Marrying Her: The Keeping Her Christmas Wedding (The Keeping Her Series Book 5) (5 page)

“We’ll catch him when he
comes back,” Clytie said, turning and heading for the bathroom. In the warmer
months, she would have just hosed Roxy down in the yard and brought her in
through the mudroom to change and dress.  But it was October in the Pacific
Northwest, too cold for playing in the water outside, even if as a wolf-shifter
Roxy seemed immune to the cold herself.  Clytie knew enough to know that
Roxanne would not be the only one drenched before they were done.  So they
headed to the bathroom by Roxy’s room.  She could have asked Crow to find Demon
for her; the boy always seemed more comfortable with a job to perform, but if
Demon was running, she would leave him to it.  He always came to find her after
her workday was over anyway.  She called one last thing to the boy as they left
him behind in the studio.  “There is still some lasagna from last night if you
get hungry before dinner.”  From what she had seen, the lanky shifter was
always hungry.  Even in the standards left by the rest of the giant male shape-shifters
in the house, the boy could put it away, and still look like he could lick the
plate if he didn’t think anyone was watching.  It made her crazy thinking of
him hungry and abandoned by his real parents. So, she maybe tried to get him to
eat more than was strictly necessary.  So what?  When he started getting meat
on his bones she would back off.  Probably.

Clytie had already left
the room with Roxy trailing her when Crow finally released the breath he was
holding.  He gingerly touched his cheek where she had kissed him, and then
realizing what he was doing, he dropped his hand and turned away from the open
door.  His eyes fell on the art pieces she was currently working on and then
looked beyond them to some of the finished pieces with the wax curing.  He knew
that was what they were doing because Clytie had taken an afternoon last week
when he came to deliver a message to answer his unasked questions about her
work.  He liked her work.  It was at times cheerful and saturated with color,
like the woman herself, but at other times, it was darker, mysterious even, but
never boring.  He could look at the shimmering colors and play of light for
hours.  She told him he was welcome in there any time without one word of rules
like ‘except when I’m working’ or ‘don’t touch this or that.’  She made the
invitation open and surprised him again.  Then she had taken him downstairs and
fed him BLTs and potato salad, while Roxy and Cassandra joined them, jabbering
on and teasing each other in a funny, girly good-natured way that he had never
seen before coming to this place.  And they kept trying to feed him. 
Especially Clytie, like she knew he was always hungry and actually cared.  How
was he supposed to handle that?

He had tried to keep his
distance, but all the women, and girls come to that, he thought thinking of
Roxy, seemed determined to make him feel like he belonged there, and not just
like he was working a job for Lionsgate and would eventually move on.  The guys
were less in your face, but they were doing it, too.  Talking to him, teasing
him like he was one of them.  They all treated him like pack.  Like he was
worthy of what they were giving him.  It didn’t make any sense.

Running as wolf tended to
simplify matters for Demon.  In this case, it clarified them.  Clytie had
refused to marry him.  Unacceptable.  He didn’t like it, and while Clytie had
not acted like there was anything wrong, besides waiting to hear about her
father and a prevailing sadness Demon did not like that clung to her, from the
way her cousin spoke, clearly he was not the only one with an issue to resolve.

Clytie had not once
pulled away from him, or accepted his touch with anything less than her usual
enthusiasm.  If anything, she needed his touch more than ever.  If it was not
for her cousin’s words, he would have no idea there was even a problem.  Except
for the one stewing in his own head.  But since he had confirmation, he could
act, and it would even be for her own good.  He chuffed his satisfaction at the
thought.  Clytie would belong to him in all ways both human and shifter.  It
was the least he could do to give her peace of mind.

***

Demon was up to
something.  Him and his two cohorts.  Clytie knew it, she just didn’t know what
that something was.  But she would find out soon, she was sure of it. They were
stealthy about it, she would give them that, and Cassandra was in the dark as
well, so she couldn’t pump her for information.  Smart men. Cassandra would have
so squealed.  Clytie even interrogated Roxy, but like the SEAL team they were,
the men pulled together and somehow managed to keep their diabolical plan from
a seven-year-old, which meant they were crazy good.  So, she was waiting
patiently for the trap to spring – whatever it was.

“What are you up to?” 
Clytie watched Demon prowl their room like a caged beast.  Since he was wearing
nothing but an old pair of partially buttoned Levi’s, this was no hardship. 
The man could
move
, and watching him do it was always a treat.  Watching
him do it next door to naked had her eyes glazing over and her cheeks heating,
which she valiantly tried to ignore.

He stopped and looked at
her.  He clearly wanted to say something and just as clearly went for innocent
instead.  “What do you mean?”  Demon did not do innocent well.

Clytie snorted and pulled
the covers up so she could sit up in bed without flashing the room. “I mean you
have been planning something for a few days now, you and the dynamic duo, and
today I’m still in bed and you are way over there.  In the history of the world
has that ever happened?”

