by Holley Trent
“Like this morning.”
“I’m still waiting for you to tell me what happened this morning that I should be so terrified of.”
“You don’t remember being fucked into Dreamland?”
Her cheeks burned and things down below tightened at the memory. She rubbed her thighs together to squelch the ache of yearning. “Oh, I remember that. Fondly.”
“Fondly?” If his tone didn’t adequately convey his apparent incredulity, his suddenly round eyes did.
She grinned at him. “It’s not windy today. How do I smell to you?”
“How do you—”
She clamped a hand over his mouth. “How do I smell?” If she had to guess, she’d bet good money on the fact she smelled like she was ready for round two. Or was that three? She wasn’t certain if what they’d done in the shower counted.
He peeled the hand away and drew in a long inhale. “Mmm, you’re killing me.”
“I like what I like. So, if you’re waiting for me to express regret or remorse about liking my sex a little rough, you’re going to be waiting a very long time. I’m pretty clear in the bedroom. If I tell you that I’ll tell you no if I don’t like something, I mean it. I have limits. Trust me, I do. If you get anywhere close to them, I won’t hold my tongue.”
“You trust me?”
She shrugged. “Kidnapping aside, you haven’t given me a reason not to.”
He skimmed his thumb along her jaw and smiled at her. “I’d do it again, too. You’re one of the two best things to ever happen to me.”
She grinned. She could guess what the second was, and she considered Nick very good company, indeed. “Other way around. You happened to me. I was just camping.”
He chucked her chin. “Semantics.”
“Having no regrets is nice, though. So, how about that kiss? We skipped that step. Need to make up for it.”
Cupping the sides of her face, he looked longingly at her for so long that her cheeks burned hot again.
What was he seeing when he looked at her like that? The desert’s toil on her usually-supple skin? The ever-deepening wrinkles at the corners of her eyes? That beauty mark on the bridge of her nose she’d been on the fence about having blasted off for most of the past ten years?
She could wonder and wonder, but it was easier to ask. “What?”
He skimmed his lips over hers and tugged at her fuller bottom one. He let it snap back in and whispered, “Just making sure you’re real and that I’m not in some Cougar daydream.”
“I’m real. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to feel this.” She slipped her hands around his waist and downward to give his ass an appreciative grope. He was as nice to look at going as he was coming. Coming sounded better at the moment.
He pushed her against the wall and shoved his tongue into her mouth, moaning as he ground against her.
She tried to give as good as she got, standing on her tiptoes to increase their press of lips and to lace her hands through his hair. So sexy the way he didn’t so much style it but rather let it fall where it may.
She pulled him at the waistband, and unfastened his pants so she could get her hands around his hard heat. He hissed—more man than cat, for once—when she closed her fist around his head.
“You’re looking for trouble,” he whispered.
“I confirmed that a minute ago.”
“You want it, you’ll get it. Take off your shoes.”
“What?”
He didn’t bother to explain, just freed himself from her grip and bent to tug off both of her hiking boots. Then another tug at the waist of her sweatpants, and he had them off of her before she could consider things like modesty or propriety.
Fixing a lustful stare on her, he worked his pants down a few inches and gave his cock a suggestive tug. “So, you’re saying yes to trouble?”
Yes to everything. She cocked up her chin and pushed up an eyebrow. “Give me you best shot, Cougar.”
“Hard to do that standing up, but I’ll certainly take you on a ride. Just wrap your legs around me and hold on.”
She was up against the wall with him in her in almost as little time as it took for her to gasp at his brute strength. He held her as if she were as light as the air that fed her magic, but as gentle as something fragile. Something he valued.
He found her lips again as he increased the speed of his thrusts. His tongue stilled for each groan, each gasp.
At that moment, nothing else mattered. Not the chaos the hellmouth wrought. Not her family drama. Not her tenuous relationship with one of her best friends. Nothing.
Just his mouth, his hands, his body.
“Just hold on,” he whispered.
And of course, his words.
He thrust harder, faster, and she had no choice but to obey. Her thighs tightened their clamp on his waist even as the rough side of the shed abraded her back through her shirt.
She clasped her wrists behind his neck and tipped back her head as his strokes became ever more urgent and his breathing faltered.
“Don’t let go,” he said.
“I won’t.” She gripped him tighter.
“No. Don’t … ever let go … of me.”
“I won’t,” she repeated.
His mouth found hers again, and it all became too much. Too full. Too sensitive. Too many sensations.
“Mason!” she called out as he slammed into her again, and his own body began the shudder of orgasm.
“Gods!” he shouted. He gripped her ass hard and put his head back. Razor sharp fangs extended as he hissed, writhed.
“Dayum,” came Sean’s voice from very near.
Oh shit. She tried to scramble down from Mason, but he kept her pressed tight.
“Stay still,” he whispered. “Pretty sure all he can see is my pale ass.”
The little bit he saw was too much in Ellery’s opinion. She planted her face against Mason’s shoulder and groaned. By now, she really should have known to expect the unexpected. No matter where she went, unpredictability would follow. In fact, she should be more surprised if everything in her life went according to plan.
