Ranger Knox (Shifter Nation: Werebears Of Acadia Book 1)

by Meg Ripley

  “Mmm,” Jacques murmurs, licking his lips and looking up at me. “Je pense que tu auras un minou delicieux.”

  Once more, the first part of the sentence is fairly easy for me to translate: I think you’ll have…and the last word, that I know.

  Jacques slides his fingertip along my wetness and brings it up to his mouth, licking my fluids from his finger as he grins. “Ah ouais, j’avais raison.” I was right, he says.

  I blink and finally figure out what he was telling me before: that my pussy would be delicious. I figure it out just in time for Jacques to bury his face between my legs, and then I can’t figure anything out; his tongue against my inner folds, barely brushing against my clit, makes it impossible for me to even consider ever translating anything else in my life. He pins my hips and thighs down on the bed and worships me with his lips and tongue, sucking and licking me as if he’s ravenously hungry. I grab at his head, at his broad, strong shoulders, gasping and panting and crying out; it feels so good, so absolutely amazing that I can’t do anything but give into it, my hips moving and bucking, riding Jacques’ face.

  I cry out as Jacques teases me with his lips and tongue, bringing me to the edge of climax over and over again. He plunges his tongue deep inside of me, eating me like I’m some kind of overripe peach, and his arms pin me down more firmly as I lose any ability to hold myself back. I writhe and twist and Jacques’ tongue flutters against my clit until I hit my peak, moaning out nonsense in English and French alike.

  Jacques keeps going at me, riding through my orgasm, only slowing down when the spasms start to ease. He pulls back, leaving me panting and gasping for breath, and I see him lick his lips clean, grinning with satisfaction.

  “C’était bon? Tu l’as aimé?”

  I nod, somehow knowing and not knowing at the same time what he was asking. He slithers up along my body and kisses me again, and I can feel the weight and heat of his erection against my hip, the hardness of him.

  “Si tu...attends...pour quelques instants, je pourrais t’aider,” I manage to say, reaching down to brush my fingers against the bulge at the front of his boxers. If you wait for a little bit, I could help you. It’s such a clunky way to say it, but I can only hope that Jacques understands what I mean.

  “J’ai envie de te prendre en levrette,” he murmurs, and I try to think of what the last word of the sentence could mean. I want to take you…

  “En levrette?”

  Jacques nods and kisses me again, one hand sliding up between my legs. He begins to stroke me lightly, but even that’s almost too much, with my clit still so sensitive. He kisses me again and slowly maneuvers me onto my front, pulling my hips back to him.

  “En levrette.”

  Oh! I nod to show him I understand.

  I look over my shoulder and Jacques grins at me, enjoying the view of me on all fours in front of him as he pushes his boxers down. His cock springs free and all I can do for a second is stare. It’s bigger than Ethan’s, thick and already slick with precum. I almost wish I could turn around, explain to him that I want to taste it, but my head is far too distracted to think of the words.

  The bed creaks as he shifts his weight, one hand moving to my hip, the other stroking his erection, and I bite my bottom lip, closing my eyes to steel myself against the sheer size of him.

  Jacques rubs the tip of his cock along my entrance, and I moan softly, hungry for the feeling of him inside of me. He murmurs something I can’t quite make out and then he’s sliding into me, filling me up inch by inch, pushing past the resistance of my body. I moan out, shivering with pure ecstasy as I take him deeper.

  Jacques’ cock is so hot, so thick inside of me, it’s almost—for just a few heartbeats—uncomfortable, but I’m so wet from everything he’s done to me that I can take him easily. I push my hips back and Jacques thrusts deeper into me, groaning. He reaches around to my chest and I cry out as Jacques finds one of my nipples, twisting and rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.

  I fall into his rhythm, pushing back to meet his thrusts, lost in the pleasure. All I care about is telling Jacques how good he feels, how much I want him, but I can’t tell when I’m speaking English and speaking French, and all I can make out about what he’s saying to me is how good I am, how tight I am. I grab onto the pillows in front of me and push back harder, crying out as Jacques nibbles at my shoulder, at the back of my neck, as his hands hold me exactly where he wants me and pounds into me harder and faster.

