Snow Leopard's Lady Read online

  "Whoo," she said finally, when the last shivers of pleasure were fading away. "It's been a long while since I've done that." Then she laughed.

  He smiled down at her. "What?"

  "Necking on the couch, and now dry humping on the bed. What sort of middle-aged people are we?" she asked. "Teenagers, more like it."

  "Maybe teenagers have the right idea," he said in low voice, "because that was the hottest thing I've ever seen."

  That was a strange idea. Mavis wasn't in the habit of thinking of herself as hot. After all, she was fifty. She had a grown daughter. She wore sensible, businesslike clothing, never anything suggestive or revealing. And it had been more than seven years since she'd even thought about having sex with a man, let alone actually done anything.

  But Wilson was looking at her like the very sight of her stretched out on this bed was setting him on fire. And Mavis couldn't do anything but believe him.

  "Well then," she said, and her voice was low like his had been, rough with renewed desire, "why don't you let me take some clothes off, and we'll see if we can't top that?"

  He kissed her hard, and then pulled back. "I can't think of anything in the entire world I'd want more than that."

  Mavis unbuttoned her shirt, and watched Wilson's eyes trace over the curves of her generous breasts as they were revealed. He reached out and traced a thumb down the line of her bra, and she shivered. She sat up, shedding the shirt and reaching behind herself to undo the clasp.

  When she was bare from the waist up, Wilson leaned forward and kissed her just between her breasts, then trailed warm, damp kisses up over one curve to her nipple, while Mavis trembled and felt the muscles between her legs clench with increasing want.

  He paid lavish attention to her nipple with his mouth, catching the other one between two fingers and massaging lightly. He didn't pinch, just slowly built up pressure and sensation until she was almost writhing.

  She was gasping for breath when he pulled back, his hands going to her waistband. He gave her a questioning look and she nodded, too breathless to speak.

  He undid her pants and tugged them down; she lifted her hips to help him. Her panties were still on, white cotton with a lacy border, dramatic against her dark skin. He leaned down and kissed the thin fabric over her hipbone. His fingers dipped between her legs, and when he lifted his head, his pupils were wide and dark. "You're so wet."

  The fabric was surely soaked through from her orgasm. Mavis nodded, and then gasped again as his fingers started massaging once more, this time over her clit. The wet cotton dragged over the sensitive skin, making her arch her back in sudden, overwhelming pleasure.

  Just as she was sure she was about to come a second time, he pulled back, and over her protesting sound, he pulled her panties down. Mavis kicked them impatiently off, and said, "Now you."

  Wilson looked down, as though he'd completely forgotten he was still clothed. Then he glanced back up at her, and grinned. It made him look ten years younger. "If you insist," he said, and went for the buttons of his shirt.

  Mavis drank in the sight of him as it was revealed. She hadn't been wrong about his muscles—they rippled over his body, hard and defined from decades of conditioning. His chest hair was salt-and-pepper gray, and she wanted to get her fingers on it.

  When he unbuttoned his jeans, Mavis found her mouth watering. Slowly, teasingly, he inched them down over his hips—then paused when all she could see was a hint of pubic hair. She looked up, and he had a twinkle in his eye.

  Sternly, she said, "Quit stalling."

  His lips quirked, and he stripped his pants and underwear off in one smooth motion, leaving his cock exposed. It was long and thick, fully erect and flushed with blood. Mavis drew in an involuntary breath.

  Then he was over her, bending down to kiss her mouth, one hand between her legs, fingers slipping inside. Mavis pushed back against them, but they quickly disappeared—just checking if she was ready, they must have been, because the next thing she felt was the thick, blunt pressure of his cock pushing into her.

  God, it felt so good. It was like they were coming together in more than just the physical. Mavis felt as though what she’d wanted earlier, to have Wilson stay with her forever, with his caring eyes and his gentle touch, was actually coming true.

