by Abby Knox
“I’ll call Rosie!”
“Don’t, she’s on her honeymoon…”
“Mr. Jordan, I’m going to remind you that anything you say can and will be held against you in court…”
Penny stepped toward. “He didn’t do anything wrong. Lionel was in on it! Please!”
“Ma’am, this is your last warning,” the bigger officer spat out.
Penny bit her lip as she watched Bobby go. He hated knowing she had to see him like this.
Their first day as a real couple, with everything out in the open and no more boundaries between them, was not supposed to end like this.
The last thing he saw before the cops pushed him down into the patrol car was Penny standing in the window on the landing, her fierce eyes boring into his, and her mouthing the words “I love you.”
Those three words gave him hope. Bobby had never had much hope in life until today.
Today was not going to end well, but tomorrow would be better.
He and Penny would be together, this much he knew, to write a whole new ending.
Epilogue
Ten Years Later
Penny
Bobby had been inconsolable for weeks.
“There was just nobody else in the world like him,” he said the moment he woke up on his birthday.
Penny thought maybe it would pass, but the end had been traumatic for Sam.
They had guesstimated their stray yellow Labrador retriever was possibly 12 years old.
“He lived a good, long life,” Penny said, two weeks after the old man got hit by a car.
Sam had been Bobby’s therapy dog ever since the attack that happened at the tattoo shop after Rosemary and Ash’s wedding.
Sam had helped Bobby get through his issues, and he was in a good place.
But maybe not, Penny thought.
Maybe the dog was just a security blanket and Bobby had never really dealt properly with his personal traumas.
“Sammy lived to see our new nephew Baxter, he made the trip with us all the way to Phuket! How many stray unwanted dogs get to say that?”
Bobby sniffled and nodded his head. But said nothing.
Penny had had enough grief.
They had sought counseling after they learned they could not conceive children, which meant the line of purebred wolves could very well die out sooner rather than later.
Frankly, Penny was OK with that. She dreaded seeing another generation of kids go through what she and Bobby and the rest of them had gone through.
But she could not handle this sad sack any longer.
She suddenly sat up in bed, threw the sheets off of him and straddled him beneath her.
“What are you doing?” Bobby said.
“I think you know exactly what I’m doing,” she said, whipping off her pajama top to reveal her breasts. He could deny it all he wanted, but she could see it in his eyes. He wanted her to help him snap out of it.
“I’m giving you your birthday present,” she said saucily.
He couldn’t help but smile.
Bobby
Bossy Penny made Bobby instantly hard. God, he loved this woman.
On the one hand, she was right. He shouldn’t be moving around like this.
He should get back to work, but serving drinks, running a bar, overseeing a wait staff—none of it appealed to him anymore.
Bobby needed a change, he just didn’t know what it was yet.
He was willing to set speculation aside this morning, while getting a ride from his wife.
Penny whispered, “Just lie still and let me do the work.”
Oh yeah, Bossy Penny was in the house.
She tugged off his boxers and made sure they never broke eye contact. The piercing of her eyes right into his soul sometimes made him extremely uncomfortable, but at times like this it could also be incredibly erotic.
Bobby reached out to touch her welcoming breasts, but she backed away slightly.
“For now, hands to yourself,” she murmured.
Oh God, I’m in for it, he thought.
She is going to make me want it. She’s trying to draw me out, get me to feel something other than my dick inside her. Well, she was going to get another tussle sometime today, involving Nutella. Just like the day he had gotten out of jail after that misunderstanding with Lionel DuChamps.
The memory of it, now a distant ten years ago, still made him shudder, and not with pleasure. Few men escape a brush with an angry Lionel and leave with their balls still intact.
He put the old man out of his head and focused on the excruciating task of keeping his hands to himself, when his copper-haired beauty and all her luscious curves were surrounding him, taunting him.
“God, Penny. Your breasts are still as magnificent as ever.”
“Thank you.”
He loved a woman who could take a compliment. Hot damn, that’s one benefit that comes from lifelong friendship.
