Fever Claim (The Sigma Menace)

by Marie Johnston

  She allowed the pleasure sweep through her and do what she did best. She gave all she had to the dark-haired male who let his eyes fall shut and dropped his head back as he rocked his hips under her. She used the force of the thrusts from behind to power her rhythm. As her center tightened, the pleasure growing, she worked his length fiercely. She felt the blond male pick up his pace, his grunts coming faster, his pounding harder. Her orgasm built until she couldn’t hold it back, afraid they’d quit, thinking she was done before she could secure the seed she needed. She cried out, the sound’s vibrations running down the length of the male in her mouth, sending him over the edge, hot ejaculate filling the condom in her mouth. The male pumping behind her came as well, leaning over her back, breathing heavy.

  When he pulled out from behind, that was her cue. Using the same provocative look that worked with Mason, she rolled the condom off him and stood up. She deliberately avoided the other male as he was cleaning up himself and followed the same plan as before with disposal. Except, this time she switched out the used condom from Mason to throw away and carefully pocketed the used condom from the male she gave a blow job to. It was his seed, “product” Sigma called it, that was critical to the mission.

  The network knew the wolves that used The Den were very particular about their bodily fluids. They used protection religiously, always provided it, and burned it when the night was over. It didn’t used to be that way. Human STDs crossing to paras weren’t a concern, and neither were unplanned pregnancies. It was urban myth in the para world that any conception could occur outside mated couples in both the vampire and shifter world, but everyone heard stories. Whether it was true or not, no one knew. Tales of experiments by Sigma and Madame G capturing shifters and what she did to them kept the species guarding their genetics religiously.

  Once he heard the slight weight of the condom hit the trash, the stunning blond with the movie star looks came up behind her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms.

  “Come on, sweet thing. Let’s go find your friends,” he murmured softly.

  She looked up at him in the mirror, ready to rely on her flirtatious skills, and paused. He may be the charmer, the one picking the girls so the dark, brooding one wouldn’t terrify them with his coldness, but there was nothing but script in his face: no feeling, no emotion, little caring. Everything this male said, every move he made with any of these women, including her, was scripted. He didn’t see them, she doubted he even knew their names. Hell, she didn’t know theirs, either.

  Janice leaned back against the sink—her legs felt like jelly—and saw Mason working on another girl, a brunette this time. A loud one. The scents of arousal, sex, and need hung in the air like a haze, her clit started to throb again. Her goal was complete; shifter seed in her pocket. Once this mission was done, there was no coming back here for her.

  She looked up through her eyelashes and met the male’s navy blue eyes in the mirror. “I don’t have any friends here, but I do have more time.”

  Chapter Nine

  Their first official date, he picked her up on time. The doorbell rang and when she opened the door, she melted at the appraising look he gave her. His hot gaze swept over her all the way down to her gladiator sandals, where it burned even hotter as he slowly followed her body back up her capris and empire-waist blouse to her face. His diamond eyes glittered, nearly glowing.

  It took her longer to make it past his lips, enjoying his reaction to her. She always wore sensible clothes, nothing ostentatious, flashy, or trashy. But he made her feel like he’d never seen anything sexier than department store apparel. As she captured her own surreptitious perusal of him, she was surprised he wasn’t wearing all black. Before, he came off as the ultimate bad boy. But dressed in blue jeans and a heather gray button-down with his standard motorcycle boots, he was an attainable bad boy—the kind a girl thought she could change.

  Nerves threatened to overtake her stomach again. They’d been plaguing her all day. Where would he take her? How awkward would it be? Would they even go out or barely make it past her door like last time? At least tonight, it wouldn’t look like the local biker gang was trolling bank tellers for dates. Tonight, with him standing on her doorstep, ringing her doorbell, she accepted they could be a believable couple.

  That was until she followed him out to her driveway.

  “What. Is. That?” she asked

  “My bike.”

  “When you said dress casual, I didn’t think you meant ‘wear all leather so you don’t end up as roadkill.’”

  He reached for her hand, wrapping it in his, leading her to his large steel monstrosity.

  “I even got a helmet for you,” he said, as if that were the perfect balm for her frazzled nerves.

  “And the rest of my body?” She dubiously eyed the intimidating piece of machinery. She should’ve known his mode of transportation was on wheels of death.

  He chuckled. “Trust me, Tinkerbell. Once you relax enough to enjoy the ride, you’ll wonder why you don’t ride every day. Nothing else makes you feel as alive and free.”

  He hadn’t called her Tinkerbell since that night. The term of endearment warmed her, calming the storm in her belly that threatened to send her back into her house, dead-bolting the door.

  Jace leaned down close and said, “But until you relax, feel free to hold onto me as tightly as you’d like.” He winked at her. Winked! Did he not think she had serious hang-ups about going anywhere with him on that thing at any speed?

  He pulled out a shiny red helmet and helped her put it on. “We’ll stay in town and get some dinner, then drive down by the river. We’ll stay off the highways. Promise.”

  Cassie reluctantly climbed on the back. “Where’s your helmet?” she grumbled. He climbed on in front of her, his broad shoulders blocking her view. Unable to resist, she leaned into him, his scent and heat comforting.

