Outfoxed by Love (Kodiak Point Book 2) (19 page)

United, they both faced off against Jean Francois, who shrugged. “Such drama. I would never have let things go that far. Or did you not wonder why ten armed men never once managed to hit your ridiculously big and clumsy carcass, boy?”

It was then Boris noticed the snow melting from Jan’s dad’s boots. “You were there?”

Irma snorted. “Of course he was. You didn’t seriously think he’d trust another man with our daughter’s safety, did you? As soon as he sent you after her, he picked up Jan’s trail and shadowed her the entire time and made sure nothing bad happened to her until rescue arrived.”

“
If that’s the case, then why didn’t you show yourself during the battle?”

“I wanted to see how you’d acquit yourself. I just stayed on the outskirts and took care of anyone who might actually get lucky. You didn’t do too
bad for a moose,” was the grudging admission.

“Oh,
Daddy. I should have known you wouldn’t let me down.”

Boris could only gape as his vixen hugged the grizzly fellow
, who smirked at him over his daughter’s shoulder. But he couldn’t be mad at the man, not if his unseen aid kept everyone alive.

“
I knew your moose would come to the rescue. Such a dashing figure you must have presented with your large rack,” Irma said as she flung her arms around him. For such a tiny woman, she packed quite the vigorous hug.

Unsure of what to do, Boris awkwardly patted her back, but
blushed beet red when she cupped his jaw and kissed him soundly on both cheeks. “Welcome to the family, son.”

Son?
Boris practically choked. Jean Francois went into a coughing fit. “Son? Son! I never said I gave him permission to have my daughter,” the older fox argued as his wife tugged him out of the door. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

“No,” Irma replied just before Jan closed the door, leaving them alone for the first time in what seemed like forever.

“Are they always like that?” he asked.

“Yes.
Aren’t they great?” Jan beamed at him.

Great wasn’t the word he’d have used. Faced with such a bright smile, Boris held in his sigh. Alone and unsure of what to do next, he proposed the most obvious. “We should shower.”

“You better not be implying I stink.”

Boris couldn’t help the
tilt of his lips. “You might not, but I certainly do. And it seems such a shame to waste all that space and water.”

“So you’re doing this for efficiency?”

“No. I just want to get you naked.” He couldn’t help a grin at her dropped jaw.

“Why, Boris
Sobolev, did you just proposition me?”

“
Yes.”

“
But what if I’m not in the mood?” The devilish twinkle in her eye said otherwise.

“Then I guess I’ll have to convince you.
”

“Now that sounds promising,” was her husky reply as she leaned back against his fireplace mant
el with her arms crossed.

He leaped over his couch and managed to make her eyes widen in surprise, but it was her soft gasp as he literally tore the salvaged clothing from her body that sent lust surging through his loins.

“I still can’t believe,” he said as he braced an arm on either side of her bared body, “that you actually jumped around like a squirrel from branch to branch naked.” A sight he really wished he could have seen.

“Not for long,” she admitted. “
It was freaking cold. But I didn’t want to make it too easy for you.”

“Am I going to have to chase you often?”

“What do you think?” was her giggled reply as she ducked under his arm and bolted, nude and gorgeous, across the room to his bathroom.

Tearing at his own borrowed clothing, Boris shed his layers as he followed. He entered the washroom to find her already standing in the glass enclosure
, the water running. With a seductive smile, she crooked a beckoning finger.

As if he needed an invitation. He entered the shower and immediately enveloped her in his arms. But she held back, her fingers tracing the myriad bruises and cuts covering his body.

“You’re hurt.”

“I am. And some wounds might never heal. But when you’re around, I don’t feel them. For some reason you make me feel whole again.”

“Because you’re mine,” she claimed possessively as she drew his head down for a kiss. It began as a soft embrace, a sensual slide of lips against lips. But Boris wanted more than that. Despite his fatigue, a wild instinct to claim pulsed within him.

He needed to make this woman his. His in a way everyone would identify. His so she would never question his commitment again.
His so he could finally stop dreaming, and enjoy the reality.

H
er lips were pliant to his demanding kiss and needed little coaxing to part. A grunt of satisfaction left him when her arms came around him, clasping him tight, firmly pressing her body flush against his.

With more force, his mouth
pressed hard against hers, and he slid his tongue into the warm recess of her mouth. But he wasn’t the only one who could claim. Her mouth pressed back just as firmly, her tongue dueled just as wetly, neither conceding the upper hand, both determined to leave a mark. A sensual mark.

