Claiming Kristen

by Jenny Penn

  “Jesus, Kort. You eating for two?”

  He smirked at that. “Don’t worry, I work it off.”

  Her eyes rolled, reading into that comment a lewdness she’d grown to expect from him. Kort took exception to the gesture.

  “No, really. My job is very physical.”

  “I didn’t disagree.” Kristen defended herself before giving his words any real consideration. He did look fit, and she knew from intimate experience that went beyond most male wolves’ normal strength. She’d assumed that was a Covenanter trait, given they all seemed heavily bulked up on muscle, but even by that comparison Kort was harder.

  “So what is your job? Construction?” She could see him with a jackhammer, all sweaty and rippling.

  “I teach night maneuvers.”

  “Night maneuvers?” Kristen repeated. That sounded very military and dangerous. Not that she got a chance to ask. Looking up to nod her thanks at the waitress as she placed her one and only plate down, Kristen waited for her to finish serving the food before pestering Kort for an explanation.

  “We train private soldiers, and my specialty is in teaching them how to sneak up on a target in full darkness.” Kort added nearly a pound of salt to his food while he explained, amazing Kristen at how rotten his diet actually was.

  “So I can eat almost anything,” he went on as if reading Kristen’s mind. “As a matter of course we run ten miles a day, and that’s before going out on maneuvers. Now you jealous?”

  “No,” Kristen answered succinctly, not about to get dragged back into that conversation. “And just because you exercise doesn’t mean you can eat whatever you want. Fit people die of heart attacks all the time.”

  “Oh, how sweet.” Kort offered her a fake smile. “You’re starting your wifely nagging duties before tending to any others. I tell you what, honey, when you’re living in my house, sleeping in my bed, and servicing all my other needs, then I’ll eat whatever no-fun, no-taste diet you want to put me on.”

  “Just because food is good for you doesn’t mean it isn’t any fun or has no taste,” Kristen shot back, but felt her cheeks color as Kort’s gaze pointedly dropped to her plate. “Wheat toast tastes good.”

  “If you say so.” But Kort didn’t look like he honestly agreed. He did look a little concerned, though, as he glanced from her food to her breasts. “You, uh, aren’t on a diet, are you, honey?”

  “No.”

  “Then how you keep all those curves so luscious without any fat?”

  Kristen rolled her eyes at the concern coloring his voice. “I come by them naturally. A little fat goes a long way.” He still didn’t look convinced, making Kristen sigh. “And I already ate breakfast, or don’t you remember?”

  “Oh.” That brightened Kort’s eyes back up as he turned his attention toward his own meal. “Forgot.”

  For the next several minutes, he appeared to forget about her altogether, digging into his food with the kind of appreciation Kristen hesitated to interrupt. Only once he’d devoured nearly half of everything and came up for a breath did he even glance at her. He paused over the lip of his glass to scowl at something over Kristen’s shoulder.

  “Oh, crap.”

  Turning and fully expecting to find herself confronted by another Gina-like bimbo, Kristen was pleasantly surprised when she saw her brother bearing down on them. Already anticipating Derek would be joining them, she slid over to make room for him.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” Kristen’s greeting held nothing but delight as Derek paused for a second and then dropped onto the seat beside her.

  “I thought I’d join you for breakfast.”

  “You’re a little late.” Kort grunted before rudely pointing out, “We’re just about done here.”

  “That’s okay, I already ate,” Derek shot back, showing too much teeth with his smile.

  Kristen glanced from the two men trying to stare each other down. The threat of violence thickened with every breath they took, assuring one false move would end in disaster. Just like last night, Kristen felt nervous, uncertain of how to diffuse the situation. It had to get better because she would neither be giving up her brother nor, apparently, her mates.

  “So,” Kristen sighed, feeling awkward and uncertain of what to say. “How did you find us?”

  That drew Derek’s scowl her way. His features softened with his shrug even though he remained tense. “I tried calling you, but when I didn’t get through. So, I called Peter.”

