Outback Cowboy

by Lexxie Couper

  Irish looked at the mess on the littered bar floor, the neon sign blinking above his chiseled features making him look paler than he really was. His hair, like the feathers of a raven’s wing, gleamed slick and black in a short ponytail at the base of his skull.

  His brow furrowed as he swiped the bottle of water she’d left on the bar, using it to rinse off the blood he’d managed to get on him from the door handle. He pulled a used cocktail napkin from one of the only nearby tables still standing and dried his hands.

  Claire straightened her spine and waited for him to lose his cool. This scenario wasn’t going to happen without a heated exchange. Not if Irish was involved.

  Their verbal sparring was legendary—she relished it. He made her use her brain, her words, and from the moment she’d met him, it had turned her on.

  Yet Irish said nothing as he stood at the bar, roughly hewn, immorally sexy in his worn leather jacket and scuffed boots, bulky arms and thick thighs. Instead, his gaze fastened on hers and he waited until she broke first.

  She always broke first. It was that stare. Penetrating her, devouring her, eating her up from the inside out.

  “Say something. Say anything, Irish. Say it and be done.”

  The leather of his jacket, identical to the one all his club members wore, creaked when he lobbed the napkin to the table, the sound abrasive and jarring to her sensitive ears. He pointed upward with a finger, still streaked with a crimson thread of blood. “Jesus. He might be your only hope at this point.”

  Her sigh of exasperation echoed in the empty room. “Always helpful.”

  Irish’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. “Did you want me to rock you gently in the corner and blow unicorn kisses at you, Kitten, or do you want me to handle this first then give you the browbeating you deserve?” he asked, waving a lean hand around the room.

  She lifted her chin in pure defiance. Irish McConnell had turned her down once before, and it had hurt like someone had stuck a hand in her chest and ripped her heart out. She knew why he’d turned her down, and it was logical, sane even. Still, she didn’t ask for anything from Irish because of it. Ever.

  Lifting her chin higher, Claire said, “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “Well, you’re getting it.” He checked to be sure the door was locked before stalking back across the length of the bar, his thigh muscles bulging and pressing against his tight black jeans, and dropping his gloves on the scarred bar top.

  Which meant things were about to get really real. When there was dirty work to be done, Irish always set his black leather gloves in a safe place. They’d been his father’s, and no one touched those gloves unless they wanted to lose a hand.

  Claire planted her fists on her hips and shook her head, tamping down the naked fear of certain retribution. “You’re not allowed to help me, remember? We’re on two different sides. You know, like the Jets and the Sharks. The Montagues and the Capulets.”

  He grinned then, the deep grooves on either side of his lean cheeks deepening. As always, when Irish smiled, it was an unlikely surprise. Like a meteor shower or an eclipse. It was a rare gift he bestowed on few, sure to steal the breath from any woman’s lungs and leave her in a puddle of goo.

  Irish wasn’t just any old vampire. He was a cranky, pissy, hard-to-please vampire. The unlikeable, gruff president of the biker club Fangs of Anarchy—and the most irresistibly delicious man she’d ever known.

  “You forgot Mothra versus Godzilla.”

  She rolled her eyes at him and jammed a finger in the air. “Exactly. You’ve made our differences more than clear over the years.” He’d made them especially clear last year at their town’s annual Christmas fair and charity drive. A flash of red heat crept up her neck at the memory.

  “And you decided now was the time to finally listen to me? What kind of alternate universe did I just walk into?”

  Okay, so it was inopportune, to say the least. But no way could Irish be involved in this. One whiff of it, and her pack would string him up at high noon wrapped in cloves of garlic on a bed of crosses. There was nothing those cavemen biker club members the Road Dogs would relish more than to take Irish out—despite their races’ tenuous truce.

  Claire dropped down to her haunches to assess how she was going to manage this, her nose full of the copper scent of blood, but she didn’t regret a second of it. Not one. Not right now. It had to be done.

  Forcing herself to focus on the task at hand, she dismissed the vampire. “Go back to your club. I can handle this on my own.”

