Better Late Than Leopard (A BBW Shifter Romance) (Sunset Valley Book 2) (3 page)

Ella

She got off the plane, wondering just what she was going to do next. She had never been here before, had no idea where she was or where she was going, other than the name of the hotel. She hoped it would be enough information. Hailing a cab, she gave the driver the name of the hotel. To her relief, he didn't question her at all, simply pulling out onto the road. Hope flared within her, that perhaps this would be easier than she thought.

The cab pulled up to the hotel around seven. She hoped he would be back there by then, or else things might go a little differently than she had planned. There was a woman working the front counter, who didn't look all that interested in helping her as she approached.

"Hello there, how can I help you today?"

"Hi Cindy," she said, glancing down at the woman's name tag first. "I need some assistance."

"What can I do for you?"

Ella wasn't sure if she should make something up, or just straight spill the truth. After another moment of contemplating, she decided to go with telling the truth and hoping that perhaps this woman would take pity on her and give out some guest information.

"The truth Cindy, is that I messed up bad with the best man I've ever met.  I'm trying to make it right, and I found out from his best friend that he's staying here for work. I need to know his room number, so that I can talk to him. Or even if you could like, connect me to his room via phone if you can't actually give me the number. If I could just talk to him he would come down to the lobby to see me."

She stopped herself abruptly, not wanting to rant on anymore to this woman. To her surprise, the stern look of disinterest that had inhabited Cindy's eyes evaporated as she listened to Ella's story.

"That's rough dear. Let me see what I can do to help you out okay? Do you have a name?"

She gave her his name, waiting patiently as Cindy tapped keys, looking for information. The longer she tapped, the more nervous Ella became. Her heart started racing in her chest while her breaths became shorter.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I don't have anyone by that name staying here. Are you sure it was this hotel?"

"I'm positive on that. He doesn't usually pay for the rooms though, because he's here on business. Are there any rooms under an architect firm or something along those lines? I'm sorry I know that's not much to go on, but I really appreciate it."

With a smile, Cindy went back to work, looking through her room bookings. this time she didn't take long before finding a result.

"I have one room booked as of yesterday for an undetermined amount of time under the company Aerodyne Construction & Design. Would that be it?"

"Yes, I'm positive! Thank you so much!" After she got the room number Ella rushed for the elevators, more excited than she had been in quite some time to see Jake. Whatever it took to set things right, she would do it for him she knew now. There was just nobody else out there for her. It had to be him, or it would be no one, and that wasn't an outcome Ella was prepared to settle for.

She emerged onto the tenth floor, following the sign to the right where it said Jake's room number was located. He was all the way at the end of the hall, but before long she was standing right outside of his door. Her arm wouldn't move. She tried, but no amount of mental force could get her arm to reach up and knock on the door.  Her entire system was freezing, preventing her from doing anything but standing there still as a statue.

"Ella?" The voice of surprise and excitement came from down the hallway. She turned to face it, the fact that she knew the voice intimately only hitting her later. There, emerging from the elevator looking dashing in a suit and tie, was Jake.

"Ella what are you doing here?" He rushed up to her, enveloping her in a hug. Some mechanical part of her brain managed to respond, her arms hugging him, softly at first, but then harder as she began to realize this really was happening.

"We need to talk about this," she finally responded, forcing the words out.

"Yeah, sure. Let's talk, I've been wanting to talk since you drove off, I'm so glad to see you're willing to talk." He rushed the words out as if afraid she would run off. Again. Then he just stood back and waited for her to speak.

Feeling a little silly, she looked around them, at their location. This definitely was not the ideal place to be talking about his secret. Turning her gaze back to him, she wondered how long it would be before he clued in.

Blinking at her stare, he finally seemed to get it. "Oh, umm yeah, did you want to come inside?"

"Yes, please." She almost giggled out loud at his obliviousness sometimes. He was so eager to make things right with her, that he was not thinking about the rest of the world. It was cute to know even after she was so rude that he still seemed to care for her so much.

"I'm sorry Jake," she said finally as they were seated in the lounge area of his suite. She wasn't sure what else to say, but first and foremost that had to be said. Even as the words tumbled off her lips, a weight seemed to remove itself from her shoulders. Things could progress normally now, they could make things right between them.

"I'm sorry too, Ella. I thought you knew. I would never have done that if I thought it would scare you."

