Bound to Forbidden

by Keira Blackwood

  She had flame-red hair and a generous scattering of freckles on her face. She was gorgeous.

  “Hi, you must be Anna, Maybelline’s granddaughter,” she said, offering a bright smile. “I’m Hazel, Hazel Garrison.”

  “Hi.” I waited for the barrage of questions and accusations. She was the woman Caleb told me James had dated. James had said it wasn’t true, but I still felt a flit of jealousy that she’d been here for him when I hadn’t.

  “I took over the bakery downtown some years back. I think you had just left town around the time I arrived,” she said.

  “Everyone likes baked goods.” I glanced over to where my rental was parked. I considered just running for it. I had no energy left, and this was the last person I wanted to talk to.

  “They seem to, and I know I have a sweet tooth.” She laughed, not seeming to pick up on my discomfort even a little. “Anyway, I’ve heard so much about you, and I just wanted to say hi.”

  Heard so much about me. I was sure I knew exactly what she’d heard.

  “All good things, I promise,” she said.

  I just nodded. “It was nice to meet you. I should get going.”

  “Okay, you, too,” she said and stepped aside so I could pass.

  I meant it too, kind of—the nice to meet her part. Hazel was friendly and I liked her kind energy. Under different circumstances, I might have even enjoyed chatting and getting to know her. Not today, not now, not her.

  It wasn’t until I was driving away that my muscles started to relax. It wasn’t until I pulled into the driveway of the B&B and saw that James wasn’t there that I felt like everything was going to be okay. This whole ordeal was almost over. The party was done. I could hide out until my flight and then I could forget any of this had ever happened.

  That’s what I wanted...wasn’t it?

  The sky was getting dark. I parked my car and stepped out, ready to shed my dress, ready to wash away the scent of James that still clung to my clothes and fogged my brain. A cold shower and a good night of sleep and I’d be back to normal.

  A scream cut through my thoughts. Panic, pain. I ran toward the sound, around the B&B to the edge of the woods.

  This was where the body had been found.

  Mitchell was kneeling on the ground, wearing a cape and cradling his arm to his chest. His face was tilted up toward the sky, and a set of plastic fangs fell out of his mouth as he screamed like someone was poking him with a thousand needles.

  I walked closer, checking my surroundings. The scent of blood tinged the air. There was nothing else, no sign of anyone or anything around.

  “Mitchell?” I stepped in front of him, keeping my distance. Given his friend Rooster had been stuffing his face with magic mushrooms, and not-so-magic mushrooms, chances were good this guy was messed up, too.

  He closed his mouth and looked at me. His pupils were dilated and he smelled like booze.

  “Someone bit me!” His eyes darted around wildly.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

  I couldn’t hear a lie in his words, but the guy was probably just hallucinating.

  “Where did he bite you?” I asked.

  He extended the arm he’d been cradling to his chest. There was blood, a lot of it, and a set of bite marks on his forearm.

  “We need to get you some help,” I said. “I’m going to go inside and—”

  “He came out of nowhere. There was music...and a shadow with red eyes, I swear it!”

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re hurt and you need medical attention.”

  He looked down at his arm and then back at me.

  “I’m going to get you help,” I said, “okay?”

  He nodded and turned his arm. I got a better look than I had before, and by the angle of the mark, it appeared the wound was self-inflicted. I remembered the fake vampire teeth falling from his mouth.

  I didn’t care how much Daphne wanted to prove to herself or her boyfriend that she was capable of handling difficult guests. This group was bad news. That was my honest, professional opinion.

  Chapter 10

  James

  The basement was coming along. I’d rented a dumpster after making sure Daphne didn’t want to save any of the creepy-ass medical equipment. Surprise, she didn’t. I didn’t want to touch the stuff, but a job was a job, so I hauled out cots and straps and trays, trying not to think too much about what they’d been used for.

  Daphne caught me on my way up with one of the boxes. “What’s in there?”

  I paused so she could lift up one of the flaps. “Looks like records and paperwork.”

  “Maybe I should see if the historical society is interested,” she said. “Would you mind leaving paperwork in the hallway by the kitchen?”

  “No problem.”

  “Thanks, James.” She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. There was an incident with one of the guests. I think we’re going to have to do a sweep of the woods, make sure there aren’t any more mushrooms in the vicinity.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “Declan’s on it,” Daphne said. “Or he will be after he gets back from taking said guest in to get checked out. Matt’s with him. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She peered up at me, her gray-blue eyes sympathetic. “How are you faring?”

  I knew she wasn’t asking about the job. She was asking about Anna.

  “I’m doing fine,” I said.

  Daphne was human; she wouldn’t hear the lie.

  “That’s a lie,” she said with the assurance of a shifter.

  “What, are you channeling Declan or something?” I asked.

  She smiled. “No, I just know you.”

  “Yeah, well, I got work to do.” I balanced the box in one arm and opened the rear kitchen door with the other, then I shoved the box into the hall. Nodding at Daphne, I hauled ass back to the basement. At least no one bothered me in there.