Demon started to grumble,
but at her words, his whole body stilled and his eyes took on a predatory gleam. 
He now had one focus.  Clytie shivered beneath that intent look and licked her
lips. 
Wait.  What where we talking about? 
She opened her mouth to say
something, anything before she was derailed, but Demon was fast.  With one step
to the end of the bed he grabbed the bottom of the sheet she was clinging to. 
It and the blanket swaddled at the bottom of the bed went flying.  Clytie felt
it slip through her fingers with a gasp, and then with one tug of her ankle, he
had her flat on her back, naked.  Before she could roll to the side, or try to
use her feet to ineffectually hold him off, he was stretched out full length
above her.  His rough hands held her wrists high above her head. With the heat
and weight of him holding her in place, warm denim slid along the soft skin of
her inner thigh, and hard muscle rough with a smattering of hair rubbed her
nipples to aching points.  And those were just the highlights.

“You’re right,” he
growled.  His eyes moved over her face memorizing every curve and line.  His
hands caressed the length of her trapped wrists down her extended arms.  Thrusting
his fingers into her hair, he pushed it away as he looked his fill.  “What the
fuck was I thinking?”

He dug his fingers in
just a bit at her scalp making Clytie want to purr at the delicious feel of
being completely at Demon’s mercy.  “You’ve got a lot on your mind, planning
all kinds of nefarious deeds.”  She wrapped her now free arms around his neck
and rubbed his stubbled head, patting it for good measure.  “You’ll feel better
if you just confess now and save yourself a lot of military planning and
staging of coups.”

Demon leaned back enough
to give her a doubtful look.  “Staging of coups?”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, distracted
by the way his movement created a small surge of hard hips between her thighs. 
She wiggled and adjusted, wrapping her legs over the top of his fantastic ass
in denim.  “Now that I have you at my mercy, you should just talk and spare
yourself the torture.”  It would have had more impact if an intentional rub of
his hips did not at that moment pull a gasp out of her parted lips by hitting
her
just right
.

Demon growled, his hips
jerking again, as if he didn’t have complete control of the motions.  “I have
been trained to withstand interrogation,” his voice a rumble along her neck as
he bent to rub his nose along her pulse and up behind her ear.  “But give it
your best shot, baby.”

Clytie nipped his ear
hard and then licked the spot while he hissed.  She spoke right into the same
ear.  “I’m going to find out anyway.  Just tell me and I will take you to
heights of pleasure you have never seen.”  Okay, that was laying it on a little
thick so it was no surprise when Demon chuckled, which moved his body in all
kinds of subtle and glorious ways.  Clytie was trying to think, which
admittedly not her strong suit just then, when Demon pulled back to catch her
eyes, and ran his thumb across her cheekbone.  Seeing the laughter lurking
there had her own coming out.  She ran her hand down his scarred cheek and
smiled at him.  She couldn’t help it.  She loved putting that happy look in his
eyes.  “You don’t think I can take you to never before experienced heights of
pleasure?” she teased.

A serious look came in
behind the humor and had her pulling in a breath and holding it.  “You do that
every time you fucking smile.”

And there went all the
oxygen in her body right back out again.  She felt the moisture building behind
her eyes.  “No fair,” she whispered, fighting the need to cry.

“Fuck fair,” this time he
muttered the words right against her lips before he delved in and took them
like the marauder he was.  He pulled back briefly and caught Clytie’s glazed
eyes and soft lips.  Wolf gold eyes stared back at her before he growled and
repeated himself with an intent grumble.  “Fuck fair.”

Clytie had a brief
thought that he was talking about something completely different than she was,
something she should probably be concerned about, but then his tongue dipped in
and licked, and his hands were moving down her body with new intent.  The
thought just drifted away.  And that was before he started working his way down
her body.

Demon rumbled a purr when
he felt her short nails scraping across his head and trying to hold him in
place when he hit a good spot.  But, Demon was a man on a mission.  After
finding every erogenous zone on her neck, he paid special attention to the most
beautiful pair of breasts in the history of mankind by biting the under curve
of the first one, and then the other.  Not as hard as he would have liked, but
hard enough to leave a mark and have Clytie arching up with a heated gasp.  He
pushed her back down on the mattress and held her there while he worked first
one plump breast and then the other.  When she was making those cute mewling
sounds like a needy kitten, he worked his way down from there.  He tasted, sucked,
and nipped, until Clytie was mindlessly writhing.  He got to the curve of her
thigh and reared back, rolling her over in one move, and paid homage to her
fucking fantastic ass while she clutched at the mattress and pushed back
against him with her hips, her back arched down.  The woman was going to kill
him.  When he couldn’t take it anymore, he flipped her back over, and plunged
face first between those beautiful soft thighs.  He did not give her any
warning.  Just one flip and his mouth was on her pussy, his tongue finding
every delicious soft wet inch of her while she arched back and screamed at the
pleasure he was forcing on her.  When he felt her thighs begin to jerk, losing
their rhythm, he pulled back and looked up the long soft curves of her body. 

