by Boone Brux
“I’ll be fine.” He strolled toward the door. “We’ll talk about this when I get back.”
“No.” I marched past him and yanked open the door. After slipping on my flip-flops, which were about the worst shoes I could wear, but didn’t have time to change—I grabbed my keys. “We’ll talk about it when I get back.”
“You’re not going anywhere near the compound.” Even though he forbad me, he jerked the door closed behind him. “The last thing I want is to have my dad be able to blame you for this.”
I spun, stopping on the top step. “And the last thing I want is you getting killed because I didn’t do my job.”
“Poppy.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and his knuckles caressed my cheek. I leaned into his touch. “Your family isn’t worth going to jail for.”
“Ugh.” And I’d actually thought he was going to say something sweet. I slapped his hand away and pivoted. “I’m going with or without you.”
The old wooden steps creaked as I stomped down them. His heavy footsteps followed close behind, but neither of us spoke. When we reached to bottom stair, he shot past me, snagging my hand as he passed. I didn’t pull away, simply let him drag me toward his truck. If he wanted to drive, so be it. That meant we wouldn’t be separated, and eventually, he’d have to drive me back home. At this point in our date, even angry sex was up for negotiation.
Hopefully, we’d both make it back to my apartment in one piece.
Chapter Seven
Conversation between us was sparse on the way to the Jackson compound. The homestead sat about fifteen miles out of town, which gave us both plenty of time to brood. Don’t get me wrong, I understood why he was angry. He thought I was protecting my family, and that they were throwing me under the bus. Sure, that was something they would do, but not this time.
Jax turned off on a side road that skirted the property. I’d taken the same road the night before, trying to avoid being seen. No such luck. At the end of the road, he pulled into a clearing and shut off the engine. We both sat staring out the window for a few seconds.
Finally, he said, “I suppose I can’t convince you to stay in the truck.”
I gave him a tight smile. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
A heavy sigh heaved from him. “Poppy, you’re going to be the death of me.”
“Well, if you do die—” I said, opening the truck door, “—I’ll be there to reap you.”
His brows pinched and then relaxed. He shook his head. “That’s not very comforting.”
“Then don’t die.” I slammed the door and picked my way over fallen logs and brush, cursing myself for not taking the time to put on proper shoes.
Behind me, Jax closed his door and jogged to catch up. “Get behind me.”
“Why?” Stopping, I propped my fists on my hips. “If it’s my family, they won’t hurt me, and if it’s poltergeists, I’m the only one who can handle them. Either way,” I said, circumventing him, “I should go first.”
“You’re so stubborn.” His hand wrapped around my arm, halting my course. “We’ll go together.”
“Fine.” I smiled up at him. “But if they do turn out to be poltergeists, I expect you to let me handle it.”
“If you can convince me ghosts are causing all this trouble, then I will humbly bow to your expertise. But…” He swung me toward him. “If it turns out to be someone from your family, you need to let me do my job.”
Since chances that the troublemakers weren’t the honey badgers was almost nil, I nodded. “Absolutely, Officer Jackson.” The sun had dipped below the trees and the fireflies glowing bodies pulsed around us. The mood between us shifted, lust kicking anger to the curb. I settled my hands against his chest and stepped close. “When we’re finished here, you can do your job back at my place.”
His white smile glinted in the dimming evening. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought his canine teeth lengthened a fraction. A jolt of desire shot through me, and as I lifted on my toes, he clutched the back of my head and brought his mouth down on mine. Okay, maybe we wouldn’t wait until we dealt with issues on the compound first.
My lips parted, and his tongue swept in. I wrapped my arms under and around his shoulders and mashed my body against his solid chest. Strength emanated from him. He hooked his hands under my ass and lifted me off the ground. My knees gripped his hips, and the tops of my feet rested against his thighs, holding me in place. Readjusting my grip, I wound my arms around his neck and held on as he marched across the clearing and pressed my back to a giant sycamore tree.
