The Billionaire Shifter's Curvy Match (Billionaire Shifters Club #1) (12 page)

Eva was one of them.

Actually, Eva was the only one. A member of a family of shifters as old as his, their fathers had been in business together—his in oil, hers in railroads. The Nagy family wasn’t nearly as wealthy as the Stantons, but she wasn’t on the streets begging for spare change either.

And she didn’t
need
the job managing The Platinum Club any more than Gavin needed to go into biotech. With more than a century and a half of adulthood, though, one needed something as a life’s purpose.

“Do you think the crowd would mind?” he said in a faint voice, moving his leg as discretely as possible, hoping his cock wasn’t about to follow Lilah like a panting little lap dog.

Tongue hanging out and all.

Eva smacked his bicep. “You really are hopeless.”

He cleared his head, shaking it slightly. When his eyes landed on her they telescoped, focused again. “I’m hopeless because I just handed your club a contract worth more than you clear in a month of serving drunk celebrities and pseudo-celebrities, or I’m hopeless because—”

“Because you look like you have a baseball bat in your pants, Gavin,” said an angry male voice he recognized all too well. Of course.

Of course Asher would finally make an appearance at this
exact
moment.

“Only a baseball bat?” Gavin asked the air behind him, not giving Asher the respect of a direct look.

“I’d say at least the size of a bear paw,” Derry said under his breath as he passed by, an intact bottle of Champagne clutched in one hand, the other snaked around the waist of a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Taylor Swift.

Asher pulled Gavin away from Eva and Derry and tried to frog-march him into his office, but Gavin was having none of it. With legs quite accustomed to digging in, he made himself immobile.

Until a waiter passed by with his private label lager.

Gavin took the entire tray from the man, gave him a wink, and strode without comment into Asher’s office. As the unofficial patriarch of the Stantons, Asher lived and worked out of the main building at the ranch. By the time they were shut inside, Gavin was on his second beer.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Asher roared at him.

Gavin responded with a belch that would have made Derry proud.

Asher’s long, slow inhale through the nose made him look more wolfish. Gavin finished beer number two as Asher opened his mouth to berate him.

Just then, someone knocked on the door.

“Come in!” bellowed Asher. He turned to Gavin and muttered, “No more business parties here at the compound.”

Lilah walked in, carrying a manila envelope and a bucket filled with ice and sparkling water. “Excuse me, Mr. Stanton—”

Gavin laughed, overjoyed at the sight of her. “Call me Gavin.”

She gave him a skeptical, though friendly look. “I wasn’t referring to you.”

“I am Mr. Stanton, though,” Gavin objected. Another roaring belch came out of his mouth.

“With an emphasis on the
mister
,” Asher said dryly.

“Pardon me,” Gavin said formally, reaching for a third beer. Something in him had loosened. He felt unmoored. A significant part of him reveled in the freedom of being treated like a misbehaving child. He was a grown man, independent and free, and he was finally making choices that centered on
his
happiness.

His
pleasure.

His
woman.

Lilah laughed. “I’ve worked in enough bars to wave that one off.” She rolled her eyes in jest. “Try working at a fraternity party at UMass and you’ll hear some—”

“Thank you, Ms. Murphy. I’m certain you are an expert in the belching techniques of the North American college male. One can only aspire to attain such professional expertise.”

Those three beers weakened Gavin’s impulse control, but it was the humiliation that flashed in Lilah’s eyes that removed whatever remained of his thin layer of politeness.

“Fuck off, Asher. Don’t you have women of your own you can shame out there? I’m sure you can find a hardworking single mother with two jobs to make fun of, or a disabled vet you can berate.” Gavin moved to Lilah, ready to offer his arm in support, but she stiffened and squared her shoulders.

Body language never lied.

He put his arm back down. She needed to do this without him.

She studied Asher, taking in his brother’s appearance, tilting her head to one side as if cataloguing a work of art. Time ticked by, second by second, and she continued, letting her eyes comb over him, ankles to forehead. Gavin felt the air change between the three of them as time passed and Lilah had no reaction. Just her eyes, moving.

