“Answers to what? What good would it do me to know anything new at all now? What good would it do? My mother is gone and if it happens to be that one of your adopted relatives was my real father, what good does that do you or me? The truth isn’t always a good thing to know. It doesn’t always heal or help.”
“And what if you’re a shifter like Luke said?”
That answer came swiftly, first with a shrug, then a smirk. “Would make sense, I guess, since I want to smack him around.”
“Nah.” Gus nipped at the smirk turned smile on her lips. “Wanting to smack him around would be natural no matter what. He’s a cocky SOB.”
“He’s definitely a something.”
“Would it be so bad, Bex? To be like me?” Gus asked again. “You don’t seem to have an issue with me being, well, me. It would be natural for you to be wary and even hate all shifters simply because of what happened to your mother, but you aren’t and you don’t.”
“Of course not. That wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t change anything from the past.”
“So, then… Would it be so bad if you were a shifter?” It was important to him, important that she would be okay with it, that she wouldn’t fight it. He didn’t want to be the one to tell her that Luke was telling the truth. He wanted her to come to the realization on her own because maybe then she’d be able to accept it a little easier. But at the same time, he needed to hear her say that she was and would be okay, either way.
“If I am, there’s nothing I can do to change it and if I’m not, there’s nothing I can do to change it. It’s just… I not knowing, but what I hate even more is having to admit and say over and over again, that I don’t know.”
Gus nodded. He knew what that was like. “So, what do you know?”
“That wanting to be with you isn’t even a question. I don’t think it was ever a question once we got that you-could-kill-me-with-a-knife-conversation from the first day we met out of the way.”
“Which makes getting answers all the more essential.”
“Are you sure you want me to go with you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s a little early to meet the family, isn’t it?”
“I think the extenuating circumstances make it okay.” He brushed hair from her face and kissed her lips, reassuring her. “They’ll love you, Bex.”
“And if I am a bear, like you? Will they be able to tell?”
“If you’re blood kin? Yeah. They’ll know almost immediately.” If she had shifter blood, so many things, so much would make sense. His initial reaction to her would make sense. His continued desire for her would make sense. The way she felt like home to him would make sense.
He hadn’t considered any of that before Luke’s bombs, but now that he thought about it, Gus knew that her being a shifter was likely the only explanation.
She changed her position until she was straddled across his lap the way she had been earlier downstairs on the couch.
Her gaze met his. “And they’ll know he’s a wolf?”
Gus chuckled at the evil glee in his lover’s voice. “The second he steps onto their property.”
“Good.”
“This is a different side of you.”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Bad?”
“No, pretty girl. It’s kinda hot.” He’d never been a confrontational guy all on his own. People getting in his face, yeah. People threatening him or someone he cared about, yeah. His size was usually enough to deter most from coming at him or getting in his way. But, Bex? Something fueled her hunger.
“Good. Cause I need you again.”
“Damn. Maybe he and his pack should camp out here more often if it’s going to make you this frisky.”
Bex grinned and smashed her lips to his. “Maybe they should,” she agreed, flipping her shirt off over her head and tossing it to the floor.
Her full breasts were covered by the same serviceable bra from earlier, and he made quick work of the hooks, freeing the lush mounds to both his gaze and his hands. Her nipples extended into his touch and he grazed them with the pads of his thumbs, drawing a moan from her throat.
Gus hadn’t witnessed shifter blood take hold of a person the way it seemed to be taking hold of Bex with Luke around. He’d never be able to explain it to anyone when he barely understood the transformation himself. She hadn’t been timid in sex before, but she was even less so now. Now, she was aggressive and taking the lead. He didn’t mind it. Really rather liked it. But, it was different. The sadness faded from her eyes and under normal circumstances, there was always a trace of it. There was also determination lurking, and this bit of lust seemed to add to it.
“I’m not sure living together is going to be a good idea,” he said as he ghosted kisses along her collarbone. Her skin was heated, her coloring heightened, and her blood thrummed through her veins. If he closed his eyes and concentrated, he’d almost be able to hear it. In bear form, it wouldn’t take that much concentration, but in human form, it did.
“Why do you say that?” Her fingers fumbled with the button and zipper on her pants until she simply ripped the button off. Gus sat beneath her, amused.
Aroused.
Smitten.
“Because you obviously find me more and more irresistible as the days pass. Before too long, we won’t have the beginnings of a respectable bed and breakfast.”
She didn’t even pause in her actions. She used his body as leverage go get to her knees and started working her bottoms off her hips and thighs. “What do you mean?” she asked, wiggling her clothes off her body until she was naked. She made quick work of the fastenings on his pants, eliminating the barriers that kept the wetness between her legs from the hardness between his.
She was beautiful, all full of lust and hunger, taking what she wanted from him, what she needed. If nothing else told him they were meant to be, the way her body reacted to him, would’ve been all the proof necessary. She nudged him until he fell back onto the bed and she leaned down, her nipples teasing his chest.
“What did you mean?” she asked again, this time with the incentive of her sliding back and forth on the ridge of his cock, teasing the head with her clit, teasing the crown with the opening of her body.
