by T. S. Joyce
And she could breathe again.
You don’t have to be sorry for anything.
Anna
Whoa.
Orion scratched the corner of his lip while scanning the clearing and woods around his cabin. He wished like hell she was here right now. He would’ve kissed her. Awkward Anna, she could touch his empty heart with a letter. He remembered that day. He’d been pissed at Sora’s treatment, was realizing how trapped he was as he watched her be misused. After Anna had given him the drink, he’d asked to be the guard of all the girls. He’d made it sound harsh so Cassius would approve, but he’d had an ulterior motive. He wanted to help Anna in any way he could. He’d had no idea she’d given him such a gift in that drink. She’d stashed away a little treat for herself to have a joyous moment in a place that didn’t have many of those. But she’d given it to him. For a smile.
It was 6:30 in the morning, and she was probably asleep, but he’d gotten his second wind with that letter, and his body wouldn’t rest until he did this. Orion grabbed one of the drinks, pocketed the letter, and jogged down his porch stairs toward Anna’s cabin. Her lights were off, and he couldn’t hear her moving around. Definitely asleep. Carefully, he set the drink on the porch. She would understand. He hoped it made her smile first thing in the morning.
A drink for a smile.
Chapter Six
Today was going to be a great day.
Annamora knew this without a shadow of a doubt because, as she stepped onto her front porch, there was an orange soda sitting on the top stair. Her face stretched with the biggest smile, and inside her, it felt like bats were flapping around in her chest. Her stomach was at the fun part of the roller coaster.
She knelt, picked it up, and held it to her chest. She searched the clearing in front of her little cabin. The walking trail was empty, and her animal didn’t sense anything in the woods. Orion was probably sleeping now. His schedule was messed up when he worked one of his three night shifts a week. Hardworking man. She’d always admired that about him.
He’d really given her an orange drink back.
She made her way inside and did something silly. She didn’t care, though. It felt right to move the bag of rice out of the way and tuck the drink back in the farthest corner of her little pantry.
She was going to be late to her job at Rose’s Greenhouse if she didn’t hurry. She’d spent too much time fixing her hair and putting on eyeliner, but it was worth it! She felt like a million bucks today. Not even the dark clouds in the sky or the sprinkle of rain on her skin could dampen her mood.
She checked her newly buried tulip bulbs, but those wouldn’t come up for a while yet. She was going to enjoy watching her little flower babies grow. Orion’s box of flowers and apologies was the best present she’d ever gotten.
As she made her way down the trail toward the front of the New Tarian property, she had a little bounce in her step. Which was fun until her perfectly curled ponytail got a little too much momentum and whacked her in the face. It had started to sprinkle harder now, and the raindrops were getting bigger. Mayday! She hadn’t brought a jacket, and she’d worn about a pound of eye makeup that would definitely smear with water.
She followed a crook in the trail and froze when she saw him—Orion. He was standing twenty yards off, tall and wide as the trunk of an old Oak tree, jeans slung low on his hips, light blue hoodie hugging the curves of his broad shoulders. The color of the sweatshirt made his eyes look even brighter. His platinum-blond hair was mussed as though he’d just woken up. The storm clouds opened up in the seconds she got captivated by his hotness, and now she was about to look like a wet rat. Great.
Orion held up an umbrella. “Figured you would need one today.” Even his hoarse, sleepy voice was sexy.
“Umbrellas are good,” she called. Why weren’t her legs moving?
Orion strode forward and, thank goodness, because apparently her damn work boots had grown roots.
“Just be cool. Move,” she growled.
You know those movies where the hero and heroine run toward each other in slow motion, arms out, joy on their faces, and they fall into each other’s embraces and kiss and live happily ever after? Why couldn’t she accomplish that shit? Instead, her one leg did finally move because she forced it but then nearly high-kneed Orion in the ball sack. She lurched forward, plastered her open palms and face against his Grecian-statue chest, and then apologized to his nipples for accosting them. Her guardian angel was fired.
“God, you are so weird around me,” Orion muttered with a chuckle.
“Well, it’s not like I’m trying to be.”
Orion steadied her on her feet with his firm grip on her upper arms, then stepped back and peeled his hoodie off. His T-shirt came up with it, exposing a perfect eight-pack and the sexiest belly button she’d ever seen. Some people ogled asses and hip muscles, but not Annamora. Bellybuttons were her thing. She liked abs and innies. God, what was wrong with her?
He was stripping down. Sex was going to occur. This was awesome, and she was grinning at his belly button like she’d won some kind of lottery.
“Right. Focus. This is happening,” she murmured as she yanked her tank top over her head.
“What?” Orion asked, his eyes round. “What are you doing?”
“Uuuuuh…” Oh, no. He was pulling his T-shirt back into place.