He bent his knee to hold me in place and leaned in. His hand moved along the outside of my thighs and dipped under my skirt, again clasping my nearly bare ass. With my dress hiked up, he thrust forward, driving his jean-clad erection against me. “You need to stop teasing me, or we’ll never get anything done.”
“Who’s teasing?” I gasped.
Being in the woods with Jax drove my libido higher. Something about the warm night air and his untamed behavior made me want to tear my clothes off and bed him right there on Martin Jackson’s land.
I dug my hands into his hair. The clanging of metal made a small dent in my foggy awareness. But then Jax kissed me and I lost my train of thought. Again, metal against metal sounded, this time too loud to ignore. I pushed at his shoulders. “Jax.” Reluctantly, I straightened my legs, but my body didn’t move. He still held me in place. “Did you hear that?”
His head snapped up, and his body stilled. A crash rang from somewhere in the woods not too far away. Just like that those damn honey badgers extinguished our flames of desire. “Come on.” Still holding me, he stepped away from the tree, and then set me on my feet. “They sound close.”
There was no sense in arguing with him. Soon enough he’d find out I wasn’t lying. When we got to where the honey badger poltergeists were messing around, he’d realize the situation was way out of his league.
A few twigs snapped, and brush rustled as we crept forward, but we were quiet enough to sneak up on the ghosts. In the distance, a dark blur zip between the trees. Jax shifted forward to move to the next tree, but I grabbed him by the arm and gestured in front of us.
He peeked around the tree trunk, and his brow furrowed. Sliding back behind the tree, he looked and me and mouthed, “I don’t see anybody.”
“Because they’re ghosts,” I mouthed back.
His lips tightened, and he dipped his chin, pinning me with an I don’t believe you stare. I could have let him see firsthand that I wasn’t lying, but nothing in heaven or on earth would get me to chance him getting hurt, finishing any chance of me getting my happy ending.
“Let me check it out,” I whispered. “If there are living, breathing humans up there, I’ll tiptoe back, and this operation is all yours.”
“Are you crazy? There’s no way I’m letting you go out there alone.”
“Jax, seriously, you’ve got to let me take care of this.”
His head continued to shake, giving me a fervent no. Yeah, this negotiating stuff wasn’t working for me. I needed a distraction. Reaching for the oldest trick in the book, I plastered on a horrified look and pointed over his shoulder. “What’s that?”
He totally fell for it. When Jax spun to look behind him, I darted around the tree and jogged to a stand of three sycamores. Though I couldn’t see him—because I didn’t look back—I could feel Jax’s angry gaze burning into my back. Ignoring the twinge of guilt for tricking him, I inched forward.
Yep, there they were, the two idiot honey badgers huddled around a stack of tires, zipping back and forth from ghost to poltergeist. No doubt they’d gotten their dirty little ghost mitts on more dynamite, and were trying to light it. Whether from last night’s explosion, or their current shenanigans, debris littered the area. Truck parts lay scattered in a wide arc from where they worked, and unidentifiable bits covered the ground where the truck used to sit.
Hearing a snap behind me, I glanced over my shoulder. Jax made his w
ay forward to my left. If he decided to slink back to the right, the honey badgers would have a clear view of him, but he wouldn’t be able to see them. I waved my arms, signaling for him to stop. Though his movement halted, his glared at me. He wasn’t happy. Too bad, it was for his own good. I pointed a finger at him.
He stared another few seconds before slowly lowering to a crouch. Though I couldn’t be sure, I think he’d taken shift-mode. Each Shifters transformation was unique. Armadillo Shifters, for example, just stood there and changed. Not nearly as exciting as the bone snapping shift of a wolf. I’m sure a mountain lion’s change was spectacular. Especially if Jax did the shifting.
Holding up my index finger, I silently asked him to give me one minute. He violently mirrored my action, but his finger definitely had an angry tone. Jeez, touchy. I plastered on a smile and returned an okay sign. He continued to frown at me.
