by Vivi Andrews
It was stupid to be jealous of a community, but for all their solitary lifestyle, Zoe had never felt alone until she came here, where she was surrounded by people.
She turned away from the disapproval on her brother’s face, staring out the window into the black night.
She heard movement behind her, then Landon spoke from just over her shoulder. “I thought when you left today that this was it. That maybe you…”
“That I wasn’t coming back?” She’d thought of it. Too many times to count.
“You could have talked to me before stealing a jeep and breaking the rules.”
Zoe shrugged. “Easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.”
They’d modified that saying growing up. Zoe knew he would be remembering the same words she was. Better to take your licks afterwards than get smacked for even thinking of it. At least then you get to enjoy what you’re being punished for.
Life hadn’t been fair then. Landon had reacted by becoming fixated on justice. Mr. Nobility and Equality. Zoe’s response had been more self-serving. You took care of yourself because you couldn’t count on anyone else. Except Landon. She’d always been able to count on him. Before they came here. Three Rocks had changed everything.
“You could be happy here,” Landon said softly. “If you let yourself be. This is a good place. It’s different.”
“It’s exactly the same as all the others. The only difference is you’re in charge. And how long will that last? Until someone younger and stronger walks up and kills you for the right to be Alpha? Or maybe until scientists raid the place and turn us all into lab rats?”
“I won’t let that happen.”
Some things even you can’t stop, big brother.
She lowered her eyes, studying the old claw marks scarring the hardwood floor. “I can’t stay here, Landon. I never planned on settling here, you know that.”
“Right now…”
“I’ll stay for now. Until things are stable again. I won’t leave you when you need me.”
His hand closed on her shoulder, tugging her away from the window and into a hug. “I’ll always need you, Zo.”
She smiled and pulled away. “No, you won’t. The pride follows you now. You’ve got this. We always said you were born to be Alpha. You were going to change the world one pride at a time. And you’ve started something here, even if it’s still rough and there are still bumps. You’re going to be great whether I’m here or not. Changing the world was never really my thing.”
His expression solidified like concrete setting.
Zoe forced a smile. “Come on, Landon. You know I don’t fit here.”
He shook his head sharply and began to pace, stalking across the floor. “You haven’t tried to fit. You never gave this pride a chance. Playing dress-up in cowboy boots isn’t the same thing as trying to fit in. I know you too well to believe you aren’t mocking this place with those clothes.”
She couldn’t deny it so she joked instead. “You have a problem with the way I dress?”
Landon didn’t laugh. “Give it a chance, Zoe. A real chance.”
She huffed out an exasperated breath. “I don’t want to. I’m not you. I’m not looking to settle down somewhere. I didn’t leave our old pride because I wanted to find a better place to plant myself and pop out a few dozen cubs. I left because I felt like if I couldn’t get out into the world and see a bigger piece of it, I would lose my mind. I was going crazy trapped inside that pride just like I’m going crazy trapped in this one.” She gripped the edge of the table, concentrating on the feel of the wood beneath her palms so she didn’t have to think about how she knew she was disappointing him. “I always wanted to be a nomad, even when it was forbidden for females to leave Twelve Oaks. I’m glad we left together, but I would have left even if you hadn’t. I had to get away.”
“If you could just see how a real pride feels—”
“Landon, you aren’t listening. It has nothing to do with the pride. I would hate the Garden of Eden if I thought I had to stay there forever.”
He stopped pacing, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Does this have anything to do with Tyler?”
Zoe’s face heated. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
This wasn’t about some guy. Though if she was honest with herself, Tyler was part of the reason she’d stayed as long as she had. There was something addicting about him, even when he’d been driving her crazy. She’d been enjoying the game, in a way.
“I don’t know what’s going on between you, but he might have something to say about you leaving.”
“Tyler Minor doesn’t get a say in my life,” she bit out, hating the fact that the words felt like a lie.
