by Zoe Chant
West lifted his chin, his face relaxing into a smile. “I’d like that.”
“Good,” she said. “Then I’ll take you over there tomorrow before I start my shift.”
As they climbed into bed, and reached for each other, she wondered if part of her reluctance to offer to stand him to a new outfit was fear that he would think she was trying to tie him down, that he would take off.
She didn’t want him to take off. She wanted him to stay . . .
Skin to skin quickly became heat to heat. Words, so unsafe, touch, so definitive: she traced circles over his body, loving the cut of his musculature, how his breathing changed. How responsive he was, and how trusting as she kissed her way down his chest, pausing to tease his pebbled nipples, and then down.
She reveled in her power over him, and used it with happy abandon as her hands caressed his hips, abs, and thighs, and then scratched lightly inward to where all those drew together to the part of him that was so instantly, delightfully responsive.
Her sense of power grew as his cock thickened into rigidity. She felt like a goddess as she ran her fingernails along his length, then closing in on the sensitive tip with her lips, her tongue . . . and her teeth.
He let out a yip that made her laugh, but then he rose. It was her turn for fist-tightening, head turning, gasping speechlessness as he knelt between her legs, his hair rasping the tender insides of her thighs before he probed her deeply with his tongue until she was frantic. Then he brought up his cock and slid in where she was ready, waiting, wanting.
They rocked together as she scored her nails up his back and buried her fingers in his short hair as he kissed her. She tasted herself on his tongue, a blending of him and her that drove her wild. He grazed his teeth along the inside of her neck until they shot upward to climax, one, then the other, their bodies thrumming in a divine chorus, and ecstasy showered all around them.
When she had her breath back, they lay together, arms and legs entwined. Before she slipped into dreams, she thought, I don’t ever want this to end.
That thought was still with her when she woke.
She slipped out of bed, her mind already filling with a list of things to see to. At the head of the list was talking things out with West. As she set about whipping up a batch of muffins and hash browns with onions and sausage, she realized how many conversations with West she ran through her head when she was away from him. This was such new territory, this caring what he thought, what he felt. It was new and dangerous and compelling, but she did not want it to end.
That thing he’d said last night—he was clearly as uncertain as she was. New territory for them both. No expectations, no promises, was turning into . . . what?
She had learned never to trust any of the commercial burble that always seemed a heartbeat away from emotional manipulation. What, she had wondered, did true love even mean? How can you really promise someone “forever” without seeming to hold them hostage to your own feelings?
Kesley’s managed it, she thought. For the first time, McKenzi believed it. The love her sister had found was true and real. But look how many times she’d gotten hurt before she found it!
McKenzi winced, not wanting to go down that road of what-ifs.
At least, not alone.
“We’ll talk,” she promised herself.
But that turned out to be impossible, beginning with Nate’s soft knock at the door before West even woke.
Of course he’d be up bright and early. He hadn’t spent half the night having fantastic sex. “West awake?”
“Not yet.” She forced a bright smile, invited him in, and scarcely had he sat down then Rolf showed up—door banging behind him. “West up yet?”
McKenzi closed her eyes and sighed.
“Give me ten,” came a masculine voice from the other room.
“Breakfast will be ready by then,” McKenzi said as she brought out the eggs and began cracking shells.
She’d always liked baking, but cooking was just something she did—until she had three hungry, super appreciative guys sitting in her kitchen. It surprised her, how fun it was to see her little table crowded elbow to elbow, and the enthusiasm they expressed for her food.
The big surprise came at the end of the meal. When they rose, Nate said, “Can I help with the dishes?”
“Thanks, Nate,” West said. “I was going to wash. How about you dry?”
Rolf, who never did chores until he was nagged, stopped in his tracks while making for the door, then whirled around. “I can do that,” he said with a scowl in Nate’s direction, making McKenzi wonder who had stolen her nephew and left this alien in his place. “I know where things go. Mostly,” he added under his breath.
