Tropical Leopard's Longing (Shifting Sands Resort 8)

“I’m… ah, right in the middle of something,” Breck said regretfully. “But congratulations!”

“They can come celebrate with us,” Jenny suggested laughingly. Several of the others echoed the invitation.

Breck’s chest squeezed to realize that wasn’t possible, and Graham gave him a long, suspicious look as he shrugged them off with a stiffly smiling shake of his head.

“Are you the only one who isn’t smashed?” he asked Laura bemusedly as he piled a plate with leftovers from the big fridge.

“Not by choice,” Laura said, grinning foolishly and toasting with her glass of water.

“Congratulations,” Breck said sincerely. “You guys thought about where you’ll go?”

He regretted the question at once, as Laura’s entire face fell. “I… I don’t know,” she confessed quietly, with a glance out of the kitchen to where the others were raucously placing bets on gender and shift form. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“You’ll figure something out,” Breck promised more confidently than he felt. “Maybe Scarlet will suddenly develop a motherly streak, and she’ll open a daycare in the event hall. She did let Ally stay over Christmas.” Wrench’s eight-year-old niece had come in secret for safe haven at the resort, and Scarlet had been unexpectedly generous about the infraction of the rules.

Laura giggled. “Can you imagine Scarlet with a baby? They’re so messy and unpredictable. She’d want it on a very specific schedule, with very exacting requirements for its feeding and bowel movements.”

“You, however, will be a wonderful mother,” Breck told her warmly. “I hope you stay here so we can all spoil it rotten.”

Laura smiled gratefully. “I’d really like that,” she said wistfully.

“However it works out, it will be amazing,” Breck promised.

Laura chuckled. “That’s funny, that’s exactly what Darla said.”

“Darla?” Breck choked, surprised.

“Miss Grant. You probably haven’t met her, with your serving ban, which by the way, is outrageous and everyone is furious. She’s nothing like her mother, and is really very sweet. Not at all your type, though.”

“I don’t have a type,” Breck said automatically, wondering if it sounded as strangled as he felt.

“Well, you’re not her type then,” Laura said. “She’s lovely, but very much a good little girl: shy, docile, meek.”

Naked in my room, Breck thought in chagrin and amusement. Screams like a siren when she comes… getting married to someone else the day after tomorrow...

“Anyway, we’ll find some creative solution,” Laura said brightly. “No situation is impossible.”

Except mine, Breck didn’t say.

He suffered t

hrough another comically drunken hug from Tex, who had returned to the kitchen to find Laura, and escaped back down the hallway to his room with the plate of food, listening to the happy din diminish behind him.

He was walking quietly, and opened the door with practiced silence, and had to stand a long moment, gazing at his mate across the room in awe.

Darla was standing in front of the lamp, so that all of her edges were golden, and her hair was a messy halo of light. She was still naked, and every curve was perfect. She was all woman: plump breasts, round hips, the little roll of tummy that every woman hated and every man adored. Her arms were strong, but soft, and the line of her neck was an invitation for kisses. The mesmerizing sweep of her legs. The perfect tuck of her ass. The dimples of Venus in the small of her back.

Breck looked his fill, trying to memorize it all, to drink her in while he could, reveling in his exquisite thirst for her.

Then he realized that she was standing in front of his open top dresser drawer.

He must have made a noise of dismay; she turned sharply in surprise, cheeks flaming red.

This was it, then, Breck thought in chagrin. This was when she realized that he wasn’t the kind of person she really wanted to be involved with anyway. Her wedding would look like a happy escape from an awkward situation now. She may not have been a virgin, but she checked off every box of the stereotype of virginal, and that drawer definitely wouldn’t fit into her sheltered world view.

Braced for her disgust, Breck put the plate of food on the nightstand. “About that drawer…” he started.

“I want to try everything,” Darla said breathlessly.