Bear My Baby (Shifter Squad Six 1) (4 page)

Her hands traveled down his chest and abs, worshiping the magnificent piece of art his body was. Connor kissed a line down her neck, making her giggle a little as his slight stubble tickled her. A low growl hummed at the back of his throat as he hooked his fingers between two buttons on her shirt and then ripped, sending buttons flying in every direction.

“Hey!” she protested softly as he pushed the creamy shirt off her shoulders, but her words quickly turned to moans as he pulled down one bra strap, exposing her breast, and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

“What?” he asked, teasing in his voice as he swirled his tongue around the sensitive nub, making her squirm in his hands.

The only sound she could make was something between a squeal and begging, pushing herself closer to him. Her hands reached down to his belt, undoing it far smoother than she thought she ever could. Any bit of modesty she might have ever felt around men was completely gone when it came to Connor. She took what she wanted and right now, she wanted to see if his cock matched her perfection of the rest of his body.

When she pushed his pants down his hips, right when Connor easily undid the clasp on her bra and took it off of her, she was rewarded with the confirmation that he wasn’t all talk, but had
plenty
of substance. Instinctively, her hand closed around the thick base of his huge cock, reverently rubbing it up and down and feeling the bulging veins under her fingertips as her hand moved over it.

“Shit, you’re big,” she cursed, something she also never did.

But today was a day of firsts. Getting shot at. Rappelling from buildings. Fucking a guy she didn’t even know. Look out, there’s a whole new Cassie in town.

“I told you,” he said, his voice straining. “I never lie.”

“God, you’re full of yourself,” she sighed, pushing her head back as he kissed the sensitive skin between her breasts and then pushed her back on the table.

Connor unbuttoned her pants and pulled them off along with her panties and her boots, revealing her chocolate body to his hungry gaze in all its curvy glory. She thought she should have felt shy, maybe a little awkward, but there was none of that. Instead of shying away, she spread her legs, letting her scent and her obvious arousal be seen clearly.

“You’re going to be full of me, honey,” he said, smirking like the demon that he was.

Cassie bit her lower lip, looking at him from under lowered lashes. He shucked off his pants. Connor was the perfect picture of a man she would usually
never
screw. Arrogant, hard, impossible. A bad boy. She looked at the dark loops of a tattoo that ran up the length of his left arm and spread across his left pec, warping and turning into other tattoos that she couldn’t wait to discover. Only then did she notice the wound that had left a deep graze on his arm before was already almost healed.

She frowned for a moment, her mind skipping a beat, trying to understand how the hell he could have healed so fast. All of that was brushed aside when he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her toward him on the table. His eyes burned with need and he licked his narrow, inviting lips, looking like an animal waiting to pounce.

Her breath caught in her throat, but this time she didn’t mind one bit. When the thick head of his cock pressed against her wet slit, the last little sound of sensibility squeaked something about protection, but it was completely lost under the scream of pleasure as he pushed in for the first time. She was on the pill. Dangerous special operatives weren’t allowed to run around with STDs, right?

Any kind of rationale that she might have had disappeared as he pulled back a bit and then thrust deeper, splitting her around his width.

“Fuck,” she whispered, running out of air to scream.

“I will,” he said, chuckling and leaning closer to her with his arms on either side of her.

A bead of sweat formed on his forehead and she saw those same hard lines on his face that she’d admired on that damned rooftop, but this time she couldn’t stop looking at them. Slowly but forcefully, he drove into her, making her clutch onto him with her thighs to not slip too far. Her moans were a cacophony of squeals and screams and little purrs as he worked himself deeper and deeper, making her back arch and her nails scratch down his sides and chest.

He felt
so
good. Like nothing she’d ever dared imagine, like the kind of men you could only dream about. Like the kind of sex that was only in movies—raw, hard, perfect.

When he bottomed out in her, she got the most intense feeling of fullness. His heavy balls slapped against her ass as he pulled back and thrust back in again, gritting his teeth. She clung to him desperately. Wanting it. Needing it. Loving it.