  I spent the rest of the morning dragging stuff out of the basement. Around lunch, I came up to get some water from the kitchen. Someone had gone through one of the boxes of papers that I’d set in the hall. A notebook lay on top. It looked water damaged and disgusting, but it was open like someone had been looking through it. Nearly impossible to read, given the frantic-looking scrawls of ink covering every line of the pages. I eyed it while I drank my water. Was this the diary of a madman?

  Not my business, but I squinted at some of the words.

  Some friends are not your friends. Pals are not your pals. Buddies are not your buddies. Allies are not your allies.

  On and on it went. Shit, that was sad. I wondered if Anna had any clients with problems that difficult. Then again, this person had been ill enough to be in the asylum. Anna’s grandma had told me that Anna had a private practice.

  Not that I listened whenever her grandma talked about her.

  Except I listened too hard.

  Brody banged in through the back door, a giant bag of mortar on each shoulder. As he walked past, I thought of tripping him to get revenge for the fake social media account he’d made for me.

  But I could wait and make the revenge more devious.

  So instead, I smiled at him.

  “Fuck, you look like a fucking psycho,” he said, his dark green eyes wide.

  I grinned harder.

  He hurried past.

  This would be fun.

  My smile fell, though, as someone passed him in the hall and made her way toward the kitchen. I smelled her clover scent before I saw her. She came into the kitchen, laid eyes on me, and spun around to leave again.

  I didn’t know what made me go after her, but this would probably be our last chance to talk, and I couldn’t let her escape that easily.

  “Anna, wait.” I hurried after her into the hallway.

  “Now you want to talk?” she said.

  “You’re taking off today, aren’t you?”

  “Tomor
row,” she said. “There were no earlier flights.”

  I wasn’t ready for her to leave. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

  “I still don’t get why you were so mean to me,” she said.

  “Because you broke my fucking heart.”

  She turned around and started up the stairs, probably to her room.

  It was now or never. Reaching out, I grabbed her by the elbow. The momentum forced her back around and she stumbled on the bottom step before coming to rest in my arms.

  “Can I show you something?” I asked.

  Her caramel eyes were wide, her mouth open in surprise. I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted to finish what we’d started in her grandmother’s guest room.

  “Sure,” she said.

  Taking her hand, I led her out of the B&B and to my truck. I opened the passenger door for her, then climbed in behind the wheel.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.” If she was just going to leave again, I needed her to know everything. She couldn’t leave unless she knew what she meant to me.

  We bumped down the road and drove through downtown Forbidden in silence, then out to the other side.

  Her eyes grew big as she likely guessed where I was taking her. Every night in high school, she was either eating dinner with my family, or I was eating over at her house. We refused to be apart, even for supper. The only thing keeping us from sleeping in each other’s beds was the threat of her dad’s beast. I hadn’t wanted that angry cougar coming after me.

  When we pulled up in front of my childhood home, her mouth pulled down into a frown.

  “What happened to this place?” she asked, taking in the broken rain gutters, the faded paint, and the overgrown lawn. I’d boarded up the windows to keep shit from breaking them and animals from getting inside.

  “When my mom died, Dad took off,” I said.

  The rest of us had been so upset, we’d abandoned the house and gone off to our own places. It was too full of negative memories. Maybe someday, one of us would fix the place up.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” she said, reaching over to squeeze my hand. “Sorry about your dad, too. I should’ve called.”

  “Might have been harder if you did.” I climbed out of the truck, and she followed me around the side of the house to the garage.

  As soon as I opened up the wide door, Anna stepped inside.

  “James,” she said. “Wow. These are all yours, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why hide them here? They should be in a museum.” She stopped in front of a landscape I’d done of the ridge of mountains behind the house, with Grant Lippy’s crumbling barn in the foreground.

  “There aren’t a lot of museums in Forbidden,” I said with a wry smile.

  “Well, put them in Forbidden Bean, then,” she said. “I’m sure Teresa would be cool with that. She still owns the place, right?”

  I nodded.

  Her gaze caught on the canvases in the corner. These were what I’d brought her here for.

  “That’s me,” she said, pointing to the canvas stacked at the front.

  I nodded and pulled it aside, revealing the next one.

  “Also me.”

  I spread them out along the back wall, leaning them up against other canvases, until it was a wall of Anna portraits.

  She stepped back to look at them one by one.

  “I didn’t realize you were so in love with my ass,” she said in a thoughtful voice.

  I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t her ass I was painting. At least, her ass wasn’t the subject of the paintings.

  She looked at a few more. Her shoulders fell. “Oh. I see. These are all pictures of me leaving.”

  “I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” I said.

  “No?” Her caramel gaze turned fiery. “Because if you were, well, mission fucking accomplished, James.”

  “Don’t swear at me,” I said, stepping toward her, a grin trying to tug up the corner of my mouth. I held it back, barely.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  I laughed.

  She stared at me. “I haven’t heard you laugh since I came back.”

  I wanted to tell her it had been longer than that. But I really wasn’t trying to make her feel bad.

  “Caleb said you moved on,” she whispered.