“What do you want?” Mason asked.
“Hannah and Miles wanted to sort through the stuff from the campsite. I think they’re each ready for a change of clothes. Me and Hank are trying to keep our distance so we don’t inadvertently set off our timers without knowing who our matches are.”
“We’ll be there in a minute.”
“Okay.” Sean made no effort to move.
Mason sighed and pressed his face to the top of Ellery’s hair. “Need something else, man?”
“Millie’s here.”
“Millie?” He looked at his brother as if he were hoping to see his just kidding smirk. Sean was smirking in that lazy Foye way, all right, but it was the wrong flavor altogether. That smirk said, “Good fucking luck.”
“What does she want?”
Sean shrugged. “Brought some stuff for Ellery in that big-ass tote bag she carries around when she’s doing witchy things. Wouldn’t tell me what was in it. Said I wouldn’t understand, anyway. She’s waiting by your front door.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Sean, again, made no effort to move.
“For fuck’s sake, what?”
“Nothing. Just waiting to see how long you’ll wait to put her down.”
“I can wait all day.”
Let’s not. The desert was cold at night and she didn’t want to be out in it with an exposed backside and sticky thighs.
“Just so you know, I will beat the hell out of you,” Mason said. “I’m giving you a head start. By the time I have my pants zipped, you’d better be a quarter mile from here. If I catch you, I will make you the next unsatisfied customer of the county’s cat spay and neuter campaign, and I’ll do it myself.”
This time, Sean shifted his weight a couple of seconds and took off. It wasn’t quite a run, but came pretty damn close. “Hell of a time to alpha up,” he called back.
She scrambled into her underwear and pants and shoved her feet into her boots.
“Hope that didn’t embarrass you.” He took his time fixing his pants, smiling at her all the while.
“My parents once walked in on me and a guy when I was seventeen. I’d venture to say that was only slightly more humiliating.”
“Unfortunately, Cougars are like house cats in a lot of ways. Sometimes, we don’t have much regard for personal space and privacy. We’re used to walking in on each other, and it’ll take some adjusting for all of us to find a new modus operandi.”
She swatted what dust she could off her back.
Mason turned her and got the rest, devoting far more energy than necessary to her rump.
She couldn’t even scold him for it. She’d probably think something was wrong with him if he didn’t try when he had that lusty Cougar part of his brain in overdrive.
Claude jogged over to them when they were halfway to Sean’s truck, shaking his head.
They stopped.
“Can’t close it?” she asked.
“Agatha was right that three angels could close it, but just like there are different kinds of demons, there are different kinds of angels. There are angels equipped to pass between realms on errands and to pass messages between Heaven and Hell. That’s the kind of angel you’d need to close that particular hellmouth for good.”
“And … you don’t have the right juice, is what you’re saying,” Mason said.
“In my case, it isn’t so much about the flavor of the juice but the size of the gateway. Had it been smaller with a thinner veil, I could have done it on my own with a boost from my brothers. This one’s different.”
Ellery ground her fists against her eyes. “Thanks for looking, I guess. Maybe we can figure something else out.”
“All hope is not lost, fille. I know two such angels. Possibly three.”
She dropped her hands. “Who?”
“Some of Papa’s old cohorts whom our friend Mark managed to track down. Fallen ones. They retained their ability to go from one realm to the next, though they’d rather not use it. I may be able to convince them to do this favor.”
“But, that’s only two,” Mason said.
“Yes, because the third needs to be woken.”
“Your father?” Ellery asked.
“I think so. We won’t know what he’s still able to do until he wakes. We’re not certain what he gave up to save us last year, but his peers believe he’s no longer in the demonic ranks. They would have come for him.”
“Huh.” Could it be possible that the big, beautiful demon wasn’t a demon anymore? And if he wasn’t, what was he?
She turned to Mason.
He gave her a searching look, and she waited for the no.
Sighing, he cupped the back of her neck and pulled her against him. “You’ll come right back? I can’t go with you. We need everyone on deck here if something comes out of that hellmouth.”
“You have my word we won’t try to detain her,” Claude said.
“Sorry, your word means jack shit. I want her word.”
It was a promise that was easy enough to make. “I’ll come back. As soon as I’m done.”
He didn’t let her go.
“Someone’s got to remind you to fill the humidifier, right?”
His body relaxed against hers fractionally. “Yeah. Someone needs to.”
He released her and pressed his hands to her cheeks, bussed his lips over hers. “You want your dagger back before you go?”
She chuckled. “Yeah. I do, if it’s still there.”
“Let’s go see, then you can go.”
“What about Millie?”
“Who’s Millie?” Claude asked.
“Local witch,” Mason said. “I think she wants to roll out the welcome mat for Ellery. She’s harmless, but annoying. Most witches are, in my experience.”
Ellery gave him a hard nudge with her elbow.
He groaned and doubled over, rubbing his ribs. “Present company excluded. Damn, you’re pointy.”
“I’m curvy where it matters.”
“So, so, true.”
Claude muttered something low and in the Creole patois he still slipped into after so many years. Best Ellery could tell from her piss-poor high school French was that the bony elbow thing ran in the family.