Her shorter stature meant she had to crane and stand on tiptoe to fully taste him. How adorable she was. H
e lifted her off the floor with ease, pushing her back against the shower wall, bringing her to just the right height for him to grind his pelvis against hers. The way she moaned and arched, her nails digging into his shoulders, set his blood on fire.

Control slipped from his grasp
, and Boris didn’t bother to chase after it. He wanted the passion to overcome him. He needed it.
I want to feel alive.

As her
limber legs wrapped around his waist, locking him against her, he felt her molten core press against his rigid cock, which was trapped between their bodies.

How can this feel so fucking good?
He’d not even sunk inside her yet, but he knew how it would feel and looked forward to it. The heat of her clinging to him, squeezing him, welcoming him, and only him.

Mine.

Impatience and need made it impossible for him to wait any longer.
I need her. Now.

I
nto her snug, wet sheath he slid, and despite his strength, the pure pleasure of it almost sent him to his knees. He took a few shuddering breaths as her channel gripped him tight. He adjusted his hold on her, cupping her sweet ass cheeks, giving himself leverage.

“Boris, I need you.” She made the soft admission just before she nibbled at his neck.

Holy fuck. Was it her words or her gentle bite that enflamed him? Who cared? He flung his head back. The cords in his neck bulged with the strain of holding himself in check. All of his instincts screamed at him to pound her sweet and willing flesh, but he was more than just an animal driven by primal urges. He was a man, a man determined to make his vixen cream.

With her back pressed
firmly against the tile wall and his hands still cupping her perfect ass, he pumped into her willing heat, hard and fast. In slammed his cock, then out, the seesaw motion a sensual delight for them both. How moist she was. How hot.

His dick had never felt so full, so ready. He gasped as h
er sex gripped him tighter than a vise. He almost lost it. He had to stop his thrusting to regain some control over the situation. It made her mewl and squirm. She sat on the edge of bliss, needing just a little push to send her over. He tilted his angle of entry and slowly pushed in and out, really grinding the tip within her. When her channel convulsed, he knew he’d found her sweet spot.

Nails
clawed at his back as he bumped the head of his dick against her G-spot, over and over.

“That’s it,” he crooned. “Come for me. Scream for me.” Let her orgasm and spread her lovely cream all over his cock.

A moment later she came. Her sex convulsed, moist flesh pulsing around him, fisting him and drawing forth his own climax. He couldn’t help but bellow her name as he came, his seed, his mark, bathing her womb even as he nipped at her neck, the flat edge of his teeth pinching the skin.

She cried out again, a second orgasm rippling through her, and he just about hit the floor as his
knees threatened to buckle with the bliss of her pleasure.

With the hot water streaming over their heaving bodies, he cradled her close
, determined to never let her go. To never let her come to harm. To never let pride, an enemy, or even her family come between them.

For better or worse, you are mine.

Rolling over in the obscenely large bed,
Jan made it to the other side before realizing she’d awoken alone.

Well
, that sucked. Given the tumultuous events of the day before, and then the wicked lovemaking, there had been little time for talk with Boris. Or should she say have a discussion about their future?

While Boris had said some pretty sweet things, she still worried about his level of commitment.

Would he decide to run? Try to shut her out? Pretend once again she didn’t mean anything to him in order to spare her from his personal demons?

I hope not.
But knowing her honorable, and idiotic, moose, the possibility definitely existed that he’d try to pull the martyr act. Would she ever get it through his thick skull, no matter what demons haunted him, she wasn’t going anywhere?

She groaned as she buried her head in the pillow, but only until she heard his mocking, “Hey, sleepy head, are you planning on lying in bed all day? We need to hash some
things out.”

Speaking of her moose…

Rolling onto her back, she smiled at the sight of him, relaxed and shirtless at the foot of the bed. Smiled, that was, until he leveled a familiar shotgun in her direction. “Boris, what are you doing? And why do you have my mother’s gun?”

“This?” He wagged the barrel. “Irma called this morning while you were sleeping
, and we had a bit of a chat. Nice lady your mom, by the way.”

“Yes, she is
, but that doesn’t explain how you got your hands on the family shotgun.”

“She was kind enough to drop it off for me.”

Narrowing her eyes, she asked, not without suspicion. “Why?”

“
I’ll tell you why, if you give me half a chance.” He cleared his throat, and was that nervousness she perceived in his eyes? “Jan, you drive me bloody mental and not always in a good way.”

“
Oh really? Did my mother also happen to bring a shovel because, so far, you are digging a pretty big hole?”

“I wasn’t done.”

“Then get to the point,” she teased, curious, and hopeful as to where this conversation was going.

