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

by Meg Ripley

  As they questioned Mary and me, I found out that they’d caught Big J with a fresh supply; they said they were carrying out pounds and pounds of product. I heard, too, that Nick, Jules, and the other guys in the band had been targeted by other dealers working for Big J; the Dade County police department were all ready to become huge fans of Molly Riot thanks to all the legwork we’d done getting Big J’s organization apprehended. “Some of them will roll over on the guy,” one of the cops said with a shrug. “All we need is one or two to turn in state’s evidence, and we’ll be able to take care of the whole lot.”

  “As long as I’m not going to have to look over my shoulder ten years from now,” I said.

  “Nah, we’ve got enough to put him away for life, along with his org. No worries there.” I figured that was probably pretty optimistic, but I didn’t want to get into it with any of the cops. “We’ll get you guys home; you’re not in any shape to drive. If you can give us the keys to the car you took to Vagabond, someone’ll bring the car back to your address.” I was too tired and hurt too much to argue, and Mary was in the same boat as me. We let the cops take us back to her place, with the promise that we’d get the car back.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  When I woke up the next morning, it was difficult to say if I felt better or worse than I had the first morning I’d awakened at detox. I was in Mary’s bed—we had both managed to get our tear gas-reeking clothes off the night before, and to get a shower, but neither of us had had the energy for anything else—but I had the used-up feeling that was the inevitable other side of the coke coin, along with the lingering effects of the raid.

  “Morning,” Mary’s voice was a slightly melodic croak next to me. I grinned and turned onto my side to look at her; the area around her eyes was still reddened and irritated, but otherwise she looked mostly recovered from our night’s adventures.

  “The hell you say, it’s got to be at least noon.”

  Mary rolled her eyes and reached out without looking, her hand groping on her nightstand until she found her phone.

  “Eleven-thirty,” Mary said, showing me the screen.

  “Whatever.” I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face against her tits, torn between wishing I could go back to sleep and wishing I could reasonably expect Mary to be DTF. “How’re you feeling?” I asked, not even bothering to lift my face.

  “I tried coke for the second time in my life and got tear gassed,” she said. I pulled back to stare at her.

  “That wasn’t your first time?”

  Mary laughed. “No, you big tool. I went to college; I’ve tried lots of things.” I held myself up on my elbows and looked down into her face.

  “Every fucking time I think I have you figured out you come out with something like that and I have no idea what to think,” I told her. I laughed, shaking my head in amazement; I could remember only too readily how she’d stared Big J down only hours before, how Mary had been absolutely calm, even with the coke in her veins, even when Big J could have shot her at any moment—or one of his dealers in the room with us could have easily spared him the trouble.

  “Maybe that’s a sign that you shouldn’t think you have me figured out,” Mary suggested, raising an eyebrow with a little grin.

  “Never again, believe me.” I brought my lips up to hers and kissed her hungrily. I rocked my hips against Mary’s, the misery of my hangover starting to die back in the face of her lush tits, the heat of her body, the softness of her skin. I pressed my body against her, wanting to touch her everywhere, hungry for everything about her. A thought tickled my brain and I tried to push it aside, but it kept needling me; I wanted nothing more than to work Mary up into a fucking heat, and this nagging little thought in the back of my brain popped up over and over again, even as I reached down between her legs to rub her, to test the waters there.

  “Hey,” I said, breaking away from her lips. “I just thought of something.”

  Mary chuckled—low and throaty, and it was nearly the end of me right then and there. “Seriously, you’re thinking right now?”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “I just did coke for the first time in weeks last night,” I said defensively. “It jogged some things loose.”

  Mary sighed, pushing her hips down. “Make it quick then,” she told me.

  I laughed once more. “It occurs to me,” I said, spreading her legs a little wider, stroking up and down along the already slick folds of her pussy, “that if Big J is as big as they were saying…”

  “Mmm?” Mary blinked, and I grinned to myself at the look on her face: she was struggling to focus even as I found her clit with my fingertips and began to rub in tight little circles.

  “I think maybe he paid someone at Recovery Now off,” I told her.

  Mary’s eyes widened and she shook her head once, sharply. “Why?”

  “Why would Farber flat-foot fire one of his best counselors over a one-time offense? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I appreciate the fact that you thought of that,” she said, pulling my face down to hers. “But right about now, the thing I’m most interested in is fucking your brains out.”

  I choked back a chuckle as I claimed her lips with mine, rubbing my already throbbing cock against her thigh. Ever since I’d gotten sober, I’d felt so fucking constantly horny. It was impossible to deal with; even the little bump of coke from the night before hadn’t really put a dent in my sex drive.

  I stroked and rubbed Mary’s clit, teasing her as long as I could, holding myself back as I brought my fingertips up to her button and then down along her pussy. She was soaking wet in seconds, moaning in a half-broken voice, twisting and writhing underneath me. I never wanted it to end; I wanted to keep it going as long as possible. I loved the sound of her moaning, the way she threw herself into every fucking moment of me playing with her. I loved how wet she got—it was so fucking hot to know she was getting more and more turned on by the moment, that she was getting turned on by me, that she wanted me. I slid two fingers inside of her and I felt Mary’s inner muscles flex around me like her body itself didn’t want to let me to go.

