by Liza Street
There—leaning against a pine trunk with his arms crossed, was none other than Fred Barnum, a piece of shit dickhead who’d made her days in the RV a living hell. He would come by and pound on the side of the RV, waking her up if she was sleeping, startling her if she was awake and lost in thoughts about her novel.
“Hey, Pipe Dreams,” he said, a cool expression of appraisal on his face.
Pipe Dreams. She approved of the nickname, as it reminded people she’d been unafraid to whack them over the head with her metal pipe. A metal pipe which was, unfortunately, not on her person. She doubted the fishing pole would have the same effect.
At least she had hit Barnum more than once, when she’d been stuck in the RV.
“What do you want, Barnum?” she asked.
“Just came by to check out the lake, saw you here. Without your mate. Shouldn’t he be protecting you?” He strode forward, away from the trees, closer to Blythe.
She crossed her arms over her chest, realized it for the defensive pose it was, and moved them to her hips instead. Body language was everything. “He doesn’t need to,” she said. “I can protect myself.”
Barnum raised his eyebrows, but his hazel eyes were blank, giving her no clue as to what he was thinking. “You really believe that,” he said.
“Yeah.” Damn shifters and their keen senses. What had Jessica said? Watch out, they’re lie detectors.
Barnum sighed and scratched the faint, patchy beard growing on his chin. “Catch anything?”
She followed his gaze toward the fishing pole. “No, not yet.”
“What are you using as bait?”
“Bait?”
He leveled a look at her. “Yeah. Worms? Crickets?”
“Um, I just put a lure on the end of the line. It works.”
“True,” he said. “I’ve had more luck with pieces of hot dogs.”
“If I had hot dogs, I wouldn’t need to go fishing.”
“True.” He frowned. “I’m hungry.”
Blythe wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she remained quiet. Barnum took a step closer.
“I need some space, Barnum.”
“So you and Jase are mates,” Barnum’s hot breath hit her cheek.
She refused to let him know she was afraid. Throwing her shoulders back, she said, “Yes.”
It was the truth. They’d pronounced it to each other. So Barnum wouldn’t sense a lie.
“So you two are fucking,” he said with a grin. “Right?”
That was part of the whole mating thing, she supposed. Not that she knew how this shifter shit worked.
If she said yes, Barnum would know it was a lie. If she said no, he’d refuse to believe she and Jase were mates, and that would invite a whole heap of trouble to her life.
“I don’t kiss and tell, asshole,” she said with a sweet smile. “It’s none of your business. Now give me some space. Go bother someone else.”
He gave her a narrow-eyed, assessing look. She wasn’t sure if he was going to listen to her or not. Then he ambled a few feet away and sat down, scratching his crotch.
Blythe stared at him. Barnum stared back, as if daring her to try to make him leave.
Just as she turned around to search for her backpack, he called back to her, “Hey, do you hear that?”
“No.”
His eyes lit up—the first time she’d sensed any kind of emotion from him. Like, ever. “It’s the sound of a truck. I bet we’re getting more food.”
This time, he walked away and out of sight.
As soon as he was completely gone, Blythe leaned forward, hands planted on her knees as she sucked in deep breaths. She’d gotten through Barnum’s teasing her about having sex with Jase, but how long would non-answers last?
This fake mates thing had been a shaky idea at best. She could handle a little prevarication, but eventually, one of these shifters was going to sniff out the truth, and then she’d really be fucked.
6
Jase had helped unload the ice chests sent from Gabe Fournier, the alpha of the Sierra Pride. It was like Christmas had come early, because the Sierra Pride was always generous with its deliveries.
“Holy fuck.” Markowicz had cracked open one of the coolers. “They sent beer.”
Luckily, the Sierra Pride hadn’t yet learned about Marcus leaving the Junkyard, and there was an extra ice chest. He snagged it for Blythe.
After getting both coolers set up in the cabin, Jase had pulled out a nice, cold beer and brought it back to his workshop.
He hadn’t had a beer in five years.
Damn, it tasted good. Smoky and hoppy on his tongue, and the condensation on the can was slippery against his palm. He drank it slowly while he surveyed the junk stacked around the shop. He wanted to make another shelving unit, but he hadn’t sold the last two yet. He liked the lines and angles of shelves, but bizarre lighting fixtures seemed in higher demand.
Bent wheels from a bicycle caught his eye. He dragged them away from the wall and set them up, one on top of the other. There was something here. He didn’t know what it was yet, but it was something.
Beer drained, he returned to his current project, a low coffee table. He had no idea how many living rooms people had that needed new coffee tables, but unlike shelving units, the tables disappeared from his buddy’s shop faster than cheeseburgers from Markowicz’s grill.
He sat down on his favorite chair—an old desk chair without arms that leaned down and to the left—to start working. The table top was perched on sawhorses and it was time to add the metal pieces to create the legs.
As he lifted the first table leg, the sound of light footsteps reached his ears. His gut gave a little whoop of delight when he realized it was Blythe approaching. She had on oversized sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt. And yet, inexplicably, she looked just as beautiful as ever.
“So, we need to fuck,” she said, walking directly into the workshop.