  I press my face against the pillows, shaking from how good it feels, and I can feel Jacques’ cock beginning to twitch inside of me as he gets closer to his orgasm. I try to hold back; after all, I’m one ahead already, but I can’t after a few minutes. I hit my second climax, moaning and crying out in pleasure, and only a few moments later, I feel Jacques tense against me, feel his hips slam against my ass as he reaches his peak, buried deep inside of me. He holds onto me as he slams into me a few more hard, fast thrusts, and then we’re both collapsing onto the bed; the weight of his heavier body against mine feels absolutely perfect.

  I doze off with Jacques on top of me, and I’m grinning in spite of the fact I’d made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t get involved with any guys for at least six months.

  If I’d known that French guys were like this… I smile to myself and drift off.

  Chapter NINE

  Jacques

  “I told you, we’re not dating. We’re just fuck buddies,” I tell Julienne as I’m cleaning up my station after working on the first client of the day.

  “You owe me five-hundred,” she says, following me as I go to the back for more of the antiseptic spray.

  “I do not,” I insist. It’s been about a week since Nora and I first hooked up, and we’d gotten together—at her place or mine—three more times since then. It definitely helps that we can see each other across the alley. I grin a bit to myself, remembering the last time we banged: I’d made one paper airplane after another and thrown them across the little alley into her apartment until she’d looked up and laughed; then, one thing led to another.

  “You like her,” Julienne says. “You like her a lot.”

  “She’s nice,” I say with a shrug. “And we like a lot of the same stuff on Netflix.”

  Christophe decides to chime in. “Is she kinky?”

  “Fuck you, Christophe!” Ever since word got out that I’d had sex with Nora, he’s been trying to get details, like whether she was open to being shared. I didn’t even have to ask her to know she wouldn’t like the idea of me just passing her off to another guy, and I didn’t like the idea either. We aren’t technically exclusively, but I don’t share my women and I’ll be damned if I start now.

  “Be careful she doesn’t run afoul of Crazy Hélène,” Julienne says as she restocks the business cards up front by the register.

  “Hélène isn’t going to be a problem,” I say. “She’s focused on Pascal right now.”

  Hélène is one of the band’s fans, and to say she’s crazy is a bit of an understatement. She’s tried to convince each one of us in turn to start things up with her, but we all know better, even me. I wouldn’t touch her if she were the last chick on Earth.

  “As soon as she sees you’re involved with someone, she’s going to be right on you again,” Julienne says.

  “She’s got Pascal,” I insist. “Christophe, maybe you should join the band; play tambourine or some shit. That way she’ll fixate on you, and you can both get laid.”

  Christophe snorts. “I’d rather put my dick in a bear trap than in that crazy bitch.”

  “It wouldn’t be all that different,” Julienne points out. “I heard she poked holes in the condoms of the last dude she was with.”

  “All the more reason not to get involved with her,” Christophe says. “If she does that kind of shit, then she’s liable to have some kind of disease.”

  I shudder.

  “Well, I’m not worried about her,” I say. “Besides, Nora isn’t even c
oming to the show tomorrow.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Christophe asks, furrowing his brow.

  “I don’t know. It didn’t really come up.”

  “Oh, come on, you know you want her to be there,” Julienne says.

  “It’s not like she’s my girlfriend, Boss,” I tell her.

  “Think about it: after the show, she’ll be all hot and bothered from seeing you playing onstage, and then you can talk her into anything you want,” Christophe says.

  I’m about to lay into him, but before I can, the chime for the door rings and I look up, expecting to see one of our next clients coming in; instead, it’s Nora. She’s in a pair of leggings and a long shirt, and for a second, all I can think about is how good it would be to peel those pants right off her.

  “Hey! What brings you here?” I smile ear to ear.

  Nora looks at Christophe and Julienne and then at me again.

