by T. S. Joyce
“H-hi.” Her eyes were big normally, but right now they were the size of full moons. She was so fucking cute when she was stunned. “Did you get my texts?”
“No,” he lied in a rush. He didn’t know why he said that, but he wasn’t ready to respond to those pictures via text, and he sure as hell wasn’t ready to answer questions about it face-to-face. He cleared his throat. “What texts?”
“Nevermind,” she said on a breath. Standing up on her tiptoes, she scanned the room. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone here.”
Jealousy ripped through him like a damn chainsaw blade, and he stifled a snarl. “Like for a date?”
“Kind of.” Her tone was dark and sad though, and Anson narrowed his eyes at her clothes again. She sure didn’t look dressed for any date she cared about. He loved her outfit, thought it was sexy as hell. Her big, baggy sweater made him want to reach under it and feel her curves for himself. But if she was out to impress some random dude in a bar, the old Kaylee would’ve dressed sexier.
“He probably stood you up because of your shoes,” he teased, borderline desperate to ease the frown that tugged at the corners of her pretty lips.
“Shut up,” she said easily. “It’s a bar, not a fancy restaurant.”
“Woman, you used to dress up for dirt bike rides.” He lifted a lock of her wavy, un-brushed hair off her shoulder. It looked wild and hot as fuck, but the girl he knew would’ve never left the house without straightening it with one of those heated girl-irons. “You don’t like this guy much, do you?”
Kaylee lifted her narrow little chin into the air as she slapped his hand away from her hair. “That’s none of your business.”
He wanted to grab her jaw and kiss her senseless again, like earlier. He wanted to wipe that little smirk off her face and make her moan like when he’d given her that hickey she’d tried to cover with some make-up shit. And now his dick was getting hard just thinking about it. What was wrong with him?
“You look good with under-eye bags,” he smarted off.
“Well, you look good with…with…” She looked frantically up and down his body and then drew her delicate blond brows down in a pout. “I don’t want to play this game. I’m going to go over there, far away from you—”
“Because I fluster you.”
“No! Because the guy I’m meeting is…is…very protective and handsome and smart and doesn’t make fun of my under-eye bags.”
“I’ll buy you a drink before you walk all the way over there.”
“Okay then,” she said in an angry little tone.
He snorted as she marched beside him toward the bar. So fucking cute. Even mad, she was adorable. Her feistiness was only turning him on more, but he had to play this cool. No, he had to do even better than that. He needed to ruin her date, make her fall for him, and then leave her reeling. She’d liked when he kissed her, and she’d started texting him. Yes. Revenge. “You’re just as easily persuaded as ten years ago, Snob.”
“Please,” she muttered, sitting on the bar stool next to Barret and flipping her hair to the other side carelessly. “I had my eyes wide open then. I have them wide open now. I just didn’t bring a lot of money for drinks, so you are part of my game plan tonight, Anson. You pay, I’ll drink. I’ll be a nice cheap date for my man-friend.”
Anson smiled tightly. If she talked about her ‘man-friend’ again, his panther was going to rip out of his skin and go on a murdering spree. Barret would be delighted.
Anson lifted a finger to the passing bartender. “Can the lady get something fruity, probably pink with one of those little umbrellas shoved in—”
“Tequila,” Kaylee interrupted. “Three shots. And salt and a lime.”
“Uuuh.” Anson stared at her, completely baffled. “Are all those for you?”
“I don’t get out much.”
“Okay then. Double that. Girly shots, let’s do this. I can feel my dick shriveling already.”
The bartender obviously had a sense of humor, because he put a purple miniature umbrella in one of Anson’s shots instead of Kaylee’s.
Remember the plan. Seduce her. Ruin date, make her fall hard, leave her ass reeling.
Anson gave her the charming smile he reserved for when he needed to get laid or his panther would go insane. He reached out and drew her hand to his lips like he would kiss her knuckles, but instead, he licked right by her thumb and poured salt over it.
