Marisa Chenery: Leifs Surrender

“You want me to do what?” Leif asked Roxie with a scowl.

“You heard me. I want you to run to the store and get me some ice cream.”

“Why?”

Roxie rolled her eyes. “Well, I’d go get it myself, but since you guys won’t let me go anywhere by myself now that I’m showing, you’re going to have to get it for me. I ate the last of what I had last night and now I’m craving ice cream, bad.”

“Can’t you get Jager or Daylen to get it instead?”

Leif hated going to the grocery store. He avoided it like the plague. The few times he had gone grocery shopping, he’d had the back of his heels run over by unobservant mortals with their carts, which was beyond annoying. Even worse were those who came to a sudden stop in the middle of an aisle, oblivious to those behind them.

“No, they can’t,” Roxie said. “They’ve gone a few times for me already. It’s time you took your turn.”

Leif made one last attempt to get out of it. “What about Beowulf? He’s your mate.

He should be the one getting it for you.”

“He’s not here, as you well know. It could be hours before he gets back from Wade and Taryn’s.”

Wade was Beowulf’s younger brother. He and his mate, Taryn, owned a winery in Napa Valley. Taryn had inherited it from her uncle, so once Wade and she became mates, Wade had moved in with her.

Damn. It looked as if he wasn’t going to be able to escape making the dreaded trip to the grocery store. Knowing Jager, he’d probably put Roxie up to it. As one of Roxie’s Protectors, they had lived together for centuries. Jager had to have known Leif would balk at the idea. The big idiot was probably having a good chuckle over it too, knowing full well Roxie wouldn’t back down. Jager may now be mated to Daylen, who used to be a police officer—before Roxie turned her into a werewolf, which made her now one of the Protectors—but that didn’t mean Jager still didn’t do or say whatever the hell he wanted.

Leif breathed a heavy sigh. “All right. I’ll get you your ice cream this time, but don’t expect me to do this too often.”

Roxie smiled and put her hand on her distended belly. “Just think, in three more months, the baby will be here, and I won’t have any more cravings. Then you won’t have to worry about it.”

Turning on his heel, Leif left Roxie’s mansion and headed for his black Cadillac CTS. He got into the drivers’ side and headed down the winding drive to the street. He was a warrior, having trained for centuries with the rest of the Protectors for the day when the foretold one would come. Roxie was the foretold one. It was his duty to protect her against other werewolves abducting her to use as a figurehead to rule the packs.

Running to the grocery store to buy ice cream wasn’t part of the job description.

Pulling into the parking lot of the store closest to Roxie’s place, Leif found an empty space and parked. He got out, slammed the car door a little harder than necessary and headed inside. Forgoing a shopping cart, he walked through the large store, searching for the freezer aisle. When he finally found it, he stood in front of the glass freezer doors staring at all the different types of ice cream. Well, hell. He’d forgotten to ask Roxie what kind she wanted.

He reached inside the front pocket of his jeans for his cell phone, then remembered he’d left it at home. He’d forgotten to charge it during the night, and it now sat on his dresser in his room doing just that. Wasn’t this just his day? Making an executive decision, he opened the freezer and grabbed cartons of vanilla, chocolate and butterscotch ripple. Roxie should at least like one of them. He juggled the ice cold containers in his arms and made his way to the checkout.

Moving to stand at the end of the express line, Leif looked up to the front of it and groaned. An older lady was paying for her purchase, counting out change one coin at a time. Hopefully, the other customers in front of him wouldn’t take so long. The ice cream was damn cold. Already his fingers were starting to feel numb. He was rethinking his decision to not take a cart, but he wasn’t going to leave the lineup just to get one now.

The line inched forward until he reached the conveyor belt. More than happy to put the ice cream down—which was more than likely already starting to melt—Leif shook out his frozen hands.

He bit back a curse when the cart behind him pushed into the back of his thighs. Leif turned to find a woman who looked to be in her forties staring at him. She quickly apologized. He smiled and had the satisfaction of watching her jaw drop. After telling her it was okay, he turned back around and smiled even more. He was used to the effect he had over mortal women. Standing at six-foot-five, with his body well padded with muscle and his werewolf good looks, Leif drew a lot of feminine stares. Not that he complained about it. He loved women, all women. Young, old, he flirted with them all. Most male werewolves longed to find their mates, the one woman their soul would join with, but not Leif. He never wanted to be that tied down.

Finally, at long last, it was his turn. Muttering to himself about pregnant women and their cravings, he took a deep breath when he moved to stand across from the cashier. As if he’d been sucker punched in the gut, Leif froze in place and struggled to draw another big breath of air into his lungs. His cock went instantly rock hard, and the unthinkable happened—his mating urge kicked into high gear.

Settling his gaze on the cashier, the woman who was to be his mate, Leif took in her mousy brown hair that she wore pulled back in a high ponytail. He couldn’t see what color her eyes were behind her stylish glasses, because she was busy looking down as she rang in his purchases. Her face, he found cute in a plain sort of way. She wasn’t ugly, but she was by no means a raving beauty. And she was not at all what he expected his mate to look like.

She might not be heart-stopping beautiful, but she appealed to all of Leif’s senses, in a big way. Her scent stirred his body like no other. He wanted to jump across the counter, rip the glasses off her face, pull her hair loose and devour her lips with his. He wanted to hear her make little moaning noises as he ground his aching cock against her pussy. And his wolf wanted to claim her as his.

The sound of her voice brought him out of the haze of lust that had descended over him. He looked at her and asked, sounding like a complete idiot, “Wha…what?”

She lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes were brown. “I asked if you wanted paper or plastic,” she said in a quiet voice that seemed to take hold of his cock and make it throb even more.

“Plastic is fine,” he said.

His voice sounded gruff with need, even to his own ears. A spark of interest flashed in her eyes before she bagged the ice cream. Their fingers brushed when he handed her the money to pay. That simple touch caused his cock to jerk hard inside his jeans. Leif had to bite back a growl of need. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be howling like the wolf he was, and his eyes would be glowing mutedly for all the mortals to see.

When she handed him back his change, he made sure their fingers didn’t come in contact, and he found his gaze settling back on her face. The mating urge had well and truly dug its claws into him. Leif started to panic. Grabbing the bag of ice cream, he did the one thing his mating urge was not screaming at him to do—he hightailed it out of there.

Jaden turned her head to watch the guy she’d just run through beat a hasty retreat to the store’s exit. She let out a breathy sigh and turned back to ring through the next customer in her cash register’s line. She went through the motions of scanning each item, but her mind wasn’t totally there. It was still focused on the exceptionally good-looking guy who’d bought the three containers of ice cream.