by Holley Trent
She took the lube from him and reached beneath her thigh to slick it down his shaft. He was nuzzling her neck all the while, scoring his beard over the ticklish flesh at the bend of her shoulder, mock biting with his lips.
“The smell of you in my clothes is… Fuck.” Whatever thought was he was trying to articulate, he couldn’t finish. She’d dug her knees into his sides and was pulling her into him. After all, that was why they were there.
A sigh fell out of her as she slid him home. “The smell is what?” she murmured. Her arms tightened around his neck, and her head fell back. When he started to work himself in and out of her, her body wouldn’t let her breathe. She may have bitten off more than she could chew.
“Don’t…know how to describe it.” He hitched her up higher to improve his angle and spread his legs farther.
She did everything she could just to hold on. Arousal made her bold, but gravity made her cautious.
But she remembered then that Lance wasn’t a run-of-the-mill human man. His muscles didn’t come from spending countless hours doing reps in the gym. He wasn’t going to get tired of holding her up for a couple of minutes. He didn’t seem to be struggling at all. In fact, she was the only one breaking a sweat.
“Nice being able to remember it,” he whispered into her hair.
Deeper. Deeper.
“I love knowing you remember it and want more of it,” she whispered back.
She hooked her feet together around his back and helped him find a rhythm again. He wanted to tease. She wanted to get off and she was the kind of woman who’d rather take matters into her own hands than comply with a whimper.
“Asking for no reason…” she said through clenched teeth. He was giving her exactly what she wanted—long, deep strokes. She was so full that her eyes watered and hips burned, but it was the kind of pain she knew would soon be chased away by pleasure. “Do you plan on calling me a black widow again after this? Because if you are—”
“You’ll what?”
She had no idea, really. It was hard to think when he was attaching himself to her on so many fronts. His tongue in her mouth, quelling hers into submission and stealing her words. His fingers notching possessively into her flesh. His cock so deep.
“I’d like to hear that threat, shortcake.”
“L-later.”
“Okay.” He paused for a moment, long enough to playfully nip at her earlobe. “I’ll remind you if you forget.”
She doubted that either of them would ever forget anything ever again.
As her core started to spasm and muscles clench involuntarily, she wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and let him have his way for as long as he needed it. She’d already gotten what she wanted and her body sang out at the explosion of pleasure. The rest was all for him.
“Take it,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Yeah?”
She could hardly nod. She was boneless, muscles weakened from the exertion of holding on.
He surged into her with more force, murmuring something she couldn’t make out, petting her hair as he thrust. Never forgetting that she was a whole woman. Not forgetting that she had lips that still needed kissing and hands to keep tamed behind his neck.
“Is this for real?” she thought she heard. She couldn’t be sure of what he said over the sounds of her breathing.
“Are you really mine?”
That, she heard. That, she could answer.
“Yes. Yours.”
“Tell me again so I know for sure. That’s what you want?”
She held back her answer until he’d found his completion and gently set her on the edge of the bed, wiping sweat from his brow.
His gaze was earnest and forthright. “Well?”
She swallowed. Wrung her hands. Stewed in the awkwardness of having to make the sort of declaration she never had before.
She’d been saving it for Lance.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.” She’d never been more certain of anything—not even dance. Lance may have been the one thing she couldn’t be talked out of.
“You say that now, but maybe you’ll change your mind when you get fed up.”
“Fed up with what? The Coyote shit?” She let out a little snort and notched her sweaty hair behind her ears. “I’ve been wading on the shore of that my whole life.”
“No. With me. I’m overbearing, Lily, and that might get worse. I’m a dog. I protect my things, and you’re my thing.” He grimaced. “My person.”
“Your mate.”
His stare was a thousand yards away and he seemed to not have heard. That awkwardness came rushing back and Lily was about to open her mouth to soften the accusation somehow, but he nodded, barely moving his head. “Yeah. You are.”
“There are worse things than to be married to your mate, aren’t there?”
“I dunno. I can’t help but to feel like you’re going to break—that I’m going to break you.”
“I’m not that fragile.”
“The bruises on your ass from my fingers digging in signal otherwise.”
“I’ve had worse. What good is all that padding if I can’t put it to good use when the mood strikes?”
The flatness in his expression made her bark with laughter. He was evolving. He hadn’t asked for the names of the men he could maim at his earliest convenience.
“I can take whatever you dish out,” she whispered, looping her arms around his neck. “And I want to. Are you bossy and overprotective? Yes, and I hated that when I was a kid. I wanted to be free to do my own thing, but this is different. What I want matters, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said indignantly. “Of course it does.”
“Well, what I want is for you to learn me. Understand me. Protect me. Be with me, Lance. Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but I want you.”
“Gods, Lily, I want you, too. You have no idea how much. But I feel like I should be saving you from yourself.”
“I’ll decide for myself when I need to be saved. I’m a big girl and I’ve almost always made good decisions, even when the men around me haven’t agreed.”
He grimaced at that. She was glad if it meant he’d taken the barb personally. She wanted it to sink in. Wanted him to understand how he was wrong.