Penny lowered herself onto his shaft and he moaned with the warmth and wetness of it. His eyes rolled back in his head.
“Eyes on me!” she shouted.
“Such a drill sergeant.”
She giggled. “You’re the one who’s doing the drilling, baby. Get to it.”
Bobby watched as her breasts jiggled with every thrust that built his need stronger and stronger. He ached to reach out and cup them, to claim them.
‘Penny, I can’t take this,” he said.”
Then touch them,” she said. “I dare you.”
He squinted up at her. What was she playing at?”
So, he reached up and tried to touch her, and at the same time she clamped down so hard it was like the most exquisite pain of his life.
“Are you awake now, Bobby?”
“Yes,” he cried.
She slowed down her rhythm. “Oh God, don’t stop.”
She smirked. “Am I slowing down? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Baby, come on.”
“I will come on. But you have to promise me you’ll leave the house with me today.”
“Penny,” he protested weakly.
“Promise me,” she said, slowing down her pace again.’
He was getting ready to explode into his woman.
“I promise. Just don’t stop,” he said.
But before she could pick up her rhythm again and bring him to climax as his birthday present, Bobby had her in his arms and over his knee. She squealed in delighted surprise. He smacked her bottom.
“Oh, Bobby, it’s been years since you spanked me. Do it again.”
He did, and she began to moan. He knew exactly what was going to happen next, and he was ready for it.
Bobby changed their positions to doggy style, her legs spread wide as she hooked her feet behind his legs to maximize contact, and he began to growl. His growling brought out her growling, and pretty soon the two wolves fully let loose on each other. It was all fur, fangs, and claws. The windows were open and he didn’t even care if the neighbors could hear them. It had been too long since he totally let go on her like this and she on him.
He had resisted, but he needed this.
When the beasts were finally sated, gasping for air on the floor of the bedroom, Penny turned to him and said exactly what he knew was coming next.
Penny
“Let’s go to the pound,” she asked again, as they showered together.
Bobby shook his head. “It’s so interesting how it’s my birthday and yet you dictate where we are going.”
She smirked. “Because if it were up to you, we’d be sitting in a dark arthouse theater somewhere wishing we could have a drink.”
“I’m not excited about this idea, Penny.”
“We don’t have to bring anybody home with us right away. We can just go look. And then go to lunch and talk about the dogs.”
Penny was pleased with the way her man had let himself wolf out this morning and let himself be vulnerable with her again. The time was definitely right for another dog.
>
This was going to be good.
She kissed him and tasted his luscious lips that at one time long ago reminded her of strawberry Twizzlers. Now, strawberry Twizzlers reminded her of Bobby. Funny how that worked.
She groaned. “As much as I want to stay here in the shower and go down on you, we need to get going. The shelter opens in five minutes and I don’t want to be at the back of the line. All the best dogs will be gone by the time it’s our turn.”
He smiled at her. “I thought you said we were just going to have a look.”
“We are. I want to…see some good dogs. That’s all.”
Penny dragged him down the street to the nearest county animal control shelter, and she immediately wished she’d had her coffee first. Or, a very strong Irish coffee.
It was awful.
The cages were small. Some of the dogs had filth and feces on their cage floors. Some of the water bowls were empty because nervous dogs had overturned them. Some dogs were barking. Others were howling. Still others were cowering in the corner.
“I should not have come here,” she said, looking into Bobby’s haunted eyes taking in the traumatized dogs. Truly they could smell the death that was in the air. “I’m sorry, I think we’re at the wrong one. I meant to go to the Humane Society first...”
Then one dog, a little silent beagle, poked his snout through the bars and Bobby immediately stepped forward to pet it.
Oh shit, she thought. He’s already found one. We don’t have any supplies or anything. I should have planned this better.
The stench of death was almost unbearable to her wolf senses and she wanted to get out of there as quickly as they could, but Bobby was entranced by the little beagle.
“Guard! We’ll take this one!”
Penny scoffed. “Honey, this is not prison. They’re not actually armed guards.”
