Winter Read online

  But she looked at Aaron. Her eyes focused on his.

  Blue.

  Ice.

  But there was nothing cold about Aaron Winter.

  His eyes were clear, burning fire.

  She peeled off her blouse, her bra, continuing on until the only thing touching her skin was the air and Aaron’s hungry gaze.

  It could have just been lust or desire, but this was more.

  This was everything.

  If it had been anyone else at any other time in her life she might have shied away from baring her body to someone. She would have been embarrassed to show what she saw as imperfections.

  But, it was like magic. The way Aaron looked at her, the way he touched her, made her believe that he wanted her regardless of her imperfections.

  How could she deny the both of them what they wanted.

  To belong to each other.

  Aaron reached for the button at the neck of his shirt and undid it, tugging hard enough to tear the second buttonhole and halfway through the third. He didn’t bother to worry about the others, pulling the shirt off of his shoulders and letting it hang from his waistband.

  Celeste licked at her lip, watching as he tore the laces from his boots.

  “Oh, I can see we’re going to spend some money on your clothes if you’re going to keep tearing them.”

  His smile set her heart thundering in her chest.

  He toed off his boots and his smile changed to something… feral.

  Aaron left his jeans on the floor as he moved toward her. She didn’t wait for him. She didn’t even need the bed.

  When he put his arms around her, he lifted her clear off the floor.

  Their mouths met in hunger, their hands touched more than flesh, they brushed away the past, cleared the way for the future.

  Down to his knees, he pulled her closer, his mouth tracing the insides of her thighs before he nudged between her thighs. Nose, lips, and tongue parted her folds, stirred her passion, drank from her lips until all that was left was to draw her down onto his lap.

  He was in her, his arms around her, his mouth breathing in her breathless cries and her joyous laughter. Hard and fast he thrust up into her body, urging her higher and higher into the dizzying heights of her passion and when he felt her walls tense around him…

  When her nipples scraped against his chest…

  When her head fell back on a shuddering cry, he closed his mouth over the flesh along the base of her neck and bit.

  His bear poured through him and yet let him keep his own shape, desperate to protect the woman who had given him their most precious gift.

  He tasted the sharp tang of her blood on his tongue and felt his cock pulse again and again as he emptied himself into her because her love would fill him up again. As she would for the rest of their lives.

  Thirteen

  While they were waiting for Jason and Julia to arrive for their Christmas visit, it was Aaron who was pacing nervously just inside the door. When they finally did arrive, the car hadn’t even been put in park when Aaron was out the front door and rushing down the steps before he turned back around and went back in to grab Celeste’s hand.

  She laughed the whole way down to the car and barely managed to catch her breath before the kids squeezed it right back out of her.

  “Oh, thank goodness you two made it all right in the snow!”

  Jason gave her a big kiss on her cheek. “We hardly had any snow.”

  Celeste narrowed her gaze at her son wondering why he said that. “The whole road was covered in snow this morning.”

  Julia chimed in. “Sure, there was snow, but we had chains and there wasn’t anything coming down. It was an easy trip, Mom.”

  Even though Aaron was standing a little behind her, she could feel his relief.

  Celeste resisted the urge to lift her hand and touch the mating mark on her shoulder. It was more than healed over, with barely a scar left behind, but whenever she felt Aaron’s presence or thought about him during the day, it would tingle like a kiss of frost against her skin.

  “Mom?”

  Celeste heard Julia’s soft voice ringing with laughter.

  “Wow, you’re glowing.”

  Celeste felt her cheeks heat when Julia laughed and gave her another hug. “I guess that answers my first question.”

  “Oh goodness,” Celeste covered her face with her hands, “do I even want to know?”

  Jason took one of her hands in his so he could walk her over to Aaron’s side with Julia a split second behind them. Holding out his hand, Jason looked Aaron in the eye. “Everything okay?”

  A silent moment passed between the two as they stood in front of each other.

