by Lynn Red
Leaning her head against his chest, a tear welled up in either corner of Elena’s eyes. They ran down her cheeks and soaked into West’s ripped up shirt. “I know what you mean,” she said back. “It’s not just right though.”
He tilted her head back with his huge hands, and stared into her moonlit eyes, pushing that copper hair out of her face.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, and craned her neck for another kiss.
-16-
“You can’t be serious. No, no, really – you can’t be serious.”
Erik Danniken, Alpha Wolf of Jamesburg
The law in Jamesburg is a funny thing. The alpha isn’t just the biggest and baddest, he’s also the most deferential bureaucrat in town – and that’s by design. Jamesburg had never had an alpha more happy to defer, or less excited about the minutiae of town politics than Erik Danniken. And that ended up working out just fine.
“Okay,” Erik said, standing up at the front of the courtroom, stretching his hip flexors in front of everyone present for some reason no one understood. “Here’s the way this is going to work. To keep this circus from becoming even more of a circus, everybody without any reason to be here has to go. There are TVs out front that will broadcast the trial. And no, Leon, being drunk at eight in the morning is not a reason for you to be here.”
Leon, the single salamander in Jamesburg, let out a long, slobbery raspberry, and began the great exodus of the curious from Jamesburg County Courthouse.
“Are you sure you want all those local yokels hanging around the lobby all day?” Jamie Ampton, the werebat in charge of Jamesburg Public Relations, asked. “You know they’re going to stay as long as they have to stay. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened in,” she trailed off and looked at her phone for a moment. “Well, probably since the last circus of a trial.”
“Nah,” Erik said with a grin that could melt an ice sheet. “The Wiener Mobile coming through town was definitely better than that trial.”
Izzy, Erik’s mate and the town treasurer, perked up. “You are the biggest man baby I’ve ever known, Erik,” she said with a smirk. “But I believe you. I think that probably was just about the biggest day of your life. Fourteen feet of hotdog, two giant buns...”
Erik nodded, without a shred of irony. He was starting to get excited, and when Erik got excited, he also got loud. “It was awesome, huh? I never thought a wiener could get that big,” he announced.
The entire room, including Petunia, Elena, West and the rest of them, froze.
Elena stuck a finger in her mouth and bit down hard enough to squelch the laugh. West, being a bear without a care, chuckled happily. Petunia maintained the same straight-mouthed stare she’d had since the hyenas dragged her into the room in her orange jumpsuit.
Izzy averted her eyes, Jamie turned red, and Professor Duggan, the city manager, part-time history professor and full-time hedgehog, puffed out his cheeks. “Enough frivolity!” he screeched. “This is a serious time for serious business! We can’t sit around and talk about hotdogs!”
“Frankfurter,” Ash Morgan, one of two werebears in the Jamesburg Police Department, who also happened to be the department liaison to the city government, spoke up. “I mean, technically. We were talking about the wiener, not the entire food item. You know what? Never mind. Floor’s all yours, professor.”
“That’s actually a good point,” Duggan said. “I stand corrected. Frankfurter.”
The entire room sat in stunned silence. Finally, someone in the back of the packed house cleared their throat.
“Right!” Duggan announced. “I assume everyone remaining actually has some connection to the case and isn’t just along for the ride?”
No one responded.
“Can we get this moving?” Erik said, turning to the side but still speaking loudly enough for anyone with ears to hear. “I’ve got a, uh, meeting.” He looked at Izzy longingly, but then snapped back to attention when he realized everyone was watching him.
It was Erik’s turn to clear his throat. He then picked up the manila envelope off the lectern, and squinted. He held the document at arms’ length, squinted again, and then pursed his lips before turning to Izzy. She handed him a pair of red, white, and orange paisley reading glasses, which he donned, of course with absolutely no shame at all. Somehow, they matched the multicolored, square bandage on Erik’s left cheek.
“This is the case of the City and County of Jamesburg versus Miss Petunia, uh, Lidless?” He sneered a little when he attempted to say her name, and then rubbed the bandage.
