With a sigh, she pulled Creeds hand to her belly and flattened his palm against the swell. “Why do you want me to stay?” She knew what some of his answer would be, but if she was going to risk her life to make a temporary home here, she needed to hear it from him.
“Because I want to know my kid.” He rubbed her belly gently. “And because I want to know you. I’d be shit at being a mate, I really would, but I want to help you with our kid. I want to provide for him and you. I don’t want you to struggle through this thing alone. I know if I’m scared, you’re scared, too. It seems a little less terrifying going through it together.”
“A united front.”
“Exactly.” He pulled to a stop in a dirt clearing that faced huge machines with claws. Thick metal wires swayed in the wind and stretched from a towering tree pole down the mountain and out of sight.
“And what happens when you bond to another woman?” Her heart ached just thinking about him with someone else, but she knew how this worked. He could bond to a mate someday, and where would that leave her? Raising their child as she watched him fall in love with his true mate. Watched them hold hands and kiss. She’d have to live her life pretending she didn’t care for Creed like that. “What happens then?”
Creed’s hand glided from her belly to her thigh, and he squeezed her leg gently. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
She opened her mouth to ask why not, but Creed shoved the door open and got out. He was fooling himself if he thought he’d never bond. Sure, there was a chance it might not happen, but it very well could. Right now, he felt like he could do this—grow a family with her. But what if someday he was sitting in the bar and laid eyes on her? The one his bear chose. It could happen, and then she would be the consolation prize family. The one he cared for less.
She’d known this would be complicated—coming back here and trying to make things work until she knew how to take care of the little shifter child she was growing. Best case scenario was that she moved to Saratoga where Creed could see his child when he wanted and she could have some semblance of a life, not just waiting for Creed to find the one Gia couldn’t compete with. She didn’t want to live a half-life, so that’s what she’d have to do. Stay here until she got a grasp on shifter life, then find a job and an apartment in Saratoga. This plan felt safest. This plan would protect her from latching onto a man who couldn’t ever truly be hers.
Gia’s eyes were wide open to all of this.
Even if Creed was beginning to feel like her mate, she wasn’t his.
The first step out of Creed’s truck smeared mud onto her navy slip-on shoes. Clearly, she wasn’t as prepared for the landing as she’d thought she was. She should’ve asked Willa what to wear. Shoes be damned, she grabbed the satchel she’d packed in case she got bored and turned to run smack into Creed’s chest. Sweet sugar, he was fast.
“Tell me you’ll at least think about staying,” he murmured, steadying her by the elbows.
Staying in Saratoga? “Okay.” She wouldn’t ever try to keep Creed’s child from him.
“Good.” Uncertainty flashed in his eyes as his gaze dipped to her lips.
Her breath caught in her throat. He was so close and smelled so good—all animal and whatever spicy body wash he’d used in the shower this morning. Raw power wafted off him as he stepped closer and brushed his fingertips against her quivering belly.
Creed leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. There was no tongue or biting like there had been before when they’d both been desperate for a drunken quickie bang in the back of his truck. This was soft lips and sipping.
Splaying her hands against his steely chest, she sucked gently on his bottom lip. A soft sound came from his throat, and he pressed her back against the side of the passenger seat. His hand slid up her neck, and he brushed his thumb across her cheek as he angled his head.
She was melting. Something strange was happening to her legs, and now Creed was having to hold her up. His other hand pressed on the small of her back, dragging her hips closer to him, grinding her against his erection.
Gia’s breath came in a pant as she sucked on his bottom lip again, harder this time. She was falling apart, shattering, sparking to oblivion, but right now, with Creed’s hands on her, that didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
Creed clenched his jaw and growled as she grazed his lip with her teeth. “Careful, woman,” he rumbled in a deep, gravelly timbre she didn’t recognize. He dipped forward and brushed his tongue against the seam of her mouth, just about undoing her completely. “Bite me again, and I’ll take you back in these woods and make you forget your name.”
