The Bear's Virgin Darling (Honeypot Darlings Book 1) (14 page)

Hope
Epilogue
3 months later

“The cabins are finished!” Wyatt comes into the room and I wrap my arms around him and give him a kiss.

“Finally!” I say. “Who knew it would take so long to build eight tiny little cabins?” The insurance company processed our claim insanely quickly, but we still started building the cabins before we had the money in hand. Luckily, everything came together in the end and now we’re the proud owners of several beautiful miniature luxury cabins in the heart of Colorado.

“Well, they wouldn’t have taken so long if
somebody
didn’t insist on them being so fancy.” He says it dryly, but Wyatt’s eyes are sparkling and I know he’d never really be upset with me.

“I know Alex and Micah aren’t fussy about theirs, baby, but we’re going to have tourists in five of them and your parents in the last one. I just want the best for them.” I still haven’t met his parents. I’m going to soon and I have no idea what I’m going to say to them. I’ve never had to
meet
the parents before. Jake and I were together a long time, but I’d known his folks just as long. I never had to go through the process of meeting parental units and being under their scrutiny.

What if I don’t measure up?

“Babe, you don’t need to worry about my parents. They’re going to love you.”

Sometimes I’m not so sure, but I’m doing my best to trust Wyatt. He’s never let me down and to be honest, it feels good to be able to just relax and let him handle this. He knows his folks pretty damn well, and if he says they’ll like me, I need to believe that, too.

We’ve been engaged for three months and we’re planning a small wedding, but they have no idea. They’re due to return to Honeypot soon and when they do, it’s going to be a huge surprise. We’re planning on throwing a “Surprise! We’re engaged!” party the night they get back to town so we can celebrate together.

I can’t wait.

“It’s been a long couple of months,” I say. “Now Sawyer’s in jail, the cabins are finished, and the wedding plans are well under way. What are we going to do now to keep us busy?”

For so long, our life has been one long to-do list. Now it’s starting to slow down. Tonight is the first time we’re going to have some time alone together and I’m thrilled.

I have some big news for Wyatt.

Bigger than the engagement, even.

“I can think of a few ideas,” he wiggles his eyebrows and strides toward me.

“Oh, Wyatt,” I strip out of my clothes quickly and by the time he crosses the room, I’m completely naked.

“Woman, you’re going to be the death of me,” he says, but he’s smiling. “You get naked so fucking quick. Are you sure you don’t have shifter blood in you?”

“Well,” I say, realizing this is the moment. There’s not going to be a more perfect one for this announcement. “I might have a little in me now.”

He cocks his head, looking confused for a moment, but I take his hand and place it on my belly. For a brief second, his eyes light up, but then I see him quickly reign in his excitement. Wyatt, always the epitome of self-control, is trying to stay calm in this moment because he doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

He doesn’t want to be disappointed, but he doesn’t need to worry about that.

“Baby?” He asks, licking his lips, looking down at me, and I just nod.

“You’re going to be a daddy, Wyatt.” My eyes tear up. Just a few short months ago I was down on my luck, completely alone in the world, without a single person who cared about me.

And now?

Now I have a family.

I have a family and I’m going to be a mommy.

“I’m going to be a daddy?” He drops to his knees in front of me and kisses my belly, squeezing my ass and pulling me close to him. “I’m going to be a daddy!” He says again.

“Careful!” I say, laughing. “You don’t want to give the baby hearing problems.”

“I’m going to be a daddy,” he repeats, a little quieter this time.

Wyatt stands and wraps me in his arms. He kisses me like there’s no tomorrow, like nothing else in the world exists but the two of us. I breathe in his masculine scent, realizing that life can’t get more perfect than this.

“Hope Demers, thank you for making me the happiest man in the world.” He kisses me again, holding me close, and I can’t believe that just a few months ago, I was hopeless, dreamless, jobless. Just a few months ago I had nothing going for me.

And now?

Now I’m on top of the world.

“Come on,” he grins, taking my hand and pulling me out of the room. “Let’s go tell my brothers.”

