Chapter Five

There were easily three hundred people at the barbecue fundraiser that night. There were even wolf shifters from Greenville there. Country music blasted from the speakers – all pre-selected by Laurel, to ensure it was family friendly. The air smelled of sweet, tangy barbecue sauce, and woodsmoke, and French fries dunked in sizzling oil.

Every folding table and picnic table on the front lawn, every table in the restaurant, was full. Shifters slow danced with each other to the twangy country music, and there was a pleasant din of conversation buzzing in the air.

The evening’s take still wouldn’t be enough to pay off their debt to Algernon, but it was wonderful to see the community support. Their mother was in tears of gratitude as she stood at the smoker, serving out ribs.

Savannah stood off to the side near an overflowing garbage can, trying to pretend that she wasn’t scanning the crowd. Jessamine sidled up to her, with a smirk on her face.

“Who’s the hot date?” Jessamine taunted Savannah. “Is it the wolf that you’re in luuuuv with? Does he know how big of a dork you are?”

Thou shalt not murder thy annoying sister. Thou shalt not murder thy annoying sister.

“There is no hot date!” she snapped.

“You changed your dress five times. But you only have two dresses, so you just kept going back and forth between the pink one and the green one. You should have stuck with the green one, by the way, the pink clashes with your hair. You’re wearing perfume, which I’m pretty sure you stole from me. You showered again, even though you showered this morning. And oh my God, is that lipstick?”

“The entire community is here tonight, and I am simply dressing to represent our family in the appropriate manner,” Savannah said huffily.

Jessamine looked at the assembled crowd. Savannah followed her gaze and winced.

Anthony was wrestling with Niall in a mud puddle, and a crowd was cheering them on.

The mayor of Foxhaven was chugging beer that was being poured into a funnel.

The police chief and the owner of the rest stop gas station were having a belching contest. And people were actually putting money on it.

“Whatever,” Jessamine said, tossing her hair back over her shoulder, and went to help behind the bar they’d set up outside.

“Oh, screw this,” Savannah said furiously, and stomped back towards the house to change into jeans and a T-shirt. She was not that girl. The giggly-fun-date kind of girl. She was Savannah – short, chubby, freakishly strong, far too good at kicking ass to be sexy, best friend but never girlfriend.

Then the tingling in her pink bits started.

“Savannah.” Austin’s voice was a sexy rumble.

She whirled around to look at him.

He was wearing jeans, motorcycle boots, and a white T-shirt that looked as if it had been painted on over the curve of his biceps.

“Oh, hey, Austin,” she choked out, desperately trying for casual and missing by a mile. She tried to stick her hands in her pockets, but she didn’t have any pockets, so her hands just slid straight down to her hips and stopped.

Austin didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were locked on hers. “You look gorgeous.”

“I definitely did not dress up like this for you.” She was blushing so hard that it actually hurt. She would have given anything for a bucket of water to dump on her head right then, to cool her heated cheeks.

“Of course not.” Amusement twinkled in his whiskey-colored eyes. “Hey. I dropped the money off with your mother. She put it in her safe.”

“Thank you,” she said stiffly.

“So. Did you want me to stay, or go?”

She struggled to find words, and felt as if she were choking. She wanted him so badly it frightened her – and she was someone who chased down crazy shifters for a living. She’d never felt anything like this before.

High-school taunts drifted through her mind again. “She’s so fat, when she steps on the scale, it says ‘To be Continued…’”

Her ex-boyfriend Marvin and the rage on his face after they were confronted by a group of bullies, and she stepped forward and chased them off while he frantically dialed his bodyguard…

This wasn’t real. She wasn’t the kind of girl who got lucky in love.

She heard words coming out. “You can stay, you can go. Do whatever you want.”

Had she really just said that to him?

“Okay.” She thought she saw a faint spark of hurt in his eyes. And he turned and walked away.

* * *

Austin stood by his pickup truck, at the end of the parking lot, and told himself that it was better this way.

He didn’t know why he’d told Savannah’s mother that he was her boyfriend, or why he’d come here tonight.

He guessed he just wanted one last good night. One last good time. Because even if he survived to bring Roy back, how long could he survive the devils plaguing his own mind?

And he wasn’t surprised that Savannah didn’t want him to stay. Why would she? He wasn’t offering her anything. He’d told her he was leaving and never coming back.