“Woman, I was going to give you my hoodie. You look like you’re freezing. You got goosebumps everywhere and now you’re…you’re… You don’t have a shirt on!”
Annamora pursed her lips. No one’s mortification had ever been more infinite than hers was right now. She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders “chest up, tits out,” as her Aunt Janine used to say. She took the hoodie from his hand and then the umbrella as well. “I hope you have a dwell say. A swell day.” Her single laugh echoed through the trees before she said to herself, “Now, Anna, walk away with pride and grace.” She squeaked. “I don’t know why I said that out loud.” Annamora glided off as gracefully as one could with rain pelting her cleavage and tree roots reaching up to trip her. She was going to have to move states now. Just pack up her things and banish herself to some hole under a rock.
“Your tits are perfect.” Orion’s murmured words rattled around in her head, and she stopped.
Her cheeks were on fire, and she was so embarrassed she couldn’t make herself turn around if she tried, but she heard him approach. His fingertip brushed up her spine like a feather, and she exhaled a shaking breath, rolling her eyes closed. Up, up, his touch went, drawing more gooseflesh until his finger circled her shoulder, traced her collar bone. He pulled her back against his chest and lowered his lips to her ear. “The animal in me wants to see you wearing that hoodie because you’ll be covered in my scent. The man in me wants to push you up against that tree and claim you in a different way. Don’t pull those perfect tits out again unless you’re ready to take me.” His teeth brushed her sensitive earlobe, and his voice lowered to a growl. “Put the hoodie on, Anna.”
“Oh-fucking-kay. I would literally commit murder if you asked me to right now. Biting my ear like you own me. Hoodie on, okay. Yeeep.” She tried to put on the giant hoodie, truly she did, but her hands were shaking and her body wasn’t obeying.
Orion took control and pulled it over her head smoothly, spun her toward him, gripped the edges of her hood and dragged her forward, pressed his mouth against hers, shocked the shit out of her so she just stood there like a plant with her lips puckered. His lips were so soft, and he tasted delicious. A growl was rattling his chest as he released her. He yanked the umbrella out of her hands without breaking their locked gazes, popped it open, placed it over her head, grabbed her hand, and wrapped her fingers around the handle.
He gave her one of those hot-boy smirks, eyes flashing white, and then turned and made his way into the rainy woods.
She loudly sniffed the collar of the hoodie like a lunatic. It smelled like him. Fur and dominance and cologne.
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Well fuck a duck.
Annamora didn’t remember the drive out of Tarian Territory, through the check-in gate, down the mountain to Rose’s Greenhouse located at the back of the eldest Tarian Lioness’s property. One minute, Annamora was standing there in the rain, watching the sexiest man in existence walking away from their kiss, and the next, she was getting out of her old work truck and stepping into the squishy mud of Rose’s property.
She was one minute late, but the girls didn’t seem to notice. There was an SUV backed up to the front door, and Sora, Rose, and Katy were all bustling about, loading cut flowers into the back. Whoa, they’d been cutting from the fields of flowers and rose bushes they’d started growing a few months back.
“What’s going on?” she asked Orion’s sister, Sora, as the blond beauty bustled by with two armloads of pink roses secured to a vase.
“Girl, the mayor is getting married, and his florist fell through. They have no flowers for the reception, and his bride-to-be is stressed so we are going to help them out. We’re selling them every bit of extra inventory we haven’t sold to the florists! We have six hours to get these all there and arrange them.” She set the box of roses into the back of the SUV and pushed them up against each other firmly. “Emerald is in town with the bride’s sister, trying to find vases and ribbons and everything else. We need to hurry up and arrange these. It’s gonna be a long d—” Sora frowned at Annamora’s clothes. “Is that Orion’s hoodie?”
“Uuuuuuuh…yes?”
Sora’s eyes flew open wide. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing, nothing. He just…noticed I was cold and gave me his hoodie. And an umbrella.” And he kissed the ever-lovin’ shit out of me, but don’t say that out loud to Orion’s sister— “And he kissed me!” Gasp! “Shit!” Annamora clapped her hand over her mouth. “Stop talking,” she murmured behind her palm.
Sora yanked her by the arm to the side and out of Rose’s way. In a screamy-whisper, she asked, “My brother kissed you? And gave you his hoodie?” She sniffed said garment. “And he gave this an extra spray of his cologne so he wants you smelling like him. Annamora…are you with my brother?”
“God, stop calling him your brother. Just call him Orion!” she said in a muffled voice from behind her hand. “And, no, we aren’t together! I wish. He’s like a majestic, studly unicorn, and I’m like the three-legged hamster who’s escaped its cage and gotten lost in the wilderness and just keeps screaming for someone to save it—”
“Annamora.”
But she couldn’t stop talking now. Everything was tumbling out of her. “He’s…well he’s…way too good for me and about seventy-five levels out of my league, and his eyes are really striking. I get lost in staring at him, and he has an innie belly button and—”
“Oh, my God, stop talking before I puke.”