The thought of keeping this news a secret never even crossed my mind. I knew we’d be telling Micah and Carter right away. The Blairs aren’t triplets, but sometimes they sure act like it. Shifter siblings tend to be a lot closer to each other than human siblings, or so I’ve heard.

It certainly appears that way.

I manage to grab a robe as he hustles me out of the room. I slip into it as we’re laughing our way down the stairs. The Blairs might be comfortable with nudity at all times, but I’m still human. I still don’t want my soon-to-be brothers-in-law seeing me naked.

“I’m going to be a dad!” Wyatt calls out when we get to the kitchen, but as I round the corner, I see that we aren’t alone in the house. Carter and Micah are there, of course, but so is Savannah.

From the looks of things, she’s been crying. Her hair is a mess, her clothes are wrinkled, and her face is streaked with dark mascara.

What could possibly be wrong? Savannah and I hang out occasionally, but she’s never said anything about life being hard on her right now. I can’t imagine anything that would make her cry like this. She hasn’t been dating anyone and there isn’t a single person in Honeypot who doesn’t like her.

Next to Savannah, there’s a little boy sitting on the countertop who is covered from head-to-toe in dirt and he’s clutching a teddy bear. The kid’s clothes are ratty and torn, and his eyes are puffy and swollen.

He looks like a sad, frightened little mouse, and my heart clenches.

“So am I,” Carter says, and looks up at Wyatt, but his eyes are hard and cold, and if I didn’t know Carter, I’d say he’d been crying, too. “So am I.”

He turns back to Savannah and squeezes her hand, but for someone who is about to be a parent, Carter looks worse than I’ve ever seen him and I can’t help the feeling that our shared good news is about to be overshadowed by something horrible.
 

Read Carter and Savannah’s story in
The Bear’s Virgin Mate. Make sure you

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Want more shifters? Check out
Alien Dragon:
an alien shifter romance!

I'm on the last ship out. 
I don't think I'm going to make it, but I do. Earth is dying and there's only one way I can possibly survive: fight for a spot on the dragon planet of Taneyemm. 
They don't want humans there. 
They don't like us. 
They don't know us. 
But when I step foot on the ship bound for Taneyemm, I know it's my last hope. I'll do anything I have to survive. 
I'll do whatever it takes. 
When I finally reach my destination and I see the alien dragons for the first time, I realize I'm in way over my head. 
And I don't know if my heart is ready for this.

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Sneak Peek of Dragon Isle Book Five!

Get your copy here:

Beware of Dragons (Dragon Isle Book 5)

“Two weeks,” Audrey said with a frown on her face.

“One week,” Gabriel protested.

“Two.”

“Fine.”

Audrey smirked, thinking she had won the argument, but Gabriel planned to bug her endlessly until she got the pictures back sooner. He knew she could work faster than that, but he also knew his little spitfire was a bit of a perfectionist. She always needed everything to be perfect.

If only she felt that way about her own life.

Audrey pushed away from the table and stood, smoothing her black dress. She grabbed her red hat from the table and slipped it on, completing her pinup girl look. She was forever living in the past, but Gabriel suspected it had more to do with her love of photography and the trendiness of 50s fashion, rather than a personal statement.

Gabriel stood as she did, his large frame towering over her small one. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was intimidated, but he did know better. Nothing scared Audrey. Nothing. Not deadlines, not arguments, and certainly not dragons.

She was the fiercest human on Dragon Isle.

Maybe anywhere.

“I have to go,” she looked at her cell phone to check the time. “I have a meeting with Emerson about taking photos of his new baby. Then I have to meet with some of the older dragons to talk about pictures for their church directory.”

“There’s a church on the island?” Gabriel said with a smirk. Audrey just rolled her eyes. The dragons were more open to sexual deviances than most humans, but the older generation still appreciated the solitude that church offered them.