Wistfully, he looked over at Laurel, who was standing next to Jessamine by the bar now. Jessamine said something to her mother, and her mother lightly flicked her on the head, then ducked. Jessamine pretended to try to smack her mother, and Laurel grabbed her in a fierce hug. Jessamine wriggled out of it, pretending to look annoyed, but then she shot her mother a look of such pure love that it hurt Austin’s heart.

The only time his parents had ever touched him…well, his father, when he was around, had broken Austin’s bones over and over again, which had hurt like a bitch even if Austin did have super-healing.

And his mother had never, in his memory, hugged him. Not once.

Other pack members had tried to help, when Lloyd wasn’t around. The pack healer, Anita – her mother Sue would take him aside and read stories to him while he sat on her lap. She’d pour her healing energy into him. It was the only reason he hadn’t gone feral as a cub.

He’d cried when Sue died. Only time he’d ever cried in his life. When his mother died, he’d just shrugged, popped open another beer, and returned to the game he’d been watching.

When his father died, he’d celebrated with a three-day drunk.

Maybe that had been a kind of mourning, in its own way, but not for the loss of a parent. It had been mourning for the loss of the cubhood he’d never had.

As he watched, a fox shifter walking past Jessamine reached out and pinched her butt. Austin snarled and started to move forward, instinctively, but Niall, covered with mud, was on the drunk fox in a heartbeat, punching the him in the face so hard he spun in a circle and went face down on the grass.

Then Niall and Jessamine exchanged high fives.

They were family. They’d do anything for each other. They drove each other crazy, but they’d die for each other.

He’d never have that.

He’d tried to bond with Tully’s pack, he really had. They’d done everything they could to make him feel at home. They invited him to every meal, to every pack party. They watched out for him like one of their own. They always had his back.

They felt like friends, but they didn’t feel like family.

If he had a family, it would be something like this. This crazy, ridiculous little bunch of foxes.

No pretensions, no putting on false airs. And no dressing up for dinner and sitting at a twenty-foot-long dining table set with thousand-dollar gilded place settings, like his brothers Cliff and Grant did with their mates.

Oh, their mates were okay. They were nice women – down to earth, sweet, strong, loyal. But they moved in a world that didn’t have space for him. Both of his brothers’s mates had made a point of inviting him to pack gatherings, to christenings, to cub showers. They’d sent him pictures of their cubs.

He just couldn’t bring himself to visit Hidden Hills very often. Too many ugly memories. Every time he set foot there, he felt the ache of broken bones ghosting through his body, and his late father’s taunts echoed in his ears.

This here…this felt like home should feel. At least how he imagined it would feel. Scrapping, torturing each other, teasing each other, but when push came to shove, every single one of them would be willing to take a bullet for each other.

As he watched, Jessamine and Laurel, arms around each other’s shoulders, started singing “American Pie” at the top of their longs. They were terrible. They were so out of tune. How do you mess up “American Pie”, for heaven’s sake? But the crowd joined in, roaring their approval.

His heart ached with envy.

“Hey!” Savannah yelled. She was heading towards him across the parking lot, with a hesitant look on her pretty face.

“Hey,” he said back. She stopped when she reached him and just stood there in front of him, hugging herself and avoiding his gaze.

His heart surged with hope.

She stared down at the ground, clearing her throat and shifting from one foot to the other, until she finally looked up at him. “When I said that you could do whatever you wanted… Uh… I meant… I thought you wanted to stay here. I mean, you don’t have to stay here. But you could. If you wanted to.”

He grinned at her, loving the flush on her smooth porcelain cheeks. “You know what? You’re terrible at flirting.”

She looked as if she was about to argue, then sighed. “What’s the point? I just don’t know how to act girly. I’m the tomboyest girl in town. Everyone treats me like their brother. I can outrun and outhunt and outfight every guy here. Take after my dad, I guess. He was this super-protective type who wanted to know that I’d always be safe, so he taught me how to hunt and kick ass from when I was a cub.” A look of sadness misted her eyes.

He shrugged. “It’s okay. It wasn’t an insult. I like that you just say what’s on your mind.”

She tipped her head back and looked up at him. “Okay then. Here goes. I want you to stay and have dinner with me. Even though you drive me insane. So, what’s on your mind?”

He looked down at her, staring into her light brown eyes. “I want to have dinner with you, and I want lots of other things too. Things that would involve me taking you somewhere else and doing very bad things to you while you beg me for more. I wish I was staying here longer. But I can’t. I have to leave, and I can’t come back to Washington, ever. I just want you to know…you were the best part of it, of my being here. I’ll miss our little tussles. And handing you your butt every time. And what a sore loser you are.”

