by Roxie Noir
Julius’s hand found Hudson’s cock through his pants and squeezed, hard, eliciting a groan from the other man. Hudson’s grip loosened on Julius’s cock for a second, and Julius took the opportunity to grab his mate and spin the two of them around, pinning the other man against the wall with a dull thud.
He didn’t even care if anyone outside had heard. Julius was beyond caring about any of that. All he could feel was the roaring fire of his lust.
He pressed his cock against Hudson’s again, lowering his head one more time to the other man’s throat, inhaling his scent deeply.
It made him feel like he was burning from the inside out.
Julius wanted nothing more than to take his mate right there, on the table in the jury room, bury his cock to the hilt inside Hudson, listen to his mate’s cries of pleasure.
He hadn’t brought any lube, though. Shit.
In a flash, he had Hudson’s pants unbuckled and undone, his cock out, rubbing against his own. For a moment it felt like fireworks were going off in his brain, blotting out everything else in the world. Right now, there were only the two of them.
Then he thought of her sashaying away again, her hips moving side to side. Teasing him, though she hadn’t meant to.
“Are you thinking about how easy it would have been to rip her shirt open?” Hudson growled.
“I’m thinking about her ass in that skirt as she walked away,” Julius said.
He felt Hudson’s strong hand grip both of their cocks, stroking them together, hot, hard flesh on hard flesh.
“I bet her tits bounce when she rides your cock,” Hudson whispered in Julius’s ear.
Julius put his hand over Hudson’s and they stroked together. Julius was breathing hard now, and he could feel the sweat dripping down his back.
He was so keyed up that it wasn’t going to take much to send him over the edge. He was close, already, and he could tell that Hudson was too.
“You could really sink your fingers into her thighs, too,” he said, his voice little more than a rough growl. “Squeeze them as she screams your name.”
Sparks began to play around the edge of his vision, and he fished desperately in his pocket for the handkerchief he usually kept there.
“Oh, fuck,” said Hudson, leaning his forehead against Julius’s, as Julius covered their cocks with the handkerchief just in time.
Sparks exploded across his vision as he came, feeling the fire at his core rocket through him with shuddering, explosive force. Hudson’s hand tightened and then he exploded too, his lips seeking Julius’s, their hips grinding together.
Finally, Julius was spent. He leaned against his mate, still against the wall, their foreheads still together, their lips an inch apart, their breathing heavy.
“We shouldn’t even talk about her,” Julius murmured, his eyes closed.
“I know,” Hudson said. “If her parents heard, I bet they’d sue us.”
“And she’s a lost cause,” Julius said, shaking his head slightly. “She could barely bring herself to shake our hands, let alone sleep in our bed.”
Hudson sighed. Then he swallowed, nodded, and took his hand from their cocks, sending a quick shudder through Julius.
Then Hudson frowned, looking down.
“Didn’t I give you that handkerchief for our anniversary one year?” he asked.
Julius peeled it away very, very carefully, and then looked and their pants.
Not a drop of semen had gotten on either of them. The silk handkerchief was ruined, though.
“I think we put it to good use,” he said.
6
Quinn
Quinn tried to look dignified getting into the back of her parents’ fourteen-passenger church van, but it was hard. In fact, she was finding dignity increasingly hard at the moment: she felt completely ridiculous back in that judge’s chambers, admitting that her wrist was basically fine and that she didn’t mind seeing two people kiss.
Then, to top it all off, she’d had to go apologize to the sexy lawyer and his incredibly hot mate. They’d seemed more amused than anything, and while that wasn’t precisely the reaction she’d been hoping for, it was better than disdain.
Not that Quinn knew what reaction she had been hoping for.
As she’d approached, every warning she’d ever heard about shifters had rung through her head — that they would kidnap her away and keep her as a sex slave, that looking into a shifter’s eyes meant you belonged to that shifter forever.
Hell, on the playground in elementary school, a kid had once told her that touching a shifter made you into one. It was obviously untrue, but she couldn’t help but think about it as the lawyer held out his hand.
And then, there was whatever the hell was happening to her, some potent combination of anxiety and, well, lust. They were easily two of the hottest men she’d ever met, and she replayed their kiss in her mind a dozen times a day.
Besides the hotness, they also seemed... nice, almost. Warm and welcoming in a way that her parents weren’t and would never be.
As soon as Quinn plopped into the bucket seat two rows behind her parents, she put her earbuds into her ears and hit play on her iPod. She already knew that the entire way home, the conversation between her parents was going to be nonstop abuse of Julius and Hudson, and she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
For a couple minutes, she stared out the window, watching the beautiful scenery of Cascadia drift by the van window. Even though they were just driving down the highway, everything there was beautiful: the tall, strong evergreen trees, the rock mountains peeking above the forest, the clear blue sky that went on forever.
The playlist she’d been listening to ended, and there was silence in her earbuds. Quinn looked down to play something else.
She was scrolling through her music when she heard her mother murmur something about a rifle.
