Petting Them: An Anthology of Claw-ver Tails

by Tate James

  “Hey,” I asked as they let me out of the car. “Somebody text me when Devon gets in, yeah? I won’t sleep until I know nothing bad happened.”

  Cash nodded and climbed back into the passenger seat. It wasn’t enough, watching them pull away, but it would have to do. At least the gunman hadn’t achieved his goal.

  A few minutes later, I soaked the mud off my body and allowed myself to consider what it would be like to be with one of them, no expectations or commitment. But even if I got the chance…which one would I choose?

  Sleep wouldn’t be an issue, not after what I’d been through. But in the morning, I’d have to answer all the questions I’d put off when I walked in carrying half the bayou in my clothes and hair. Suddenly, I missed the days when sleep was the biggest problem I had.

  9

  The dream began slowly, a sensuous cascade of hands over my body, warming it until it felt like hot silk.

  As my body bent into the touch of work roughened hands, a second set joined it, darker, softer, but skilled at pleasure. A pair of haunting brown eyes watched, hungry, but waiting their turn, and my skin turned into scalding liquid under their scrutiny.

  Four hands to explore the wet heat they coaxed from me, two mouths plying my breasts and thighs. The fingers of one hand tangled in thick curls, the other hand fisted in soft shaggy layers as I devoured one throbbing cock, the other thrust deep inside me.

  And beneath the soaking, heavy pleasure, the promise that there was still more to come, as dark curls over tan skin closed in on us, to join us and stake his claim with his brothers.

  I woke in a sweat, aching to my core as I stared at the dim shadows moving across the bedroom walls. If only I could make my dreams for myself come true for once, and wake between their bodies, sated and content.

  10

  “Saved by the bell, literally,” Amy whispered to me as my mom strode off to answer the door. She’d been shooting dark looks in my direction all morning, guessing, I assumed, the parts of the story I’d left out. I couldn’t think of anything worse than confirming her fears that ‘my imagination’ still controlled my actions.

  Two sheepish heads ducked around the corner as Kate called out a good morning from behind the mountain of pancakes on her plate.

  “My God,” Cash blurted. “All you girls do is eat. How are you all so damned skinny?”

  I glanced at Amy, who looked down at herself. “Daily marathon training and a fantastic constitution. What do you guys do?”

  “We run, too, sort of.” Cash gave Adam a look and they both laughed. “Uh, Adam had a cancelation in court, and I’m ahead of my orders for once. Thought maybe we’d take y’all out on the bayou properly and show you a bit of nature before you go back to the concrete jungle.”

  Kate and I pleaded with Amy with our eyes until she threw up her hands in disgust. “Why are you treating it like I’d be the one to say no? I love the water.” Amy’s love of the water ran more to fifty-foot yachts and her boyfriend’s racing ketch, but we knew better than to point it out in mixed company.

  “Any chance Carter will be there?” Kate added, her voice and face carefully neutral. My stomach did a little flip at the realization that my friend wasn’t interested in either of the men. Lucky me. Now I just need to get someone interested in me.

  “Not today, but we can work something out for after he’s done with work.” She nodded and cleared her plate from the table only half-emptied. She wouldn’t admit it, but Cash’s comment had gotten to her, even though we’d all heard the same a hundred times before.

  We grabbed sunhats and I kissed my mother’s cheek. Her eyes still held the dark shadow of doubt. But she simply told us to enjoy ourselves and remember to keep our limbs inside the boat at all times.

  It was a proper boat, too. I’d half expected to see some rickety wooden rowboat like my father had taken me out in when I was still small enough to think I might catch a fairy if I watched the shoreline very carefully.

  We toured the backwaters for a couple of hours, catching sight of everything from butterflies headed south, to water snakes gliding in the wake of the boat. When we finally stopped, we hefted out the picnic supplies the guys had brought and carried them up away from the water’s edge to a tumble-down old shack, sway backed and buckled with age.

  “Hey, Frankie, I had a couple of questions about last night,” Adam blindsided me as I handed off the last of the water bottles. I’d hoped to avoid talking about it ever again, especially since I hadn’t told Amy or Kate about the man who’d shot at us.