He ground against her again, pressing against the most sensitive spot between her legs. She closed her eyes and gasped at how good he felt, even separated by clothes. Oh, she was well on her way to forgetting her name all right. And her birthday, hometown, and any problems as well. All she could think right now was the word Creed, whispered over and over on an unending loop in her mind.
“I want that. Do that,” she begged as he trailed his kiss down her neck.
Creed chuckled deeply and nipped at her neck, then eased away. “Here is not the place.” He jerked his chin at something behind her shoulder, and when she turned and looked through his truck window, Jason and Clinton were standing by the biggest machine, hands linked behind their heads, and pelvic thrusting. Lovely.
Creed gripped the doorway of his truck above her head and grinned, the epitome of cocky male. “Damn, I forgot how good you were at kissin’.”
Gia ducked her chin so he wouldn’t see her blush. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Hmm,” he said, noncommittally. He leaned forward and kissed her again, just a quick peck and soft nibble, then he pushed back away from the truck. “Come on. You’re about to see something no one else has seen before.”
“And what’s that?”
“How bad a C team crew of lumberjack bear shifters can fuck up a day at work. Don’t judge us based on the amount of blood we shed today. We’re still a work in progress.”
Gia sighed and followed behind the man who had burrowed his way into her heart in a staggeringly short amount of time. She wouldn’t judge the Gray Backs. Not anymore. Not after what Creed had told her about them.
So what if they were broken? She respected them more for not giving up and continuing to try. How many people did that? Not many in her experience. Not Brittney or Kara, or her parents. And not one of the Gray Backs had looked at her like she was disappointing when they’d found out she was pregnant with Creed’s child. All but Easton had accepted it without even a judgy quirk to their eyebrows. Brittney and Kara, who she thought were her best friends, had ditched her the moment she turned up preggers. The Gray Backs, however, had acted like, pregnant or not, that didn’t matter to them. And as scared as she was of Easton—or Beaston—he had told Jason not to call her “Bombshell.” He’d noticed she didn’t like the name by observing her reaction to it. In his own crazy way, he’d defended her.
She was beginning to learn just how big Creed’s heart was to accept all of these troublemakers into his crew. While she’d been living a life concerned with pleasing her parents, looking perfect, and finding the perfect job to live the perfect life, Creed had been in these mountains struggling every day to socialize a crew other alphas would’ve given up on.
On the way to meet the Ashe Crew yesterday, Willa had said, “It’s beautiful up here, isn’t it?”
As Gia slipped her hand into Creed’s offered one and looked over the edge of the landing to the mountains beyond, such a feeling of unexpected belonging filled her. Beautiful didn’t even begin to describe it.
Chapter Seven
Creed bit his thumbnail absently and watched Tagan, alpha of the Ashe Crew, back the trailer into the space Easton’s used to sit before the crew nut-job had dragged his singlewide into the woods to live like a recluse.
Tagan had his head out the window of the eighteen wheeler, eyeing the crea
m-colored trailer with the green shutters as he turned the wheel.
“Left,” Creed called. “Angle it a little more left. Yep. Keep going. Little more.” He held up his hand. “Stop.”
Jason began securing the trailer while Matt unhitched it from the back of the truck.
Tagan jumped out and came to stand beside Creed. “A few rules about this trailer.”
“Hit me,” Creed said with a nod.
“One, don’t fix it up with those fancy shingles like the rest of your trailers. Ten-ten is perfect just how it is.”
Creed cocked his head and squinted at the house number, 1010. The last zero was dangling and hanging on for dear life by one rusty, bent-up nail. “Okay, can I at least fix the number?”
“Don’t fix any of it. Brooke and the girls wouldn’t part with this place unless I promised them you wouldn’t change a thing. Also, there is an old field mouse in there somewhere. His name is Nards, and he’s special to the Ashe Crew. Please don’t kill him. He’s tame as a pet and will eat crackers right out of your hands if you let him. Just please, let him alone.”
