"Yes. Who isn't?" Cici said.
"Well, even though she was one of my best friends, I have to say that her behavior was going to get her in trouble eventually."
"What behavior?" Cici asked.
"You know she had lovers. And her husband was a jealous man," Mrs. Green said.
"I don't think that's any of our business. Besides, cheating on your husband is not a reason to be murdered."
"I didn't say it was. I was just saying her behavior was going to get her in trouble eventually. You know, Mr. Talbot, he wouldn't let her out of his sight. He’s been obsessed with her for twenty years."
Another woman Cici knew as Sally Mace walked over and gave Mrs. Green a cold stare.
"Vicki was cheating on Mr. Talbot," Sally Mace said, clutching her pearl necklace with her pale pink manicured fingers. "If you ask me, any woman who would cheat on Ralph like that deserved whatever foul thing came to her."
Cici was taken aback. She couldn't believe anyone would say something like that. She certainly didn't agree with cheating on your spouse. If you didn't want to be with them anymore you might as well just leave, but that was no excuse to murder someone.
"Ralph is a wonderful man. He deserves much, much better than that,” the woman continued.
"And who would that be?" Mrs. Green said, flipping her hair. "Someone like you?"
"Ever since my husband left me, Ralph has been nothing but supportive. I can say with authority that he is a good and loyal man."
"You're such a slut, Sally," Mrs. Green said.
The women around Cici all gasped. Sally clutched her pearls and stared at Mrs. Green as she sauntered away. Sally walked off, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief as the meeting of the Fate Valley Wives’ Club began.
"Mom, why do you like hanging out with these women?" Cici asked. "They're horrible people."
"Shush, Cici. I'm here for the charity fundraiser. Don't you want to do good for the community?"
"Of course I do, Mother, but that doesn't mean that we have to be around them."
“They aren't all bad," her mother said, patting her leg.
The meeting began, and the women started taking responsibility for roles in the fundraiser that would begin around Easter. Their previous fundraiser had ended right before Christmas. It had raised almost twenty thousand dollars for a new statue of the city's founder to be raised in the town square. The artist had already been commissioned and the structure would be put in on Valentine's Day.
Cici had loved the idea of erecting a statue of Fate Valley's founder. She’d had gotten donations from the teachers at school and her friends. She wanted to help the Children's Hospital too. But she didn't like hanging out with the women. Especially after what Sally had said about Vicki. There were a lot of reasons a woman wouldn't leave her husband. Maybe she didn't have anywhere to go. Maybe she was scared to leave him. Or maybe she was a horrible person. But that didn't mean she deserved to die for it.
As the meeting went on, the wheels started to turn in Cici's brain. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Sally had said. Thorian said she had a thing for Vicki's husband, and she thought that Vicki deserved to die for cheating on him. Could it have been Sally who had killed Vicki on New Year's Eve? It seemed so absurd that a woman would kill another woman to get her husband. Or to punish her for cheating. But she did had a motive. Cici was no detective, she was a second-grade elementary school teacher. But she'd read enough detective novels to put two and two together. She picked up her phone and texted Thorian.
"Vicki's best friend is saying some suspicious things.”
"We’ll talk about it tonight.”
"Sounds like a plan," she typed, turning off her phone.
"Pay attention, Cici," her mother said. "Aren't you going to volunteer for a position?"
"You volunteer for something, Mom, and I'll help you, okay? I'm kind of volunteered out after the last fundraiser."
Her mother volunteered to help organize a luncheon for the donors, and Cici agreed to help her mom with whatever she needed. When the meeting was over, Cici returned home, completely exhausted. She looked forward to her date with Thorian. She knew he’d make her feel better.
Chapter 9
After Thorian got home, he put away his tools and tidied up the house. He wanted to show the place to Cici. It was still stacked high with boxes of his grandfather’s things, dusty and musty from disrepair. But he owned it outright, and he wanted to show her what he had to offer.