She grinned back, relaxing. Her eyes shone in the moonlight. “You were almost sweet there, you know? Just for a second.”

“Good thing I stopped myself in time.” But he smiled back, and a warm, comfortable feeling loosened his muscles. This felt so right. So good.

Savannah glanced towards the loud, raucous gathering in front of the restaurant, then stared off into the wooded area towards the eastern part of the property. The sun had sunk below the horizon. “I want to show you something.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really. Well, I want to see what you want to show me.” There was a lascivious gleam in his eyes.

“It’s not what you’re thinking! Pervert.” Savannah shook her head reprovingly, turned and walked off, and he hurried after her. She moved surprisingly fast for a short girl.

She pushed through the underbrush, plunging into the woods, and he jogged along to keep up.

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” he demanded. “Maybe you’re the pervert. Maybe I was thinking that you were going to show me your Beanie Baby collection.”

“Ha. Maybe you’re a big fat liar.”

“I’m not fat. I’m not a liar.” He winked at her. “I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.”

They walked for about twenty minutes, farther and farther away from the big, raucous crowd. The sounds of music and loud, happy party-goers faded away. A fat white moon hung in the sky overhead, nearly full. Around this time, shifters of all species would be feeling the call. They were more aggressive, more sensual, hungrier, wilder.

They stopped at the edge of a clearing, and she gestured ahead. It looked as if the stars had fallen from the skies overhead and were floating through the tall grass of an open meadow. Thousands of fireflies, their tiny white lights winking on and off in the darkness. An invisible chorus of crickets creaked rustily, and the faintest of warm breezes ruffled their hair.

They stood there in silence together, side by side. He breathed in the sweet scent of her musk, and arousal flowed through his veins like hot rivers of lava.

“My favorite place. I love it here in the summer. It’s like magic,” she said. “My daddy was the first one to bring me here, when I was a little girl.”

“This is beautiful,” he murmured. “Thank you for giving me this.” He’d take it and store it away forever, and hold it in his mind when his final seconds were ticking away. This night, this very moment, with her by his side. Where she should be always.

He bent down and kissed her neck, right in the soft curve where it met her shoulder, then stopped himself. “Sorry. No, actually, I’m not,” he corrected himself, then kissed her again.

She bit back a whimper, and he thought he might explode in his pants, right there.

“Should I stop, while I still have an ounce of control left in my body?” It came out in a pained groan.

“No.” Her voice was husky with desire, and she turned around and looked at him. “If you’re leaving, I…want to be with you. And if you make fun of me, if you give me a hard time, I swear…”

He grabbed her chin and tipped her face up so she was staring into his eyes. She was fierce and fiery and wonderful, and she had no idea how gorgeous she was. It broke his heart that he couldn’t stay here forever and show her how ridiculously hot she made him, every minute of every day.

“Babe,” he murmured. “I have had a nonstop erection from the minute I first laid eyes on you. There is only one kind of hard time that I want to give you.”

He reached down, grabbed the hem of her pink dress, and pulled it up over her head in one fluid motion.

He tossed it aside, and they sank down onto the soft moss together, moving as one.

He pressed his lips against hers, firm and warm and demanding, then lapped at her mouth, urging her to open to him. When she sighed, he stroked his tongue against hers in playful, darting movements that slowed into a sweet, seductive slide. It was hard to catch her breath, but more than air, she needed more of his kisses, and she shifted restlessly against him. Her heart fluttered in her ribcage like a panicked bird.

He kissed his way down her stomach. He felt her start to suck it in, and he gave her a light slap on her butt.

“Don’t,” he growled.

She felt self-conscious in her plain white cotton panties and bra, almost naked in the moonlight under Austin’s hungry gaze, but that sense of awkwardness slipped away as he pressed his mouth to hers. He kissed her with sweet, languorous intensity, his lips warm and firm and demanding against hers. She couldn’t hold back a whimper of desire, and as her lips parted, he slid his tongue against hers, sending a thrill of sensation dancing down her body. She twined her arms around his neck and pressed closer against him, relishing the feel of his muscular form against her yielding curves.

He drew back and looked down into her eyes, and she thought she saw something haunted in the inky depths of his pupils, blown wide with desire for her. She thought he was going to say something – not his usual sharp-edged banter, but something bittersweet and full of longing. But instead he dipped his head and kissed her again, hungry and relentless, as if he wanted to eat her up.

