Gray Back Alpha Bear(27)

She rolled against him and moaned as the pressure in her middle intensified. Creed wielded a powerful grace with every thrust into her, and she was losing control. Falling, falling. Eyes rolling back in her head, she gave him her neck to suck as a tingling sensation filled her. “Creed, oh my gosh, Creed!”

A snarl ripped through him as he spun her so fast her stomach dipped. Her shoulders hit the sand, and the water lapped at her arms and hips, but he never broke their connection. His lips were on hers, moving, sucking, biting, tasting. He pulled out of her, and then thrust back into her again. In and out, faster and faster, and she was gone now—not falling anymore…floating.

“Fuck,” Creed gritted out as he slammed into her.

“I’m going to come,” she panted out mindlessly as she arched her back against the sand and clawed his back. One more thrust, and she detonated around him. Stars sparked her vision, and the moonlight expanded until everything was bathed in blue and blinding. She shut her eyes against the intense light and held onto Creed as her body pulsed around him. Creed would keep her safe from what the moonlight was doing.

Creed stroked into her again and froze with a feral sound in his throat. Warmth shot into her, heating her from the inside out. Throbbing jets burst from him as his hips jerked. His arms were taut and flexed, bulging from trying to keep his weight off her. His hips moved slower, smoother as his release pulsed in rhythm with hers.

And then his lips were back, kissing the tip of her shoulder just under her collar bone, the base of her neck, under her chin, and then her lips.

“I have one last secret,” he whispered against her ear as he smoothed a damp strand of hair from her cheek.

“Tell me.”

“I’m glad you’re pregnant.”

It was sandy and wet, and the chill was creeping into her veins, but his words stopped all of that. His words were a blanket. “You are?”

He smiled down at her, fingers smoothing water drops from her face. “Our baby brought you back to me.”

“I have another secret, too.”

His lips curved up in the corners, exposing those dimples she adored. “And what’s that?”

Gia ran her palm down the sloping curve of his shoulder and pressed her lips against his arm, hiding her face from him so she would have the courage to say something she’d never told any man. “I love you.”





Chapter Nine




Creed had messed up. He threw his feet over the edge of the bed and jammed his elbows on his knees as he stared at the silhouette of his sleeping mate. She’d told him she loved him—loved him!—and he’d frozen up and denied her the same words.

No one had ever said that to him in his entire life, and Gia had given them with such honesty in every word, he knew she really did. She loved him, and dammit, he loved her, too, so why the fuck hadn’t he been able to spit out the words instead of letting them stay lodged in his throat like that?

Because she’d shocked him.

He’d never uttered those three words to anyone else, and his moment had come, and like an idiot, he had let it pass.

And Gia was so friggin’ sweet about it. She hadn’t been able to mask her hurt completely, but she’d changed the subject and talked on and on as if nothing was wrong. She’d told him a dozen times she was proud of him for facing his fear of deep water, and still, he hadn’t been able to say it back.

He rubbed his forehead, hating himself. God, he didn’t deserve this woman, and for some reason, she was in this, no questions. Despite all the shit that came along with his crew, she still loved him.

And then, as she was drifting off to sleep, she’d told him something that ripped his guts out. Her friends had ditched her, she’d been fired from an internship she’d worked her ass off for, and her parents had tried to make her have an abortion as soon as they found out the baby was a shifter. They’d given her an ultimatum—get rid of the baby or disassociation with their family—because no abomination was going to carry the Cromwell name. Fuck no, their kid wouldn’t. Their baby would bear Creed’s last name, Barnett, if he had any say in the matter. Gia would, too, if she stuck around long enough for him to grow balls big enough to tell her how devoted he was to her. After tonight, there was no denying that nagging voice in the back of his head that said he’d begun the bond with Gia five months ago. She hadn’t stuck around long enough to see it through then, but after sleeping with her tonight, she was his.

And he’d already fucked it up.

She was always going to remember when he hadn’t said “I love you” back.

She’d given up her family and friends to protect her baby. Gia had the instincts of a momma sow already, and damn, Creed found it sexy. His woman would be a good mother to their offspring, and on an instinctual level, his inner bear was practically strutting like a rooster that she’d picked him.