She studied his face to see the effect of her little joke, but he was not paying her any attention. Bobby was looking right past her and down the corridor to one of the animal control officers.
Before she knew it, the two men were filling out release paperwork and they were back in the car with their own little beagle.
She stared at him wide eyed. “I was not expecting that.”
He shrugged and scratched the beagle behind the ears. “What should we name you?”
Penny smiled. “He’s all yours, you get to pick.”
They finally decided to drive with the dog to the nearest pet supply chain store and pick up food, a leash, and get the dog testosterone.
On the way over, Bobby received a phone call.
Penny pulled the phone out of the cubby in the dash and put it on speaker phone. It was their lawyer.
“Pete, what’s up,” Bobby said. Pete was the wolf clan’s legal go-to. He had a long history with the family, handling everything from Bobby’s first wolf outburst in school back in the day, to all the business affairs for Bobby when he had first opened his pub.
“Bobby, I’m going to get right to it. It seems your…well, I don’t know that he’s your biological kin, but Jimmy Boudreaux—”
“He’s more or less my uncle. Raised me from the time I started to shift as a wolf pup,” Bobby said.
“Yes, as your attorney I’ve had to bat clean-up for a lot of the wolf clan shenanigans. But, hey, that’s why Jimmy pays me the big bucks. Anyway, that’s why I’m calling. I’m sorry to tell you, but your Uncle Jimmy has passed away.”
Penny started to hyperventilate. Bobby pulled the car over and plopped onto her lap their new beagle, who immediately started licking her to calm her down.
“Are you sure? Ash didn’t tell me,” Bobby said.
“His son Ashton, they tell me, is incapacitated with grief. I’m sure he’ll be contacting you shortly. But the reason I’m calling is to tell me that Jimmy left behind quite a fortune.”
Bobby shrugged. Penny was holding her breath, waiting for Bobby to have a bad reaction to the news. “Yes, he owned the chicken restaurants, he was pretty loaded, everyone knew that.”
“Well some of that money is going to you. And to Penny, and to your friends Gavin Weisshunt and Vann West, although if that is the same Mr. West that I think it is, he will hardly need the cash.”
Bobby shook his head. “What are you saying? Uncle Jimmy left money to me and Penny?”
The attorney cleared his throat. “Not just money. A small fortune. There is enough to go around that you and Penny will be set for life.”
Bobby didn't know what to say. His voice cracked. “I don’t need Uncle Jimmy’s money.”
“Regardless,” Pete said. “It’s yours to do with as you please.”
Pete then gave details of where to show up for the reading of the will.
Bobby hung up the phone and then stared at Penny.
She waited for him to go dark. To shut down like he always did when he got bad news. or the dark cloud to settle in. How many weeks in bed would it be this time?
But that moment didn’t come. Instead, he picked up the dog from Penny’s lap and let it lick his nose a couple of times before saying, “I think we’ll call him Jimmy.
Penny smiled as her tears began to fall, and quickly dialed Ash and Rosemary’s house phone. “Rosie,” she said, when the her friend picked up, “We’re on our way over.”
Bobby
A few short months later, Bobby had sold the bar, bought a few hundred acres of land, circled it with a fence, and hung a shingle along the side of the highway advertising Uncle Jimmy’s Place. He and Penny, upon learning of Jimmy’s death, had brainstormed a plan, with Ash’s blessing, to open a sanctuary for unwanted dogs. Any owner-surrender dogs that came in to animal control, Bobby went and picked up, brought home, and loved until they died. He became a bit of a local hero.
Bobby was happy.
He was now the life of the party again, but in a more real and substantive way.
Putting his heart and soul into caring for strays was the best therapy money could buy for him.
Penny strolled over to join Bobby on the porch swing, about seventeen dogs lazing around at their feet. She held two newborn pups. “Daisy Mae was pregnant, but we managed to save ’em all. Doc said he’ll get her spayed as soon as she recovers.” She handed one of the pups over to Bobby.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the pup in one hand and her hand in the other.
“For what?” she asked.