She kissed his nose. “Let me worry about what I can handle, okay? If I can walk out of the hospital after the day after getting two bags of blood and contemplate going back to work, I can certainly handle the occasional passion wound.” She smirked.
Apparently, he didn’t find what she’d said so funny. Enlarging pupils nearly took over the blue in his eyes. Red flooded his neck and cheeks. His Adam’s apple convulsed. “When…” He cleared his throat. Swallowed again. Straightened up and rubbed his palm roughly over his beard. “When’d you get two bags of blood?”
“The day before I called you about the miscarriage.”
“You didn’t tell me about that.”
“I didn’t see where the details would make any difference. My body was confused. It overcompensated when it was supposed to go back to normal. I was well taken care of.”
“At your height and weight, two pints of blood means you could have died.”
“Perhaps that would have been true if I hadn’t sought immediate treatment. I’m over it. You should be, too.”
He scoffed and stormed to the foot of the bed. He found his sweatpants and stepped forcefully into them. “Are you fucking kidding me? I just now wrapped my head around the idea that maybe we could have kids together, and now this? You didn’t tell me that something I did to you could have killed you, and now I’m supposed to be la-di-dah about it? That’s why you’ve been so cold, isn’t it? You’re anemic as hell.”
Lily threw up her hands. “Lance, it could have been anyone. It wasn’t your fault. Nature just wasn’t on our side that time. Next time will probably be fine. I’m willing to take the risk.”
“Next time? There’s not going to
be a next time. Are you kidding me? You think I’m going to put myself through that? I’m not. I watched my mother break a little more with each failure, and I’m not interested in watching history repeat. If that’s what you want…” He raised his shoulders up in a violent shrug and grabbed a shirt. “Take that to mean what you will.”
Lily took a deep breath and let it out before even thinking of how she’d respond. He was lashing out from a personal place, but she didn’t have to do the same. She’d had her chance to work through the trauma. Perhaps he just needed time.
“Lance, I—”
“What is that?” His head turned toward the front of the house and he made a slashing, silencing gesture that made her snarl.
“I don’t hear anything, and I’m not entirely sure you do, either. Honestly, I think that’s a pretty weak excuse to bounce from a serious conver—”
“There it is again. I know what I heard.”
She gritted her teeth and glowered censoriously, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t see. He’d already retreated into the hallway, his footsteps echoing from farther and farther away.
She didn’t see the point of sitting there half-naked waiting for them to resume their argument so she set about looking for her clothes as Lance unlatched the door. Her jeans had somehow gotten kicked under the bed.
“What the hell?” Lance murmured.
She was about to roll her eyes again when she heard the distinctive patter of dog nails on the hardwood.
Figuring he’d let in a member of the Coyote pack, she kept rooting around in search of her garments. Her bra was in the crevice between the bed and dresser. She had no idea where she’d taken off her socks. Hoping she’d had a moment of brilliance and had stuffed them into her shoes, she backed away from the bed on all-fours and turned ninety degrees toward the door.
And a dog.
A familiar, dopey-looking dog that should have been in T or C, or at least wherever his owners were hawking their wares.
French Fry plopped his haunches down onto the edge of the rug and unfurled his tongue to pant. Then he watched Lily watch him.
“What. The. Hell?”
“That’s what I said,” Lance said on return. “I didn’t see anyone out there, or the Jaguars’ van nearby, but I’m going to drive around and see if they didn’t figure out some way to trail us.”
Lily sat up in a panic as it dawned on her why they hadn’t wanted those women to follow them back to Maria. Lola was there and she didn’t want to be found. “You think they brought French Fry over as a calling card?”
“Who can tell with them?”
French Fry trotted past Lance and straight for the front door.
Lily hurried to squeeze into her jeans to follow, but Lance left the room and closed the door resoundingly.
She snarled at him. “If you’re thinking of leaving me here—”
She heard the jangle of keys and then the slam of the front door as she hurried to the window.
He was in his truck and peeling off before she could get the swivel rod on the blinds fully rotated.
“Ugh!”
As soon as she got her bra properly fastened, she picked up her phone, thinking she’d preempt Lance by calling Blue. But then she remembered she had an advantage. She had an “in” with the Cougars and she wore La Bella Dama’s mark. She was going to go right to the source. Later, she and her husband could argue about their apparent inability to problem-solve as a team, but for the time being, she was going to teach him a lesson.
Her input mattered. She was his mate—he’d admitted it.
And perhaps that was why she didn’t mind being the one to bring him down a few pegs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
French Fry was on the porch when Lily stepped outside with her phone to her ear.
Lola answered her phone with a wary, “Yes?”
“Hi. Good morning. It’s Lily. Listen, we’re back in Maria and we have a little problem.”
“Unfortunately, I am no longer practicing couples’ therapy. Whatever tensions you’re having with your mate will have to be sorted out via some other mediator.”
“Lola. Seriously?” Lily sighed and grabbed French Fry by the collar. “I need you to give me some words. Spare me the non-interference stuff. We’ve got a serious problem here, and I don’t mean my insufferable mate.” Lily scooped French Fry up and carried him since he was obviously lacking sufficient motivation to walk.
