“I know. I couldn’t wait to actually get you here so you could see it for yourself. I thought we would have lunch,” he said, “and then all get showers and take a nap, if it works for you.”
“Yeah, that sounds great,” Elizabeth said.
“Oh, yeah, for me too,” Sheri said.
When they finally arrived at the log cabin home, Sheri was in awe. “Did you know it looked like this?” she asked Elizabeth.
“Yeah, David showed me videos of it. But it looks so much more real being here.”
“It’s gorgeous.”
He began getting the bags out of the car and the ladies helped him. Then they walked inside his house and David showed them the open living room, kitchen, and dining area, the bathroom and guest rooms.
Sheri hauled her bags to the room farthest away from the master bedroom and began unpacking. “This is my room! Lunch later. I’m getting a shower and going to bed.”
“Sounds good to me.” David smiled at her, then turned to Elizabeth. “After you,” he said, gesturing down the hall to his bedroom. The look she gave him as she led the way made his heart beat in double time. He knew she could hear it because he could hear hers beating just like it.
***
Elizabeth sighed in the doorway to his room. “It’s lovely.”
He set her bags in a corner and smiled proudly.
The room was decorated in blues—like she loved—and touches of tan and browns. The comforter and curtains were all blue, and even the wolf paintings of Arctic wolves had a blue cast to the snow around them. The bed was king-size and a cedar chest sat at the foot of it, a blue cushion for seating on top. The furniture was dark oak, heavy like a man would like, but had carvings of wolves in the door panels that made Elizabeth feel as though she had walked into a rustic art gallery. She loved it.
The wolf paintings she’d already noticed on the walls were all portraits of his friends and their mates. One in particular caught her attention. A sleek, black jaguar was seated beside a she-wolf, who sat next to Owen. She assumed it was Candice with Owen, but she wondered about the jaguar.
It appeared as though David had truly embraced his wolf half and his pack, and she was glad to see it. When she first had met him, she wasn’t sure he would. It had been a lot to deal with, in the beginning.
A chair sat in one corner; a blue-and-tan-plaid blanket was draped over it.
“I love your bedroom.”
“I know your favorite color is blue.”
She smiled. “It is. It’s beautiful. I like the huge bed.”
He glanced at it, then back at her. “We’ll have to be sure to stick close together so we don’t lose each other in the middle of the night.”
She laughed. She suspected that wasn’t going to be a problem.
He showed her the bathroom, which was in all blues too, though the theme in there was of the woods and lake. There were blue towels, pictures, and the soap dispenser that featured a white wolf. Double sinks in a marble-topped counter, white cabinets, and a mirror that covered the wall. One window looked out on the forest, and it made the bathroom even more elegant, cheerful, and enjoyable.
The toilet was in its own separate little room, and a big walk-in closet opened up next to it.
A glassed-in shower along one wall looked perfect for two. Elizabeth wanted to stand under the warm spray and feel David’s arms around her soapy body. The whirlpool tub in the corner would be great for taking baths with him. Her face went hot, and she suddenly wasn’t so tired anymore.
Then they returned to the bedroom and the portraits caught her attention again. “A black jaguar?” she asked. He had to be a shifter, though she’d never met one before.
“Yeah, that’s Uncle Strom, Candice’s uncle. He’s actually her adoptive uncle, brother to the man who had adopted her when she was young. Once she was bitten and she saw her uncle, she realized right away by scent that he was a jaguar. He knew she was a wolf, too. Talk about a shock to both of them.”
“Oh, I bet. I’ve never heard of a jaguar shifter before.”
“He had been bitten by a jaguar shifter and Candice was bitten by a wolf, so they had two different species in the one family. I guess you don’t have jaguar shifters up in the Canadian Arctic.”
“Not that I’ve heard of, but we had some snow leopard shifters pass through our territory on their way to Alaska. That was enough of a surprise.”
“Snow leopards? I’d never heard of them before. Which makes me wonder just how many different species of shifters there are.”
“Me too.”
“Cameron’s son, Corey, was the one who bit Candice. Before that, he played hide-and-seek in a camping trailer and ended up in a jaguar-shifter day care in Texas. That was the first time we had learned of the jaguars.”
Smiling, Elizabeth shook her head. “He seems like a handful.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
David drew her close, cupped her face, and studied her blue eyes. “I’ve wanted to lose myself in your gaze ever since you left. For real, in person, not just on Skype.”
After a long, searching look, he bent his head just as she reached up for him. Their lips met, open and ravenous, tongues twining, stroking, deepening the kiss, bodies pressing together. Heat rising. Heartbeats accelerating. This was what she’d hoped for with David. It was like a magnetic draw, a pheromone conductor, and he instantly gave her an adrenaline rush. She was his and he was hers, and the world was right.
She slipped his T-shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. He unbuttoned the front of her shirt, fingers working fast, but instead of pulling it off her shoulders like she thought he would, he slipped one hand inside, underneath the lace fabric of her bra, until he was cupping her breast, his hand warm against her flesh, gently squeezing. She softly moaned, loving his touch, good memories flooding back, but she needed his lips again. She found his mouth with a desperate fervor matched only by his. Their tongues teased, rampant need setting her body on fire.
She smelled their sexy, musky scent, her panties already moistened from his touching her so tenderly yet so fiercely. Her blood was on fire as his free hand slid down her back and cupped her bottom. He worked on the button of her jeans, then slid the zipper down. She shimmied, helping him pull them off, kicking off her shoes in frustration when everything got tangled up. She needed to be naked. Needed to feel his body against hers. Forget the shower. When he slid his hand down her back and into her bikini panties, squeezing, she knew she had to have this now.
Recollections of all the nights they’d been together in hotels came rushing back. His tenderness and loving ways. His concern about making it good for her while finding his own pleasure. It seemed like only yesterday they had been together like this.