“For cracking open the darkness and helping me see the light.”
Penny’s eyes welled up. “Sam and Uncle Jimmy would be so proud of you.”
Bobby looked out over the field. Penny said, “Sometimes I wish it would have been Lionel instead of Uncle Jimmy. Is that bad?”
Bobby smiled. “No, that man’s more or less indestructible.”
Penny was curious. “What do you mean by that?”
Bobby shrugged. “I’m not sure. But maybe someday he’ll tell you.”
THE END
Part V
Her Big Easy Wedding
By Abby Knox
Her Big Easy Wedding
It's been a long, hard road for family matriarch and panther shifter Betsy DuChamps and shipping magnate Lionel DuChamps. On the eve of their daughter Rosemary's wedding to the son of a major business rival, Betsy discovers a box of old love letters and remembers what drew her to this rough, driven, capable man in the first place. There is a side that nobody has seen but Betsy.
Nobody in New Orleans is a great fan of old Lionel DuChamps. The ruthless shipping magnate has made plenty of enemies, sometimes even within his own family. He'll be damned before he gives his daughter away to "new money" pack of wolves. But there's one person who has seen his soul like no other. Will looking to the past finally be the thing that helps him come around to accept another species into the pack?
Chapter 1
April 5, 1982
Dear Sweet Thing,
I do not know where they are taking me or when I will be back, but rest assured that I will re
turn soon.
Even if I did know where I’m headed today, I would not be allowed to tell you. But I will include an address on the back of this letter where you can send a reply to me, care of the nearest U.S. military base that may have knowledge of my future whereabouts. It may take a few days, or even weeks, to get to me.
You know me, and you know I do not trust the government to do much of anything in a timely fashion other than open their hand to collect my corporate taxes.
But you see the real me, and all that capitalist bluster is not the real me. I have seen obscene amounts of privilege in my life, but I never imagined I would be privileged enough to serve the people of our great nation overseas. I thought after the Citadel made me a man, the military just didn’t see me fit for a commission for one reason or another. Evidently, they see things differently now. Or perhaps they were waiting for the right moment to use me.
Even though your reply will not likely reach me until I’m already back in Louisiana—this may be a short assignment—I will boldly ask you to write to me anyway. I think it would be a nice thing to get a letter from my woman while I’m out of the country. Just as a keepsake. Maybe it is silly, but hell. This is my chance. Just write the letter and let’s see what happens.
I cannot tell you what I’m going to be doing when I get there, and I’m not even sure of it myself. Of the pair of us, you are the one with the brains, Betsy, you could probably take a stab at it better than I could.
If I had to guess, it would be this: The Pentagon is flying me off to a place with very little danger, like Brussels or Zurich, where I will have a meeting with some soft-bellied diplomats. I will shake their dead-fish hands, or kiss them on both cheeks, if that is their custom, and then I will sit in a boardroom that has been painted the color of oatmeal, dreaming of my home in New Orleans, and listening to these pale office types drone on about U.S. policies that I only just learned about on the plane that morning. I will stare out the window at the city, or the mountains, and wait for the talking to be done, and then I will watch somebody sign something, and maybe I will call Washington and talk to some more soft-bellied, red-tape-loving sad sacks, and maybe at some point they will kick my phone call all the way up to the president. (Are you seeing through my bullshit with your shrewd, amazing mind, Betsy? That’s why I love you. And the fact that you have that smile, and that laugh that destroys me just thinking about it.) And that will be the most exciting thing that will happen to me on this trip. Everyone in the room will piss themselves when they hear my friend Ron’s voice on the speaker phone, backing me up on this thing or that thing. But me, being who I am and knowing what I know, this is just a Tuesday. And then Ron and I will casually plan a golf outing for the next time he visits our great state of Louisiana. I might make a veiled request about needed road improvements back home while all the diplomats watch patiently. After hanging up, once again I’ll shake hands with all the bureaucrats, and hopefully still have time to go snow skiing and buy you some outrageously overpriced chocolate before heading home to your arms.
