Melted By The Lion: A Paranormal Lion Shifter Romance (18 page)

“But I heard the two of you that first night, though. I heard you make her moan.”

Lightly scratching the ears of a now very calm Princess, Trevor snorted. “Yeah. She did moan, all right, though it wasn’t quite because of me. When I didn’t respond to her draping herself all over me, she took my hand and placed it on one of her breasts, seeming to give herself a very theatrical-sounding, instantaneous climax in the process. I’m sure she was trying to tempt me into doing things to make her do further sound effects, probably imagining that I’d find them erotic, but obviously fake passion is something I’ve never really been into. So, after a very short while, I apologized, saying I wasn’t feeling very well, and she left. And like I said, this same scenario happened a few more times, until finally, she seemed to give up and just stopped coming to my room at night. We’ve actually barely even spoken the past several weeks. I’ve honestly tried to avoid her. I’ve kind of gotten the feeling that she’s a little angry and resentful that I didn’t ‘choose’ her, and sometimes I’ve gotten the feeling that she thinks there’s still a chance that she
could
still ‘win’ me, but more than anything, from what I hear from Jeannie, a lot of her anger and resentment seems to be directed at you. She’s definitely a little jealous of you, particularly that I built the shelter for you.”

I’d certainly already noticed that.

“But, anyway, back to the reason we’re even discussing her, not only have I never slept with her, I’ve never even been remotely close. We’ve never even kissed.”

Though still shocked, I believed Trevor, and now Veronica’s weeping of two nights before made a lot more sense. Perhaps what had caused it was her finally realizing that Trevor was never going to take her into his bed, and she was never going to be able to give him an heir and secure the high status within the community that she wanted. That scenario struck me as the most plausible, especially since I hadn’t been able to think of any other reasons for her crying that even seemed half as likely.

I’d felt sorry for her the night I’d come upon her in such an obviously miserable state, and I still felt sorry for her, even though she’d really never been anything but nasty to me. At the same time, though, I couldn’t deny that Trevor’s revelation had brought me a great sense of relief, and a feeling of happiness and hope about the future we could possibly have together once we got past the issue of me having crossed the town limits markers.
If
we could get past it.

Trevor continued to pet Princess and scratch her ears, making her tip her head back, tiny pink scrap of a tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. Clearly, she was in Trevor heaven.

I just watched them for several moments, just thinking about everything, before speaking. “So, us talking like this, and you being so sweet to Princess how you are. Does this mean that you forgive me for crossing the town limits markers in order to rescue her?”

Right away, Trevor’s hand stilled near one of her ears, and he sighed, turning his gaze to my face after a long moment.

“Of course, I forgive you, and that was never the issue. The issue is whether I can trust you to not do the same thing again. I understand why you did what you did; you just
can’t
do it again, and I need to have faith that you won’t. I’m not sure that I can move forward in a relationship with you if I don’t have that sense of trust, because I can’t ever lose you the way I lost Rachel. I’m not sure I’d survive it this time, Savannah. And I don’t want to get even closer to you without your absolute assurance that you won’t ever again put yourself in a position where the worst could happen to you.”

Elated that he’d forgiven me, I nodded. “I completely understand, and you
do
have my absolute assurance. I won’t ever put myself in a dangerous situation like the one I was in the other day ever again. Just say that we can pick things up right where we left off beforehand, and I’ll promise it. I’ll swear it.”

Beyond my bedroom windows, the sun had now set, darkening the room. A small lamp with a tiny, frosted bulb on my nightstand was now the only source of illumination, creating shadows on Trevor’s face as he briefly studied my own before responding.

“We can pick up where we left off. But I need to be able to trust you.”

I nodded again. “I understand. And you
can
trust me.”

He searched my face for just a moment, seeming satisfied. “Good. And that reminds me, I’d really like you to start trusting me, too. I truly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I heard that you actually believed that I intended to hand you over to Emile Renard.”

Embarrassed, I dropped my gaze to my lap with a sigh. “It
had
been a really long day, Trevor. And like I said earlier, you really made it sound like you were leading up to that.”

“Maybe I inadvertently did, and I apologize for that, but had you stayed in the meeting room just a few seconds longer, you would have learned that me handing you over was never even a thought.”