“I can show you where everything goes,” McKenzi said with a smile, handing him a dishcloth. And to Nate, “Thanks! You can take a turn later.”
Rolf sent a triumphant look Nate’s way that McKenzi didn’t understand. Once the kitchen was tamed to spotlessness, Nate pounced, saying, “Will you show me the tools?”
As McKenzi walked him up to the ancient garage next to the ranch house, she noticed he still limped, but he made no complaint, so she wondered if it was an old injury. His interest was entirely on the garage, which was full of junk as well as ancient tools and a lot of dairy product delivery-related equipment.
She left him there to root around, then came out to discover Rolf and West out on the flat area in front of the ranch house, warming up for some sort of martial arts practice.
Rolf was dressed in his usual hoodie and saggy pants, but West wore only his jeans and deck shoes, apparently impervious to the cold. McKenzi stopped in her tracks, smiling at the sight of his beautiful body, all whipcord and steel on a long, slender frame. She found herself mesmerized by the controlled dance of danger and grace that was West demonstrating, then patiently teaching Rolf, who bounded about exactly like the gangling cub he was.
Before too long, Uncle Lee appeared, and after standing around, tentatively came forward, saying something too low for McKenzi to hear. West smiled as he opened his hand in an inviting gesture. And there was her uncle, who she thought would be the last person in the world to take an interest in self-defense, getting into the action.
When they finally called it quits, Rolf had shed the hoodie. West, his contours glistening with a sheen of sweat, listened to the two, then all three guys headed toward McKenzi’s cottage—where Nate was waiting for them. Smiling shyly, he indicated an entirely new door frame, made of bits of wood he’d excavated from the depths of the garage. Her door swung silently closed, so beautifully hung you could push it with a finger. “It jess needed a new frame, and rebalance,” he said softly.
McKenzi said with heartfelt gratitude, “Thank you, Nate.”
West clapped him on the shoulder. Nate beamed as West said to him, “Rolf and Lee wanted to take a run.”
Nate stiffened, quivering with tension. “I want to go. Let me come. I’m better—I’m fast—my bad leg hardly hurts.”
“Sure, come on,” West said, as Rolf scowled, and Uncle Lee looked from one to the other, his expression lugubrious as always, but with an intensity that McKenzi had trouble understanding.
West said to the three guys, “Let me just get a drink of water, because I hate shifting back with the taste of mud in my mouth when I can avoid it. Everybody, leave your clothes inside. From the looks of the sky, we may be coming back in the rain. We’ll meet out front.”
As Rolf and his dad walked away, Rolf was bragging, “I’m getting really fast at shifting, I almost don’t have to hold my breath . . .”
Nate headed back to Kesley’s, leaving West and McKenzi alone for the first time all day. They walked into the kitchen, where he said, “There’s some competition going on with Rolf and Nate. I don’t know where this is going, but I can deal with civilizing Rolf better as wolves. I was kind of surprised that Lee seems to want to be there.”
“He might be anxious about Rolf.”
“Maybe,”
West said reflectively, then shook his head. “This seems to be something they need. And God knows Nate’s had a shitty enough life. If there’s anything I can give him before he moves on, I feel like I should do it.”
What if he doesn’t move on? she was thinking, and was surprised at how little that bothered her. “We could say the same about us.”
And watched him go alert. If he were his wolf self, his ears would be up, his body poised. “McKenzi,” he said. “If any of this isn’t what you want, say the word.”
“I didn’t mean that in any bad way, West. It just came out.”
He gave his characteristic slow nod. “I like it when things just come out. It’s good to talk to you.”
“It feels good to talk to you, too. West, I don’t know what I want, things have gone so fast. But in a good way,” she added quickly. “So here’s one thing I want. You. Tonight.”
His smile flashed. “And tomorrow?” he said softly, taking her hands.
“And tomorrow.”
“And after that?” His eyes searched hers, back and forth, the fading light still gleaming in his pupils, the gray darkening.
