One Last Prowl: BBW Were Mountain Lion Shapeshifter Mail Order Bride Romance (Shifter Grove Brides Book 6)
Authors: Anya Nowlan
ONE LAST PROWL
SHIFTER GROVE BRIDES
BOOK 6
BY
ANYA NOWLA
N
A LITTLE TASTE…
It started with a kiss, and a moment later her hands were latching onto Austin’s shoulders, her thighs were straddling him, and the delicious dinner was another thing forgotten in the wake of her need to fuck the ever-living shit out of him.
And she wasn’t a crude woman usually. But she really needed that man right then and there and there was nothing she was willing to do to change that.
“Austin,” she whispered feverishly, her nails digging into his flesh so hard she thought she’d rip through the shirt.
“Yes,” he murmured teasingly, his Herculean body rising up from the dining room chair and locking her legs around his waist like he’d never taken a step
without
her clinging to him.
“I need you to fuck me now,” she said, gasping at her own forwardness.
Oh my God, what am I saying…
Copyright © 2015 Anya Nowlan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
One Last Prowl
Book 6
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of
Anya Nowlan
. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
Cover ©
Jack of Covers
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
A LITTLE TASTE…
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
BEAR THE BURN EXCERPT
WANT MORE?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Dahlia
Dahlia kept wiping the tears out of her eyes as she ran through the school parking lot and toward the main entrance. She knew the route far too well at this point, and every time she got faster when she had to run it. And she had to be fast. She had to get to him, before something else happened.
Her heart pounded in her chest and she could vaguely tell that her palms were sweaty. Maybe there was even a sheen of cold sweat on her forehead. Dahlia clung to her clutch, half-heartedly praying that Mr. Anderson would find it in his heart—again—to not fire her for having to run out of the massage parlor in the middle of the day. In the middle of an appointment with a client, no less! But her baby came first. For a parent, this was completely understandable, just as long as it didn’t mean obvious and immediate repercussions to someone’s company and well-being.
Please, God, don’t let them expel him!
Dahlia swung the doors wide in front of her, running up the stairs and taking two at a time. She didn’t need to stop and ask for directions like the first few times. No, she knew exactly where she was going. It was like a demon was on her back as she stormed through the second floor hallways, dodging kids as they were piling out of their classrooms and chattering excitedly amongst themselves.
For a fleeting moment, the grayness outside caught her attention. It was almost poetic: the weather was dull and mildly depressing as always and the view the school was afforded wasn’t really one at all, unless concrete slabs outside the windows counted as an aesthetic experience.
Chewing her lip, Dahlia slowed to a sharp stop right in front of the principal’s office and stepped in with relative calm, trying to hide her fast breathing and the—to her—deafening beating of her heart. Immediately, her gaze found Marcus, swinging his legs with boredom, his dark eyebrows bushed into a scowl that she knew all too well. It meant slamming doors and uneaten dinner. It meant yelling, pleading, and later crying, when Marcus wasn’t close enough to see her shed those tears. It meant frantically searching for a new school that would take him after he wore out the patience of whichever New York City education establishment that had tried to give him a chance.
It meant failure. And it meant that her heart would be breaking all over again, just like that time five years ago when his father passed away.
She gave him an encouraging smile, but she knew he could see it in her eyes. That sadness and the worry that he probably mistook as disappointment in him, when it was really disappointment in herself.
“Ms. Roberts! Ms. Martins would like to have a word with you.”
Dahlia nodded, strangling the scream she wanted to let out instead. “Come along, Marcus,” she called.
“No, just you, ma’am,” the chipper secretary said, her face portraying the perfect picture of mild annoyance.
Dahlia sighed, biting her lip before nodding. She knew exactly what that meant. Motioning with her hand, she told Marcus to sit back down and continue his quiet and obviously annoyed scheming. On her way past him, she fished out an apple from her purse and gave it to him.
“I bet you missed lunch,” she said, keeping her voice level.
“Mm-hmm,” came the unenthusiastic reply, Marcus already biting into the apple.
Dahlia knocked shortly on the door and then slid in, not opening it fully, as Ms. Martins called for her. She felt like
she
was the one that had done… well, whatever Marcus had done this time. And unlike her son, she was feeling bad about it already.
“Ms. Roberts, please have a seat. I’m sad we have to meet under such unfortunate circumstances again,” Ms. Martins said, giving her a genuine, if a bit strained, smile.