Meanwhile, the two badgers still zipped around the stack. Sparks flickered against the black rubber of the tires. If I didn’t stop them, they’d have whatever they were trying to light, lit within the next minute.
Toeing the ground, I dug up a lumpy rock. This should get their attention. I hauled back and pitched the rock to the right. It cracked against a tree somewhere in the distance. The badgers stopped, both lifting their pointy noses and sniffing. Chattering ensued between them, and I prayed only one of them would go to investigate. At the very least, if they both went, maybe I could steal the dynamite they were trying to light.
Excitement raced through me when the smaller of the two waddled in the direction I’d thrown the stone. I edged away from the tree and followed him. His nose lifted, and he took a few healthy sniffs. Could ghost badgers smell the living? He swung his head right and left. I held my breath, like that would help him not smell me. After a minute, he lowered his head and waddled deeper into the woods.
I crept after him. My attention was so fully trained on the smaller badger, I completely forgot about the other one. When I inched from behind the tree, I came face to ankle with the bigger animal. He hissed, and I screamed. Somewhere in my subconscious, I heard footsteps pounding toward us. Hopefully, it was Jax.
The smaller badger squealed and took off. His gait was impressive. I hadn’t realized they could move that fast. Thinking he would follow his friend, the bigger badger took off.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Without thinking, I lunged and landed on top of the ghost. “You’ve done enough damage for one lifetime.”
I’d had every intention of standing and calling Bunny. What I didn’t plan on was the damn ghost morphing to a poltergeist. Its ghostly form swirled underneath me. It was like trying to hold onto a tiny tornado, but I didn’t let go. Still attached, the damn thing took off, dragging me with it. Over stumps, through brambles, finding every dirty puddle within a hundred-foot radius. The poltergeist badger was off and running, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it besides hold on.
As I passed a tree, Jax leaped from behind it, landing on top of me, and subsequently the badger. Though we didn’t stop, his weight certainly slowed us down to a manageable level. “What do we do now?” he yelled.
“Bunny!” I yelled.
“Bunny?” Jax hollered in my ear. “I don’t understand.”
“Bunny is my porter.” Branches scraped across my feet when I tried to dig my toes into the ground. This needed to end sooner than later. “Bunny!”
Pink sparkles caught my eye. Thankfully, they were only a few yards away and directly in front of me. As the lights elongated and spread into the familiar elevator door, the poltergeist shifted to its human ghost form and stopped struggling.
“What is that,” he growled.
The door slid open, and there stood Bunny in all her pink glory. As usual, she had a martini in hand and was dressed from head to toe in bubblegum pink.
“That is your worst nightmare,” I said.
“That is his worst nightmare?” Jax asked, staring directly at the elevator.
I craned my neck. “You can see her?”
“Of course, he can see me, honey, you’re a mated pair.” She took a sip of her drink and smacked her lips. “Or, he will be once you do the nasty.”
“Mated pair?” My mouth sagged open as I tried to process her words. Only Shifters had mates they bonded with. Then again, Mac and Zelda were a mated pair, and she wasn’t a Shifter. However, she was a powerful witch with a definite connection to his pack. But, Jax and I? “That can’t be.”
“It can, and it is, honey.” Bunny waved her drink at us. “First, let’s take care of Hillbilly Bob here, then we’ll talk.”
Jax’s breath brushed against my neck, and it took all my strength to look at him. “Can you stand?”
He didn’t speak, but rolled off. Locking his wrists under my shoulders, he hauled me to a stand. Still gripping the badger shift, I nudged him forward.
“What about my brother? He’ll be all alone.”
For a split second, I actually felt compassion for the guy. “Call him.”
His eyes skated from me to somewhere over my shoulder. “Eustice! Come on out!”
Silence.
“Guess he doesn’t want to go,” Bunny said. She tilted her drink and downed it. “Oh well, it’s just you and me then, Jimbob.”
The guy bared his teeth at my porter. “The names Cletus.”
She waved a hand at him. “Like I care.”
