Redemption: Moon Fever Book Three (Redfern Shifters 3), page 20
“Take off your clothes the way I showed you,” he said.
His businesslike tone surprised her, but she forgave him for being impatient given she was feeling pretty ravenous herself. Holding his gaze with a teasing smile, she focused on the feel of the clothes against her skin and imagined shifting. A moment later, they disappeared.
Now naked, she could feel the contrast between the hot, blazing fire and the cool forest air against her skin. Tingling from head to toe, she ran a hand down her throat to her right breast, palming the sensitive nipple.
She’d intended to turn him on, but her show was wasted on him; for some reason, he’d closed his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
Still holding her shoulders, he gestured with his head, looking down to one side. “There’s something in my pocket. Take it out.”
His voice was strange. Awkward but urgent. She noticed now a bulge in the left pocket of his suit jacket. Her first thought—and she wasn’t proud of it, but who could blame her?—was disappointment that it was too big to be a diamond ring.
She slipped her hand into his pocket and felt a silky fabric similar to a pair of women’s panties.
He wanted her to put on lingerie? And had planned ahead for the occasion?
Willing for anything, she grinned and pulled the garment the rest of the way out of his pocket.
As it unfolded, hanging from her finger by one thin strap, she saw it wasn’t underwear at all.
It was a dress.
It was a white cocktail dress, short and slinky, and the last time she’d seen it had been when she’d torn it off her body and thrown it into the woods.
Inside her chest, her heart began to swell, growing with warm, soothing beats until it felt as if it had filled every inch of her.
On Fever Night last October, shortly after he’d rejected her. She’d had to run for her life, knowing the alpha and her father would somehow blame her for what Jasper had done.
What she held in her hand was the sexy dress she’d worn that night.
She’d been so optimistic about her future, about meeting her fated mate. It was what she’d been wearing when he’d first touched her. When he’d first kissed her. Before everything bad that had happened, there had been a few, long moments of delightful pleasure. They’d both been wild with it, heedless of their pack watching or their own doubts.
“Where did you get it?” she whispered. Her heart was thudding against her ribs.
“Put it on,” he said roughly. Then, after a pause, “Please.” His eyes were still closed.
She held it up and studied it, surprised by its good condition. It was just a cheap dress, not an expensive shiftable one. “I’m surprised it survived the winter up here. I can’t believe you found it,” she said. He must’ve had somebody at the house clean it up and make it look new again.
He shook his head with his eyes still closed. “I’d really like to see you in it.” His voice grew quiet. “For real, not just in my dreams.”
“Oh, Jasper.” She was turned on but now she wanted to cry, too. With trembling hands, she pulled it over her head and down over her body, reminded of how it hugged her curves. She took a moment to adjust her breasts to show to their best advantage under the deep V of the neckline. “It doesn’t feel at all like it’s been buried in snow for months.”
Finally he opened his eyes and looked at her. “It wasn’t buried in snow,” he said.
Her breath caught. She stopped fussing with the dress and stared at him. As soon as she thought she understood him, he surprised her. He was so much better, so much more than the fantasy of a fated mate she’d grown up to hope for.
“Where was it?” she asked, her heart pounding.
He licked his lips and raked his gaze down her body, lingering over her breasts, her hips and thighs, her breasts again.
Then, finally, his eyes met hers again. “It was in my closet. Well, at first it was under my pillow, but I moved it before I went to go bring you home.” He cleared his throat. “I was afraid you might think it was creepy of me to be sleeping with your clothes.”
She couldn’t breathe. All those months… She’d thought he’d been disgusted with her, but in fact he’d… he’d…
“When did you go find it?” she asked. She wanted to know everything, hug his secret to her heart.
“That night. Not long after you put it there,” he said.
“But you… you hated me. I mean, obviously you don’t now, but you did then. It’s okay, I understand everything now, what with your mother and my father, but…” She trailed off. Her assumptions were falling apart.
“Stella.” He stepped forward and took her in his arms. “I’ve never hated you. Is that what you think—that I ever felt that way?”
She studied his face, felt herself getting lost in his eyes. “Your mom…”
He shook his head. “I think I’ve loved you since that morning when you ran out of Old Sutton’s house. Well, at least I know I wanted you then. I didn’t like it, and I blamed moon fever, but ever since then, my thoughts would drift to the moment I saw you that day and…”
She waited, hungry for more. “And?”
“And I’d get really, really…” He slid a hand down her spine, cupped the curve of her ass, and pulled her against the hard bulge in his pants. “Feverish.”
She tried to imagine him in bed with her dress, all those months she was in Seattle, feeling the agonizing pain of separation. “Why… Why didn’t you come get me if…?”
“I did,” he said. “It took me a while, but I finally did.”
A memory of the moment he walked into the Seattle café flashed in her mind. How her wolf had jumped for joy at the sight, the smell of him. “It did take you a while,” she said, trying not to smile.