I lifted my gaze from my lap to his face. “But you really made it seem like you’d decided to hand me over for the good of everyone so that you could make the Renard gators leave the country, and everyone would be safe. You said that your decision was an easy one, since your job, first and foremost, is to protect everyone in this nation. That’s exactly what you said.”

“You’re right, but once I’d quieted everyone down after your rather dramatic exit, and had alerted Jeannie, I immediately told everyone that my decision was an easy one, since my job to protect everyone in this nation really does include
everyone,
meaning you as well. Maybe especially you. I then went on to say that I’d responded to Emile’s message with one of my own, stating that I was rejecting his offer, and informing him in no uncertain terms that any of his men who stray so much as a single toe near our town will be killed. Which,” Trevor had started scratching Princess’ chest and belly, to her obvious delight, but he now paused, frowning, “Emile is definitely going to test me. Without a doubt. I’ve received some intelligence that he may even try to launch a full-scale attack on our town at some point. He wants what we have: wealth, infrastructure, fertile women—and I think he’s growing desperate to get it. If he ever dares make an attempt, though, he’ll regret it. No gator who ever makes it into this town will ever leave alive.”

“Well, do you think he’ll try to attack anytime soon? I know you’ll keep everyone in our town safe, but this all kind of makes me nervous with there still being cats and dogs left in the forest. There’s at least one or two dozen left, maybe even more. And if Emile tries to attack anytime soon, he and his family members would probably kill the animals on their way into town, just for fun.”

Scratching Princess’ chest again, Trevor shook his head. “I think they’re still reeling from the losses they sustained the other day. They won’t attack anytime in the next week or so, I’d guess, and by then, all the animals will have been rounded up. It’s maybe a few weeks in the future I’m worried about. If Emile really is going to launch an attack, I suspect that he’ll let some time pass, so as to try to take us off guard. Which he won’t, though. I’ve been working with my pride to establish new full-time patrol areas, and reinforce others with additional men. I’ve also set an alarm system in place to alert the town in case any of the gators
do
ever breach the town limits. This will give all non-shifter citizens time to get indoors to safety. And, Savannah, needless to say, this includes you. In the event that you ever hear an alarm siren, you get indoors immediately. If you’re outside in the yard with the dogs, you grab them and get inside. If you’re on your way to the shelter, you hurry up and get there. If you’re in town, you take shelter in a business. I’m sure you get the picture. Wherever you are, take shelter, then you call or text me immediately to tell me where you are. No hiking through the forest, at all, for any reason, period, until all this with the Renards is resolved, meaning, until they’re all dead, or until we’ve successfully run them out of the country.”

I nodded. “I understand. If I ever hear an alarm siren, I’ll take shelter right away, and I promise not to go hiking anymore until all this is over. I swear to you that I won’t.”

“Good. And I want you to also promise me that you’ll take shelter right away, even in the event that you’re out in the yard and one of the dogs won’t follow you to the house or something. You
can’t
chase him or her. You cannot. Your own safety is going to have to come first. You’re just going to have to force yourself to keep moving and not look back in the event that something like that happens.”

“I will. And in fact, I think that to avoid that scenario in the first place, I’ll keep the dogs on leashes at all times when I take them outside from now on.”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

“Hopefully, all this will never happen, though, right? I mean, hopefully, you and all your men, with all your new patrols, can just keep the gators from ever entering the town, right?”

“That’s definitely the plan. But with about a hundred of them in fighting form, it’s not inconceivable that there could be a breach in our defenses at some point. We lions outnumber them for sure, but being that we don’t know where they may try to enter the town, if they ever do, we must position ourselves in a wide ring around the town, which stretches us a bit thin at times. So, we have to be prepared for all possibilities. But, yes, hopefully all this never happens. My men are strong, and determined to beat the Renards back at every point. Hopefully, the new alarm siren will never even need to be used.”

Trevor had stopped petting and scratching Princess again, and she now barked, still on her back in the crook of his arm like a baby.

He gave her a look of seemingly mock reproach, shaking his head. “You’re a needy little thing, aren’t you?”

Princess barked again, as if to say yes, and I laughed.

“She seems to only be needy when it comes to you.”

She wasn’t the only one who was feeling a little needy in regards to Trevor, though. Now that all was good between us, it had crossed my mind that we
were
already in my bed, and maybe we were overdue to spend some more very quality time together like we had a few nights before.