  He reached down, hauling her up by her arm until there wasn’t an inch between them. “Not on your life,” he said, forcing the words from his tight lips like a thick milkshake through a straw.

  It was always like this whenever they were within a hundred feet of each other. Tense, hot, an all-out war of restraint.

  Even at this dark moment, when her life was crumbling around her, Irish’s body pressed to hers made her catch her breath. Every line of him, every inch of him was sculpted, unbelievably hard and cool to her own overheated limbs.

  Claire tensed against his grip even though she wanted to melt into him, lean against his solid frame, take solace in his strength before all hell broke loose. “Do you want to die? Because that’s what’ll happen if you don’t go. Somebody’s bound to see your bike outside.”

  Irish’s nostrils flared, his coal-black eyes consuming her. “I hid it. I come here to Boomer’s sometimes to get some peace and quiet. You know, away from the club and the clan. Luckily, no one ever comes out here much because they’re afraid of being hauled off to the prison camps, this being so close to the borders and all.”

  “Who knew vampires needed special alone time?”

  “If you had to run the club and lead an entire clan of misplaced vampires, you’d understand. They’re like a bunch of greased cats. Anyway, I’m always looking out for the one rebellious teenage vampire who thinks he can rage against the machine and get past the government borders. When I saw Boomer’s sign was lit up, I got suspicious.”

  Damn. She hadn’t thought to turn the sign off after…Clearly, she lacked the stealth of a ninja. “Obviously peace and quiet isn’t what you’re going to get here tonight. Now, go home. I have to clean up.”

  Rather than let her go, he pulled her closer, molding her body to his length, letting his hand stray to the swell of her hip. “Do you know the kind of hell that’s going to rain down on you for this, Claire?”

  “Oh, hell-schmell. No one has to know unless you tell them. You’re my only witness,” she taunted, arching her back to get a better view of Irish’s face, fighting her hot longing for him. “You don’t want the same thing to happen to you if you rat me out, do you?”

  She gave him a saucy grin as though she hadn’t a care in the world—even though she knew by tomorrow, her pack might be hunting her down like so much small prey.

  He wrapped an arm around her waist, his eyes now amused. “You mean werewolf versus vampire? Hot. So damn hot, but don’t tempt me. Because you’d lose, pretty lady, and you know it. I’m stronger, faster.”

  “Way older.”

  His eyes glittered. “That’s fair. But with age comes wisdom and a certain prowess you obviously lack. This was messy, Claire. Really messy.”

  That was fair, too. It was messy. Boomer’s was a shitwreck of overturned tables, broken glass, and blood. So much blood. “Yeah. Things didn’t exactly go according to the plan.”

  Hah. They hadn’t gone at all like the plan because there’d been no plan, per se. There’d been a lot of screaming she hadn’t anticipated, though. Had she known, she’d have brought duct tape and a ball gag. Still, in the end, she’d won the battle.

  Irish’s delectable lips hovered near hers, making her gulp. “Do they ever with you?”

  “Oh, c’mon. I’m pretty organized. But I admit, I’m better at planning a library fundraiser than I am at…this.” She stumbled over actually using the word to describe what “this” was. H
er chest pressed against his heightened her lust, yet apparently dampened her vocabulary.

  “They’ll kill you.” He hissed the words as though her death mattered to him.

  “I’ve always said I’d rather be dead, haven’t I?” she challenged. When she’d spoken those words, she’d meant them. She’d said them loud and clear for two years, right up until just last week, when the full moon of her last birthday as a single woman was just around the corner.

  She’d said it in front of her patrons at the library. She’d said it at the Pick and Pack while she shopped for rope and ant killer. She’d said it to her best friend Freya smack in the middle of a church supper.

  In fact, she’d said it so much and so often, she might as well have wandered around with a sandwich board around her neck.

  Irish lifted her, his fingers digging into her waist, plunking her down on top of the bar with a hard jolt. He spread her legs and stood between them, resting his hands on either side of her hips. “Was death really preferable to mating with Gannon?”

