Slade

  He gripped her hips and thrust up into her hard and fast. Water sloshed over the edge of the tub but Trisha ignored that while she moaned. Slade shifted them and gripped her hips a little lower, proving his strength. He lifted her up and down on him, his hands easily manipulating her weight, and set a faster pace that left her mindless with ecstasy.

  Slade’s entire body tensed as he came and began to swell inside her. She was so close to climaxing but Slade slowed moving her over him as he growled viciously. He jerked before his body stilled.

  “Sorry,” he growled.

  Crap. Trisha nodded, sexually frustrated, as Slade suddenly moved his legs and forced her thighs open wider. Her body ached with the need to climax but she tried to ignore it until she watched Slade grab the baby lotion again. He poured it on his fingers a second time before they dipped under the water. Trisha moaned when he teased her clit.

  “Tell me if I hurt you,” he ordered softly. “I am still really swollen.”

  She didn’t care. The pleasure became too overpowering from what his fingers were doing to her as he played with her swollen bud, rubbing circles and coaxing moans from her. Slade moved inside her gently, not withdrawing far, and just fucked her deep. The pressure she experienced from his swelling and the feeling of his fingers manipulating her sex had her shouting his name when she threw her head back against him. Sheer rapture tore through her as the climax gripped her. Slade growled.

  “Forget me hurting you.” He gripped her hips, holding her very still. “You’re killing me, sweet thing. God, you clamp around me so hard it hurts. That will teach me to let you come first.”

  “Sorry.” She didn’t mean it in the least.

  He chuckled. “It’s a good way to go.” His lips brushed her neck. “Relax, Doc.”

  She elbowed him. “You’re inside. What’s the rule?”

  “Ouch. Sorry, Trisha.”

  “Stop calling me Doc.”

  “But it’s what you are.”

  Trisha turned enough to see his face and clenched her muscles. Slade winced.

  “I give. I’ll stop calling you Doc. You’re squeezing me to death. Swelling, remember?”

  She smiled and relaxed against Slade. “Now you get to hold me. I really love that whole swelling thing.”

  “So did I until you nearly squeezed me to death.”

  Trisha grinned and reached for the washcloth. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  * * * * *

  Trisha couldn’t look away from a smiling Slade as she grinned back. Brass sighed loudly.

  “Is this how it’s going to be until that baby arrives? You two will make me lose this fine turkey sandwich dinner. I know you keep rubbing her thigh under the table, Slade.”

  Trisha turned her gaze on Brass. “It is a great sandwich. Thank you for making them. I love the bacon you added.”

  “Yes,” Slade chuckled. “We’re going to be having lots of sex until and after the baby arrives. I love to touch her and I plan on doing it often.”

  The phone rang. Slade winked at Trisha and rose to retrieve the phone. He turned his back to the table, talking quietly.

  “Are you feeling better now? No more sickness?” Brass gave her a concerned stare.

  “I’m good.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “I mostly feel sick in the afternoons.”

  “I thought it was morning sickness.”

  She shrugged. “Tell it to the baby.”

  Brass laughed. “It won’t listen.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  Slade hung up and sighed as he returned to the table. Trisha’s smile died at the irritated expression he wore.

  “What is it?”

  Slade sat. “There are just more problems to deal with. I can’t wait until we can close Reservation to workmen and actually secure it.”

  “More troubles?” Brass stopped eating. “Something else has happened?”

  “You could say that.” Slade stood again and left the dining room to enter the kitchen. Seconds later he returned with a soda. He popped the top and took a sip as he retook his seat. “The three attackers who survived yesterday are claiming to be part of a new branch of a human hate group who’ve sworn to make us sell the land and leave the area. They are boasting that yesterday just marked the beginning of the trouble we will endure if we stay. We still have a lot of construction to finish and we need the workers to complete it. Any of them could be members of this new group.”

  “Was their intent yesterday to kill a few of us or did they have bigger plans than attacking the cabin?” Brass growled the words.