Chapter Seven
Tyler crouched in front of the bony, shivering teen who looked like he was one harsh word away from pissing himself. “Relax, Cory. You aren’t going to be punished,” Tyler assured him, reining in all his impatience and trying to remember what life was like at fifteen. Of course, his life at fifteen probably didn’t bear a strong resemblance to Cory Berg’s. He’d been taking care of four younger siblings, not sneaking off into town to climb a tree into a human girl’s bedroom. “We just need to know what you saw and heard in town.”
“I just went to Hailey’s and came straight back. I swear.” Cory’s teeth began to chatter, even though it had to be pushing ninety in his parents’ bungalow.
The kid was going to give himself a heart attack.
“Anything you remember can be helpful,” Tyler said, gently gripping the boy’s shoulder in what he hoped was a comfortingly paternal way. It had been a while since he’d grilled a teenager—Michael and Ava were in their twenties and beyond the need for a firm hand. Hopefully he hadn’t lost his touch.
Cory shook his head, a quick, jerky movement. “I didn’t see anybody. Honest.”
“Nothing was different? Any change, no matter how small, could be significant.”
“No. I mean, Hailey seemed more, you know, into me.” His eyes flicked to his parents hovering on the opposite side of the room, and his face flushed a deep red. “But I never told her a thing about the pride. I know better, Tyler. I swear, man.”
“Did she give you any idea why she was suddenly more into you?”
“Dude, I don’t know. I mean, I’m not a total idiot. I know Hailey Winters is out of my league, but when the head cheerleader asks you out, you say yes, you know? I didn’t want to screw things up with her just because we’d been yanked out of school and restricted to the pride land. And she never asked about the pride or coming out to the ranch until last night. I thought maybe she, like, really liked me.”
“And last night?”
“I guess it was weird, looking back now. She said something about how cool she thought it was that I lived on a federally funded secret research facility or something. I thought she was fishing so I, uh, distracted her. You know?” His eyes flicked to his parents again and Tyler would have grinned if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Little Cory got some action.
“You didn’t ask where she’d heard that?”
“No, I thought she was guessing—but yeah, I mean I guess she seemed pretty certain.”
A federally funded research facility. It was a convenient lie—accounting for their heightened security and secrecy. And if that was the story going through the high school, it would explain the recent increase in teenage trespass attempts.
Unfortunately they had no idea how widespread that belief was in town because their only source had been too focused on getting to second base.
“Thanks, Cory. If you think of anything else, let me know.”
“You really aren’t going to kick my ass for sneaking out?”
Tyler glanced over at Cory’s parents. His father gave a slight nod. They had disciplinary action covered. “I’m not on ass-kicking duty tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”
Tyler let himself out of the Berg bungalow and loped down the path to Landon an
d Ava’s place. It would have been faster to call in the information, but cell phones and radio frequencies were too vulnerable to eavesdropping, so their use was restricted on the ranch.
Tyler mounted the Alpha’s steps, checking his watch. Almost midnight, but Landon hadn’t taken the Alpha position because he wanted a lot of quiet, undisturbed nights.
Twenty minutes later, Tyler slipped out of the Alpha’s house, the weight of the day descending on him. His eyes were half closed already as he trudged through the darkened compound on autopilot. It wasn’t until he was dragging his feet up the steps that he lifted his head and realized where instinct had taken him.
He stood on Zoe’s porch, listening to the cicadas and the hum of his own midnight insanity urging him inside.
The lights were off in her house, all the windows dark. He knew he should walk away. Let her sleep, but he needed to see her, just for a minute. Then he’d be able to rest.
Tyler knocked softly, telling himself if she didn’t hear that, he would walk away.
He’d been holding Zoe at arm’s length for months. He tried to keep her from becoming important to him. The lines in his life were carefully drawn—family on one side, everyone else on the other. One mattered, one didn’t. His philosophy was simple—do anything for family, everyone else is on their own.