He dressed in his best outfit. Black slacks and a black button-up shirt with a suit jacket that he’d bought specially for the occasion. It had only been a few hours since they'd seen each other, but he missed her like crazy.
He could still almost taste her body on his lips. The scent of her lingered in his nostrils. His inner bear growled in disappointment at him for not claiming her that morning. Thorian wanted more than anything to claim his mate, his woman, his love. But he knew it had to wait for the perfect moment. When he had something to offer her.
He drove to Cici’s house and parked outside her door. He grabbed the bouquet of red roses he’d brought on the way, and walked up the pathway to her front door. He knocked, and she opened the door, dressed in a form-fitting purple dress that hugged her curves and dipped low on her chest. His eyes went wide, and his tongue nearly lolled out of his mouth at the sight, his inner grizzly clawing at the back of his eyes.
"You look so beautiful," he said, the bouquet of roses still hidden behind his back.
"Why thank you," she said sweetly.
She was so adorable, he could barely stand it. He wanted to gather up her curvy, petite body, carry her across the house and ravish her on her bed. Instead, he pulled the flowers out from behind her back and offered them to her, standing there without a word.
She clapped her hands together, squealed, and gathered the roses in her arms. She took a deep breath of the fragrant scent and let out a long sigh of pleasure.
"These are beautiful," she said, bouncing a little. “Thank you so much."
She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. He had to lean down to let her kiss him. The touch of her lips on his skin was like heaven. She turned and looked over her shoulder.
"I'm just going to put these in water.”
She went inside, found a vase, and cut the roses to fit. She arranged them in the water and set the vase on her dining room table under the chandelier he had just fixed.
"They look perfect," she said, clapping her hands together and resting them under her chin.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked gulping with anticipation.
"I am," she said, pulling on her coat and wrapping her hand in the crook of his elbow.
He smiled down at her and escorted her out of the house. As they drove across town, he turned on the radio and they listened to his favorite classic rock station. Cici sang along with the music and he loved the sound of her sweet voice, enthusiastically hitting all of the notes. She was cute as a button, and he had to adjust himself before they made it to the resort.
He growled at his inner grizzly and told him to settle down. There would be time enough for all that later. After he parked, he opened her door and helped her hop out of the truck. She was so cute and curvy in her dress, he could just pick her up and devour her. But he made himself stop thinking about those things as he escorted her into the resort and told the hostess they had a reservation.
"Thorian Reed," the hostess said. "I have you right here."
She looked at him askance, and he knew that she was nervous about what had happened on New Year's Eve. The police had allowed them to reopen the resort the next morning, but the area where Vicki had been murdered was still cordoned off.
The hostess showed them to their table and asked if she could get them anything to drink.
"We'll take a bottle of champagne," he said.
"Very good," the hostess said.
"What's the occasion?" Cici said. "Not that there needs to be any occasi
on for champagne."
"It's our first date," he said.
"We had a date on New Year's Eve. And we went out for breakfast this morning."
"Those weren’t real dates."
The sommelier came back a moment later and uncorked their bottle of champagne, pouring them both a glass in long stem flutes. Cici smiled and took a sip from her glass, looking at him prettily the entire time.
"This is good," she said.
They looked down at the menu and both decided to get the surf and turf for dinner. The waitress returned, took their orders and brought them a tray of crusty French bread with sweet butter. Cici buttered her bread and took big bites as Thorian watched her devour her food with the appetite of a grizzly. Just thinking of her devouring other things made him rumble inside.
He squeezed his eyes closed, telling himself he needed to stop. This was supposed to be a romantic dinner date. Not a lead up to his own personal sexscapades. But he couldn't help it. She was his mate and more beautiful than he could've ever imagined. He just had to have her. He wasn't going to be able to wait much longer.
The waitress returned with their food and they dug in. His steak was cooked to perfection and the lobster was drenched in garlic butter. He hadn’t had a meal this good in who knows how long. Definitely not since he’d joined the military.