“Hey,” he said as they approached truck. “You think your witch friend would be up for a cross-country field trip? One more friendly witch couldn’t hurt our chances.”
“I doubt Millie would say no to an adventure,” Mason said. “Keep her, if you’d like. Equal trade. Witch for witch. It’ll make my job as Alpha easier with a little less nagging from her camp.”
Ellery elbowed him again.
“Oof! Damn, just sayin’.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mason knew he’d done the right thing in letting Ellery go with Claude and his brothers, but he couldn’t help but to feel more nervous than usual. Distracted. He kept dropping tools and had to scrap an armoire door because he’d carved the damned engraving on the wrong fucking side.
She’d come back. She said she would, and he believed she meant it, but that didn’t mean he had to be okay with her being gone.
Nick didn’t seem too happy about it, either. Every time the shop door opened, he pulled up on the side of his playpen and stared, only to collapse when someone like Darnell walked in. Again.
“What’cha want this time, Darnell?” Hank called from the router table.
“Wanted Alpha’s lady to look at my arm.” He held it up. “See. Look. I didn’t lick it once since this morning.”
“She’s not here,” Mason said. He turned back to the clamps he was tightening and hoped not to splinter the very expensive mahogany. Again.
Someone needed to save him from himself before Foye Woodworks earned itself its first red day in almost a year.
“She at the house?”
“Nope.”
“When will she be back?”
“Later. Just keep your tongue off it and I’m sure you’ll survive until then.”
“I’ll try. She’s cute.”
“Yep.” Mine.
“Are the other ones cute?”
“What other ones?” Sean asked flatly.
“Come on, man. You can’t tell me you only brought back one. There have to be more.”
Mason groaned as his phone vibrated in his shirt pocket. “What now?” He held the display in front of his eyes, and rolled them. He slid his thumb across the screen and put the phone to his ear. “What’s up, Jill?”
“You gonna bring me Nicky?”
Maybe he hadn’t heard her right. Maybe the phone was picking up some static from all the electronics buzzing in the shop. He held his words, walked to the side door, and stepped outside. “Wanna repeat that?” he asked.
“I’m at the gas station. You wanna bring me Nicky?”
“No, I don’t particularly want to bring you Nick.”
“Too busy?”
“Not so busy that I couldn’t bring him, I just don’t want to. He’s only been here a few days.”
“Long enough.” She sighed. “Mason … ”
“I don’t want to argue with you, Jill. I really don’t. I’m just not in the mood with everything going on here. I need to see him more than a few days here and there on your whims. It’s not enough. You had to know at some point I would put my foot down about it.”
Too many Cougars said he never put his foot down about anything. They were right. He didn’t even have his own house in order and he was supposed to be the boss of everyone else? Why the fuck was he Alpha, anyway? If he hadn’t inherited the title, he wouldn’t have wanted it. He fought to keep it, yeah, but sometimes he felt like the only reason he bothered was because he didn’t want anyone worse to have the job. Was that enough? He could step down. Let Hank take over. He had the more calculating personality. Or even Sea
n. He was by far the least misanthropic of the three of them.
“Well, I miss him,” she said. “So, either you bring him, or I’ll come get him.”
“Come get him, then.” Mason ended the call without saying goodbye and tapped in his mother’s number.
“Make it quick, Mason. Hannah’s trying to abscond and thinks I can’t see her. Tell your brothers to get their mess together and figure out which mate is whose.”
He cringed. “Sorry. Not to heap more on you, but Jill may be on the way out here to fetch Nick.”
“For God’s sake, you just got him.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“You two need to sit down and hash this thing out, in front of a judge if you have to.”
“You know what kind of mess that would make?”
“I know exactly what kind. I saw it time and time again when your father was Alpha. You hook up with someone who’s not meant to be your mate and have a kid, you’re probably going to have some custody issues. It always gets messy, but the sooner you—Hannah, sit your skinny bottom on the sofa right now, or so help me I will—get it over with, the sooner you can try to mold some sort of stability in your life and Nick’s.”
It took a moment to untangle her jumble of sentences. “Messy is an understatement, Mom. I’m convinced I should have him full-time, and if she doesn’t respect me as the Cougar Alpha, what makes you think I can get some human judge to take an infant away from his mother?”
“It’s your own damn fault she doesn’t respect you. You can learn to become a less forgiving alpha and keep folks from taking advantage of your kindness—”
“With Ellery’s help, you mean.”
Mom was silent for a long moment. That never boded well. She was likely tamping down the torrent of tough love she wanted to spew out. Finally, she sighed. “That’s neither here nor there. She’ll just boost what you already have, so find her something to boost.”
He cringed, knowing she was right. He needed to do what needed to be done. Ellery would make his job easier, but he had to want to do it. He could make things better, but he needed to get out of his own way. He wanted to.
“From a custody determination standpoint, there are plenty of facts that weigh heavily in your favor,” Mom said. “Don’t get the supernatural crap mixed up in it. Person to person, you’re the better parent. You’ve got a better support structure and more stable home life.”