egotistical enough to believe that a few rounds of sex had suddenly made Poppy trust him. But he was hopeful that he could show that he wasn’t the conniving, if not downright evil man, who had planned to steal shifter serum, a man who had accidentally emptied out her bank account while he was exacting revenge on his enemies.
Shaw wanted to reach out and interlace his fingers with Poppy’s. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her. He desperately wanted to be buried deep inside of her again. But he didn’t want to press his luck. Shifter stamina was a powerful thing, but Poppy also needed to rest. So did he, yet it was impossible to sleep. He was entirely too keyed up, especially now that the sun was slowly starting to stream in through the windows.
“Are you all right?” Poppy asked as she pushed herself up.
He immediately mourned the loss of feeling her against him. “Yeah, I was just enjoying the moment.”
She smiled up at him and swung her leg over his side, until she straddled him. “Good morning,” she whispered against his lips before kissing him sweetly. “We can’t lie in bed all day. We’ve got more shifter training to do.”
“I think I’m good,” he quickly answered, flipping them over until he was above her, pinning her body onto the bed.
“I’ll say,” she teased as she brought up her hips.
“It’s really not that hard to shift, and all that, once you get the hang of it. If I promise I’ve learned everything there is to know, can we stay in here a little bit longer?”
“Nope.” She kissed his nose and wiggled out from under him.
She slipped on his tee-shirt, and the hem barely covered the luscious curve of her ass. She looked over her shoulder and back at him and shot him a wink. “It’s breakfast time, Shaw.”
He groaned, realizing that he was indeed starving. Shaw joined Poppy in the kitchen, where they fried up some bacon, eggs, and hash browns. It was a comfortable sort of morning. It definitely helped that they kept taking make-out breaks.
“We need to be productive,” Poppy chided as she lowered her shirt over her naked body. He had pulled up the hem to suck on her nipples, while he fingered her to orgasm in the kitchen.
“I should say that we’ve just been very productive.”
Poppy rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. The others are out there talking to all kinds of government people to get my family arrested. The least we can do is shift and run through the woods. Maybe I’ll attack you a few times so you can work on your fighting skills.”
“How do you know how to train?”
She balked. “You’re kidding, right? You’ve met my cousins. Uncle Chuck had us train for hours every day, either before or after school. He wanted us to be honed killers.”
Shaw hissed out a breath, furious that she had been through that. At least his family had been a safe haven from the outside world that had tried to crush his soul. Poppy had had no safe space until very recently, and he had taken it all away by emptying her bank account.
Feeling a fresh, painful wave of guilt, he gathered her up in his arms and held her close to his chest.
“You’ll never have to do that. Ever again.”
He knew he couldn’t keep that promise, not when her family was out on the hunt for him, and they knew that Shaw was with her, the Cains would surely double their efforts to track them down.
“It’s fine,” she told him with a small shrug of a delicate shoulder. Her smile was tiny and didn’t quite reach her eyes.
They had to start the small generator to be able to heat the hot water tank. The water pressure was shit, but at least they were clean and ready to take on the day.
Shaw was exhausted by midday. Poppy was quite the little drill sergeant. She had him run all kinds of laps, chase after her, practice launches and pounces. He wanted to be annoyed, but he knew she was doing it because she cared. Her cousins definitely had the edge over them. First off, they outnumbered them. The trio had been shifters their entire lives, and to top it all off, they had been trained by their father since they were toddlers. Shaw bit down on his foolish pride and let Poppy run him ragged. It was the most he had worked out. Ever.
They