Jack&Teague [& Katy] stories 1-5

by Amy Lane

  Teague squinted at her, trying to put this information into the world as he knew it. He knew Grace had been working her ass off for Thanksgiving dinner—and it had gone off without a hitch. He knew Cory and Bracken had been trying to negotiate a peace treaty with the scattered werewolf packs in Southern California during their week off of school, as well as handling him and Jack and their transition into their new lives as werewolves on Green’s hill.

  What he hadn’t known was that they actually had a day job. (Or, in Grace the vampire’s case, a second night job.)

  “Black Friday?” he repeated, feeling dumb. “How busy are these people?”

  Katy laughed and leaned forward to kiss him. She was wearing a skimpy little cotton sleep tank with short satin bottoms in a bright blue that glowed against her dusky skin. “They’re trying to make a living, here,” Katy murmured against his cheek. “You don’t think they finance you and Jacky using trick money, right? ‘Cuz Green don’t work that way. You guys go off and shoot people, I stay in the bakery and make money. Everybody’s happy.”

  Teague jerked his head a little and captured her full lips with his own. Dammit—he’d been hoping to… well to consummate the growing tension between him and Jack and Katy. He’d been told they had a short window to get busy so the three of them could be bonded mates, and, as a plump armload of Katy Garcia filled his senses—and her warm half of the bed—he thought a little hazily that he should probably take care of that sooner than later.

  Katy groaned against his mouth reluctantly and pulled away. “Oh, dammit Teague—now you want the sex? Yesterday morning when we had all the time in the world, you get all embarrassed, but today, when I gotta go, you want the sex?”

  “So sue me, I’m a dumbass,” Teague muttered as she hopped off the bed and trotted for the shower, but she wouldn’t hear of that.

  “Not a dumbass, pappi,” she corrected, “you just got lousy timing, that’s all. Now go back to sleep—you don’t relax enough!”

  And with that she was in the shower, naked, slick, soapy…Teague put his face into the pillow and groaned again. Jacky chuckled sleepily and threw an arm around his shoulders and kissed his jaw.

  “Serves you right—you left us high and dry yesterday morning!”

  “Real fuckin’ funny,” Teague groused. He’d left them to go running in the rain, and Jacky laughed again.

  “It is this morning,” he yawned, “when all is right with the world.”

  Teague scowled at him, mostly to cover a smile. “You’re so easy. Feed you, fuck you a few times—you’re Mary-frickin’-Sunshine, ain’t ya?”

  Jack yawned then—a jaw-cracker—and Teague remembered that they hadn’t been in bed that long. Thanksgiving banquet at Green’s hill was… memorable. Nobody had gotten up and table danced but they’d sat up for most of the night, just telling stories. Or rather, everybody else told stories and, for the most part, Teague listened. After that, the shapeshifters had gone out into the waxing moonlight to change form and run. It had been… fun… being a part of something that much bigger than he was.

  “I’ll be Mary Sunshine in another hour,” Jack was saying. “Katy’s going to come home and nap—how ‘bout we get in some sleep now?”

  Teague stared at him muzzily. “Sleep in?”

  “Yeah, genius—sleep in! Why, you got some big plans this afternoon?”

  Teague shook his head. “Naw… I got a run tonight, though.” Picking up some werewolves from So-Cal at the airport. It didn’t look like blood, guts, and danger, but Cory seemed to be on high alert. Teague took his cues from her.

  Jack groaned. “I don’t want to talk about it… we’ll just fight again. Go back to sleep… I’ll argue when I’m feeing more articulate.”

  Teague was going to argue right then—he was. What happened instead was that he managed to say “You have better things to…do…with…” yawn “your…mouth,” right before he fell asleep.

  Jack

  He Feels Those Scars…

  When Katy got out of the shower, Jack was drowsing on his back, Teague’s head on his shoulder, as he ran his hand through the short dark-blonde hair that had grown just long enough to fall across Teague’s forehead.

  Being a werewolf speeded those things up, or Teague would have taken pains to cut it already.

