“I’d like to go to my ex’s sometime tonight, but other than that, I have no preference.”
“The two best looking men in Breaux Bridge are escorting you tonight, and you want to go to the dive bar?” Adam sighed. “You and Cash are more alike than you think.”
I glanced up at Cash and he shrugged. “I’m good with beer and a little music, but for Adam’s refined palate, we’ll go into town for supper.”
Adam kept shooting me looks, until I finally admitted I was thinking of staying, and knew Emily needed a bartender. Immediately, he pulled a U-turn in the middle of the old highway, skidding as he wrenched the wheel. “We’ll talk to Em first. I know Sally Bishop was going to talk to her about the job tonight.”
Emily was thrilled to have me offer and asked me to start the next day. Suddenly I found myself obligated to stay, having not quite my current job, or told my parents I might need to stay with them while I look for a place of my own.
“What have I done?”
Adam pushed a beer across the table to me. “Looks to me like you faced your responsibilities and stepped up to them.”
Cash groaned and took a long pull from his bottle, refusing to meet Adam’s pointed stare.
“Were you even talking to me?” I asked.
Adam winked and sipped his whiskey. “Cash has a similar opportunity, to take up his father’s legacy and let me and my dad off the hook.”
“So what’s the hold up?”
“It’s a lot of responsibility, some of which is over people who don’t want to listen to anyone. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not actually much of a fighter.” Cash sighed. “At least, I’ve been trying not to be.”
“Someone had to be the diplomat, Cash, I’m glad it’s you.”
I picked at the label on my longneck, full of questions I was too scared to ask. Finally, carefully, I managed one question. “Would you be in charge of those guys I saw you talking to in the alley? I thought they might be old school mates or something, talking about the pack and loyalty, sounded like the Greeks.”
“I did belong to a fraternity, but no. They didn’t go to any school I did.”
Devon made a rude sound at the mention of the ‘others’ going to school. “That seems to be the crux of everything. Damned fools think trying to better yourself is betrayal of tradition.” Adam gave him a thoughtful look, and Cash nodded.
“Kid’s got some wisdom in there…sometimes,” he ended with a quick grin and a wink across the table at Devon. Both he and Adam seemed protective of him, even though he was almost as old as they were…my age, if I had to guess. Then again, they seemed protective of everyone around them.
“I know it’s none of my business, we hardly even know each other. But I do hope it’s not about this vigilante justice you take so much pride in, Cash. Adam could ruin his life, and as insulated as you are in this community, I’m pretty sure it would still ruin yours too.”
Adam had the good sense to look chagrined. “You’re right. I’ve been acting like I had nothing to lose, because we really didn’t. But if Cash takes over his birthright, I’ll go back to being the sexy-but-cool, mild mannered lawyer for the poor and dispossessed.”
“Shit.” Cash shot me a dirty look. “Literally handed him the ammunition, didn’t you?” But I saw relief in his eyes. In a town where the Sheriff makes his judgments on the first look, a black man couldn’t afford to be too rough with the good ol’ boys. “Fine. You take your place at my side, and I’ll take the vow.”
“Of celibacy?” I asked without thinking, laughing at my joke.
But Cash moved faster than I could track and suddenly his face was almost touching mine. “Not on your life, Cher. You and I have unfinished business.”
I gasped and looked at Adam quickly, but he just raised his glass in a salute and sipped again. He’d said he didn’t mind sharing, but until that moment, I hadn’t dared to even imagine it could be real. My dream came to mind, our bodies intertwining, and my head felt so light I steadied myself, hiding my face in my hands.
“Is it a vision?” Adam asked, his voice tight.
“No, just too much beer on an empty stomach. What say you we go into town?”
Cash agreed. “We have an errand to run there anyway.”
No one would say what it was, leaving me with a sense of foreboding as I rode between them into town. It was obvious they had reputations for being the best kind of men. But that didn’t mean they weren’t involved in something dangerous.