Jase dropped the metal piece he’d been holding. “What?”
Hell, he was down, but she couldn’t have actually meant what she said.
“Have intercourse.” Her tone was patient but businesslike. “Sex. Make love. Screw. Do each other. Make some hanky panky—”
“I got it.” He stared at her, at the way her flame-red hair framed her face and made her green eyes shine. Make some hanky panky. Had she really just said that? “I just don’t understand where this sudden desire to jump my bones has come from.”
She was already lifting her shirt—his shirt—over her head, revealing her tits. Fuck, she wasn’t wearing a bra. His dick leapt to attention.
“Barnum was asking questions,” she said simply, her green eyes blazing as she dropped the shirt on the floor. She took several steps toward Jase.
Gone was the woman who’d been embarrassed to fall on top of him in bed this morning. Her cheeks were pink again, but she didn’t seem embarrassed now. She seemed determined. When his mate made up her mind about something, she was full steam ahead, apparently.
She continued, “If he figures out we’re supposed mates who aren’t even fucking, I won’t be protected here any longer.”
Her breasts were smaller than a handful, and her nipples were a soft shade of pink against her pale skin, which was lightly freckled.
She stopped in front of him. Her tits were eye level. Jase salivated, swallowed, longing to take one of those hardened nipples into his mouth. Did she have any idea what kind of effect she had on him?
“I can give you head, first,” she offered, “if you’re not in the mood.”
“You—you mean right now?” He was half-ready to rip off his pants. Then he stopped, clenched his fists on his thighs. “No. Stop it, Blythe.”
“Why?” She looked puzzled. “Don’t you want me?””
He was thankful as fuck that humans couldn’t sense dishonesty, because there was only one thing he could tell her that would convince her to drop this nonsense. “No, I’m not interested.”
She huffed a s
igh of exasperation, but he sensed that she was hurt. She covered that hurt well when she said, “Why the hell not? I’m assuming you haven’t gotten laid in a long while. I know I don’t have a lot to offer in the curves department, but I’m sure fucking me would be better than jacking off.”
“It’s not that,” he said, swallowing again. “It complicates things. We’re mates, and that should be good enough for all the guys here.”
Frowning, she marched back to where she’d dropped the shirt. Every cell in Jase’s body screamed no as she put it back on, hiding her gorgeous body once more. That shirt was a crime against humanity.
“I disagree,” she said. “But I’m not going to beg. If you change your mind, let me know. I’ll be at our cabin, writing.”
She walked out of his workshop, her tight little ass swaying gently in those baggy sweats of his, and he groaned aloud.
He wanted nothing more than to rip off her clothes, bend her over the smooth table he’d perched on the sawhorses, and slide inside her heat. Maybe he’d even tie her up first, for added fun. He wanted to watch her writhe and struggle before finally giving in.
But it wasn’t just about getting his dick wet. It was a need to touch her, to make her come, to make her his.
And when she came to him wanting sex, he wanted it to be because she wanted him, not out of some need to keep herself safe from the others. Was that too much to ask?
Maybe, but he couldn’t help it.
Damn. He kicked closed the door to his shop and latched it shut from the inside. He squeezed his dick through his pants. Three nights they’d slept side by side. He’d woken before her this morning and she’d been curled over him like a little koala bear. Her panic when she’d woken had been adorable, and to spare her, he’d pretended to be asleep.
Then she’d fallen on top of him.
His mind took him to another place, an alternate reality where her falling on top of him led to him sliding his hands down the back of her pants and cupping that delectable ass in his palms. He imagined the sweet gasp she’d make as he slid down her pants and his, and the way she’d rub against his bare cock.
Unbuttoning his jeans, he stroked himself. He’d had no relief for days. This wouldn’t take long. All he had to do was picture Blythe’s intelligent green gaze and imagine her licking her lips.
His cock was heavy and hard, and he stroked it, holding it tight, imagining Blythe with him, her eyes dark with lust, her mouth slightly parted, her gorgeous breasts—and he now knew exactly what they looked like. She could be here right now, if he’d said yes. She could be here, moaning and writhing against him while she came.
“Fuck,” he said, the orgasm taking him by surprise. He was quick enough to catch his come. He washed his hands in the little sink he’d set up in the corner.
Jacking off should’ve satisfied him, but as he stuffed his dick back in his pants, all he could think about was how much better that would’ve been with Blythe. He wondered what noises she made during sex, what positions she liked best.
He had to get over this. She wasn’t interested. Not in him.
And even if she were? Well, he had to keep his hands to himself. She was a human, and he’d probably break her.
7
Blythe tapped her pen against the legal pad. Instead of scrawled notes on a scene, she was working on a giant diagram with circles and lines. If only she could figure out what was missing in her protagonist’s life, she’d unlock the reason for her protagonist to fight. But the woman had everything—a satisfying job, plenty of money, a dream house, food on the table every night, a couple of trusted friends.
Career? Blythe wrote in all-caps on the side. Secret daughter, whisked away at birth? Nothing fit the story. She didn’t mind starting over, if that’s what she had to do, but honestly—a shady adoption out of nowhere? It wouldn’t work.
