Victor carried me into the master bedroom and placed me on the bed.I shivered with nervousness and anticipation while watching his magnificent male body as he lit the gas fireplace, got some from his suitcase, and turned down the lights before lying on his side next to me.My heart was pounding at the intense light in his eyes.“I love you, Daisy,” he said and ran a finger over my cheek.I took his hand and kissed it. “And I love you.”He put a hand on my stomach. “Tell me if you get scared or want me to stop, okay?”“I will,” I said. My nervousness was ramping up, and I wished he would kiss me.He read my mind. He leaned over, and his lips met mine. They were warm and firm, and they tasted like the salt air. They made me tingle again in all the right places, making my desire for him more potent than fear.I sighed with pleasure when he began a gentle exploration of my body, starting with my belly and breasts. He caressed and gently squeezed the soft globes until my nipples stood ere
I loved Victor even more for the proper marriage proposal, but my emotions were being overloaded.Images of my future flashed through my mind. I wanted to go to a good university and have a career helping people. Wilson Inc. also needed me to oversee the new business model.I had many goals that were important to me. Yet, I still wanted to be Victor’s wife and mate. I couldn’t be without him ever again.He sat back in his haunches, his face a mask of concern and confusion. “Daisy? Say something, sweetheart.”I burst into tears. “I …I love you too,” I sobbed. “So much. But I don’t want to get married yet.”“I wasn’t planning on dragging you down the aisle tomorrow,” Victor teased. “But I wanted you to know how I feel about you.”He stood and pulled me into his arms. “I need you to know I’m in this relationship forever.”“Don’t let the other playboys hear you,” I said with a watery giggle. “They’ll kick you out of the Playboy Union.”He tossed his head back and laughed. “My playboy days
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Mr. Gray said. “But you mustn’t say anything to Amy yet.”“I won’t,” I promised.I heard Mr. Gray groan. I could tell his memories were painful. But he began telling his story.“During the first years of our marriage, my wife worked for a family of wealthy Alphas. There was a widowed Luna, her son and daughter-in-law, a grandson, and two granddaughters who lived in the family’s ancestral mansion.”“Who were they?” I asked.“The Archers,” he replied.“I wonder if I’ve met them,” I said.“Probably, all you Alphas seem to know each other,” he replied.“Anyhow,” he continued. “My Brenna was a maid there for over three years when she went to work early one morning and found a newborn baby girl in a canvas tote bag on the backdoor stoop.”“Somebody left a baby in a tote bag?” I repeated. “How could someone do that?”“There was a note addressed to the grandson, Andrew Archer III, pinned to the baby’s blanket,” Mr. Gray said. “Young Andrew, or Andy, had a reputa
“Where is it? Where’s the dinghy?” Victor asked Captain Burns while keeping me shielded from the fire with his body.“Here, in this compartment.” Captain Burns opened a hidden storage compartment and struggled to pull out what looked like two duffel bags.He placed them on the deck, and Victor helped pull the uninflated lifeboats from the bags.While they did that, I stuffed our bottles of flavored water and the snacks into my mini backpack. I was terrified, but doing something helped calm me a little.What happened? How did the boat catch on fire and spread so quickly?“Take this one to the platform off the stern and pull the cord to inflate it,” Captain Burns instructed. “They are two-person dinghies. You and the girl get in that one. I’ll be right behind you in the other.”I hesitated, afraid to step through the wall of thick black smoke to follow Victor.“Hurry and get off the boat with your boyfriend, miss!” Captain Burns shouted over the now roaring sound of the blaze. “I just f
I silently prayed to the Goddess as we lay motionless, hoping the shark would swim away and leave us alone.My prayers seemed to be answered when we saw the fin moving away from our lifeboat. But we stayed silent and still for hours as we waited for dawn.“Do you think it’s gone?” I whispered while trying to ignore that my legs were cramping and I desperately needed a bathroom.“Yes, but let’s stay still until daylight to make sure there aren't any more of them,” he whispered back. “I read that sharks like to feed at night.”Victor kissed my forehead, and I began to doze. I was having a strange dream about drifting on the clouds when something slammed into the dinghy.My eyes flew open, and I screamed as Victor fought to sit up. We were doomed. There was no way the shark didn’t know we were in the lifeboat.“No, no, no,” I sobbed. “Go away and leave us alone.”Victor began to laugh. “It’s okay, Daisy. That wasn’t a shark. We landed on a beach!”I sat up and looked around in the thin m
At first, I was too frightened to speak. Yes, I was scared for myself, but Victor was still asleep. If he woke up and saw a man painting a gun at me, he would try to disarm the man and maybe get shot.“Who are you, and why are you in my house?” the man demanded.“We …we …were on a …ya …yacht that blew up and …and the …life …lifeboat dra …drifted here,” I stammered. After everything that happened, this, being held at gunpoint, was too much.The man lowered the rifle slightly. He appeared to be about as old as Alex and was dressed in old jeans and a T-shirt. He would seem normal if he wasn’t aiming a gun at me.“You were on a yacht that blew up, huh?” he sneered. “What’s your name, girl?”“Duh …Daisy,” I replied. “Please don’t shoot us. We came into your house because we were hungry, tired, and dirty. A shark almost ate us!” I began to cry, and Victor stirred behind me.“Put the gun down, Arthur,” a woman said as she entered the house with her arms full of shopping bags. She was the sam
Victor pulled me into his arms as we stood in the darkness while the hurricane raged around us.Another loud crash against the roof made me gasp. My heart raced, and panic began to flash through my body. But then I felt the warm glow of the moonstones against my chest, and calm began to fill me.“We’ll be okay in this room,” Arthur yelled over the storm. “It was built to withstand any storm, and then the rest of the house was built around it.”“It wouldn’t be so bad if the lights were on,” Cathy shouted. “Why didn’t the generator kick on when the solar power failed?”“The wind must have taken out the lines to the house,” Arthur answered. “It’ll be okay, honey. Let’s settle in and wait for the storm to pass.”That’s all we could do was wait to see what would happen and keep each other’s spirits up.Even though the room was sturdily built, the walls seemed to move slightly with every powerful gust of wind that slammed into the house. And occasionally, a louder crash would make us jump.
I blinked the water from my eyes and realized the shadow was a wolf …a black wolf. It must have jumped onto my balcony and entered through the glass door.“Please be Victor,” I mumbled. With my luck lately, a burglar had caught me in the shower. But I was too tired to be afraid. I’d dealt with worse than a burglar in the last few days.I wrapped the towel around my body and flung the shower door open. In the exact second, the wolf shifted human, and my magnificently masculine fiancé stood before me in all his naked glory.“I missed you too much to leave you and go home alone,” he apologized. “I'm wiped out and just want to hold you while we sleep.”“But what if somebody comes into my room?” I asked. Jennifer would be shocked to find Victor in my bed.“You could lock the door,” he suggested.My eyes roamed over Victor’s muscular form. He was breathtaking. Every muscle was defined as if it were sculpted from granite.His wide shoulders and broad chest tapered into lean, narrow hips. His