Observing.

Noting.

Asher couldn’t stand it. His tension radiated off him, until finally he broke. “Ms. Murphy, I—”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said, interrupting him, eyes filed with unshed tears. “Both losses.”

Asher jerked as if smashed in the face by a rock. Gavin was struck dumb. How did she know about Claire and the baby? He’d never said a word.

And with that, Lilah backed out of the room, turning only at the door, and left quietly.

The only sound in the room was their breathing.

Until Gavin belched again.

“Get. Out. Now.” Asher spoke in a deadly voice.

While Gavin hadn’t played the part of little brother in more than half a century, some very old sliver of him reacted emotionally, leaving without so much as a glance backward.

F
ifteen minutes later
, Lilah had changed into jeans and a clingy sweater she knew showed off every curve and strode out the back door of the main building into the evening. The sun was sinking toward the mountains in the west, casting long shadows across the lake. His house was out there in the forest somewhere. She could feel it. Touching the ache at her temple, she paused and let the sensation wash over her.

If she didn’t fight the headache, if she somehow gave herself over to it, she found that it seemed to answer her. To tell her what she needed to know.

She’d never considered herself a flaky, woo-woo kind of person, but she’d always believed there was more to the world than what she could see with her eyes. Since meeting Gavin, that belief had solidified. She could hear his silent speech in her mind and feel his body’s needs as if they were her own.

This moment, as she walked down a gravel path into the forest, she could hear him calling to her, see him waiting for her, and knew she was getting closer. Every cell in her body was directing her closer to him. She’d never felt so...inhuman. Part of the earth, the sky, the moon. The animals and the trees. As if she would blend into it. Become part of it.

The darkening Montana sky arched overhead, emphasizing the vastness of the universe, hinting at everything she was too small to understand.

She hugged her arms over her chest, feeling tendrils of cool air creep out from between the shadowed trees. Just now in that office, she’d seen into Gavin’s brother’s mind, too. Like a movie trailer, she’d seen fragments of Asher’s past: a woman laughing, Asher with her, then the shock of pain, and finally, the cold, angry hand of grief.

The vision had been so real that she’d begun to cry. As if she’d been there.

She tripped over a stone on the path. This was no ordinary family, and her bond to them was not normal.

Without thinking, she let her feet take her on a left fork of the path through a meadow and back into the forest again. Now she was hiking uphill, and her breath began to labor. Sweat forming under her breasts, pulse accelerating, she inhaled the cool, delicious air and knew she was closing the distance between them. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew.

The path became rocky, and after a moment she heard the faint sound of water and saw thin tendrils of steam clinging to the stones about twenty feet away. A hot spring. She looked up the path, knowing he waited but suddenly reluctant to jump unthinkingly into his bed just yet.

Asher wasn’t ever going to accept her. He’d made that very clear. Unfortunately, he seemed to be the most powerful person in Gavin’s life. She’d seen—she’d
felt
—the way Gavin had bowed to his older brother. Even rudely drunk and antagonistic, Gavin had deferred to him. Asher’s rejection of her would hurt him. Lasting happiness might be impossible.

With a final glance up the path, she turned and climbed over the boulders to reach the springs.

No, it
would
be impossible.

Sitting on a large stone, she dropped her face into her hands and breathed in the steam, imagining drowning in it.

“I was thinking we would swim a little later, but now is as good a time as any,” Gavin said behind her.

She didn’t move, but her heart thudded a hello.

“I can feel your distress, darling.” He walked across the boulders in graceful, relaxed strides to her side. There he waited, saying nothing, not even touching her.

“Your brother hates me.”

“I’d prefer they all did,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Edward was quick enough getting his hands on you. I expected it of Derry, but Edward is usually too reclusive to—”

“I meant Asher. The one who matters.”

He scowled. “He doesn’t matter.”

Disappointed that, as usual, he wasn’t going to talk to her in any substantive way, she moved away from him to touch the water. Its heat warmed her fingertips but not her heart.

