Damn it, it was hard to stay mad at the sexy beast when he turned all charming like that.
“You could try talking to me. Spending time with me. Letting me know what’s bothering you instead of keeping it bottled up and going all quiet and sulky.”
“That’s just crazy talk,” he said, but with a grin that made her feel warm and squishy inside.
“You understand that I’m just about ready to give up on us?” she said, but her tone was gentler now. “I mean, I don’t feel like there even is an us, at this point.”
His smile vanished. “Don’t do that. Please. I’m not ordering you to – I’m asking.” He hesitated. “Begging. I know I’ve been a moody dickhead, and I don’t deserve another chance, but I’m asking for it, for purely selfish reasons. I’m crazy about you. I’m doing a terrible job of showing it, but you are sexy, and funny, and you call me out on my crap when I need it, and you are the kindest person I know. Also, did I mention about the sexy?”
“It’s okay if you say it more than once.” She stifled a smile behind her hand.
“Sexy. Sexysexysexy. I will do better,” he added. “And I’m not trying to be a control freak when I ask you to stay away from Ruben’s territory, it’s just that I’m seriously worried for your safety. You’ve got this wonderful, sunny outlook on life, but sometimes it blinds you to the realities of what’s around you. Ruben and his people are killers.”
“I’ve made friends with a few of the bears,” she said. “And Ruben is making life in their territory a total hell. They’re going to head out to Cottonwood tomorrow, and I’m going to go with them.” She heard him suck in his breath sharply, and she met his gaze defiantly. “I’m going to ask Krystle to come with me, but even if she can’t, I’m going.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Finn said, shaking his head. “It’s too dangerous. No way.”
“There you go again, trying to tell me what to do.” She looked up at him. “Finn, I can’t just sit by while people are being abused. I was in a cruddy situation when I was a teenager, and I had no one to turn to, and it felt horrible. If my helping them out means that we can’t be together, then it will break my heart. I mean that. But I still have to help them.”
“Damn it, there you go again, being all noble. Making me fall for you even harder.” Finn shook his head in mock annoyance.
“I know, what a jerk I am, right?” She laughed.
He sighed and shook his head. “If you’re dead set on going, I’ll go with you. Krystle will probably come with us. There’s no way you’d make it there on your own.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him, her body tense.
“Relax,” he urged her. “I don’t bite. Okay, I do bite, but only if you say pretty please.”
“You want me to relax? Talk to me,” she said to him.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Anything. Tell me what’s been bothering you. Tell me what you really want for us.”
“That picture in my apartment,” Finn said. He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was thick with sorrow. “That was my squadron. I lost half of them. One of them was Jennifer’s older sister, Marybeth. Three years ago next month. She sacrificed herself for me, and that’s a burden I carry with me to this day. My failure to keep her safe.” He cleared his throat. “And now I’m afraid that I can’t keep you safe, and if anything happened to you, it would kill me. And here I’ve been acting like such an ass that you don’t even want to be near me, and that puts you in harm’s way. I’m so sorry.”
His big, warm hand closed around hers.
“Stay with me, Flora. Please. I need you.”
“Finn, I am so sorry. I wish I’d known. You can tell me anything, you know. And I do want to be near you. All the time.” She pulled his arms around her, closed her eyes and buried her face in his shoulder. “Just hold me,” she said.
Chapter Fifteen
They sat in the damp grass, listening to the soft splash of the river and watching the little whirlpools and eddies in the water. They’d long since fallen silent.
She gave a little sigh and reclined on her elbows, stretching her legs out in front of her. She didn’t feel self-conscious being nude in front of Finn, and it wasn’t just a shifter thing. There was something about the big Alpha lion that made her feel safe. She had to admit that Finn having her back would make what she had to do less daunting.
