“I don’t have any friends here and I can’t make any because everyone my age is being hidden away like we’re lepers or something. On top of that, I’m not allowed to meet any humans. How retarded is that? Back home, all my friends are human!”
“I don’t understand why you couldn’t, like, have your initiation down there.”
He shrugged as only a disaffected young man could. “Dad said I had to do it here. It’s a family tradition or some shit. I guess because Skookum is our ‘ancestral clan’, whatever that is. Totally bogus, if you ask me.”
“Yeah. Totally.” Sandy plopped down on the bed and watched him pace. “Your brother was bored, too, when he came up a couple years ago. Sorry it’s, like, a barf-o-rama here. I can’t wait to get out.”
Chet nodded sagely. Two weeks had been excruciating, he couldn’t imagine a lifetime.
“How is he anyway? Brad, I mean.”
Chet shrugged again. Perfect Brad was always the family favorite, the golden boy. Chet never held it against him, though. They’d been really close growing up, but after Brad went through his rite of passage, he’d been too busy acting like a grown-up to chill with his little bro. They’d drifted apart over the last couple of years, that much was true, but Brad would always be his big brother.
“He and Janey just had a kid, a little boy. Geez, I thought you would have heard about it. They named him Max, you know.”
“No way! Gag me.” Sandy screwed her face up and stuck out her tongue. Like every teenage girl through the history of time — werebear or otherwise — she was thoroughly embarrassed by anything having to do with her parents.
“So you wanna break out of this prison?” she finally asked. The devious glint in her eye gave Chet hope he might see more than the inside of this big house out in the middle of the forest.
“Uh, duh!”
Sandy nodded and sat up on the bed. “Okay, listen up. Mom and Dad have a thing at the meeting hall tonight. I heard her telling him they needed to get there early to help set up. Even though I’m, like, totally too old for a babysitter, they always hire this lame-o from the clan to watch me. But with you here…my guess is that they’ll ask you to keep an eye on me. That’s what they did when Brad stayed here.”
“Clutch. So after they leave, I sneak out—”
“Correction,” she interrupted, holding up a finger. “We sneak out.”
No way was he going to sneak out with his kid cousin tagging along. If anything happened, her parents would shit bricks. “Nuh uh, forget it. I’ll just read a book or something.”
“Fine,” she sniffed, scooting off the bed and heading for the door. But before it closed, she popped her frizzy head back into the room. “But loads of bimbettes will be there.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Where?”
“Paulie’s Pizza. That’s where you wanted to go, right?”
He studied his wily little cousin for a minute. He had to give it to her, there was more to her than he originally thought. “And I suppose you’ll rat me out if I sneak out on my own, won’t you?”
She grinned. “No duh.”
He gnawed on his lower lip, trying to choose the lesser of two evils: Getting in trouble for going into town with Sandy or spending one more agonizing night cooped up in this gloomy house with nothing to do.
“Fine,” he sighed, pretending he was doing her a big favor when he was more excited than he’d been in weeks. Even his bear was agitated. “As soon as they’re gone, we’ll bounce.”
CHAPTER THREE
Chet shouldn’t have worried about Sandy being a third wheel. As soon as they walked into Paulie’s Pizza, she was mobbed by about a thousand other teenage girls, oohing over her earrings and shoes. They glanced over at him a few times and giggled so hard he thought they might hurt themselves, then ran off to a far corner of the restaurant. Clearly she had no problem disobeying her parents’ mandate to not be friends with humans.
The place was packed. Decorated with movie posters, most of them pretty new, and brightly colored lights, it had a youthful vibe. The carpet had once been a deep red but had been worn to a reddish-brown over the years, and he wasn’t sure if the walls had ever been re-painted. The air was filled with the smell of pepperoni and garlic, a thin layer of cigarette smoke piercing it every now and again from those sitting in the ‘smoking section’, a half-wall partition that did nothing to keep the smoke contained. Several video games lined the wall, beeping and booping and twinkling loudly, and the latest pop hits played on a jukebox. It was utter chaos. In other words, a perfect teenage hang-out.