  “Yeah, but maybe in private?” I glanced at the others, who were busy setting up a rickety folding table for lunch.

  We walked into the woods a bit before he said anything else. The leaves on the trees dappled the sunlight on his skin as he led me further up the hill by the hand. He found a flat rock thick with moss for us to sit on and look out over the Atchafalaya River.

  “You said that being near us triggered the, uh…”

  “I call it a premonition.”

  He chuckled and rubbed his palms on his thighs. “Right. Premonition. Have you had any others, about us, or about Breaux Bridge in general?”

  I thought about my dream, how vivid it had felt, how real. Embarrassment crept into my face as I wondered if I’d somehow sent that dream to him as well. “Um, I don’t know. Sometimes, when I fight them really hard, they come out garbled, or just end up as really weird, ah, dreams, you know?”

  “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, it’s just…” He dragged his fingers through his hair and my breath caught, remembering the way those curls wound around mine the night before. “Things are hard for my family right now. Do you think you’d have gotten another vision if there was going to be another attack?”

  “God, I hope so. But…is it weird of me to ask to hold your hand, see if maybe touching you makes something happen?”

  He chuckled, making my blush deepen. “I’ve never had a girl ask to hold my hand before, but sure.” He curled his fingers through mine and I did my best to relax and let myself feel something. But all I felt was the tingling of my skin against his and the bump of my pulse as I immersed myself in just feeling.

  “I’m, um, I’m not getting anything.” I opened my eyes to find his face inches from mine.

  “Really? Nothing at all? Not even a little spark?”

  Oh, there’s sparks all right, I thought. But what the hell do I do about that here?”

  Aloud, I couldn’t think of what to say. I stammered for a moment, until he closed the distance between us and kissed me. “Mmm. I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I smelled Cash on you.”

  I was too breathless to ask what he meant. I watched his tongue flick out over the mound of his full bottom lip and I had to have more. He leaned in again and I pulled that lip into my mouth, sucking on it until he pushed me back onto the mossy stone and growled at me to stay put.

  He undid his shorts and let them drop around his ankles, stepping out of them with confident ease. The sun bronzed on his skin, the hard length of him jutting out, waiting for me. I tried to sit up, but he gently pressed my back to the ground and slid his rolled-up shorts under my head.

  His hands were gentle, but insistent, pushing my shirt up over my breasts and my skirt up around my waist. My panties were discarded and he slid into me in one long stroke. “God, you’re so wet,” he panted as he withdrew and thrust into me again. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

  He was big enough that it almost hurt to have him all the way inside, and I shifted a little to give him leverage to keep his rhythm without having to stop. I’d never been with anyone that big before, so long and thick that he hit the sweet, rough spot of pleasure and the end of me with every thrust.

  I wrapped my legs around his narrow waist, dragging my fingers over the muscles of his chest and stomach. “Don’t stop,” I begged when he paused and shifted his weight above me.

  “God. Never. I wont ever stop, how about that?”

  An al
most manic giggle bubbled in my throat. Our friends were a few hundred feet away, making us lunch, and I was wrapped around one of the sexiest men I’d ever had the privilege to lay eyes on.

  “We have to go back. But don’t stop, please.”

  He flipped us so I was on top of him, my feet planted as I rocked my hips. “God, you’re a beautiful man.” I let him set my pace, his hands moving my hips, then sliding up my body to my breasts, massaging and pinching me, pulling my nipples to hard points.

  My orgasm built faster as I bent over and slid my body down the length of him, my mouth seeking his and finding it. His tongue and teeth pushed me over the edge as he swallowed my scream, digging his fingernails into my ass.

  The moment I crashed into bliss, a vision took over. A girl, barely more than a child, her arms raised over her head to ward off a blow. A great cinnamon wolf leapt over her and planted himself between her and her attacker, baring his teeth and growling.

  For once, the premonition didn’t feel like a threat. I crested again, the freedom of my sight enhancing my pleasure. I clenched hard around him and he roared his climax to the sky, throbbing and spasming inside me.