“Lewis!” Petunia squeaked.
“Now you calm down or I’ll hold you in contem—I’m sorry, what did you say?” Erik was still squinting, but was now turning the paper side to side. “Duggan, you have the worst goddamn handwriting.”
“Lewis,” Petunia said. “It’s my last name. Petunia Lewis.”
“Your last name is Petunia Lewis?” Erik asked. “It says here—”
Izzy jabbed him in the leg with a hard elbow.
“Anyway,” Erik continued. “This is the case of the City and County of Jamesburg versus Petunia Lewis, accused of felony vandalism – that’s vandalism causing more than five hundred dollars in property damage – and also of the attempted poisoning of everyone in town who eats diced carrots from a jar. Who does that, by the way? Carrots from a can? Why not just... anyway, so that’s where we are.”
He sighed heavily. “I assume you’re representing yourself?”
Petunia nodded. Lawyers had a tough time making a living in Jamesburg. So much was handled in other ways that they couldn’t get cases. Eventually, they stopped trying.
“Defense represents herself, and the County is represented by me. Very good, so, I hear we have witnesses?”
“Sir,” Elena said, standing up. Paul and West followed. “We’re private investigators who were hired to find out what happened to Mr. Westing’s farm. Eventually it led us back to her, and to all the evidence you see here.”
Both pair of Petunia’s sharpened, horrific dentures were present, along with a very old carrot, fingerprint comparison printouts, and the results of Elena’s slightly illicit DNA tests, which had arrived that morning.
In a surprisingly dry three hours, the case was covered, evidence delivered, and Petunia sentenced to two years in the lockup and a thousand hours of community service, to be performed concurrently with her term in the County Jail. For the next two years, her lot in life was to wander around in an orange jumpsuit, and work at one of the many open-use gardens around Jamesburg.
Through the entire proceeding, she said nothing. She looked numb to the core. She didn’t laugh, didn’t cry. She just sat, staring. After all her screaming and carrying on, somehow, the quiet gaze was more unsettling.
It wasn’t until three days later that Elena and West found out she’d bitten three deputies, a pair of detectives and even the alpha himself when he came to see what all the trouble was. It wasn’t her being sedate; rather it was a look of pure, unadulterated, satisfaction.
*
“Can you believe all that?” West asked Elena, sliding a hand up her back and down one of her arms. She was bent over, jabbing carrot seeds into the ground and regular intervals. “Petunia, the biting, that weird trial?”
Elena smiled, and tucked her head between her big bear’s chest and one of his biceps, nuzzling his warmth, inhaling the scent of sweat and dirt that came off him. “I don’t need to believe anything,” she whispered. “You’re right here.”
She turned in his arms, facing him and squinting into the sweltering afternoon sun that beamed over West’s shoulder. Elena brushed her lips against his neck, the salty sweat teasing her senses, thrilling her imagination. She slid a hand down his back just like he had done to her, except instead of stopping at his belt, like he had done, she went further.
With a sly grin, Elena grabbed a handful of bear ass, and then surprised West with a quick kiss. She pulled the tail of his flannel shirt out, a
nd tucked her hand underneath, running her fingertips along the muscles running up West’s back.
“Why would I need to believe anything else?” she asked, kissing his neck again and curling her fingers against West’s warm, tanned skin.
He shrugged and smiled down at her; he opened his mouth to say something, but then decided to answer with a kiss.
A long, slow, sultry kiss that sent tingles down Elena’s back, all the way to her toes. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck, and those on the back of her legs grow a little longer. When West pulled away with a soft suck, the hairs lay back down, but she burned to feel him again.
Elena hooked two fingers in West’s jeans, pulling him against her. His thickness, growing by the second, made her tingle. His eyes though, and the bow of his lips when he smiled, made her melt. She reached up and pushed the cowboy hat he always wore when he worked backward on his head, and then ran her fingers down his cheek.
Close against his skin, against his thick, wonderful muscles, Elena closed her eyes and let West’s breath caress her cheek and then her neck.
