Claiming Her (Keeping Her Series) (18 page)

She was still watching
her when Lucas snagged her hand not holding coffee and pulled her into his
side, tucking her under his arm.  “Miley, this is Bernie.  She takes care of
the house and everyone in it.” Miley felt a squeeze around her waist; then he
turned her toward the older woman.  “Bernie, this is my mate, Miley Isabella.”

The woman sniffed.  “Wolf?”
she asked, her brow raised.

“Latent.”  Miley said,
her own jaw firming in case she reacted negatively to that.

Instead, she nodded.  “Good. 
Won’t have to deal with even more hair on the furniture.”  Miley blinked, and
all the guys including Lucas chuckled.  Miley felt her own lips going up when
the woman spoke again and she lost her smile before it formed.  “You need to
treat your clothes better than that though.  Took me half the day yesterday to
get them sorted.”

Miley turned and glared
at Lucas, who had the audacity to chuckle again, and did not, she noticed, turn
and set the record straight.  So she did loudly and with an elbow to his gut
that had him grunting through his laugh.  “
Lucas
thought it would be a
good idea to help me with my packing.” She glared a promise of retribution his
way.  “It will
not
happen again.”

Bernie harrumphed
again, gave Lucas a glare of her own and turned and scooped up a plate of
pancakes, handing them to Miley.  “Sit,” she said, motioning to the breakfast
table surrounded on three sides by windows.  “Eat.”

“Thank you,” Miley
said.  “It smells wonderful.” And it did, like warm butter and maple syrup, with
that yeasty home scent underneath. 

She reached for the
plate and was pulled back just enough for Lucas to kiss her forehead before he
released her and she took the plate to the table.  The others were just
collecting theirs when Lucas’ cell rang.

“Yes?”  he answered.  They
all watched as his face lost its humor and his eyes shifted to gold.  Then he
snarled.  He looked at Miley as he spoke hard into the phone.  “Just get the
others here.  I’ll call Cleo myself.”  There was a short pause while he was listening. 
“She may not pick up for you, but she will sure as hell pick up for me.”

He hung up and did some
deep breathing, head down, while he tried to control his temper.  Miley stood
and joined him, her hand going to his arm and squeezing.  “Lucas?”

“Cleo was with Logan to
pick up the others.  She was with them all the way until the airport here.  As
soon as she dropped them off, she disappeared.  She left a message for Logan
that she had something to do and was taking a day to do it.  Off the clock.”

“She’s going to spread
the word.”

“Be my guess,” Eli said. 
Since it was clearly not an emergency, he commenced eating.

Lucas glared at him but
he ignored it.  “I’ve got to call her back.”

“Lucas.”  Miley’s voice
was tentative.  “Remember what we discussed.”

“If you think I don’t
know you predicted this would happen you’re wrong, but we are on lock down, now
is not the time for this.”

Miley was uncertain
there would ever be a time, but she kept that to herself and watched Lucas’
face get harder and harder as the phone rang, and his daughter did not pick up.

Since Cleo never
answered her phone, Eli set Logan on her electronic trail.  All their planes
were equipped with tracking, and Cleo would have had to file a flight plan with
the small airport, which of course Lucas owned.  They found out quite quickly
that her plane was in the air and on the way to San Francisco.  If that was
where she was actually headed, no wonder she was confident that she could get
there and do her business in a day. 

Immediately, Lucas
seemed to calm.  Knowing his daughter was only a short plane ride away was
soothing to his nerves.  It did nothing to change the fact that he was going to
have to adjust his thinking where his daughter was concerned or she would be a
lot farther than that.  At the same time, she was part of his pack/pride.  As the
alpha, his word was law.  He needed to figure out how to keep his daughter and
curb the instinct to dominate all at the same time.  It was a daunting task. 

While they waited for
the rest of the pack to drive from the airport (no way they would all fit in
the chopper), Lucas disappeared.  When Miley went to find him, he was brooding
out the big picture window in the library that had its own secret walled garden.

“Why doesn’t your
library look out into the courtyard like the rest of the rooms?”  Miley stood
just behind him admiring the view.  She had no illusions that she had snuck up
on him, only that he had let her walk across the floor without looking at her.  “Not
that the hidden garden affect isn’t stunning.  I’m just wondering why you had a
separate garden with walls put in.  I like your views of the vineyard.”

“This is where I work
when I’m home.  I have to take into account that long range cameras could pick
up what I am working on if I didn’t have the wall there, and I did not want to
wall in the house like I did the property because I like the views, too.”  He
turned his head to spear her with those blue eyes.  “Feeling better?”

“Some.  You doing okay
with the Cleo thing?”

“No.”

Miley stepped closer
until she could rest her head on his arm, her hand hugging his elbow as she
offered her support in a lean.  “Yeah.  I expect that it’s going to get worse
before it gets better.”  She looked up to find his eyes still on her.  His
expression blanked.  “You’ll figure it out Lucas.  You’re too good a father and
pack leader to mess this up.”

“My daughter is out
there alone when I could have sent her with back up.  How is that not messed
up?”

“Are you seriously
standing in this room alone bludgeoning yourself with all the things you could
have done differently?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you send someone
to San Francisco to get Cleo?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you were
right.  She needs to do this and I need to let her.  But if she doesn’t call me
in the next three hours, I am sending Logan after her.”

“She’ll call.  She said
what she had to do would be a quick in and out, with the word in the right ears
to get that ball rolling.  As soon as she does that, she’ll call.”

“She’d better.”