  “Peter?” That brought Kort’s scowl her way, but unlike her brother, his expression hardened. “Peter who?”

  Thankfully, Derek completely ignored Kort’s interruption and gave Kristen the cover she needed to do the same. “He said you’d picked up a new case and had to be in court, so I figured when I couldn’t find you there, you’d be here.”

  “Peter who?”

  Derek tensed, growling at the demand clear in Kort’s raised tone. Before he could say anything that Kristen might regret, Kristen kicked him, making Derek grunt as he shot her an annoyed glance. She gave him back the look, not caring what Kort read into it. Anything would be better than the truth.

  “Peter nobody.” Derek shrugged, caving to Kristen’s silent warning.

  “Why don’t I believe that?”

  “I guess because you’re not as dumb as you look.” Derek smirked. “So you want to tell me about this new client?”

  Kristen rolled her eyes, well accustomed to Derek’s nosy and bossy nature when it came to any and every detail of her life. Normally she’d have told him “no,” but right then Kristen needed to keep the conversation going before Kort got a chance to dominate its direction.

  The summary of Mr. Payne’s current dilemma did appear to mellow Kort’s temper a little. He even managed to participate a little, though Derek continued to try and antagonize him. Kristen couldn’t do anything about Derek’s big-brother attitude. It was just something Jakob and Kort would have to grow accustomed to handling.

  She had more hope today than she had last night that they could manage. Kort appeared to, even if he didn’t relax. At least he ignored Derek’s taunts and appeared genuinely interested in her case. Kort even offered to help find Steven Payne, which Kristen thought was sweet, if a little patronizing. That was still a hell of a lot better than her twin’s “I control the universe” attitude.

  “Don’t waste your time.” Derek grunted. “I’ll find Steven for her.”

  “That’s very sweet,” Kristen cut in before Kort could take offense. “Of both of you, but I don’t need to find him. What I need to do is get back to the office.”

  “Yeah,” Derek sighed and stretched before sliding out of the booth. “I got to get moving, too.”

  “You mean you have real criminals to harass?” Kort asked with not enough innocence to fool anybody.

  “I think the word you’re looking for is arrest,” Derek corrected him with a toothy smile. “And trust me, I’m just waiting to convince the victim to swear out a statement.”

  “Well then.” Kristen shoved out of the booth, planting herself right between the two men who had reverted back toward growling at each other. Intentionally, she gave her back to Kort, facing her brother in a silent challenge. “Good luck with that.”

  “I’ll—”

  “Call me later to catch up,” Kristen finished for Derek, knowing he’d intended to insist on walking her to her car. She was back in the middle of the tug-of-war, only she couldn’t really walk away from Kort. He was her mate. Derek knew it.

  Sighing, he shot Kort another menacing look before giving in with ill grace to Kristen’s pointed refusal. “Sure. I’ll call, or maybe I’ll just show up. I hear JD’s still got a few empty bedrooms.”

  He left that threat hanging over the both of them, strutting off with the kind of authority that drew the other patron’s glances. Fortunately for the rest of them, they weren’t related to her brother. They didn’t have to deal with his macho attitude on a day-to-day basis.
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br />   Of course, Kristen had three manly-men all trying to boss her around. While she’d managed to ditch one, she still had another breathing down her back. He wasn’t any happier with Kristen than Derek had been, but Kort had his own obsession to harp on. Before Kristen could escape by rushing off, Kort latched on to her arm and forced her around to confront the issue she most wanted to avoid.

  “Peter who?”

  Kristen sighed, her head banging into the nearest hard wall— Kort’s chest. It was so easy to simply wrap her arms around him and soak in his warm strength. Even the vibration of his growl comforted her.

  “Peter who, Kristen?”

  The man would never let it go, but Kristen still didn’t want to deal with that issue right then. She had a good idea of what could distract Kort and give him a chance to vent some of the aggravation she could sense in him.