He had to stifle a gleeful victory laugh when her eyes got big and her pupils constricted to pinpoints. Kaylee recovered fast enough and grabbed his hand. And before he could yank away from her, she ran the tip of her tongue across his hand, too, and poured salt on it. A shiver trembled up his spine, and now he was really going to have to adjust his dick, because boner.
“To new beginnings,” she said with a soft look in her eyes.
She wasn’t playing right. Anson was supposed to control this game. They licked the salt off the backs of their hands, shot the tequila, and then rushed to suck on the lime wedges from the plate the bartender had slid between him and Kaylee. One down. Two to go.
She was confusing him. She wasn’t acting like the old Kaylee would’ve.
“You know this is cheap tequila…right?”
Puckering her face, she poured another round of salt on the meaty part of her hand between thumb and forefinger. “Cheap tequila is all I drink.”
“But you’re rich. You could get the smooth stuff.”
“Who is the snob now, Anson?” There was a hard edge to her tone that hadn’t been there during the toast.
Anson shook his head and poured another round of salt, and they took this shot with no toast, just glaring at each other over the bodies of their little shot glasses as they tipped them back.
“You’re going to get sloppy drunk for your date,” he warned. Not that he gave a shit.
Lie.
Shut up, Panther.
“I don’t know about you going into a date drunk, Snob. Seems like a questionable decision, much like that ugly sweater you’re wearing.”
“A questionable decision like shooting tequila with my ex?” she asked. Was that a little slur he heard in her words.
“Wow, okay. So, you call me your ex.”
“Well, you are my ex.”
Anson snarled, but cut the noise in his throat off quick. What the fuck was that? His animal was writhing in his middle, and dark anger churned in his belly. He couldn’t figure out why though. So, she’d called him her ex. So what? One word and he was on the defense with her? Kaylee didn’t realize it, and he would never enlighten her, but she still felt dangerous to him.
Kaylee took the drained lime from his hand and, along with hers, shot it into the trashcan behind the bar like she wasn’t terrible at basketball, like the old Kaylee he knew. “In high school, you didn’t ask me to be your girlfriend for almost an entire year, because you were a commitment-phobe.”
Noooope, he definitely wasn’t that, but if he had told her back then what she meant to him, and to his animal, she would’ve run. It had happened when they were too young, and she was human. There was no way she could’ve felt the bond like he had.
“Drink,” she peer-pressured him, pointing to his hand, which was currently salt-free.
Mmmkay, Kaylee could now party. Innerestin’. Anson salted up and knocked back the last shot, only to realize there were no limes left. Kaylee was making a sour face and looking around for a chaser desperately, but the bartender was busy. Without thinking, Anson stepped forward, slid his hand around the back of her neck, and angled her face up in time to catch his lips against hers.
She gave off a cute, little, surprised gasp, and then Anson pushed his tongue past her lips. He would be her chaser. This was a new and good part of the plan.
Liar.
Fuck you, panther. I know what I’m doing.
The cat in his middle was practically laughing.
God, she tasted good. And that big buzz he always got from tequila was rolling through him like f
og. He slowed their kiss and relaxed against her, easing her back against the bar slowly. She let him. In fact, she was like putty. She would’ve probably let him do anything right now. A soft purr rattled up his throat, but fuck it. She knew what he was. No use hiding, and he didn’t get embarrassed by what he was anymore. He owned that shit.
Kaylee slipped her fingertips up his forearms. He’d rolled up his sweater sleeves, so she was brushing his skin with that light, sexy touch of hers. He should be kissing her hard and revving her up, but all he wanted to do was taste her, drink her, and go numb with Kaylee and tequila fillin’ up his veins. And there was that soft moan he’d thought about a hundred times today. She gripped his wrists as though she wanted him to stay put, and he lost his damn mind and went gentle, stroking her cheeks to feel how soft her skin was. She tasted like tequila, smelled like roses. Maybe it was her shampoo that smelled like flowers. Roses and tequila, and he was drunk on both.