“Great, I’m sure Gia will be thrilled to have a rodent for a roommate.” She probably wouldn’t freak out or scream bloody-murder any time she saw him at all, ha! “Anything else?”
“Yeah, don’t stomp, or your boots will go through the flooring. You need wood to build the steps?”
“Nah, we’ve got it. I promised Gia one of those big fancy front porches with room for a couple of rocking chairs since her trailer is the one on the end and has the room.”
“Good man.” Tagan’s bright blue eyes danced as he clapped him on the back. “I like Gia.”
“You met her already?” Right now, Gia was in town with Willa, trying to track down some contraptions called maternity pants. Or “eatin’ pants” as Willa called them.
“Yeah, I had the pleasure the other day when she and Willa came begging the trailer.”
“Then you know she’s good and pregnant?”
Tagan grinned and squeezed his shoulder, shaking him slowly. “I do. It’s all my crew could talk about last night. Congratulations, man. We’re all really happy for you.”
“I’m nervous I won’t be enough,” Creed admitted low.
“Nah,” Tagan said, crossing his arms over his chest and watching the Gray Backs settle the trailer. “Everybody feels like that because they don’t know what to expect. I don’t worry about whether you’ll do right by your family, Creed. You’re practically fathering these idiots already.”
“We can hear you,” Jason said through a careless grin.
“Yeah, but what if a human mate and a baby aren’t safe here?” Creed asked, voicing the biggest concern he was wrestling with.
Tagan leveled him with a serious look. “Then you do what you have to do to make sure they are. You’ll be good at this Creed, and a baby will be good for your crew. You’ll see.”
And Tagan would know. The baby population in his crew was exploding right now. He already had a son of his own and a baby dragon in his crew. Now, Danielle was pregnant, and Riley was set to pop at any time. Even Cassie had mentioned trying for a baby the last time she and Haydan had visited Matt.
Maybe this would be easier than he thought.
Creed turned to see Clinton watering his landscaping with the water hose pulled through the fly of his jeans. Hands on his hips with a happy smile on his face, he swiveled from side to side, hose swinging like a big dick.
And just like that, one of his boys had reminded him that the Gray Backs wouldn’t make anything easy.
****
They had loaded the back seat of Willa’s truck with groceries and bags from a local maternity store in Saratoga. All the boys had given them lists before they’d gone into town, and it had taken hours to do all the shopping. Gia had always liked shopping before, but right now, her feet were aching, and her ankles were swollen up something fierce.
She couldn’t wait to get home…er…to the Grayland Mobile Park and elevate her feet on a pillow.
“Ten-ten’s here,” Willa murmured excitedly as they pulled under the trailer park’s welcome sign.
“Ten-ten?”
“Yeah, that trailer from the Ashe Crew. Brooke swears its magic for the mates who come to the crew. She said she and the girls all had some really cool experiences in it.”
A flutter of excitement drummed against her chest as Gia leaned forward and squinted. She’d seen the trailer a couple of days ago when Willa had taken her to meet the Ashe Crew, and she’d had her doubts, but already the boys had most of the sprawling deck built, and it didn’t look so bad from here. It was too far away to see the chipping paint and the hole a squirrel had chewed into the cheap, warped, red front door.
And at least with a trailer of her own, she wouldn’t be mooching a bedroom from Willa and Matt anymore. They were ridiculously loud when they fucked. She could walk around in her underwear again, hog the kitchen, and sleep on an actual bed.
Gia giggled. God, she never, ever would’ve thought moving into an ancient singlewide trailer would be so exciting. What would Brittney, Kara, and her parents think of her new life?
Whatever. Screw them. They’d ditched her immediately and, besides, she’d never seen Willa more happy or confident, and part of that had to be this place. That and the dominant bear in her middle, but still. Gia had Creed, Willa, and the Gray Backs, and that was a lot more support than she’d had a couple of days ago.
Willa pulled to a stop, and Gia got out before she’d put the truck into park. She ran a few steps, then turned back around and grabbed the bag of maternity clothes. Excitement unfurling in her chest, she jogged toward where Creed was hammering planks to the deck in front of 1010.