Only a handful of adults dared to eat in, and probably only because they’d driven their kids to the place. Of course, said kids wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near their parents. Dozens of tables were jammed with kids of all ages, from pre-teen to his age. It wasn’t an L.A. party but the energy was infectious. He felt alive for the first time since stepping off that grungy old ferry.
A table of five girls near the front couldn’t take their eyes off him as he sauntered across the room in a sky blue, oversized, unconstructed blazer. He knew it draped beautifully on him because his mother had paid their tailor a pretty penny for the effect. His cream linen pants swished around his caramel-colored calf-skin loafers — again, no socks — and a single lock of hair strategically fell across his forehead. He looked choice and he knew it.
Some guys were watching him, too, but warily, for the most part. He knew from experience, though, that if he looked hard enough, he’d find at least one dude checking him out — even in a podunk, Footloose-esque town like Port Numas. He always took it as a compliment, even though he was all about the ladies.
Chet sidled up to the counter to order a personal pizza and a Coke when someone at the table of girls called out to him. “You can eat with us, if you want!”
Just what he’d been hoping for. Not that he couldn’t afford his own pizza — he could buy the place, if he wanted — but an invite like that was basically a request for a night of boinking. And they all looked ripe for the picking. It’d been far too long and his bear was starting to get antsy. His bear. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
“Thanks, ladies. I’m Chet Pearce. New in town.” The girls scooted around to make room for him at their table. As he slouched expertly in his chair, he made a point of looking each girl in the eye when she introduced herself. It was almost comical the way each one practically melted into his dazzling gaze as they went around the table.
“Becky.” Sigh.
“Tiffany.” Sigh, gasp!
“Um, um…Michelle!” Moan.
“H-H-Heather.” Gulp, long sigh.
The last girl in the group simply smirked at him, one eyebrow raised a la Spock. He smiled back, gazing hard into her pale blue eyes, willing her to introduce herself and swoon as the others had. But she seemed impervious to his natural charm. He rarely had this much trouble bewitching females. It was a challenge he was more than up to.
His bear strained inside him, agitated and excited, and Chet was right there with him. Obviously, she was pretty, with her chin-length blonde hair poofed out in soft waves. It wasn’t as big as the other girls’ hair, and not nearly as coated with AquaNet, but it still looked good. She had a light hand with her make-up, but somehow it worked for her. Not everyone could pull off that natural look.
And then there was her bod. Her body was bangin’. She was kind of short, compared to the girls he usually dated, but she had curves in all the right places. Her slouchy off-the-shoulder sweatshirt couldn’t hide her bodacious rack and her acid-washed mini-skirt, accented with two belts worn low on her luscious hips, showed off a round rump he wanted to sink his teeth into.
His bear agreed.
He swallowed hard and gave her his most seductive smile. It never failed him. “And you, pretty lady? What’s your name?”
Her smirk widened into a delighted smile. “Crystal?” Why was she asking him? Being from L.A., he should have been used to Valley Girl talk by now, but it ne
ver failed to annoy him when they made answers sound like questions. Whatever, she was his target for the night, so he ignored it.
But she still wasn’t swooning. He was going to have to double-down on the charm. Plucking her hand from the table, he lifted it to her lips, brushing them lightly across her knuckles and holding her gaze the entire time. “Enchanté, Mademoiselle Crystal,” he murmured huskily. Every girl at the table nearly fainted.
Almost every girl.
The one that mattered the most was laughing. Not giggling in that dopey way girls do, but outright guffawing. At one point she laughed so hard she snorted. The other girls tried shushing her but she just waved a hand at them as she doubled over in hysterics.
Humiliated, Chet dropped her hand and scowled at her. “Hey, what’s your damage?” he hissed, hoping no one else in the joint was paying attention. He wasn’t accustomed to being shot down, much less laughed at, and he didn’t like it one tiny bit. His bear, on the other hand, was straining harder than ever. Down boy! She’s not into us.
