Page 48 of Arctic Panda's Secret Mate
He was awake, gazing at her with sleepy desire, a little smile at his mouth that crinkled his eyes. “It’s warm under the blankets,” he said coaxingly.
The generator could wait a little longer.
Haisley slipped back under the blankets to spoon with Tristan, surprised by how quickly she’d gotten cold. He rubbed her arms, but his touches quickly grew more intimate. “Sorry,” he said, drawing his hand away from her breast. “Is it bad that I want youall the time? Am I too needy?”
Haisley squirmed around in his arms. “It’s not bad at all,” she assured him, reaching for his half-hard cock. “I want it just as much.”
The cold had been surprisingly arousing, and it wasn’t long before he was hard and she was wet and they were moving together with a delicious rhythm that fed her soul even before he brought her to a shuddering orgasm and followed her down.
There was no hot shower to escape to, so they cleaned up briskly, dressed warmly, and went downstairs.
They were met in the great room by Wrench, who had already rekindled the fire. “I’m not going to freeze to death cleaning up a little,” Lydia was saying as she tidied the room and put away the games from the night before. “I’msupposed to move around.” The curtains were flung open to let in what light there was.
“Something we can do?” Wrench offered gruffly.
“I’m going to go refill the generator,” Haisley said. “When it’s fully light, I could use some muscle clearing the driveway. We’ve got an extra chainsaw if any of you knows how to use one.”
“I do!” Breck would always be Corkscrew Guy in Haisley’s head. “Don’t look so surprised, Wrench. I am a man of many talents.”
Wrench didn’t look particularly surprised to Haisley.
“I’ll see about getting everyone some breakfast before you get started,” Darla said from Breck’s side. She gave him a quick kiss and disappeared into the dark kitchen with a flashlight.
The preparations of the day before proved useful. The generator restarted with ease, and by the time Haisley and Tristan had tromped back in and taken off their gear, Darla and Chef had a hot, filling breakfast waiting in the dining room.
Everyone ate quickly, not lingering over coffee and conversation, and bundled up to face the tasks outdoors. Distant sounds of equipment and chainsaws suggested that unseen neighbors were doing the same. To Haisley’s surprise, everyone turned out, even Lydia (over Wrench’s frowns) and Magnolia.
The fallen trees were not equal to a team of shifter workers, and Haisley was astonished by how fast they worked. She and Breck manned the chainsaws while the others shoveled snow and dragged away the logs and branches. They were short a few shovels at first, then Alice appeared with four more that Haisley was sure she had never seen before.
“They were right inside the garage!” Alice said, passing them out. “Someone forgot to lock it up.”
Haisley exchanged a knowing look with Tristan, who was working hard enough to warm himself and had his coat open in the front, looking very dashing and happy.
One of the trees across the drive was thick enough to be a challenge to the length of her chainsaw bar, and Haisley turned off the machine and took off her hearing protection to take a break when Bastian approached at her elbow.
“I think I may be of assistance,” he said politely.
“Oh, are you trained on a chainsaw?” she asked, trying not to pant. “It needs to be refueled before we go again.”
“I’m not sure we will need the chainsaw for this,” he said haughtily.
Haisley had known in an academic sense that he was a dragon, because why would she disbelievethatwhen so many other impossible things were true?
But it was something quite different to see him step back, assess the space around him, and suddenly flow into a huge green dragon with jewel-cut scales. Haisley felt the roof of her mouth chill and realized her mouth had dropped open.
She stepped aside as the dragon bent forward and took the half-cut tree in powerful front claws, ripping it asunder and tossing the top aside.
“Showoff,” Breck grumbled good-naturedly.
But having a dragon certainly sped things along, and when they reached the bottom of the driveway, they could see that the road was just as much of a mess, so they didn’t stop there.
They didn’t shovel the road itself—there was too much of it even for shifter endurance, and the plows would do that job—but they did wade through the loose snow toclear the downed trees and dragged aside the largest of the fallen branches that blocked the way. Haisley gave her refilled chainsaw to Alice after a quick tutorial, and directed the work.
They returned to a warm, cozy chalet and the smell of a hot meal in progress; Chef and Darla had gone back early. Haisley felt like she’d just run a marathon and she collapsed on a couch in the great room. Running a chainsaw took vastly different muscles than cooking, scrubbing, or hiding in her room.
“You shouldn’t try to keep up with us,” Tristan scolded her. “We’re all shifters, remember?”
Haisley let him tuck a blanket around her. “I might have overdone it,” she admitted. “I’m notgoodat not working.”
