Diablo Lake: Protected

by Lauren Dane

  So she simply sat with him and let him unburden himself.

  “Thing is? It had to be done and I don’t feel guilty about it. He deserved it for fucking up over and over and making me have to fix yet one more thing. I have enough on my plate and that asshole pulls me away from something important, like rare time with my woman, to instruct him on how to act. Pack discipline has been not only lax, but it also ends up with wolves acting out. They need a Patron. They need to be guided. My dad has barely paid them any mind and when he does, it’s to allow this kind of shit. This won’t be the last time I have to mete out discipline. If some of them fear me and that’s what keeps them in line, so be it. Idiots.”

  She liked that he didn’t make excuses for the violence he had to use. Trusted that she understood the differences in his world and accepted them. And in doing so she accepted him.

  And one thing Aimee knew for sure was that Mac needed to know who accepted him. Who found him worthy and good, even the dark edges.

  He pulled off onto a barely visible logging road that ended at an overlook. When he turned the car off, she unbuckled and turned herself to face him better, taking his hand again.

  “I’d left about a dozen voice mails for my parents after leaving our place and finally my mother calls me back after I lay out exactly what I’m going to do to Ronnie and the others. She didn’t deny anything. Says she and him are off on some last-minute trip away from town and the stresses of the campaign. Naturally they’re staying wherever strikes their fancy so they can’t give me any details yet. Tells me I have to wait to discipline anyone.”

  Her eyes widened at that. The nerve of that woman to cause this whole mess, run off and then tell the only responsible person he shouldn’t act. Unbelievable.

  He leaned forward to steal a quick kiss. “Thank you for reacting that way. I let her know how things were and hung up and had to discipline wolves who’d gotten that gossip from my mother in the first place. That’s what gets me. She did all this! I have no fucking idea why. The rumors aren’t even about you. How does she think this will turn out? It’s so fucking senseless I’d punch something if my knuckles weren’t sore already.”

  “Her energy is very chaotic. Normally she’s a big character. She’s got a lot to say, most of it negative. But her sense of self is usually pretty good. But since Katie Faith came back, and her ending up in the Dooley part of town and then turning up to be Jace’s sweetie, something else is happening with her. I don’t know what it is. But it’s not always aimed at Katie Faith. Usually it’s—I can’t explain it well enough—but it’s about Jace. Sort of. In that area. Anyway, I’m not even sure this gossip was about the election. If it was your dad doing it I’d think differently, but that’s just what I’m picking up.”

  Mac blew out a long breath. “My uncle mentioned Josiah today. That back in the day when he was...when he left, my mom’s name came up. But none of them knew exactly why.”

  “Hmm. Interesting. You guys have pretty much acted like Jace’s dad never existed so I guess it never occurred to me that her issue might be with Jace’s daddy instead of Jace or his grandpa. Though JJ Dooley could aggravate a saint.”

  “That was his punishment. To have his name never repeated again. To have his presence erased.”

  “Oh my God, did you just tell me some sort of state werewolf secret?”

  He laughed and this time it reached his eyes. “I can’t tell you much because I don’t know much. Whatever Dooley did, whatever Josiah did to merit his punishment has been sealed. I can make some educated guesses, given Josiah’s reputation and all. But I’m going to ask my mother, since hers is the name that keeps popping up.”

  “I’m sure that’ll go over well.”

  He snorted. “She’s not an easy woman. There’s something happening that I’m not seeing or understanding. Hopefully, we can get through it. As for my dad? He’s going to make me fight for every inch of the Patron seat.”

  Mac was going to have to challenge his own father. What a terrible thing that must be to have to face. Sure, it was how packs worked, and even Jace’d had to bloody his grandfather to take over. But according to Katie Faith, it was more ceremonial than him actually harming his grandpa.

  This sounded like Dwayne being a jerk.

  “You should just say it all,” Mac told her. “Honey, you’d lose at poker so badly. You have no ability to hide your reactions.”

  “I can if I need to. Usually. It’s just, I hate that you’re going to have to beat up your daddy to take over his job. And I hate that he’s making you do it. And I hate that he keeps stringing Darrell along, making him think he could take over when everyone else knows that would never happen. It’s mean. And I don’t like it when people are mean to you.”

  “You defending my honor?” He brushed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.

  “Someone needs to, may as well be me. I’m fearsome, don’t you know? If I could challenge your daddy in your stead I would just so I could kick him in the balls.”

  “I’ve had entirely enough talk of ball kicking and can throwing at balls for one day, thank you. And thank you for being you.”

  “We’re a team. Which works out for me because it means I rarely have to lift heavy stuff or deal with hard physical labor. But I know people. People who’d happily serve up some much needed justice to your parents. Usually I like people. Your parents and that dumbass brother of yours, I really don’t.”

  “I wish you could feel the way about my family the way I feel about yours.”

  “Well, your cousins are nice to me. I like Everett and Huston just fine. And your aunt and uncle, though I don’t know them awfully well, they’ve been very nice when I’ve interacted with them.”