“What do you want?”
“I . . . for the first time, I don’t know, except when I think of moving on, it’s like a mirage, each morning pushed a little farther into the future. Until now, three or four days has pretty much been my limit. Less, if things got complicated.”
McKenzi’s emotions whirled like a roller coaster. Up. Down. All around. “And things aren’t complicated right now?”
“They are. But nothing I want to run from. If anything, it feels the opposite. It all . . . centers around you.”
She stepped closer, so she could feel his breath on her forehead, and the warmth radiating off him. “That’s the same way I feel. Everything is kind of crazy, but I don’t mind a bit. Because I keep coming back to the fact that you’re here, the one thing I’m sure about.”
He let go with that big, tension-releasing sigh, and brought his chin down. “Good. Then . . . I’ll run with them, and sing about it tonight at the bar. Maybe make enough to hit a thrift store, if you have one local.” His grin flickered, deepening the curve at the corners of his mouth. “Invest in a second pair of jeans.”
For the first time in all her dating life, she found herself saying, “If you do, I’ve an empty drawer you can keep them in.” And her insides heated up as his eyes flared.
“Damn,” he breathed. “I wish I hadn’t told them I’d do this run.”
“You go ahead. Take them out, and do wolf things. Or wolf, dog, and coyote things. I’ll fix some burritos for a late lunch. I want to get ready for work, so we can leave a bit early and drive you over to the Surf.” She leaned up for a lingering promissory kiss. “As long as you are here, there will always be a later, for us.”
Ten
West
She’d said it, he thought as he carefully folded his clothes.
It wasn’t the first time a woman had offered him closet or drawer space. At the end of his three days with her, Anessa offered him a car, a cell phone, stuff he’d never had and had never felt the need for—each one with invisible ropes attached to it, to tie him down. Until now, when women said something like that, it was always the sign to move on.
But McKenzi’s offer lit off fireworks inside him. She stood there in the doorway to the bedroom, her luscious curves silhouetted by the light, a strand of hair straying over the vulnerable curve of her neck, and his heart hollowed out. Tonight, he promised himself, she was going to come like the Hallelujah Chorus, because her happiness ignited his own happiness, a mirror image thing that he still couldn’t find the words for, or the music, but he was going to try, oh yes. McKenzi’s song was going to be the best he’d ever made.
He kissed her back, shifted, and bolted out the door before it got too hard to leave—before he got too hard to leave.
The wolf steadied him down. He found his three waiting outside, each so typical: the one-eyed coyote with the bad hind leg, a big, loose-skinned bloodhound, and the wolf pup prancing about, sniffing everything.
As soon as they saw him, all ears went up. He trotted toward the top of the hill to sniff the wind for human smells to avoid, and then set out at a run. Lee kept pace surprisingly well. Nate was fast—and Rolf just had to challenge him. As their animals selves, their motivations and emotions were more straightforward. Nate and Rolf jockeyed for position, which West settled easily with a swat here, a nip there. Lee looked on with an anxious approval, but West could not define his place in the group. Maybe Lee couldn’t either. Maybe he was simply a worried father?
They returned to the houses under pouring rain. Rolf ran straight inside the ranch house to warm up. Nate sidled a questioning look from West to Lee and back, then drifted toward Kesley’s, where he disappeared inside.
Lee stood on the porch with West as rain sheeted down beyond them. He obviously had something to say, so West waited.
Finally, Lee said to the ground, “I guess I needed to see. How you were with the boy. He . . . something happened between the two of you, I can see that.”
“It might be a wolf thing,” West said. “This is all new for me.”
