Gator
“You got to let that girl go.” Jace doesn’t shout. He doesn’t have to. My Alpha probably knows exactly what went down in my library last night. Didn’t get to come in my girl, but I marked her good, and my wolf knows this only ends one way if she stays. With her in my bed, getting it hard and rough from me because fuck me if I know any other way.
She deserves better.
When I don’t say anything, Jace takes another shot. “Fucking don’t need a felony right now, you feel me?”
I clench my fist, needing to hit something. I feel him. Sucks that he’s right, too. Not that I would hurt her, but everyone else? Hell, yeah. “You got a problem with her being here?”
His sigh echoes down the line. “Two of you want to set up house together, I’m not gonna tell you no. Better yet, you make it all legal, and I’ll take my ass down to Crate and Barrel and buy you a toaster. Get you the matching mixer, too. You got something you want to tell me about?”
“Not planning on popping the question.”
This time Jace’s pained sigh echoes down the line. Man’s been hanging around his mate too much—he’s emotional as fuck. “Figured as much.”
There’s a pause I don’t rush to fill, then Jace curses. “Here’s the way this shit’s going down. You’re gonna have to ask your girl how she really feels about staying, you feel me? And if you want to make it last longer, you get yourself a ring and you practice getting down on your knees.”
“You telling me to stay the hell away from her?”
“I’m telling you to take this shit seriously,” he snarls. “She’s not some easy lay from the clubhouse. She deserves better than that. You want her, you make it count. You can’t be laying down ultimatums about how she has to stay with you.”
“You’re spending too much time with Keelie Sue,” I tell him. “Starting to see a crap ton of wedding bells everywhere.”
“On your knees,” he repeats, as if I hadn’t just made my position clear.
“Only one thing I do on my knees,” I growl. We both know he’s not talking about eating pussy, either. I don’t go down for anyone. I’ve sworn my allegiance to him, bared my throat, played nice—but he doesn’t own me. Not even a fight can put me down like that.
“Not so bad,” he says quietly. “Giving a little for a good woman.”
Look, I like Keelie Sue. She’s loyal, and she makes my Alpha happy. I don’t fucking care how she does it—if she’s sucking his dick, riding him hard, or singing him Disney songs. He put a ring on her finger, and they’re making plans to get married later this year. She’s got some vision of the two of them swapping vows in front of a big ass Christmas tree, and let’s just say that whatever Keelie Sue wants, Jace delivers. Only time I’ve seen him draw a line is when it was a safety concern.
“Somebody complain about Poppy?”
“Got a few questions,” he says quietly. “She’s pretty new to town, and it’s not like anybody’s called in a missing person’s report, but the neighbors are wondering about Fang.”
“They think a biker can’t feed a cat?”
He snorts. “We’re talking about Fang here. You think he looks like the kind of fine upstanding citizen you’d give a key to your house to?”
That brother makes a fucking spectacle out of popping a beer or buying toilet paper. I’d have tapped someone else or hired one of those services, but he claimed he wanted to do it. Read him the riot act, too, about how screwing up wasn’t an option. Think he got it. Thing is, my brother’s got a sweet spot for Poppy.
“Tell me true,” Jace says. “You do anything to force that girl out to your place?”
At least he’d asked.
“You mean other than sink her fucking boat?” I ask, fighting the urge to toss my phone straight into the water. “You think I’ve got her tied up in chains? Maybe you’ve got a bondage fetish, but I like my sex straight up.”
Jace grunts something less than fucking complimentary.
“One of those neighbors did a little speed dialing. Called the university where she’s been using lab space. No one there’s seen her in almost a week. She’s not answering emails or picking up on any of her calls. They’re talking about a wellness check.”
Thing about my place out in the bayou is that it’s isolated. I like it like that. Think I’ve made that perfectly clear. And so while I don’t get Grade A, kick-ass internet, I also don’t get a whole lot of callers. No neighbors banging on my door and asking to borrow a cup of fucking sugar, no Jehovah’s Witnesses trying to save my sorry soul from eternal damnation. God’s gonna have one hell of a barbecue when I get where I’m going, and I won’t complain. I’ve earned my fiery reception.