  “You gave me a vision, but I don’t know what it means,” I panted. “Also, I just learned that visions don’t have to shatter my brain. Can I put you on retainer?”

  “You can’t afford me.”

  I kissed his neck, the only part of him I could reach as he stretched luxuriously under me. “Can you take it in trade?”

  “We’ll work something out if you stay.” He cursed as I dragged myself off him and went looking for my panties.

  “You think I should stay?” Even though the sex was great, it seemed sudden to even think about not going back to New York, my apartment, and my friends.

  “Why shouldn’t you stay? You make Cash almost human, I think we could have something…good.”

  “We just had amazing sex, and your first thought is of Cash?”

  “He likes you. Likes you enough that it freaks him out. If you staying here helps Cash take on the leadership role he was meant to inherit from his father…” he shrugged. “I’m not the alpha. I take what I can get.”

  More frat talk. Well, if Cash was the alpha, he had a lot to learn about diplomacy, and how to let a girl know how he felt. Because I didn’t know what Adam was seeing, but from my perspective, the only times he noticed me, was when I pissed him off.

  “Yeah, he wants you. And knowing him, he’ll have you, too. But I can’t let you go just yet, all right, beautiful?”

  I stared down at him in all his naked glory and wondered exactly what his idea of beautiful was. Because from my point of view, I had nothing on him.

  11

  We rejoined the others for lunch and the girls chatted aimlessly with me about the prettiest parts of the river as Cash looked me over, a frown on his face. Oh God. Adam had talked about smelling Cash on me from a kiss. I hope to hell he was kidding, because this could get really awkward.

  They’d packed po boys and sweet tea, along with fresh baked bread and fruit tarts from the Calico Cupboard bakery, and microbrews in a cooler.

  Adam stayed on the edge of the picnic, putting the three of us between him and his friend, until Cash finally bolted around the table and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. He dragged Adam out of earshot, but we could see the two of them gesturing as the conversation got heated.

  “Girl, what did you do?”

  “I had a premonition,” I shrugged, and Kate laughed it off, while Amy watched me with a concerned face.

  “Was it bad?” she whispered when Kate moved down toward the boat.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t really understand it. It seems as though a girl is saved from a cruel man by her dog.”

  “Huh. Well, it’s a change from creating perfect couples.”

  “Honestly, I prefer matching up people who deserve to be in love. Seeing things that I can’t understand doesn’t do much good, does it? By the time I see the girl in my vision, it could be on the news, as they do a fluff piece about why it’s good to have a dog.”

  “A dog?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think that’s what they’re arguing about anyway. I didn’t exactly share it with Adam.”

  “From how flushed you are and the state of your clothes, I’d say you were doing plenty of sharing…and somebody doesn’t like it.” She glanced back at them. “Not that I blame you. If I didn’t love Sean so much, I’d have been tempted by the sexy southern lawyer, too.”

  “And if I’m tempted by both?”

  She feigned a swoon and clutched her hands to her chest. “Why Miss Frankie. I didn’t know you were a slut.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Oh, right.” She picked up one of the food baskets. “Then I guess our friendship would survive if you fucked them both.” She rolled her eyes and strode down to the boat, where Kate was already sunning herself on one of the back seats.

  I lugged the rest of the food down, thinking about my vision. Cypress trees and tall reeds and sawgrass had surrounded the ramshackle hut, but those grew everywhere. I guess I’ll never be a famous detective.

  Adam and Cash seemed to have worked out whatever they’d been arguing about. The wink Adam gave me quelled my small fear that it had been about me, or what we’d done. Which was great, because I wanted more, and I didn’t want guilt to follow me around just because I was enjoying myself.

  But the other tiny voice in my head still worried that if we did, I’d have another vivid, useless premonition, and the next one might not be so benign.

  We putted down a narrow stretch of river watching for lizards and enjoying the nearly cloudless day. Flies buzzed and dragonflies hummed as they hunted, along with the drone of the engine, they filled the air with a hypnotic white noise that made my eyelids droop.

