Shifter’s Baby (Alpha Fantasy Paranormal Billionaire Shifter BBW Romance) (71 page)

Chapter Seven

Victoria and Nathan were reduced to a pile of nerves and confusion by the time Nathan came back. Both had thought of nothing but how to get through the next few hours intact.

They were like two balloons filled to just below the explosion point. They needed only the tiniest pin prick to come apart completely.

Nathan stumbled going down the stairs from their hotel room. He didn’t pitch face-first down the steps. The toe of his shoe caught on a loose corner of the carpet. He couldn’t bring that foot forward to get it to the next step and lurched to the side, hitting the wall with his shoulder. The sound reverberated through the lobby. Nathan stood against the wall and cursed. All of his anguish at his own futility came out. He kept his voice low but the words pierced Victoria’s spirit and soul. She grew up with a minister father and a Sunday school teaching mother. Coarse language wasn’t part of her history.

Nathan grew up in the mines among men from all parts of the world. The miners had a rough and dangerous life. Death visited the mines on a regular basis with flooding, rock falls, cave-ins and ill health. His spirit came of age to the tune of swear words.

When he finished damning the stairs, the carpet and the hotel to eternal ruin and despair, he realized what he’d said. He looked up at Victoria. Her soul obviously bristled at his use of such colorful words. She said nothing. She turned and walked ahead of him to his carriage. Dinner was a silent affair that evening.

Chapter Eight

Going back to their hotel, Nathan called up his pride and dignity. He wasn’t going to be lectured, even silently, by a woman who didn’t know him. Victoria felt offended and disappointed by Nathan’s behavior. Any hopes she’d had when she first arrived died during the flood of forbidden language. She occupied the few moments riding in the carriage with plans for her return to Kansas City and taking her place again as a school teacher.

As they passed a big building, it burst into flames. Nathan stopped the carriage in surprise. Men and women ran out of the building, which seemed to be a rooming house of some kind.

Nathan and Victoria heard a desperate, frightened cry from the back of the building. They got out of the carriage and ran around the back. A woman in an ill-fitting and worn dress pointed up to a window on one of the upper floors. She screamed, “My baby boy. My baby boy.”

Nathan leaped on the side of the building and used the wooden down spout to hold himself up. The boards on the side of the wall were set in staggered rows. He could fit the edge of his shoe to lift himself. The wooden drain pipe provided stability. He’d gone twenty feet up the side of the building when one of the boards gave way and his foot slipped. He hung by his hands on the wooden downspout.

Victoria felt her chest quiver in terror. She put her hand over her mouth and moaned. She wanted to look away but couldn’t. Nathan seemed to hang on to the downspout for an eternity. She gasped when she saw the fire take over the roof of the structure and drop fiery shards of wood on Nathan. She moved her hands with his as he batted away the pieces of flaming wood

He managed to find another place to put his foot and continue up the side of the building.

He made it to the second floor and reached out to jump over to the window when he heard Victoria yell, “No, Nathan. Go up one more floor.” She could see the child at the window crying in panic.

Nathan slowly, amidst another rain of fiery death, found handholds and footholds on the side of the building. His progress was slow as a glacier. He made it to the third floor and hung like a monkey with his hands inside the first window and his feet planted on the boards on the wall. He could see the fire getting closer. His face burned with the heat of the fire. Smoke poisoned his eyes and made it hard to see the boy. He swung away from the downspout and hooked one hand in the next window. He went hand-over-hand along the window and got ready to do it again.

A wooden trough designed to direct the flow of water off the roof and burning intensely, fell off the roof. Victoria screamed, “Nathan, look out!”

The trough hit him on the shoulder and knocked his hand loose from the narrow board where he put most of his weight.

Victoria made slight, whining and screaming sounds. She bit her lip so hard it drew blood.

Nathan swung back and forth from his other hand still holding the window until he could latch onto the narrow board again. He was still six feet away from the boy.

He rested for a few seconds. He heard the mother’s frenzied weeping, and tried again.

He made two risky swinging lunges and managed to catch a stable board each time. He made it to what he thought was the right window, it was empty. He heard Victoria yell, “The child fell back inside.”

Smoke as thick as deep mud boiled out of the window. Nathan held his breath and dove into the open space. The heat scorched his head and neck. He reached down and found the child. It was easy to put him on his shoulder and get back out of the window, but now he had to navigate the rapidly disintegrating wall without losing the child to get back to the drainpipe.