“Damn, you’re tight, honey,” he hissed between clenched teeth, sending butterflies flapping through her like some sort of a deranged hurricane, tightening every one of her muscles. “You feel
so
good,” he said, that voice of his dropping so low it was barely more than a guttural growl.

It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and her core tighten and throb. Whimpers spilled from her lips as he rutted into her. He was now starting to pound into her with the hunger of a man left famished for far too long. Cassie hid her head in the crook of his neck, screaming at the top of her lungs as he screwed her like it was the last time either of them were ever going to have sex. And it might as well have been, because Cassie couldn’t possibly imagine that it could be any better than that.

“Oh my God! Connor!” she wailed, not sure why she was calling for him, but it didn’t matter, either.

She dug her nails into his firm, muscled back, ripping so deep that she was sure to leave marks. Twisting underneath him like she was possessed, she reached that peak where she couldn’t fight it anymore. Everything warped and tightened in her and bright sparks shimmered between her closed lids as she gave in, cumming all over his cock and milking it with haggard, jerky movements.

“Shit,” he growled, any bit of restraint gone.

He pulled almost all the way out and then plunged in again, deep and fast, slamming into her with animal need. And when he shot his load in her, Cassie still convulsing around him, he let out a roar that shook the damn cabin from what she could tell.

Both of them gasped and heaved for breath. For the first time that day, Cassie felt like her lungs were completely open, like she could inhale all the oxygen in the world with one gulp. Connor wouldn’t pull out of her and she kept her legs locked around the small of his back, letting his narrow hips dig into her soft thighs and the delicious curve of her ass.

If I could stay like this…

A bead of sweat trickled down his neck and his skin was dewy as he grinned, looking like he’d gotten into the honey pot and was harboring only ill intentions toward it.

“Told you you’d be full of me,” he said, cocking a brow and smirking.

CHAPTER SIX

Cassie

18 months later…

Monroe screamed at the top of his lungs, running through the front yard barefoot and chasing a ball. It bounced and rolled carelessly from one corner of the grassy area to the next, bounding off the fence and letting the child give chase with renewed enthusiasm.

Cassie looked up from her reading, chuckling under her breath.

“Make sure you don’t fall, baby,” she hollered at him, though she might as well have been reading scripture to pigeons for how much that kid was listening to her right then and there.

She slouched on the table with one elbow, enjoying the heat of the warm midday sun. It wasn’t too hot yet, but she knew the heat was coming any day now, so not even the cool ocean breeze could make her yard habitable. So she was spending as much time outside as she could, and with Monroe, that wasn’t a hard thing to do.

Though, as usual, there was that tiny bit of paranoia in the back of her head, telling her that someone could be watching at any moment. It never really went away.

He loved being outside. Even when it was dark and the moon was climbing high in the sky, she’d often find him standing up in his crib, staring out through the window as if transfixed. Whenever he was in a bad mood, taking him outside would clear that right up. It was like having the cheapest nanny in the world. She chuckled as he launched after the ball again, giving it a good hard kick and stumbling right behind it. He toppled over on his hands and knees but before Cassie could get up to go help him, he’d already picked himself up and bounded after the ball like his little life depended on it.

Cassie sunk back in her chair, shaking her head. Her phone rang and she jumped a little as she grabbed for it. She still wasn’t used to it. She hadn’t had any contact with almost anyone for a year, and only five months ago had she started going out again, talking to people. It wasn’t for her own sake, but Monroe needed it. He needed to know there were other people in the world other than his mommy and the nice Amazon delivery guy who would bring them most of their stuff.

The name Adelaide flashed on the caller ID and Cassie smiled, taking the call.

“Hey!” she began, keeping her gaze on Monroe as he frolicked in the yard.

“Ellie! Hey! I was hoping to catch you,” the cheerful voice on the other end of the line said.

Cassie cringed slightly, hearing her new name. But she could imagine the smile on Adelaide’s lips as she spoke. The vivacious blonde was nothing but joy and trouble rolled into one tight, curvy package.

