by Dannika Dark
“Do you… have a pack?” Lexi asked.
“No. I’ve never had one. I’m just… somewhat…”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Izzy. I don’t blame you for being standoffish. Some of the packs around here are intimidating. I grew up human, so you can imagine how scared I was when Austin asked me to live with a bunch of men. This is new to me, but I’ve never been happier. Well, except for the toilet-seat situation they can’t seem to comprehend. We all have our different personalities, but we’re a tight group. We look out for one another.”
“Do you know a man named Lorenzo Church?”
She arched her brows dramatically. “Where did you hear that name?”
“I ran into him earlier. He was pissing territorial lines.”
“Oh brother,” she said with a sigh. “That sounds like Lorenzo all right. He’s one of the local Packmasters… and my cousin.”
“Your cousin?” I asked in disbelief.
She held up a hand. “Not by blood. He’s called once or twice to invite me to meet my real family, but I’m not there yet. I’ve had enough drama in the past year. Anyhow, my family’s right here. I don’t need a DNA test to tell me who loves me. Stay away from Lorenzo.”
“Bad news?”
She twisted her mouth. “Not a bad guy… I don’t want to make it sound like that. He’s…” Then she sat up and turned her chair toward me, leaning forward. “Okay, here’s how it is. Lorenzo is rich. Filthy rich. He runs one of the largest packs in the territory, and he’s a man to be feared. I say that because he’ll take the law into his own hands. He has… issues with people saying no to him. He also doesn’t give his pack a slap on the wrist for insubordination. The wrath of Church is something to be feared. Was he hitting on you? Please tell me he wasn’t hitting on you. Lorenzo has a few bitches in his pack he brings to bed, so he’s not a monogamous wolf looking to settle.”
I covered my face and smothered a laugh. “I wasn’t planning on going to bed with him, Lexi. I just ran into him when he was about to throttle some unfortunate drunk in front of an audience. Ivy stopped him.”
“Ivy?”
“She has a subtle way with words that seems to put men in their place.”
Lexi leaned back and crossed her bare legs. “That’s for sure. Ivy’s not his type—she’s too sensitive and demure. Lorenzo likes his women fiery, just like you. Sassy is the word I’m looking for.”
“Thanks,” I said with a generous smile. “Better than some names I’ve been called.”
She rolled her eyes. “From jackasses in the bar, I’m sure. I click with you, so I hope it works out between you and Jericho. April’s a good friend, and we get along famously, but she has a different personality type than me. Austin calls me feisty.”
“That’s attractive to an alpha.”
“Yes, which is why you need to stay away from Lorenzo.”
I swatted at a mosquito. “No need to worry. I wasn’t the one he was looking at.”
She furrowed her brow, but before she could reply, my phone rang.
“This is the party to whom you are speaking.”
Lexi quietly laughed and looked at the crowd behind her.
“Hello?” I glanced at an unknown number. “Jericho, is that you?” The line went dead, and I set my phone on my lap.
“Who was that?”
“Wrong number. What does Austin think of all this?”
She pursed her lips in thought. “He’s on the fence, but that’s his job as a Packmaster. At the end of the day, he can’t tell his pack who to love. I’m not saying Jericho loves you; I don’t really know what your relationship is behind closed doors.” She fidgeted and then sat up straight. “Yeah, this just ventured into awkward territory.”
“No problem,” I said. “I like your honesty.”
Jericho and Austin reappeared with several white boxes and a six-pack. Austin sat on the ground in front of Lexi, and she spread a paper napkin over her lap before he handed her a hot dog.
“This isn’t what I ordered,” she said.
Austin rubbed his jaw. “If I had stood in that line, you would have never seen me again.”
“That line was ridiculous when we left,” Jericho agreed. He walked behind me and leaned over, presenting me with a sauerkraut-covered hot dog. I put the box in my lap, and he put his hands on my shoulders. “So, Isabelle has given our band a new name. It’s a good time to shake things up with a little change now that we have new blood. I think with Trevor’s looks, the girls are going to dig the new name.”
