Owen (BBW Western Bear Shifter Romance) (Rodeo Bears Book 2) (134 page)

John grinned. “I’m guessin’ if your daddy’s men are armed, they’re gonna be spendin’ the night in jail.”

“At the very least,” Mel said.

Ten minutes later, they pulled into the parking area behind the big house, and the women scrambled out. Mel led the way up the back stairs to their apartment, leaving the lights off as they entered and locking the door behind them.

“Let’s sit in the living room,” she whispered. “Come on.”

Mel, Candace, and Meg sat on the couch, side-by-side, and in another moment, Meg saw one of the room’s shadows Shift. The next thing she knew, there was a huge, yellow cat leaning against their legs.

Mel absently scratched Addy’s back, and Candace rubbed her ears. Meg sank her fingers into that thick, tawny fur and held on.

“Look! Blue lights!” Candace said.

Sure enough, they saw blue lights flashing from down the hall through the bedroom windows. Addy left them, then, and began to prowl around the apartment. She finished in the back bedroom and soon rejoined them as herself.

“I think we’re all clear, now,” Addy told them. “The two big guys are in handcuffs. I saw the police puttin’ them into the back of their cars. I’m guessin’ the driver and your father aren’t armed, on account of they’re not bein’ arrested.”

A few minutes later, they heard the sound of heavy footsteps on the back stair and the deep voices that told them it was the Saint men. Matt opened the front door with his key and flicked on the lights.

“Everybody okay in here?” he asked.

“Just fine,” Mel said stepping into his arms.

Meg followed her example, stepping into John’s arms and holding him close.

Adrenaline carried Meg back to John’s apartment, and she paced restlessly once they were inside. John moved to light the gas fireplace, though it wasn’t cold, then settled on the couch to watch her.

“Anything could have happened out there,” she said. Her hands were shaking and she clasped them together tightly at her waist.

“Not ‘anythin’, Meg.’”

She turned on him in exasperation.

“How can you just sit there after what my father threatened to do to you tonight? And what about tomorrow and the day after and next week? You have to know he’s not going to give up.”

“Actually, I don’t know that.” He leaned forward and reached out to pull her toward him. “He’s gotta know by now that you can’t be intimidated into comin’ back to him. And what’s he gonna do? Kidnap you? You’re no good to him, iffen you’re not playin’ that stupid violin that moron bought for you. And it’s not like he can
make
you play anythin’, is it?”

“He might be able to,” she said, reaching out to touch his face with trembling fingers, “if he threatens the people I care deeply about.”

John took both of her hands in his, squeezing them tightly. “You’re just gonna have to get used to the idea that we Saint men do everythin’ we need to do to protect our women folk. That’s the way it’s always been and always will be.”

Meg felt tears threaten and closed her eyes tightly. “And you Saint men need to get used to the idea that we women worry about you while you do.”

“That’s good to know,” he said, tugging on her hands until she came down into his lap.

He placed her hands on his shoulders then pushed her legs open until she was straddling him, her full skirt flowing around them both. She wore stockings with her black concert dress, and she felt heat as her thin panties rubbed against the hardness at the front of his trousers. He took her face between his palms and kissed her, his lips soft against hers, until after another moment, she changed the angle and bore down on him, deepening their kiss until he moaned with pleasure.

“Please love me,” she whispered against his mouth, when she finally came up for air. She rubbed herself against him and felt her dampness increase. “I have such a need for you.”

“Oh, darlin’,” he murmured against her ear as he nuzzled her there. “I need to love you like I need to breathe.”

She sat back then, staring into his deep golden eyes. “Then show me,” she whispered, reaching for the buttons on his shirt.

He’d taken off his tie in the car, but his dress shirt had tiny little buttons that threatened to defeat her as she fumbled with them with trembling fingers. Then he helped her finish the job and sat forward far enough to shrug out of his jacket and shirt, which she pulled away and tossed aside. His t-shirt followed, and she ran her hands through the fur on his chest before leaning forward and letting her lips trail her fingertips.
 

“You still have too many clothes on, darlin’,” he growled, and the next thing she knew, he had slid the zipper down the back of her dress.
 

The weight of the velveteen pulled the dress away from her shoulders, and he finished the job with quick fingers, baring her to the waist. The black lacy confection beneath was no challenge at all, and in another moment, he grasped both her bared breasts in his big hands, lifting them to suckle. Meg arched back on a soft cry, and she clung to his arms to keep from falling as she continued to rub herself against the now bulging front of his pants.

“Please, John!”

He chuckled. “We’ll get there.”

“Not soon enough!” she complained.

“We can start by getting’ the rest of this contraption off you,” he said, gathering up her skirt and pulling the whole dress over her head so he could toss it aside.
 

She now sat astride him in nothing but stockings, a garter belt, and lacy panties so insubstantial that he simply tore them away, leaving her bare and vulnerable.

“Now it’s my turn,” she said, as she ran her hands down his belly.
 

“I reckon so,” he murmured, reaching for his belt. “Lift up a bit.”

She raised herself on her knees while he dealt with his shoes, pants, and shorts, sliding them down and off. Then she lowered herself, rubbing against him and feeling the wetness.

“We’d better take it a little slower this way, darlin’,” he said, taking her waist in his big hands. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But she would have none of it, taking him into her hands and guiding him to her opening then coming down hard on him. She cried out, the pain/pleasure taking her by surprise, but she wouldn’t allow him to control her motion, as she set a fast pace, rising and falling on him like a piston.

“You’re a wild thing, you are,” John said through clenched teeth, but she heard approval in his voice as his hands shifted to her breasts, allowing her to take the lead in their coupling.

She didn’t speak—she couldn’t, for she was too caught up in the pleasure.