“That makes two of us, Ms. Martins,” Dahlia started, falling into one of the wooden, high-backed chairs that always reminded her of her youth and the time she’d spent at an all-girls school. Comfort was strictly not allowed. “I’m sure whatever he did, he didn’t mean to. He’s a good boy, but after his father—”
Ms. Martins raised her hand, shushing Dahlia mid-sentence. It was all too familiar. She’d gone through it with at least three schools in the last two years, and it seemed this one would be no different. In her mind, she could already envision moving, finding a new place to work, discovering some magical school within a five-mile radius that would take her delinquent—as several teachers and at least one principal had called him—son. All using money she no longer had after all the previous similar moves.
“We know his story. And I am sympathetic, I really am. We have been trying to be patient with him. We’ve given Marcus every opportunity to better himself, even by a little. But it seems that every day that goes by, things get worse. You’re a caring mother, Ms. Roberts, I can see that, but he needs the kind of help a regular school can’t provide. He needs special—”
“He’s not slow or dumb!” Dahlia gasped, tears threatening to burn her eyes. It had been one time too many. She couldn’t sit by and have someone lecture her again on how she wasn’t doing enough for her only child. “He’s angry, yes. And he’s disappointed. But he isn’t a bad boy. He’s smart—you’ve said so yourself! If you got to know him, you’d know as well as I do that he’s a sweet kid. He just needs a chance.”
Her anger turned to pleading as soon as she realized that there was nothing to save. The strict, dry, almost painted-on look that the principal got as soon as Dahlia launched into her tirade told her everything. She might have been sympathetic, but she sure as hell wasn’t willing to do anything anymore to help. And, honestly, Dahlia couldn’t blame her.
“This was the third window he broke. In two weeks. We ask him why, he says he wants fresh air. He skips class to sit out in the courtyard, not even trying to hide it. He’s disrespectful to his teachers and his classmates. I’m sorry, Ms. Roberts, but we can’t have Marcus stay in our school any longer. As of now, he’s expelled and I am not able to negotiate on this. We have strict limits and he has pushed the boundaries one too many times.”
“I understand,” Dahlia said, standing up, even though she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs that she didn’t.
But what good would that do her? Nothing. Anger never helped. Crying sometimes had, but she’d used up those tactics with this particular school a while ago. Once, she’d even bought Marcus a few extra months by donating what little she had left in her savings, but there was nothing left to bribe anyone with. For all she knew, she might be heading into work the next day to get her final check. It had happened before and by the looks of things, it would happen again.
“We’ll send his transcripts to your home address. I’m very sorry, Ms. Roberts,” the principal called as Dahlia shook her hand and was already one step out of the office.
“I am too,” Dahlia muttered under her breath, reaching out her hand to Marcus as she passed by.
Of course, he didn’t take it, grabbing his bag and standing up to follow her. He was getting so tall. And he looked just like his father had, which only made things harder to bear.
“Home?” Marcus asked, easily falling into step with Dahlia.
She was five foot eight and at twelve years old, Marcus was already towering above her. She had no doubt that when he really hit his stride, he’d easily be taller than his six foot three father had been. Dahlia nodded mutely, pushing through the door and out of the room, ignoring the secretary’s high-pitched “Goodbye!” behind her.
“Yup, home.”
***
Music was blasting so loud through their little one-bedroom apartment that Dahlia knew for a fact that one of the neighbors was going to be down in about half an hour. So that meant she could let Marcus keep playing his tunes for another twenty-five minutes or so. She didn’t have the energy to fight him at this point. Not tonight.
Sipping her wine, she scrolled through random pages on SassyDate, looking to get her mind off of things. Tomorrow, she would tackle everything. She would go in on her free day and talk to Mr. Anderson about keeping her job in the massage parlor—taking a pay cut if needed—and she would start looking for a new school for Marcus. It was getting increasingly more difficult finding one. He was getting a reputation as one of “those” children. The ones that should be separated away from the rest of modern society and hidden like some animal in a corner.
The apartment was getting cold as hell—the joys of New York City in late October with the windows open. Or specifically, one window open. The one in Marcus’s room. It was
always
open and for the life of her, Dahlia couldn’t understand how that boy managed not to catch pneumonia.
Her head still rung a little from the argument they’d had while taking the bus from the school to their dingy little Washington Heights apartment. She was wrapped in a thick, plush blanket, curled up on the living room couch that also doubled as her bed. As much as she missed the privacy of her own room, she knew Marcus needed it more at that age. And whatever she could do to make him a little happier… well, she’d try it.
Guilt struck her as she scrolled through the ads or looked at her messages. What right did she have to be on SassyDate? Yes, it had been five years since Arthur died, but was that enough? A tear rolled down her cheek in earnest as she thought back to her tall, strapping husband and the short eight years of happiness she’d been afforded next to him.
They were only kids when they got married: she was nineteen, and he was twenty-two. But it had felt
right
and Arthur had left her no doubt that being with him was her one shot at happiness.