  “What’s up there?” Kate’s voice seemed over-loud in the quiet afternoon.

  “That’s old Heb Jones’ place. He’d a drunk, but if you want moonshine, he’s one of the best.” Cash coughed, “the stuff’s almost drinkable.”

  I shaded my eyes and looked where Kate was pointing. A rundown shack, so tiny and covered with vines we could’ve missed it, squatted on the rock above an equally dilapidated dock.

  “Adam. Oh my God. That’s the place I saw.” He glanced at me and I saw him and Cash exchange a look, then Cash turned the boat into the jetty. I jumped out of the boat and raced up the hill, overtaken by the men just as I saw a straw-haired girl raise her hands to ward off a blow from a bearded man in dirty overalls.

  “Don’t do it, Heb. Just drop the club.” Cash held up a hand to stop the angry man. “She’s just a girl, Heb. What could she possibly have done?”

  I hadn’t registered the wicked length of wood in his hands, and gasped as he started to swing it downward. But Cash moved faster than the drunk, and he grasped the club and jerked it out of Heb’s hands, sending him crashing to one side.

  “That little bitch broke four bottles. You ain’t got no right to tell me how to raise my kin.”

  I lifted the girl to her feet and pulled her away from them. “Are you okay?”

  She stared wide-eyed at us, taking us all in, then cautiously nodded her head. Adam gently prodded us down the hill toward the boat, rolling his shoulders as he joined Cash on the knoll. “Heb. You’ve been warned. Remember? In court you were told that you couldn’t be drunk around Sarah again.”

  “She’s all the kin I got. You can’t take her away from me.” He snarled at the men, his eyes seeming to glow with hateful light. His voice grew deeper as he ranted at them. “I’ll kill her before you take her. She’s my clan. You have no right to her.”

  “Get back to the boat,” Adam hissed, then attacked the moonshiner and the two of them tumbled out of sight behind the cabin.

  “Shit.” Cash waved me off. “Do what he said. I’ve got to go stop the idiot from murdering Heb.” He took off after them and I tucked my arm around the shivering girl, watch
ing the empty space where he’d been, hoping for his quick return.

  “Okay, let’s go.” Finally, I helped the skinny, dirt-smeared creature down the hill, then climbed back up to find the guys. I glanced back down the hill at Amy. “They’re gone. They must have chased him into the woods.”

  “Well, get back here. They know where to find us.”

  But my vision still didn’t make any sense. Where was the beast who had saved her in my premonition? I took a few steps toward crashing I heard in the undergrowth but paused just short of the trees. Are you an idiot? Men fighting aren’t the only things that can rustle ferns. I clung to a tree and peered into the dark looking for sign of them.

  I was just turning back to obey Amy and wait in the boat, when a pair eyes caught my attention in the shadow. The beast stepped forward, and my jaw hit the dirt as I stared at an honest-to-God giant wolf with ruddy, cinnamon colored fur and wide, golden eyes.

  12

  “It’s just, I think I’m done. That was too much backwater action for my taste.” Amy was packing as I sat on the end of the bed.

  “I don’t blame you, worse, that was my premonition. I feel like I made it all happen.” I hadn’t told her about the savior wolf of my vision, or his real-life twin in the woods. I couldn’t explain it without sounding like a crazy person.

  I handed her a sweater she’d forgotten and hugged my knees to my chest. “What would you think if I stayed?”

  She stopped and stared at me for what seemed an eternity, then a smile spread slowly across her face. “I’d say that must have been some otherworldly sex in the bayou.”

  “Oh God. Stop it. And yes, but that’s beside the point. I’m talking about figuring out what this gift, or curse, or mental illness really is, and it seems a lot stronger here.”

  She shrugged and zipped up the bag. “It makes sense, if you think about it. This is the land you’re connected to, and apparently, the people,” she teased as I groaned and hid my face. “If I could make as much in Charlotte as I do in New York, and be near my grandmother, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Take advantage of the rent-free space you’ve got while you figure things out.”