The confusion that came
up behind the need was fucking adorable.  She pushed her hips towards him.  “Demon,
what?”  Her words were breathless.  “What are you
doing
?”  She pushed
harder trying to get her hips against him.  At this point any part of him would
do, she was that close.  Demon shoved a long thick finger inside her, watching her
arch back and gasp out a hard breath.  Her hips started moving immediately, but
he held her still only to get very angry green eyes lasering in on him.

“Demon,” his name said
through gritted teeth had never been so fucking sexy.  He felt for her, he
really did; he had deliberately kept on his jeans knowing he would have no
control when he started this.  But now his dick was trying to drive straight
through the denim, and the feel of her clasped tight and wet and pulsing around
his finger was not helping that one damn bit.

“I need to ask you
something,” he said, aware that his wolf was so close to the surface the words
were almost unrecognizable behind the growl.

“Now?!” she screeched,
shoving at him with both hips and arms, which did nothing but make him grit his
teeth and shudder at the feel of her beneath him.  “You want to ask me
something now?!”

“I want you to marry me,”
he said flat out without build up, because fuck if he would last much longer.  “Say
you’ll marry me and I will take you to heights of pleasure you have never seen.”

Clytie stilled her
struggles, her eyes clearing enough to catch the intent look on his face.  She
studied him closely, even as she tried to catch her breath. “You really want
this,” she said and the surprise was enough that it pushed the desire back and
he could see her thinking.

Well, that won’t fucking
do. 
He pushed a second finger in to join the first and
watched her hiss, her eyes flashing with pleasure and narrowing in angst at his
obvious ploy.  She bit her lip and growled just a little in warning; her hips
jerked but she took a deep breath forcing out the words he could see forming in
her eyes.  Rejection. 
Fuck!

“You said you didn’t want
to get married.”

“I don’t,” he mumbled,
knowing she would know if he lied.  He watched a little light die in her eyes,
cursing himself for a fool but finished anyway.  “But I do want to be married
to you.”

She looked adorably
rumpled and confused.  Her words coming out like a whip.  “
That makes no
sense
.”

Demon hissed out a breath
and moved his hands from the seductive heat of her pussy to the sweet curve of
her thigh, then to the space between them where he worked to free his dick from
the vice of his jeans.  “I want you to be my wife,” he punctuated the words by
grabbing those hips again and yanking her into the position he needed.  “I want
you to belong to me in the eyes of anyone and everyone, human or shifter.” 
Then he thrust deep, taking the hot wet sensitive heat of her pussy while his
eyes held hers, allowing her to see the beast in him that craved her.  “I want
there to never be a doubt in anyone’s mind that you are mine.”  Another hard
thrust that had Clytie quivering around him, her eyes trying to close on him. 
He snapped his teeth in warning and her eyes shot back open.  “I want
you
to have no doubt who you belong to.”

He watched her suck in a
much needed breath while she tried to think with him pounding her inside and
out.  “Demon . . .”

“I want to see my ring on
your finger and yours on mine.” 
My mark,
he thought.  Fuck yes, he
wanted that.  He reached back into his dangling pocket while she took in his
meaning.

It stopped her words
cold, and he thrust again, adjusting until he hit just the right spot so that
she hissed her pleasure.  “Marriage doesn’t mean shit to me.  I claimed you two
fucking years ago, and I won’t let you go.”  He shoved both hands into her hair
and tightened his fingers until she could look at nothing but him.  “But it
means something to you.”  He turned his hand so she could see he held an engagement
ring between his fingers in her hair.  It looked like a round peachy-yellow
diamond at first glance, surrounded by a spiraling halo of white diamonds; set
in rose gold, it was both delicately feminine and original.  He heard her
intake of breath even as the tears hit her eyes.  “And you mean fucking
everything.”  He finished his words nearly garbled by the closeness of his
wolf.  “Say you’ll marry me, and I will break my back to make sure it’s
everything you want it to be.”

Clytie was crying
outright now, he could hear her struggling to breath.  What she was not doing
was speaking the words he needed to hear.  “Am I going to have to fuck you into
submission?” he grumbled.

She laughed through the
tears that did not seem to be stopping anytime soon.  He used both thumbs to
wipe her cheeks but they kept coming.  “Clytie,” he growled out a warning.  She
sniffled and then smiled so bright it nearly blinded him.

“Yes,” she said simply.

He narrowed his eyes.  “Yes,
you will marry me, or yes I need to fuck you into submission?”

Clytie bit her smiling
lip, still sniffling a little, but he could see the happiness dancing in the
drowned green of her eyes, and the mischief.  “Yes.”  Then she licked her lips
and her eyes went to his mouth hovering so close and flashing heat.  “Yes,
please.”