Taylor laughed and pushed at him, edging some space between their chests so she could get him to look at her. “It’s not me,” she breathed, winded from the kisses.
“Sure smell like it’s you,” he whispered back and moved in for another kiss. Tay ducked his arm and stepped away.
“I’ve still got two or three years till my next true Heat. Besides,” she smiled at him, “I just went through a mild Heat three months ago. Do you really think I would’ve put myself through that if I was that close to a true Heat?”
Jason felt himself frown as he tried to think. They’d spent days before her mild Heat talking about how they were going to handle it. If they should go ahead and try for a kid or wait for a true Heat. True Heats happen every five to six years, but mild Heats had to be triggered. He shook his head, focusing.
“Did I get invited to that party?” he asked, knowing full well he had. They’d spent twelve hours in her bedroom easing the need the Heat caused. He’d never come so hard or so often in his life. “Well, you see…I asked you to come over to talk about that,” Tay said blushing.
“Really?” he promoted.
Tay opened her mouth, but her phone started beeping. “Roast’s done,” she stated and turned from him, walking to the kitchen. Jason followed after her.
“So…” he prompted again as they moved.
She turned, walking backwards into the kitchen. “Patience kitty. I’ll tell you before the night’s out,” she answered then turned back around.
Jason sighed. “Well then, can you tell me why you smell as if you’re about to fully enter a true Heat. Cause if it’s not you I’m confused. Aren’t I supposed to be immune to other female’s pheromones? Since we’re mated and all.” He settled into a chair at the table and adjusted the hard-on he was sporting to illustrate his point.
If his father was to be believed, most unmated male shifters avoided in Heat females for just this reason. It didn’t matter what the male was doing, who he was with, if he wasn’t mated and he could smell the female in Heat, there was an instant need to have sex with her. And it didn’t go away unless he left the area her scent was in (nearly impossible to do) or her Heat eased. The pheromones of a true Heat covered more area to affect more males, but the part that had bothered him the most when his father talked about them was that with true Heats the female always, always conceived multiples. He and Kyle had both been multiples. Jason wasn’t sure about Kyle but his own twin had died a few months after they were conceived.
“It’s my baby sister who’s entering her first Heat. I’ve been with her most of the afternoon helping her get ready for tonight, the scent must have clung to my skin and clothes,” she explained as she pulled the pan out of the oven. “She’s not having an easy time with it.”
“Wow,” Jason shook his head at the timing. “Isn’t Abby like…fourteen? She’s way too young for any kind of Heat.”
Tay turned her head and frowned at him. “No, she just turned twenty a few weeks ago. Why would you think she was that young?”
“I don’t know. It’s just the way you talk about her some times. You sound more like a mother than a sister,” he pointed out. “So I guess I always saw her as a young teen.”
Tay nodded and pulled plates and cups from the cabinet. “Would you mind cutting this while I get out drinks?” she asked.
“Sure.” He pushed out of the chair and went over to the stove. As he picked up the knife and fork and started cutting she started to explain.
“I guess I sound that way because she was only twelve when our parents died. As the oldest I kind of took on the role of mother for most of the six of us.”
Jason lay out the slices of roast on the plates and started adding the potatoes, onions, and carrots that had cooked with it. “Six? I thought there were only five Winter girls,” he half joked. Why was he just hearing that there were six girls?
“There are only five. We have a brother, Shawn. He and Vivian are twins,” Taylor told him as she set the cups at the table. Jason brought over the plates as she sat down. “When Mom and Dad died, Shawn decided to strike out on his own instead of staying with us. He was seventeen, had finished high school. I couldn’t think of anything to stop him. So I leave it be as long as he calls now and again.”
Jason nodded and grabbed up the forks and knives she’d set out. He handed her a set as he sat back down at the table.
“It was a lot like that when our parents died,” he told Tay.
“You’ve never told me anything about it,” she said. “Only that they died.”
Jason took a bite of dinner and thought. “Kyle never told you anything?” Tay and Kyle had known each other for years by then.
“The night he got the call we were studying and he didn’t get any details. When he got back he wouldn’t say anything about it to me,” she told him.
He nodded. “They were driving home from my baseball game. I told them I wanted to stay for a while with some of the guys from the team. Their car ran off the road and into a river. The official report said they died on impacted with the guard rail.” Jason paused taking a deep breath. “Kyle came home, made all the arrangements, but with all of us in school it got complicated. He had to leave to finish out the semester and we couldn’t change schools with only six weeks left in the year. So he had our Aunt Rachael stay with us until classes here ended. Kyle came back and started to close up the house. He…knew he couldn’t continue going to college and take care of all of us- “
“You keep saying all of us,” Tay pointed out.
Jason nodded. “Kelly and Kayleigh. They were only nine. Kyle knew he couldn’t manage the twins and me so he asked Aunt Rachael to take them in.”
“Oh, I always thought Kelly and Kayleigh were your cousins,” Tay told him.
“They might as well be. Aunt Rachel has them call her mom and they were so young they don’t remember much about our parents. We do make an effort to stay in their lives, as much as our aunt will allow anyway. Remind them they have siblings; you know?” he explained.
“Your aunt doesn’t want you two around your sisters?”
“Oh, no. She’s fine with me coming to see them whenever I want; it’s Kyle she’s got a problem with. I think she believes he’s a mutt or something because he can’t shift,” Jason told her. It would have been more accurate to say Aunt Rachael hated Kyle. He could never understand why Kyle being human was such a bad thing to her.
He’d explained that sad story to Taylor before. Genetically, Kyle had lost out. Somehow the receive gene to shift was missing from him, leaving Kyle as normal as the next guy. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he wasn’t the only one in the family.
Tay nodded. “I’m still surprised your mother managed to keep your father from killing Kyle once they realized he wasn’t going to shift. Most families still do,” she said, sadly.
Jason nodded. Things would be so much easier between them if Kyle had just shifted on his fifteenth birthday like he was supposed to. When it hadn’t happened, they’d decided to keep as much of that life from him as possible (which was why Kyle had no clue everyone around him was a shifter).
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry with that when we have children,” Taylor offered. “Everyone on all four sides of the family can shift.”
Jason smiled and held his tongue as he rose from the table. Kyle was the only odd ball in the family. Like her family, everyone on all four sides could shift…except Kyle.
He reached out to her and helped her to her feet. He groaned and pulled her against him again. “The pheromones are starting to get in here even over the scent of the food,” he told her and set his nose into her hair. “I think I might bend you over the counter, what do you say?”
Tay smiled wickedly up at him. “I’d say that…I need to check on my sister if it’s getting that bad.” She started to pull away.
“No, you don’t.” He grabbed her up and set her on the counter. “You have something to tell me at least before you go runnin
g up the stairs where I can’t follow.”
“Do I?” she giggled.
He leaned in and pressed his lips to her neck. “Yes, you do.” Taylor shivered against him. “We spent half a day in your room upstairs.” He kissed her collarbone. “In your bed, making love, easing you through a Heat.” His hand drifted up the hem of her dress to rest high on her thigh. “Tell me what I want to know Tay…I’m dying here.”
“The Community doctor examined me,” she said. The Community was a phrase used to say it was a shifter she’d talked to.
“Killing me love, killing me.”
“There was a heartbeat.”
“You’re pregnant?”
Tay nodded. “A single baby.”
Jason’s eyes shut tight. I’m going to be a father. He pulled her into a heated kiss, his hands roaming further up to grip her hips.
Tay pushed at his chest and laughed joyfully. “I take it you’re okay with it only being one.”
“Of course.” He kissed her again. “I can’t wait to tell everyone. To meet the baby. When are you due?”
Taylor laughed. “Not till late July.”
“That long?” He questioned.
“Yeah…thirteen months of being pregnant, and my Heat was in June,” she sighed. “Now let me down I have to check on Abby.”