  “His daddy had long hair,” Katy said softly, and Jack’s eyes opened to focus on her. She’d put on some clean jeans and long-sleeved garnet colored T-shirt to work in. By the end of the day, they would both be covered with flour dust and chocolate icing, but now, in the morning, they were awfully pretty, glowing off her exotically dusky skin.

  “Yeah?” Teague’s father was a dangerous conversation—one best held outside of Teague’s hearing.

  “Yeah.” Katy came and sat on Teague’s other side and reached across to stroke a slightly freckled cheekbone with her thumb. “It was the same color as Teague’s, but he had Irish blue eyes—not like Teague’s at all.”

  “Nothing about that man was like Teague,” Jack spat, his voice quiet with vehemence.

  Katy looked at Jack carefully. “Nothing but their DNA, mijo—you remember that. Teague look in the mirror, he remember his daddy. He feel his scars, he remember his daddy. That thing that ride him at night—make him scream?”

  Jack nodded—it didn’t even need to be said. He remember his daddy.

  “When will you be home?” he asked her. He didn’t want to talk about Teague’s father—not now. Not after assuring Teague that everything was right with the world. Teague’s scars were proof that some things could never be made right—some parts of Teague would always remain broken.

  “First shift gets off at noon—we’re back around one.” Katy smiled and stretched a little further to brush Jacky’s cheek instead. “Why, you got plans?”

  Jack smiled and met her sultry brown eyes—and flushed. “I was thinking… you know. Taking that first step into bonding…”

  “What, no candlelight?” she asked, those warm brown eyes twinkling, and he flushed even more.

  “You’re right,” he murmured, embarrassed. “It should be a bigger deal than that.”

  Katy shook her head. “No—no. It shouldn’t. We’re wolves, Jacky—we don’t do marriage ceremonies. We just mate, and it’s right, you think?”

  Jack captured her hand. “I think you’d look damned pretty in a wedding dress,’ he told her softly. “I think Teague would think so too.”

  Katy blushed, and her smile turned shy, and she tugged her hand from Jack’s grasp and pattered away. Jack was left with an armful of surly Irishman and a whole lot of possibilities.

  He awoke nearly two hours later with one of those possibilities poking him in his back.

  “Teague?”

  “Mm?”

  “You awake?”

  “Don’t know. You?” He sounded barely coherent—whatever was poking Jack was apparently involuntary.

  Jack laughed roughly, and turned in Teague’s arms, tossing the blankets away and moving down his body to the bulge in his tighty-whiteys. He’d done this before, caught Teague unaware, and Teague had been fairly traumatized by the event. Jack was hoping… hoping…

  He shucked the tighty-whiteys and took Teague into his mouth and Teague clenched his hair, thrust inside, and groaned.

  Oh yeah. That was exactly what Jack was hoping for. Teague moved inside his mouth, grunting raw want, and Jack used the misty sunshine coming in from the skylight to actually see Teague’s body up close as he hadn’t been able too in the dark.

  He liked what he saw. Teague’s stomach was hard and knotty—he would have needed just a little more fat for movie-star abs, but…mm-hmmm! Jack’s hands ran down the side of Teague’s thighs, feeling the divots of stringy muscles at his flanks and buttocks.

  There were scars—lots of them—but they were a part of Teague, and Jack loved them too.

  “Jacky, dammit,” Teague grunted, finally awake enough to protest, “get up here…”

  Jack ma
de “mmmm---mmm—mmm---mmmm” noises, then thrust his mouth to the root of Teague’s cock and hummed some more when Teague hissed and grunted. Teague started to wiggle, to move, and Jack let him. When it got to the point where Jack’s knees were about even with Teague’s head, Jack turned on his side and pulled on Teague’s hip so he’d do the same, and then Jack threw his knee up and positioned his foot on the other side of Teague’s head.

  It was awkward… right up until Teague’s mouth engulfed him back, and then it was heavenly.