“Yes, Gabe, there’s a church.” Audrey smiled playfully at Gabriel. Fuck, she was beautiful. If only he could convince her there was so much more than friendship between them. Audrey had been adopted by a dragon couple as a small child and had grown up on the island. Though she and Gabriel had grown up together and were the best of friends, she hadn’t made a move to pursue anything else between them.

And it was killing him.

Each day that passed was one more without her. Gabriel wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He needed Audrey like he needed his next breath. She was all he could think about. She was consuming him.

“Want me to fly you?” He asked, desperate for a few more minutes with her. She cocked her head in surprise and raised her eyebrows. “To Emerson’s? No. I’m going to his house. It’s not too far to walk. You can walk me, though,” she added, fluttering her eyelashes in joke seduction.

He’d take it.

Gabriel dropped some money on the table to pay for their drinks, looped his arm through hers, and led Audrey out into the bright summer sunshine.

She chatted aimlessly as they made their way through the village and to the clan leader’s modest house. The entire time, Gabriel was wondering how much longer he was going to let things stay the same. How much longer could he stand being her best friend? How much longer could her handle being the guy she ran to with all of her problems? How much longer could he be the one she cried on when some other loser broke her heart?

How much longer could Gabriel wait for Audrey to realize he was standing right there?

When she kissed his cheek to say goodbye, he held her in a tight hug for a few seconds too long, wanting the moment to last just a bit more. He knew they were reaching a turning point. He was going to break or she was, and he wasn’t sure which, and he wasn’t sure where they were going to end up.

He would always love Audrey.

But if he couldn’t have her, he couldn’t wait around to see who would.

***

Audrey watched her best friend turn and walk away before he stripped down, tossed his clothes in a nearby basket, and shifted. Fuck, if he wasn’t the most gorgeous dragon she’d ever seen. Did Gabriel even know how much she wanted him? Craved him? She doubted it. She’d had a huge crush on him since they were kids, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

She didn’t know how to tell him she was crazy about him, that she dreamed about him every night. She didn’t know how to tell him that when she touched herself, it was to thoughts of him.

She had left Dragon Isle the moment she turned 18, but she had come back for him.

And he had no idea.

With a sigh, she finally pulled her eyes from Gabriel’s retreating form and knocked on the door. Janae opened the door and Audrey was immediately greeted with the sounds of a wailing infant. Janae’s eyes were hollow and tired. She was bouncing the baby, but she looked like she was about to pass out from sheer exhaustion.

“Let me take him,” Audrey said gently, and Janae happily handed the baby over before laying down on the couch and promptly passing out. Audrey carried baby Weston around the house, bouncing him quietly and singing to him. Soon the baby was calm and content, cooing up at her as she told him stories about growing up on the island.

“You’re really good with children,” a voice said from the doorway. Audrey turned to see Emerson, the clan leader, watching her with a curious expression on his face.

“Thanks,” she said. “I love babies, but who doesn’t?” She shrugged. “Janae seemed really tired, so I took the baby for a bit while she rested.”

“Yeah, she’s still passed out on the couch. He hasn’t been sleeping much at night.” Emerson looked grim. “I knew parenting would be hard, but I didn’t realize how tough it would be to go back to work and have to leave Janae with him on her own. He’s a handful, and I feel bad, but the clan needs me.”

They both turned to look at Janae, who was curled up under a blanket and snoring loudly. Audrey hadn’t realized how tired her friend had been.

“Do you still want to do infant pictures?” Audrey asked, looking down at little Weston. “I can come back, but I don’t mind surprising Janae. He seems to be in a good mood.”

“Let’s do them now,” Emerson agreed. “Who knows when we’re going to get him smiling like this again?”

When Audrey left, Janae had gotten in two solid hours of napping and Emerson had grudgingly decided to wake her so Weston could nurse.

“I’ll have the pictures back to you as soon as I can,” Audrey promised. “Probably two weeks. Maybe less.” Emerson tried to pay her, but she waved him off. “Consider it a baby gift,” she whispered, then sneaked quietly out of the tiny house.