He found that he could stay close to the wall and keep the boy in place while he used both hands and feet to gain foot and handholds on the side of the building.

He heard Victoria scream and looked around. The wall ten feet away burned through. Flames came out of the boards and licked up the sides. They spread out, coming toward him.

He’d made it to the drainpipe when the wall he’d been climbing on disintegrated into burning kindling.

He swung over to the other side of the drainpipe and found a wall that hadn’t burned down to him. A few more burning pieces of wood fell on him and he looked up.

The fire on the wall was coming down toward him and coming down quickly. He had to drop recklessly to stay ahead of the flames. Twice, the drainpipe came away in his hand when he put his weight on it. He was forced to grab the next section of drainpipe and let himself drop. The boy came loose twice, and he was forced to stop to get him resettled.

Each time he faltered, Victoria screamed. She trotted back and forth below him in a frenzy of worry.

The wall to either side of him smoked. He felt the intense heat attack him.

He was still ten feet off the ground when he couldn’t do it any more. He didn’t have anywhere to grab. Everything was burning. He dropped the child off to a man below and jumped. He hit hard. It knocked the wind out of him. When he opened his eyes, he saw the entire wall of the building coming down on top of him. He rolled to the side with furious energy. The wall hit close enough to burn a hole in his shirt.

He got to his feet and saw Victoria lay the boy on the ground. She tipped his head back and held his jaw up. She took deep breaths and blew them into the boy’s lungs.

Twenty breaths later, the boy coughed and began to breathe on his own.

Victoria stood up and saw Nathan. She launched herself into his arms. “I thought you were going to die. It was so dangerous.”

He held her close. “I didn’t though.” They clung together for a few seconds. Nathan said, “You saved the boy’s life. You breathed life into him. Where did you learn to do that?”

He noticed she was crying. She sniffled twice. “At school. We were built next to a hospital. We’d make explorations there and learn life saving techniques.”

She noticed that she was in his arms. He could feel her stiffen. He pulled her closer. “No. We won’t go back to where we were. We just did something very brave and very hard. If we can do this, we can do a little thing like conceive a baby. It can’t be harder than what we’ve done today.”

She still looked nervous. He put his hand on the back of her head and held her still while he kissed her. She stayed stiff for a few seconds until it became clear that he wasn’t going to stop. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed back.

Chapter Nine

Twenty minutes later, they stood in their hotel room again. Victoria wrinkled her nose. “We smell of smoke. You especially.”

Nathan spoke boldly. “Let’s take a bath. Together. We can scrub each other’s back.”

“Oh Nathan. That’s so daring. I’d love it. But how?”

He took her hand and pulled her into the bathroom. A wide and long copper tub sat on claw-like legs next to the wall. Nathan pointed to two faucets. “One is cold water and the other is hot.”

“How does it work?”

“There’s two big water cisterns on the roof. They’re filled with rain water and water brought in by workmen in the morning. From three in the afternoon till seven at night, the hotel keeps a fire going underneath one of them. It’s quite remarkable. Watch.”

He turned the hot tap. They waited a few seconds until water, hot enough to sting the skin, poured out in the tub. He turned to Victoria with a grin. “What do you say? Let’s take these clothes off and put them in the corridor. I’ll call down and have them washed and dried. We can get ourselves lathered up and get rid of the odor of smoke.”

Victoria’s answer was to undo the bow on the neck of her blouse and pull it open. Nathan took off his shoes and socks, shirt and pants then his underwear. He stood in front of Victoria naked and smiling. She dropped her skirt on the floor and stared at him. She said, “Damn. Look at you.’

“Damn?”

“Yes. I’m not always a lady.” She struggled out of the rest of her clothes. Nathan gathered them up and set them out in the corridor. He phoned town to the front desk then came back in the bathroom.

(By the way, telephone exchanges came to Denver in 1879, six years earlier.)

Victoria was luxuriating in the tub. The water came up to her chest. Nathan said, “My dear, if you’ll slide forward a bit, I can sit behind you.”

Victoria blushed and moved her lovely rear end toward the taps. Nathan stepped in and slid his legs outside of hers. He wrapped his arms around her chest and pulled her back. She nestled against him.