  Celeste felt Aaron’s unease almost as if it was her own. Maybe it was the mark that bound them together, or maybe it was the late-night conversations that they’d had. Aaron knew the kids wanted them to be happy, but like everything in life, sometimes what you think you want doesn’t always end up the way you think it’s going to feel.

  It was very important to Aaron that the kids… adults now… were going to be happy with the reality of their mother’s life.

  Jason lowered his hand and before Aaron could realize what was happening, her son had wrapped his arms around Aaron’s shoulders in a warm hug.

  “Welcome to the family.”

  The emotions that rocketed through her mate sent her own heart racing. Aaron’s normally set and stoic brow lifted in surprise and he wrapped his arms around Jason in return.

  “Thank you, Jason.”

  Celeste struggled to slow her heart rate but combined with the joy in Aaron’s heart and the wild pride of his bear it was a lot of her to control this soon after her mark.

  Julia’s gentle presence eased the struggle and Celeste turned to her daughter and drew the younger woman into her embrace. “It’s so good to have you two here!”

  “It’s so good for us to see you happy.”

  Celeste’s heart squeezed in her chest. “Very happy.”

  Julia started to walk up the steps and Celeste followed at her side after looking at the men over her shoulder. Aaron and Jason were unloading the bags from the car, jostling each other with their shoulders.

  Laughing, Celeste climbed the steps with her daughter knowing that the men would be fine on their own.

  Once inside, Celeste helped Julia off with her coat and hung it up on one of the hooks that Aaron had recently set up just inside the door.

  “That’s a change, mom.”

  “Hmm?” Celeste gave her daughter a big smile. “What was that?”

  “You didn’t even have a jacket on outside.”

  Celeste looked down at her clothing and then back up again. “Yeah, I guess I forgot.”

  Julia‘s knowing look was filled with laughter. “You were always the one telling us to shut the doors and keep the warmth inside.”

  She couldn’t argue with her daughter. “I was always the one who was cold before either of you got a chill.” Running her hand over her own forearm she realized that what Julia said was right. She didn’t feel the cold like she used to. “Strange.”

  “But exciting, right?” Julia’s expression was tinged with concern. “We did the right thing, hmm? Lighting a fire under Aaron to… bear up?”

  Celeste rolled her eyes at the bear comment, but she still nodded. “I really am glad. I probably would have left things the way they were. I was never one to go out and put my heart on the line.”

  A strange sensation warmed her from the inside and she set her hand over her heart and felt a reassuring pressure just beneath the surface.

  “Mom?”

  Taking Julia’s hand in her own, Celeste replaced the hand she’d set over her heart.

  Even as she felt the same sensation repeat, Celeste saw the way her daughter’s eyes widened.

  The mudroom door opened and Aaron entered with Jason a step behind. He must have seen Julia’s questioning look, because he looked at her daughter with a br
oad grin.

  “Aaron says it’s his bear.” His broad smile made Celeste melt.

  “My bear told me after all of the years that I fought to keep things secrets, he wondered if I’d ever get my head out of my ass.”

  Celeste felt her cheeks heat from his words. Sure, the ‘kids’ were adults now, but it was an instinct with them.

  “He tried to forge some kind of connection with your mom. Taking it into his own hands-”

  “Paws,” Julia corrected with a wink.

  Aaron laughed. “You’re right. Now that Celeste has my mark, he seems to have a deeper connection to her in some ways. It’s not the usual bond.”

  “Then again,” Jason found a seat on a few of the cushions piled near the couch, “I doubt many shifters take as long as you did to claim your mate. So, this,” he looked at Celeste with a soft smile, “is probably different than other bonds.”

  Aaron took his seat beside Celeste and laid an arm over her shoulders. “That’s the theory. With so many shifters moving to Sylvan City and living a public life, we’re learning more about mating bonds.”

  Julia drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “Maybe when the snow melts in the spring you should take a little vacation and go to Sylvan City and see what they say?”