  He pressed in achingly slowly, one hand caressing her—her breast, the curve of her stomach, her hip, a loving touch that sent shivers of pleasure through her, coalescing at the point where they were joined.

  When he was seated fully inside her, looking down at her with eyes that seemed like silvery flame, he asked, with strain audible in his voice, “All right?”

  “More than all right,” Mavis said back. More all right than I’ve ever been in my life, she thought. “You feel so good.”

  “Good,” he said on a gust of breath, and started to move inside her, thrusting deep and slow. It felt like she was being carried away on a wave of him, as he moved her, his body all around her, his cock inside her. Like she could just let everything else go, relax, and be his.

  Mavis shuddered as the pleasure started to build again. She was on a hair-trigger after coming once and being brought to the edge a second time, and the deep press of his cock was making her clench around him, pulses of pleasure starting to echo through her body. She reached up to hold him close, needing an anchor, and he wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her fiercely as she came again.

  This orgasm didn’t fade away, though. As she spasmed in pleasure, he kept thrusting, and it was like every push of his cock into her sparked another wave of climax. Mavis almost sobbed in pleasure as it went on and on and on.

  Finally, he groaned, deep and low, and his cock jerked in her, his hips thrusting hard and deep one last time as he came. Mavis sighed as her second orgasm finally came to an end, the pulses weakening into an overall feeling of shuddery bliss.

  After a long moment, he withdrew, and stretched out next to her, his arms still around her, holding her close in a pocket of heat and joy. Mavis closed her eyes and held him back, nothing in her mind but the pure happiness of the moment.

  The future would bring other things, and there were plenty of reasons her feelings didn’t make any sense, wouldn’t lead to any good outcome. But it didn’t matter.

  In this moment, she loved him.

  ***

  Wilson felt Mavis breathing softly in his arms. Her eyes had drifted shut, and after a few moments, it was clear she’d fallen asleep. A smile still lingered on her lips.

  Wilson was torn in two directions—on the one hand, he wanted to immediately wake her up and tell her what he now knew, down to his bones, without any doubt.

  On the other hand, he needed a moment to sit with this knowledge, to understand that his entire life had been bringing him to this moment. To rearrange his future in his head, and understand that it was so much brighter than he’d ever dreamed.

  Mavis was his mate.

  He’d been so certain that it wasn’t in the cards for him. Married to my job, he’d said with a jovial tone to anyone who asked, as though that’s all he wanted from his life. As though his work made him plenty happy, and there was no need for anything more.

  He’d been lying, every time. And he’d known it—he pretended hard, even to himself, that the military was all the home and family he’d ever need. When he’d been overseas, it had even seemed true, if only because he couldn’t imagine subjecting any woman to the fear and uncertainty that came from a husband deployed into combat.

  But in the years after he’d been posted to Washington, he’d had to pretend harder and harder. Because the truth was that underneath the fiction he presented to the world, he was deeply unhappy.

  And lonely. That had always seemed like a childish word to him, something that should be easy to conquer. But what it represented was long, empty evenings, weekends where he went on walks or drove out of the city to shift alone. Reading books without anyone around to talk to about them, coming home from a long day of work an
d having no one to wrap their arms around him and take his mind to happier things.

  Now he could have that with Mavis.

  But could he? She wasn’t going to leave Glacier, he knew that. She’d stay with her daughter until her last breath, after what had happened.

  That story had broken Wilson’s heart. Her daughter missing for so long...and she’d had to stay with the man who’d caused it all, or risk losing Nina forever.

  That made his fists want to clench in anger, though he kept his body relaxed to avoid waking Mavis.

  But if he ever met that man, the man who’d throw his own teenage daughter onto the streets, cause his wife and his child so much pain...well, even decades of military training would have a hard time restraining him from teaching the man a lesson he wouldn’t forget.

  He’d protect Mavis from now on. The idea filled him a with a fierce love. Nothing so awful would ever happen to her again, because Wilson was going to stand between her and trouble from now on.