He could feel a little reluctance in her body. He kissed her neck and whispered in her ear. “We’ve learned something today. We fit together. We’re the same kind of personality. We like to do good in the world even if it’s dangerous. Let’s abandon the idea of doing nothing more than conceiving a child together and accept the idea that we can love each other. What do you say? Want to take a chance on us?”

She turned in his arms until her shoulder was against his chest. She nuzzled him and sighed. “I’d like nothing better.”

He held her in his arms. They stayed in the tub for ten minutes before Victoria helped them cross the chasm. She took Nathan’s hand and held it against her breast. He gave her a squeeze and rubbed her nipple. She said, “Oh Nathan” and lifted her face for a kiss.

The kiss lengthened. Victoria noticed a long, very hard rod-like appendage sticking up in her side. She rocked back away from him and looked down. “You have a lovely penis, Nathan. I’m impressed. It’s nice and tall and hard. I want to touch it.”

She turned around facing Nathan. He lifted her legs and set them outside his. She scooted her bottom close to him and held his cock with both hands. “It’s wonderful. So soft outside and hard inside. I really...” She stopped talking because Nathan found sensitive spots between her legs and stroked them like a cat. She stared down in the water. “I like that. It feels wonderful. Keep doing it please.”

“I’d love too. You pay attention to me as well.”

“Yes. I don’t want you to feel neglected.”

They spent time in the hot tub exploring each other’s bodies. Nathan loved Victoria’s breasts. He slipped his hands underneath her rump and lifted her up to taste her nipples. Victoria watched him do it. He held her with his arms alone as if he were reading a book. She felt completely stable and safe. She marveled at the size and tone of his muscles. She felt around his arms and shoulders and back until the sensations from her breasts required her attention. She held his head in both hands and moved him back and forth when one or the other of her breasts felt lonely and needed him.

Later, when they were breathing hard and gasping for breath, Nathan set her down on his cock. He did it carefully and slowly which she appreciated.

His cock opened her lower lips and peeked inside. She held her breath as he lowered her half inch by half inch. They looked into each other’s eyes the entire time. She flinched once when she made the transition from virgin to wife, but lost the pain a few seconds later when his cock filled her completely.

He held her still to let her get used to the new visitor inside her body. She closed her eyes and bobbed up and down. She groaned and gasped as her body responded to him.

They stayed with the same simple motion until she arched her back and lifted her head. She made a sound that combined a groan and a whine.

Victoria had been floating along on a wave of quiet sensation. She pictured herself in a peaceful valley, moving slowly down a beautiful stream. It gave her delicious feelings of calm and happiness.

Abruptly, it changed. In her imagination, she saw a wall of dark clouds gather and bear down on her. It frightened her. When her orgasm took her, the dark clouds burst open and flooded her with hot rain.

She felt a loss. Her personality had fled. She was Victoria Manning, school teacher and single woman a few seconds earlier. She suddenly felt that identity fall away. She didn’t have one. Her orgasm made her helpless. She couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’t talk. Her body clenched and shook. Her arms flailed around in the tub, splashing water on the floor.

Her body wound down, experiencing a few minor orgasms along the way which caught her by surprise.

She opened her eyes and looked into Nathan’s. He was in pain. His muscles contracted tightly. She realized that he was still hard. She kissed him quickly. “Sweetheart, go ahead. Fill me with your semen.”

He had to squeeze the words out. “You should be on your back with your legs up.”

She stroked his cheek with her fingertips. “That’s for later, dearest. This one’s just for us. It’s alright. You can use me to find your release.”

“Oh thank you.” He grabbed her hips and pulled her down on his cock while he thrust up. His actions were strong and virile. Victoria bounced and shuddered as he moved her up and down.

He penetrated all the way to the back of her sheath and held it.

She felt him pump his semen inside her hips. Suddenly, she found a new identity. She’d lost her own identity as a single woman and hadn’t gotten a new one until she became a home for his semen. It was his body, now living inside her body. She welcomed a new self as a married woman. She was now Mrs. Victoria Burdette, inside and out.

The knock on the door came the following morning. The Sheriff, a gentle and honest man named Abe Kinslow, said, “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Burdette, but I have to take your wife into custody. She’s been charged with murder. She killed her husband before she married you. I’m sorry.”

Nathan couldn’t talk. Victoria’s practical mind said, “Talk with Doctor Mansfield. He’ll give you what you need to set me free.”

Nathan watched her walk away with the Sheriff. He mumbled, “I just found you.”