  “You know what, Kort?” Kristen patted his chest and lifted her chin to meet his narrowed gaze.

  “I want to know who Peter is,” he retorted, unflinching in his position.

  “That was a very stressful breakfast.”

  “And it’s about to get more stressful if you don’t answer my question. Peter who?”

  “Maybe we could go for a drive,” Kristen whispered, offering his scowl a smile.

  “And you can tell me who Peter is on the way?”

  “And here I was thinking we could just relax for a little while. After all, I feel very stiff. How about you?”

  Kort blinked, appearing to digest that before his gaze hardened even further. “Stiff, but not dumb enough to think you mean to help me ease that situation.”

  “But I’d be willing to let you work out some of that anger,” Kristen promised. Soft and husky, her voice echoed with the slow burn making her rub against him. He felt good, hard and solid, but Kristen wanted more than a little teasing. She wanted Kort unleashed.

  “Any way you’d like.”

  “Oh, honey,” Kort sighed. “You’re in for it now. Best you get your ass in my truck before I decide to bend you over one of these tables and tan it in front of all these nice, decent people.”

  Chapter 16Lilly sighed as she watched Kristen skipping behind Kort Nickel, trying to keep up with the man’s longer, fast-paced rush. She looked happy, and from Kort’s expression, Lilly could guess what the two of them were off to do. So much for her plans.

  They’d crashed and burned a lot quicker than Lilly had anticipated. Not that she’d honestly expected the uptight Narin to betray her client or go against all the laws of nature and resist her mates. Still, Lilly had hoped Kristen’s anger would keep her from caving in to temptation so quickly. Lilly hadn’t even gained an extra day to find Payne’s wayward son.

  Still, Richard Payne hadn’t made bail, and it would take Kristen some time to get his case acquitted or thrown out. Hopefully she could find Steven Payne before that happened. Even if she did, though, that wouldn’t eliminate the threat Richard posed. While his son might be a complete psycho, Richard still carried the bigger threat.

  Not corrupted, Richard Payne was misguided and the perfect tool for her father to use against Lilly. The bastard knew she could honestly touch Richard. Agakiar had many minions like Steven. He could replace the younger Payne easily and still keep his plans rolling. It would help Lilly if she could figure out exactly what her father was up to.

  She’d managed to put some pieces together, but all she could see of the final picture was that it would be bloody. Whatever Agakiar planned to do, he clearly needed a human werewolf mate. That had become clear when she’d tried to destroy the necklace she’d stolen from Samantha McBane. Made of jewel infused with the blood of the Lycan King himself and cursed by elves, it could not be unmade. At least not in this world.

  Worse, Lilly could not see into the gem. No matter how many spells she tried, the names of the mates it knew. She would have taken it to Mae, but knew the witch would never agree to touch something so filled with dark magic. Mae had trembled at the sight of it when she’d first seen Samantha wearing it.

  Given it had clearly been created to locate and eliminate werewolf mates, Lilly couldn’t trust that it wouldn’t be ill used by any other she passed it on to. The Lycan Nation would probably keep it safe, but the same could not be said of her. Lilly could not risk them discovering her location.

  So it fell to her and her alone to figure out what names Agakiar had and what he intended to do with them. All good questions to ask Steven Payne. If only she could find him before his daddy got released. Lilly didn’t need to ask anybody what Agakiar intended to use Richard for.

  Sighing over her shitty luck, Lilly popped the clutch into gear and glanced up to check the traffic before easing out on the road. All her motions paused, though, when her gaze collided with one glaring at her over the cascade of glinting car tops filling out the court parking lot. Parked illegally in the shadowy corner of the asphalt lot, Tex McBane sat on his motorcycle, legs braced and holding the bike upright, and staring right at her.

  His jeans bulged with interesting shadows as the denim tried to stretch wide over his engorged erection. It was an impressive size, proportional to the rest of his massive frame. The arms crossed over his chest only heightened his size and lent strength to the glare he beamed her way. There was no softness or forgiveness in this man.