“And my stomach is full of butterflies all the time. I can’t tell if I’m hungry or nervous. My armpits sweat around him, and I say the dumbest shit. Today I took my shirt off for no reason at all, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to leave this Pride and join another one with awkward hamster shifters because those are apparently my people—”
“Annamora!”
“He gave me back an orange soda, and I can’t quit drawing him. Like a psychopath. I’m a psychopath. I’m not okay. Do you have a candy bar? My stomach is doing the fluttery thing again, and I think I’m hungry. I can’t remember if I ate breakfast.”
Sora grabbed her by the shoulders and rattled her hard. “Enough. Everything will be fine. Well, except for you and the rest of your life because my brother isn’t the settling down type and he will definitely fuck this up.” She inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry, Annamora, but my brother is off-limits.”
“W-what?” Annamora asked, shocked.
“Let’s just get through this work day and talk about this later.”
Rose had just walked by to load up more flowers into the SUV, but she stopped and turned to Annamora. “Talk about what?”
“I like Orion,” Annamora blurted out. “But Sora says I can’t.” Why did she feel like crying? Oh, shit, she was crying. “Am I on my period?” she asked, panicked. “Am I on my period? Are we synched up? Katy, when is your period?” Why was she hyperventilating?
Katy was frowning at Sora from inside the greenhouse behind a potted shrub she held cradled against her. “Annamora, did I hear you say you like Orion?”
“Yeah, and now I feel like I’m going to Hell, or wherever they send people for liking your friend’s brother,” Annamora said, throwing her hands up. “I forgot to put my shirt back on. I just realized that. I’m only wearing a divine-smelling hoodie.” She looked down at herself. “That goes to my knees like a dress. Orion is a very big man. Make me stop talking, please.”
“Annamora!” Rose roared, her voice cracking and echoing through the woods like thunder.
“Yes ma’am?” Annamora whispered, barely resisting a sob.
“Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to work out. You clearly have a lot of pent-up anxiety about this, but I promise everything will be okay.”
“Disagree,” Katy said from behind her bush. Her head was canted, and she was watching Sora through narrowed eyes. “Orion has said on several occasions that he wouldn’t be any good as a mate, and I kinda agree. The man just killed his father. He’s a murderer, and he’s been acting like it’s nothing. I’ve tried to have Katy’s Therapy Sessions with him half a dozen times, but he just says, ‘I’m fine.’ That’s code for ‘I’m definitely not fine.’ Annamora, do you really want a mate like that? Who will be shut down and never be able to express his feelings?”
“Well,” Sora muttered, “in his defense, our dad was a murderous asshole, and Orion is very tough. Never liked talking about his problems. Doesn’t mean he’s not the type to have a mate. Someday. He has good qualities, too, just perhaps not the ones that would be a fit for Annamora.”
Katy came to stand with them by the SUV, and now they were all getting rained on. “Like what good qualities?” she asked.
“He’s protective,” Sora said, lifting her chin higher. A raindrop splatted on her forehead, but she didn’t seem to notice. How did she still look like a queen in booty shorts and purple rainboots?
“And he’s loyal,” Annamora murmured.
“Fantastic bloodlines,” Katy said helpfully. “Your cubs would be the cutest in the world ever. You’d have royal monster lineage in your babies.”
Sora swallowed hard. “I don’t like talking about him like this. I just always thought he would find someone…”
“Someone what?” Katy asked.
Sora parted her lips and pursed them again, like she couldn’t come up with soft enough words to destroy Annamora. Sora tried again. “He will make a very good mate someday. I just thought he would choose someone like him. Someone who doesn’t require a lot of attention.”
An uncomfortable pause followed, and Annamora couldn’t look the girls in the face anymore. She was needy? That’s how she was seen? It stung.
Katy set the potted bush down in the back of the SUV and turned to Sora. “If he’s all these nice and decent qualities, doesn’t he deserve to pick a girl he thinks is his match? He could do way worse than that little badass over there,” Katy murmured over the sound of the rain. “Orion went and found Ford when he had no control, just on the off-chance that he could make you happy. He was being a good brother. You should want him to be happy too.”
Sora rolled her eyes closed, and her shoulders sagged as she murmured, “I’m not saying this right. I sound like a jerk.”
Annamora slid her hand into Sora’s and squeezed. She understood. “You’re not a jerk,” she said softly. “Just protective. I imagine it was you and Orion against the world in that Deadlies Pride. He’s a prince, a dominant, and he’s…well, he’s Orion Burge. It’s okay if you don’t think I match him. I agree with you.” Her stupid smile trembled. “Let’s stop talking about this and get the mayor’
s wedding to be the event of the rainy season. Everything’s okay.” She turned and made her way to her truck.