  Claire shivered, goose bumps breaking out along her arms, bile rising in her throat. Just the mention of Gannon Dodd’s name made her want to projectile launch her lunch.

  She stared Irish square in the eye. “Hmm. Let me count the ways. Being flayed alive and having vinegar poured into my raw wounds was preferable. Boiled in oil was preferable. Mating with the Abominable Snowman and the Lock Ness Monster in a ménage of sharp snowman claws and slimy water was preferable. So death was no big thing, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “So you did this to avoid the mate? You couldn’t have just run off? Gone shopping out of town forever? Skipped over to one of the other paranormal territories? Hidden away?”

  “Oh no. Make no mistake, Irish McConnell. I did this because Gannon’s a deplorable pig. But now that you mention shopping, a new pair of shoes might be in order.” She wiggled her feet encased in a pair of sparkly flats. They were ruined now—all the dragging and scuffling had ripped some of the rhinestones off.

  Boo. A perfectly good pair of shoes and a dress trashed all in one night was so wrong.

  Irish gripped her jaw, his long fingers curling into it. “Not a time to joke.”

  Claire glared back at him even while his fingers on her skin drove her mad. He damn well knew what Gannon was like. Violent, angry, abusive. “Not a joke. I can’t go around without any shoes.”

  “Claire,” he warned in that low, thick-like-caramel voice he had.

  “Irish.” She mimicked his tone and his ultra-serious expression.

  “Enough.”

  “Or?”

  “Or I’m going to hand you over to your pack. Lock, stock and fresh mouth.”

  Leaning back, she felt around the bar for her phone and held it up for Irish to take from her. “Do you think a text is too impersonal? Is telling your pack via text that you just murdered their alpha and your intended mate too much like breaking up with someone in a text? I’ve heard that’s rude. How would you word that to Gannon’s brother Courtland, anyway? Dear Second Pig in Charge, surprise, you’re the new alpha of the pack! Claire Montgomery just murdered your fuckknuckle of a brother in cold blood by luring him into her web with her feminine wiles and big words he was too stupid and too uneducated to understand. All input welcome.”

  Chapter 2

  Irish glared at Claire, trying his best to ignore the frissons of heat she pulled from his body as easily as she pulled the books she loved from her library shelves. He clenched his hands into tight fists on either side of her generous hips.

  Jesus Christ, she was everything. From the fiery cascade of auburn hair falling around her shoulders in shiny curls that he wanted to grip in his hand, to her pretty blue eyes. Claire was alluring, sweetly rounded, strangely olive-skinned for a redhead, and luscious-lipped.

  Also forbidden, Irish.

  Always.

  Werewolves and vampires didn’t mix in this town. Ever. They really didn’t mix when the one woman you wanted more than you wanted to drink to sustain your immortality was mate to the alpha of a rival biker club. A rival biker club you were forced to live with.

  But that had never stopped him from wanting Claire Montgomery. From wanting to splay her legs, rip off the scrap of panties she wore beneath her demure dresses, spread her wide, and take a long lick of the flesh he’d craved for five years.

  Irish gritted his teeth. Claire didn’t know it, and he’d probably eat two heads of garlic followed by a swig of Holy Water before he’d admit it, but at all costs, he’d protect her.

  And she was right. Gannon was a pig. A douchebag piece of shit who didn’t deserve someone like Claire Montgomery. But in the interest of keeping the peace, and keeping alive the gig he had going with Dodd’s club for synthetic blood, he stayed the hell away.

  When she’d admitted how she felt about him last year at the town Christmas party, when she’d pressed her soft body to his, tried to capture his mouth in a kiss, his head had almost exploded right off his neck.

  And he’d shunned her. Just like he was going to do now, even though he’d go home with her vanilla-wafer scent filling his nose and the memory of her breasts pushing at his chest, begging for him to run his tongue over her tight nipples.

  The threat of vampires dying because they couldn’t live without the blood Gannon’s club provided was too real. Dodd would have taken that shit away in a heartbeat if he’d had even an inkling that Irish wanted Claire.