"So, tell me about Vicki's friend at the Wives’ Association meeting?" he said.
"Apparently, she thinks that Vicki deserved to die for cheating on her husband," Cici started.
"Interesting." Thorian said.
"I don't exactly support cheating on your spouse. I think it's pretty low, to be honest," Cici said. “But nobody deserves to die for that."
"I agree. Her men were awfully suspicious the last time I went out to the estate. Mr. Talbot is a jealous, angry man. And Jake is unhinged. I feel sorry for the kid. He had to go stay with his girlfriend until everything blows over. I think he suspects his father.”
"Children can be awfully intuitive," Cici said.
After they were finished with dinner, they ordered hot fudge sundaes and dug into the delicious fudgy, creamy dessert.
"It's like a flavor explosion in my mouth," he said, his mouth full of ice cream and fudge.
After dessert, he paid for dinner, and they put their jackets on to take a stroll out on the patio. The moon was full and bright over the lake. They looked out onto the dark waters that stretched out below them. He held her hand in his and looked deep into her eyes. The Christmas lights twinkled all around. He ran his thumb over her cheek and let out a deep breath that puffed out into the cold air.
"You really are the most beautiful woman."
"A girl could get used to compliments like that," she said with a giggle.
He leaned in and kissed her hard, standing in a little private corner of the patio. His heart leapt, and his body grew hungrier and hungrier as their tongues danced a delicious tango of desire. She groaned when he pulled her to him. A moment later, they strolled hand in hand, walking around the patio and down onto the grounds. It was cold outside, but they were both bundled against it.
The stood out on the dock, contemplating the moon as it glimmered in the water below.
"Would you like to see my grandfather’s house?" he asked as he held her in the moonlight.
"I'd love to," she said.
He took her hand and they strolled back to his truck. A few moments later, they were driving up to his grandfather's old house on the small acreage just outside of town. As they walked up the front porch, the steps creaked and groaned.
"It needs some work," he admitted.
He put his key in the door and opened it. The musty smell of old man hit his nose and he cringed. She walked inside and looked around.
"It has a lovely original crown molding and such high ceilings. Oh, and look at these floors. They just need a scrub and a polish, and they'll shine like new.”
"You like it?" he asked, his eyes sweeping over the old furniture and the out of date finishes.
"It has really good bones. I love historic houses, don't you?"
"I love this house. I used to come here every summer with my parents. I used to go fishing with my granddad out on the dock.”
"Oh, you’re right on the lakefront?" she asked.
"I sure am. I have a dock and a little bit of beach as well.”
"Oh, lucky."
She continued walking through the house, inspecting the rooms as she went. He followed her and watched her as she took in what he had to offer.
"I love it. I really do.”
"I’m gonna fix the place up. But it sure could use a woman's touch."
She turned to him and smiled, stepping into his space, running her hands over his chest.
"I think the house isn't the only thing that could use a woman's touch," she said.
Chapter 10
Thorian drew Cici into his embrace, pulling her against his hard, masculine chest. She felt herself swoon at the feeling of him against her softness. His hands roved her body, and she felt a flush of desire rise up inside her core. He leaned down and cupped her face in his hand, tilting her mouth up toward his. He was so much taller than her that he had to lean down to kiss her. He cradled her face in his hand, kissing her lips slowly and affectionately. Cici felt so adored in that moment, she could barely breathe as her heart pounded in her chest. He pulled back and looked into her eyes, running the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone.
"You are so beautiful, my little mate," he said. "I want you so badly."
"What are you waiting for?" she teased, biting her lip and running her hand over his lapel.
"I don't know if I can stop once I start," he said, pulling her to his chest and growling low in his throat.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested against his heart, feeling it thumping on her temple. Their heartbeats seemed to pound in time and she let out a long, contented breath. He wrapped his arm around her waist and cupped the back of her head, holding her close as he released a long sigh into the top of her head.