“What is it?” Lexi asked after taking a huge bite of her hot dog. Austin reached up and wiped a dollop of mustard off her lip, then licked it off his finger.
“Heat. I think it’s pretty badass.”
“That’s perfect!” Lexi’s chuckle graduated into a cartoonish laugh that made her snort and cover her mouth. “That’s what the women go into watching you onstage.”
Jericho’s fingers began rubbing my shoulders while he listened. Suddenly he leaned down and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“You hunch your shoulders when you’re stressed.”
I moved out of his grasp and picked at my hot dog. “I’m not stressed.”
“Isabelle…”
“Was it the phone call?” Lexi asked.
When everyone went quiet, Jericho walked around and knelt before me. “What call?”
“Just a hang-up call.”
“Why would that stress you out?”
“I don’t know. It felt like someone was following me earlier. Not just someone yelling out my name. It’s that instinct that my wolf keeps telling me something’s off.”
Austin sat back and cracked open a can. “It’s the energy in the air that’s making your wolf nervous. Everyone’s edgy tonight because of the mixed crowd. Earlier we saw a Mage escorted off the grounds for throwing his energy into a Chitah.”
Fireworks went off in the distance.
Lexi gasped. “I want to watch!”
Austin chuckled handsomely and stood up, holding out his hand. “Come on, Ladybug. Let’s go get you some sparklers.”
They finished their hot dogs and strolled off, holding hands.
“I really like those two,” I said. “They’re perfect together.”
Jericho drank a few swallows of beer and set it on the grass. “It’s more obvious to everyone else but them. That’s how it goes sometimes. Can’t see the forest for the trees. They bicker, and she has her tantrums, but that’s the spark that puts the passion in their sex life.”
I leaned back in the chair and let my thoughts drift away from me. Fighting sure didn’t put the passion in my sex life. It had the opposite effect on me.
I must have tilted my chair back too far, because Jericho suddenly lunged forward to grab me as the seat folded. It happened so quickly that when my back hit the ground, I couldn’t stop laughing. He stood over me with his hair hanging down and a cheesy grin on his face.
“Isabelle, you’re a nut.”
A shrill scream poured out of my mouth and I flipped over. He tried to grab me, but I slapped him away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Something crawled in my shirt behind my hair!” I kept screaming. Then I went into that body convulsion you do when a critter is on the loose inside your garments.
Jericho pulled the ends of my shirt and peeled it off.
In public.
With everyone standing around watching.
“Don’t move.”
Those two words made my eyes widen, and I stood as still as a tree. His hand slowly smoothed across my back and then he flicked his wrist. That was my cue to run and do the arm flap.
Jericho stared at the ground and scuffed his shoe across the grass. “That was the biggest damn water bug I’ve ever seen.”
“Hell’s bells. I’m going to be sick.”
Someone wolf whistled and I crossed my arms over my bra. “Thanks, Jericho. Now eve
ryone got to see the second act.”
“At least it was a comedy show.” He held up my shirt between two fingers. “Do you want to put this back on?”
“What are my alternatives, Mr. Shirtless?”
He chuckled and patted my shirt to make certain nothing else had crawled inside. I snatched it from him and slipped it on.
“I don’t think I’m a country girl.”
A slow laugh began to roll out of him. “You should have seen your face. I wish I had recorded that on video.”
All the humor ebbed away from my expression, and I reached out and put my arms around Jericho. “I’m sorry Hawk did that to you. I had to watch you suffer on that television and it almost killed me.”
His hands flattened on my back reassuringly. “It’s okay, baby. He didn’t hurt me.”
“I wish you could have heard me talking to you so you wouldn’t have been so alone in there.”
His mouth moved against my temple. “I wasn’t alone, Isabelle. I got you under my skin.”
