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

by Meg Ripley

  As we walked offstage, heading for the green room, I made sure I was in the back. I grabbed Olivia’s hand as I walked past her, pulling her along with me. When I heard her startled yelp, I turned to grin at her. “What? Everyone knows, right? What’s there to hide?”

  I stopped in the green room long enough to snag a couple of beers and a fresh pack of cigarettes, never letting go of Olivia’s hand the entire time. “We’ll be back in a bit,” I told Ron, who hovered around the rest of the guys, waiting for the party to start so he could monitor it.

  “Nick, what are you doing?” I paused for a moment on my way to the bus outside. I looked around; there were a couple of techs at the far end of the hallway from us, but no one was really paying attention to me or to Olivia.

  “I get that you’re afraid and you’re worried and there’s this big scandal,” I said quickly, “but we’ve been seeing each other for two months steadily, right? I deserve at least to have a part in your decision to stay or go.” I continued on, and Olivia barely hesitated, following in my wake as I led her towards the exit and the bus.

  We got on and I locked the door behind us—as much as it could be locked, anyway—and then plunged through the bunks to the lounge. I propelled Olivia towards a seat at one of the tables and took the chair opposite her, setting down the beers and my pack of cigarettes. “Okay,” I said, pulling the tab on the plastic and quickly opening the pack, tugging the foil free. I pulled a cigarette out and lit it, pushed one of the beers towards Olivia, and met her gaze. “We need to talk about your choices.”

  “My choices?” Olivia laughed bitterly. “My choices are to be humiliated by people calling me a slut while I’m continuing to cover the tour, or be humiliated by people calling me a slut and a quitter when my editor fires me or forces me to resign.”

  “He’s not going to fire you,” I said, taking a drag of smoke into my lungs. I cracked one of the beers and took a sip. “Ron is going to tell him that if he takes you off this assignment, we’re not working with anyone else. Record Spin is just going to have to eat the scandal and hold its nose.”

  “And then he’ll fire me right after, pretending that it’s about something else,” Olivia said.

  “Open your beer,” I told her. I flicked ash into the ashtray and took another lungful of smoke. “If Record Spin fires you, I’ll get Ron to hire you as one of our PR people. The point is: I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to abandon you. Hell; if it wouldn’t be completely insane, I’d ask you to move in with me when the tour is over.” Olivia stared at me in shock, even as her fingers finished the work of opening her beer.

  “What?”

  “Look,” I said, licking my lips and tasting a mix of my own sweat, the hoppy beer, and the smoke from my cigarette. “I know you’ve always had one foot out the door because you think I’m never serious about anyone and you’re right about that. I’ve never been serious about anything other than my family, the band, and…” I stopped short. “That’s pretty much it.”

  “And having a good time,” Olivia added, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “But I’m serious about you. And until you tell me that you don’t want to be with me—not because there’s a scandal, or because you might get fired, or anything other than just your feelings towards me—I’m going to stay serious about you.” I smiled. “Fuck, Olivia—you know, kind of at least, how many girls I’ve been with. You’re the best damn lay I’ve ever had. I’d spend time with you even if you never wanted to have sex with me again. You’re smart and fun and a million fucking other things.”

  “Why me?” she held my gaze steadily. “What’s so different about me? You could feel that way for—dozens of girls.”

  “I could, but I never have,” I said with a shrug. “You’re just…you. You don’t try to ‘tame’ me, you don’t try to be something you aren’t just to get my attention, you’re genuinely just…” I shrugged again. “I love being around you. I love talking to you.” I swallowed a gulp of beer. “I think I might just love you.”

  Olivia had been in the process of bringing her own beer up to take a sip; it slipped out of her hand and I barely managed to catch it before it toppled on the tabletop and spilled everywhere. “Say that again,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “I can’t be completely sure,” I said, licking my lips again. “But I think I love you.” Olivia stared at me in complete silence for a full minute. She took the beer from my hand and drank what had to be about half of it all at once.