  “Their objective, according to one of them, was to destroy any remote structures and kill any of our kind they came across. They knew they’d be attacked if they targeted the bigger structures such as the hotel with all of our security in place. We know they succeeded with the cabin. One of the human males knew the old woman who used to live in Valiant’s house. I guess since Valiant never removed all the woman’s belongs, when they reached the second floor, he decided the woman must still live there and they left. Otherwise they were going to torch the place. They were stopped before they could find more homes to attack.”

  “That Victorian is such a beautiful house.” Trisha shook her head. “What jerks.”

  “I’m more pissed about their attack on you.” Slade looked grim. “They could have killed you. Every hour I had some of our men do a head check on the humans but now we have to do it every half hour. They had over twenty minutes to cause trouble before we noticed they were gone. I’m also going to have to put tracking systems on all vehicles that enter Reservation and have them monitored. They smuggled guns past our security, which alarms me too. We see a lot of vehicles coming in with building supplies and tools. That’s going to slow things down since we have to check every inch of anything coming through the gates now. Our people are already exhausted.”

  “Tell Justice you need more men.” It sounded simple enough to Trisha.

  “We’re stretched thin already.” Slade leaned back in his chair. “He’s put as many men here as he can without weakening the defenses at Homeland. We’re already using double the manpower that we’ll actually need when we’re up and running because we have to monitor so many humans.”

  Trisha held out her hand and waved it to get their attention. “Uh, what about the women?”

  “The women?” Slade stared at her with a frown. “What about them?”

  “There are at least three dozen New Species females that I know about at Homeland. Why don’t you bring them here?”

  Slade shook his head. “They are to be protected. Our females are few.”

  She frowned at him. “Did anyone ask them what they wanted? Have you seen some of your women? I think they are more than capable of handling the job of counting some humans and doing some of the security work. I saw cameras so I assume you have a monitoring room? How many of your men have to do that? Put the women there if you don’t want them manning the gates or having direct contact with the construction workers.”

  “It’s a good idea,” Brass stated.

  Slade hesitated. “It’s a great idea.” He smiled at her. “Let me see if Justice is agreeable to it and if the women would be interested in helping out here.”

  “What about housing?” Brass stared at Slade. “Where would we put them?”

  “The top floor of the hotel has been finished. There are ten suites up there with two sleeping rooms in each of them so that’s about twenty bedrooms.”

  “Would it be safe?” Trisha remembered that Brass hadn’t wanted to put her there when Slade had suggested it.

  “I don’t see why not. Those men didn’t attack it before due to how many people are present and how tight security is around the larger structures with the ongoing construction.” Slade paused. “There isn’t any other option.”

  “I don’t know,” Brass hedged. “Setting fire to the hotel would be a good way to do it if the humans want to cause trouble. It’s the biggest structure at Rese
rvation. I would worry our females could be trapped in a fire if we put all of them on the top floor.”

  “You’re right.” Slade agreed. “It was a good idea but we just can’t house them, Trisha. We can’t put them in harm’s way if there is even a risk of danger. As much as I need the help, I can’t exactly ask them to room with the men.”

  “You could bring in a few motor homes.” Trisha shrugged. “Women don’t mind sharing with each other usually and you’ll have them working in shifts, right? Maybe park them inside the wild zone and ask Valiant and the others keep an eye on them. Just scrap the rebuilding of the cabin. That way none of the construction workers have any reason to be out there.”

  Slade smiled at her. “Do you want my job? You seem to be better at it than I am. I never would have thought of asking our women to help out.”

  “She’s a doctor,” Brass chuckled. “She’s much smarter than we are.”

  “I don’t know.” Slade grinned at Brass. “She couldn’t tell an asshole from―”

  “Shut up,” Trisha laughed, cutting him off, and kicked him under the table. “I know the difference.”