“Sounds itchy.”
“It can be uncomfortable at times. More like a rash.”
“Does it burn?” I said with a soft chuckle.
“Sometimes. Other times it feels like a heat that’s out of control.” His hands softened around my body, and I pressed a kiss at the base of his throat. “Isabelle, I rented one of the trailers on the grounds for the band.”
“Why are you telling me?”
His ragged breath heated my ear. “Because I’m going to make love to you.”
Chapter 17
After Jericho had announced his intent to seduce me in a private trailer, he led me through the crowd by my hand and made love to me with his eyes each time he glanced over his shoulder.
I, Isabelle Monroe, became aroused as the thoughts of what we were about to do stimulated my senses.
It wasn’t just my senses being stimulated.
His steps became rushed, and at one point, Joker appeared. “Hey, Jericho! They want us to play another song.”
“Later.”
“I told them yes.”
“Later!” Jericho shouted, his urgent pace now a jog. I struggled to keep up, my shoes in my left hand, but I kept stepping on sticks and pebbles.
“Ouch,” I hissed, hopping on my foot.
Jericho spun around and lifted me over his shoulder. It was so cavemannish that it made me want to laugh. But I didn’t, because I was too distracted with running my hands down his strong back.
“Isabelle, you need to stop doing that,” I heard him say.
His words filled my head like a fever. I slid my hands into his jeans and grabbed his ass. When I felt his fingers claw at the waistline of my shorts, I wanted to knock him down and mount him right there in front of the crowd.
A squeak sounded, and he set me on my feet. “Get in.”
“Is this ours?”
Jericho was panting and held my face so close I thought he would kiss me. I readied myself for it while staring at his lips.
“Get in, baby. I can’t hold out much longer.”
This was happening. This was finally happening.
He closed the door and turned the lock. The dim lights outside illuminated the cozy trailer with a frosty glow. I faced the door, and on my left was a small seating area with a table, like something out of a diner. The air was stuffy, and I could see the edge of a bed in the room to my right.
Jericho lifted the ends of my shirt over my head and dropped it to the floor. He cupped my breasts, rolling his thumbs over the lacy fabric of my bra until my nipples grew hard beneath. I swayed and gripped the belt loops on his pants. His hands disappeared behind my back to unlatch my bra.
“I’ve been wanting this for decades,” he said in a rough voice edged with desire.
“Well, you’ve had plenty of practice.”
His jaw rubbed against my cheek as he unhooked the strap. “Don’t do that. Don’t bring those women in here with us. Not a damn one of them can hold a candle to you, Isabelle Monroe.”
The moment I heard the muffled snap of my bra coming undone, I felt myself coming undone right along with it. I’d never felt more naked in front of a man than when Jericho carefully slid the straps down my shoulders and let it drop to the floor. My arms remained at my sides, waiting for him to make the next move. I had been told I was an assertive lover, and I was afraid it might scare him off.
My shaky breath was the only sound in the room. Then his warm hands curved around my breasts, stroking my nipples and making me sway. He dropped to one knee and drew one into his mouth, sucking eagerly as I moaned and grabbed a fistful of hair.
He lifted his eyes to mine and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. “Let’s go lie down,” he said, standing up and leading me to the bed.
Before I could sit, Jericho unfastened my shorts. I’d heard his sex stories before and they typically involved him banging a girl against a wall, so I braced myself for a quickie.
The shorts hit the floor and he tossed them to the side. Then his fingers wasted no time pulling down my panties. “Sexybelle,” he whispered. “My sweet little redhead. Lie down on the bed for me.”
As soon as my panties tangled around my feet, I sat down. He placed the flat of his hand on my chest and coaxed me onto my back.
Jericho kicked out of his shoes and unbuttoned his pants, but he didn’t bother with the rest when he saw me scooting up the bed toward the pillows.
“Where you going?”
“Nowhere,” I said with a coy smile, bending my knees and holding them together.