It took her a good minute to catch her breath and calm down. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
What was she going on about? Remember her from where? He’d been in this Godforsaken place for two weeks and hadn’t been allowed to meet a single human. Where did she imagine they’d met?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about but you’re starting to piss me off. I’m gonna bolt.” His chair screeched as he stood and scanned the crowd for a friendlier face. He didn’t have to put up with this shit. There were plenty of cute girls here that would kill to do the nasty with him.
“Aw, don’t leave, Tubbs,” she said, tugging at his sleeve and sniffing back tears of glee. “I was only yankin’ your chain.”
Recognition crashed down on him and left him gaping at the girl. It couldn’t be her, could it? She was all punked out on the ferry and this girl looked suspiciously like a Valley Girl-wannabe. Regardless, his bear certainly knew who she was; it didn’t matter that her hair wasn’t blue anymore. So that’s why it had been practically frothing at the mouth the moment he laid eyes on her.
“Sit down, Tubbs.” She slipped her foot between his legs, tucked the tip of her pink flat under the bottom rung of his chair and pulled it forward until it butted into his calves. It was a strangely sensual act that aroused him to an almost-embarrassing point. To hide the evidence, he dropped into his chair and casually arranged his jacket over his lap. The fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off her teasing smile didn’t help matters any.
“Tubbs?” asked one of the other girls — Tiffany, if he remembered correctly — reaching out to touch his arm. “He looks more like Crockett to me.”
Crystal flashed a dark look at the girl, baring her teeth slightly. “Hands off, skank.”
All the girls at the table gasped. “Listen, freak,” said the one on the other side of Chet. Becky, was it? “We only invited you to come with us because we felt sorry for you. The least you could do is not be a total bitch.”
Crystal glared at Becky. “Bullshit.”
“No, it’s true,” added Michelle. “You were such a spazzed-out ho-bag loser when you got here that we decided to do a good deed and take you on as a project. Honestly, I think we deserve a merit badge or something. I mean, look at you. You look, like…normal.”
Chet was amused at the death glare Crystal fired at Michelle…all the girls, really. A vein in her forehead started pulsing in an alarming fashion, threatening to burst. She carefully placed her palms flat on the table and leaned forward, as if she was about to lunge across it and devour every one of them. “Bite me, bitch!”
It wasn’t unusual for girls to fight over Chet. Normally, he’d sit back and enjoy the show but the moment Tiffany buried her fingers in Crystal’s hair and started pulling, he reacted on instinct.
Wrapping his big fingers tightly around her wrist, he growled, “Let go…now!”
Tiffany squealed in mock-pain and released Crystal, falling back into her seat clutching her arm to her chest. “You hurt me! Look what you did!”
She thrust her arm out so everyone could inspect the damage but it was barely even pink. Still, the other girls gasped in dismay, fawning over Tiffany like her arm had been pulled out of the socket. Quite honestly, she was lucky as hell that didn’t happen because Chet’s bear was pissed off that she attacked Crystal, and it was hard to control when it was feeling protective.
“What’s going on over here?” asked a portly older man wearing a sauce-stained apron. Paulie, no doubt.
The four girls started talking at once, claiming all sorts of ridiculous things, their voices rising to such a pitch that only dogs could hear them. Paulie looked at Chet for help translating. “What are they saying?”
Chet adopted his most nonchalant, cool dude manner and shrugged. “My girlfriend here got lippy with them and they attacked her. I separated them and now they’re crying wolf. Girls!” He rolled his eyes for emphasis.
No doubt having seen hundreds of such fights over the years, Paulie nodded soberly. “Well, we don’t go for none o’ that shit here. You can’t behave like nice girls, take it outside or I’ll call the cops.”
“No, man. My girl and I were just leaving. We’ll let the ladies stay and enjoy their pizza. In fact, why don’t you bring them a round of dipping sticks, courtesy of Ulysses S. Grant?” He thrust a fifty at Paulie, who looked shocked for a moment, then grinned from ear to ear.