So, when Cash opened the door for me and I stepped into the flickering light of the voodoo shop, and Adam asked for the tattooist, I almost laughed aloud in relief. Tattoos. More frat boy stuff. That, I could handle.
Right up until the old woman shoved a brand into her fireplace to heat up, baring Cash’s forearm. “You can’t abdicate once you’ve taken the mark, do you understand?”
Cash nodded, then cleared his throat and answered. “Yes. I accept the mantle and the mark freely and promise to serve my family to the death.”
Not so frat boy… at least not outside movies.
“Devon,” I whispered, pulling him aside. “He’s not going to let her burn his arm with that thing, is he? That’s crazy.”
“Cash can handle it. he heals faster than you’d believe.”
I scoffed and went to forbid him from doing something so painful and horrific in front of me. I was less than five feet away from him when she grasped the handle of the brand and jerked it out of the fire, slamming it into his arm with a grunt.
The odor of burnt skin and hot metal was etched into my nostrils as I stared at him, at the shape that was permanently stamped on his skin. Staring back at me from his arm, was the snarling head of a wolf.
Chapter 14
I stood outside, gulping air. Wolves, everywhere I looked since I’d met Cash. Wolves and premonitions, and I was finally beginning to believe they might be connected.
There was no way to ask, so I listened as the old woman explained how to care for the brand and keep it from infecting before it could heal right. “One day of good care and you will be good as new, Alpha. One day of bad care, and even a shift might not save your arm.” She flashed him a gummy grin. “A three-legged wolf is not so scary, eh?”
Neither Cash or Adam would look at me, busying themselves with their goodbyes. I trailed them out of the little storefront, laden with first aid items for Cash and a few gifts she’d slipped to me as I walked out.
“A good witch needs supplies, and a pack witch needs more than most. You need help, you come see Fatima. I got evera-ting you need.”
I thanked her and scurried after Devon. “What’s a pack witch?” I demanded. “Hell, what the fuck is this ‘pack’ supposed to be?”
He flinched and glared at Cash. “Who called you that?”
“Fatima, as she handed me all this stuff and told me to come back if it wasn’t enough. She called me a witch…but coming from her at least I felt safe assuming it wasn’t an insult.”
“Shit. Cash, you need to hear this.” Devon took my bundles and shoved them in the backseat of the SUV. “Fatima called Frankie the pack witch. She saw Frankie’s gift. Which means she probably won’t be the only one.”
Cash ran his hands through his hair and paced. “Not two fucking minutes and it begins.” He held up his hands and feigned throttling Adam. “Two minutes man. I haven’t had time to figure out what to do about Aldean and his crew.
“Maybe Dominguez won’t mind.”
I eyed them both. “Won’t mind what?”
“Stepping aside so you can be pack witch. She’s a healer but has no real…preternatural gift.”
“Thank you for stopping before you said magic.”
“Semantics. But I it makes you feel better, we’ll use words that aren’t as scary.”
I curled up my lip at him. “Just so we’re clear. You guys were the wolves in the woods and in my vision. I’m really…I’m really having visions and werewolves are real and I’m g
oing to pass out.” I leaned against the car as my head swam.
“And this is why I don’t want her involved. She’s too new to this, and more likely to be hurt than anyone, especially after her little stunt the other night.”
“Stunt?” I punched Cash in the shoulder. “It was a stunt to follow my vision and save Adam from being shot? A stunt…you couldn’t come up with a single better word?”
Adam cleared his throat. “Let’s get you back to Cash’s place, so we can speak freely.”
Cash gave me a look that said he’d rather I not speak freely. I barely resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him and clambered into the middle seat without accepting his help. It meant I probably flashed him my panties, but I was too irritated to care.
I climbed in the back with Devon. I wanted nothing to do with Cash for the time being. My head was spinning, and for once, it had nothing to do with my so-called gift. It should’ve been a relief to have something else to think about, but without the pressure of Devon’s hand on my thigh, I felt like I could burst out of my skin.