  “If you ever break my heart, Nick, I am going to kill you the slowest way I can figure out,” she told me. I smiled slowly.

  “You’ve been killing me all day, sweetheart,” I said. “My cock feels like it’s going to fall off if I ignore it for much longer.” Olivia snorted, shaking her head.

  “The bus is empty,” she said, glancing around.

  “It is,” I agreed. “Race you to the bunks?” Olivia’s tongue darted out between her lips and I shuddered. Feeling her watching me all night had been such a fucking turn-on; I couldn’t think of anything hotter than watching her staring at me, knowing that in spite of the fact that she was thinking of ending things, she wanted me.

  Before I could react, she was up, darting towards the bunks. I abandoned my beer and my cigarette both in pursuit, nearly tangling my legs in the pole that held the table up as I hurried to catch up to her. I lunged forward and managed to grab her waist with my outstretched arms, snatching her back, pulling her body against mine. In minutes, we were in my bunk, our clothes coming off, our hands wandering. “You can’t tell me this doesn’t feel just…exactly right,” I said, barely breaking away from Olivia’s lips as I tugged her panties down over her hips and along her legs.

  “It—mmm—it feels good,” Olivia murmured, slithering on top of me and straddling my hips. I cupped her tits in my hands, kneading them. I’d spent the whole day, ever since she’d sent me out of her bunk, thinking about her, thinking about what I’d be losing when she made the decision to break up with me.

  “If your editor takes you off the assignment,” I said, my breath catching in my throat for a moment as Olivia rubbed the hot, wet folds of her pussy against my cock slowly, “then you should post to our site instead. I’ll get—I’ll get Ron to give you a log-in.”

  “That sounds good,” Olivia murmured. “But let’s…let’s not even think about that right now.” I nodded my agreement and then I was thrusting up into her, pushing past the tightening of her muscles to slide deeper and deeper inside of her body. We fell into a rhythm together in the span of a few heartbeats, and my hands wandered all over her body, touching and teasing her. Olivia pulled herself up and began riding me, balancing on her knees, her hands on the wall over my head, giving me the view of a lifetime. I lifted myself up to bury my face against her tits as she rose and fell on me; I reached down between her legs to find her clit with my fingers even as I thrust up into her, pushing deeper and deeper.

  I don’t know how long either of us lasted; I knew from the beginning that I’d barely be able to hold myself back. It felt like it was only minutes before I felt every muscle in Olivia’s body starting to tense, little spasms of her inner walls clenching around me like her pussy itself didn’t want me out of it. I held back as she started to come, but within seconds I couldn’t stop myself anymore, and I felt my cock twitching inside of her as white-hot pleasure lit up my nervous system. We kept moving until we both finished, and then I wrapped my arms around Olivia and cradled her body against mine as soon as she collapsed on top of me, panting and gasping and trembling. “You’re still twitching inside me,” she murmured, giggling.

  “Woman, that’s the hardest I’ve come in…days.” I kissed her sweaty forehead and pressed her body against mine even more firmly. “Feel better about things?”

  “Oh, is that the reason you wanted to fuck me again?” Olivia pulled herself up enough to look down into my eyes.

  “Everything is better when we fuck,” I
told her. “I kind of want the cigarette I left behind though.” Olivia rolled her eyes, shaking her head.

  “It’s a damned good thing you love me,” she told me, looking around the bunk. She grabbed the throw blanket I kept around in case it got colder than normal and draped it around herself as she climbed off of me. As Olivia darted out of the bunk, I thought about what I’d told her; every bit of it was true. I smiled to myself. God. Someone should have put money on me losing my damn mind and falling in love. They’d’ve made a killing on that betting pool. The Olivia was climbing back into the bunk with my cigarettes and the ashtray in hand, and I stopped thinking about anything but having a cigarette and then convincing her to fuck again. I lit a cigarette and Olivia cuddled close to me, letting the throw blanket fall away from her sexy little body, and I smiled to myself. This time last year I would never have believed that I’d ditch an after party to have tons of sex with someone I’ve had tons of sex with at least fifty times. It felt way, way better than I would have ever imagined it would. I wanted more—and I was pretty sure Olivia would oblige.