  Both men smiled at her while Trisha shook her head at them. “Don’t you have some calls to make, Slade? You should ask Justice before he goes to bed and give him time to talk to the women before they are snoozing too. The faster a decision gets made, the faster you could have extra help here.” She flashed him a grin.

  Trisha looked at the other man. “And you, Brass. There’s laundry that needs to be done. You said you wanted to do it all so I didn’t have to. Hop to! It’s not going to get done by itself.”

  “I said I’d clean. I never said anything about laundry.” Brass stood. “I hate sorting and folding clothes.” He groaned. “But I’ll do it so you don’t.”

  “I’m going to go lie down. Good night!”

  “She’s so bossy.” Brass chuckled.

  “I know but she’s got a great ass.” Slade chuckled too. “When she yells at me and gets demanding, she always storms away after. I watch her ass as she leaves and I just can’t seem to care anymore that she’s domineering.”

  Trisha stopped on the stairs and laughed. She shook her head and retreated to the bedroom.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Trisha tried to hide her horrified and stunned reaction. She kept a forced smile firmly on her mouth until the muscles in her cheeks ached. Brass’ highly amused expression was obvious but he didn’t chuckle. Slade didn’t show any restraint when he bent over, held his stomach, and laughed until tears dampened the corners of his eyes.

  Valiant growled. “Why is he so amused?”

  “I have no idea,” Trisha lied. “I think sometimes he’s socially challenged.”

  Slade stopped laughing instantly as his gaze flashed to hers and narrowed dangerously. He sent her a look that promised he’d get even with her soon. Trisha glanced away with a grin, hoping he’d attempt to lick her to death, but her amusement died quickly as she caught sight of the table again.

  She tried not to gawk at the big hunk of raw meat wrapped inside plastic that Valiant had just placed in the dining room. She wasn’t sure what it was but it looked big enough to be a body. God, I hope it’s an animal.

  “That was so kind of you to bring us…so much. It will last us a good week.” Or a month, she added silently. She forced her attention away from the wrapped meat and smiled wider at Valiant. “What is the occasion?”

  “Slade informed me that you were the one who thought up asking our women to come here. Twenty of them arrived yesterday. I have seen some of them from afar and am very pleased with the selections. I asked you to find me one female but you brought many for me to meet. I wanted to say thank you. I knew it would be bad form to just bring the entire carcass so I skinned and gutted it for you. I even removed the limbs and head.” He motioned to the large thing on the table. “I wrapped it to prevent blood from dripping on your carpet.”

  “That was so very kind,” Trisha got out, trying hard to be polite, despite her shock. She stepped closer to him but then stopped. “May I have a hug to say thank you?”

  He frowned. “Why would you want to hug me? You just said thank you.”

  “It’s a human thing.” Brass grinned. “They seem to hug each other. Just deal, Valiant. She harasses me if I don’t allow her do that to me sometimes. It’s nice.”

  Valiant sighed deeply. “I guess I should get used to being touched since I want a mate.” He opened his arms. “Go ahead.” He looked completely disgusted.

  Slade suffered another fit of laugher but Trisha ignored him. She had to stretch up on tiptoe to put her arms around the huge man. Valiant held still while Trisha gave him a quick squeeze around his waist before she stepped back.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “No. You smell nice.” Valiant shrugged. “It wasn’t bad.”

  “Thank you.” She glanced at the wrapped hunk of meat before flashing her gaze to Slade. “Why don’t we have a barbeque? You and Brass can cut it up, freeze what we don’t use, and we’ll have some of that for dinner.”

  Slade smiled at the big lion-like man. “That sounds great. Thank you, Valiant. Do you want to stay for dinner?”

  Valiant shook his head. “I have women to meet and a mate to find.” He fled the house.

  Trisha pointed at the plastic that blood stained from the inside and whispered in case Valiant remained within hearing range. “What is it?”

  “Hell if I know.” Slade shrugged.

  “I’m guessing deer,” Brass whispered. “There are a lot of them out by his place. Deer steaks do sound good.” He stepped closer to the table. “Let’s get this into the kitchen.”

