Running Free (Woodland Creek)(42)
I cup her cheeks with both hands and kiss her again. I’ll never get enough of this woman. “You can run all you want, hádanka,” I say with a growl. “But I’ll always catch you. You’re my weird little shifter and I love every complicated piece of you.”
She sighs and rewards me with a breathtaking smile. “I love you too, my uncomplicated human.”
Frankie
Several months later…
“And thank you for this beautiful family, Lord. We are so blessed to have come together. Amen,” Gun says.
As soon as the prayer before we dig into our Sunday dinner is over, I flit my gaze across the table over to my husband’s. His dark eyes swim with desire and I want to admonish him for having such lust-filled thoughts shortly after a heartfelt prayer. But, my heart flutters under his gaze, and I’m soon imagining all sorts of wild things I want him to do to me later. I’ve worked myself into such a frenzy that I’m about to drag him down the hall and into the laundry room to let him have his way with me.
“Woah, Frankie. Calm it with the love shit,” Luca grumbles from beside me.
Like he has room to f*cking talk. He follows Casey around the whole damn town kissing her ass. At least Gun is my husband now. Casey is a fiancée… one he still hasn’t had the joy of taking the virginity from yet.
And just like I have to feel his teenage horny fantasies of taking said virginity, he has to feel me gushing with love over Gun. We drive the rest of the pack insane. They were happy to get rid of us for the afternoon so they could go act like animals and get some strange. Winston claims I’m turning him gay with all my sexual thoughts of Gun. I told him to stop dreaming about my husband’s dick or I’d cut his heart out. He’d simply laughed at me. Asshole.
“Stay out of my head, *,” I murmur to Luca low enough so Casey won’t hear. He plans on telling her one day that he’s a shifter, but he wants to seal the deal first and have a ring on her finger. I think the big bad wolf is afraid of Goldilocks. It’s good for him.
He laughs and I punch him on his massive thigh which throws Suzie into a fit of giggles. “Gramps,” she tattles to Otis, “Mommy and Uncle Luca are fighting!”
Scrunching my nose at her, I gasp. “Traitor! I’ll get you later when I’m reading you a story and the tickle monster comes out to play.”
She screeches and jumps out of her seat. Cutie Pie yaps at me from under the table, warning me to leave her alone, and I kick at him. Instead, my foot connects with Gun’s and heat creeps up my leg. When my eyes find his again, I can see he wants a washing machine quickie as well.
“Seems like Mommy needs a spanking,” Gun says with innocence.
Suzie giggles and agrees that I do while the rest of the table groans, knowing the double meaning.
“Okay, you animals. There’ll be no spanking in my house. Save that for when you go home,” Otis chides.
Sheila, the nurse he’d set his sights on in the hospital, grins from beside him. Turns out, she’s a Mouse shifter. And despite Otis’s claims you can only imprint once, he had no problems when she imprinted on him a few months after they started dating. They’ve been incredibly happy ever since.
“Did you hear back on your offer?” Otis questions.
My heart patters. We haven’t heard back yet but it looks promising. When the animal shelter went up for sale last week, Gun and I jumped at the chance to buy it. The place has potential to be more than just a place for unwanted souls. It could be a place to find sweet pets like Cutie Pie loving homes and shifters like Suzie a place to learn about who they are. Gun and I, with Otis and the Grey Lotharios’ help, can do this.
“Not yet,” Gun says. “But how are they going to say no to a cop and a pregnant lady?”
We all chuckle and I flash him a loving grin. Our realtor said offers weren’t exactly being thrown all over the place to buy the shelter so we’d probably have no problems buying the place. We’re holding onto hope that this time next month it’ll be all ours.
“Speaking of pregnant,” Gun says, interrupting the chatter as we all begin passing dishes around, putting delectable foods on our plate. “Frankie and I have some news for you all.”
I smile. They all know I’m pregnant. Gun and I were both shocked when I got sick not long after we started dating and I took a pregnancy test, only for it to show up positive. Pretty much sterile my ass. One little swimmer made it in there. The smug bastard’s been strutting around like a proud f*cking rooster ever since. I’d like to say I was annoyed but I wasn’t. Both of us were surprised but happy that we’d have a child together despite the odds against us. Gun took me down to the courthouse the following weekend and made me his wife.
“We went to the doctor on Friday to find out the sex and thought it would be neat for you all to find out with us,” I tell them with a grin.
Gunnar rewards me with a sweet grin and it melts my heart. He’s so great with Suzie and I know he’ll be the best damn father with this kid too. We all wait with anticipation as he tugs the sealed envelope from his breast pocket. Once he rips it open and pulls out the ultrasound pictures, his smile falls.
My heart patters and for a moment I worry that something’s wrong with our baby. The only thread that keeps my sanity from unraveling is the fact that the doctor would have told us. Another fear knifes its way through me. What if the baby shows up as a puppy on the ultrasound? The doctor would have been more panicked, I would think. Not smiling like a goofy motherf*cker like he was when he handed Gun the envelope.