"It's okay Jake. I realize it's not your fault, though I may have acted like it at the start. In hindsight, analyzing why you changed in front of me told me that you had thought I knew."

"Absolutely. I was going to try and tell you that I had no intentions of harming him, only scaring him off. Obviously I didn't get that chance though."

"Yeah, sorry again about that. But Jake listen, this has been bugging me so much. Why did you think I knew? We never talked about that at all. Ever. I feel like it's something I would remember."

He eyed her speculatively there for a moment, almost as if he wasn't sure whether to believe her or not.

"Ella, what's the name of the place that set us up?"

"Paranormal Param-" Her jaw snapped shut as the pieces finally clicked. The name of the dating site, Stacey's cryptic comments about the certain types of people they cater too. It all made sense now.

"How did you even find that site if you didn't know about us? It's quite hard to find for a reason. Only those who go specifically searching for it are supposed to find it."

"I don't remember Jake, I was just filling out so many at the time. I just recall seeing it and liking the name and pictures on it. I never clued in at the time that the animals were for more than just show. Jeeze I feel like such an idiot now!" She smacked her palm off her head, frustrated that it had taken him laying it out in front of her for her to make the connection.

"How long have you been able to, to - " she struggled with the right word to call what he could do. 'Change' just didn't seem to work well enough to describe his ability.

"We call it 'shifting' in our world," he supplied gently, not wanting to commandeer the conversation, instead content to let her speak.

"How long have you been able to shift Jake? That's just incredible, I didn't realize that it was actually a thing."

They talked long into the night about him, his abilities and how hard it was to live with. Her heart ached by the end, wanting nothing more than to comfort him. She couldn't imagine growing up an outcast, completely unlike anyone else she ever met. For her, it was hard enough being curvy and finding someone who would not only accept her, but love her for it.

Eventually, curled up on the couch next to each other, she fell asleep in his arms. There was a feeling of rightness in the world now, even if he wouldn't be able to come back to Sunset Valley for some time. She couldn't stay here, but at least knowing that things had been set right with him allowed her to sleep peacefully.

Jake

In the morning, he left Ella asleep in the bed, where he had carried her some time after the two of them had fallen asleep. It was tough to drag himself away from her gorgeous body, but he knew he had other duties to attend to as well.

Walking in to work, he laid out his plans in front of Doug.

"This is what you're going to have to do if you want this project to work. You aren't going to like it, it's going to cost you some more money, also you'll have to ensure that someone qualified oversees the job."

"What do you mean someone qualified Jake? That's what we hired you for?" Doug was thoroughly confused as to what was going on.

"I can't do this for you any longer, I'm sorry. I have other commitments in life, and I need to put them first this time. I've solved the problem for you, now just get someone who isn't the idiot you hired in the first place, to do it right." He ignored the wincing from the original architect who was sitting in another seat at the table. At this point in time, his focus was on Ella, and nothing else.

"Thank you for offering me the contract Doug, but I have to go. Call the flights and hotel as payment for solving his mistake in the first place." With a firm nod of his head, he strode from the office, never turning back. For the foreseeable future, Jake Masterson was no longer an architect. He was simply a friend, lover and shopkeeper for
Carving's & More
. His cheeks ached from the smile on his face the entire way back to the hotel.

There he found Ella just starting to rise from bed. Nudging her good-naturedly, he teased her about sleeping in.

"Get up you lazy bum. We have the whole day ahead of ourselves, and it's looking like it's going to be gorgeous. Let's get a move on! We have three hours to kill before we have to be at the airport for our flights. Do you want to do some sightseeing?"

"Do I?!" she exclaimed, practically jumping out of the bed.  "It's been so long since I last travelled. No way I'm passing up the chance to spend a few hours touring around with you." She raced into the shower, getting herself ready in what seemed like, to him anyways, record time for her.

Bags packed and ready, they headed down to the lobby. Jake made sure to set an alarm, so that they could come back to grab their stuff with plenty of time to catch the airport shuttle and make their flight. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck another day here. He wanted to be home, with Ella.

As they wandered around downtown, she asked him more questions about the shifter community. He avoided telling her that Max was one as well, but he thought she had picked up on that fact all on her own. She was quite intelligent he noted to himself, not for the first time.

"I love you, Ella." He froze as the words tumbled out of his mouth. He had been thinking of saying it, but had not meant to actually say so. Now he panicked, trying to think of a way to let it slide off humorously, without freaking her out.