He crawled up the bed with a sex-laced grin, parting my legs and resting his body between them. “There’s no escaping me this time.”
Oh God. He felt deliciously warm. Jericho studied my navel and circled his finger around it before mimicking the same strokes with his tongue.
“Ohh,” I moaned, watching his eyes glitter as they looked up at me.
“You said you weren’t a Southern girl, Isabelle, but I think I can change your mind,” he said, moving his mouth south of the border.
I drew in a breath and held it as his rapturous tongue learned every stroke and flick that made me moan and squirm. Once he’d worked me into a tightly wound coil of desire, he began kissing my inner thigh and inserted his fingers.
“Peaches,” he whispered, increasing momentum and returning with his mouth.
I grabbed a fistful of his hair and lifted my hips off the bed.
“That’s it, baby. Give me more,” he said, building me closer and closer to climax with his skilled hands and mouth.
I gasped and leaned forward, my body humming with desire. Then he flipped me onto my stomach. I heard his zipper and then him shucking out of his jeans. I eagerly climbed up on all fours and readied myself.
Jericho pushed at my back until I fell on my stomach. “Not that way.”
“Why not?” I asked, knowing how most Shifters preferred sex.
His hot, naked body covered my back, and he parted my legs. “All fours or standing up is the only way I’ve done it. I want something different with you, Isabelle.”
He put the blunt head to my core and eased his shaft in just a fraction. The girth made me shudder, and my entire body ignited. Jericho pulled my hair away from my neck and began a deep kiss against my nape, using all the right techniques of sucking and nipping.
I was trying to reach between our legs to get things going when he seized my wrists and held them so I couldn’t move. He was gentle, and my body rocked with need.
“Come on, baby,” he whispered against my neck. “I can feel you coming.”
Hell’s bells, he was right. My entire body tensed, and as he blew on my neck and ran his ravenous tongue in a circle, I lifted my backside, making him groan.
Hearing Jericho release all that caged sex filled me with heat.
And then it happened, like a twig snapping or a firecracker going off.
I forced my body back so hard it drove his shaft all the way in. All the res
traints of pent-up passion crumbled away as he slammed his hips against mine.
I cried into the sheets, overcome by the possession I felt for him. His hands slid between the mattress and me and cupped my breasts, pinching my nipples. The sweet sting made me raise my hips, and he pumped even harder. Wood creaked as whatever flimsy contraption we were on began to shake.
“Jericho… Jericho…” I panted against the pillow as he pulled my hair.
He abruptly flipped me onto my back. “Better,” he said, looking into my eyes tenderly. “I’ve wanted to look at that pretty freckled face beneath me for the last twenty years. You haven’t aged a day,” He kissed my cheeks and brow between his words. “Still as young… and beautiful… as ever.”
“No need for the compliments, sir. I’m already yours.” I gracefully draped one leg across his back.
Jericho arched a single eyebrow. “This isn’t about sex.” His mouth hovered over mine, as if he were uncertain if he could kiss me. I leaned up, and the friction between our lips barely touching was indescribable as he slid back inside me. He whispered so quietly that I almost didn’t hear him. “I want to make love to you.”
He gently lifted my left leg and rocked into me, kissing my neck so sweetly I could have wept. My fingers traced up his arms to his long hair, which felt like silk in my hands. Jericho moved his mouth to the right side of my neck, and through heavy breaths, he managed to plant the most sensual and giving kisses across my skin. Our bodies sank into each other, and I’d never had a feeling until that moment that I belonged to someone.
I felt like his.
The slower he moved against me, the more I needed him. He was hitting the sweet spot and my nails bit into his skin as a swell of desire intensified between my legs, making my body tremble and my muscles clench. I didn’t want to come alone, and I knew he was holding back on purpose.
“Together,” I said.
Jericho lifted his head and a smile hooked one corner of his mouth. “Ladies first,” he insisted.