He couldn’t even hear the bar around him anymore. His animal was too focused on getting another moan from Kaylee. He liked that best, when she lost control. When he made her lose control. She disconnected and eased back, and he chased her lips because he wasn’t ready to be done yet. She let him peck her mouth twice more before she whispered, “Anson.”
God, his name on her lips. It was too much. There was no acting smooth now, giving her a sexy wink and a wave as he walked away. He pulled her against his chest instead and whispered, “Fuck, what did we do?”
“Nothing good. We can’t be this.” Her cheek was against his chest, and he just wanted to stay like this. He just wanted to protect her from everything, from the world, from whatever made her look tired, from whatever had stolen her easy smile over the last decade. But he could feel the pull-away coming, and it was going to hurt, and he needed to prepare. He forced himself to let her go, plastered on a wicked smile, and uttered the words that were guaranteed to ruin the moment. “You wanna go fuck in the back of my ride?”
Kaylee took a step back like he’d pushed her. “Don’t.” She smelled bitter now, like anger. Anger and roses and tequila. “Don’t do that.”
“Come on, Kaylee. It’ll be like old times.” God, he hated himself for this. She was backing away, but he followed. “We’ll make out in my ride, fall into the backseat hungry for each other, and then right when we’re at the good part, you’ll slap me—”
“Because you called me her name!” Kaylee’s lip trembled, and she repeated herself. “Her name. Not mine.”
Anson locked his legs, completely shocked. “What?”
“Felicity. You called me Felicity, like I wasn’t enough. I was with you, giving you my very first time, and you called me another girl’s name.”
“Felicity? Who the fuck is Felic—oooooh.” Dear. God. He didn’t. He hadn’t. Surely, he hadn’t done this. Anson scrubbed his hand down his facial scruff. Shhhit. This was about to get embarrassing. “Uuuh, it was my first time, too.”
“Clearly, it wasn’t.”
He scrunched up his face because it sucked to admit this, but she should know what really happened. Anson huffed a laugh. Geez, he was an asshole. “Kaylee, you were enough. I had this old porno my uncle gave me, and the girl in it was named Felicity. I watched that thing like a hundred times before senior year. I guess I lost my damn mind and said her name on accident. She wasn’t a real person. She was just who I…you know…” He made a jack-off motion.
“Oh.” Kaylee’s eyes went round, and her cheeks blazed an instant red.
Anson hooked his hands on his hips as his cheeks heated, too. “Well this is awkward.”
“You were a virgin?”
“Yep.”
“But you seemed so sure of yourself.”
“Well, I was with you.”
“But you had a porn star in your head.”
He shrugged and tried to keep from cracking up. This literally had to be the most uncomfortable misunderstanding in the history of his life. “I only remember you, Kaylee. And the slap.”
“The slap that caused the Change,” she said softly. “You broke, Anson, right there in front of me. I could hear your bones snapping, and I watched that panther rip out of your skin. You scared me so bad. I had no idea you were a shifter, and then all the sudden I was stuck in that truck with this massive…predator! I was traumatized, Anson. I didn’t want to have sex with anyone for years after that!”
“Good,” he said remorselessly. Thinking about her having sex with anyone else tinged his vision with red. For a split second of insanity, he wondered what size chastity belt she wore and wished he was a blacksmith so he could forge her one made out of iron. With poison spikes so it would impale any man’s dick who got too close. Mine. She’s mine. He dipped his gaze to her crotch before he could stop himself. That’s also mine.
“Dude, why are you staring at her lady-cave like you want to eat her out right here in front of everyone?” Barret asked.
Anson ripped his gaze away from her cut-offs and glared at Barret and Jaxon, who were staring at him like he’d grown a second head.
“She’s human,” Barret reminded him.
Right. People were staring, and Kaylee’s blush was only getting worse.
Anson jammed a finger at the scuffed dance floor in front of the tiny stage in the corner. “Dance with me.”
“You could say please.”
“Hell no, I remember how you were, Kaylee. You don’t like a man to ask permission. You like a man to tell you what to do.”
“That was the old me.”