  Jack lost himself in the give and take of the act, groaning and thrusting even as he explored and accepted Teague’s thrusts into his mouth. Ahh… ah… fuck it felt so good… the twin charge of giving and receiving pleasure—of having power and being overpowered by Teague’s rough, skilful touch…

  Teague’s slickened fingers rubbed up against his entrance, and Jack’s mouth went slack enough for Teague’s erection to slip out. Jack fought against thrashing, found his head pillowed on Teague’s thigh, tried to caress and not paw at everything in his immediate reach…and… oh God… Teague’s fingers were inside and his mouth felt so good on Jack’s body…

  “This…” he whimpered, “this wasn’t supposed to… you were supposed to… Oh, crap, Teague…” He convulsed then, locking his arms around Teague’s scrawny hips and clutching his lover’s body tightly to his chest, and his vision went dark and he came.

  “Ahhh… Gods…” he hissed, when he could speak again, “that so wasn’t fair.” Teague chuckled from between his thighs, and he flushed—this was a really awkward, ungainly position when you weren’t caught up in the moment, and this was not a part—or an angle—he’d ever really expected to see.

  Even so, as he moved his hips around, feeling his spend drooling from his deflating body, he continued to explore. Teague’s rough command of “Jacky, get up here,” didn’t dissuade him in the least.

  “You never let me look at you!” Jack protested, tasting Teague again from his new (less awkward) position between Teague’s spread thighs.

  “I’m nothing to look at…” Teague grumbled, and then grunted irritably as his body responded, still taut and ready and seeking relief.

  Jack laughed softly and moved to plant kisses on the inside of that mildly hairy thigh, stringy with runner’s muscle, and Teague grunted again and tried to move away.

  And that’s when Jack saw them.

  He made a surprised sound, and that was a mistake, because the mood in the room shifted from playful and sexy to tight and defensive in just that half of a heartbeat. Teague shifted on the bed with a jerk and swung his leg over Jack’s head, landing on the other side of the bed with both feet, even before he stood up. He wiped his mouth self-consciously and avoided Jack’s eyes.

  “I need to go for a run,” he muttered, squinting at the clock. “They’ll be back soon, and I want to be showered before I talk to…”

  “Shut up, Teague,” Jack said, his whole body cold. “Just shut up and just tell me about the scars.”

  Jack had thought he’d known all about Teague’s scars—but he hadn’t seen the ones on Teague’s inner thigh and well into the crease of his buttocks and around his opening. They were thin and uneven… old scars. Violent scars, on a man’s most tender area. On anyone’s most tender area.

  “They’re scars—I was young.” Teague’s back was turned, and he was rifling through his drawers for new underwear and his running clothes. He made a surprised grunt when he found them—the last either of them had seen, the clothes had been sopping wet and crumpled in a corner of the bathroom. Jack didn’t know how it worked either, and at this particular moment he didn’t give a ripe shit.

  “I get that you were young,” Jack said impatiently. “What made them?”

  Teague’s answer was muffled in his long-sleeved running shirt. “A broken beer bottle—friend of my Dad’s thought it’d be hilarious, and…” swallow “I was hungry. I’d have done about anything for food right then.” Teague shrugged from the doorway, his shoes still unlaced even as he grabbed the handle. “I guess you can see that I did.”

  And then he was gone, leaving Jack in the emptiness of pain denied.

  Teague

  He Remembers

  Cory wasn’t there to talk Teague out of his funk this time.

  He hadn’t realized how much he’d miss the little sorceress until he was halfway through his second loop of the hill and she wasn’t there. She’d been so good at being there, anticipating his pain, showing up as the friend he’d never expected. Showing up for him had seemed like her superpower.

  When he realized she was still at work, he felt her absence almost as sharply as he felt his own mortification.

  Dammit. He’d managed to keep Jack away from those particular scars.

  He’d learned not to be ashamed of them—he’d been thirteen, the guy had literally dangled a cheeseburger in front of Teague, and Sean Sullivan had been drunk for two weeks. Teague had eaten the last of the moldy bread above the refrigerator two days before, and had spent the day after that throwing up in the school restroom.

  It hadn’t occurred to him to ask for a free lunch.

  And Teague thought he knew the score. He’d seen girls give it up for his dad when he promised them cash—and he was so weak and shaky, he figured, well hell, how much worse could it be?