“Let me look at you.” He stepped back, not releasing her completely, his gaze drifting over her some more. He stared so long she began to get uncomfortable. It had always been tight, but maybe it was a little tighter than it had been, what with all the stress…
“It might not look as good as it did then,” she said, tugging at the fabric over her abdomen.
He fixed his smoldering eyes on hers. “It’s even better,” he said roughly, pulling her close again. One hand came up her side, hungrily exploring her curves while his other snaked behind her neck and tangled with her hair. “God, Stella. You’re so beautiful.” He lowered his head to her breast and opened his mouth over her nipple, licking and sucking it through the thin fabric for a long, sultry moment.
Trembling and wet, she held his head at her breast and tried not to fall over. Sparks of pleasure were shooting through her.
Before she was ready for him to stop, he straightened and guided her over to the thick pile of blankets and pillows at the edge of the clearing, just the right distance from the crackling fire. “Come here where I can worship you properly.”
As she walked, she could feel the dress clinging to her skin, especially the wet patch over her breast where he’d kissed her. Every inch of her was coming alive, wanting more, craving his touch.
He dropped to one knee and pulled her down with him. The blankets were plush and yielding, luxuriously soft. He pushed her gently onto her back and then settled himself beside her, continuously caressing her—all over, from her collarbone to her elbow, her navel to the backs of her knees.
The dress came off the old-fashioned way, with tugging and a little ripping, and then they were both naked, skin to skin.
She took time to explore him as well—the planes of his broad chest, the flexing muscles of his back, slick with sweat, and the velvety hardness of his erection—grateful to be with him outdoors where she was most comfortable letting her wild nature take over. In the years to come, they would spend many nights under the moon; she didn’t need to be a witch to see those moments in their future.
Murmuring love and appreciation, licking her most sensitive places, he fed the growing fire inside her. He’d brought her to climax before, but this time, under the full moon with the crackling bonfire beside them, it was unforgettable—higher, tighter, bigger. Maybe it was because he’d had the opportunity now to have learned more about her body and its needs, or maybe it was because it was Fever Night and the moon was blessing them. Whatever the reason, she rode it for a long time, a river of rapture, and let herself enjoy every exquisite, shattering second.
For several heartbeats after she came back to earth, she couldn’t breathe. But finally, when she looked into his loving gaze and nodded, he thrust into her, filling her with a delicious, pulsing pressure.
She clutched him close, whispering his name. They rocked back and forth, increasingly rough and urgent. Finally he tensed, his back muscles rigid under her fingers, gasped her name, and shuddered into her.
They held each other for a long time, still fitted together, sharing each other’s air under the night sky.
“I love you, Stella,” he said.
“I love you, Jasper,” she answered, relaxed at last in the truth of it.
She would always be able to show the Fates what love looked like.
And she knew Jasper would too.
Epilogue
They woke up at dawn in each other’s arms. Stella was using Jasper’s chest as a pillow, dreaming to the sound of his heartbeat. His hand slowly slid over her bottom and up her spine to her hair. He drew small circles on her scalp with his fingers, slow and sensual, arousing her instantly.
“Mm,” she said, lifting her head to smile at him.
“Mm,” he echoed, grinning back.
“It’s a brand-new day,” she said.
“In so many ways.”
While they continued to smile at each other in the faint morning light, she played with his chest hair, patting and stroking it, twisting it between her fingers. “Sleep well?” she asked.
His other hand found her backside and gave her a gentle squeeze. “Never better.”
She rose up on an elbow to kiss him, impressed with how quickly the whiskers had grown on his chin. “Same,” she said between kisses.
They stayed like that for a moment, sleepy and content at first, then with rising urgency. But when she got to her hands and knees and climbed on top of him, he suddenly broke the kiss and pushed her away.
“I just thought of something,” he said, alarm in his eyes.
After everything they’d been through, a surge of anxiety immediately shot through her. “What?” she asked, going still.
“You said you sent Dee away,” he said. “But last night, given everything that was going on, it didn’t occur to me to ask where. She’s a wolf shifter, moon called to attend Fever Night. Where could you possibly have sent her that was strong enough to keep her from coming back here?”
Stella’s anxiety vanished. Awash with pride and more than a little glee, she grinned. She leaned forward, kissed his rough jaw, and put her lips near his ear. “Simon DaSilva,” she murmured.
“Oh my God,” he said, laughing. He caught her in his arms and rolled on top of her, kissed her, then laughed again. “They’re going to kill each other.”
Thank you for reading the first Redfern Shifters trilogy, Moon Fever. I hope you found it as engrossing to read as I found it to write!
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Turn the page for a sneak peek of the first book with Dee and Simon!
Sneak Peek: The Next Redfern Shifters Book
AS YET UNTITLED
Chapter One
“You can’t keep me locked up all night!” Dee shouted, pounding the door with both fists. It had been hours, and he was still ignoring her. She’d tried shifting into a wolf and scratching her way out, but no dice.