Not like I have anywhere else to be,
she thought with a modicum of glumness, tossing a look at her pile of research and her MacBook sitting idle, waiting on her to write another copywriting article for a website that paid nowhere near enough.

But single mothers on the run from a faceless evil looking to kill them couldn’t be choosers, right?

“What’s up?” she asked, swallowing the distaste that the name “Ellie” still made crawl up her throat.

“Well, you know how you’ve been saying you should start dating again?” Adelaide began, her voice sugary sweet and full of traps.

Cassie could smell a cleverly concocted plan a mile away when it came to Adelaide, and she definitely had some tricks up her sleeve this time.

“I remember
you
saying that I should start dating again. And I remember me firmly saying no to that, seeing as I have a toddler and a job that takes up all my time and the house—”

“Nonsense! You’re young, you’re gorgeous—at least you will be when I get you to put on anything but sweatpants and actually do your damn hair—and your life can’t end because you had a baby!” Adelaide said, obviously having rehearsed all her objections beforehand. “I’m not taking no for an answer. You told me you want to get out more. So I’m going to get you out more. Tomorrow night. We’re going out for drinks and we’ll get sexy and we’re going to
love
it, okay? It’s this or I’m going to make you use SassyDate!”

With a sigh that sounded far more like early resignation than Cassie dared admit, she lowered her eyes to the book she was reading and then looked at Monroe again. Going out sounded damn nice. She’d barely seen San Francisco and she’d been living there for what seemed like forever already. The only real human interaction she’d been getting, not counting her precious baby boy, was online, chatting on writers’ communities and trying to learn the craft as fast as possible to make a decent living for herself and her son.

“But what about Monroe? I don’t have a babysitter and I don’t know anyone I can call. You know my family isn’t in the picture anymore,” Cassie said, selling the lie that had been drilled into her head when she’d been inserted into her little suburban townhouse.

It still sent a twinge of regret shooting through her, knowing she could probably never see her parents again, or her sister. But at least she had Monroe. And exactly because she had him, she wouldn’t risk exposing herself to anyone. Especially because she didn’t even know who the hell she was running from, let alone whether they were still chasing her or not.

“Don’t worry about that none, babe! My sister’s free and she’d
love
to keep an eye on your little angel. Bring him over at six to my place and we’ll get ready together. And you can also make sure that Amanda isn’t some winged and horned devil sent to devour your baby,” Adelaide announced.

Cassie could see the good-natured roll of her eyes through the damn cellphone.

“Fine,” she said, smiling slightly. “We’ll be there. Six tomorrow.”

“See you then! You won’t regret it!”

Oh, she was sure she was going to. But Cassie was going to go anyway. It was bad enough that she was almost growing roots in the house, but Adelaide was right. She had to start feeling human again. Even if that seemed like an impossible feat at that very moment.

Dark thoughts pooled around her, snapping at her ankles and threatening to drag her down. That night. The last ragged breath that Jonah drew. The rooftop. Him.

Cassie shook her head quickly, standing up and going over to Monroe. She picked him up and hugged him close, walking toward the backdoor.

“Come on. Let’s grab dinner.”

Monroe looked exactly like him. It made it that much worse. And that much better.

***

“That looks so cute on you!” Adelaide squealed, taking a sip of her wine cooler and thrusting Cassie’s in her hands as well.

She almost fumbled, grabbing for it, but managed to not spill it on the ruby-red dress that Adelaide had squeezed her in. Tentatively, she took a sip, looking at herself in the mirror. Well, she did look okay, if she had to have an opinion on anything. Cassie turned one side and then another, scrutinizing herself sternly.

“It’s okay,” she said non-committally, hiding the smile that she got when Adelaide’s eyes almost bugged out of her skull.

“Okay? OKAY?! That’s an Adelaide Nash
original,
so you know. Not everyone gets to wear one of these. And so we’re clear on this—you look hot. Smoking hot. Like a red hot mama.”