She glanced across at him and realized he was gazing at her with open, naked hunger. His tawny eyes were dark and intent, his gaze roaming lazily over her breasts, the curve of her waist, the smooth length of her legs, but returning again and again to rest on the inviting patch of dark curls between her thighs. She felt a trickle of moisture slicking her folds as her body responded to his regard and she remembered the avid heat of his mouth on her most intimate flesh. Her nipples crinkled and furled into hard little buds, and his eyes were drawn to them as if by a magnet. Slowly, as if she were a wild animal that might startle and flee, he reached out and played one fingertip gently around her nipple, sending silvery threads of sensation racing down her body. She shuddered, and raised one knee in silent invitation.
Finn rolled over, covering her with his body, settling between her thighs. His body was huge and heavily muscled on top of hers, making her feel feminine and vulnerable. He was warm, and she raised her hands so she could run her palms over the silky-smooth skin of his back, playing her fingers curiously over a short rope of scar tissue at the base of his spine then running her hands over the taut, firm globes of his buttocks.
Finn kissed her thirstily, plundering her mouth with a fierce urgency that made her heart drum and her head swim. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection between her thighs, rubbing between her wet pussy lips with a sweet friction each time she wriggled on the damp grass or he shifted against her to deepen their kiss.
She drew back from his mouth, gasping, and took his head between her hands, staring deeply into his eyes. Her voice came out breathy and desperate. “Don’t stop this time, Finn. Please.”
He groaned and kissed her again, and she felt him parting her slick folds before he pushed one finger inside her, hissing as her internal muscles clenched tightly around it.
Gently, he began to move his finger back and forth, pushing deep inside her and then withdrawing, his movement becoming firmer and more confident as her juices lubricated his thrusts. She gasped and sighed, and he added a second finger, murmuring muddled words of encouragement as he pushed them all the way inside her. He curled his fingers as he withdrew them, rubbing over her G-spot. She whimpered and parted her legs further, wordlessly begging for more.
Her eyes fluttered open when the head of his cock nudged against her entrance. She suddenly wondered if he would be too big, too much…but her body was crying out to feel him thrusting inside her, taking her, claiming her.
She bit her lower lip, her palms on his biceps, and felt his muscles bunching as he slid inside her, inch by inch. His breath shuddered with the effort of control and there was a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead.
At first there was a strange, dull pain as he worked his cock into her virgin channel, stilling above her so she could adjust to the sensation. But then something seemed to blossom inside her and the strange pressure eased, replaced by a sensation of spreading warmth as he started to move.
At first his thrusts were slow – smooth and careful – but then she wrapped her legs around his hips, urging him on in response to the fizzing excitement building in her belly. Shivers of sensation swirled over her skin, and she moaned into his mouth as he pumped his hips harder, taking up a driving rhythm that stoked the pleasure in her core.
She ran her palms down his back and over the globes of his ass, which flexed with every thrust, and he growled her name, low and hoarse, as the threads of desire inside her spiraled, twisted, stretched and snapped as an orgasm whiplashed through her body. She cried out again and again, spasming around his cock as he continu
ed to push into her, seeking his own bliss.
Her pussy was still pulsing as he pulled out of her and urged her onto her hands and knees, positioning himself behind her, covering her spine with his warm body. She hollowed her back and presented herself wantonly to him, almost purring when he thrust back inside her, then gasping when she felt him going harder and deeper than he had before.
He grasped her hips and pistoned in and out of her slick channel, giving low moans of excitement that became harsher and less controlled. Her intimate muscles squeezed and fluttered around his shaft, and the aftershocks of her orgasm began to build again into rolling moments of pure bliss that lengthened and merged and drew out until she was coming again, panting and jerking and bunching the damp grass beneath them in her fists as she was overcome by pleasure.
Finn gave a low, tortured growl, and she felt his teeth graze the nape of her neck in a primal, possessive gesture as he emptied himself into her willing body, fingers digging hard into the soft flesh of her hips, before slipping from the heat of her pussy, leaving her sore, satisfied and sighing with exhausted contentment.