“You bet, Mr. Grant!” Without another word or a second glance back, he scurried off to the kitchen, leaving the kids to work out their troubles on their own.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us, ladies,” Chet said, pulling a still-fuming Crystal up by the elbow, “I think I’ll have my date show me around town.”
“Eat shit and die, poser,” one of them muttered as he ushered Crystal outside.
Strangely, it didn’t bother him. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t care less about what anyone else thought of him. Being alone with Crystal was all he cared about at the moment, the only thing that mattered. He wasn’t sure when, but at some point during the last ten minutes, he’d become completely infatuated with this little spitfire, and nothing was going to stop him from having her.
As soon as they stepped outside, she pulled free from his grip and rounded on him. “You should have let me kick their asses!”
“Um, there were four of them, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“So? I know how to take care of myself, ya know!”
“Hey, I believe you. I also believe that Paulie, or whoever that dude was, would have called the cops and you’d have spent the night in jail…instead of spending it with me.”
~ * ~ * ~
Crystal couldn’t believe her ears. This yuppie scum was actually propositioning her, right in front of the pizza joint! Sure, he was cute. And, yeah, she’d totally been flirting with him, but damn! He was ballsy. Besides, she was really hacked off at those bitches inside.
“Listen, Tubbs—“
“Chet. My name’s Chet.”
She waved away his correction. “Whatever. Listen—“
“And she was right, you know. Tiffany? I was really going for Crockett’s look.”
Was he grinning at her? He should be mortified to admit that!
“Would you just listen to me for a minute?”
He twisted at his lips and threw away the key. Then crossed his heart. And then held up the Boy Scout pledge sign. And grinned. Damn that grin! It did funny things to her insides. Things no self-respecting punk would ever allow.
As much as she wanted to stay irritated, her lips twitched in response. No! You’re mad, remember? But he was so cute, standing there like the Boy Scout she knew damn well he wasn’t.
When he cupped his hands to his ears and waggled them like an elephant, she lost control. The next thing she knew, she was pulling him by the lapels down to her level. The heat of his gaze warmed her skin, sending tingles to places she hadn’t paid attention to for fa
r too long.
“You have no idea how sexy it is when a guy impersonates a pachyderm,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving his.
“You like animals, huh? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” His voice was husky with desire. Then he claimed her lips.
Their movements were clumsy at first, almost frantic in their need. All hands and mouths, trying to consume the other right now rather than a slow, sumptuous banquet. But sometimes you were simply starving and had to have it all as fast as possible.
And she wanted it all.
Her fingers fisted in the baggy fabric of his jacket, tugging at it, pulling him closer, though they were about as close as they could get with their clothes on. His big hands roamed her form, skimming her hips around to the back to claim her ass and pull her tight against his hard bulge.
Taking her face in his hands, he pulled just far enough away from her so his breath tickled her lips, stilling her frantic movements. Slowly, interminably, he slicked the very tip of his tongue across her upper lip, ending with the lightest of kisses at the corner. He repeated the process on her lower lip, drawing a sigh of delight from her.
Her fingers unclenched and rested lightly on his shoulders as his lips grazed across one cheek before nuzzling into her hair. The hot breath puffing into her ear made all the sensitive parts of her tighten up and scream for more.
Always more.
She couldn’t help moaning just a little. Her ear and neck had always been very receptive to a guy’s touch, and this wasn’t just any guy. He knew exactly how to send electric shots throughout her body, and she wanted him to never stop.
Twining her arms around his neck, she buried her fingers in his hair and held him where he was, much like what he’d done moments before. That put him at the perfect angle for her to explore his ear with her tongue, lightly flicking at his lobe and letting her breath trickle across his ear. The boy needed to learn that she could give as good as she got.
Bearly Hanging On (A Werebear Shifter BBW Romance) (Laid Bear Book 3) Page 2