“We’re really gonna do this right in front of everyone in the world, aren’t we?” she asked, unable to hide her mischievous smile.
“Well,” West began, and then kissed her again, his fingers running along her jawline in a gentle sweep. “That’s up to you, ma’am.”
Before she could say anything, Elena felt herself pulled even closer to West. The thick, hardness in his jeans rubbing a rough, sweet path between her thighs, right below the cuffs of her muddy cut-offs.
“Unless you think I look like Nanny St. Claire,” Elena breathed, kissing his neck, and then biting gently behind his ear, “quit calling me ma’am.”
Her next nibble was a little harder, but West groaned with excitement. He ran his hand down to the small of Elena’s back and underneath her shorts just a hair. When she opened those perfect lips to say something else, West forced her head back with a kiss that she felt in her toes. Elena moaned, pulled him closer, and let him explore every inch of her mouth with his tongue.
“Every inch of you,” West said, pulling back for a moment in between increasingly hungry, desperate kisses. He got so carried away that he forgot he was speaking. Running his hand all the way up her back to Elena’s bare neck, he gently grabbed a fistful of frosted copper hair, and tugged her head backwards.
She drew a gasp when he nibbled behind her ear, pulled her earlobe into his mouth, and at the same instant, ran his hand under her shirt and sucked a kiss off Elena’s collar bone. He trailed his kisses down to the collar of her shirt and squeezed her breast, the fabric tickling her stiffening nipple.
With her head to the sky, Elena opened her mouth and drank in the pleasure. A wash of goosebumps, followed by a red flush, followed wherever West kissed. She was sure the same was true underneath her clothes.
“Every inch of me what?” she finally asked, grabbing two handfuls of wavy, brown hair, and forcing West to look up at her as he kissed lower, then pushed her shirt up to lick a slow trail up her belly.
West got down on the ground, sitting with his legs between Elena’s so he could touch the places, kiss the places, that he most wanted.
He looked at her for a moment, confused by what she meant, and then a look of realization came over his face at the same instant a devious half-smile curled his lip. If there had been any resistance to the idea of him splaying her out in a field of freshly planted vegetables in the middle of the day, the dimple that dented his cheek whenever he smiled would have whisked it away.
Of course, there wasn’t any in the first place, so all it did was make her burn hotter, yearning for him to slide that tongue all over her body.
She undid the button of her shorts, and then made like she was going to unzip, but stopped halfway.
He opened his mouth, expectantly. When her shorts didn’t slide down, he kissed her anyway, opening his lips and nipping gently at her through the denim. There was dirt, sure, and mud, and whatever else, but in that moment, West didn’t smell anything except the gentle scent of Elena’s sex; he tasted nothing but her desire.
“I won’t let you until you tell me what you were going to say,” she managed to say, around a number of gasps and groans and giggles. A moan hitched in Elena’s throat when West pushed her thighs apart slightly and slid the heel of his palm around her sex.
“What was that?” he asked, looking up and grinning. He grabbed the zipper of her shorts and tugged it down, but didn’t pull them off. “You were saying something?”
She half-laughed and then opened her mouth, drawing a deep breath when he pressed against her opening, through her jeans, with his thumb. At exactly the same time, West slid his tongue down the front of Elena’s panties, tickling the tuft of soft, white hair just above her sex. He looked back up, smiling. “You’re gonna have to tell me what you want if you need something. Or, I guess...”
His thumb’s pressure drew another gasp and West nibbled softly at the skin above where Elena’s shorts hung open, limply. But then he pulled back and just stared up at her, smiling, but motionless.
“You are the world’s biggest, teasing asshole!” She laughed softly, curling a finger around West’s hair, and rubbing her thumb and forefinger together. “But somehow—”
“You love me anyway?” he whispered, then kissed her again.
Beating down on them, the summer sun had both lovers starting to sweat... or maybe it was what was happening? Hard to tell. West kissed a drop of salty sweat off of Elena’s lower belly, then pulled her panties down into a V-shape, sliding his tongue along the waistband and teasing both her and himself with the barest taste of her sex.