  And Nina. That was something he’d never considered. A stepdaughter? He blinked at the ceiling in wonder. A stepdaughter.

  But he was getting ahead of himself. He had to tell Mavis what he already knew down to his bones, and see where they went from there.

  She wouldn’t know they were mates yet, not like he did. Because she was human. A human mate—what a strange thing. But perfect. Mavis was perfect in every way.

  He couldn’t wait to tell her.

  ***

  Mavis came awake quickly, her eyes flying open to see Wilson frozen in the act of pulling away.

  “I was just going to check on that coffee,” he explained. “But now that you’re awake—” He settled back in, his arms warm and solid around her. “Did you have a good nap?”

  “Mmm,” Mavis said. She wondered how long she’d slept. It didn’t seem long. But she didn’t want to look at the clock—didn’t want to think about time ticking away until Wilson would fly back to Washington, out of her life forever.

  She blinked a few times, waking herself up, and stretched in Wilson’s arms. Best to just enjoy the moment. She smiled at him. “I hope it wasn’t boring, just watching me sleep.”

  “It was anything but boring.” His tone was so heartfelt, Mavis couldn’t help but believe him.

  He took her hands in his, brought them to his mouth, and kissed her fingers softly. It was so sweet that Mavis was left speechless and blinking sudden, inexplicable tears from her eyes.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  Mavis was surprised to find that she was. But when she looked at the clock, she realized that dinner had been hours ago now. “A bit.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. Mavis was struck by the picture of him, lying naked in her bed, the long lines of his body softly illuminated by the single lamp, light playing over the deep-cut angles of his muscles.

  “May I use your kitchen?” he asked, and Mavis had to shake herself out of her reverie.

  “Of course,” she said, only realizing what she’d agreed to a moment later.

  But he was already slipping away, snagging some clothes on the way out. Mavis smiled incredulously to herself. What was this luck? How had this happened to her?

  She found a robe—a comfy terrycloth number, nothing silky or diaphanous. But somehow she didn’t think Wilson would mind.

  Out in the kitchen, she found him dressed in his jeans but no shirt, with half the contents of her cupboards already spread out on the countertops. Milk, eggs, flour, butter, apples, cinnamon...he was focused intently on a mixing bowl, so rather than disturbing him, Mavis took up a position in the doorway and watched.

  It was easy to see that he was a competent cook. He moved quickly and purposefully, his hands sure and strong as they cracked eggs, splashed milk without measuring, and mixed things up with easy confidence. He wasn’t looking at a recipe.

  “Can I help?” Mavis asked after a few minutes; she was starting to feel lazy, just standing in the doorway and spectating.

  “No,” he said firmly, chopping up an apples with quick flashes of her best knife. “I’m always cooking for myself. I want to cook for you.” He glanced over and shot her a grin, an expression that made him look twenty years younger. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

  “I have no doubt,” Mavis said, heartfelt. Well, she supposed it wasn’t a hardship to watch a gorgeous shirtless man cooking her a midnight snack.

  And phrased that way, it really seemed like she was living in some kind of crazy fantasy.

  In what seemed like no time, Wilson had produced spiced-apple pancakes and the fluffiest, dreamiest scrambled eggs she’d ever seen prepared. He laid the table and said, “Now, enjoy.”

  Mavis kissed him before she sat down. He caught her up in a tight embrace, then just as quickly let her go. “Sit down, it’ll get cold.”

  She thought she saw a hint of military discipline in that, and stifled a smile. She wasn’t going to argue with a regimented presentation of amazing food.

  And when she took the first bite, she thought she was going to melt out of her chair. “Oh.” The word was more of a moan. “Oh my goodness. You’re going to have to teach me how to make these.”

  Mavis could make pancakes. But she’d never made pancakes like this.

  A slow, private grin was spreading over his face. “I don’t know,” he said. “I like the idea of being the only one who can make you make that noise.”