“I know,” Lola said.
“You do?”
“I knew the moment he arrived. Psychic disruption. Unusual enough to spark my attention, and I assure you that’s rare. I can usually tune out most chatter.”
“How did he get here?”
“That is difficult to explain without you understanding his caregivers.”
“And I take it you won’t explain.”
Lola was silent, but Lily wasn’t going to bother waiting for her to come around. It didn’t matter. “What do you want us to do?”
Lola let out a long, tired-sounding exhalation. “If they are there, I imagine they will leave on their own in time. They will have no choice but to retreat. There are too many hostile shifters here, as well as witches. The Jaguars would be vastly outnumbered.”
“But in the meantime?”
“But in the meantime, they can make some things…difficult for me. In a manner of speaking, they could smoke me out if they get desperate enough, and I would have to do what is necessary to keep the peace here. I would prefer not to be so assertive with my magic. It tends to linger in unpredictable ways.”
“Like what?”
Again, Lily didn’t think Lola was going to respond, but surprisingly, she said, “Go to the library when you have the time. Look up the Maria fire of 1871. That is all I will say.”
It was more than Lily had expected. She stopped walking. French Fry was squirming way too much and Lily couldn’t hold him and the phone to her ear at the same time. Besides, it finally dawned on her how far from downtown Lance lived, and she wasn’t going to walk that. The last thing she needed was for some passer-by to report back to her father that they saw her schlepping up the road wearing yesterday’s wrinkled clothes and carrying a strange dog.
French Fry tracked immediately back to Lance’s porch and plopped down next to the steps.
What is he doing?
“Just tell me what to do,” she told Lola. “Maybe I’ll never be a Cougar, but in spite of my mate situation, my allegiances will never be so shaken that I’ll not do everything possible to protect your secrets and everyone else’s.”
Silence.
Then, another long exhalation. “I will call you back.”
*
Lance walked into the Coyote meeting house carrying a trough-sized coffee with his focus on finding Blue. He’d driven around Maria for half an hour looking for any trace of the Jaguars’ van with no luck. All he’d managed to do was burn up a lot of gas and get stared and pointed at by a good ten percent of the Maria citizenry as he passed.
That was why he’d always hated having people in his business. Once they got in, he couldn’t shut them out when he needed to change course on things.
And he thought maybe he did. Lily had thrown him for a hell of a loop, and he didn’t like dwelling on such a precipitous ledge, never knowing what way he was going to be thrown.
He couldn’t let himself get chewed up by her, no matter how much he wanted her. He’d just take her down with him. She’d always want more from him and he’d be frustrated in his inability to give it because he wasn’t willing to risk her health or her life. There’d be no compromising. Just dissatisfaction and resentment, and they’d both be miserable and unsatisfied in the end.
All eyes were on him as he edged into the living room, and conversation stopped. He wasn’t going to give any of them a chance to sneak in any question he didn’t want to answer. “FYI, the Jaguars’ Xolo is on the lam here. Found him on my porch this morning.”
Blue, who was seated a
t the recliner with his feet up on the coffee table and his laptop atop his thighs, raised both of his dark eyebrows. “What?”
“Drove around looking for them. No signs.”
“Well, where is he now?” Kenny asked. He was leaning onto the chair back behind Blue, probably having been reading over his shoulder. “Did he run?”
“Left him at the house so I could move quick. He didn’t seem like he was interested in following.”
“So, the Jaguars must be around somewhere.”
“That’s what I was thinking, but I don’t see any sign of them. It doesn’t make sense that they’d drop him off and run unless they were trying to leave a message.”
“And that message would be ‘Surprise. We found you.’”
“Yep.”
Blue grunted and closed his laptop. “I’ll see if I can get in touch with Lola.”
“Has she ever taken your calls?” Kenny asked him.
“No. She listens to my voicemails and gets back to me whenever she feels like it. She’d probably call Willa back immediately, but I don’t want Willa interrupted at work. She’s busy working on Christmas concert music with the band.”
“I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” came a familiar voice from the foyer that nearly made Lance drop his coffee. A moment later, the screen door slammed shut and Lily stepped into the room with Blue’s sister Diana on her heels. And not just Diana, but Belle Welch, too.
What the hell?
Belle gave the room a cheery wave that instantly made Lance’s stomach sour. Belle didn’t do cheer. When she was chipper, she was plotting something.
Lily, still wearing his shirt beneath her denim jacket, tucked her hair behind her ears and looked directly at Blue. “I already talked to Lola.”
Blue’s knowing gaze slid to Lance. “You did?” Blue likely had some things to say to his lieutenant about his marital status. Lance had been hoping Blue wouldn’t bring it up today, but now that Lily was here, he knew that was wishful thinking. Maybe he wouldn’t say them in front of the group, though. He’d wait. He’d find some way to catch Lance off-guard, and then he’d strike like a vengeful, nerdy asp and not let go until Lance ran out of words or until he stopped howling.