Chapter Sixteen
It was the slow time of night at the Lion’s Den, after the dinner rush, before the party crowd started piling in. Jose tapped Flora on the shoulder as she set down her cleaning supplies behind the bar.
“Hey, I hate to bother you, but I was just wondering,” he said, glancing around. “Krystle’s been acting really strange since she got back from Cottonwood. Do you have any idea what’s up with her? Is she mad at me for something?”
“I don’t think she’s mad at you. I’m about to talk to her about something else. I’ll try to feel her out on what’s going on,” Flora promised.
“Thanks,” Jose said with a relieved nod. “If I screwed up somehow, I really wish she’d just smack me upside the head and get it over with.”
Krystle was standing outside, drinking a seltzer water and chatting with Liam and a couple of the other bouncers.
“What’s up?” she said when Flora motioned to her to take a walk down the block. They stepped into the recessed doorway of a furniture shop, now closed for the night.
Flora wanted to ask Krystle to go with her to Cottonwood, but before she did, she needed to find something out. Travelling across the Badlands was dangerous. She needed to know if she’d be putting someone besides Krystle in danger.
“Is there something that you haven’t been telling me?” she demanded, looking her cousin in the eye.
Krystle, who never avoided anything, looked away and stared out at the street.
“Lots of things,” she said with a shrug. “Where should I start? I had a threesome for my twentieth birthday. I don’t recommend it, actually. Too distracting. Oh, and I shoplifted from a drugstore when I was—”
“Cut it out,” Flora snapped, and resisted the mighty impulse to add “please”.
Krystle looked at her in surprise.
“You’re avoiding Jose and being weird, you’re not drinking alcohol, and you went to Cottonwood. Apparently, even though you said it was for a client, as far as anybody around here can tell me, you went alone.”
“So?” Krystle scowled at her.
“Were you scouting it out to find out if it was a good place to raise a family?”
Krystle stuck her hands in her pockets.
“And why don’t you just tell Jose you’re pregnant with his cub?”
Krystle didn’t deny it. “We don’t really talk about stuff like that,” she mumbled. “Who knows how he’d react? My track record with men hasn’t exactly been fantastic.”
Before Flora could say anything, Jose stepped into the doorway, and for the first time since Flora had met him, the unflappable shifter looked as mad as hell.
“Maybe you’d know if you’d just trusted me enough to tell me,” he said angrily. “Why would you go to Cottonwood by yourself when you were pregnant with my cub? Why risk your safety like that?”
“You’re still checking out every chick in the Lion’s Den! It’s not like you’re ready to settle down!” Krystle yelled. “And what are you doing spying on me?”
“I’m spying because I care about you, and I wanted to know what the hell is going on! And checking out girls is different than banging them! You were the one who said you wanted an open relationship, and I haven’t been with anyone else in months! If you wanted me to stop looking at other girls, you should have told me!” Jose’s face was turning red as he shouted at the top of his lungs. “How do you expect us to work if you won’t tell me a damn thing that’s happening with you?”
“See what you did?” Krystle snapped at Flora. “Why couldn’t you stay out of it?” And she stomped off, with Jose following.
Flora, shaken, stepped out of the doorway and saw Krystle shift into lynx form and run off, leaving an angry Jose standing there yelling at her as she fled.
She headed glumly back into the club, to return to work. Should she have kept her mouth shut? She didn’t want Krystle travelling through dangerous territory if she was pregnant – but she hadn’t meant for Jose to find out that way.
The next morning, Flora and Finn headed out to meet the bears. They were going to bring them into Hudson territory, pack some supplies, and leave after lunch. Finn knew a route that would get them there in three days.
As they walked, Finn tipped his head up and sniffed the air.
“Krystle?” he yelled out.
Krystle came trotting up to them, scowling. Her hair was rumpled and she looked as if she hadn’t slept well.
