Chapter Nine
Jackson sat in his tiny rental car, watching Summer and Becca walk down the block. The two of them were quite a pair—Becca in her posh heels and business attire, Summer wearing her jeans and flowing top.
Summer. Damn. It had been so hard to tell her no. To not go home with her, make love to her. He rationalized in his head a thousand times that she wouldn’t have a single regret—he’d make sure of it. He’d even tried rationalizing that she was sober enough to decide she wanted sex because she was sober enough to argue with him about it. But he wasn’t going to screw up, not now, not ever. He’d protect Summer, no matter what.
Becca’s car beeped loudly when she unlocked it, and the two women climbed in. A second later, Becca drove them away, red tail lights disappearing into the autumn night.
How would Summer feel about him tomorrow? He hoped she wouldn’t change her mind.
Hoping he wasn’t being too pushy, Jackson grabbed his phone from where he’d tossed it on the passenger seat. His fingers hovered over the screen, but he couldn’t think of what to write to her. For the first time ever, he didn’t have the words, because meeting her tonight had meant more to him than he could even say.
He dropped the phone back in the seat and started the car. He could easily sit here and brood on the street all night, except his legs were already feeling cramped from being folded up in the tiny car.
He zoomed back to his motel, in the opposite direction Becca and Summer had gone, hating that he’d had to say goodbye to her.
*
Jackson dreamed of Summer, and her smoky scent filled his nostrils. In his dream, she straddled him, moving her hips in a sinuous circle, her pussy gripping his cock tightly as she moved. She leaned over him, the tips of her breasts rubbing against his chest, but every time he went to grab her hips and take control, he grabbed smoke instead of flesh.
He sat up and tried to kiss her, but her face faded into smoke every time he tried. She continued rocking against him, then threw her head back in pleasure. Jackson groaned, the pressure and her movement on his cock too much, too good. He was going to come any second.
“You nearly there?” he breathed.
“Not yet,” she said.
He reached forward to grab her breasts, but they turned to smoke. The same when he reached for her clit—he just couldn’t touch it. He couldn’t touch her.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Her eyes sparkled playfully, and he was surrounded by the scent of mint. “Don’t you get it, Jackson?” she asked. “You can’t protect me. You can’t protect anyone.”
He gasped and reached for her. “Summer, no—”
But she was gone.
He woke up with a boner and a broken heart.
*
He kept to the shadows.
Two hours later, he stood as a mountain lion at the edge of his family’s property. The Dark Pines territory. He stalked back and forth along the property line, picking his way among sections of fallen down, rotting fence posts and tree trunks. He’d come for a run to help forget the…dream? Nightmare? Whatever that had been, having sex with Summer but being unable to touch her. The images were burned into his brain, and they wouldn’t go away no matter his form, whether he was mountain lion or man.
There was only one way to distract himself from the dream, and that was finally stepping over the property line.
It’s just land, he told himself. Soil, trees, grasses, a house. Without allowing himself to think about it any further, he turned around and walked a few steps back, then spun and took a running leap over the flattened fence.
He landed on the other side, paws hitting the ground with a soft whump. The ground didn’t feel different here. The scents weren’t heightened, they didn’t trigger new emotions. It wasn’t even as momentous as when he’d held hands with Summer last night. Still, he knew where he was, and the fact that he was here was major.
He stayed close to the trees, cautious. He’d seen neither hide nor hair of the Clausen family, but they’d fought hard to drive the Jayneses out of the territory, and Jackson wasn’t taking any chances. He moved slowly, keeping his belly low to the ground. He used his nose, his eyes, searching for anything that might signal danger. A whiff of Old Man Clausen’s sandy desert scent, or the sight of his son, Daniel’s, dark-tipped lion ears.
But there was nothing.
At the top of a low rise, he stopped. His body trembled with excitement. There, forty yards away, was his childhood home. Half of it looked just like he remembered growing up—white siding with dark green trim, the purely decorative shutters his dad had put up to please his mom, the high peak of the roof that hugged the attic where Jackson had once hid for two hours during a game of hide and seek with Will and Hayley. His gaze skirted over the building, from the now-overgrown side yard with the flagstone patio which had been the scene of cook-outs and birthday parties, to the long driveway where he and Hayley had raced each other after school as she practiced for track.
But it was unavoidable. His gaze was drawn back to the other side of the house with its much darker memories. That side lay in charred ruins.
Jackson might have been tempted to shift back to his human form and explore the house, but the sight of the blackened, flame-licked beams and the collapsed roof strengthened his fear. He wouldn’t have been able to shift to human, not when terrible memories assaulted him.
Fire surrounding him.
Hayley, seventeen years old, wrenched from his arms, screaming. Will in his lion form, already bleeding from the fighting outside, tearing into the house and taking down their attacker. It had been one of the Clausens’ allies in human form, and Will had dragged the man outside and torn out his throat.
Just then, a porch beam fell, landing on Will’s hind leg. Hayley and Jackson had rushed forward, yanking the beam from him and dragging him to Will’s truck, which had been parked around the back of the house, ready to go in case the battle was lost. Their father was already dead—Jackson had known that the second someone breached their front door.
“Where’s Mom?” Jackson screamed at Will. “Where is she?”
Will had stared up at him, dazed, his feline form limp in Jackson’s arms. Will had blinked once, then shook his head.
As they’d sped off the property, abandoning enemies and allies alike, Jackson couldn’t shake the shame of not being able to help in the fight. His parents and Will had instructed him to stay back in the house and protect Hayley, but he hadn’t even been able to do that. Will had needed to come in, and his leg would never heal completely.
The version of Summer in Jackson’s dream was right—he couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t protect anyone.
What had he been thinking, returning to Huntwood and the Dark Pines territory? He was a fool.