  “As you can see”—I spread out my arms, gesturing at the canvases—“I haven’t.”

  “All this time, I felt stupid,” she said. “I felt like a foolish teenager who had believed in a fantasy—the fantasy of fated mates. What I’d felt for you was so strong, and then to have Caleb tell me you’d found someone else…”

  I would be dealing with Caleb later.

  Right now, I wanted to be dealing with Anna.

  “It was only ever you,” I said, my voice low.

  When I reached for her, she reached back. Her palms slid over my forearms and she lightly squeezed.

  “You’re bigger than you were in high school,” she whispered. “Arms, shoulders, legs…”

  Her gaze went inquisitively toward the front of my jeans, and I chuckled. “That’s probably about the same. But if you want to examine it, well, I won’t complain. First, though, I need to taste your lips again.”

  I bent my head toward hers, and she stood up to meet my kiss. Our tongues tangled, and heat drove through me. Her soft moan went into my mouth, straight down my throat and to my heart. This was my mate. My mate, in my arms again. Where she belonged.

  She plastered herself to the front of me, soft breasts mashing into my chest, the heat of her pelvis against my cock. I lifted her up, seeking more of that heat, and she wrapped her legs around me. I carried her over to the only surface where she could sit—the old dryer. Perfect height.

  “Remember when we made out in here and almost got caught by Brody and Matt?” she murmured against my lips.

  “Stupid fuckers did it on purpose,” I growled. “They wanted to see you with your shirt off.”

  “They very nearly did,” she said with a laugh.

  “Then I would’ve had to blind them.”

  “Possessive, much?”

  “Over you?” I said. “Hell yeah.”

  Nobody was coming in here now—they didn’t know to look for us. So I lifted up her t-shirt, exposing her velvet-soft skin to my gaze and my hands. Her bra was made of some kind of sheer fabric, with flowers or vines embroidered on it. The soft brown of her nipples was a beacon and I bent forward to kiss each one before sucking them through her bra.

  “James,” she said. “Please.”

  Whatever my mate wanted. She wasn’t exactly using her words to tell me what that was, but from the way she rocked against my cock, I could make a pretty good guess.

  I pulled her bra off and bent my mouth to those beautiful breasts while I unbuttoned her jeans. As I shoved them down her legs, I moved my hands over her soft, warm skin. She felt so good—familiar and comforting while sexy as fuck.

  “James, yes,” she said, arching her back so her breasts pressed into my face.

  I gave them more attention, then kissed my way down her stomach until I reached her panties. I licked her pussy through the lace and listened to Anna moan. She smelled delicious and I wanted to feast on her lips. Shoving aside the fabric, I used my fingers to spread her apart so I could lick and suck her the way I wanted to—open-mouthed kisses that had her writhing on the dryer.

  “I need you,” she gasped.

  “No condom,” I said. I hadn’t planned on this.

  “I’m on the pill.” She hesitated. “For cycle regulation, not because I’ve been with anyone else—I haven’t—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, standing up to kiss her again. “You’re here now—that’s what matters.”

  The caveman inside of me was pleased that I’d been the only one for her, especially because she’d been the only one for me. But that wasn’t important in the moment, or maybe ever. She was back, here with me now. I p
ressed a finger inside of her and felt how wet and warm she was.

  She yanked on my shirt, so with my other hand, I helped her pull it off. Her caramel eyes were heavy-lidded, her lips full, swollen from my kisses. She went for the buttons on my jeans next. My cock was painfully hard, and as her hand slid over it, I couldn’t hold back my groan.

  “Inside me,” she said in the bossy voice I remembered her using on me in high school. “Now.”

  “You sure?” I asked. “I don’t think you really—”

  “James O’Malley, if you don’t put your dick in me right this instant, I swear I’m gonna—”

  She stopped as I started pushing inside of her. My whole body lit up with the electric heat of filling her, of feeling her surrounding me, our skin touching. My jeans were down around my ankles—we hadn’t even undressed all the way. Her panties were still on, shoved to the side, the scratchy lace catching on my cock as I slid farther into her.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “You feel so good,” I whispered.

  I didn’t know what to do with my mouth. I wanted to kiss her lips, and her neck, and tell her how much she meant to me. I settled for sucking on her neck before sliding my lips up to her jaw and her mouth. Her breasts moved as we rocked together, and I gripped one of them with one hand, tweaking and pinching the nipple, while I held fast to her hip with my other hand.

  She wrapped her legs around me, pulling me tighter as I pistoned my hips, drawing more pleasure for each of us.

  Moaning again, she dipped a hand down to her clit. I pressed my forehead to her shoulder to watch the way we joined and the way she touched herself. Hottest fucking thing I’d ever seen. She shuddered and cried out—she was coming, her pussy spasming around my cock. I couldn’t hold back any longer and emptied into her, bursts of ecstasy.

  She was the one who’d returned to Forbidden, but I felt like I was the one who had finally come home.

  I kissed her sweet lips once more and we clutched each other close. I never wanted to leave this moment.

  But apparently Anna had other ideas, because she was already pulling away.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.