“Mmm,” he murmured, narrowing his eyes because there was a definite false note in her flippant answer. “I don’t think so. I think you like to be the boss in the real world, but I bet you would let me do anything I wanted to you in the bedroom.”
Her pupils constricted again and, hell yes, he was back in control.
“I don’t dance anymore,” she said, looking at the few couples shaking their butts to a Kid Rock song on the dance floor. Truth. Huh. She kept surprising him. In the Year of Kaylee, she’d danced everywhere. She did it when she was happy. She danced in the passenger seat of the old beat-up truck he drove in high school, and she would dance while she ate if music was playing in the restaurant. She would even dance around her room on those nights he snuck in through her balcony window. Sometimes, Kaylee hadn’t even needed music. Sometimes he could tell she was singing in her head because she would be bobbing her head to silence. He always knew she was happy if she was swinging her little hips around. But he’d always been watching. He’d fallen in love with her silly moves. And now she didn’t do that anymore? What the fuck had happened to Kaylee Cummings that sucked the music from her soul?
“Okay, well tonight, you’re gonna find it in you to wiggle that cute ass of yours for old times’ sake,” he said, pulling her by the hand toward the dance floor.
She fought it for a second, but then gave in, and her hand went soft in his. Good girl.
“I remember you being a terrible dancer,” she said from behind him.
Yeah, that was the old him. With a grin, he rounded on her, spun her twice in quick spins that drew a cute-as-fuck little squeak from her lips, then yanked her against his chest and grinned down at her as he settled them into position. She parted her lips to say something, but he guided her backward in a two-step that she struggled to keep up with because she was trying to lead was watching her feet.
“Look at me, Kaylee,” he said. And when she lifted those clear blue, nervous eyes to his, he softened his smile on purpose and told her, “Don’t think. Just let me take you around the dance floor. Okay?”
Some of the worry faded from her pretty eyes, and she nodded. “Okay.”
For some reason, he got all mushy over that word. Why? Because her “okay” sounded like “I trust you.”
He eased her backward in the two-step again, and when she stumbled, he covered and spun her twice quick and then dipped her. She laughed and, holy fuck, the sound of that little giggle pulled at things he�
��d thought he buried long ago. Head in the game. This was a game, nothing more. Keep it together.
He pulled her back up. She gasped when he spun her once, and then he guided her hand around his waist as he turned in front of her, caught her hand, and eased her back into the two-step again. A couple of whistles sounded from the good old boys sitting at the tables around the dance floor, and Kaylee’s cheeks turned rosy. So. Fucking. Cute. And that smile. Gah, she’d probably broke a lot of hearts with it.
As he took her around the dance floor, dodging the other couples, spinning her, dipping her, leading her, holding her hand in his, pulling her tight to his chest, he didn’t want the song to change. And when it did, to a fast beat, and flashing lights blinked across the dance floor, he didn’t let her run. Instead, he took both her hands, lifted them between him and Kaylee, and he danced like no one was watching. She laughed and gave a self-conscious look around.
“Fucking do it, Cummings. Don’t make me shake my ass alone out here.”
“Yeah but…” Her lips lifted in an uncertain smile that faded almost instantly. “You’re good now. You have rhythm.” There was the adorable blush again, and now she wouldn’t meet his eyes as they danced. So he spun her. That was Kaylee’s reset. It had been the entire time they’d two-stepped, and it worked this time, too. The second she was facing him again, she balled up her fists and shook her butt and shuffled her feet.
When Barret started grinding on her from behind Anson pointed at him and said, “Banished for bad behavior. Go sit the fuck down.”
“I want to dance, too.”
“Find your own girl.”
“Fine,” he muttered, looking pissed. “Jaxon!”
“Fuck you, I’m not a girl,” the grizzly shifter yelled from across the bar.
“Whose idea was it to do a boy’s night without girls anyway?” Barret complained as he pouted at the edge of the dance floor.
“Yours,” Jax and Anson both called out at the same time. Anson moved around Kaylee who was giggling and finally loosening up. She even made a goofy move every once in a while that made Anson want to laugh and hug her at the same time.