He watched her, matching her long silence with his. Finally, he said, “It’s not you, Lilah. You must know that. Some years ago, Asher experienced a great loss. He’s never recovered, possibly never will. He doesn’t want me to suffer the same fate.”

“His wife and child died.”

“How did you—” Gavin paused. “Yes.”

“Everyone dies.”

He paused again. “Yes.”

“He wants you to stay alone for the rest of your life because he suffered a tragedy?”

Taking an audible breath, he moved to stand behind her at the water’s edge. He kissed the top of her head, then dropped another on her temple. “It’s the depth of my...attachment to you...that worries him.”

Worry dissolved under the siege of his touch, now coming from all sides. His arms came around her, his knee slid between hers, his mouth captured an earlobe...

“You’re attached to me?” she asked, breathless.

He reached around and dove his hand under her jeans, under her panties, into wet heat. “Quite.” He began to stroke her, easily holding her weight as she sagged against him.

“I...I think I’m falling in love with you, Gavin,” she said, shuddering as he licked the pulse at her throat.

“Take off your clothes.”

She smiled. “Did you hear what I said?”

He pushed his finger higher, deeper, his voice lowering. “Did
you
?”

A soft cry escaped her. “I can still see part of the ranch through the trees. Somebody might come—”

“Somebody better.” He withdrew his hand, pushed her away, and pointed at her pants. “Off.”

Nodding, breathing hard, she kicked off her boots, fumbled with the zipper on her jeans, and wriggled the tight denim over her hips. She bent over to pull off her socks and remove the jeans completely, knowing she was giving him a show of her ass and getting hot at the thought. When she began to pull off the panties, he stopped her.

“Save those for last,” he said, gazing at her with unblinking eyes.

Licking her lips, she smiled and pulled the sweater over her head. Now she stood before him in the lingerie she’d bought just for the trip, the first selfish purchase she’d made in years.

Except, from the ravenous look on his face, perhaps it wasn’t selfish at all. He tore off his clothes and caught her in his arms, unbalancing her over the edge of the pool. “You like to tease me, do you?”

His palm stroked the swell of her ass, testing it.

“No,” she whispered.

He spanked her, not very lightly, and she gasped. “Don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, yes I do,” she said, writhing in his arms, arching her back to feel the sting of his palm again.

“Get in the water.” He turned her and gave her a gentle push.

She had to bend over again and put her hands on the rocks for balance, smiling to herself at the second show she was giving him. Hoping for another spank, which had made her wetter than she thought possible. She sank into the water, surprised at its depth, its heat. The surface reached her nipples, teasing them erect under the lace cups she wore.

He climbed in after her and grabbed her.

“This can go.” He unlatched her bra and tore it from her. Her full breasts bobbed into his waiting hands. Ducking his head, he kissed her hard, pinching her nipples as his tongue invaded her.

She felt so light, so lithe in the water, sliding her legs against his strong, muscled thighs as she arched against him. He dug his fingers into her ass and squeezed, pulling her legs open, teasing her fearlessly. Straddling his thigh, she groaned into his mouth, not caring about his brothers or the guests or her job, only caring that he fucked her right away, right now.

“Gavin,” she moaned, reaching for him, catching his hard cock in her fist. “Fuck me, Gavin, fuck me.”

He pulled away, clamping his hands over her wrist, stopping her from stroking him. “Suck me.”

The command in his voice made her tremble. “All right,” she said, dropping low in the water.

He was already climbing up on a boulder so she could reach him. There he leaned back on his elbows, shifting his hips into her face. His long, velvety cock arched up between them.

“Beg me first.”

With a smile, she floated over and settled between his legs. The boulder was smooth under her hands, the steam hot in her mouth.

“Please, Gavin, may I suck your cock?” she asked playfully.

“Say it like you really want it.”

She dropped her gaze, imagining the noise he’d make when she drew him into her mouth. The pleasure she could give him, take for herself.

“Please,” she said, all serious now. “Please let me suck you.”

Clenching his jaw, he nodded. “All right.”