  Epilogue

  “It’s weird to know I’m getting off of the bus for the last time,” Olivia told me, slinging her backpack onto her shoulders.

  “Well not the last last time,” I pointed out, watching as she checked to make sure she’d taken everything out of her bunk. “You’re going to be on it again for the next tour.” She rolled her eyes.

  “That’s assuming you still want me on tour with you.” She climbed down and looked up at me, one eyebrow raised in silent challenge.

  “You’re our PR person; of course I’m going to want you on tour.” Olivia’s editor had decided to let her work through the rest of the tour—but it would be her last assignment for the magazine. Alex and I had spoken to Ron when the decision came down, and he’d hired her immediately as our public relations person, offering her a standard salary; it was, Olivia had told me after accepting the job, a little less than twice what she’d been making at the magazine.

  The fallout wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be. There were still people who trolled her different social accounts, but for the most part the industry as a whole didn’t seem to care; I’d told her it happened all the time, and I was right.

  “Hurry your asses up,” Jules called from the front of the bus. “I want to get back into my own bed and not leave it for three days.”

  “That actually sounds like a good plan,” I told Olivia. “Let’s go back to my place and stay in bed together for the next week.”

  “You’d chafe,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Besides, there’s no food at your place.”

  “We can order in,” I insisted. “Besides, now that we’re off tour, we have to keep it exciting somehow, right?” she rolled her eyes and started down the aisle to the front of the bus. I grabbed for her hand and she let me claim it. I looked around, thinking that of all the possible scenarios I could have imagined, ending the tour with a serious girlfriend was the last of my ambitions. But I could understand—finally—why Alex had been the first one off the bus when we’d arrived at the office where our cars were parked, waiting for us. I might even agree to let him bring Mary on the next tour if she wanted to come. There’d be no choice for Olivia; I smirked to myself, thinking that dating our PR person was one way to guarantee as much time with the woman I loved as possible. It was a new desire for me: but as Olivia always pointed out, I was all about novelty. I would do everything I had to, to keep things new between us, if it meant keeping Olivia. I gave her hand a squeeze as we stepped off the bus together. I knew we were going to be fine.

  THE END

  Julian

  I’m the lead guitarist in one of the most successful bands in the Miami scene named Molly Riot. Our label is trying to convince us to tour with Juniper Woolf, a rival band that’s fronted by an attention-seeking brat named Fran Chambers.

  When my band mates finally convinced me to sign off on the tour, I thought there was no way that I’d ever get along with Fran…that is, until I started spending time alone with her on the tour bus.

  You know, I’ve gotta say, no woman has ever had such a pull on me. We can’t keep our hands off each other, but the problem is, we can’t let anyone else in either of our bands know about our little tryst. If the press were to get a hold of this, we’d all be in for one hell of a sh*tstorm.

  Do you have any idea how hard it is to hook up on a tour bus without anyone else knowing about it? I’ll tell you one thing, if the two of us can keep this a secret, we’ll each deserve an Oscar…

  CHAPTER ONE

  I shifted in my chair, looking around at the other members of the band; Ron had just left the room “to give you time to discuss the proposition from the label,” and true to our forms, we’d all stopped talking altogether.

  “It’s not a bad deal,” Dan said quietly, breaking the silence.

  “Yeah, but fucking Juniper Woolf? Are they even serious with that shit?” Nick shook his head in disgust. I twisted my hips so I could fish a half-finished pack of cigarettes out of my pocket; Alex looked at me as I shook one free of the box and found my lighter.

  “If we can keep Julian from killing Fran, it might work,” Alex suggested.

  “I won’t kill her,” I said, lighting my cigarette and taking as long a drag as I could fill my lungs with. “I’ll leave her alive.”