Then he suddenly placed his big hands under her arms and lifted her off him.

“No!” she screamed at the loss.

But he only laid her on the floor, pulled her legs up over his shoulders, and entered her in one long, hard thrust. She screamed again at the startling invasion then sank her teeth into his shoulder. He roared his pleasure, flooding her with his seed.

A long time later, Meg stirred, feeling the warmth of the fire on one side and the cool air of the room on the other. His weight had her pinned to the hard floor.

“John?”

She felt him inhale deeply then he rolled to his side, keeping her between him and the fire. In another moment, she felt the afghan from the couch settle over them. He pulled her leg over his hip. He was still deep inside her, and feeling him stir, she squeezed her inner muscles.

John chuckled. “Can’t get enough, eh?”

“What just happened?” she asked, in a tiny voice, utterly shocked by her own behavior.

“I’m thinkin’ we might have made a baby.”

She stiffened then abruptly relaxed. “Do you really think so?”

“I’m hopin’ so, Meg darlin’, ’cause I sure want to give you a reason to stay with me.”

She managed to lift her head far enough to look down at his face. “I don’t need another reason,” she said, reaching out to trace his lips with her fingertips. “I wasn’t planning to go anywhere. I love you.”

He nipped at her fingers and smiled.

“I’m right glad to hear that, ’cause I surely love you.”

“If we did make a baby,” she said, moving her hand to play with the fur on his chest, “it would probably be a good idea for us to get married. Don’t you think?”

He reached up to caress her face. “I think that’s a really good idea—even if we didn’t make a baby just now.”

“Okay.”

She laid her cheek on his chest with a sigh and heard his chuckle. “’Course, we might want to try again, seein’ as how a baby would be a really good thing.”

 
“Maestro Campagnone might not think so, losing a second violinist to maternity leave so soon.”

“He’ll get over it,” John said rolling over and covering her once more.

Meg smiled. “I guess he’ll have to,”
 

Bartholomew

Bearly Saints V

by

Becca Fanning

Kitty Konstantine slammed the telephone onto her desk and jumped up, knowing if she didn’t move, she’d break something. She crossed the wide expanse of her office to stand and look out the floor-to-ceiling window, hugging her arms tightly to herself. It wasn’t just the frigid air conditioning making her cold all over. Her father’s harsh voice continued to ring in her ears.

“I made you the Head of our Music Division, and you can’t even manage to get our best band to play at Opryland! You do realize they are our best band, don’t you? You do realize how much it would mean to have one of our bands headlinin’ at Opryland, don’t you? Or do you?”

“Of course I know what it would mean! I signed The Four Saints, didn’t I? It was one of my people who found them; I was the one who got them under contract!”

“Oh, you got them to sign with us, all right, but their contract is crap!”

“I’ve told you: Bartholomew Saint is their manager, and he wouldn’t sign with us—or anyone else, for that matter—unless they had the final say in where they perform. No exceptions.”

“That’s bull crap and you know it! Anyone with balls—and I’m told you’re supposed to have steel ones—could’ve brought them around. Why, if your brother was still here…”

“Well, he’s not!”

Silence, then, “Get, those Saint boys to sign an Opryland contract, or you might not be here much longer, either!”

“Bart Saint is coming in this afternoon to talk to me. I’ll do what I can.”

“You’d better get it done, no matter what it takes. Hell, I’d suggest you sleep with him, if I thought it might improve our chances, but I’m bettin’ it would only make things worse!”

On that scathing note, he’d hung up, leaving Kitty trembling with emotions she couldn’t even identify.

“Oh, Rand…Why did you do this to me?”

She stared out the window for a very long time, watching the people pass by on the street one story below, glad of the reflective glass that didn’t allow anyone outside to see her standing there. Then sighing, she glanced over at her bookshelf and reached up to take down the double folding picture frame she kept on the top shelf. On the right, Randall J. Konstantine, Jr., Army Ranger, stood at attention in his dress uniform, proudly sporting the Special Forces and Ranger tabs on his sleeve and the colorful “fruit salad”—as he’d always called his ribbons—on his broad chest. He’d been headed back to Afghanistan for his second deployment, this time as a Staff Sergeant. She remembered how proud he’d been—how proud
of
him she’d been. On the left, was a group shot of SSG Konstantine, Jr., laughing and fooling around with some of his platoon buddies following a football scrimmage in Kabul. Two days later, he’d been killed by a sniper when he’d pushed his commanding officer out of the line of fire. Captain Green had sent her this picture with his condolences—and the promise to help in any way he could. Captain Green and his wife, Carol, had come through, taking care of all the arrangements for Rand’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Carol had stood with Kitty on that cold, blustery day Rand had been buried. Her father hadn’t bothered to attend.

“I lost my son a long time ago, when he walked out on me,” Randall, Sr., had said, when she’d asked him to go with her to Washington.

It was the last time Kitty had asked him for anything, and she’d left the building ten minutes later, gotten into her car, and driven straight through to Washington. She hadn’t cared that her father might fire her over her absence from the office. They hadn’t spoken about Rand since, though her father never hesitated to remind her that she wasn’t the son he had always expected to follow in his footsteps at the Konstantine Talent Agency.

She sighed.
And maybe I won’t be here much longer,
she thought,
if I can’t get that stubborn, pig-headed Bartholomew Saint to cooperate.

She’d known from the beginning this would be a problem. Melinda Darling—now Melinda Darling Saint—had brought the band of four brothers to Kitty’s attention over a year ago, and it had taken only a minute with the CD Mel’d brought in to convince Kitty they had a winner. Unfortunately, it was Bartholomew Saint who’d done all the negotiating, and they’d gone around and around about the limits the Saints put on their performance venues, until Kitty had at times wanted to pull her hair out.