“I’m trying to get to the point. So stop
interrupting, or I’ll get the duct tape.”

“Kinky.”

“We’ll get to that later. Anyhow, as I was saying, you drive me crazy, but you also make me feel great while you’re doing it, which I don’t quite understand.”

“I still don’t get what me driving you bonkers has to do with you aiming a gun at me.”

“Because you won’t stay quiet long enough for me to get the words out. And you know how I hate talking.”

“Not around me you don’t. If you ask me
, you talk too much and don’t act enough,” she grumbled, anxious for him to get to the point—and better yet, get those jeans off him and drag him back to bed.

He cocked the shotgun and yelled
, “Quiet, woman. Can’t you bloody well see I’m trying to propose to you?”

Her mouth snapped s
hut, and she blinked at him.

“Jan
Marie Benoit, I tried to fight it. I tried to ignore it. I tried every fucking thing I could to get you out of my mind, but dammit it all, I can’t. You’re a part of me, a necessary part, and while I think you could have done better, and your dad insists you should, any attempts by any other man to do so would have probably ended up in murder because I can’t stand the thought of you with someone else. I love you, Jan, and you will be my mate and wife. Even if I have to shoot you and drag you to the altar to get it done.”

Elation bubbled in her. He loved her.
He loves me!
And yet he pointed a gun at her? How utterly Boris. “You wouldn’t shoot me.”

“Okay, maybe I wouldn’t
, but I sure as hell won’t take no for an answer.”

“Hold on, if you never planned to shoot me, then what’s the gun for?”

“Well, according to your mom, it’s tradition in your family to use it. So I thought what the hell. I mean, I like guns. You like guns. I like aiming guns. I like you.” He shrugged and grinned. “What better way for me to get engaged than at gunpoint?”

“You do know the tradition
in my family is for the women to wield it or their daddies.”

“I hate tradition for one
, and secondly, I never wanted you to doubt I wanted this. I never want you to think you had to force me because, when it comes to you, I would suffer anything, your parents, your irritating need to interrupt, your ability to find danger, even a chain around my ankle and a bloody white wedding in a church if you’ll only promise to stay at my side.”

A smile tilted her lips
, and her eyes surely sparkled with mischief when she said, “My mother will make you wear a tux.”

He winced. “I survive
d the army and various forms of torture. I’m sure I can survive that.”

“We’ll have to have the ceremony outside because my hillbilly cousins like to get drunk and shoot things when they’re celebrating.”

“So long as they don’t shoot you, we’re good.”

“I want a honeymoon on a beach.”

“Argh, woman. With sunshine and sand? Don’t you know how that blasted stuff can chafe a man’s sensitive parts? Can’t we just go camping in the woods and find ourselves a cozy cave?”

She arched a brow.

He made a face. “Fine. You win.”

Actually
, he would win big time. Just wait until he saw her itty bitty bikini. She could almost wager she’d never make it to the beach.

But she wasn’t done torturing him.
“One last thing, when we have a daughter—”

“Daughter?”
His eyes widened. “You mean as in us, having children?”

“Yes, children.
I’m going to want a couple.”

“A couple?”
He gulped.

Oh
, how cute. The big bad soldier was afraid of kids. “At least three. Maybe more. But we can decide on the actual number later. Anyhow, I am warning you right now, Mr. Cave Moose, my girls will be taught to shoot guns just like the boys.”

“Why on earth would they need to know how to shoot a gun? I’ll be their daddy.
If anyone goes near them, I’ll protect them.” He puffed out his chest. Mmm. Such an impressive chest.

Not quite done though, she explained.
“While they might have big, bad Boris as their daddy, that won’t give them the skills they need to fend off teenage boys.”

His eyes widened.
“Teenage boys? Near my girls?” Despite the fact these supposed daughters didn’t exist yet, she could already see the idea settling within him and rousing the family man—and protective father—instinct. Totally sexy. “Teenage boys are randy little pervs. On second thought, we’ll need to teach my girls more than just gunplay. I think we should plan on some hand-to-hand combat, definitely some knife work. How young can we start them? Never mind. I’ll ask your dad. He’ll know.”

As Boris planned for the future, Jan couldn’t help but grin. Not so long ago she
’d despaired of the man she loved ever realizing they were meant to be. But, lucky for her, one big, stubborn moose had gotten outfoxed by love. And now that she had him in her life, nothing, not even his past, would ever keep them apart.

Or they’d face the wrath of a rabid snow fox, and her extended family. Which
, given the long winters, was quite big. And vicious. On second thought, bring it. They could use some excitement for the next family reunion.