  “The only reason they think this is a good idea is because of Jules’ rivalry with her,” Mark pointed out. “Maybe if you had a filter, dude…”

  “Maybe if I had a filter I wouldn’t notice how much of an attention whore she is?” I rolled my eyes and blew smoke through my nose. “We can’t do it.”

  “They’re promising us an extra half million for the next album if we do,” Dan pointed out. “And a bonus if their first album on the label sells fifty thousand.”

  “We’re never going to see even a cent of that fucking bonus, dude,” I told Dan. “Who the hell’s going to buy the Juniper Woolf album? Fucking nobody, that’s who.” I took another drag of my cigarette and shook my head.

  “Still, just the extra half mil is worth it,” Alex said. “We could make the next album huge with that kind of money.”

  “That’s assuming none of us ends up in prison,” Mark said.

  “Julian is all talk about Fran,” Nick told everyone. “He just doesn’t want to work with her because he’s worried she’ll cut in on his wanking time.”

  “Like he’d even hesitate to jerk off with her in the room,” Alex said.

  “If she walked in on me that’d be her problem,” I pointed out. Nick dug a cigarette out of his gig bag and lit it, and for a moment silence filled the room again.

  “Half a million more for the next album,” Dan said finally. “Guys—that’s not chump change and you all know it.”

  “Neither is two billion,” I said, flicking the ash off the end of my cigarette in the general area of the ashtray. “But working with Juniper Woolf isn’t worth that, either.”

  “Come on, Jules,” Alex said, looking me in the eye. “This could be really good for us.”

  “Besides, apart from getting yourself involved with a drug ring like Mr. Alex North over here, or having sex with the rising music press star like Nick, what else can you do to promote us that would be better than putting aside your stupid fucking feud with Fran Chambers?” asked Mark.

  I glanced at Mark. “I didn’t know it was my fucking job to promote us,” I told him. “I thought we had someone taking fifteen fucking percent from our royalties for that.”

  “What’s your problem with her, anyway?” Dan looked up at me from his position on the floor, an eyebrow raised in query.

  “Jules doesn’t need anything so petty as a reason to hate someone,” Nick said with a smirk. “He can judge someone’s worthiness within thirty seconds of meeting them.”

  “He’s never made a decision that works against the interests of the band, though,” Dan countered. “I want to know where this
all started.” I shrugged, leaning over the arm of the chair and reaching for the acoustic guitar I’d put aside when Ron had come in.

  “She’s just an attention-seeking bitch and I can’t stand her,” I said, splaying my fingers over the fret board until I found the chord I wanted and picked at a few of the strings.

  “They met like a year ago,” Nick told Dan. “We were out after one of the shows, and caught the tail end of Juniper Woolf.”

  “So, what happened?” I kept playing, ignoring Alex’s question; it had been around about the time that Alex had been either in rehab—meeting his girlfriend Mary—or on the run from the main dealer in South Florida.

  “She threw glitter at him from the stage,” Nick said with a shrug. “Apparently, she does that a lot.”

  “Like I said,” I cut in, “she’s an attention-seeking bitch.”

  “Did you get glitter in your eye or something?” Dan looked at me, incredulous. “I mean it’s not like we haven’t done some crazy shit to get attention.”

  “You played an entire show in an Elvis costume,” Mark pointed out. “It wasn’t Halloween.”

  “You guys were in costumes, too,” I said. “It’s not like I was the only person on the stage in a fucking costume.”

  “But you still did it,” Alex insisted.

  “Costumes are one thing,” I told him, shaking my head. “Throwing glitter at people? Christ.”

  “Green glitter at that,” Nick said with a smirk. I stubbed out my cigarette and went back to playing.

  “Can’t you put your stupid rivalry with her aside for a few months to get a deal for us?” I looked up at Alex and sighed.

  “I will if she does,” I said, knowing I sounded petty as shit and not even caring. “Besides, she owes me an apology.”