  Celeste gave her daughter a sweet smile. “We’ll be opening the resort by then, but with Mystic Mountain Resort gearing its services toward shifters, I’m sure we’ll have our share of Sylvan City folks coming here.”

  Folding his arms on the coffee table, Jason leaned in and laid his chin down. “Are you sure about the resort, Mom? I thought you were done with taking care of rooms and guests?”

  Hearing his concern for her, Celeste smiled. “Well, I’m not going to be cleaning rooms, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “We’re going to be overseeing the resort staff.” Aaron shifted at her shoulder and lent her his warmth and reassuring presence. “Your mom is going to have a lot of free time and the ability to enjoy her time to the fullest. That, I can promise you.”

  Jason looked at Aaron as if he was weighing his words. “Okay.”

  Celeste was concerned at Jason’s tone of voice. A little flat in tone, it seemed to match the worry in Jason’s eyes. “Sweetheart-”

  “You deserve to relax, Mom. You spent years taking care of us and housefuls of other people. Even with us doing our share of the chores and Aaron helping with the maintenance and the grounds, I still remember-”

  “We still remember,” Julia added in her support to Jason.

  “We remember the late nights when other seasonal staff would call out, or just not show up.”

  He turned to look at Aaron. “If I understand all of this shifter stuff. Your first need is to see her happy and healthy.”

  Celeste could feel the tension in her body and knew that part of it was hers and the rest was from Aaron and his bear.

  She felt Aaron square his shoulders and fight down the urge to growl at Jason. He loved Jason like she did, but she imagined that he was more than a little upset at what Jason was implying. Still, he held his temper in check. “It is.” He met the young man’s eyes straight on. “And it always will be. Opening the resort is going to make her life better, but if it doesn’t,” he explained and touched the side of Celeste’s face to turn her in his direction, “if for one moment you want to stop and give it up. You need to know that I would do that too.”

  “Hey now,” she touched his forearm and stroked his skin, enjoying the silken scratch of the hairs on his arm, “everyone relax.” Celeste leaned in and placed a slow, gentle kiss on Aaron’s lips before she faced her children. “I’m well aware of what I’m doing. In the time it took to raise the both of you, I’ve worked at a motel, a motor inn, a hotel and then finally the bed & breakfast. Besides that, Aaron’s family were part of the staff throughout the years that the resort was open originally. We’re not starry-eyed children rushing out into the world.” She took Aaron’s hand and held it gently in her own. “We’re adults eager to begin a life together that will make us both happy. I know what I’m doing and yes, if it becomes too much, Aaron and I will still be happy because we’ll be together.”

  She gave both of her children a warm and loving smile. “But what I’ve been wondering is how you two figured all of this out.”

  Julia and Jason shared the same look that they’d shared over the years, a secretive smile that only sometimes meant that they’d gotten into trouble.

  “It started when Julia did her report on polar bears,” Jason leaned over to keep his arms out of the way of Julia’s hands, “it’s true. She was doing the research and we were both sitting there looking at all the pictures on different websites and there was just something about those pictures.

  “One of us-”

  “Uh, I said it, Jason.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Someone said that the polar bear in this one particular picture looked like Aaron.”

  “It was something about the tilt of his head and the way he looked at these baby bears like he just didn’t understand the crazy.”

  Celeste laughed. “You two always found the most interesting ways to get underfoot.”

  Jason winced a little at the reminder. “From then on we’d make up these stories about him being our Step-bear dad. And why he kept it all a secret.”

  “After a while,” Julia leaned into her mother’s side, “we kind of just believed it. It became real for us. We just didn’t want to bring it up and have you two think we’d gone crazy.”

  Jason nodded. “And then when that whole thing happened in Sylvan City where that guy turned into a tiger in front of all those news cameras. The news hasn’t stopped talking about it since.”

  “From then on,” Julia gave her brother a big grin, “we started researching shifters and figured out that maybe… just maybe… we were on to something.”