She’d never considered herself an expert of this particular skill, and for a moment she paused, afraid to disappoint him. But he let out a sigh, a tender smile flickering across his face, and her confidence returned in a flood of lust and love.

She licked her lips, and then she licked him.

* * *

G
avin groaned
as her lipsticked mouth enveloped his rock-hard erection, the slide of her warm, wet mouth the best form of love she could give him right now. He’d heard her words moments ago and had been stunned into silence. If she listened to his heart in the space between them where words were not needed, she would know he returned the love.

But right now her lips told him so much more than words.

Tentative but eager at the same time, Lilah worked him, making blood rush through his veins, his body taut. Senses on fire, he pushed his hips against her thick sucking, the scrape of teeth tantalizing as she pulled up, flicking the tip of her tongue against his cap as her wet palm stroked him from the root on up.

“Lilah,” he murmured, one hand supporting him on the rocks, the other stroking her hair. Without changing her pace, she looked at him, eyes tipping up with a look of coy innocence that nearly made him explode in her mouth.

Enough of this. He wanted to bury his cock in her sweet flesh. He backed away and in seconds had her on the side of the pool. She squirmed as he dove between her legs, his body floating in the water, tongue finding her tender clit. The sound of her sigh, then hitched breath, made his cock twitch.

The beast within was rising up. He needed to be careful.

She sat up before he could slip a finger inside her pink heat, robbing him of the pleasure he took in that pause before entry. That moment, suspended before giving her what she wanted, when he knew it was coming. Knew he would give it to her. Knew only
he
could give her that ecstasy.

She slid into the water, surprising him, but yanked him to her, in for a kiss. Her kiss was fire and steam, bold and taking.

“You’re so hard,” she said, panting as she broke the kiss, her hair half-wet and streaming out on the water’s surface like that of a mermaid. The lush flesh of her breasts bobbed between them, her nipples caressing his own hard chest.

He pressed their bodies together, his cock pinned between. “Yes,” he murmured, nibbling a line from her collarbone to her earlobe. The steam from the hot water rose up in clusters, random tendrils and small clouds their only company.

“Not just in the flesh, Gavin,” she said simply. He paused, ears perked, and waited for her to say more. She remained silent, though her fingers danced on his back, his waist, his ass.

“Mmmm?” was all he could manage as seconds ticked by.

“You’re a hard man to read. To understand. To know,” she explained. Her words held no judgment. He used her pensive moments to touch her with great care, hands enjoying the endless slopes and turns of her hips, her ass, her ribs, her.

Just her.

With a gentle rocking movement, he began to shift his hips up, thrusting against her belly. “You’re getting to know me now,” he murmured against the soft pulse at her neck, sliding the wet, ropy hair off her shoulder.

Her little sigh of desire made him nearly come right now. She was so soft. So inviting. So authentic and trusting. As the dark Montana sky blanketed them with stars you could not hope to see in Boston, he kissed her until he couldn’t tell where his body ended and hers began.

“This isn’t just about sex,” she whispered as they broke away from each other. Her fingertips played with his lips, the steam rising up from the hot water as the nighttime air chilled them. “I can tell.”

“No. It’s not just sex, Lilah. It would be so much easier if it were.”

Her eyes searched his face, looking for something he knew he needed to hide. What would she say if she knew the truth? Would she be disgusted? Horrified? Reveal him to the world? Destroy the Stanton name and fortune? The risk of a human learning about a shifter was so great. Asher’s warnings ricocheted through his mind.

Yet love for Lilah bounced through all four chambers of his heart.

He hid his face in shadows, knowing that if she could see his eyes she would see too much.

Her hips moved, then a gentle kiss on his neck. Her head dipped to bite his nipple, the move hungry.

“Why do you say that, Gavin? If it were just sex, I think it would be more painful. I can’t know you like this,” she hissed, her hand cupping his ass, sloping down the lines of his tense muscles, “and not know you here.” She slid her palm up his hip, his ribs, his chest and rested it against his stunned heart.