Ruff Trouble Read online

  Ruff Trouble

  By Sharon Maria Bidwell

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2019 Sharon Maria Bidwell

  ISBN 9781634868310

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  NOTE: This book was previously published by Changeling Press.

  * * * *

  This one is for Judie, for her patience, understanding, and appreciation. At last a third title completes this trilogy in one volume.

  And thanks to Lena Austin for originally giving the concept the okay so that Bobby, Chantelle, and Sam came into being.

  * * * *

  Ruff Trouble

  By Sharon Maria Bidwell

  Part 1: Hounding the Beat

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 2: Mistletoe and Whine

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part 3: Paws for Thought

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part 1: Hounding the Beat

  Chapter 1

  “Bitch!”

  Chantelle rolled her eyes. Like no one ever called her that before. When would some men learn many a woman wore the moniker with pride? In her case the insult held more than one connotation, and she rejoiced in either meaning.

  “Sticks and stones,” her fellow officer, Bobby, muttered. She shot him a look he would interpret without effort. Thanks for the help, Bobby, buddy!

  From the moment they’d met, she and Bobby understood each other with a single glance, the expression he pulled now clear: “Can’t we let this jerk-off go so we can go home instead of having to do the paperwork?”

  He didn’t mean it; his heart and other parts of his anatomy did the talking. No way would Bobby set this cretin loose.

  Fighting a grin, she held the perp against the police vehicle as she cuffed him, grateful for the stab vest she wore. She’d knocked the flick-knife out of his hand before he opened it, but the vest also worked as a barrier between his body and hers.

  “Charles Manning.” She stopped short of calling him Manson as this bastard was no better in her eyes. His abuse destroyed lives. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm, and for resisting a police officer. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.”

  “Ain’t yah gonna help hold me down, pig?” Her captive hollered at Bobby.

  A growl eased into her throat. Charles was too classy a name for this being. She flicked through choicer words to call him.

  “She needs no help.”

  Chantelle’s lips twitched. She didn’t, and her prisoner doubtless questioned why as he struggled. Let him assume what he liked. She was tall enough and muscled enough for every man on the force to believe she slaved at the gym. She lifted weights at home, sure, but running and rough sex kept her healthy and trim. Also, she had the whole supernatural factor. They both did.

  Bobby’s relaxed stance didn’t fool her. He stood tense, using all his resolve not to haul her away from her prisoner and give the man a good kicking. Not because of anything the guy had done to get arrested, although bad enough, but because he resisted and laid his filthy hands on her. Bobby displayed all the signs of restraint.

  She liked it when Bobby crossed his arms. His biceps strained the material of his uniform—one among many reasons it delighted her they had sent him to respond to her call. With the police spread so thin, officers often went out alone, and she and Bobby worked shifts and on a different rota. They didn’t work together systematically. He appreciated this moment the same way she did.

  “Anything you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”

  The perp ignored his rights to release curses at Bobby, but it didn’t stop Chantelle rattling them off, anyway. Not her fault if a crook tuned her out, although she gave him a tug, asking again, “Do you understand?” to which she received a grunt.

  Good enough. She disregarded his rudeness. What she wouldn’t overlook was the way he spat at Bobby, missing him by too small a margin. One insult too many after the day she’d had, which began with a call to proceed to a disturbance: “Female with injuries.”

  Worse, the woman, so frightened, tried to pretend her attacker was a random break-in. Chantelle’s mind flashed back to an hour before.

  “She won’t let us touch her,” one of the ambulance crew declared. “Maybe you can try.”

  A mad resentment had flared; a crazed notion the man lumbered her with the woman’s pain. The emotion faded in an instant. The woman required treatment, and a friendly, female face might well do the trick. Didn’t stop Chantelle from feeling sick.

  “Mary, is it?” The woman nodded. Chantelle wanted to urge her to let the paramedics assist, but she needed to calm her, talk her round to letting them in. “You’ve had a break-in?”

  “Y-Yes. Sorry. My manners. Please, sit.”

  Chantelle had settled to placate the other woman. “You’re hurt.” The marks on her face were blatant.

  “I…fell.”

  “Fell?”

  “He…startled me. I tried to get away. Tumbled down the stairs.”

  There was no blood on the stairs, but a few drops marred the furniture. More stained the woman’s clothes, and the handkerchief used to stem the flow. One side of her face turned purple, swelling.

  “The neighbour claimed she heard a lot of noise.” A more direct query—whether Mary was the person who cried out—would be too leading.

  “I suppose I shouted.”

  “The neighbour detected both a man and a woman’s voice.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yes. Mary, burglars rarely shout or make much sound.” They seldom stuck around involved in full-blown arguments. They fled or tried to silence their victims. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “He was…standing there.”