  “We heal fast. Unless I lose my head, or my heart, I’ll be okay.”

  “Hello? Those injuries have been known to happen with motorcycle accidents.”

  He reached back to grab her arms, wrapping them around his middle. “Injuries, yes. We’ll heal, unless they’re gone entirely. Now hang on.” With that, he fired up the engine and they were off.

  The first several minutes were terrifying, but as she moved with the turns, felt his enjoyment being “alive and free”, and relaxed into him, she realized he had been right. When he pulled up to the cottage café, she was almost disappointed they’d arrived already. She missed her arms wrapped around him, hands gripping his hard abs.

  They chatted casually all through dinner. He talked fondly about his family, pangs of loss and regret were evident, but it was clear he had come to terms with the situation and respected his mom and sister’s wishes. He asked about her and she tiptoed around her upbringing.

  “Basically, I had an idyllic life up until I was ten. Then my mom passed away from cancer, my dad went crazy with grief and quit taking his meds, so the state took me away and locked him up. Thus, the fostered daughter of a schizophrenic dad went into the mental health profession,” she said plainly, hoping he’d leave it at that.

  He gave her a considering look, “What do you do, exactly?”

  She couldn’t help but give him a grateful look for asking about work rather than her father. She loved her dad. He was doing better and they’d repaired their relationship, but her past was hard to talk about. It made her wonder what if he relapsed again, could she lose him again? “I work with clinic patients, not inpatients. Adults, no kids, and I focus more on mental disorders, mainly arising from childhood trauma. The majority of my patients are transitioning from inpatient stays to learning to function in real world settings.”

  “It must be very rewarding work.”

  Cassie shrugged and replied, “It’s interesting.” She took a sip of her water. “So what do you do besides bartend and ride a motorcycle?”

  “I go to school.”

  Cassie raised her eyebrows and q
uickly tried to cover her shock. She didn’t want him to think she thought he was an ambitionless ex-con with no future plans in life. She totally didn’t… really.

  “What are you going to school for?”

  “Business, an MBA.” He looked away a bit sheepishly. “I worked on my bachelor’s in prison. Nothing else to do with all that time.”

  Fearing her eyebrows would never come down, her hot bartender had rendered her speechless. He was embarrassed to have to bring up his prison stint even though he’d worked on self-improvement. He could have been in-your-face smug knowing she, someone who studied people for a living, assumed he barely passed high school.

  “So what did you study?” She wanted to learn more about the real him and not the Jace he presented to the world.

  “Business and accounting. Figured it could take me anywhere. But I came back here,” he spread his hands wide and leaned back into his chair, “found Christian and got a job doing his books during the day, stocking and tending bar at night.”

  “Found Christian? Did you know him from before?”

  Jace shook his head. “No, just had heard of him. He’s become a pack leader for the area. For those of us who are essentially packless.”

  “And that means?”

  “Wolves have packs. If you leave one, you can be accepted into another one and abide by their rules and regulations. If you’re estranged, then you lack the resources our kind sometimes needs—protection, new identities, hiding in plain sight.

  “Christian was an alpha, left his pack for his wife, Mabel, and moved here. He’s been able to reinvent himself consistently over the years. He seems to attract rogue alphas with no home, puts them to work, takes care of any problems, and we stay content to have a place to set down and live a little. He’s become pack leader for the West Creek area.”

  “You’re an alpha?” She was not surprised in the least.

  “Yeah, I would’ve been.” He said no more, not wanting to delve into that part of his past again. He finished up his drink and stood, offering her his hand. “Ready for a scenic ride?”

  She grinned, begrudgingly, and accepted his hand, standing.

  The ride was beautiful, the evening air crisp and refreshing. The hum of the bike lulled her, her earlier fear of riding gone. He took them down a side road through the trees paralleling the river, but true to his word, turned around to head back into town when the road’s speed limits increased. She sat behind him, helmet firmly in place, and sank into his back, enjoying the view and the feel of him.

  ***

  Jace pulled off the road into a riverfront park before they got back to town. Large, shading cottonwoods dotted the shore, monuments detailing the area’s history were adjacent to the walking path, interspersed with benches to sit and enjoy the peace of the great outdoors.

  Cassie took Jace’s hand while climbing off and held onto it while he led her toward one of the benches.

  “This place is almost always empty toward evening. I thought we could hang for a bit before I took you back.” Jace hoped she didn’t mind.

  Cassie closed her eyes briefly to breathe in the fresh river air. “It’s lovely. Do you come here often?”

  “When I’m studying and the bar is too loud to concentrate.” Jace picked a bench facing the river so they could watch the early season boaters go by. He sat with his arm across the back of the bench behind her, hoping she’d snuggle in next to him. And she did. With his heightened senses, he didn’t have to lean down to inhale her scent. The subtle floral and vanilla aroma worked its way through his body, easing his worry about her still possible rejection of him. At the same time, it brought the memories of the stronger version of those scents in her office and what he’d done with her the one and only time he’d ever been to her office.