The closer she got, the faster she ran, a grin splitting open her face.
“Hey, baby,” Creed said, standing with a greeting smile that mirrored her own. Damn, she’d missed him.
Peanut Butter yipped from his place nestled in Jason’s arm. Gia skidded to a stop on the gravel. Jason was leaned against the new porch railing, holding an animal she almost didn’t recognize. Someone had shaved Peanut Butter’s luxurious locks off.
“What did you do?” she yelled, blasting her shoes against the porch stairs as she charged Jason.
He hunched in on himself as if her shrill voice hurt his ears. “He was hot and ugly,” Jason said, holding out the dog for her. “Creed shaved him.”
“Oh my gosh,” she murmured. Peanut Butter was shaved from head to tail except for a longer strip of fur going up his back and head. “Did you give him a mohawk?” She was yelling again. “Peanut Butter is a show quality dog, and it took years to grow his hair out and get it just right.”
“Peanut Butter?” Jason asked, looking aghast. “LOL, no.”
“You aren’t supposed to say LOL out loud, you idiot.”
“We’ve renamed him Spike,” Jason said, ignoring her. “He has a dick, Gia. You had a pink rubber banded bow in his hair, and he smelled like a blueberry patch.” He jammed his finger at her. “That’s not okay.”
But Peanut Butter was her fur baby, and she could do what she pleased. And she was really freaking tired of people dictating her life. She was twenty-four and had only just gotten out from her parents, and now she couldn’t choose a hairstyle for her dog?
With a shriek in her throat, she lunged at Jason, but Creed’s immovable grasp held her back. “Whoa,” he murmured.
Jason looked amused, and she wanted to claw that stupid grin off his face.
“And you!” she said, turning her anger on Creed. “You shaved my dog without my permission. My. Dog. How can I trust you around our kid if you can’t even take care of a dog for a day?” She shoved off his chest, hormone rage peaking. He’d messed with her momma instincts. Oh, she could just kick him! Repeatedly with spiked heels.
She cuddled Peanut Butter close and shoved the door open, then slammed it. Only it was anti-climactic because the door didn’t shut well and was made of cheap wood
, so it made a soft thud.
“Come on, girl, you can do better than that,” Jason said from outside. She could practically hear the smile in his voice.
She set Peanut Butter down and tossed her bag of clothes, then slammed the door with both hands. Door still didn’t want to shut. With a battle scream, she opened it and closed it three times before she kicked it, gave up, and stomped into the bedroom crying.
A mouse skittered across the floor, and she yelled again as she sprinted for the bed. “Peanut Butter! Save yourself!” she sobbed as the dog watched the little rodent walk right by him.
Creed appeared in the doorway, arms crossed as he leaned against the frame. The mouse hopped right over his work boot. “That’s Nards, and he came with the house. Tagan says he’s a pet, and we can’t hurt him. He’ll even eat out of your hand.” His dark eyebrow jacked up. “Can I show you something before you light me up again?”
Gia’s shoulders were heaving around her ears with her crying. God, she couldn’t stop! It was like all the tears she’d been holding in since she’d found out she was pregnant were coming out now, and for what? She felt crazy.
Creed disappeared into the bathroom and came back with a handful of Peanut Butter’s hair.
“O-oooh-oooh,” she sobbed, clutching it to her chest. “Ow!” She dropped it on her lap and rubbed her finger where a sticker burr had poked her.
Creed pulled the strands apart. Peanut Butters discarded fur was full of the prickly things.
“He was crying when we got back from the landing. It was Easton’s day off, and he’d been picking burrs out of his feet for an hour, but they were working their way against his skin. Out here, long-furred animals get hurt, Gia. I wasn’t trying to mistreat your dog. He’s been tramping all over the trailer park for the last couple of hours, happy as all get out. You should see him. Look around you, Gia. This isn’t a showroom. I don’t care that Spike’s hair is perfect. I care that he isn’t hurting.”