  “Did you recognise him? Do you know who he was?”

  Mary hesitated, but at last she nodded.

  “Someone you know?”

  Another nod.

  “Mary, you’re injured
, and you must accept medical attention. Tell me who did this, and I swear to you I will find him.”

  Mary believed her. She might not have such faith in a human officer, but Chantelle wasn’t entirely human. Though people didn’t know what she was, they sensed something which at times convinced them. She possessed another advantage: an ability to track.

  Less than an hour later, she gave chase, shouting into her radio: “Eight four requires assistance. Pursuing male suspect on foot. I need another unit, rapid, please?” As she’d flung herself over barriers and jumped from stairways with more agility than an average athlete, she spied the squad car—no siren but lights flashing—whizzing along on a side road in the distance. The driver directed the car round to the far side of the estate as she hoped. There, they’d corner the criminal. She hadn’t known right away Bobby drove though she suspected when she noticed the excellent skill used.

  Knight in shining armour. Chantelle had smiled as she’d spotted her prey. She’d yelled the proverbial, “Police! Stop! Don’t move!” aware the caution would inspire the same result as it often did. The suspect kept running until Chantelle caught him.

  As she finished her monologue of his rights, she at last growled. A true growl. The man in her hands froze. She smelled fear. Music in motion. A beat to groove to. Her eyelids fluttered as she drew in his scent. Fine, so she inhaled the stench of an unwashed body poisoned with drugs and too much alcohol, but beneath…Ahhhh.

  “PC Shepherd?”

  Damn. She’d zoned out. “I’m dandy,” she informed Bobby. The perp moved his head, gaze snapping between them, expression puzzled and more than frightened. He hadn’t a clue what happened, but he discerned something did. “I just need to eat,” she added.

  Bobby raised his eyebrows as her captive flinched, making it impossible for her to resist grinning at him. At them both. She wouldn’t snack on this lowlife if she were starving. She teased Bobby and loved injecting fear into this cretin who spent his time terrorising other people. So, this one enjoyed beating on women, did he? Let him try to batter her. Chantelle widened her grin, showing her incisors. Did he notice her teeth were too sharp?

  “I’ll bag him, shall I?” Bobby meant he’d put him in the back of the car.

  “Sure.”

  She handed the lucky man over. He didn’t know how fortunate he was. Now, if this little scene hadn’t left her all het up and bothered. The glance Bobby gave her said he caught on, too.

  She hated not seeing his eyes as they were: the right one brown and the left one so blue—a vibrant luminous glowing ring encircling the dark pupil. He wasn’t able to get a contact to match the blue eye. Besides, he’d appear strange, so he settled on brown to match the other. To blend in. To come across as normal. To be human.

  Some people remarked he had wolf eyes. They were wrong.

  Did he detect how she ached to view him as he was in all his nude glory? Maybe. His nostrils flared as she stood in the overspill of his response to her arousal. Power. She sucked it in.

  Mistake.

  An image of Bobby pulling off her uniform, throwing her naked on the bonnet of the patrol car right there in front of the perp, did many familiar and devastating things. She wore trousers as most females in the force opted to do these days, but wished for a skirt, torn between the longing to bend over and wishing to face her lover. Her fingers flexed with the itch to ensnare his black and grey-flecked hair, pull so hard he’d plead with her to stop.

  Not that Bobby would. He wouldn’t make her quit because no way would he want to escape from her clutches, from her dragging his mouth to her breast.

  They must wait. No way would she give the guy stashed in the car a show. He’d be entertained, and enjoyment didn’t come into her definition of what a criminal deserved. Besides, they mustn’t let anyone in the department grasp they were an item, or one of them would be in line for a transfer, if not disciplinary action.

  Her radio made a noise; words crackled out: “Are you receiving? Over.”

  She replied, tempted to ask dispatch to tell ‘Sarge’ to put on the kettle, an in-office witticism, but one she shouldn’t sing out over the airwaves.

  “Let’s go back, shall we?” The lump in Bobby’s throat bobbed, and Chantelle needed every ounce of control not to fling her body into his arms, not to fasten her teeth at his neck. Better yet, she’d flick her head back, offer him her gullet. She might be a strong independent woman, but it didn’t mean taking the submissive role had to be enslaving.

  “Paperwork, then we fuck?” Chantelle whispered, unable to resist notching up his desire. Increasing hers.

  Bobby swallowed again. “Yeah.” He fumbled with getting the car door open. His voice sounded husky. She almost laughed at the private joke.