She rested her head against the padded door. The room behind her was also upholstered with the same industrial fabrics designed to withstand the assault of claws and teeth. Behind the padding, she’d been told, were steel bars. There were cushions, a minibar, a sofa, a chaise lounge, and a TV, but it was still a cell to contain a shifter. Prison or zoo, no difference. She couldn’t get out.
“You asked me to put you in there,” Simon said—for the hundredth time—from the other side of the door. Calm, slightly amused.
No, scratch that. Extremely amused. If there was one reason she was going to kill Stella, it was for giving her the crazy, terrible idea that Simon DaSilva, lion shifter and rock star, was the best choice for stopping her from attending Fever Night.
What had Dee been thinking to agree to such a miserable deal? She was a wolf shifter. If the Fates wanted her to mate with Jasper Cross, alpha of the Redfern pack, she should go to Fever Night and claim him as was her right and her duty.
Claim. Him.
Want. Him.
Now. Now. Now.
Her wolf was angry at her for driving all the way to Simon’s ranch and asking—no, she’d begged him—to lock her up until dawn. For some reason, before the full moon was high in the sky, she hadn’t wanted Jasper as her fated mate. She’d been willing to let Stella have him.
But now?
Now, if she could have, she’d rip Stella’s throat out. She’d take Jasper in her arms and claim him in front of their pack. His cute little ass would be hers. His pretty blue eyes would only see Dee. She was a fierce and powerful fighter, and Stella hadn’t ever had a chance to stop her from taking what was rightfully hers: Jasper.
She turned and pounded on the door again. “Let me out!”
“Not until morning,” Simon said. “Though honestly…”
Renewed rage flooded Dee. “Honestly what?” she demanded.
“If you’re this upset in the morning, maybe I should keep you in there another day,” Simon said.
She couldn’t stop herself a second longer. As she inhaled her next breath, she allowed her jaws and throat, her hands and nails, to shift into her wolf form. And then, armed with her more lethal shape, she clawed and chewed at the door, growling with all the ferocity in her heart and her nature.
Her wolf mate was being taken by another, and she was trapped here with the most insulting, disgusting alternative available—a lion shifter.
A cat.
With a disgusted shudder, she howled and attacked the door again, heedless to the man’s voice on the other side that asked her to calm down.
“Dee, please,” Simon said. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Unfortunately, he was right. None of her efforts were making the slightest impact on the door; the tough fabric she’d come to hate with both her human and wolf heart remained unscathed.
But she’d gone too far over the edge into moon fever to calm down now. Summoned but trapped away from her pack and her mate, she was lost in a frenzy of love and lust.
“No!” she howled.
“Dee, please remember why you asked me to lock you up,” Simon repeated, projecting through the door with the voice that had made him tens of millions of fans and dollars. “You don’t want to settle down right now. You don’t want a mate. You want to be free. Remember? Please, Dee, somewhere in that thick canine skull of yours, you must remember.”
She howled again, wordless and despairing. Giving up on the door, she paced over to the window, rose on her hind legs, and opened her mouth to attack the bars. They were as cold and unyielding under her jaws as a mountain.
Pausing to lick her own blood off her teeth, she looked through the bars into the front yard of Simon’s Northern California ranch. The full moon shone overhead, cool and bright and beautiful. Two cat shifters in tiger form, glowing silver in the moonlight, were playing with each other like kittens in the grass.
It should have been Dee who was playing.
Enraged by their happiness, she howled and howled at them, but they were used to her already and didn’t even turn around to look at the house for the source of the noise.
She needed her mate. She needed Jasper, the beautiful wolf, the boy she’d grown up with, the man who was now alpha.
The one with Stella. Remembering the two of them together, how happy they were, her wolf whined in pain.
A faint, human voice—her own—whispered to her: You don’t want him. You don’t love him. It’s just the moon fever. Fuck the Fates. You’re free. You want to stay free!
Knowing she should listen to the sensible voice, she found the willpower to drop to the floor on all fours and shift into her human shape. The injuries she’d given herself—cut lip, bruised hands—were already beginning to heal with her shifter biology. That was a shame because the pain was distracting her from the urgent demands of her body to find a mate and enjoy herself.
She rose from the floor completely naked. Her wealthier packmates could afford to buy shiftable clothing from witches, but she’d always just gone commando before and after a shift like the rest of her family. The Russos had always been contrary, stubborn, independent.
It was good to think about those family traits now. It was why she’d driven to Simon DaSilva instead of joining her pack in the forest as instinct and custom demanded.
“I’m free,” Dee said aloud, wiping her forehead. Her human skin was already sweaty.
Want my mate! her wolf whimpered.
“Shut up,” Dee said. “You don’t really.” She walked around the cell to collect her clothes she’d scattered about when she’d first begun raging. For hours now she’d shifted back and forth between human and wolf and halfway between. Now she pulled on her T-shirt and underwear, gritting her teeth to fight the urge to flop on the bed and ease the burning need between her legs by herself.