While Princess wiggled and barked, playfully nipping one of Trevor’s fingers, I watched her for a few moments before speaking. “Oh, Trevor? Maybe Princess should get some rest now. Maybe you should go put her in the bedroom with the other dogs, and give her some doggy treats from the can on the bookshelf so she stays. Then, maybe you should come back in here and shut the door.” Trying to keep my expression nonchalant, I paused. “
If
you want to see me lying naked in bed, that is.”

Trevor was already up and carrying Princess out of the room, saying he’d be right back.

CHAPTER 13

The moment Trevor left the room, I began peeling off my clothes, hurrying as fast as I could so that I could be lying in bed, naked, when he returned. I
just
made it, with only a second or two to spare. Suppressing a giggle, I thought he had to have almost set Princess down, dumped the can of dog treats on the floor, and then raced back to my room. Surveying my naked body in the dim glow from the tiny bedside table lamp, he actually looked like he’d just ran a marathon, with his face seeming a bit flushed.

“Jesus, Savannah. You’re so…” He raked his gaze from my head down to my toes, seeming to pause at a few spots in between, and then swallowed. “So unbelievably gorgeous.”

Now my own face flushed, both from his compliment and from his scrutiny. On my back, with one leg crossed over the other and an arm slung over my breasts, I wasn’t even “showing” everything, yet somehow I suddenly felt a little self-conscious, though in a strange way that I kind of liked; in a strange way that made some sort of delicious little shiver ripple through me.

Trevor quickly undressed, barely taking his eyes off me for even a second, and I could barely keep my eyes off of
him
. All long, lean, lightly tanned muscle, his body was nothing short of magnificent. The same descriptor also applied to his manhood, which was already fully erect, just the sight of it causing a distinct tingling sensation between my legs.

To my great relief, he didn’t waste any time climbing into bed beside me and taking me in his arms, making me sigh at the feel of his strength. His woodsy scent was also heavenly, and I breathed it in deeply before raising my head a few inches off the pillow to kiss him. He kissed me back, guiding my head back down to the pillow and hiking a leg up over my hips at the same time.

Making a soft moan, I realized I’d suddenly found my favorite kissing position. On my back, Trevor hovering above me with just a little weight on my chest, and his leg hiked over my hips and my now-slick feminine mound, which also allowed me to feel his rock-hard shaft ever so subtly moving against me. It was perfect. It was exquisite. At first, I felt like I could remain in this position forever, with Trevor’s full, firm lips on mine.

But after a few minutes, when he began caressing my breasts and stiffened nipples, I began to want much more, and fairly soon. My sensitive feminine pearl was now well beyond tingling; it was throbbing, practically begging for release. I wasn’t too far off from verbally begging for release. And when Trevor moved a hand from one of my breasts to between my legs, I broke our kiss with a moan.

“Yes. Oh, please, Trevor.”

He’d quickly located my slick, throbbing little bud and now began to stroke it with a low growl rumbling deep in his chest. The deep, masculine sound served to intensify my pleasure, and before long at all, I was panting, knowing I wasn’t too far away from a climax already.

But before I could get there, Trevor stilled the movement of his slowly stroking fingers and spoke in a husky whisper near me ear. “I want to look at you and kiss you from your beautiful face all the way down to the tips of your pretty little toes. Will you let me?”

Knowing he probably especially wanted to look at and kiss the parts of my body I’d kept hidden earlier, I nodded with the same strange feeling of delicious self-consciousness sending a current of something electric racing through my stomach. “Yes. Yes, I want you to look at me and kiss me everywhere.”

With another low growl rumbling deep within his hard chest, he soon began planting slow, gentle kisses across my hairline, the warmth of his mouth making me squirm, sighing. He gave the same slow, careful treatment to my throat, shoulders, and breasts, intensifying my squirming, but once he’d kissed his way down to the soft curve of my lower belly, I stilled, slightly dizzy with anticipation.

The kisses he soon planted left me moaning. And when he gently parted my legs with his breathing fast and ragged, it was all I could do to not elevate my hips, greedily demanding to feel his mouth on my most sensitive spot. A few deep breaths, focusing on the air flowing in and out of my lungs, helped me to remain patient, if just barely, while Trevor planted tender kisses up and down my outer lips, pulling his head back a few times to admire my most intimate parts with low grunts and growls.