It figures, though, that Poppy has the world’s nicest neighbors. Pick a different person, and that someone else could be lying two weeks dead inside their apartment, and no one would notice. Poppy makes you want to be nice. She belongs with them, and that’s the truth. She deserves to be with the people who care about her.
“She chose to stay,” I say finally. “I think you need to hear that. There wasn’t any arm-twisting involved, although I may have offered a few incentives. But I should have dumped her ass on her doorstep days ago.”
I end the call and jam the phone into my back pocket. Tossing the thing into the bayou appeals, as does slamming my fist into the nearest wall or door. But that won’t fix this problem I’ve created. Instead I go back inside and hunt down Poppy.
Naturally, she’s in my library, sifting through yet another stack of musty old books. I’d swear she’s had every volume off the shelf at least once, but she keeps coming up with new ones. Finding her is ridiculously easy, despite the paper fortress she’s erected around herself. She’s humming fucking Christmas carols even though it’s still summer. Got about three months before the Christmas tree lots will be doing any kind of business. Three months before Jace and Keelie Sue tie the knot and make their shit official. I can’t do that. I can’t be that kind of man, the one who goes down on bended knee, a black velvet box front and center in his palm.
She leans over the table, just like she did the other night. Got a new favorite memory out of that night, so that’s something. The table’s some kind of antique, or so the old woman who sold it to me claimed. She had a mountain of crap at one of those outdoor antique fairs. Think she might have just been desperate to unload something because the clock had been pushing closing time, but I’d liked it. The surface is pitted and scarred. There’s nothing you can do to that table that will hurt it. Poppy’s got her papers and her laptop spread out all over; a couple of water bottles and a cup of tea sit way too close to her elbow.
“Hey.” She starts but then works up a nervous smile for me. Of course, the last time we met at this table, I had my head between her legs and was eating her like a hungry man. “What’s up?”
“Time to go,” I tell her. It’s gonna be strange, not having her here. Not like she’s been living with me long, but Poppy leaves a mark.
“Where to?” She flashes me that mega-watt smile again, gathering up her stuff. Papers fly everywhere, a small explosion of white.
I lean against the wall and fold my arms over my chest. If I get too close to her, I might do something stupid like pull her into my arms. Can’t afford to send mixed messages. “Gotta get you home. Pack your shit up.”
I mean, it has to be where she wants to be, right? No reason she’d choose to stay here with me.
“Home?” Her gaze bounces between me and Book Mountain. Not sure which she finds more attractive at the moment, but I’m not betting on it being me.
“Parole, babe.”
She surprises me by not bum-rushing the door. I don’t like the possibility that she’s thrilled to be leaving. She’s got nice manners, which figures because Poppy is a nice girl. She doesn’t belong here, stuck on an island with only me for company. She takes a step toward me, her forehead crinkling up. I’m not in the mood for an onslaught of questions, so I beat feet for the door seeing as how my message is now delivered.
“Twenty minutes,” I tell her.
Twenty-three minutes later, I’m carrying her stuff down to the boat, and ten minutes after that, we’re cutting through the bayou. Poppy’s quiet and I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Usually she’d be firing off questions like rounds from a machine gun, but maybe she’s just enjoying the sunshine and the fresh fucking air. Usually I don’t mind silence, but today I don’t like it. I want her to say something about our time together or how she’s secretly enjoyed being my pseudo-prisoner. And that’s so pathetic that I open the throttle up and get us to Baton Rouge in half the time it should take.
When I bring us in to the dock fast and easy, Fang’s waiting for us. He straddles his bike, booted feet planted on the asphalt and a shit-eating grin painted on his face. He’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut, though, when he saunters down the dock to lend a hand with Poppy’s stuff. She makes small talk with him as we walk back to the bikes, and to my surprise he answers her back like she’s asking about the goddamned Geneva Convention or world peace.