As she walked away, Audrey’s heart ached. She was almost 30. She was almost 30 and she wasn’t any closer to getting married and having kids than when she’d been 18. She bit her lip as she navigated the quiet roads. It was dark out, but she’d spent so much time running up and down these streets as a child that it barely fazed her.

She had left Dragon Isle on her 18
th
birthday with plans to see the world, fall in love, get a job, and have wild adventures. She had successfully gone to college and gotten a job, but then what? Nothing. Nothing else had happened. She had lived, comparing every man she met to the dragon who had stolen her heart – and her first kiss – when they were kids.

When she finally decided to go after her dreams, Audrey worried it was too late. She sold all of her belongings, told her parents she was moving back, and bought a camera. She would be the official photographer on Dragon Isle and she would somehow find a way to tell Gabriel that she was in love with him.

Somehow.

But she’d been back for six months now and she was no closer to confessing her secret love than she’d been when they were kids. And why? Because she was afraid he’d reject her? Surely that couldn’t be worse than this. This not knowing. This endless sea of nothingness she felt whenever he wasn’t around.

If she was honest with herself, the real reason she hadn’t told Gabriel how she felt was that her feelings didn’t involve just him. Her fantasies didn’t just include her and Gabriel living happily ever after.

No, Audrey was much too weird and fucked up for that kind of normalcy.

Fuck.

No, Audrey couldn’t be happy with just one dragonman. She wanted two of them. At the same time. And how strange was that? She’d been around dragons long enough, having grown up on the island, to know that some dragons
were
in ménage relationships. While most humans clung to the idea that true, endless marriage was for one man and one woman, some dragons didn’t mind sharing a mate.

And that’s what she wanted.

She had only confessed her deep, horrible secret to one person. She’d been drunk at a party and the next day, she’d been outcast as a super-weirdo no one wanted to go near. After all, what kind of slut wanted not only to
sleep
with two men at once, but to
marry
them?

Audrey’s thoughts consumed her. Instead of going to her small cabin, the one she rented from a kindly old dragonwoman, her feet carried her to the mansion Gabriel shared with
his
best friend, Anthony. The three of them had hung out endlessly in high school and kept in touch for awhile after Audrey left. For a long time, Audrey had thought he and Gabriel were gay, but in fact, they were just very close. Almost like brothers. To each other, not to her.

No, there was nothing brotherly about the way Audrey felt about the two men. Lust stirred deep inside of her, and she wished she was braver. She wished she would go after what she wanted. She wished she would just tell them.

She stood in front of the mansion for a long time, staring at it. Should she go up to the door? What would she even say?

“Hey, guys, I just want you to know I’ve been fantasizing about the two of you taking me roughly since I was about 16 years old. Sorry it took me so long to come to terms with it. Please, will you pin me down and take me? It’s best if you make it hurt. It’s the only way I can come.”

“It’s a good start,” a deep voice said from behind her. She screamed and jumped into the air, but strong arms caught her and pulled her close.

“I didn’t know I said it out loud,” she whispered. The man’s body was warm and firm against her. She could tell, even without turning around, that he was completely naked.

“You should be careful about what you say, little one,” the voice said again. “You never know who is listening.” She pulled back and looked at the dragonman who was holding her.

“Theodore?” She asked, surprised. “You’re naked!”

He shrugged. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before. Most dragons didn’t care about nudity. Theodore was no exception.

“I flew,” he answered.

“What are you doing here? Oh shit,” she blushed. “Please don’t tell them what I said. You can’t.” She had known Theodore for as long as she’d known the other dragons, but unlike her, he had stayed on the island his entire life.

He chuckled, released her from his grip.

“No worries, love, your secret is safe with me. Although,” he looked toward the house for a moment. “I don’t think you need to be as afraid of rejection as you are.”

With that, he started walking toward the mansion. What did he mean by that? Did Theodore know something she didn’t? Audrey didn’t follow at first, and he turned back.

“Coming?” He held out his hand. After a deep breath, she gingerly took it and followed him up the steps to the mansion, wondering what she was getting herself into.

Find out what happens next!

Beware of Dragons (Dragon Isle Book 5)