  My cock was aching. I could feel the sticky slickness of my precum leaking onto her leg, and as I worked by fingers in and out of Mary’s pussy, rubbing along her inner walls, looking for her g-spot, I wanted to feel her wrapped around me so fucking bad it was like torture.

  “Fuck, babe,” I groaned, bringing my mouth down on hers again. “I need to have you.”

  Mary nodded, not quite breaking the kiss, and I slid my fingers out of her, shifting my hips down between her legs.

  I guided the tip of my cock up against her, and for a moment—torture or no—I held myself back. I knew I wouldn’t be able to last long; I felt like I was ready to burst already, and I wanted Mary to get off. I wanted to hear her crying out and feel her body tightening around me as she came. I buried my face against Mary’s neck and thrust into her slowly, inch by inch, feeling her body wrap around me like a perfectly wet, hot glove.

  “God,” I groaned, pushing up into her deeper and deeper, “you feel so fucking good. So fucking right.”

  Mary moaned, her fingernails digging into my back even as her muscles flexed around me, her whole body tensing.

  “You, too,” Mary said, her breath catching in her throat, cracking her voice.

  I pulled myself up and looked down into her face as my hips came up against hers, my cock twitching as I struggled to hold back. I’ve been with my share of women, but I couldn’t think of anyone I’d been with who felt as good as Mary did—especially in that moment.

  I started moving inside of her, rocking my hips slowly, and Mary fell into rhythm with me immediately. I kissed her again and again, swallowing down her moans, feeling her tits brushing and then pressing against my chest as we moved together. “Fuck, baby,” I groaned, clenching my teeth as I picked up my pace, trying to keep myself steady. Shit, North, don’t come yet, don’t come yet, hold back.

  “God, Mary,
you’re so fucking hot and tight…”

  Mary said something I couldn’t think clearly enough to even understand; all I knew was that the sound of her voice was like coals on fire. I started moving faster and faster, holding myself up on one elbow and my knees, pounding into her as I reached down between our bodies. It took me a few seconds of touching and exploring, but I found Mary’s clit by feel, and I started stroking and rubbing her as we moved together; I had to get her off before I popped—although I couldn’t have said why it was so important to me right at the moment. But I knew, absolutely, that I was gonna make her come first.

  It was a near thing; I was holding on by a thread as I felt Mary’s walls flexing around me, her pussy tightening around my cock in erratic little spasms that made it harder and harder not to come by the moment. I gasped and panted for breath, clenching my teeth, trying to think of something to distract me just enough to keep from coming. But the next instant, just when I thought that I was going to fuck it up and shoot my load before I’d managed to make Mary come, she cried out, and her body clamped down on me so hard that it almost hurt. Her fingernails bit into my back, her mouth crashed up into mine, and before I could even think to ride through her climax, I was coming too, moaning against her lips, pounding into her as hard and fast as I could, keeping up my momentum until her body had milked me of everything I had, the walls of her pussy rippling around me over and over again as waves of pleasure crashed through my body, obliterating every single thought in my brain.

  It was so good that I blacked out; I kept moving until everything sort of went away in a haze of warm, buzzing pleasure that was both exactly like being high and completely different from it; a million times better than the best high I’d ever felt in my life. I didn’t even realize I’d blacked out until I came back to myself. I pulled myself up to look at Mary, to see that she was okay; she was smiling, her eyes far off and dreamy, and her breathing was starting to slow.

  “Fuck, if I’d known that existed, I’d never have tried any other drug,” I said, slowly getting my breath back.

  Mary laughed breathlessly, reaching up to thread her fingers in my hair. “You’re a fucking liar,” she said, bringing her face up to kiss me on the lips. “You’ve been fucked before, North. There’s no mystery to an orgasm.”

  “If that wasn’t the best fucking climax you’ve ever had, I’d better try harder next time, because it was mine.”

  Mary’s lips twitched and I saw that sly look in her big, dark eyes that I’d come to enjoy instead of resenting. “It was at least in the top three,” she told me, her grin deepening.

  I groaned, collapsing onto her and burying my face against her shoulder. “I am going to make you scream my fucking name, just you wait,” I told her, closing my lips around her earlobe to nibble and suck on the little slip of flesh. “I’ll figure out your secrets, you infuriating fucking goddess.”

  “Did you seriously just call me an ‘infuriating fucking goddess’?” Mary’s voice rippled with amusement.

  “I did. Gonna do something about it?” I looked into her eyes and saw the quick leap of something that looked an awful lot like mischief.

  “If you think you came hard fucking me,” she said, licking her lips slowly, “give me a chance to recharge a bit and I will show you how good I can be with my mouth.”

  “Deal,” I said, lifting myself up off of Mary’s body and throwing myself back down onto her bed. “How about a little nap, a little brunch, and then we fuck each other’s brains out?”