“Abby will be fine by herself,” he told her, pulling her into another kiss.
“Mm. She would if this was just about her Heat. She says she’s having the mating dreams and she wants to Call him to her tonight when the first hard wave of her Heat hits.”
Jason took a step back. “Is she actually having them?”
“Hard to tell, but I’m going help her anyway,” she answered.
“I haven’t seen too many males around town or campus and no one new,” Jason informed her and tried to think of all the shifters he’d seen in the last few weeks. There were eight males in the area not including himself and three of them were mated already. “You think I should call Kyle have him stay in tonight?”
“Why? Oh…” she was silent for a moment, thinking it over. “I don’t know, but I don’t see them crossing paths anyway. Kyle rarely goes out when he can have the house to himself. It should be fine.”
Jason’s mother had told him she was sure Kyle had partially transitioned. If that was the case, other males might challenge him if he got too close to Abby once she left for the night. Hell there was a chance Kyle might react to her Heat, if he got too close. Jason felt a frown forming as he tried to remember if Kyle had acted any different the past few days or weeks. He had a vague memory of Kyle waking up cursing at least three times this week… An idea formed in his head, but before he could voice it, Tay jumped off the counter and took his hand.
“Come upstairs with me love,” she offered, pulling his hand just a little.
“But with Abby in…”
“You can wait in my room. I’ll only be a few minutes with Abby then she’ll be gone for the night and we can reap the benefits of her pheromones clinging to me.”
He smiled wide, his blood heated, and followed her up to her room.
Chapter 5
Some little sister is going to pay, Taylor thought as one of them knocked on her door. “I’m busy. Go away,” she said loudly over her shoulder and started moving again.
Jason groaned, his grip on her hips tightening.
“Hurry it up would ya? I got something I need to talk to you and your boy toy about,” Shannon’s sharp voice found its way around the door.
Taylor shook her head, never stopping the grinding of her hips. Jason arched under her bringing her attention back to him. She ran her fingers through the thin patch of orange-blonde hairs at the center of his chest, loving the feel of their softness against his muscles.
In the dim light, she watched him lick his bottom lip and his gold reflecting eyes close. Taylor knew she wore a wicked smile right then as she set her hands against his chest for balance and she pushed herself to move faster. Jason groaned, his body relaxing and tensing. He was struggling to hold on and she knew it. The small barbs in the head began to push through and anchor him inside her.
Her own breath grew shallow and her belly tightened. Under her, Jason’s body took over and he thrust forcibly into her.
“Oh…fuck,” Jason groaned out as his cock pulsed, the barbs fully engaging as his seed spewed into her.
Taylor moaned at the warm rush then gasped as the tightness in her belly broke. Her head fell back on her neck with her own orgasm.
Jason had a wide grin in his face as he pulled her down to lay against his chest at her final shudder.
She smiled happily back at him. She was mated. She loved her mate and now she was going to have his first litter—if a single kitten could be called a litter. She was in absolute Heaven.
“So yeah, we have to talk,” Shannon said from inches away.
“Holy shit, Shannon!” Perfection crashed as she and Jason scrambled for the covers. “I said not tonight.” Taylor looked up to see her sister kneeling on the floor facing away from the bed.
“I don’t think this can wait,” Shannon said more quietly.
“What is so important it couldn’t wait,” Jason asked sarcastically. Taylor eased off him and sat down on the bed beside him.
“It’s about your brother.”
Jason scoffed and folded his arms. “Anything about Kyle can wait till in the morning.”
“Even if I have reason to believe he’s about to finish his change?” Shannon teased.
Jason shot up right, Taylor’s spine went ridged.
“You…you’ve seen proof that he will shift?” Taylor asked.
“Proof is a harsh word. But I’ve seen enough tonight to make me think there’s something to it,” Shannon said and eased off the floor and on to the bed so that she faced them.