  He tried to redirect his thoughts before his raging erection captured her attention, potentially ruining their compatible evening. He made it through the long ride, when her arms were wrapped around him, her delightful breasts pressed against his back, where they brought to mind the details of their size and shape. He remembered the rosy tips perfectly, and how they peaked when his mouth got so close—Fuck! Need to make more conversation.

  “You look great.” He hoped the desire clouding his gruff voice wasn’t obvious.

  “Thanks. You too, as always.”

  “You’ve been checking me out?” he teased.

  Cassie chuckled. “Maybe a little.” She reached up and feathered her fingers over his scalp. “Do you have to shave your head every day?”

  Jace stilled. Cassie snatched her hand back, sensing the sudden tension.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, quickly.

  “No, it’s just—I didn’t want…” He drifted off, gathering his thoughts. “I intend to tell you everything eventually. I do. I just didn’t want the low points in my life to cloud our getting to know each other, like they did at first.”

  Cassie nodded, her dark eyes were filled with concern and a little dread, so he figured he’d just get on with it before her imagination, combined with what she already knew and had witnessed, got the best of her.

  “One of the convicts in prison, one of Madame G’s fucked up experiments, knew what I was. He was relentless, fuck. Just fucking messing with me those first couple years—stealing my belongings, throwing my food tray across the room, whatever would make my life hell. They called him Argen, you know, a play off of argentum, the Latin word for silver.”

  “Why silver?”

  “His teeth were capped with silver. He even had his nails embedded with silver. The old legends had that part right about werewolves: silver’s deadly to shifters. One morning in the showers, his gang got to me. Held me down while he shaved me with a silver razor.”

  “So your hair won’t grow back, just being cut by silver?” Cassie asked incredulously.

  Jace nodded.

  “And the scars on your shoulder? Argen?”

  Jace nodded. “Wounds made from silver will scar. If we can treat the silver poisoning with salt, usually saline, everything else should heal completely.”

  “And then what?” Cassie prompted.

  “And then I planned. I wasn’t going to spend my years behind bars fighting Argen. Commander Fitzsimmons’ contact found me. Argen was getting careless and we took him down before he revealed our secrets to the humans we lived among. I was pretty much left alone after that.” Jace waited while Cassie thought over his revelation.

  “So if you heal completely otherwise, then how do shifters have tattoos? Like yours covering your scars.”

  Jace let out a laugh, stunned at her line of conversation. She was either accepting their world, or avoiding it. “A special blend of ink with both silver dust and saline. I got mine as soon as I got out.”

  He watched her, snuggled into him, hoping she wouldn’t do the ol’ yawn-I’m-tired-let’s-call-it-a-night. Her contemplative expression gazing out at the river told him she had more questions, but was unsure of whether to ask him. He didn’t know whether to encourage her or dread another question.

  “What’s your power?” she finally asked.

  The girl kept going left when he expected her to go right.

  “My power?” He knew exactly what she meant, he just wanted to know what she knew.

  “Well, at the risk of a HIPAA violation, I can’t tell you how I heard many shifters have a special talent that goes beyond even a sixth sense.”

  Ah, Bennett told her. So she knew about their extra abilities, just not his, nor how he’d used it in the past. That could wait until she trusted him completely.

  “I can persuade people to do what I want them to.”

  “That’s handy.”

  “Sometimes. If they’re really against what I’m asking, then it’s difficult, sometimes impossible. The length of the effect is variable, depending on how strong someone’s mind is.” Cassie gazed across the river again. He could read her easier now, and if she wasn’t looking at him, then she was processing someth
ing that made her uncomfortable. “And no, I have never, and will never, use it on you.”

  Finally, she looked up and met his eyes again with a shy smile. “What do you use it for?”

  “You mean other than booking an appointment with a hot doctor?” Jace watched the slight blush stain her cheeks as she recalled their “appointment”, loving that she was not unaffected when reminded how explosive they were together. “Usually to prevent trouble, their purpose being to keep our species safe. I used it in prison to get the other inmates and guards to leave me alone. It worked really well after Argen was gone. Now, I mostly use it to talk people out of stupid fights at the bar.”

  Cassie settled in a little closer. He wrapped his arm around her a little tighter, trailing his fingers up and down her skin, content to hold her. Mostly. He wanted to do more with her, so much more, but now wasn’t the time. She needed to get to know him, feel comfortable with him, learn to trust her instincts that told her they belonged together.

  “Do you change often?” she asked a bit hesitantly.

  “Every chance I get. Running through the woods is a great stress reliever and after so many years of being restricted, I crave the openness and the freedom. Saves on a gym membership,” he joked. She had only witnessed the violent part of their shifter nature. He wanted her to understand they were as much a part of nature as they were the human world.

  “I get it. I’m a runner, too, but I stick to asphalt paths. Too many strange, naked men running through the woods,” she teased.

  Jace laughed, enjoying their interplay. “You don’t hear that part of the story in Little Red Riding Hood, where she sees the Big Bad Wolf’s bare ass cuz his clothes are in a pile in the woods.”

  Cassie giggled and stood up, grabbing his hand and pulling him with her. “Come on. It’s getting late. Let’s go ride back to town and have some dessert.”