  Even from a distance, she could feel the heat of his building rage and scent the wildness driving it higher. A feral, some part of Lilly had known that the first time she’d ever seen Tex. Laid out, unconscious on the porch steps, she should have left him there to die because now he was going to cause her all kind of problems.

  Lilly had enough to deal with right then. Holding back the urge to provoke him, she kept her middle finger bent over the steering wheel and pulled out onto the road. Tex and his brother could follow her all they wanted. Lilly knew how to keep her secrets secret.

  Chapter 17Jakob escaped into the fresh night air, abandoning the dinner still half eaten on his plate back in the dining room. He couldn’t go back in there. It didn’t matter that he’d spent the better part of the day waiting anxiously to see Kristen again. Or that he’d wasted hours practicing conversations they could have. It was all just too damn hard.

  From the moment he’d walked in the front door and breathed in her sweet scent, Jakob had been nothing but hard. Painfully so. Kort’s indelicate advice before heading off to work had been to think about sex with other women. Jakob had to admit that it did wonders for shrinking his dick back to a normal size. It also managed to make his guilt inflate to nearly intolerable proportions.

  He just felt like such an ass sitting by Kristen at the table while thinking about screwing another woman. But then Jakob didn’t know what else to do. Thanks to the stink he’d left in their study, JD and Caleb had forbidden him to use the cologne Kristen had given him. Without something to mask the musk, Jakob didn’t have a choice but to do whatever it took to keep from drugging Kristen.

  Actually, that wasn’t completely true. Jakob had one other option, fleeing. That’s what he did. Not that he could hide from Kristen for the rest of their lives. At some point, he’d have to deal with her and her irrational demands.

  If only he knew what the hell she really wanted from him. Jakob would give her anything. He’d even be willing to try all his mother’s sissy suggestions, but first he’d have to learn to be around her without giving himself a migraine thinking about other women. That would be easily accomplished if the wolf thought it truly possessed its mate.

  That wouldn’t happen without sex. A lot of sex. If they screwed long enough, eventually the beast would mellow and Jakob would be able to hold a normal conversation with his woman. Of course, Kristen wanted to do everything backward and try to get to know each other first. It made him wish he could take another shot at her brother. Derek should have known better, prepared her for mating. Despite being a werewolf, Kristen obviously had some screwed up ideas.

  Those kinds of thoughts didn’t help his heada
che. Trying to push his concerns aside, Jakob breathed deep and let the soft sounds of night lull him into relaxing. He’d no sooner settled into a rocking chair, intent on letting the peace wash through him, when the back door creaked open and his sense rocketed to attention at the sweet lure of his mate.

  “Jakob?” Closing his eyes, he listened to the low shuffle of feet in his direction. With each step Kristen took, more and more blood flooded his balls, making his cock swell and harden as his mind began to spin with images of just the fun they could have out here on the porch. Between the railing and the rocking chairs, Jakob could get creative.

  “I saved you a piece of cake.” She’d come to a stop beside him, close enough to grab. “I left it in the kitchen, if you want.”

  * * * *

  Jakob’s fingers tightened over the chair’s arms until the rough wood cut into his skin. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Oh.”

  He felt her shift beside him, a soft, teasing breeze of her warmth over his skin that was lost too quickly. Jakob flinched under the torment of staying perfectly still while his mate slipped away. A part of him wanted to chase after her while another prayed for her to leave quickly before his control snapped and he had her pinned on all fours, sobbing for more as he fucked like the savage beast he was.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Jakob jerked his head in Kristen’s direction, startled by the sound of her voice. Instead of retreating back into the house as he’d anticipated, the damn woman had settled down into the chair not two feet from his, still well within grabbing distance. Almost as quickly as he’d looked, Jakob snapped his gaze back out to the marsh, trying his damnedest to keep from musking the whole front yard.