Zoe fell very clearly into the everyone else category. But on some instinctive level, a level ruled by the lion in him more than the man, he had already begun treating her like she belonged to him. Like she was part of his pride within a pride.
All this time, he’d been dreading adding another yoke of obligation to his neck, but without any conscious decision on his part, Zoe was already there. The man could fight it, but the lion knew. The animal side of him wasn’t as practiced in denial. The inevitable had happened months ago, maybe even the first day they met, but the human piece—the piece that hated change and didn’t trust easily—that part had taken a lot longer to cop to the reality.
Something had shifted today. The last of his denial falling away until he was forced to face the truth. She meant something to him. He just didn’t want to think too hard about what that might be.
Tyler raised his fist to knock again when the door opened.
Zoe stood in the doorway, wearing only a faded T-shirt that fell to her hips. Suddenly the heavy feeling lifted and Tyler was wide awake. His gaze raked her from her bare toes to the golden curls tumbling around her shoulders. Arousal stirred to life.
She blinked blearily up at him, shoving a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Tyler?”
His heart stuttered. Zoe wasn’t only something. Right now, she was everything. “Can I come in?”
She swung the door wider and he slipped past her into the room.
Zoe had gone to bed alone, feeling lost in the expanse of her empty bed. She’d always liked having her own space before, but tonight her cabin felt like a cavern.
She’d expected to feel a sense of freedom when she told Landon about her plans to leave. Now she could slip off whenever she wanted, as soon as the pride was secure. She’d thought it would feel like a cage springing open, but tonight she felt even more penned than ever.
Ever since leaving Landon’s, she hadn’t been able to think for all the restless energy running under her skin. She should have been exhausted. It was after midnight and her day hadn’t exactly been uneventful, but Zoe hadn’t even been able to contemplate sleep.
She’d shifted to her lioness form, hoping that would quiet the white noise cluttering her human thoughts, but her unease had shifted with her into an itch beneath her hackles, an agitation that had her pacing back and forth in her room like a feline in a zoo.
She’d heard Tyler step onto her porch and shifted back to her human figure, grabbing the nightshirt she’d discarded in an instinctive defense against what she was feeling. What he was making her feel.
As soon as she opened the door, she wished she hadn’t. Tall, muscled and weary, he looked far too good standing on her porch, something dark and needy in his eyes. Her soul felt like it was trying to reach out to him through her skin. She told herself it was just her animal side’s need for the reassurance of touch, but the words felt like a lie.
When he squeezed past her into the cabin’s single open room, the scent of him teased her, inviting her to press her face against his neck and breathe, urging her to rub against him until their scents were tangled around one another and everyone who came near him would know who he belonged to.
Zoe shut the door, pausing to stare at the worn wood until she could evict that instinct from her thoughts. Even her feline side wasn’t usually possessive. She didn’t need to mark her lovers and resisted all their attempts to mark her, so why couldn’t she stop imagining branding Tyler Minor with her scent?
“Nice,” he commented behind her, and Zoe turned, realizing as she did that he’d never been inside her place before. He was careful about boundaries, careful never to be alone with her anywhere there was a bed handy.
Zoe’s gaze slid to the large, low mattress, the only piece of furniture in the room. The austere lack of furnishings and decorations weren’t really her style, but she’d never seen the point in making a place feel homey if it wasn’t going to be her home.
Now the lack made her uncomfortable. Watching Tyler survey her bare walls and impersonal furnishings, she wished she’d bothered to do something with the place. At least it was dark. He couldn’t see much. Maybe he’d just think it was charmingly minimal without the light to show it was barren.
Not that it mattered what he thought. She refused to let it matter. He was just a guy. This was just a house. Shelter and nothing more. It filled a need. Just like he did. A physical need. Zoe took care of her own emotional wants.
Those emotional wants had nothing to do with the need to touch Tyler that burned under her skin. Nothing.