  “I’m supposed to invite you around more often. I should have told you that. My aunt will kick my butt for not saying it sooner.”

  “You’ve been a little busy, it’s okay. Right now it’s just me and you. Let that be.”

  * * *

  Overhead, though the clouds were out, the full moon hung, calling to his wolf.

  But it was the understanding in the gaze of the woman next to him that brought him to his knees

  She leaned close then and he heard the gallop of her heart, scented the heat of her skin and the desire coming from between her thighs.

  “You know what?” she murmured as she brushed her lips across his ear, combing his hair back.

  “I knew a lot of stuff but all the blood in my body has settled in my cock. I’m at my dumbest just now.”

  He felt the change of her mouth, her smile as she continued to drop kisses over his ear and neck.

  “I was thinking I’ve never actually had sex in a car before.”

  “Darlin’, your daddy’s the law,” he managed to say around a pretty useless tongue.

  She sat back to give him a look. “I heard stories about you back in the day.” Her grin—dear God, her grin—sent a shiver through him.

  “That so?”

  She nodded as she went up on her knees and whipped her sweater off. “Males, be they fifteen or a hundred and fifty, think they’re the only ones who talk about sex among themselves.”

  Mac sat suspended there, as always, utterly fascinated by her. This was what his wolf had imprinted on. The way she made every part of him perk up and pay attention. He never knew what to expect from her but when she inevitably surprised him, it had been the good kind of surprise.

  The way she spoke and moved created its own sort of magic, a magic that seemed to always draw his own. There was no sound but the occasional ping of the cooling engine and the wind through the high treetops.

  He paid attention to her skin and the way she held herself, assuring man and wolf she wasn’t cold. On the contrary, she was rosy, a pretty blush on her chest and up her neck as she teased him.

  “Gi
rls you dated shared pertinent details that had us all swooning. Don’t you notice how we all look at you when you’re around?”

  Silently, Mac eased himself over the seat to her side, sliding it back to give them both a little more space. A decision he was doubly glad for when she straddled his lap to face him, settling in over his cock with her heat.

  He had to let out a slow breath but he couldn’t erase all evidence of a little quaver at how insanely good it felt.

  Her grin changed as the knowledge hit her. As she realized the power she held over him. Satisfaction settled in his bones.

  He traced his fingers and palms up over her chest, across the curves and hollows of her collarbone until he grasped her slightly, the whole of his right hand wrapped around her throat to hold her still.

  Her heart thundered, her skin heated and her pupils swallowed most of the color of her eyes.

  “My weird little witch, when you’re in a room I don’t see anything but you.” He pulled her in gently for a kiss, letting go of her neck to draw down the skin of her spine.

  Her taste seemed to pour into him, fill him with sensation as she took over, leaving a series of slow kisses across his face.

  “You make me feel that way. Like there’s no one else for you in the world but me,” she said, her lips against his.

  “Certainly no one else as important to me,” he told her as he popped the catch of her bra, releasing her breasts into his hands.

  She arched into his touch, his name on her lips.

  Around them, the night seemed to take a deep breath and then hold it. Anticipation hung as heavy as the moon. Something was coming that would change Diablo Lake and everyone in it.

  “Do you feel that?” she asked him as she eased his shirt open, button by button.

  Mac wanted to tease that he was feeling a lot of things, but he knew it wasn’t the time.

  He nodded. “Is it harder for you, do you think? Because you’re empathic you get an extrahard dose of all the tension in town?” Mac worried about her in another way as he realized that must be true.

  Aimee pressed a hand to her belly. “There’s a special kind of magic between you and me,” she said at last. “An old, elemental kind of magic.”

  She got to her knees as he helped her shimmy from her jeans and panties, leaving her naked and gleaming in the wintry moonlight.

  Her words, the way she said them, pulled him in like an embrace. Drew him in tight to her.

  Like armor.

  “It’s New Year’s Eve. A time between old and new. Here we are, you and me with our chemistry swirling all around, our magics making my head spin. There’s potential here.” Aimee placed a kiss over his heart. “It’s just... I want to pass from the old to the new out here under the moon with you. It’ll help, as we face whatever’s coming.”

  How could he refuse that when his entire being seemed to nod in agreement? He needed that reassurance, the talismanic magic of that coming together would be his shield to face what was to come.

  She freed his cock as he pulled out a blanket he’d just tucked in his truck earlier that day because he liked to go deep into the middle of nowhere and run and he’d planned to ask her along that night.

  He held her, slowing her down. “I want to take my time. I’ve got a beautiful naked witch on my lap just waiting for me to pleasure. Let me marvel over my good fortune a moment.”

  Which he’d intended to be stern about until she undulated, rolling her hips as she ground her pussy against him, slick, scalding heat surrounding his cock. Mac’s eyes may have rolled up into the back of his head for a moment at that slap of sensation.

  Her laughter brought his attention back as he went in close, hugging her tight.

  “You’re a temptation, Aimee.”