  “I—I think that I want to get a tattoo,” Nora says, stumbling a bit over the words. But after a week of watching French TV, talking in bed the times we’ve ended up sleeping together, and just being surrounded by it, her French is coming to her a lot faster.

  “You do?” I lean against the counter, looking her up and down. There isn’t a part of this woman’s body I haven’t seen, and I start imagining tattoos in different places: along her hip, along her outer thigh, on her arm, on her back. “What do you want to get?”

  “It’s probably ridiculous, but it’s something I sketched this morning.” Nora says, blushing. She takes a piece of paper out of her purse and unfolds it, laying it on the countertop. The design is actually pretty amazing: a bouquet of flowers, the lines fairly detailed and fine.

  “No, it isn’t ridiculous,” I say, shaking my head. “Do you want color?”

  “That would make it cost a lot more, wouldn’t it?” she catches her lip between her teeth.

  “Maybe we could make a deal,” I say, ignoring Julienne snickering behind me.

  “Come again?” Nora frowns in confusion and I have to remember that she isn’t that fluent, no matter how much more easily she’s speaking now.

  “We could simplify the design a little bit. How does that sound?”

  “What would it cost?” Nora licks her lips. “I received a bonus for something I wrote.”

  “I could do it for…” I think quickly. I don’t want to charge her; I could just take a pay cut and give the cash to Julienne. “It’s a pretty detailed piece; let me run it by the manager here,” I tell Nora.

  As soon as we’re in the back, with Nora’s design in my hands, Julienne grins at me. “That’s a five-hundred-euro piece and you know it, especially with colors,” she says.

  “I know it is, but can we work out a deal?” I ask. “How about I just pay for your cut myself and call it a day.”

  Julienne looks at the design for a long moment. “Wow, she is pretty talented,” she admits and then pauses for a moment, tapping her fingers on the desk. “Well, the shop could really use some fresh, new designs. Why don’t we ask her to draw five pieces for the wall; then you won’t have to worry about my cut,” she suggests. “But you’d better cough up the five-hundred euros you owe me for the bet we made.”

  I roll my eyes at that. “I’ll pay you the five-hundred euros if and only if we start properly dating,” I tell her.

  Julienne grins and shrugs that off, and I go back out to the counter where Nora’s waiting.

  “Hey, so, I talked to Julienne, and she had a cool idea,” I tell Nora. “How’d you like to draw five pieces of flash for the wall in exchange for your work?”

  She puzzles that one out for a moment. “You want my designs for the shop?” she gestures to the flash art on the wall. “Really?”

  “For sure. We could really use some new pieces up there, and Julienne was really impressed by your work.”

  “That’s amazing; thank you so much!” Nora looks down at her design, smiling as her fingertips trace the outline of the leaves and flowers.

  “I’ll need to make it simpler, but I think we should be able to get it done in two sittings,” I say. “One for the line work, one for the color.”

  Nora nods slowly. “When can we start?” She looks up at me and I think about my schedule. I’m a little slow today; I just have a few more appointments in the afternoon, so I could, actually, start her tonight, if I could get the design simplified a bit in time.

  “Let me work on the design, and why don’t you come back to the shop in about three hours,” I say. “Oh! Where do you want it?”

  Nora blushes and looks away and I think about what torture it would be to have to tattoo her somewhere intimate.

  Nora lifts up her shirt and twists to the side slightly, exposing her ribcage and the bottom of her bra. “Would here be okay?” I swallow down the thick feeling in my throat at the sight of her pale skin, remembering the way she looked completely naked, curled up on her side, in my bed a few nights before.

  “That would be perfect,” I tell her. “It is going to hurt a lot there, though.”

  “I have...how do you say? A high—I can accept a lot of pain?”

  “A high tolerance,” I correct her.

  Nora nods, accepting this. She’s actually unlike the few Americans I’ve met in that she seems eager to learn new words, and when I correct her, she doesn’t seem to take offense.

  “We’ll see,” I tell her, reminding myself not to get too excited at the prospect of tattooing the beautiful girl; at giving Nora her first ink.

