Tymber Dalton - Doggy Tales

Damn it! He tried knocking on the bathroom door again, but all he got in response was the whispered, panicky sound of Kaylie talking on the phone.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door. He took a deep breath and struggled to keep his voice in what he hoped was a calm, reassuring tone. “Kaylie, sweetie, please come out.”

After five minutes of that, he realized he wasn’t getting anywhere. He took the stairs two at a time, threw on a pair of running shorts, and grabbed his bathrobe for her. Hopefully, Ivan could talk her out.

Thirty minutes later, someone pounded on his front door. He opened it, and Ivan, Lindsey, Tessa, who was still talking on a cell phone, and Scudder all pushed in.

“Where is she?” Tessa demanded.

He sat, dejected, on the couch and pointed at the bathroom door. Lindsey spotted the bathrobe he’d left by the door, and she and Tessa ordered the men into the kitchen as they gathered around the bathroom door and started speaking to Kaylie through it.

Frank grabbed a bottle of scotch from a cabinet and poured himself two fingers, neat, gulping it in one swallow.

Scudder and Ivan scowled at him, and he held up the bottle. “Help yourself.”

Ivan shook his head. “You dumb fuck. On the first date? You couldn’t control yourself better than that?”

“She wanted it, too! She practically ripped my damn shirt off. Buttons were flying all over the place!”

Scudder leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. “Yeah, sleeping with her is one thing, but you couldn’t wait a little bit at least to show her what you are and to claim her?”

He studied his bare feet. “She’s my mate,” he muttered. “You don’t understand.”

“Fuck me, I don’t understand,” Ivan said. “Believe me, I do. But obviously, scaring the shit out of the poor woman isn’t the best way to do it!”

He glared at his cousin and the man who would hopefully become his cousin-in-law. “I’m sorry I’m not as perfect as the two of you.” He caught the sound of the women out in the living room and started toward the doorway. Ivan and Scudder each caught him by an arm and dragged him back in.

“Let me go!” Frank angrily said. “I need to see if she’s okay!”

Ivan jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “You wait here with us, dumb-ass, until the women say she’s okay. If she’s really your mate, one thing you’ll quickly learn is you might be Alpha in bed, but she’s going to rule the fucking house if you want your happily ever after with her.”

Scudder nodded.

With a snarl, Frank shook them loose and paced the small kitchen for the next hour while Scudder and Ivan silently kept watch on him. Finally, Tessa appeared in the kitchen doorway, frowning when she saw Frank.

“You really fucked this up, buddy.”

“Yeah, so they told me.”

“Get your ass out here.”

Lindsey sat with Kaylie on the couch, a protective arm around her shoulders. Kaylie was wearing his bathrobe and shrank against Lindsey at the sight of Frank.

Her eyes looked wide with shock.

“Are you okay?” he asked her. He wanted to be the one comforting her.

“They said…they said all three of you can do…that,” Kaylie whispered.

The men nodded.

“Do it.”

Ivan and Scudder looked at each other, then to their respective women to confirm that was what they should do.

“It’s okay,” Tessa said, now sitting protectively on the other side of Kaylie with an arm also around her. “Do it. Show her how you guys shift.”

Shrugging, Ivan and Scudder quickly stripped and shifted. Ivan transformed into a large black wolf with a dusting of silver in his coat and grey eyes. Scudder turned into the largest black Lab Frank had ever seen, nearly as large as Ivan, with golden-brown eyes.

Kaylie felt the breath sucked out of her. If it wasn’t for the grounding presence of Tessa and Lindsey on either side of her, she thought she’d pass out.

“Now you,” she whispered to Frank.

He shucked his running shorts and shifted back into the panther.

She still couldn’t believe it.

“Are you okay?” Tessa asked.

She shook her head. “No. I think I need to go home…”

She lost consciousness.

She awoke sometime later in the backseat of a moving car. She was, she realized, still dressed in the bathrobe, which she knew to be Frank’s from the scent. She hugged it to her, inhaling deeply until the entire evening came back to her.

Tessa reached over from the front seat and touched her arm. “You okay?”

Tessa carefully sat up. “Where are we going?”

“Back to our house. You’ve had quite a shock.”

“You ain’t kidding.”

“I got your clothes and your purse,” Tessa said.

“Thanks.”

Back at the Harris house, Tessa plied her with a spiked eggnog, and the women sat on the couch and talked about everything until dawn. Finally, exhausted and with her brain—and heart—hurting, she collapsed on their guest bed.

When she awoke later that day, she felt horrible. Tessa had laid out some of her own clothes for her to wear, and after a shower in the attached guest bath she made her way out to the kitchen.

Tessa hugged her. “You okay?”

“Tell me it was a dream or a nightmare or something.”

Tessa shook her head. “Frank turned into a panther.”

She collapsed into a chair at the table. “I don’t understand this.” She burst into tears. “And I think I love him! How can that be?”

Tessa smiled and sat with her. “Can I invite him over here for dinner? He’s been calling every thirty minutes to check on you.” Her cell phone rang. “And that’s probably him right there.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Kaylie nodded. “Will Ivan and Lindsey be here, too?”

“Yes. And Jeremy and Genna. Jeremy is the local pack Alpha.” She grabbed her phone and glanced at the screen before answering. “She just woke up. I’ll call you back in a few.” She hung up on him and put the phone on the table. “There’s a lot to learn.” She kindly smiled. “But let me tell you what, once you get over the shock, you’ll never regret it.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Dinner. Sure. I think I can handle that.”

At six o’clock on the dot, Frank knocked on the Harrises’ front door. Anticipating his punctual arrival, Ivan and Jeremy had arrived at five thirty. Kaylie felt nervous when she saw Frank standing in the front doorway.

She also felt her nether regions throb at the memory of their hot sex.

Fuck!

He stepped in, looking worried, his eyes never leaving her. “Hi, Kaylie,” he hesitantly said. “Are you okay? I’m sorry about last night.”

She nodded and pointed up. She was standing under a sprig of mistletoe fastened in the doorway. “Let’s start with this and see where we get.”

Before she finished her sentence, he’d raced across the room, taken her into his arms, and kissed her.

Without a will of their own, her arms encircled him as she closed her eyes and savored his taste, his scent.

He purred.

Something inside her broke free and melted. “Yes,” she whispered, not understanding why she’d suddenly lost her mind. “I want you.”

He scooped her up and headed to the guest bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them.

The others stood there, stunned, then laughing as the muffled sounds of rough, animalistic sex filtered through the closed door.

“Well,” Jeremy said. “I guess Frank got his Christmas wish a little early this year.”

THE END

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