The drive was short, but my temper was only heating by the second, so every moment spent in the silence of the car was one more too many. Devon offered to do a food run, and I went out with him.
“You always leave or take the backseat to the others. Doesn’t it get old?”
“It may shock you to know, but I’m not always their little shadow,” He growled. I backed up a few steps, until my ass bumped up against his beat-up truck. “I don’t care much for politics,” he chuckled darkly as he pressed himself into me, his mouth deliciously close to mine. “That means I’m not going to the boss of…well, just about anything.”
Lightning fast his fingers were in my hair, tight enough to force a pain sound from my throat. He loosened his grip just enough to push the pain back from the edge of too much but held me too tightly to pull away without hurting myself.
My pulse pounded, and my thighs turned to jelly, anticipating the pleasure he’d give with the thick long bulge I felt pressed hard between my legs.
“What…what are you going to do now, Devon?” I panted, “now that you’ve got me right where I want you.”
He bruised my mouth with his and I threw my leg around him to pull him in tighter, as if I could will away the clothing between us. His hand tightened reflexively in my hair, making me whimper, but the pain was only an added note to the pleasure of his tongue in my mouth and his cock hard against the soft mound at the apex of my thighs.
“Do not,” he hissed as he released me, “mistake my understanding of my place in the pack, for weakness.”
I struggled to pull him back to me. “Hell no, I won’t. I just want you. Like this, hard, ready, and rough.”
He spun me around and I braced myself against the truck with my hands as he sank his teeth into the meat of my shoulder. “I will have my piece of you, Sweetness,” he breathed in my ear as I arched my back, pressing my ass up against his erection.
“You will have as much of me as you want, Dev.” My breathing was ragged as his hand snaked around and closed around my breast. “You can have it now, if you want.”
Abruptly, he let me go, my back cooling in the night air in his absence. “No. Unfortunately, I know my place too well, and it’s not my turn.” He leaned in and dropped a chaste kiss on the bite mark he’d left at the base of my neck. “Soon enough.”
He shooed me back into the house and took off, for what kind of provisions I could only guess a single guy would think important.
“He’s wise,” Adam remarked as I joined him around the back. Cash was at the fence, staring off at the woods in the distance. “He lacks ambition, but he has a spine, and there’s no one better to have at your back.
“Lacks ambition. That’s a nice way of saying he’s lazy and avoids responsibility,” Cash muttered, glaring at me. “He could’ve taken the mantle. Instead, he lays a claim on Frankie like he has a right to.”
“Well, he does, yeah?” I gave him a saccharine smile. “Because I told him he does, and that’s all the claim he needs.”
Adam cleared his throat. “I think Cash has a point. Devon’s great in a fight, and one of my best friends. But he avoids responsibility whenever he can… remind you of anyone?” He walked off as Cash spluttered at him, leaving us alone in the backyard, glaring at each other.
“I don’t know why you’re mad,” I hissed when I was sure we were alone. “I know you can’t stand me. I get it, you don’t have to like me. But I helped Adam, and I haven’t asked you to make me part of your…your wolfpack or whatever.”
“Why are you staying? Why’d you get a job at Em’s place?”
I didn’t know. At least, I didn’t know how to tell him about my dream. “I had a vision, okay? For it to come to pass, I have to be here.”
“And someone’s in danger? Why not just tell us?”
“Not everything is life or death, Cash. Some things are just…life. My vision was beautiful, and I just wanted to give it a chance to come true. But now I see it can’t.” I started toward the house. “Just let me say goodbye to the guys, okay? I’ll go.”
“Wait.”
“I don’t think so. Without you, the vision can’t come true. Funny thing is I’m figuring out that with me, it can’t come true either.”
I made it to the back door before I felt a rush of air and he lifted me off my feet and inside. His hand muffled my shriek and I bit him, making him curse and almost drop me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“With me?” I sputtered. “Why would you grab me from behind? What if you were the gunman, getting your revenge?”