Her thumb on the iPod’s dial stopped. Quinn wasn’t sure what made her hear that single word, but there it was, hanging in the air, and she froze completely.
“That seems like overkill,” her father’s voice said. Even without seeing him, she could tell he was frowning.
“Well, apparently Jacob couldn’t hit the side of a barn from ten feet away,” her mother snapped, a little too loudly.
Without meaning to, Quinn’s eyes snapped to the front seat. They met her father’s in the rearview mirror.
She thought her heart might beat out of her chest, but she nodded her head in time to an imaginary song, letting her gaze drift away. Acting like she was listening to music and that she hadn’t heard a thing that her parents were saying.
Jacob, she thought. I know that name. Why does it sound so familiar?
“The new guy is much better than Jacob,” her father said. The van wiggled a little on the road as Quinn stared out the window, straining her ears.
I know that name, I know I do, she thought.
“If we’d just used him in the first place, that mangy lawyer and his thug of a mate wouldn’t have been smirking at us in judges’ chambers this morning,” her father went on.
Julius and Hudson? Quinn thought.
Then it clicked.
She knew the name Jacob because he’d been all over the Granite Valley news for the past day.
He was the shooter. And he’d been aiming for Julius.
Quinn wanted to pass out, throw up, or both. She felt lightheaded, and had to remind herself to breathe, and to look as calm as she could. If she freaked out now, she was certain that her parents would lock her in their room or worse — but if she played it cool and pretended she couldn’t hear them, maybe she could help them.
“Save the ‘I told you so’s,’ all right?” her mother said. “I’ll tell him we can try to get the tools he wants, but the new court date is the day after tomorrow, so he might have to deal with something handheld.”
“More likely to get caught,” her father said.
Chills ran up and down Quinn’s spine, but she tried to stay as c
alm as she could.
“He’s got two little girls and some lions just moved next door to him,” her mother said. “He’ll do anything for the cause, even if it means being in jail for a long time.”
Quinn fought back a shiver.
“We shouldn’t even be talking about this,” her mother muttered.
Silence ruled for the rest of the ride back to the motel.
Quinn managed to look half-bored and half-tired until her motel room door was locked.
Then she started freaking out. She tore her uncomfortable clothes off, pulling on a soft old t-shirt and jeans as she paced back and forth, her head in her hands.
What am I supposed to do? she thought.
She hadn’t actually heard anything that she could go to the police with. What was she supposed to say — I heard my parents talking about a rifle and a new guy?
They’d mentioned Jacob, sure, but everyone was talking about Jacob.
Besides, there was nothing they could use. No evidence against her parents, no info on who the new shooter was, or when or where the shooting was going to happen.
Hell, she wasn’t even positive they’d been planning a shooting. All she really had was a bad, bad feeling.
Besides, she was a known member of an anti-shifter group. Why would the police believe her? Why would they think she’d suddenly turned on her parents?
This might be a good time to call your brother, she thought, and before she even knew what she was doing, she was opening the book and dialing his number on her phone, each ring on the other end sending her anxiety higher and higher.
“Quinn?”
At George’s voice, she blinked back sudden tears. It had been years since she’d heard him speak.
“Hey,” she said.
“What’s up?” he said. She thought she heard a note of caution in his voice, like she might be calling as some kind of trap, some way for his parents to finally get back at him.
“I understand why you left,” she said.
Silence on the other end.
“I’m in Cascadia with them, protesting the triad marriage court case, and it’s awful. They’re awful. These people don’t deserve the stuff that mom and dad say about them, they’re just normal people.”
“I know,” George said.
“I believed them for so long,” she said.
Tell him about the assassination attempt, she thought.
“I did too,” George said, softly. “That was all we knew growing up.”
Quinn said nothing, just sighed unsteadily into the phone. She felt like she was on the verge of tears — here, at last, was someone who knew exactly how she felt.
“People can change,” George was saying. His voice sounded like he was outside or something. “Mom and Dad probably won’t, but their hate is their burden, not yours.”
Quinn nodded, then remembered that her brother could only hear her.
She took a deep breath.
“I need your help with something,” she said. Her hands started shaking again.
“Anything,” he said quickly. “You can come live with us in Denver, I’ll send you money for a bus, just get your stuff and get out. They’re toxic.”
“Thanks,” she whispered. “Right now, I just need advice.”
He paused for a moment on the phone.
“Shoot,” he said.
She cringed at his word choice.
“I think Mom and Dad are planning to kill the lawyer.”
Two hours later, people were streaming out of the Granite Valley police station as Quinn walked up the steps, stomach twisting nervously. A couple people cast glances in her direction — and of those, one or two looked twice, recognizing her — but most of them seemed happy to be getting off work for the day.
Over the phone, George had nearly shouted at her: “Go to the police! Of course you should go to the police!”
So here she was.
“Can I help you?” asked the receptionist, looking bored behind a desk.
Quinn swallowed.
“Yeah, can I, uh, talk to an officer please?”