Just… Teasing…
He grabbed her hips, helped to guide the sensations where he wanted them, eliciting another moan from her.
He loved those guttural sounds of hers.
He pumped his hips up. “I meant, if you keep this going…” He pushed up again. “If you keep attacking me like this…” And again, grinding himself between the lips of her sex as he held her firm and spread over his thighs. “We won’t have a bed and breakfast. Instead…” He paused, shifted position beneath her, and thrust himself deep inside her, hard enough to make her gasp and her eyes to flutter closed. He pulled one hand from her hip and wrapped his fingers in her hair, bringing her face to his, her lips only centimeters from his. She barely lifted her lashes, enough though for him to see the need reflected back at him. “Instead, pretty girl, we’ll have a brothel. All this sex, all the time…”
She grinned, shook his tight hold off, slid up on his cock until he was barely inside her, waited for the space of several, untimely long heartbeats, before slamming herself back down, taking all of him in one sharp slide. “Then we’ll have a very private brothel.”
Bex rode him relentlessly, without mercy, and it was one of the best fucks of his life. She drove herself down on him time after time, harder with each stroke, and braced herself with her hands on his shoulders, pressing him into the mattress until he could do nothing more than hold on.
“I want to see ink on you.” He grunted the words out because it was all the breath he had and there was so much truth in his statement. He wanted to ink her, mark her, fill her body with color and life so that she never had to travel to the dark places inside herself again. She was brilliant and beautiful and ink would… It turned him on just thinking about it.<
br />
As if he wasn’t turned on enough with Bex’s mouth on his neck, sucking at the tattoos covering him.
It didn’t take long and she began to quicken her pace, began to breathe more harshly, more sharply. She lifted her head and he watched, fascinated by the light in her eyes, the perfect O her lips formed, the word yes , as it slipped from those same lips as she fluttered around his cock and came, rocking harder, prolonging the sensations, and sending him over the edge of his own.
She collapsed on his chest and worked her arms around his neck and shoulders, burying her face in his skin. He held her as his cock jerked and filled her. He sighed deeply, contentedly. He knew he belonged with her. He knew she belonged with him. He knew… He knew the second she fell asleep.
He smiled and adjusted her and his hold on her and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of her breath, reveling in the soft, and solid weight of her body. God, he fucking adored her.
*
Finally… They were finally finished screwing.
Luke huffed out a breath and laid his head across his front paws. He probably shouldn’t have shifted in a semi-private area where anyone nosy could walk into the woman’s back yard, but truth be told, he hadn’t cared. He almost wished for a scrap. He was itching for a fight, for release of some sort.
He knew Gus and Bex were having sex, knew they were going to have sex. Luke had sensed it in her when she’d stood toe to toe with him on the porch for a second time. He knew they’d go inside and fuck. He couldn’t blame either of them. It was how her body and mind coped with the need for something she didn’t understand and no red-blooded man, or shifter, would be able to resist the lust she couldn’t seem to control.
And she wasn’t even in heat. Hell, he wasn’t sure she could shift. Sex may be her only way of dealing with the urges inside her. If that was the case, Gus was one lucky bastard.
Luke changed position, but only slightly. He could still spring to his feet if there happened to be a threat, though he was bone tired. Being tense for so long sapped his energy and strength, both of which he would need in the coming days.
His pack mates had gone for food while he’d been talking with Gus and Bex. Now that he’d been fed, he wanted one of two things. Sleep. Or sex.
Sleep would be winning out.
Did she agree to a blood test?
When shifted, he could communicate either others in his pack when they were shifted as well. No. I didn’t even ask. We’re on to the next best thing. Going to see some people who might be relatives.
Might be?
Yeah. Might be.
What do you need us to do?
What did he need them to do? Go home? Or did he need them to go home and then back track through the mountains? He wasn’t stupid. He was determined, but he wasn’t stupid. Walking into a bear’s den alone was more suicide mission than anything. Going in with his pack hopefully hidden within the forest? Well, if he ended up needing them, that could get ugly real fast and then he wouldn’t be trusted by other shifters. And trust was paramount.
On the other hand, if he didn’t have them follow through the heavy foliage, keeping an eye on him and his dealings with the bears, he’d be alone and dead, if something went wrong. The woman already wanted to kill him. He knew that as sure as he was lying there under the stars.
Humans didn’t normally react that way toward him. They were wary, but motorcycle clubs usually intimidated people. But this was different. She reacted as though they were enemies and that would only occur if she was a shifter.
I’ll decide in the morning.
Luke closed his eyes. He’d decide a lot in the morning. For now, he needed sleep.
Chapter Four
Bex closed her eyes and smiled into the breeze. Gus was back at the house with Luke Blackwood, explaining that in the middle of the night, Gus decided that they wouldn’t be traveling to Gatlinburg. He was explaining that didn’t trust the wolf or his pack enough to lead them anywhere near his family. Explaining that he felt safe in Dandridge, on fairly neutral territory and that Gus’s family would be traveling to them.
She understood his position. She even agreed with it.
Of course, it also meant more shifters in her house.