Lee nodded. “It is for me, too.” He let his breath out sharply. “I thought when I was a kid not much older than he that I’d found a pack, with Sam Olsen, Tom’s older brother. He was a dog shifter, like me. A great guy. But he was older, a senior when I came in, and he went straight into the service. Tom took over. He’s a boar. It’s not that I think boars are bad, as boars,” he said quickly. “But Tom, it was like he had to act up to Sam, or something. Kept saying we had to prove ourselves. To him. Prove our loyalty, or we’d get kicked out of his pack. So he’d have us go after people who’d given him shit . . . it was okay, at first, I mean, a couple of those guys really were bastards, but then it was like, he wanted us to go after anyone who didn’t get out of his way. And when a couple of the guys tried to complain, he . . .”
Lee looked away, and shook his head. “So I quit. And Tom had them go after me. I left as soon as I graduated—that very day.”
West said, “And his kid is hassling Rolf?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if Tom set him at it, or Jeff is just a home grown bully, but . . .” He shook his head. “So anyway, I never had a real pack. I don’t think Tom’s was a pack. Just a punk-ass gang pretending to be a pack. But anyway, you, with them. That’s a real pack. It was a good run. Thanks.” He stirred, his hands rubbing up his mottled arms, his shoulders tight, And as if he felt he’d said too much, he left abruptly, his footsteps splashing in the rain as he followed his son’s footsteps to the ranch house, his skin starting to goosebump.
West retreated to McKenzi’s. And McKenzi, amazing as always, had hot coffee waiting, and had West’s clothes laid out and a fresh towel waiting. He looked at it all, and smiled, and turned to her—
And she said, “What is it? Did your wolf run turn out bad?”
“No. All good. But . . . I had a talk with Lee. And he seems to think that I’ve got a pack. I mean with Nate, too. If we were all wolves, I guess maybe we’d be a pack, but we aren’t. What do you see?”
“A . . . a pack,” she said slowly. “I saw it happen with Rolf. You were there for his first shift, and he imprinted on you. That was real clear, even to a cat! Did Nate imprint on you, too? How could he? He’s not only a coyote, he’s been a shifter for a long time, right?”
“The thing is, I don’t really know what a pack is supposed to be like. Everything I’m doing is instinct,” he said. “Maybe I’m putting definitions onto something that won’t outlast tomorrow. Nate might take off. There’s nothing keeping him here. So I guess maybe now is not the time to worry about it. I need to tune that guitar.”
A short time later, they reached the Surf. Bud, a burly, bristle-haired porcupine shifter, greeted West with an easy manner that West really liked. McKenzi left for work, promising to pick him up at midnight.
The bar smelled like b
ars everywhere, with a few regulars hunching at the stools. It was early. West didn’t know what to expect, but with music he was always sure of himself. Either people heard him or they didn’t. His music would be the same either way, the gift was there for the taking.
He sat on the stool, took out the borrowed guitar and retuned it, as the humidity in the air was hell on strings. As he worked, he considered what he had learned that day.
The connection between him and McKenzi was the most vital, and it was gaining definition, word by word, action by action. It wasn’t traditional, or what he’d been taught to expect. Not that he’d believed much of what he’d been taught. Too often what people in authority had said and did had too wide a gulf between. But so far in his life, his only sure connection had been to his music.
Yet here he was with a cat shifter mate. Though like the cat she was, she’d take her time deciding.
And meanwhile, he seemed to have landed himself with a pack. And it had a language of its own, based on an emerging sense of belonging, and of trust. Two bases connecting at the top of a triangle to . . . what felt very much like love.
He’d never been sure before what love was. But now he knew. And as always, he could explore it best through song.
And so he began to sing.
Eleven
McKenzi
McKenzi drove to the Crockery and parked.
When she shook out her pink apron to tie on, she felt her face lighten in a big smile.
Mrs. Nixon, seeing that smile, said cheerfully, “That’s what I like to see, McKenzi! Getting into the spirit of Valentine’s Day! Listen, those aprons are so popular I’ve decided that you girls will wear them all month. Heaven knows, February needs all the cheerful color it can get.”
McKenzi could only laugh as she moved to the coffee station to get busy with the dinner napkins before the Sunday night rush. With Valentine’s a few days off, they expected a lot of people—and so it proved.