She moaned again and squirmed in his arms as he trailed his lips over her jaw and down the curve of her throat, nipping at the pulse point and scraping his teeth over the tender flesh. She tugged at the tight white T-shirt that clung to his muscular torso, and he drew back for a moment to yank it off over his head and discard it on the forest floor beside them.

He kissed his way down her body, his breath stirring the almost invisible down on her skin and making her shudder with need. When he trailed his lips over her stomach, she sucked her tummy in and curled away from his touch, suddenly struck by shyness again.

She gasped, and her pussy clenched as he gave her a light, stinging slap on the hip. “Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t suck it in. You’re glorious. I want every inch of you.”

He pulled back, eating her up with his eyes as he kicked off his motorcycle boots and pushed down his jeans. His gaze lingered on her curves, and from the flush of color high on his cheekbones and the rapid rise and fall of his broad chest, she could see how much he wanted her. He really did think she was beautiful and desirable.

As she let her eyes wander lower, she saw all the evidence she needed of that. His cock was long, thick and achingly erect, standing up proudly from a thatch of dark curls. Her mouth watered as she imagined wrapping her fingers around it and sucking the head like a lollipop, but she didn’t have the chance – as soon as he was naked he was on her, over her, rocking his body against hers and driving her wild with the touch of his lips on her skin.

He unhooked the front fastening of her bra and his mouth found her breast as his hands got busy peeling down her panties, his fingers playing in the fiery red curls of her pubic hair before delving between her pussy lips, sliding tantalizingly through her slickness.

She gasped and arched against him, his cock sliding against the soft flesh of her belly, and he growled a helpless curse and urged her legs apart, circling her clit with his thumb as he pressed two fingers smoothly into her wet, welcoming channel.

“Ohhh,” she whimpered.

He curved his fingers to press against her inner wall, moving them in slow, tantalizing strokes. She bit her lip. She wanted to scream her pleasure aloud. She wanted to buck against him, to urge him on, but she forced herself to hold perfectly still as he stroked her again and again, his fingers running right over her g-spot. The pleasure was like nothing she’d ever felt before, it was so intense that it was almost pain, and she reveled in it until she couldn’t hold back any more.

“Please, Austin,” she gasped. “I don’t want to wait any longer. I want you inside me…”

With an inarticulate groan, he worked his cock against her pussy until he was slippery with her excitement. Then, bracing one hand against the mossy forest floor, he pushed inside her. Slowly. Smoothly. Filling her completely until they were locked together, their breath fast and their hearts thundering against each other.

“You’re so tight.” His voice was harsh and guttural. “So wet. So sweet.”

He rested his forehead against hers for a moment, eyes closed, then started to move inside her. With every thrust, she caught her breath, tensing the muscles in her thighs and arching up to meet him. She ran her fingers down his back, exploring the sweat-damp line of his spine and the flexing muscles beneath his skin. The scents of nature surrounded them – leaf mulch and damp earth and the dank smell of the crushed moss beneath their bodies – but what overwhelmed her senses was the distinctive smell of Austin’s skin, wild and beautiful and dangerous, like a storm.

Tension coiled between her thighs, winding tighter with every touch of his lips to her skin, every stroke of his rock-hard cock inside her. Her pussy ached as her arousal built, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him further inside her with wordless cries. His ragged breath was warm against her throat, his body furnace-hot above hers as he drove relentlessly inside her, holding her closer, working his hips to get deeper.

As the tension broke in her core, sending whiplash waves of pleasure through her limbs, she went rigid, her muscles locking, and stifled her long cry of completion against his shoulder. He was only moments behind her, jerking inside her and letting out a staccato growl as he came, losing himself in her body.

For a long time, they lay there without speaking. Neither of them was ready to move. Ready to let the other go. The fading pulses of their orgasms played through them. Austin was a warm, pleasant weight as his breathing settled and he gently stroked her skin and wound his fingers in her hair. Savannah gazed up at the dancing fireflies, like their own private galaxy of stars, letting the moment linger as the sweat cooled on their bodies.

They dressed in silence. Savannah smoothed down the rumpled pink dress. She hoped Jessamine wouldn’t take one look and know exactly what they’d been doing. She didn’t want it spoiled with dirty jokes and sibling teasing. She wanted to tuck the memory away and keep it for herself and take it out only when she was alone.

Slowly, they walked back to the party. They were a few feet apart from each other, but she could still feel the pounding of his heart beat as if it were her own.