  “Use the back porch, please,” Trisha instantly corrected. “That way you can hose the deck off after you cut it up.”

  “Yeah.” Slade grinned. “That way you can hose off the deck once you cut it up, Brass.”

  “You’re helping,” Brass growled at Slade. “I’m not a butcher.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “Well, don’t look at me.” Trisha frowned when both men turned to stare at her.

  “You are a doctor and should be good at cutting things apart.” Slade flashed a hopeful grin.

  “No way. Nu-uh. I’d be so sick. I’m the pregnant one, remember? I feel morning sickness coming on just at the thought of doing that.” She put her hands over her stomach and batted her eyelashes at Slade. “You are the big predator, after all. Isn’t that what you always tell me? So go…hunt up a knife and get busy.”

  “So bossy,” he groaned.

  Trisha laughed. “Want to watch me storm away?”

  Brass chuckled. “You look at her ass and I’ll find some sharp knives and freezer storage bags.”

  Trisha turned, presented her backside to Slade, and smiled at him over her shoulder. “Call me when you’re done. I’m going to go get naked and take a bath. Thank you!”

  “Tease.”

  Trisha strolled toward the stairs. “You got that straight. Call me when dinner is ready. You’re the best.”

  “Keep walking,” Slade growled. “Shake it a little, sweet thing.”

  Trisha walked into the master bedroom still feeling highly amused. Some of her clothes had been returned to her that morning. Someone had salvaged them from the damaged cabin. She pulled out a summer dress and underthings from the dresser then moved into the bathroom.

  She studied her naked body in the mirror, seeing that she’d already starting showing her pregnancy despite the early stage of it. It worried her a little, no one knew what to really expect, and it could be dangerous. She had already experienced morning sickness, which marked the pregnancy as odd right from the beginning.

  Slade had sneaked her into the new medical facility earlier that morning before dawn where they had an ultrasound machine. The facility wasn’t up and running yet but the equipment had arrived. The baby measured bigger than normal. It made her wonder how large a New Species baby would be at birth
. The baby seemed to be developing at an accelerated rate as well. The way Slade had grinned at the sight of his child had warmed her heart. She had no doubt he wanted the baby as much as she did.

  Slade was mixed with canine and their pregnancy cycles were far shorter than a human’s. She worried that the baby might grow and develop faster with Slade’s altered DNA. She’d have to keep a very close eye on the baby’s development to figure it out and try to estimate a due date. She’d talked to Justice by phone and asked if he would order more medical equipment to do just that. He’d readily agreed to get whatever she wanted.

  “What’s that look for?”

  Slade entered the bathroom and walked up behind her. His hands slid around her waist to gently cup her slightly rounded belly. Their gazes met in the mirror while his hands caressed her stomach. He kissed the top of her head.

  “What look?” She leaned back against him.

  “You’re worried.”

  She smiled. “I am a little. I don’t want anything to happen to our baby or anything to go wrong.”

  “You’re alarmed because he’s bigger than he should be and you’re advancing in your pregnancy stages faster than normal.”

  She nodded. They’d had this conversation when she’d noted her discoveries at the clinic. “Yes. Stop calling the baby a ‘he’. What if it’s a girl? You’ll give her a complex. I couldn’t get a clear picture of the sex yet.”

  He laughed. “I will not give our baby a complex. You just get annoyed when I say we’re having a boy. It’s a shame his legs were up and together so you couldn’t get a view of his sex.”

  “It should be too early to tell but the baby is measuring at almost a twelve-week gestation. I don’t really care what sex it is as long as our baby is healthy.”

  “Me neither.” Slade hugged her against his chest a little tighter. “It’s going to be fine, sweet thing. You’re an amazing doctor and Justice will get you anything you request. He’s looking for a trustworthy, excellent doctor to assist you who specializes in high-risk pregnancies. You can stay on top of this. You stated the baby looks perfect and has a strong heartbeat despite the anomalies with his size.”