“I heard you guys were going near bear territory,” she muttered to Flora. “I didn’t want you to be murdered. Even if you are a nosy, interfering furbag.”
Finn let out an annoyed growl. “That’s my mate you’re talking about,” he rumbled.
“It’s okay,” Flora said placatingly.
Krystle heaved a sigh and shook her head. “No, it’s not. I’m really sorry. I am expecting Jose’s cub, I didn’t handle it well, and I blew it. You’re the only family I have, Flora, and you were just trying to help. You forgive me?”
“Of course. But you’ve got to try to patch things up with Jose.”
“Pretty sure that ship has sailed,” Krystle said with an unhappy look. “He wasn’t at work when I went back last night, and I haven’t heard from him today. He’s pissed at me. Not surprisingly. Just tell me what’s up with these bears, and we’ll worry about that later.”
Flora filled Krystle in on the problems that Madison and her friends were facing, as they settled in at the warehouse to wait. And wait. And wait.
None of the bears showed up. They kept scenting the air in case any of Ruben’s men headed their way, but they were all alone in the empty building.
Flora grew more and more worried as they sat there waiting. There was no way for her to contact them. Could Ruben have captured them? But why would he bother?
Finally, after an hour and a half, they left.
“Listen, you have to understand about girls like Madison,” Finn said as they walked back to the Lion’s Den. “Someone coming from an abusive background, running away from home, is going to be a troubled person with a lot of issues. She’s not going to be the most reliable person.”
“She wants to take her brother to a safe place. There is nothing more important to her,” Flora protested. “And as far as I can tell, she is reliable. She showed up on time to meet me, every time. Early, even. Okay, I’ll just try again tomorrow. Same time.”
“I’ll come with you,” Krystle said.
“I appreciate it. But what will I do if she just never shows up again?” Flora worried. “If she just disappears?”
“Happens all the time in Darwin,” Finn said. “I’m sorry, Flora, but that’s most likely what’s going to happen here. She changed her mind.”
“Or…” Flora couldn’t finish her sentence, but she felt ill with worry.
Chapter Seventeen
Flora, Finn, and Krystle were headed back to th
e warehouse at 9:30 a.m. when Jose came trotting up to them. “Got room for one more?” he asked, glancing at Krystle.
“Maybe.” Krystle managed a smile as they walked. “If it’s a sexy-ass wolf shifter with a huge dick and a forgiving disposition.”
“Hmm, let me think about that,” Jose said, returning her smile. “If I meet anyone like that, I’ll be sure to hook you up.”
“Language, Krystle,” Flora chided her cousin. “Good Lord.”
“What?” Krystle gave her a stare of wide-eyed confusion. “He does have an enormous schlong. You think I love him for his personality?”
“Did you just say you loved me?” Jose crowed with delight. “You did! You said it! No takey-backsies!”
“Hell no, I did not,” Krystle said quickly.
But Jose sang, “She loves me, she loves me,” over and over again, just to annoy her, until they were close to bear territory and Finn told him to shut up so they could listen for Ruben’s men.
Unfortunately, the results were the same as the day before. Flora and her friends waited for an hour, and nobody showed up. Flora was so worried she could barely concentrate at work. Finn was being the perfect gentleman – attentive, talkative, everything she’d asked for – and she struggled to show her appreciation and worried that she was being a sourpuss. She threw herself into work, and tried not to think about all the terrible things that could have happened to Madison and her friends.
When they failed to show up for a third day, Flora made a decision. She was going to go, by herself, to the alternative meeting place that Madison had suggested – the one in bear territory. She knew Finn would flip his lid if she told him, so she waited until he left to go on a collection run, and then wrote a note, which she put in an envelope and handed to Blair. She told Blair to give the note to Finn when he got back.
“I’m going to look for Madison at a building on 45th and Chellis,” she wrote in the note. “If I’m not back in a couple of hours, it means something’s happened to me.”
Badlands: The Lion's Den Page 9