  Mary yawned and curled up against me, and even though I never would have admitted it to anyone, I was happier than I could remember being for weeks—a happiness that had nothing to do with the fact that Big J and ninety percent of his dealers were behind bars.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “You know we’re eventually going to have to go to the precinct or wherever and actually give our statements,” Mary said as we picked over the remains of the brunch she’d put together.

  “They said today; they didn’t say what time today.”

  Mary rolled her eyes, shaking her head at me. “It’s true! And it’s not like they’ve called us to ask us to come in immediately.”

  I’d had a few missed calls from some of the members of my band—one from Jules, one from Mark, and two from Dan; but I hadn’t even made the first attempt to call them back.

  “So now you’re free,” Mary said. I heard something in her voice I didn’t like, though; I couldn’t say exactly what it was.

  “Free?”

  Mary looked down at her plate and started moving crumbs around into little constellations. She’d put a playlist on in the kitchen while she was cooking, and Franz Ferdinand came on; mournful melodic picking plucked at my ears, almost taking me out of the conversation, while Alex Kapranos’ voice crooned. How can I tell you I was wrong? How can I tell you I was wrong? When I am the proudest man ever born…

  I shook the song out of my head. “What do you mean, free?”

  “I mean, you don’t have to go to rehab,” Mary said, her voice going sharp. “You can go back to everything you left behind. You can party it up.”

  I bit my bottom lip. I couldn’t, in all honesty, say the thought hadn’t occurred to me. While we’d been showering together, it had filled my mind that I could go out and find a new source; surely someone was already jockeying to fill the void that Big J’s arrest made in the local drug scene. Nick probably already knew who might have product. The Miami culture scene hated a vacuum more than nature ever could.

  “I could,” I said slowly. “But I’d have to leave you behind if I did that.”

  Mary looked up sharply. “Yes, the hell you would. I’m not dating an addict, Alex North. Not an active one.”

  I took a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” I said, picking at the crust from my toast. “I’m not…I don’t think I want to…” I bit my bottom lip until I felt a sharp little jab of pain and then backed off. “I’m not saying that I’m going to be clean and sober forever.”

  “Okay,” Mary said. I saw her open her mouth to say more and I raised a hand to silently ask her to hear me out.

  “But for right now, it’s pretty easy to see that I wouldn’t have been on the hideout from J if it weren’t for the fact that I was flirting too much with that whole scene.” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “I think…I think I want to see how this goes.” I looked down at my plate again. I could see a little bit of yellow residue from the runny yolk that I hadn’t managed to sop up with toast. “The only thing I’m really sure of right now is that I want you.”

  “North, this…there’s a reason that they tell people not to get into relationships until they’ve been sober for a certain period of time…”

  “Fuck that noise.” I looked up from my plate to meet Mary’s gaze. “I’m not like, going to do a program or some shit like that,” I said, waving the idea aside completely. “But I think that I should at least give this whole not using drugs thing a fair shot.”

  Mary laughed. “So, what you’re saying is you’re not going to consciously be clean and sober, you’re just not going to use.”

  “Not for the foreseeable future.”

  Mary sighed. “I can’t…if you’re going to just go back to using again in a couple of weeks, or a month…or even six months…”

  I licked my lips. “I’m not asking you to commit to me for the rest of your life,” I said quickly. “But you’re—fuck, Mary, you’re goddamn amazing, don’t you know that?”

  “You’re not really in the best place to—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I said, my voice absolutely dead level. “I know what I want. I want to stop using for a while and see how it feels. I want to get to know you better. I want to see if what we’ve got going between us is just two broken people or if we can be fucking better than that. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

  Mary pressed her lips together and I could see the thoughts flicking through her d
ark eyes as she considered what I was saying. “Okay,” she said after a minute, exhaling slowly. “If I’m honest with myself, yes, I do want to see where we can go with this.” She looked up and met my gaze. “But Alex… I can’t be with you if you’re going to use. You get that, right? And I swear to god if you start using and then lie to me about it because you don’t want to lose me…”

  “Want me to call Nick? He’ll tell you in a heartbeat if I backslide. He’d love to have an excuse to call you up and chat.” Mary frowned in confusion. “He still thinks you’re as hot as a fucking four-alarm fire.”

  “Ugh,” Mary said, rolling her eyes. “I will never in a million years understand how guys in a band can all have the hots for the same girl and not self-destruct over it.”

  “Because we don’t let it interfere. I’ll call Nick right now and have him give you his word that he will call you the minute he ever finds me using, if I haven’t told you first.”

  Mary took another deep breath and stared into my eyes, and I saw that knowing, penetrating look that I loved—but that also intimidated me, even after seeing her at her most vulnerable.

  “We’ll come up with ground rules,” she said finally. “I’m not going to be responsible for your sobriety. Let’s make that clear right off the bat.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “We’ll get you in with another counselor. I can’t be your counselor if I’m seeing you romantically.”

  “Whatever you want,” I said with a little grin.

  Mary frowned sharply. “No. You are going to act like a fucking adult and you are going to name your own terms and we are going to have a mature goddamned relationship, or I’m out right now, even if you are the best lay I’ve ever had.”

  I smirked. “I knew I’d get you to admit it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN