by T. S. Joyce
Tuff could see her insecurities out in the open like they were written in the air between them. She was scared he wouldn’t like her animal. That he wouldn’t like the damage.
Strong woman. Didn’t she know? Her scars drew him in even more.
“Do it and I’ll show you my animal. I don’t show no one my animal.” He lifted his chin. “Give me yours and you can see mine.”
“Will you want to hurt me?” she asked.
“I would want to hurt everyone but you.” He ripped his jacket backward and set it on the snow beside him, then locked her into his gaze so she could see the truth when he said, “You’re safe with me. Only you.”
Jerkily, she nodded. Then she gave him her back and pulled her jacket off. She undressed a layer at a time, and he could see her hands shaking when she folded her clothes and set them in the neat pile beside her. Luna gave him a look over her shoulder.
“Do you want me to turn away?” he asked.
Luna shook her head, then slowly turned and let him see her. God, she was beautiful. Silly woman for having a single insecurity. She had the perfect curves, perfect tits, smooth, soft skin, and that hour glass shape that had made his body devoted to hers. Her nipples were drawn up taut against the cold morning air and her breath froze in front of her face. Slowly, she straightened her spine and lifted her chin higher, letting him look at every inch of her skin.
Atta girl.
He dragged his gaze back to her face. She was blushing. His dick was pushing against his jeans and he adjusted himself. Pretty girl. She had no idea how gorgeous she was and that made her even prettier somehow.
She Changed right in front of him. It was fast. There was an echoing smattering of pops as her bones reshaped and a wave of power rolled right through him. She hit the snow on her hooves, and he froze.
Luna was white, like the moon. He’d guessed it right. She had a black nose, black eyeliner, black knees, and black hooves. Her one good ear was black. Other than that, her hide was pure white. Brave girl kept her head straight forward so he could see what she’d been scared of showing him.
They hadn’t just cut the ear. They’d taken her horn on that side. Rage boiled through him and a part of him wished those evil people were still alive. His dad and the herd had made sure through the years that each one had suffered and been killed, either in prison or when they got out. No one who had hurt the Hagans all those years ago was alive to carry their awful secrets. All were long buried.
It didn’t stop the wolf inside of him for wishing bloodshed on the people who had taken so much from this incredible woman.
On the other side of her face, her ear was lined with black and her horn was long and curved up gracefully. The very tip was black, but the rest was white.
He’d never seen an animal more beautiful.
Luna had two brands. A Hagan brand that told of the herd she’d been born into, and a number from the medical lab. It looked like Train Wreck’s. It was just a number. 143.
He smiled at the number. His mom had written that number on little notes and cartoons she’d packed in his lunches when he was a kid. Did she realize what it meant? It meant ‘I love you.’ It was the number for the letters in each of those words. Someday, he was going to tell her that.
Tuff approached slowly, hand out so he wouldn’t startle the animal. Oh, she had those Hagan genetics that had formed her into a badass. She could kill anyone if she had the mind to. She was built like Hagan’s Lace. Muscular and lean, bigger front end with a smaller back. She could’ve been a bucker if she’d wanted to. Power emanated from her, but she stood stock still for him. She sniffed his fist, and he reached toward her scars. She jerked her head back and retreated a few steps. He tried again. Slowly, Tuff approached her with his hand out. She turned that long, dangerous horn toward him. Oh, she could gore him in a second flat if she wanted. If she wanted.
But just as he’d told her she was safe, he felt safe with her too. Reaching around her face, he touched the side of her mouth and ran his hand up her face. She allowed it, chugging frozen breath like a freight train.
He stepped forward until his torso was almost touching her nose. Slowly, ever so slowly, he ran his fingertips up the side of her face to her scars. When his fingertips found them, he murmured, “You’re perfect, Luna.”
Her soft brown eyes eased up to his, and he could see his reflection there.
She was paying attention, so he repeated it. “You’re perfect.” He grinned. “Beautiful badass. Someday I want Hagan’s Lace to see you like this. She’ll want you to buck. She’ll want to train you. She would want your bucking name to be Hagan’s Moon. I’m calling it.”
She blinked hard, her long lashes touching her white cheek. A perfect snowflake fell onto those lashes and he brushed it off gently. “Can I take a picture?” he asked. “I want you on the lock screen of my phone.”
Luna leaned into his palm, pressed her scars right there, and something in his soul loosened up. Had he ever trusted someone so much? Had anyone ever trusted him so much? Something important was building between them. Something unbreakable.
She nodded, careful not to hurt him with her horn.
Tuff pulled his cell phone from his back pocket, backed up, and snapped a picture.
In it, Luna stood tall, her face forward. One ear erect, one horn stretching for the storm clouds, eyes forward, muscles flexed from the way she stood in the snow. There was a barbed wire fence in the background and a light snow falling, with bare trees farther away in the background. A trio of ravens chose that moment to fly through the sky behind her.
He’d never taken a better or more important picture in all his life.
She was so Goddamn beautiful.
Tuff set it as his lock screen and then peeled off his shirt. He folded his clothes like she’d done, carefully, so she could watch his Change in detail. There was no rush. No nervousness. She’d shown him a piece of herself she’d been worried about, and now look at her. Head high, strong and proud.
His wolf wasn’t white. He was the opposite of Luna. He was black with only a few white hairs around his muzzle and lower legs.
As his paws hit the snow, he looked up quick to make sure he didn’t scare her. Luna was tense and watchful, but fear didn’t swim in her eyes. Only curiosity.
What a pair they made. White Hagan heifer and black wolf twice the size of a normal werewolf. That was thanks to Quickdraw Slow Burn’s genetics.
Good luck to anyone who tried to fuck with them. He would destroy anyone who tried to hurt Luna again.
From this moment on, this undeniably strong woman was his to protect—scars and all.
Chapter Seven
Luna stomped her boots on the mat by the front door and shrugged out of her jacket. She was chugging breath, warm and happy, despite having hung out in the snow for hours with Tuff.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Starving!”
He chuckled and took her jacket from her, tossing a look over his shoulder that she didn’t understand. When she twisted around to look at his yard, she didn’t see anything out of place. Just the driveway leading to the tree line and about a foot and a half of snow. “What is it?”
Tuff’s voice came out all gritty when he said, “The storm’s done.”
“Are you the weather man now?” she teased as she yanked off her boots and set them by the door.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been disappointed in the end of a snowstorm.”
Luna cocked her head and studied his face. Indeed, his eyes did look somber. “There will be more storms.”
“Ones where you’re here?”
Luna acted shocked. “Tuff Enough Fast Burn, are you sad that I won’t be trapped at your ranch anymore?”
He rolled his eyes and set her coat onto a hook on the wall. “I just mean it’s been…” He cast her a quick glance. “I mean, having you here has been…not terrible.”
“Oh, romance! It’s not terrible having me around,” she said, ticklin
g his ribs.
Tuff picked her up and flopped her over his shoulder. If he was saying anything, she couldn’t tell because she was staring at his very firm butt cheeks and not his lips. She bongo-drummed his butt and he galloped like a horse as she giggled her head off. He took her straight in the bedroom and plopped her onto the bed.
“Stay there, woman.”
She propped up on her elbows. “Where are you going?” she asked as he disappeared down the hallway. Luna leaned over the edge of the bed and watched him saunter into the bathroom. He came back a couple minutes later.
In the doorway of his room, he held out his hand. In his eyes was a slow burning hunger. Confused, she stood and slipped her hand into his, then followed him into the bathroom.
He’d run the bath for her and water was filling the tub, steaming against the cool air.
“I don’t have candles, but I do have a flashlight,” he said cheekily as he clicked a small flashlight on and off in his hand.
“It’s a bath for me?”
Tuff nodded. “Tomorrow the snow will be melting and your truck can make it home. I can’t keep you here. You’re welcome to stay, but just in case you do decide you need to go back to your regular life, I want tonight to be special.”
“To lure me back here?”
“You’re damn right.”
Chewing on the corner of her lip, she stared at the running bath water, then back at him. “What are you going to do while I take a bath?”
“Cook you a frozen pizza.”
Luna pursed her lips in pleasure. She might have moaned. “I’m pretty hungry.”
Tuff held up two fingers. “Two frozen pizzas? One cheese. One cowboy pizza.”
“What’s a cowboy pizza?”
“Pepperoni, sausage, black olives, and mushrooms.”
“I want that.” Her stomach vibrated and was probably growling. “And a movie?” she asked hopefully.
“And a movie. And I got a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with our names on it in the freezer.”
“You’re going to give me the perfect day, aren’t you?” she asked in all seriousness.
Tuff brushed her hair back and off her shoulders, then gripped her arms gently. “I’m sure gonna try. You’re a lady who deserves perfect days.”
He turned to leave, but she caught his hand. “I never did that before.”
“Did what?”
“Changed with someone else and just spend the day as the animal with them.” They’d explored his whole property today. She couldn’t even count the number of fences they’d jumped together. She nodded over and over. “Tuff, you deserve perfect days too.”
He leaned in and kissed her forehead, and she rolled her eyes closed at the warmth of his lips on her skin. How could another person make her feel this safe? This whole? This special? This coveted.
It was the best feeling in the world to be cared for like this.
He eased back and lowered his lips to hers. He drank her in until the chill had left her body completely.
When she was nothing but Jell-O, he ended the kiss and reached behind her to turn off the water. Another kiss on the cheek and then he said, “Bath, pajamas, food, couch.”
“Pajamas,” she repeated, feeling utterly drunk from his affection.
“I’ll bring you one of my T-shirts. I like when you wear my clothes. I like when you smell like me.”
His lips looked so nice when he talked, especially when he said sexy things.
“Mmm hmm,” she said with a nod.
Tuff peeled her shirt over her head and unsnapped her bra. Luna pushed her pants down her thighs and stepped out of them. Now she wasn’t modest at all in front of him. He’d seen the animal. He’d seen all of her, even at her most vulnerable.
His hand was strong as it held hers, and Tuff guided her into the warm bath. Oh, it was almost unbearably warm, but she liked it like this. Liked it scalding. Slowly, she sank down until she was completely submerged up to her neck. Exhaling deeply, she leaned her head back on the slanted edge of the tub and rolled her eyes closed.
Tuff ran his fingertips across her forehead, pushing her hair back from her face. When she looked up at him, he wore the softest expression in his steel blue eyes. “Pretty girl.”
This is what glowing felt like. Right? He really liked her. She could tell. To him, she wasn’t damaged goods. He just saw Luna. Just saw through the scars to the real her.
There was something both terrifying and exciting about being seen like this. Really seen.
And as he walked away, she understood what he’d been saying earlier.
She didn’t want the storm to end either.
Chapter Eight
Tuff leaned on the open doorway, eyes locked on hers for a little while before his lips moved. “Pizzas are done.”
“You know what I like just as much as hot pizza?” she asked, lifting her foot out of the tub.
Tuff’s attention tracked the water droplets racing from her toes toward her knee. “What?”
“Cold pizza.”
Tuff had many smiles, but the lopsided one was her favorite. It always started as a slow spread on the right side of his lips. He wore that one for her now.
“Come here,” she told him.
Tuff dropped his head and looked about sixty-nine percent more wicked when he lifted that light blue gaze to her again. He sauntered over to the tub, peeling off his shirt as he went. His six-pack flexed with the movement. He kicked out of his jeans and Luna scooted forward so he could slide in behind her.
The tub wasn’t a small one and Tuff was a big, muscle-bound man roughly the width of a semi, so the fit was tight. She giggled as they adjusted. Some of the water splashed out of the tub and she could feel the chuckle in his chest against her back.
Whoa, she really liked that.
Stunned, she leaned against him firmly and nuzzled her cheek against his jawline. His erection was pressed hard against her back and her body hummed with the connection to his.
“I heard about bonds before,” she said, her eyes on the shower head in front of them. “You don’t have to say anything. Just let me talk and then we can go back to playing.”
Against her shoulder blades, Tuff’s chest didn’t rattle with a growl or words. Instead, he stroked his fingers through her damp hair and waited.
“Sometimes shifters bond to each other,” she said. “Sometimes they look at another person and their animal chooses them. Or sometimes they have to spend time together before they fall. It took my dad eight months to bond to my mom. They came out of that testing facility, and I needed parents—someone who would understand what I’d been through and not make me pay for it. They’d only met that day Train Wreck and your herd came in to free them. But they decided to settle into this little rental house together and try to give me support. My dad was really messed up back then. He barely talked. I remember him in the beginning. He learned sign language for me, but he only used a few words. He mostly just watched me and looked confused. He’d been manipulated in one of the Hagan herds and his views on women and the world were skewed. He hadn’t ever been allowed to care about a kid before without the risk of being deemed weak and culled from the herd. But he told me that my mom softened him. She was pregnant from that breeding they did in the facility, and he’d had kids in that Hagan herd, but it was the first time no one was watching his reactions. He got to touch my mom’s belly and think about a future outside of that awful herd. Over that first six months, he started talking and signing to me. The shadows left his eyes little by little, and he started to smile. He and my mom became friends. Like a team. There was no chemistry, I don’t remember them ever holding hands, or even giving compliments to each other. It was just an ease between them. On the day my brother was born, all of that changed.”
Luna arched her face to the side to look at him. Tuff dragged her hand from the water and kissed her knuckles. “Keep going,” he said.
“I remember watching the way he was looking
at my mom as she laid there holding my baby brother. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, and they were so full of…love. I’d never seen anything like it. He couldn’t take his eyes off my mom, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. It was like in that instant, all the puzzle pieces that hadn’t made sense together just…fit. I knew it was special, what had happened between them. And later they told me about bonds.”
Tuff pressed his lips to her wrist. “Have you ever bonded to anyone?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly.
His bright eyes flickered to her.
“Mine didn’t take months though. It took a day in the snow with a wolf who made the puzzle pieces fit.”
A slight smile took his face, fell away, and then took his face again. Something unreadable roiled in his gaze. Hope?
“You don’t have to feel the same,” she said.
“Stop—”
“Tuff, I know you don’t want—”
“Luna.” He gripped the back of her hair gently. “Me too.”
She shook her head, confused. God, she wished she could hear the tone of his voice right now.
“I.” He pointed to his chest. He drew a heart in the air between them. He pointed to her. Then he leaned down and kissed her lips.
For a few breaths, she was in shock and could barely move. He loved her? He felt the same? But she was her, and he was him. She was a damaged cow shifter, a wrangler at a stable, and barely making ends meet. Tuff Enough Fast Burn was the number one bronc rider in the world. Horse trainer, werewolf, ranch owner, had all of his shit together…
People didn’t get this lucky, right?
Tuff nodded at her like he knew her racing thoughts. “This is big.”
“But I’m…I’m…”
“Funny? Beautiful? Got a smile that could light up the world? You’re caring, and stubborn in the right ways. Headstrong, but soft. The world hasn’t ruined you when it could’ve. And that ain’t on the world for not trying hard enough. It did. You just locked your legs and became this fucking ember that wouldn’t go out, Luna. I see everything. Even the things you don’t see in yourself.” He nodded again as he said, “You’re enough.”