  “Thank goodness. Otherwise you’d have moved on by now and I like you too much for that.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve kind of moved into your house. What makes you think I’d go anywhere but wherever you are?” He pinched one of her nipples to underline that.

  She hummed, clearly liking it so he did it again and once more until he moved to the other one.

  Mac teased, moving from nipple to nipple, drawing out her pleasure, guiding her along that line between pleasure and pain. She let him know what she liked, and definitely what she didn’t.

  Demanded more. Seduced him heart and soul. Gave herself as she took everything he gave.

  They’d fogged the windows up, sealing them into their own world. He stretched a little, luxuriating in her weight in his lap.

  She kissed across his neck, pulling his shirt away from as much skin as possible.

  What a fucking thrill it was to have a woman like this touching him, worshipping him. giving him her whole self. There was nothing, no speech or guidebook, that could have prepared him for the entirety of what he felt right there with her.

  As she’d said, they created magic, a mixing and marrying of hers and his, sewing them closer.

  “You’re so damned beautiful it hurts to breathe sometimes when I look at you,” he told her, quite happy her response was to do that undulating thing again.

  “Please fuck me already!” she cried and he pretended it was a chore to angle his cock with one hand while he guided her hip with the other.

  “Fine.” He thrust up and yanked her down at the same time.

  “Yes! That’s the way,” she shouted and he laughed.

  “You know I love you, right?” he asked her, teasing with short, shallow strokes.

  Her smile went very satisfied and a little feline. His wolf stirred at the sight. Pleased.

  Proud.

  “Well. I’d certainly hoped you did, as I love you back and that would have been so awkward if you just wanted to be friends after we banged awhile. Then I’d have had to get really mad at you for going and making me fall for your navy SEAL romance-novel-cover good looks, the giant dingle and your talent at making me come.”

  He frowned, holding her from speeding his pace. “I was in the army.”

  “Really? Right now that’s what your response is? You tell me you love me. Which is a good thing to say, I’ll grant you that. Then I tell you I love you too and how you’re all pretty to look at and have sexy times with and you get all pissy because I meant navy SEAL in a generic sense and you were in the army?”

  He thrust deep and stilled, both of them gone silent but for an intake of breath. “Well, you put it that way and I do apologize.”

  “You can make it up to me by getting down to business. You know how I like it. I know how you like it. And it turns out, hard and fast is the answer to all those questions.”

  He had a beautiful woman fucking him and demanding more. Whatever he did to deserve this turn of good fortune, he’d be eternally grateful for.

  “Brace your hands then,” he told her.

  She made a little sound as her pussy tightened and heated even more. Then she braced her palms on the roof of the truck.

  What a picture she made, bathed in winter moonlight, her magic seeming to sparkle around her here and there. Her position brought her tits right to his face, a very clever choice on her part to put them there.

  Teasing slowly, he nibbled and licked around each nipple, making sure each time he came back, the edge of his teeth was harder.

  And each time she grew wetter and hotter, her inner muscles clamping around his cock to the place where he only held back from climax by sheer force of will because he wanted her to come first.

  Her clit under the pads of his fingers was hard and slick as he touched her, circling in just the right way.

  She held back too, a challenge in her eyes.

  But he knew exactly how she loved to be touched and when he began that slow squeeze and release of her clit, she only lasted two more
thrusts, climaxing so hard there was simply no way he could stop himself from following her.

  He fucked her as deep as he dared, she took and gave herself right back, demanding. A warrior in every way, even if she didn’t give herself the credit for it.

  And the woman he loved.

  She curled up against him and he covered her better with the blanket.

  “Dingle?” he said at last and the ferocity of the happiness he made her feel brought a full-throated laugh from Aimee’s lips.

  Lips still swollen from his kisses.

  Her heart swelled with love. Right. On. Who knew how awesome such a thing could feel when it was absolutely right?

  “I can say the other words. Cock, dick, prick, penis, rod, thunderstick, doodle, dingle, meat, jingle-jangle, Johnson, salami, all the good ones. I like to mix it up.”

  “Jingle-jangle?”

  “I made that up, I think. I like it though. So I’ll be using it in the future. Just so you know.”

  “Okay, thanks for the warning.”

  She needed to move and, uh, clean up her business because it’d be getting messier very soon in the position she was in.

  Wiggling to the side—after he was a little grumpy to have her move, she loved the wolf part of him that loved to cuddle—she got herself back to rights as best she could.

  “Happy New Year,” she told him as she settled against his body once more.

  He turned, kissing her senseless right as she was just getting all her damned motor skills back. So sneaky.

  “Happy New Year. Let’s go back home. Break out the champagne, have some snacks and hide from everyone in this town.”

  * * *

  As he unlocked the back door and held it open for her, she also sensed how much her house and the magic there had welcomed his. More than that, it had stamped him in a sense. Claimed.

  “I like that you call it home.” Of course she’d noticed he’d moved in. Their coming together had been quick and intense, but despite that speed there was a deep intimacy and sense of comfort between them.