The woman looked at her skeptically. Quinn couldn’t tell if she was a shifter or not, but she was tall, even sitting down, and had a no-nonsense air about her.
“What’s the nature of your concern?” she asked.
Quinn could practically feel the other woman’s eyes sliding over her face, with an expression she’d come to recognize.
It was the Where do I know you from? expression, and Quinn hoped the woman didn’t figure out that she’d seen Quinn on TV, standing behind her hateful parents.
She put her hands on the counter to steady herself.
“I have information about yesterday’s shooting,” she said.
From the corner of her eye, she could see a couple of uniformed officers turn to look at her, but she stared straight ahead, her eyes boring into the other woman’s.
The other woman’s eyebrows went up, but she maintained her cool.
“I’ll be right back,” she said smoothly, then walked into another room, leaving Quinn in the room with everyone staring at her.
Please don’t go tell everyone in town that I’m here, she thought. She knew how news travelled in towns this size: fast.
Really, she didn’t care who found out that she was there, as long as the church group didn’t, and especially her parents.
Your own parents wouldn’t do anything to you, she thought to herself. They cut off George, but they didn’t kill him.
She took a deep breath. Voices sounded from the other room.
Your parents aren’t the only ones involved in this, she reminded herself. Someone else is doing the actual shooting, and he probably doesn’t care at all about you.
The fist around her heart tightened.
“Get Ash to talk to her,” a male voice said, rising slightly in the other room.
For the second time that day, Quinn found herself trying desperately to listen while acting like she wasn’t listening.
“Ash has a human mate,” the woman’s voice said.
“Exactly.”
“He’ll be soft on her. It’s that wretched Taylor girl. Someone ought to lock her up and beat a confession out of her.”
Quinn’s hands both clenched into white-knuckled fists. She had the urge to run out the doors of the police station, but she forced herself to stay.
You’re doing the right thing, she told herself. Besides, practically any animal could outrun you.
She briefly wondered if sloth shifters existed.
There was the sound of a hand hitting a desk, and then the man’s voice again.
“I said, get Ash. He understands humans better than you do.”
Moments later, the woman reappeared. Quinn pretended she hadn’t heard her propose that she be locked up and interrogated.
“Take a seat over there,” the woman said, indicating a bench across the lobby. “Officer Spencer will be out in a moment.”
“Thanks,” Quinn said, and took a seat.
Please don’t let this be a mistake, she thought.
Five minutes later, another guy with dark brown hair, sideburns, and piercing blue eyes strode up and held his hand out to her.
“You’re the woman who has information on the shooting?”
Quin nodded.
“Follow me, then.”
They wound their way through the police station, the officer nodding to everyone they passed and Quinn trying to avoid their eyes. Finally, he opened a door to a bare room with two chairs, a table, and harsh lighting.
A pair of handcuffs was bolted to the table.
Quinn stopped in the doorway, unwilling to go any further. She had the urge to run again, but she still knew she’d get caught in seconds. Besides, what would it look like if she ran?
“Sorry about the interrogation room,” he said, sliding past her and scooting out one of the chairs. “Standard procedure. The recording equipment is set up in here, all that.”
Quinn t
ried to laugh off her nervousness.
“Of course,” she said. “Totally standard.”
He sat in the chair with the handcuffs in front of it, stacking them on top of each other and frowning. “We’re not even supposed to leave these in here,” he said. Then he looked up at Quinn. “You know, sometimes it’s amazingly difficult to get police officers to follow the simplest rules, I swear. Don’t leave handcuffs in the interrogation room. Don’t take your cop car home, even just for lunch. Is that so hard?”
Quinn had to smile. There was something totally charming about this guy, and about the way he seemed genuinely baffled that people couldn’t handle following the rules.
She suspected he was kind of a stickler for them.
“It doesn’t sound that hard,” she said.
He shook his head and sat.
“All right,” he said, getting out a pen and pad as soon as she sat down. “I’m Officer Ash Spencer. You can call me Ash. Can you state your name for the record?”
She cleared her throat.
“Quinn Taylor,” she said. Her voice sounded stronger than she felt.
If he recognized the name, he hid his reaction perfectly.
“Alright, Quinn,” he said, lacing his fingers together in front of himself on the table. “Tell me everything.”
7
Hudson
“I think they’re overreacting,” Hudson was saying. He and Julius were sitting at their dining room table, Chinese takeout containers in front of them, all totally empty. A nearly-empty Pabst Blue Ribbon sat in front of Hudson, a nearly-empty Sierra Nevada in front of Julius. “Teal and turquoise are basically the same color, and if that weirdo hadn’t been looking through our trash for the empty paint cans, he’d have no idea our moulding isn’t up to the neighborhood association’s standards.”
Julius shook his head, idly flicking one fingernail against his near-empty bottle.
“Maybe we should report him for those god-awful dogs he has. I swear I think they’re having seizures every time I drive up.”
“Maybe we could rig something to bark at him every time he drives up,” Hudson said, a smile playing around his lips.