  The next day he’d bled through is jeans in Algebra, and Sean Sullivan had been called in to sign the treatment release forms.

  The beating he got when they let him out was worth it, Teague always figured, because at least the hospital had given him food. And Teague’s most important life lesson had been reinforced: reach for nothing. Hunger was better than getting your ass ripped to ribbons. Even a dumb Irish motherfucker knew that, right?

  He’d lived that lesson, too—right up until Jack had been hurt and then brought to Green’s hill and healed. Suddenly everyone—Green, Cory, Jack—they were telling him to reach for what he wanted the most.

  And it seemed to have paid off, until he was back in those memories. Those memories could take moments like this morning, when Teague was good and happy and high with the pleasure of being there with Jacky on a lazy morning, and saturate them in blood and pain.

  There was pressure building in Teague’s chest, a terrible tightness that threatened to overwhelm him, to flatten him, to level him on the ground and reduce him to that starving, shivering, bleeding child that he’d been back then. But he couldn’t. Jacky relied on him, Katy loved him…

  But they were mortal. Jack had almost died. Katy was still ephemeral, a hope, a wish, a lovely armload of maybe. And both of them bled out in his dreams nightly, proving again and again and again that everything he reached for, everything he wanted, would eventually be reduced to a puddle of blood and pain.

  The tightness increased, made worse by the panic of letting them down…he couldn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t… dammit… he had things to do, even if the careful regime of cleaning house and working out that had kept him focused as an adult had been swept away in the naked comfort of Green’s home.

  If nothing else, he had a goddamned task for Green and Cory—they were counting on him.

  He was needed.

  Gasping, powering through, Teague ran past the tightness, ran past the pain. He’d be what they needed, he wouldn’t let anyone down, he’d never be that wretched child again…

  As long as he could keep running.

  Jack

  Rub Some Dirt On It

  Jack hurled the paperback book at the door with enough force to break the binding.

  “Fuck!”

  He’d showered, he’d dressed, he’d paced the room several times, and finally he thought he’d try to settle down with a book and get some distance from the emotional maelstrom currently pulping his insides.

  It hadn’t worked.

  The door opened into a hurricane of book pages and Jack fought the urge to bury his face in his hands. Green smiled gently at him and made a stirring motion wit
h his fingers—the book pages swirled in a little cyclone and then arranged themselves into a neat pile. Green picked the pile up and pulled the rubber band off the end of his queue to secure it, then presented the neat little package to Jack with a flourish.

  “You may want to buy a new copy,” he advised as he made himself comfortable in the stuffed chair next to Jack’s. It was Teague’s chair—Katy’s was on the other side.

  “I’m afraid I borrowed it from Cory,” Jack answered and Green grimaced.

  “Well, in that case, I’ll make sure she gets one. So, what did the book do?”

  Jack scrubbed his face with his hands and groaned. Green’s hand started rubbing slow circles on his back and Jack sank into the comfort without a thought. Green—his first male lover, yes, but more than that. Green was a healer—that was what the flesh had been about, and that was what Jack remembered about their brief, dreamlike interlude in which Green had saved his life.

  “It wasn’t Teague,” he said honestly, and that comforting hand never stopped.

  “Ah.”

  “He’s out running.”

  “I am aware. I wonder that you don’t follow.”

  Jack almost sobbed but kept himself solid. “I can’t run as fast as he can—I never could. Not even as a wolf.” They’d changed into wolves the night before and gone for a brief run. Teague had stopped often to wait for Jack and Katy but the moonlight, the smells on the wind, had been so beguiling that it hadn’t rankled Jack at all.

  Now he could only think it was some sort of omen.

  “Well then, why didn’t you make him stay?”

  “That sounds really fucking easy, doesn’t it?” Jack snapped, and still, that comforting hand kept going.

  “What made him run, Jack—go ahead, tell me.” Green had listened when they’d been together—all of Jack’s angsty bullshit about how Teague wouldn’t even let himself want, and Green had heard and counseled. Jack considered holding all of this in… he did… he even took a breath to tell Green he’d be fine.