Alpha's Moon: A special forces shifter romance by Renee Rose (top novels .txt) 📗

“I can’t believe this,” I shout. The sound’s immediately whipped away by the roar of the rotors.

The pilot in the front seat is a giant guy with a bushy brown beard. He’s got muscles bigger than Deke, which I didn’t think was possible.

“This is Teddy,” Deke shouts right in my ear, so I can hear him over the sound of the chopper.

“Nice to meet you!” I shout, and Teddy grins at me. Even though it's cold, Teddy isn’t wearing a jacket, just old fatigue pants and an army green t-shirt that shows off his impressive tattoos and biceps. Another bad ass from Deke’s world.

Deke lifts me into the chopper and straps me in tight. My hair’s blown all crazy over my face, and he takes a moment to stroke it back before fastening goggles and a helmet on my head.

“This is incredible!” I shout. “I can’t believe this! Where are we going?” I doubt he can hear me over the roar of the helicopter blades.

Instead of answering, he boops my nose and climbs past me to his own seat. Once he’s strapped in, he gives a signal to Teddy, and the helicopter lifts off the lawn. I grab the sides of my seat. My stomach swoops as we rocket away, over the resort grounds towards the range. And then we’re flying up the face of the mountain and over it, heading north with the Sangre de Cristos spread under us in stunning vista. And ahead, nothing but blue sky, the eagles and us.

I reach over for Deke, and he grabs my hand. We hold tight to each other as Teddy tips us one way, then the other, giving us both an eagle-eye view of the New Mexico landscape below. The buildings and roads look like child toys, tiny pieces lost in the greater wilderness. The roads give way to miles and miles of patchwork color—the pine trees aglow with their shimmery yellow leaves, in between the green-blue of the spruce and pine. The tops of the tallest mountains are streaked with white snow.

It’s so beautiful, I choke up. I squeeze Deke’s hand harder, and he squeezes back. The chopper’s too loud for us to talk, but we don’t need words to share the moment.

Finally, Teddy sets the chopper down on a bare hill top. The grass flattens in a wide circle, and the branches of the surrounding trees wave wildly in the man-made wind.

“This is our stop,” Deke shouts. He grabs a picnic basket I didn’t notice strapped in the back and comes around to help me out of my seat again. The cold gusts through me, but the fresh mountain air is worth the chill. Teddy touches his forehead with two fingers and flicks them in my direction in silent farewell before lifting the chopper and flying off again.

“He’ll be back,” Deke says. He puts down the picnic basket and helps me out of my helmet and goggles before stripping off his own.

“This is crazy!” I burst out. I do a spin with my arms flung out like I’m Maria in Sound of Music. Green grass on the mountain top, birds chirping, trees all around, the scene is pretty enough to be in a movie. “I can’t believe you arranged this!”

Deke lays out the red and white checkered picnic blanket. “Figured the wedding party can’t follow us here.”

“So you just rented a helicopter?” I shake my head as I sit on the blanket. “This is unreal.”

“Teddy’s an old friend. He was into it. He packed all this.” Deke sets a picnic basket worthy of Yogi Bear next to me. It’s full of sandwiches, bottled ice tea and all sorts of goodies like grapes and cashews and a cheese plate.

“Oh, yum.” I get busy setting up our meal while Deke stretches out beside me. “Teddy didn’t want to stay for the picnic?”

“Teddy was gonna stick around. His original idea was to serenade us.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet! You told him no?”

“Teddy plays the bagpipes. I told him fuck, no.”

I cover my face and laugh. “This is incredible. My God, Deke, this is the best thing anyone’s ever done for me. Thank you so much.” I bite my lip. I want to lean down and kiss him, but as soon as our lips touch, I know I’m going to want more. Outdoor sex in October never appealed to me before, but if there was a guarantee that Deke’s friend wouldn’t come back and get an aerial view of me naked, I’d totally do it.

Deke shakes his head as if he knows my thoughts. “You want to thank me, eat some of this.” He hands me the cheese plate. “You barely touched breakfast.”

Warmth spreads through me. He noticed.

Who is this guy? He’s too good to be true.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” My stomach growls.

“I told Teddy to pack girly shit. I figured you’d like that stuff.”

“What girly shit? Olive tapenade?” I spread the tapenade on a cracker and hold it in front of his mouth. “Open,” I order.

He shakes his head but obeys.

“So is Teddy one of your army buddies?” I ask.

“Something like that.” Deke says, cagey as always when he's talking about his old career.

“So you could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me,” I tease.

His lips quirk. “Something like that.”

“And he threw all this together in what, an hour?”

Deke shrugs. “I may have prepped him.”

“Operation Save Sadie,” I quip, and his cheek curves for a second in a stealth smile.

“What did you do in the military, anyway?” I ask after I’ve devoured most of the cheese plate. I'm fascinated even though I know he's not going to tell me anything.

“I did whatever the Army told me to do.”

I roll my eyes.

“I'll tell you,” he says, scooting closer to me on the picnic blanket. “but you got to give me something in return.”

“I'm not giving you my panties,” I say flatly, and he throws back his head and laughs. The sound warms me from the inside out.

I pop