In all the time she’d known Kyle, she’d never smelled a hint of tiger or even shifter coming off him. Kyle hadn’t change forms on his fifteenth birthday as all shifters did at the onset of puberty. Since both his parents could shift, it was a rarity. Of course, not turning at fifteen wasn’t the end of Kyle’s potential to shift. Very rarely shifters changed later in life, usually after meeting their mate, but for that to happen, Kyle would have to have partially gone through his first change. That should have left elements behind, strength, senses, temperament and the scent of tiger or shifter would still have been all over him. There was no way Shannon, who’d only met him once or twice, could tell when she hadn’t. Taylor shook her head, there was no way she couldn’t believe this.
“What did you see?” She asked her sister ready to give her a dose of reality…and maybe a black eye for interrupting her and Jason.
“Ok, so I was minding my own business at work running on one of the treadmills looking for someone who seemed like they need some training so I could get a new client when this guy walks in. I wouldn’t have thought anything about him other than ‘lord he’s hot and tall’, but the heat came on as he was just standing there and blew his scent to me, clean, very male smell and the barest and I mean barest hint of tiger. I almost didn’t catch it.”
Jason shook his head frowning. “I thought you had something to say about my brother.”
“I do, wait for it,” Shannon told him. “Anyway. He walked off to the locker rooms. I was curious because I didn’t recognize him, was thinking there might be a new shifter in town after all. You know since Abby’s in Heat and all?”
Taylor nodded. She’d called all their sisters so they could keep an eye out for someone new, and Shannon shows up with ‘news’ about someone they knew couldn’t shift.
“I didn’t see him come back out and I was getting ready to go looking for him when someone started prepping the treadmill beside me. So I glance over and nearly fell off, in one of those Funniest Home Video kind of ways. The guy I noticed at the door is standing there, messing with an iPod getting ready use to mill. Mop of black, black hair, slight tan, Nikes, blue basketball short
s, grey wife beater, lean, but cut in that way that you just know there’s no fat whatsoever on him.” Shannon shivered.
“Again, how is this about my brother?” Jason asked frowning, complete confusion on his face.
Taylor knew. As a guy, Jason probably didn’t pay much, if any, attention to what his brother looked like, but she had. Because of football Jason was thick with muscle, shoulders wide, thick chested, he had to be, to have a starting position like he did, but Kyle was equally well-built… just in a different way. Shannon had nailed the description. Instead of building bulk, he’d played into his lanky frame and worked to define it all; swimming and running mostly if she remembered right. So Kyle running on a treadmill was no surprise to her.
“I mean Kyle’s lean with black hair yeah, but he’s never been in a gym other than the few self-defense classes Dad made him take,” Jason scoffed. “He’s the brainy kind. Told me once that if I tried any harder to bulk up my chest would implode or something like that.”
Taylor rubbed his shoulder in comfort. “Get to the point Shannon.”
“Okay, okay. So like I said, he was standing there and I nearly got my feet taken out from under me. He gets on the mill and starts it up; only instead of warming up, he goes straight into a full run. Now I’m laughing in my head, you know…waiting for what almost happened to me to happen to him. But after a few minutes he’s still going strong, so I wave to get his attention, ‘cause he was so going to hurt himself if he continued, but he flipping ignored the first few times. When he finally pulled the ear bud out he was snippy with me says he did the warm-up on the way to the gym, walked and ran the whole way…”
“Shannon,” Taylor interrupted. “Kyle and Jason live over on Jefferson Avenue. He couldn’t have walked there, could he?” she pulled the sheets tighter around her and glanced at Jason. “That’s what…”
“Thirteen or so miles,” Jason confirmed as he frowned. “You still haven’t said why you think it was Kyle.” But this time his voice was softer, unsure.
“Well no one’s letting me finish,” Shannon huffed. “After he explained the warm up, I stopped my treadmill and came around in front of his. Annoyed at me or not, he was a full-grown male tiger shifter and well, we do have a sister in Heat. I had to find out something about him. So I offer to…help him ‘work out other parts’.”
Abby's Call Page 3