Blythe’s gaze unwittingly fell to the bed where she’d spent yet another frustrating, sexual-tension-filled night next to Jase. He’d come in late last night, probably in the hopes of avoiding her.
She’d gone to bed early in the hopes of avoiding him, so Blythe supposed that worked out well.
Even though he could probably tell she was still awake when he climbed into bed, he didn’t say anything. Small blessing. Blythe hadn’t known what to say. The fact he hadn’t been willing to have sex with her to solidify their fake mates story was a wound to Blythe’s ego. Because sex didn’t have to be some grand, meaningful gesture. It had never been such a thing to Blythe because she’d never had sex with someone who cared about her. When she was younger and more impressionable, she’d learned the hard way that sex was often a weapon wielded by a person in power over a person who had no power. Once she got older, she vowed to never again be the person with no power, and sex would be an equal exchange, the scratching of a biological itch, which, if performed correctly, would benefit both parties who could then wander off to live their separate lives.
She wasn’t requesting that Jase sleep with her and make empty promises; she was looking for a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Tapping her pen against the legal pad again, she sighed. Was she being heartless? Was sex supposed to be passionate and meaningful like it was portrayed in romance movies and novels? In her mind, there was a vast difference between romance and real life.
Romance. Love. Her breath hitched with excitement. That’s what her heroine was missing out on. Blythe’s protagonist would fight her enemy gaslighter because there was something else on the line—something bigger than her. Love. She loved a man so beautifully, so powerfully, that giving up would not be an option.
Just as Blythe started to write down some notes, the lines on her legal pad blurred and seemed to move. She blinked quickly, trying to clear her vision even as her heart started to pound. She knew what this was—a migraine.
“Shit,” she whispered, setting down her pen.
She needed her medicine—a strong, migraine-killing prescription that had only been affordable through the generosity of her student health care at the university. The bottle of pills was in her backpack, lost somewhere on the east side of the Junkyard. Did she have time to find it? She wanted to kick herself for not looking for it yesterday when she’d been fishing—she’d allowed Barnum to distract her.
She had maybe ten minutes before the pain hit. First, she rushed to the bathroom to pee, then drank a little water—not too much. Nothing worse than crawling to the bathroom during the worst of a migraine. She thought of eating something light, but feared throwing it up again, so she decided against it.
The lines in her vision grew into looping, sparkling blue squiggles that spread out over the room. When she closed her eyes, the lines were still there. This part was almost as bad as the splitting pain that would arrive in a few minutes.
Resigning herself to a lost twenty-four hours, she lay back on the bed and pulled the corner of a pillowcase over her eyes. The pillow smelled like Jase, spicy sandalwood, all comfort, and she breathed in and out slowly, trying to recall the pain management techniques she’d learned after getting her first migraine.
A few hours had passed. She’d just made a trip to the bathroom, and now she was crawling back to bed. Halfway across the cabin floor. A few feet to go before she could lie down again. Her brain felt like it was swelling and pressing against her skull, and she was bored as hell. She’d slept much of the morning and into lunch, but now she was awake and couldn’t sleep anymore. Her head ached, of course. But it was the boredom that was driving her crazy.
The door opened, flooding the room with more light. Blythe squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with her hand.
“Blythe?” Jase’s voice was soft but held a note of alarm.
“Headache,” she whispered.
“Ah.” She heard the door close and a second later, his hand was firm against her shoulder. He whispered, “Are you trying to go back to bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Gotcha.” He lifted her up slowly.
&
nbsp; She was amazed that the movement didn’t jar her, that pain didn’t rocket through her whole body at his touch. But he was slow, gentle. Her head still hurt, but his help didn’t exacerbate it.
A moment in his arms, and then she was in the bed again. Water ran in the faucet and Jase said in a quiet voice, “There’s a glass next to the bed, on this little table. What else can I do?”
“How…how did you know to come?” She kept her eyes closed, but turned her face in what she thought was his direction.
“I had a weird feeling in my gut,” he said. “I’ve learned not to ignore those, although it took me a few hours to figure out what it might mean. Sorry I waited to come.”
“Thank you,” she breathed.
He hesitated. “We don’t have medicine here. Shifters don’t get sick. But I could ask Grant. His mate is a nurse—”
“My backpack,” Blythe said, forcing the words out. Speaking was hard, and it was starting to hurt her head even more.
“You want your backpack?” Jase asked. “Where is it?”
“Near the lake. Maybe. It has medicine.”
“On it.” Gentle pressure in her hand where he squeezed it, then all was quiet again.
A soft rapping on the door caught Blythe’s attention. Jase had only been gone for five minutes. Maybe ten? Time was meaningless.
“Come in,” she whispered.
“It’s Stetson,” came a low voice through the door. “I’m just outside if you need anything. Jase asked me to come by.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
Blythe curled on her side, slowly, gingerly, careful not to move anything too fast. She didn’t really need the coddling. Eventually, she would’ve made it back to the bed on her own. And she’d have been fine without Stetson outside the cabin, listening for any calls for help.
She didn’t need any help…but it was nice knowing it was there.