  That made her shiver a bit in fearful pleasure. The only one. That sounded like a statement of intent. Could he mean...?

  Mavis told herself to stop thinking about the future. Why worry about what was coming, anyway, when she had the most delicious midnight breakfast she’d ever tasted, sitting right here in front of her.

  She ate every bite, and Wilson fairly beamed with pride in his cooking. It was endearing as all get-out.

  When they were finished, Mavis sat back and said, “Well. I could get used to that.”

  “Good,” he said in his slow, deep voice. “Because I have something to tell you.”

  “What is it?” she asked, curious, feeling that same fearful anticipation rising inside her.

  “I don’t know how much you know about shifter—marriage, and romance,” he said tentatively.

  “I know that shifters sometimes meet their true mates,” she ventured. “Like Nina and Joel, or Cal and Lillian. There’s some kind of—I don’t quite understand it. A mystical connection of some kind. So that they know that they’re meant to be together. It’s a permanent bond.”

  If only humans had the same thing, she might’ve avoided ending up with Daryl, and married a better man. If only.

  Wilson reached across the table for her hand, and kissed the back of it, as he’d done on the couch earlier. “Mavis,” he said, his eyes locked with hers, “you’re my mate. I realized it when we were—together.” His hesitation gave her no doubt about what he meant. “I know it more surely than I’ve ever known anything in my life. You’re my mate. We’re meant to be together.”

  Mavis blinked.

  It took her a few minutes to even process what he was saying. She was his mate? What could he possibly mean?

  When her brain finally got through the words to the meaning, she found herself just as unsure. Wilson was saying that she, Mavis, was the one person meant to be with him forever. As a snow leopard shifter’s mate.

  Her first thought was that it couldn’t be, because she was human. But she knew that wasn’t true. Lillian had been human before Cal changed her—and so had her sister Teri, before she met her mate, Zach. Leah, Jeff’s mate, was human. There were plenty of humans who were shifters’ mates.

  But not her.

  Mavis didn’t have any hint of the sort of magical grace she saw in all of the women in the snow leopard pack. She always imagined that there was some kind of ethereal presence about them, especially when they were with their mates. When they were together, the love and connection practically wafted off of them.

  That wasn’t any
thing that belonged to her. It couldn’t be.

  Wilson’s grip on her hand tightened, and she realized she was shaking her head.

  “I don’t think—I don’t think that can be right,” she managed. Her voice broke a little, but she kept going. “I agree that we have a—a connection. There’s something between us. But you’re mistaking it for something else. You must be. We can’t be mates.”

  “Why not?” he asked. The warmth and care in his voice, which usually made her feel calm and cared for, now seemed like too much to take. Like she was looking into the sun, and it was too bright to survive.

  “Well, because—because it just isn’t possible, that’s all.”

  Why was she arguing? She could remember just a couple of hours ago, thinking how wonderful it would be if she and Wilson could be together forever.

  But that had been a pipe dream. The sort of wistful fantasy of a perfect life that was never actually realized.

  Mavis had already had one impossible dream come true: she had her daughter back. There wasn’t any room in her life for another one. Right?

  “Why isn’t it possible?” he asked her. God, his voice was so terribly gentle.

  She pulled her hands back. “I don’t—I don’t know,” she managed. “It just isn’t. How could it work, anyway? You live in Washington.”

  “That’s what I want to figure out together,” he said. “I want to be with you. If that means leaving Washington—”

  She pushed away in a quick, violent motion, coming up out of her chair. Her robe was gaping a little, she realized, and she clutched it tighter around herself. “No, you can’t just leave your job for no reason—”

  “It wouldn’t be for no reason,” he said calmly, getting up as well. “Mavis, I’m sorry if this is upsetting you. That’s the last thing I want to do. If you need some time to think about it, that’s all right. Would you like me to go?”

  Then she was frozen—she didn’t want him to leave.