When I finally felt his mouth on the spot I’d been desperate for him to kiss, I arched my back, crying out, then again when I felt him begin to slowly rake his tongue over that same spot. Tangling my fingers in his thick hair, I gave myself over to pure pleasure, all traces of self-consciousness now obliterated.

Only a minute or two had passed when Trevor began alternating the slow strokes of his tongue with brief stretches of rapidly flicking just the tip of his tongue over my throbbing spot, the movement feeling almost like a vibration. Maybe only the fourth or fifth time he did this little move, I ground my head back in the pillow, gasping for breath while a climax rocked through my body, seeming to make every single one of my muscles contract and release at least a dozen times. Apparently intuiting what had sent me over the edge, Trevor continued with his tip-of-the-tongue vibration move until the very last spasm of my ecstasy had passed.

Though my urgent need had been satisfied, not too long after, I realized I was still hungry for more, and I told Trevor I wanted him to make love to me.

“I want to feel you inside me now.”

Though I knew I’d definitely enjoy the experience, I wasn’t quite sure if I’d be able to climax again so soon. But a while later, on my back, after Trevor had pulled my legs up on his shoulders to drive his thick shaft inside me even deeper, it was the feel of his release that triggered another of my own. As I felt the warmth of his masculine essence filling me, my most intimate muscles suddenly began to clench and release rhythmically, this second orgasm having kind of sneaked up on me. Raking my nails across Trevor’s broad back, I cried out while he groaned with his own pleasure, driving his granite-hard pole into my depths the deepest he had yet.

A short while later, we rested in embrace, our slightly sweaty limbs entwined. Being an incredibly fit and virile shifter, I knew Trevor could probably go again, and probably wanted to, but after my two powerful climaxes, I was starting to feel a bit sleepy. I’d just closed my eyes, when my stomach announced with an embarrassingly loud growl that it was still wide awake.

I cringed, opening my eyes. “I apologize for the rudeness of my stomach. Apparently, the quick dinner I ate at the shelter tonight wasn’t quite enough to make it happy.”

Smiling, Trevor let a strand of my lovemaking-snarled hair that he’d been playing with fall through his fingers. “Well, let’s fix that. You wait right here.”

He quickly threw on his t-shirt and sweats and left the room, and I got up and dressed as well, then sat in bed and tried to make some attempt at smoothing my hair. Being that it had been snarled from me not getting a chance to comb it after my earlier shower, even before it had become even further snarled during Trevor’s and my activities, it was pretty hopeless. I hadn’t even worked my fingers through one side of it yet when Trevor returned to the room, bearing a tray loaded with fruit, sandwiches, and a two tall stacks of chocolate chunk cookies that Sophie had made earlier that day.

After our large midnight snack, we both brushed our teeth and then returned to bed, soon in the same comfortable limb-tangled pose we’d been in earlier. Trevor was just reaching to turn out the small beside table lamp when the sound of tiny nails clicking on the hardwood alerted us that Princess had arrived for a visit.

After somewhat timidly strolling over to the bed, she suddenly got bold, looking up at Trevor and delivering two loud barks that seemed like a command for him to pick her up. Clearly fighting a smile, he did, and once she’d thoroughly expressed her happiness by licking all over his face, she finally came over to say hello to me.

Thrilled to receive a few kisses from her, even if she didn’t give me quite as many as she’d given Trevor, I kissed her right back then hugged her to my chest.

“Do you want Trevor to be your daddy, Princess? Do you want to be a daddy’s girl?”

She immediately yipped just once, as if to say yes.

Giggling, I picked her up and set her by Trevor’s chest. “Well, let’s make it official, then. I now present you with your first daughter, Trevor.”

He again fought a smile. “Well, thank you. I’m very grateful, really I am, but I’m afraid I’ll still need additional heirs. I’m sure you realize that Princess can never succeed me as commander-in-chief of the nation.”

“Because she’s a girl?”

“Well, that, and also the fact that she’s a dog.”

“Well, right.”

We soon gave Princess a few more cuddles and then set her outside of the room and shut the door so that we could do even more work on trying to create a non-dog heir. After our little break and midnight meal, I found that my energy had been renewed.