“He can’t touch you with me here.” His face was serious, his voice soft. “No one can touch you. I won’t let them.”
I swallowed hard, my mouth dry as the Sahara. “What if I want to be touched?”
“You mean by Adam? I couldn’t stop him from having you if I wanted to, but if he hurt you, he would still die for it.”
“He said you wouldn’t care, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Of course I care. Fuck. I saw you first, didn’t I? I’m the goddamned alpha. That’s why he took you up there, to have you before I could stop him. And you let him.” His hands tightened on my arms as he pressed my back into the wall.
“Yes, I, a single woman, had sex with a single man, without even thinking of another man who doesn’t even like me most of the time.”
“Don’t be stupid, of course I like you.” I started to protest, but he talked over me. “Even if you are the most frustrating, blunt, stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”
I struggled against his hold, cursing him under my breath. “I will scream,” I hissed, and he clamped his mouth over mine, kissing me hard enough to bruise my lips.
Shocked, I stopped struggling. The kiss deepened, his lips softened against mine. “Go ahead and scream, but I would much rather draw it out of you in pleasure, not pain.” He released my arms and slid his hands down my sides, then up under my dress. “God this thing’s been driving me crazy all night. So little fabric, thin and soft. Every time it brushed my skin I wanted to tear it in my hands and see the rest of you.”
“You hate me.”
“I hate how badly I want you. This is not a good time for me, Cher. My family’s in trouble. You can’t get involved.”
I pushed my hips against him, feeling him hard and ready just from the kiss. “How involved can I get before it’s bad?”
He let out a shaky breath. “Are you always so direct?” He kissed me again before I could answer, and when he lifted me to press his erection between my legs, I hooked my ankles around him.
“Tell me you have a bed we can get to quickly,” I panted.
Without a word, he carried me to the bedroom and threw me down on the bed, tugging my panties off and lifting my hips as he tilted the softest, warmest part of me to his mouth. His tongue and teeth drove me to the edge of the abyss, only for him to stop and place light, chaste kisses on my thighs until m
y trembling slowed.
Again, and again he sucked and licked me to just below the peak of climax. Each time, he’d stop until I caught my breath, then start pushing me to the peak again, until I begged him to fuck me.
He held out a hand and helped me to my feet, so he could pull my dress down over my shoulders. It fell to the floor and he ran his hands over my shoulders, my breasts, and followed his fingertips with his mouth, kissing his way back down my body.
“No.” I grabbed his hair to stop him. “Now you take your goddamned clothes off and fuck me. I need you inside me, Cash…Please.”
He looked up at me. His eyes dark and hungry, and they began to lighten, as something in him I didn’t recognize responded to my plea. They continued until I was staring into molten gold, and I knew, if he was a wolf, his fur was the color of rusty earth.
“Shit. It was you.” He blinked fast and turned away. “No. Don’t stop, not now. Fuck.” But he was out the door before I could get my dress back up over my hips. “Goddamn that man.” My legs were weak from his teasing, my pulse still racing.
I raced out of the bedroom and followed the hallway in the opposite direction we’d come in and found him in the living room. He sniffed the air and frowned. “Adam didn’t say he was leaving.”
“Maybe he was just trying to give us privacy.” I looked in the kitchen, where one of the paper bags he’d carried in for me was tipped on its side, smaller bundles tumbling out of it onto the table and floor. “Then again, maybe something disturbed him.”
Cash joined me in the kitchen, cursing under his breath. “The Escalade’s still out around the side. I smell him, but he spends half his life here. I can’t tell if he’s nearby, or if he was taken.”
“Okay,” I said, touching his arm. “Then follow your…your nose, and I’ll follow you.”
“You won’t be able to keep up, Cher. Just lock the door and wait here.”
I pinched him hard enough that he jumped. “I ran the Boston Marathon in under two and a half hours, do not condescend to me.”
“I don’t even know if he’s hurt.”
How to Date a Werewolf...or 3 Page 6