’s not think too hard about this, okay? Things are going to be fine. We’ll figure it all out long before this baby gets here.”

Finally he lured her out of the bathroom and into his bed, where he spooned behind her, his face buried in the familiar scent of her hair. He cupped his hand protectively over her belly, and after a few moments she covered his hand with her own. The last thing he remembered as he drifted off was Charmaine’s whispered apology.

“I’m sorry, Parker.”

And he knew it was time to make her understand just how serious he was.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When Charmaine woke up, Parker was propped up on his elbow, watching her with the strangest expression on his face.

“I love it when you’re here with me,” he murmured, stroking her hair from her face.

“Me too,” she admitted, recalling the night before and trying not to tense beneath his touch. He pulled her against him and she burrowed deeper into his arms, inhaling his familiar scent. He was holding her tenderly but his body was stiff against hers, and when she pulled back to look at him, his brow was furrowed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just…” His face was serious, his eyes clouded in pain. “I hate this. Separate lives, all the secrecy. I hate that it has to be that way. I love being here with you in our little love nest, but I want to be
out
with you. I want to go to the grocery store together, take you out to dinner, pick you up from work sometimes. I want to be able to enjoy your successes with you, and the hard things, too, without hearing about them second-hand when you come home.”

“I know,” she sighed, feeling him relax a bit as he spoke.

“A couple weeks ago you experienced the most important moment in your professional life, and I couldn’t be there. I wanted to be there to support you, Baby. I’m so sorry I couldn’t be.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not, though. And now it’s not just us.”

“This is where we should be having all our serious talks,” she sighed as he cuddled her against him, tucking her head against his chest as they stretched out together, their legs twined.

“Don’t change the subject,” he growled, touching her fingertips with his own one by one as he so often did after making love, threading their fingers together before bringing her hand to his lips.

Parker was quiet for several long moments as he held her to him, her cheek nestled against him. Finally he spoke. “I love our life together,” he began, “but I want it to be bigger. More. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this whole thing with your dad--with both our fathers, really--is that life so much shorter than we think. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and forget what matters.” He kissed her knuckles, rasping them against his scruff before tucking her hand against his chest, covering the steady thumping of his heart with her palm.

“
We’re
what matters,” he continued. “You and me, and children--this baby, and more, whenever they come--that’s what matters. It’s bigger than us, too. We’re Mated for a reason, I have to believe that. It isn’t just random. There’s some purpose for us being together.”

She smiled and nodded against his chest. “I believe that, too.”

“And because of that,” he pressed on, “I want to make it official, you and me, in the eyes of nature and the law. No more talking about it in the abstract. No more putting it off for a better time. I know we can’t do it the way we want to with everything like this, but just to know…”

Her heart galloped as he tilted her face up to his and captured her mouth with his. “Marry me,” he murmured tenderly. “It’s so right between us. I can’t imagine anything else in my future if you’re not a part of it.” Parker gazed down at her with so much love that she thought she’d overflow with happiness.

And despite her protests about moving in together, she couldn’t stop saying yes, not even when he pulled the little velvet box out from underneath her pillow and slipped the exquisite emerald over her knuckle with unsteady fingers. She held his face in both hands, crying and laughing and covering him with kisses until they nearly tumbled out of bed. When Charmaine reached for Parker to pull him back to her, the light caught the emerald and it twinkled at her.

She barely admired it before sliding her hands under his t-shirt, desperate to be skin to skin with him. He took the cue and drew it off over his head, exposing his toned torso as he cradled her against him, his lips covering hers in a tender kiss. She inhaled his familiar scent, pine and wind, and ruffled her fingers through the dark thatch of hair on his chest. With one finger she traced down the furry length of the trail until it disappeared beneath the low waistband of his sweatpants. Parker sighed as she took her time exploring his taut abs, her fingers making little circles on the velvet skin. In his throat he made hungry little noises, feral and needy.

When her fingers danced over the straining, fleece-covered bulge, he groaned and covered her mouth with his, crushing her to him, and she responded eagerly to his raw kisses. “You’re wearing too much clothes,” he growled as her fingers deftly freed his erection.