He reached down and picked her up in his arms and cradled her like she weighed nothing, carrying her through the house and up the stairs to the second floor. He kicked the door open with his foot and carried her inside. She gasped and giggled as he tossed her on the bed, playfully kicking the door closed behind him. They were in a tidy guestroom that smelled of cleaning products and Thorian’s cologne. There was almost nothing in there except a laptop on the desk, a lamp beside the bed and a few books on a shelf. His clothes were tucked away neatly in the closet and in the chest of drawers on the other side of the room.
He kissed her forehead and her lips as she tugged his shirt up over his head and threw it on the floor. She gazed at his tight muscled chest and his strong arms, running her hands over his skin and exploring the tattoos she found there.
His body was so gorgeous it made her quiver every time she saw it. He pulled her dress over her head and growled at the sight of her body. She was wearing a pretty black lace underwear and bra set. By the look on his face, she could tell he appreciated it. He quickly pulled off the rest of their clothes, leaving them in their underwear on his fresh smelling sheets. He growled as he looked at her, kissing, nipping and licking her neck and earlobes.
"This is so hard for me," he said.
"What's hard for you?" she asked, feeling insecure.
"Not taking you and claiming you immediately.”
"Oh, that," she giggled.
He unhooked her bra and pulled it away, kissing down her chest and sucking her nipples into his mouth. His tongue circled the rosy peak and bit down ever so gently. Cici groaned and leaned her head back, arching her back and gasping at the ceiling. He ravished her body, squeezing her breasts and pinching her nipples as his mouth descended down her chest and over her round stomach, his tongue trailing circles around her navel. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties and pulled them down, slowly descending between her legs until he had pulled
them all the way off.
He crawled between her legs, gazing at her glistening pussy.
"This is my favorite place in the world," he said, licking her up and down.
She ran her fingers through his hair as he lapped his thick wet tongue over her core, teasing out all the deep desire building inside her. She was sopping wet and starving for his touch to go deeper. Just when she didn't think she could stand it anymore, he slid his fingers inside her and rubbed against her G-spot while sucking on her clit. She exploded with orgasm, her nipples peaking hard and her body clenching in ecstasy.
He continued to rub her clit with his thumb and move his fingers in and out of her core as he gazed up into her eyes. He watched her come over and over again. She could see the bright yellow glow of his bear behind his human façade. She could tell he relished the sight of her pleasure as she groaned and gripped the bedsheets, pulling them tight in her hands as she arched her back, her body spasming with ecstasy. She growled and reached out to him, pulling him toward her when the pleasure became too much. He sank between her legs and kissed her, the sweet flavor of her body on his lips. She lapped at his tongue, feeling his hardness slide between her legs and over her wet core. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he kissed her deeper.
"I need this," he said. “I can’t hold back."
He slid the head of his cock just inside her entrance, holding still as he kissed her neck and her chest.
"I want to feel you bare," he growled, nipping at her ear. "I want to put a cub inside you when I claim you."
"A cub?" Cici said in a soft voice.
The idea of having Thorian’s cub in her womb filled her with ecstasy. She pulled him deeper with her legs at the mere thought of it.
"I want to give you everything. My life, my home, my ring. I want to marry you. I want us to be together forever. Will you let me claim you tonight?” he said as his sharp teeth ran over her neck.
"Yes, to all of it," she said as he slid just a bit deeper.
She wanted his cub. She wanted to be his wife. She wanted to move into his old house and help him fix it up. She had never wanted anything more in her life. He slid deeper, sinking himself fully inside her core. Her body clenched and spasmed around him as she came. It was the most blissful feeling she'd ever had. He filled her so perfectly, the feeling of his naked shaft in her pussy was like heaven. He began to slide in and out of her in a mind-numbingly slow rhythm. She growled into his ear and bit his earlobe as he began to pick up the pace.