Trevor and I were both incredibly busy over the next week or so, he with meetings with his advisors, and organizing and leading defensive patrols around the town, and me with helping to care for the shelter animals and get some of them adopted out. I was also making daily visits to Bridget, who was regularly experiencing morning sickness so bad she was nearly bedridden most days. Since her husband, Aaron, was Trevor’s top lieutenant and had to be gone a lot, he couldn’t give Bridget all the help she needed, so along with several other of her friends, who were also becoming my friends, I helped around the house with cooking, cleaning, laundry, and care of her cat, and I was happy to do so.

Despite all this activity, Trevor and I still found time to enjoy a few meals together and continue our work on trying to create an heir that wasn’t a canine. It helped that he began sleeping in my bed every night. I followed his no-hiking rule, and assured him a couple of times that I was always keeping my personal safety in mind as I went about my days. Every time I walked the short trail to and from the shelter, I kept myself on alert for the very first tone of an alarm siren, ready to immediately sprint to safety. I had Gerald drive me to Bridget’s every day just so that I’d never be caught too far from shelter on the way to town. These assurances obviously pleased Trevor, and one day he told me that it filled him with joy to know that he could now trust me.
I
was filled with joy that that our relationship was now on very solid footing. It seemed that Trevor and I were definitely heading toward a happy future together, which I’d come to realize I wanted badly, wanted it more than anything I could remember ever wanting in my life.

Mercifully seeming to give up on Trevor, Veronica totally steered clear of us, hardly even leaving her bedroom, according to Jeannie. I didn’t miss her rude comments and glares, to be sure, but at the start of her second week of near-complete seclusion and avoidance, I couldn’t help but become a bit worried about her. I hadn’t forgotten how upset she’d been the night I’d seen her crying, and I knew that if she was still feeling upset, she didn’t have anyone to turn to. None of the household staff members could stand her, and she hadn’t made even a single friend in town, which wasn’t very surprising, given her behavior. I still felt bad for her, though, and one afternoon when I had a little spare time, I decided to go upstairs and check on her. I probably should have known this gesture of kindness toward her wouldn’t go unpunished.

*

Standing outside her one-inch-open bedroom door, I gave the door frame two light raps. “Veronica?”

I heard a shriek, one of seeming surprise mixed with anger, followed by the sound of heavy, stomping footsteps across the hardwood. She was off her crutches now, and apparently not concerned about babying her ankle much.

Puzzlingly, the stomps stopped maybe halfway across the room, and then there was a long pause, then the sound of footsteps seeming to be retreating, as if Veronica had forgotten something on her way to the door and had backtracked. Another long pause. Then stomping over to the door again, this time with a few more inexplicable pauses, though without any more backtracking. I would have liked to see what she was doing, just out of complete curiosity, but the angle of the crack in the door didn’t allow me a view.

Veronica yanked open the door, red-faced and glaring. “Don’t knock two times!”

Not understanding what she meant by that, I just stared at her for a second. “What?”

“Don’t
ever
knock two times. Knock with three knocks or five, one is even okay, but never with two or four.”

“What are you talking ab-”

“That’s the
right
way to knock.”

Again, I just stared at her a second, incredulous. “My God, you’re one seriously spoiled little brat. Your preferred method of trying to make people feel bad is now telling them that they don’t knock correctly?” Returning her glare and then some, I was sure, I scoffed. “Your bratty-ness is seriously getting out of control. Jeannie told me earlier that you sent your breakfast tray back three times this morning because there ‘wasn’t the correct number of items on the tray.’ She told me that after the third time, she didn’t bring the tray back up, figuring you could just starve, and good for her.”

Jeannie had also told me that this had happened numerous times lately, with Veronica being displeased with the number of items on the tray as far as glasses and silverware, or the number of actual food items, or the number of berries or vegetable pieces within certain food items, or the number of cutlery items and food items combined. It was always the number of one thing or another that Veronica wasn’t happy with, so if she sent back a tray more than three or four times, Jeannie had taken to informing her that she wouldn’t be making another attempt to fulfill her ridiculous demands. It was obvious that Veronica had missed a few meals because of this; her normally creamy, radiant skin was now gaunt and pale, and her willowy frame looked even willowier than usual. Almost even unhealthily so.