“Shhhh…” she murmured against his chest and began kissing her way down, closing over his flesh every now and again for a taste of him. She smiled at his sharp intake of breath when she laved her tongue below his navel. His face twisted in pleasure as she nibbled him through the thin fabric barrier of his boxer briefs, inhaling his musky scent.

“Ahh, Baby… ” His voice was thick with lust. “Gorgeous little tease,” he groaned as she nuzzled, her hot breath driving him so crazy that he squirmed, bumping his bulge against her open mouth. She slowly drew his pants down, and he arched his hips up so she could tug them over his ass and down around his ankles before peeling the navy cotton briefs away. His cock bobbed eagerly against her parted lips.

With a little sigh of contentment she flicked her tongue at the swollen head, swiping at the shiny drops of pre-come that beaded there, before sucking him all the way in. Inch by glorious inch she lowered her mouth on him, so that finally he lodged against the back of her throat. She held him there, keeping slight suction, loving the way he looked at her with so much desire in his gaze and made strangled little groans in his throat. Slowly she moved back up his shaft, working him with her tongue as she traveled up to nuzzle the crown, her eyes never leaving his.

“You’re beautiful to watch,” he murmured, twining his hands through her hair, pulling it away from her face so he could gaze at her while she sucked him with deliberate strokes. “That’s good… Ah, fuck, that’s good.” She varied her pace with her hands and mouth so that she brought him to the edge several times, his fingers tight in her tangled curls, before he finally stilled her.

“Take this off… I want to see all of you,” he begged. His hands were already peeling her t-shirt from her skin, his breath coming in ragged gasps. She hadn’t made up her mind whether she had it in her to tease him some more or whether she just wanted him inside her, but she knelt above him as he pulled her clothing from her and skimmed his hands over her breasts. Under his palms her nipples sprang into little peaks, hard as marbles, and she felt the glistening drops of desire forming between her folds as her stomach cramped with desire for him.

No more teasing,
she decided
.
I need him inside me.

She straddled him and the length of him slipped through her juices, slicking his thick cock as it rubbed tantalizingly against her, pressing against her swollen bud. He groaned and ground himself against her, falling into a maddeningly slow rhythm that sent little shocks along the base of her spine. With every stroke his erection skimmed over her clit and dove through her slippery folds, rocking her in waves of bliss until she thought she would faint from the prolonged ecstasy. She struggled to keep herself upright as he moved her up and down against his shaft, coating himself with her fragrant essence. Her knees threatened to buckle and her thighs trembled with need.

Parker reached up and took her face between his hands as he rolled his hips in time with hers, building and building the pressure. She shuddered as he stroked harder and when he positioned the head of his cock at her moist entrance, seeking access, she cried out in frustration until he was inside her. At last she was filled by him, stretched, her walls seizing him as he entered her. Her lips covered his this time, and he groaned with the contact, devouring her in return as he began thrusting inside her, every stroke building an elusive tingling network of shocks throughout her.

Lying nearly flat against his chest, she was unable to move on her own and just rode his movements with him. His hands clutched at her ass and spread her cheeks, oblivious to her squirms. The little flame of desire in her kindled and rose until she was engulfed in its combustion as his fingers slicked through her wetness, brushing into the sensitive crevice of her ass and teasing her tight, puckered opening. She jolted and shuddered, surprised at how much that taboo touch thrilled her. Writhing against his cock and his fingers, begging him to make her come, she struggled on the lee until without breaking contact he flipped her over and drove into her, groaning as he thrust again and again.

“All mine,” he gasped, fucking her into the couch, his face alive with both pride and lust. He had never looked more gorgeous to her than he did now, covered in a thin sheen of sweat so that he almost glowed in the morning light, his green eyes fierce and possessive on hers. His muscles rippled under her hands as she clutched at him. “Say it!” he urged. “Say it, Baby—”

“Yes!” she choked as her orgasm crested, “I’m all yours, Parker!” And then she cried out and buried her face in his neck, muffling the rest of her violent sobs as the pleasure washed over her, dragging her down and down until everything else disappeared in the vortex of her climax. Mere seconds later, he stiffened and shuddered against her, twining his hands in her hair and groaning her name into her neck as he rode his climax, whispering over and over that he would love her forever before finally stilling himself between her clutching thighs.