Miley hugged his arm
closer and felt a chill at his words.  Let’s hope that Cleo calls.  Otherwise,
Miley had no doubt her father would lose his ever-loving mind and then the
fight would begin in earnest. 
Come on, Cleo, be smart here.  Call your father
when you get the job done.
  There’s asserting your independence and there’s
going against your alpha.  One means they talk and hash it out.  The second
means they both lose their cool and it’s World War III, kitty style.

“You look like you’re
awake enough now,” Lucas said into the short silence that followed.  Miley was
busy in her head but the change in his voice from cold to warm had her blinking
up at him.

“Enough for what?”

“Do you have any idea
how often I fantasized about taking you over that desk?”  Miley moved her head
enough to look over at the desk in question and swallowed.  She did not need to
lift her head from his arm to see it was huge and set back in an alcove from
the rest of the library.  If you were at the desk you could see everyone in the
room, and they could see you.  She could swear at the sight she started to
tingle.

“Probably not as often
as I imagined you taking me over your desk,” she shrugged, “or on the rug by
the fireplace.  That was always a favorite when I had to bring you something
from the office.”

Lucas growled deep, and
Miley smiled against the skin of his arm.  It was tense and she could not wrap
her hand around the hard muscles there, but a few words from her and the big
beast reacted.  It was a heady feeling.  She liked it.

Before she could get
too proud of herself, he swept his hand across the top of the desk and sent
everything flying.  Less than a second later, she was draped over it as if it
was an altar and she some pagan offering.

“Anything else?”  This
time his voice was gravel low with barely controlled intensity.  “Any other
fantasies you want to share?”

She had to suck in a much-needed
breath.  “None that I can think of right this minute.”

He growled, seemingly
beyond words and she was flipped to her belly and pulled to the edge of the
desk so that Lucas was pressing his heat and hardness into her jean-clad
backside.  He placed his hand on her back and forced her down along the desk. 
His lips at her neck opened and he bit down on her nape causing her to hiss and
writhe beneath him.  Both hands moved to her back as he arched up.  He kept her
pressed against the hard wood with his hips while he watched his hands run down
her back and curve into fists at the denim of her hips.  “In my dreams you were
always wearing those tight little skirts that I could push up your thighs, or
rip off completely.”  He yanked her back by her hips pressing her deep.  He
bent back down, his hands going between her and the hard wood to unsnap her
jeans.  “This will work too,” he growled.  Then he leaned over her, covering
her with his heat and running his lips across her sensitive neck until he could
pull her earlobe into his hot mouth.

Miley moaned, tilting
her head to give him better access and pressing herself back against him
harder.  It was the most turned on she’d ever been fully clothed.  “Lucas . . .,”
she breathed his name with no idea of anything she had to say.  At this point,
she was beyond coherent speech.  Then he unzipped her jeans and shoved a big
rough hand in her panties. 

“Spread your legs for
me, Miley.”

Oh dear Lord.

Lucas pulled his hips
back enough that she could spread her legs.  And she did, too overheated to
worry about embarrassment, giving him enough room to slip a big finger over her
clit and into her moist heat.  Then he leaned back over her and worked her to
climax with his hand, never allowing her to move, pressing her deep into that
big desk until she groaned out her pleasure and collapsed with her cheek
pressed against the wood.  With a twist, he turned her and pushed her onto the
desk so she was once again spread across it.  Miley watched him, her pants
unbuttoned and unzipped, but still in place.  She breathed deep trying to catch
her breath and then promptly lost it again when he pulled his finger very
deliberately between his lips and sucked off the taste of her.  His eyes held
volcanic heat and a promise of more.

Then he reached for her
shoes.  Undoing the buckle of one and reaching for the other before the shoe
was even off her foot,

That was, of course,
when a brief knock at the library door heralded the entrance of Ian.  “Oops,
sorry,” he said.  Turning so he had his back to them, he faced the still open
door.  “But seriously, don’t you have a room?”

“Ian.”  His father’s
voice was a low warning growl.

“The rest of the pack
are driving through the courtyard gates.  Thought you would want to know.”

Lucas cursed long and
loud, giving a great lion chuff at the end that had Miley blinking and trying
not to laugh.

“Or maybe not,” Ian
finished hurriedly, slamming the door as he exited, not anxious to deal with a
sexually frustrated lion male.

Miley lifted her leg, placed
her sandal-clad foot on his chest, and smiled a sly mischievous smile making him
growl again.  “Guess you better buckle that back up, Viking,” she said, still lying
across his desk and wiggling her toes in case the shoe on his chest had missed
his notice.

Lucas snarled, knocking
her foot to the side, he fell over her at the same time as he hitched her denim
jeans and pulled so that he was pressed deep.    He stole her breath with a
marauding kiss that was both hard and thorough.  He pulled up an inch just so
she could see the lion eyes heated and staring back at her.

“Hope you aren’t too
attached to these clothes,” he rumbled.  “I’m going to rip them off you at the
earliest fucking opportunity.”

She leaned up far
enough to press her lips softly against his.  Then spoke in a whisper.  “When
you are finished doing your pride/pack business, I’ll meet you in the shower.”

“Done.”

***

The first person out of
the reinforced Ford Expedition was Demon.  At seven feet plus he was a good
head taller than the men who had stepped up to the vehicle to greet them, and
they were not small men by any means. With a buzz cut, black t-shirt, black
jeans and motorcycle boots, he looked mean.  The twisting scar down one side of
his face and the wolf tattoo on his neck heightened the fight or flight
response he flipped in most people who saw him for the first time.