He let out a rumbling groan, and closed his eyes, moving his hands to her hips, and tugging his fox’s shorts down over her perfectly curved ass. “Why?” she asked as his tongue sent another shiver through her body. “Why me?”
West sucked a kiss, then slid his tongue along the outside of her panties, following the shape of Elena’s folds. With her shorts down around her knees, the big bear could get almost all the way between her legs. He took another deep breath, letting her scent fill his nose and then his lungs.
“It wasn’t ever a question,” he said, each word punctuated with another kiss, another suck. “Even before I ever called you, before we ever talked.”
Elena’s knees had stopped working quite right the second West started opening his soul. The hungry, hot, fluttering kisses didn’t help matters either. It was all she could do to keep herself from collapsing into a heap on his lap. She ran her hands through his hair, closing her eyes and letting the words and the goosebumps wash over her whole being.
“Bears mate for life, you know that,” West whispered. He kissed her again, sliding his tongue in a slow circle over the top of Elena’s panties. The tip of his tongue was right where she wanted the rest of him, right where she wanted to feel him slide in, fill her entirely.
She nodded. “For... for life,” she managed to eke out, in between open-mouthed groans. “But why me? Why did you find me?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
Even though the sun was directly overhead, the entire world was dark to Elena, except for the two of them. Each kiss, each patient lick, each squeeze of her lover’s hands on the small of her back, or the curves of her ass, sent a shock through her and surrounded her with feelings of love and safety, of security, of... “Home,” she whispered. “I feel like...”
“Something dragged me to that office that first night. Something made me go there. I’m not even going to pretend to know what it was,” West kissed her again then hooked a finger in the crotch of her panties, pulling them aside. He nuzzled her hair with his nose, massaging Elena’s clit carefully with his upper lip, before teasing her with a slow lap of his tongue. When he finally finished a long track around, she was almost breathless, holding onto him for balance.
“Some of us think fate finds us our mates,” his voice was a distant whisper. Elena, lost in her
own world of West, barely heard what he was saying.
“What do you think?” she heard herself ask. “Did fate bring my bear to me? After all these years alone? Was that it? Just chance?”
“Does it matter?” West asked, sliding a finger into her waiting, aching, yearning sex.
Every nerve in Elena’s body flared. The muscles between her legs accepted him. She squeezed them hard, trying her best to pull him as deep as possible. He gave her one knuckle, no more. Slowly he turned his finger, lingering on the place that made her visibly shudder.
“Bear, bear,” she whispered, clutching one of his shoulders.
“Right there?” West asked, smiling and nibbling at her softest skin. First he went up one side, then down the other, before settling down on Elena’s button. Soft waves of pressure with his tongue sent hot, then cold, up Elena’s back, prickling her nipples inside her bra.
“Uh-huh,” she moaned, biting her lip. “Right... there...” she hissed a ‘yes’ and then pulled his head closer between her legs. “How did I ever live without you?”
Sucking gently, West pushed his finger a little deeper, and slid a second one in beside the first. The noise that came out of Elena’s mouth was somewhere between relief and a scream, but seconds later, she was rocking her hips in time with his movements, gnawing her lip and smiling up at the sky with her mouth hanging open.
He pushed deeper, Elena’s sex gripping at him as she lost her breath again. “Bear, bear, almost there,” she whispered. “Almost there!”
She tried to pull him away, to keep herself from going over the edge, but there was no stopping that cascade. A wave of cold and hot, of chills and warmth, went up her belly. Elena’s neck prickled, her nipples stiffened, scraping softly against her bra. Her knees, already weak and wobbly, just gave up entirely on life. They buckled, but she was latched so tightly to West’s shoulders that she kept herself up that way as wave after wave crashed against her core.
She opened her eyes a moment later, to find West watching her face. “I’ve never seen anything that beautiful,” he said. “The sun, you, that smile, the way you kept biting at your lip until it was too late, I’m,” he trailed off just in time for Elena to get her knees underneath herself and urge him to stand.