She didn’t know why he was here. To finish what they’d started in the garage? To fight about her tendency to speak for herself rather than play the meek little woman? There was a restlessness in him that matched her own, but she didn’t know how to soothe it. She wasn’t the soothing type.
Zoe opened her mouth to ask him why he’d come, what he wanted from her, but didn’t get a syllable out before he answered both questions in a way that left no doubt in her mind.
Tyler crossed the distance between them in two long strides, speared his fingers into her hair, cupped the back of her head and sealed his lips over hers in a searing, toe-curling kiss.
This afternoon had been about heat and chemistry and impersonal lust, but this was something else. The intensity in his touch, the raw, almost desperate way he held her, as if at any second she could be pulled from his grasp. This felt personal.
Zoe clutched his arms, using him as the only fixed point in her existence as the world seemed to melt beneath her feet like a Dali painting.
Her hands found his shirt—once as neat as the man himself and now hopelessly wrinkled by the day. Zoe had always marveled that a man who spent his days rolling around under cars could look so put together, but now she couldn’t think about his pristine façade. She just wanted to peel away the last traces of civility.
She fisted her hands in the fabric and backed toward her bed, dragging him with her until her calves hit the mattress. She knelt on the bed and knee-walked back, pulling him forward with fistfuls of shirt, never breaking the hungry kiss. Tyler leaned over the bed, propping his fists on the mattress as he pressed her back to sit on her heels as he explored every corner of her mouth. As decadent as the kiss was, as complete and deliberate, it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t get to the good stuff fast enough. Zoe had never been the patient type.
Hoping to spur Tyler to speed things up, Zoe dropped his shirt and grabbed the hem of her own, breaking the kiss long enough to whip it over her head and fling it away. Tyler groaned, his hands going instantly to the full curves of her breasts. Zoe put her own hands over his, holding them to her as she lay back on the bed.<
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Tyler eased down on top of her, still fully clothed, his head level with her breasts. He plumped and shaped them, grazing his lips over them too gently to satisfy her craving for fast and hard. Sensation escalated with each teasing touch. She raised her knees, bracketing his waist between them, and threaded her fingers through the golden mane of his hair. Half of her wanted to press him close and demand he get a damn move on, but the other half hesitated, enjoying the slow, intimate pace he was setting. Zoe let her head fall back to the mattress, closing her eyes, and gave herself up to the deliberate, tender seduction of his touch.
He worshipped her body with his mouth and hands, taking nothing for himself and yet taking all of her, more than she’d ever allowed anyone else. Her prized distance was falling away with each caress. Zoe squirmed beneath him, uneasy from the mix of desire and intimacy, writhing with the discomfort of this foreign vulnerability. But she didn’t stop him. She didn’t know if she could.
It was all in her head. She was imagining the tenderness in his kiss—the idea that it meant anything more than a satisfactory release was a fantasy of her own making. And as long as he didn’t notice her preoccupation, she was still safe, the most vulnerable places in her soul still hidden, even as he managed to stroke them.
But some of her unease must have communicated itself to him. Tyler braced himself on his elbows and looked down into her face, his gaze dark with hunger but penetrating. “You okay?”
Panic shot through her bloodstream. She hauled him down for a forceful kiss to avoid answering the question. She wasn’t okay. She was too exposed, but she couldn’t let him see. Tyler let her kiss him, calming her with the dragging strokes of his tongue even as she tried to amp him up until he wouldn’t try to peer into her soul anymore.
Then he pulled back and frowned down at her. “Zoe,” he said softly, her name a gentle scold, as if she should know better than to evade him.
Why couldn’t he just be a guy and play through without paying attention to whether she was with him?
“I’m good.” The words sounded forced, too rushed, and Zoe winced internally at the crack they exposed. Distract him. She stroked her hands down the corded strength of his neck and pushed open the collar of his shirt. “Why are you wearing so many clothes?” she purred, half-veiling her eyes behind her lashes.