  Irish and the Fangs ran the synthetic blood illegally. The same kind of blood on which humans had placed a tax so high three years ago, lower-middle-class vampires were starving, even dying painful deaths by the dozens.

  Just another “fuck you” from the human government after they’d discovered it was unconstitutional to round up the paranormal and kill them all, which had been the original plan until the otherworldly revolted with the threat of a blood-sucking, entrails-eating uprising the likes of which humans had never seen.

  Yet, even after the peace treaties and bullshit summits between both human and supernatural leaders, they were still at the government’s mercy just by virtue of their minority in numbers. The government used that against them, subtly, while trying to take them out by withholding vital necessities.

  It was also considered too dangerous for paranormals to mingle with humans, so they’d sent them to obscure places like Rock Cove with the threat of mass extermination if they didn’t comply with the new laws. They’d given them towns to call their own, and left them to run them as they saw fit, leaving some paranormal territories in states of anarchy.

  But not Rock Cove, Maine, where Irish had been forced to settle with his clan when the government had run them out of his home in New York, where he’d been a corporate attorney and only part-time bike enthusiast.

  No one knew where Gannon got the blood, or who created it. But he’d cornered the market, and Irish had no intention of sacrificing the many with his painful lust for just one woman. It was a battle he fought every day, but he did it.

  Still, this whole scenario wasn’t sitting right. She was hiding something—he just couldn’t pin it down. Claire wasn’t a murderer. Not without cause. He knew that much…smelled that much.

  Claire swung the phone in his face, baiting him. “So, text? Or the more personal phone call?”

  Irish pushed off the bar, mostly because he couldn’t stand another second spent so close to her. Even in the midst of this mess. “So, explain why you killed him. Please.”

  “I’m not explaining anything to you, vampire. The less you know, the better.” She hopped off the bar, her feet slapping the floor.

  She made her way over to Gannon’s awkwardly sprawled body, grabbing him by the feet and pulling him toward the door as though she were pulling a sack of potatoes from her car after a shopping trip. No emotion. Not even a twitch.

  Irish blocked the exit. “What are you going to do with him, Claire? Bring him back to the Dogs at the club and just drop him off? Did you also lose your m
ind during your killing spree?”

  “I wouldn’t step foot in that filthy club, and this was not a spree. A spree suggests more than one kill. A binge, if you will. Gannon was just one kill—even if it felt as if he had the grubby paws of a spree of people. Can you even believe I ended up destined to him? Me, a quiet, educated librarian with him, a disgusting…”

  Irish’s ears went on alert. “A disgusting what?”

  She shook her finger at him. “Never you mind, Coffin Lover. I’m not saying another word. No way am I letting you get in the middle of this.”

  Irish crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Uh-uh-uh. That still doesn’t tell me where you’re taking him.”

  “Know any demons?”

  She amused the hell out of him. Which he’d never show, but it made it damn hard not to indulge her. “A few, why?”

  “Because Hell is as good a place as any to dump him. It’s where he belongs. Do they sell one-way tickets there?”

  God. This woman. “Claire, stop being so damn difficult. I’m not letting you leave until you tell me what you’re going to do with him?”

  She dropped Gannon’s legs, now becoming quite stiff. They plunked to the floor at a strange angle. “Listen here, Dark One. It’s none of your damn business. Wasn’t it just you who said you were going to turn me over to my pack? You have some phone calls to make, don’t you?”

  “This is suicide.”

  “Which rhymes with homicide. The noun used for what I just committed.” She reached back down, lifting Gannon’s legs again and throwing them over her shoulders to drag him outside, her heart-shaped face red, her chest rising and falling beneath the square cut of her neckline.

  “Homicide does not rhyme with suicide. They only share the same suffix, Librarian.”

  Claire stopped what she as doing for a moment and looked up at him, laughter in her almond-shaped blue eyes when she batted her thick eyelashes. “You stop. You know what a suffix is? Why, Irish McConnell, have you been practicing your Dr. Seuss?”