When Gus told her his plan to bring his family into their home, her nerves got the best of her and she’d walked out of the house. She’d needed to breathe. She’d needed to think. Too many new things and new situations had encroached on her life and the plans she’d made for herself.
Until a few weeks ago, she hadn’t ever been on a motorcycle. Now, other than walking, it was the only way she went anywhere.
And she’d have liked to get on the back of Gus’s bike right then, and disappear into the mountains. She didn’t want anything else to alter in her universe. And aside from Gus, she’d be happy to go back to the way things had been before. At least, then she’d known who she was and where she came from.
She had no answers of her own now. She had only her past and what she remembered of it. She had the memory of her mother’s smile and the smell of apple pie in Autumn. She had stories that people told of their travels and the nights sitting on the back porch roasting marshmallows over an open fire.
It had been home and in times of uncertainty, she was homesick and missing her mother more than she could stand.
Cooler weather was starting to descend on the Tennessee mountains and Bex caught herself before she shivered. Even with the sun shining down on her, warming her face, the breeze kept her cooler than she normally liked.
She stood and stared out at the water for a moment longer. She —
“Bex,” Gus called her name softly from behind her. Funny, he could sneak up on her and she wouldn’t know it, but the wolf? Blackwood? She knew. What the hell did that mean?
She turned and came face to face with a woman. Whatever she might have said or thought to have said vanished from her mind.
Looking at the woman was like looking in a mirror, only an aged one.
“Oh my God,” the woman breathed, as one of her hands floated up to her chest and gripped the fabric of her shirt, directly over her heart. “She’s Rex’s girl.”
“Who?” Gus asked.
“R-Rex. He was my son.” The woman took a step toward Bex whose instinct was to back away, but she held her ground and tentatively took the hand that was extended toward her.
“Hi. My name is Rebecca,” Bex said, introducing herself.
“Hello, Rebecca. My name is Mary. Just look at you. What a beautiful, precious young woman you are and I am so sorry for what son did. I am so, so sorry for you and your mother. I…” Mary’s words trailed off as she stared earnestly, intensly at Bex.
Bex didn’t know what to say. She looked to Gus, who seemed to be looking anywhere except at her. She returned her gaze to Mary. “Thank you. I’m sorry too. Are you… Are you like Gus?”
Mary’s lips tilted in a small smile. “A shifter? Yes.”
“Does that mean I am, too?”
“It seems pretty likely, but we’ll discuss it more. Come,” she gestured. “My brother is anxious to meet you.”
“Your brother?”
Mary nodded and looped her arm through Gus’s, then took Bex’s hand. “My brother is who took Gus in when he was a cub.”
“Oh.”
So, what Luke Blackwood had supposed was actually true. Gus’s adopted family was her family because the man who raped Bex’s mother was part of that family, too.
It was going to be hard enough for her to process, but from the looks of it, it was fucking with Gus. His expression was inscrutable. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling and it left her feeling like the odd man out and alone. She didn’t like it. Not one bit.
She could handle all that was happening. She didn’t know how, but deep inside she knew she could. She also knew that without his help, his comfort and strength and support, it would be much harder to manage.
She didn’t want to have to do it alone.
Mary left them standing on the porch as she went into the house, presumably to get her brother. Bex stood in front of Gus, gazing up at him, daring him to continue ignoring her.
She tapped her toe on the wooden floorboards until he finally glanced down. “I don’t know what to say to you right now, pretty girl, but I’m thinkin’ if you keep tapping on the boards like that, you’ll tap a hole right through them.”
“Well, that’s a start,” she said, stepping into his personal space and leaning her forehead against his chest.
“I didn’t want it to be true, for your sake. I thought it was probably true, but I didn’t want it to be.”
“I know. I didn’t know what I wanted.” She sighed. “No, that’s not right. I just wanted things to go back the way they were two days ago when it was just you and me. When we were working on the house and you were working on bikes and I was happy, and blissfully ignorant.” She wrapped her arms around him and breathed easier when his arms folded her close. “Please don’t shut me out, Gus.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” he whispered into her hair. Then, kissed the top of her head. “Change is here and we can’t do anything but meet it head on.”
“But, Gus, even you have to admit, things just got a whole lot more complicated and a whole lot weirder.”
“I know. I’m not going anywhere, baby. I wasn’t sure how you’d take the confirmation though, that the people who raised me also raised the man who fathered you.”
It was like some twisted, dark fairy tale. “It has nothing to do with you.” Truth was, she hadn’t known how she’d take it either. It wasn’t Gus’s fault, but if she hadn’t met him, if they hadn’t been attracted to each other, if if if. The second Mary told her, Bex knew that it didn’t change how she felt about Gus at all. Might have even strengthened her feelings.
The door to the house opened, the upper hinge creaking and giving away that she and Gus were no longer alone. Bex turned around.
Standing beside Mary, were two men. One younger, one older. Father and son. Both looked at her oddly, surprise in their eyes. Was it because she and Mary resembled one another so much? Or was it something else?
Southern Shifters: Inked By The Bear (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Black & White Series Book 2) Page 3