I swing onto my bike and slap a hand on the seat in back of me. “Come on.”
Fang’s eyes fucking dance with laughter. “You want me to ride double with you, princess? I’m honored.”
I flip him the bird and hold out a hand to Poppy, who puffs out her cheeks and stares at the six inches of leather I’ve left for her.
“I’ve never ridden a bike before,” she says.
She’s dressed for it okay. Her black yoga pants and sneakers will be fine, although the T-shirt she’s got on might not be thick enough.
“Jacket,” I bark to Fang, holding out my hand.
“I don’t strip on the first date for just anyone.” He winks at Poppy as he shrugs out of his leather jacket and tosses it over. I try to ignore the way Poppy giggles. My brother’s full of shit, but maybe she likes that. Not like I’m the king of laughter. If she wants jokes, she needs a different man.
I hold the jacket out to her. “Put this on.”
She peeps at my face, stops laughing, and slides the jacket on. I reach forward and zip her up, and then I drop a helmet onto her head. Not gonna get better than that. Naturally, Fang decides that he should come with us. When I tell him he’s not invited, he ignores me. Fuck. Me. He claims he has extremely important Mr. Moo updates to share with Poppy. Seriously? My brother’s found responsibility now?
I give her a ride to her place and you can give me a gold medal because I don’t fucking kiss her when she slides off the back of my bike, but I totally want to. Might have something to do with the way her knees, her arms, and her hot little pussy rubbed against me the whole way here. My dick’s on fire, and it’s got nefarious plans for her.
But the thought of leaving her here all alone doesn’t sit right. She could need something. There might be a monsoon. Fucking nuclear apocalypse. I wanted to keep her safe, to steal a little piece of her, and now that it’s time to let her go… Yeah. Doesn’t matter what I want because this is about what she needs.
I straddle my bike, boots planted on the road.
“Phone.” I hold out my hand.
She stares at it like she’s never seen my palm before, when we both know I’ve had my palm, my fingers, my teeth, my whole fucking face planted in her sweet pussy, going to town. Never gonna forget the taste of her, and that’s the truth. Might be worth repeating that little lesson, just to make my point. Whatever the fuck that might be.
Fortunately, she slaps her phone into my hand before I can do anything stupid. The case is pink and sparkly—somebody in China’s bedazzled the shit out of it with sequined butterflies and little wolf puppies never yet seen in nature. It’s cheerful. I’ll give her that.
“Don’t judge.” Her fist knocks my shoulder playfully.
“Putting my number in here,” I tell her, suiting actions to words.
“You need my passcode.” She tries to take the phone back, but I wave her off.
I know her passcode. She never tried to hide it from me the dozen or so times she typed it in while I kept her on my island. Not to mention that she’s predictable. She’s used 9999. I think about giving myself some kind of nickname, but I don’t do cute shit. Plus, her phone might explode from the overload.
I hand back the phone. “You need something, you call.”
“Like what?” She sounds doubtful, and I don’t like the way that makes me feel. Like I’ve got something to prove to her and not in a good way. Sure she doesn’t need a grumpy-ass biker all up in her day-to-day, but I’ve got to be good for something.
“Anything,” I promise her. Fuck it. Why not go all in? Fang cackles behind us, and I mentally add him to my kill list. “Say you get a plumbing issue. Need some late night ice cream. Spider in the tub.”
“Oh.” She takes her phone back and her fingers stab at her contacts. A few seconds later and she’s adding a psychedelic green crocodile to my number. Looks like something from a Lucky Charms box but I can’t complain.
“Promise me one thing, though.” I hook a finger in the neck of her T-shirt and tug her toward me. “If the asshole ex shows up, call me.”
“Why?” It’s so fucking cute how she doesn’t see the wolf inside me.
“Because I’ll kill him for you,” I growl.
“Ha ha,” she teases but I’m not joking.
“He bothers you again, he’s a dead man.”