Jax smacked Cletus on the back of the head. “Show some manners.”
“Well, aren’t you sweet.” Bunny leaned out the elevator door, giving us all a healthy dose of cleavage. “I’d hold onto this one, Poppy.”
The question was whether he’d hold on to me. “Thanks for not making this completely awkward.”
“You’re welcome.” She stepped back in and waved the badger forward. “Come on, honey. Where you’re going, you can start all the fires you want.”
“I ain’t going in there.” He dug his heels in, but I gave him a hard shove and let go. Like every time I release a spirit, the gravitational pull of the elevator sucked him forward. “Wait! Stop! Let’s talk about this.”
I wiggled my fingers at him. “Bye, bye.”
Cletus entered the elevator, hovered for a second, and then dropped out of sight.
“Wait!” cried someone from behind us. We spun to see a man, who resembled a honey badger, running toward us. “Don’t leave without me.”
He raced past us, and like his brother, dropped out of sight when he entered the elevator. Though we couldn’t see what was going on, Bunny had a big smile on her face the entire time she stared at the floor. Maybe I didn’t want to see what waited for the badger brothers at the end of their fall. Or even the inside of the elevator for that matter.
“Well,” Bunny said with a sigh. “That was fun.”
“Thanks for showing up when you did.” I made a heart shape with my fingers and pressed it against my chest. “You’re the best.”
“Yeah, I really am, aren’t I?”
With that, the elevator door slid shut and winked out of sight. Silence filled the space around us. Now that we were finally alone, uncertainty gripped me. A mated pair, how could that be? And how did Jax feel about it? If he made the slightest suggestion that the idea was ridiculous, even if it was, I’d reap his ass.
“Ouch.” The result being dragged face first through the woods suddenly set in. Stinging bit across my ankles and up my shins. My ribs ached from Jax landing on top of me. So not how I imagined this evening would go. I lifted my arm to display a sympathy-worthy gash running up my wrist. “Dang that hurts.” I looked at my feet. “Damn it. I lost one of my flip-flops.”
Still not speaking, Jax scooped me into his arms and cradled me against his chest. His strides ate up the ground, and I seriously hoped this meant we were headed back to my place to finish where we’d left off.
At the truck, he yanked open the passenger side door and gently set me on the seat. His hands ran along my thighs, pushing my dress higher,
making it possible for him to wedge between my legs. Cupping my face in his hands, he stared at me for several seconds. I stared back, not knowing if we were having a good moment, or a bad moment.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” His voice was rough and sexy. “I should have known you were telling the truth.”
“It’s all right.” I covered his hands with mine. “Hearing that I’m a grim reaper is a lot to take in.”
“Still, you’re my mate. I should have trusted you.” He lowered his hands, bringing mine with them, and rested his hold in my lap. “It won’t happen again.”
His words thrilled and scared me. Bonded mates were serious business. Once I stepped into this world, there would be no turning back. “Do you actually believe all that mate stuff?” I held my breath, not sure what I wanted him to say.
He didn’t hesitate. “I know it’s true. I’ve always known it’s true.”
I shook my head. “What are you talking about.”
“I’ve known you were mine since high school. That’s why I didn’t want to go to homecoming with Emily.” He leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine. “It’s only ever been you.”
“Wait.” Sadly, I had to break the moment, but I needed clarity. “You’ve known all this time?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t feel you should share the information with me?”
He smiled. “I’m sharing it now.”
“But you left. You literally moved away.” I jabbed him in the chest. “How did you know I wouldn’t marry somebody else?”
“Because were mates. Nobody but me would have ever made you happy.” His expression was smug, and I wanted to smack it off his face.
“I’ve been wasting away in Asshat Nowhere, thinking I would grow old with only Zeek and a bunch of cats for company.” I poked him harder. “Do you know, I actually looked at cats to adopt.”
“Of course, you did.” He wrapped his hand around my finger and brought it to his mouth, kissing it. “There’s a reason you love cats.”