  * * * *

  The bitch snarled at him. Lips pulled back, teeth exposed. The sound rumbled out of her throat as she faced him. They’d barely made it through the front door without stripping. Bobby had spent the last five minutes chasing her around the bungalow.

  They should pause, wash off the dirt of an honest day’s work, but the shower must wait. He’d take her for a second time under the spray.

  Take her?

  Yeah, good one. Like that ever happened. He was the Alpha male, but whoever came up with the term hadn’t read the manual on females. Every guy, even shape-shifters, understood when they had a good thing and letting this particular woman drag him around by his balls was fine by Bobby. Hell, if she wanted, she was welcome to put a collar and lead on his dick, tag him along by a leash.

  Not that he’d ever tell her so.

  He was thinking too much. How was it his brain worked overtime?

  Because if she wasn’t a supe she might have got hurt today.

  True, but she was a supe. The likelihood she’d ever face a situation when a criminal such as the one they’d arrested today might hurt her, was slim. Not even if the man carried a gun, would he have shot in time, their speed and strength a blessing. Chantelle healed from most wounds as did Bobby. Still, some days he wished they carried firearms; other days he didn’t. Maybe the school of thought an increase in weaponry in the police would escalate weapons on the street had merit, maybe not, but Bobby wanted Chantelle to have more than a baton at her disposal. Not being an Authorised Firearms Officer, she didn’t so much as carry a taser, although more non-firearms officers were issued them now than ever before.

  Knife crime was more of a problem than gun offences in Britain. The bastard today had pulled a flick-knife.

  These ruminations came from his heart, not his head. Chantelle was stronger than most men and possessed speed greater than any human. She would say if a cretin like Manning bested her, she deserved what she got. He didn’t agree. No woman earned what the creep liked to inflict.

  He tried to block out the photos of the women the man had beaten. There had to be all sorts of wrongness with a man capable of doing those things.

  A lewd gesture from Chantelle brought Bobby’s mind back to better notions, none of which involved force, especially with this particular woman.

  He let the moment—the events of the day—slip away. Taking a deep breath, holding it, and releasing, he forced out the anguish. Chantelle was her own defence and he needn’t have worried. She was his woman; he was her man.

  His woman crouched on the sofa, naked, facing him. Well, almost naked. She still wore the bowler style hat female police officers donned, the one with the little chequered band. She also kept on the matching cravat so it hung between her breasts, but gone were the white shirt and blue trousers so dark as to appear almost black. Bobby wore his cap.

  The fire in her eyes, the fullness of her breasts, wide hips, and a soft line of reddish-brown curls, pointed the way to his idea of heaven. What did they say? Something about every man spending nine months trying to exit the womb, and every moment of his adult life trying to get back in?

  As if aware his mind wasn’t with her, Chantelle slipped lower moving her backside onto the seat, sp
reading her legs. Bobby prowled forward, taut, ready for her to make a sudden movement, spring away, for the chase to be on again.

  “That’s close enough, big boy. Now how about you beg a little?”

  Bobby growled.

  “Uh-uh. That’s not begging. Sit, paws in the air. Tongue out and pant.”

  He half pictured himself doing it, too. Did his muscles flex to obey? He wasn’t sure until Chantelle giggled.

  “Fuck you, woman.” He closed the distance, grabbing for an ankle.

  Her soft brown eyes flashed. “Oh, I hope so. Stop waving your baton at me. Do something with it.”

  In reply, he wrapped her legs around his waist, dragging her close by gripping her hips. One shove and he was in, Chantelle eager and more than ready for him. Still, she let loose a yelp. If she hadn’t clawed at him, he would have checked whether he’d damaged her. He’d not met a woman who appreciated sex the same way as he before Chantelle. Not even another shifter had ever been in tune with his desires the way this female was.

  She lay under him, but damn if she didn’t roll her hips, thrusting onto him as he pushed into her. An aching hunger took over the most intimate parts of their anatomies. The wait hadn’t helped, although part of him was glad. His cock speared into her, their rhythm never faltering, yet it wasn’t enough. The wet heat he plunged into sent delight through the tip of his penis, forcing delicious spikes of pleasure throughout his entire body, yet he didn’t have enough friction.

  “Squeeze on me.”

  “Bastard. Are you saying I’m not tight enough?”

  “You’re like a warm glove, but can you say I’m filling you?” Indecision tightened the skin around her eyes; Bobby read her reactions well. “You’re not insulting me by being honest, love. You’ve got a hungry mouth there; it can’t get enough right now.”

  “Love?”

  At least the word distracted her from his unwise comments; otherwise, she might have penalised him for them. “Grrrrrr. Don’t screw with me, woman.”

  “There…you…go…again…ahhh…with the…woman…crap…uhmmmph.”