  “Either way,” Jason gave Aaron a hopeful smile, “we figured that the two of you were in love with each other anyway. And,” he let out a breath, “so we couldn’t think of any kind of way that pushing the two of you together could go wrong.”

  A soft chime from the clock turned Celeste’s head. “Okay then, it’s time for us to get ready. We’re all going up to the diner for a little party where you kids can meet all the aunts and uncles you never knew about. Bears, wolves, birds…”

  “And after that,” Aaron leaned closer to his mate and nuzzled her cheek. “I have something I want to show your mom, but you two can come back here and watch the light show.”

  “Light show?” Jason shrugged. “What’s that all about?”

  Celeste smoothed her hands over her cheeks, hoping to muddle the blush she knew was coloring her cheeks. “In the night sky,” she explained, “if you sit out on the porch after dinner you should be able to see the lights.”

  After the party, Julia and Jason welcomed the quiet of the cabin. Knowing that Aaron was a bear shifter had shocked them enough, but the idea that the whole town of Mystic was populated by shifters… well, mostly shifters was going to take some getting used to.

  So, when they returned to the house, they’d both taken a good long shower and bundled up to sit on the porch for whatever might pass for a ‘light show’ in this out of the way valley.

  And the lights… well, they didn’t disappoint. Icy blues, emerald-like greens, and deep rich purples laced through the sky over their heads. It took them both to come up with the name that had been floating around inside their heads.

  “Aurora borealis. The Northern Lights.”

  “But what’s it doing out here?”

  Julia couldn’t think of any reason why the phenomenon that happened in the northern most part of the world was electrifying the sky over their heads in Mystic Mountain.

  Jason gave it another go. “The rock formations in Mystic are unique. Maybe there’s something about the mountains?”

  When neither of them seemed to have an answer, Jason sat back in his chair and set his
stocking feet on the railing as he watched the lights slowly curl and dance in the endless sky. “Get your head out of the sciences for a minute and just sit back and enjoy this.”

  Julia narrowed her eyes at her brother. “Fine.” Drawing the quilt tighter around her shoulders, she turned to look at the amazing lights high above the treetops. “It is amazing isn’t it?”

  Her brother’s laughter didn’t bother her at all. “It’s special. Something I’m going to remember for a long time.”

  “Jase?”

  “I knew you couldn’t keep quiet.”

  She ignored his subtle jibe. “I’m glad it all worked out.”

  “Yeah,” he blew out a breath. “but we knew they wanted to be with each other.”

  It was Julia’s time to laugh. “Way too obvious. They were just too stubborn.”

  “Too worried about us,” Jason added.

  “True,” Julia sighed, “but I think we got them over that.”

  Jason cleared his throat. “I’m not sure we had much to do with that. Aaron wasn’t going to be able to hold off much longer. After all, it wasn’t just him. It was his bear too.”

  “True.” Julia breathed into her cupped hands to warm them. “I’m just happy for them both. Aaron’s always been our dad.”

  Nodding, Jason hunched down in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “I remember enough about what it was like before Aaron found us that night. If he hadn’t come along-”

  He looked down at Julia’s hand on his arm and then up into her eyes, almost hidden by the shadows of the porch.

  “I don’t. And I’m glad I don’t. Aaron’s the one I see in my head when I think of a dad. I’m just glad it’s finally real. He’s our dad and he’s going to make mom really happy.”

  Nodding, Jason looked down at the watch on his wrist. “I wonder where they went?”

  Celeste slowly released the butter-soft cotton sheets from her clenched fists and lowered her head until her cheek touched the air-cooled fabric.

  For a long moment she took in one breath and when her lungs were full, she let it out on a sigh. It would have been so easy for her to fall asleep on the fine cotton sheets, but a moment before she succumbed to sleep she felt Aaron flex his hands on her hips and slowly stroke inside of her body again… and then again… pushing a sigh from her lips.