"You didn't mean to say that, did you?" she asked, looking up at him, eyes twinkling.

"Uh, no, no not really. I mean, I was thinking it, but I didn't want to freak you out, or make you feel uncomfortable or anythi-" he stopped speaking as her lips found his, her hands raking through his hair, preventing him from pulling away. She kissed him long and passionately, making her point thoroughly clear.

"I love you too Jake," she said as they parted, adding words to her actions for good measure.

"Really?" His cheeks flushed at the stupid question, but she simply laughed and punched him lightly in the shoulder.

"Yes really, you goof! Now come here." She kissed him again, not caring about the comments or catcalls from passerby. This was her man, and she was going to show him she cared dearly about him as well.

Things seemed to be going well for him once again. Their flight home passed uneventfully, even miraculously arriving a few minutes early. The two of them decided to go to Jake's house for the evening. Ella had told work she needed a few days off for personal reasons, so she did not need to go back until the following week. It seemed to him, that the both of them had something else in mind besides relaxing.

He hadn't even made it in the door before she was after him, her hands grabbing at his crotch, pulling him towards the living room. She didn't even want to go the full distance to the bedroom a corner of his mind noted. The rest of his brain was focused on just what her hands were doing to his rapidly hardening cock.

"Come here," she whispered to him playfully as he pretended to resist. A small grin on his face, he let her pull him close, using his weight to take them both crashing into the couch. She laughed out loud in delight before his lips closed on hers, muffling all silence for the time being.

When their lips parted, he left a pattern of kisses down her cheek before finding the soft, tender flesh of her neck. Giving it a soft nip, which elicited a cry of pleasure, he then kissed all along her neck and collarbone, immensely enjoying the low moans coming from Ella. There was just something so sexy about a woman indicating that she loved what he was doing to her, all of which was heightened by the way he felt about Ella.

Her fingers tore his shirt off with smooth ease before they started to dig deep into the muscles on his back every time his lips touched her exposed skin. She practically went wild the first time he purred in response to her touch. A wicked grin creasing his face, he moved lower with his lips, pulling her shirt down to expose the beautiful roundness of her full breasts.

His hungry lips found her rapidly hardening nipples, taking them into his mouth while his tongue flicked gently over them. He didn't fight her as she wrapped her arms tight around his head, pulling him in close while arching her back for him. Questing around her back, he easily undid the clasp of her bra, letting it fall completely out of his way.

Pulling back slightly, he admired the gorgeous sight in front of him, drinking in her nakedness for as long as he could. Before long, her insistent urging had him continuing his exploration southward, much to the delight of Ella. This time he didn't have to do anything to help her out of her clothes. The skirt she wore simply slid off when he touched it, falling clear of her legs without effort. Much to his surprise, she wasn't wearing anything underneath.

"Expecting something, were you?" he whispered evilly as his lips followed a wandering line up the inside of one leg. He stopped just short of where she wanted him, instead switching to the other leg, once again meandering his way up, following the trail of heat to her pussy.

"I'm expecting something right now, and you had better deliver it or el-" her voice cut off, ending in one long moan as he finally made contact with his tongue. For the next while she didn't say much, simply gasping and making pleasurable noises while he did his best to please her.

After some teasing, he slipped a finger inside her, quickly bringing her to orgasm. A wash of wetness spread across his face as she writhed under his touch, her climax utterly arousing from his point of view. He had to fight hard not to simply stand up and take her, instead waiting until she had finished convulsing before he moved to penetrate her.

He slid forward, her lips wrapping around his cock tightly, while she begged him to push all the way. More than happy to oblige, he buried himself completely, reveling in the look of shocked pain on her face. Instead of pushing him away though, she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, pulling him in even deeper.

Jake's body began to heat up as their hips ground together, her cries mingling with his growls. He could feel the pressure in his cock building, knowing it wouldn't be long before he erupted inside of her. Ella seemed to pick up on it, urging him onwards, telling him she wanted it.

That was enough for Jake, and with a groan his cock began to pulse, sending stream after stream inside her. With a cry, Ella began to shudder and writhe in time with him, her own climax triggered by his. Completely spent, Jake rolled onto his side, bringing her with him, so they could look into each other's eyes. They fell into sleep like that, neither of them remembering who passed out first, only the look of happiness in each other's eyes.