  From what I’ve seen in women who get tattoos, their reaction is one of two things: either they cry, shake and hate it the whole time, or they get incredibly into it, almost like they’re turned on. Let’s hope she’s the second kind, I think.

  “So, five o’clock? I’ll work on this and have something to show you.”

  Nora looks at me for a moment longer, and I think she might want to kiss me; I definitely want to kiss her, but then she starts to walk away from the counter.

  “I’ll see you later!”

  “Sounds great,” Nora smiles at me and steps out of the shop.

  “You’re going to tattoo her?” Christophe pulls his chair over to my station as I sit down and start reworking the design to make it a little easier to ink into Nora’s skin. “You should wait until after hours, that way…”

  “I am not going to risk the safety rating of this shop,” I tell Christophe, taking out a piece of paper, beginning to trace the outline of the design.

  “Thank you, Jacques,” Julienne says. “Christophe, if I ever find out that you’re having sex with a client in this shop after hours, I will fire you so quickly, you won’t even know what hit you.”

  I snicker and start working on the design, thinking about inking it onto Nora’s body that night. I imagine her laid out on my table, trembling just slightly as I start my machine. I imagine her breath catching in her throat as I go over the outline, taking my time, but not dragging it out too much.

  God, I hope she likes being tattooed. I smile to myself, thinking that once I’m done with the outline, maybe we can go back to her place. Of course, she’ll have to keep it wrapped up, but if she’s turned on enough by the endorphins in her system from being tattooed, she’ll be ready to go as soon as we get through the door.

  I decide to cancel one or two of my bookings for the day and reschedule, just to make sure I can get to work on Nora as soon as she arrives to check on my progress.

  Chapter TEN

  Nora

  I’m trembling a little bit as I lie back on the padded table next to Jacques’ station.

  “Je vais commencer par une petite tache, donc si tu ne peux pas le supporter, on peut arrêter. D’accord?” It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s saying, but then it makes sense to me and I nod. I’m going to start with a little spot, then if you can’t handle it, we can stop. Alright?

  I really like the way Jacques simplified my drawing. I’d been thinking about getting a tattoo of my own ev
er since I’d started examining his. I’d chosen a few flowers that represented what I wanted to embody: daffodils for new beginnings, pansies for thoughts and snowdrops for hope. Jacques hadn’t asked me what the meaning of the tattoo was; probably because he realized that it would be difficult for me to explain it in French. I hear the needle buzzing and take a deep breath.

  I’m lying on my side, with the hem of my shirt rolled up over my bra. My heart is racing as Jacques approaches me with his machine, and I tense as I feel the needle against my skin, which is still tingling slightly from the antiseptic he’d prepared it with. It tickles and feels like sandpaper all at once as it drills into me. I don’t breathe for a few seconds, but then I begin to relax, and I actually start to like it.

  “T’es bon? Ça va?” Are you okay?

  I nod, and Jacques smiles. “De temps en temps, les filles trouvent qu’elles aiment la sensation de tatouage.” Sometimes, girls find that they like the feeling of tattooing.

  I grin at that; it’s a bit sly.

  “C’est bon, je pense,” I say. It’s okay, I think. Jacques wipes the area and keeps going, and I almost feel as though I’m melting into the table. Oddly, the longer Jacques works on my skin with the needle, going back and forth to the black ink he’s using to outline the design, the better I feel, more and more relaxed, warm all over, tingling from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes.

  It’s almost sexual, the feeling that’s riding through my nerves, and if we weren’t in the middle of the tattoo shop, with his coworkers working and chatting all around us, I might be tempted to ask him if we could go back to his place—at least for a few minutes—and let him have his way with me.

  “Tu veux prendre une pause?”

  I blink at the question. I have to work it through my hazy brain to make sense of it. Need to take a break?

  “Non, non,” I reply. “Ça va!” No, no, I’m fine!

  Jacques smiles. “T’es courageuse,” he tells me. You’re brave.