The Community Series, Books 1-3

by Tappan, Tracy

  “Yeah, I can somewhat feel you on that one, too.” He swept his thumb over her hipbone. “My mother took parenting lessons from that Mommie Dearest book about Joan Crawford.”

  Frowning, Marissa pushed to a sitting position. “She was abusive to you?”

  “Not physically, just…she acts like she hates me, too.” He sat up. “Deal was that she hated my dad, and since my dad loved me, I got the runoff of her shit by proxy.”

  Marissa shook her head. “Your own mother.” Unbelievable. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “I’m still in touch with my mom, actually. I go to dinner at her house every Sunday. Well, not so much, lately.” He produced a couple of goblets out of the backpack and poured wine into each. “Most times I want to stab myself in the face while I’m there.”

  She accepted the goblet he offered her. “She’s mean to you?”

  “I’m mostly bored out of my skull while she rattles on about her bridge club or tries to make me into a better man.” He snorted. “That can sometimes get nasty.”

  “She’s trying to drum your father out of you, huh?”

  He exhaled a laugh. “That’s it.”

  “Well, I say the heck with your mother and my sister.” She held up her wine glass to him. “Let’s drink to us.”

  One side of his mouth climbed. “I’m all over that.”

  She clinked his glass, then sipped, watching his muscular throat move as he took a couple of good swallows. She sighed quietly. Day one, hello, I’m Dev Nichita, here to rescue you, was all it’d taken for her to fall head-over-lust with this man. Her attraction had deepened when she discovered he was a fellow wine enthusiast, and now…this. Finding out that they shared so much, had so many similar experiences, made her feel…completely comfortable with a man for the first time in her life. With Dev, she fit, and that was…wow. Incredible. Special. A reason to fall in love with him, if there ever was one.

  She hadn’t planned on that. She wouldn’t foolishly rush in, but, funny thing, she didn’t feel freaked out about it, either. How great was that? She’d climbed a rock wall today and might very well be falling in love, and she wasn’t afraid. Maybe not being scared was becoming her thing. She smiled as she took another sip, then in a sudden move, she swept Dev’s wine glass out of his hand and set both their goblets aside. With two palms on his chest, she pushed him down onto their picnic blanket and straddled him.

  “Whoa, did I do something?” His eyes glinted up at her, his hands settling lightly on her hips.

  “Turnabout is fair play.” She undid the first few buttons on his shirt. “You kissed my owie. Now I get to kiss yours.” She peeled his shirt off his shoulder, leaned down, and pressed her lips to the bare skin beside his bandage.

  A long breath eased out of him. “I’ll give you an hour to stop doing that.”

  She smiled against his flesh. “An hour?! But we have paté.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Three months later: Community of Ţărână, mid-September, 5:31 p.m.

  Alex smothered a low chuckle against his fist as the team of players exited the game zone. Heck, that warrior round had been the funniest yet. Well, not openly hilarious, but since Alex knew what to look for, he personally found it very entertaining to watch the men have to pull up from using their super strength and speed in the middle of competition. Poor guys. Had to suck for a man not to be at his most impressive when he wanted to impress women, and the viewing area was packed with pretty Dragon females, cheering them on.

  Other than that, though, everyone was having a whale of a time.

  Event planner Hadley Wickstrum had certainly gauged the needs of the community perfectly over the last three months with all of the competitive games she’d organized. She’d started out with a lot of silly sports stuff which they all could do: badminton, ping pong, “beach” volleyball in the sands of the Water Cliffs. Oh, no, wait…they’d had to cancel that because it would’ve been strange for the men not to take their shirts off, and the Mixed-blood Vârcolac couldn’t expose their dragon tattoos.

  Next, Hadley had put on a carnival with the traditional fun involving water guns, dart boards, milk bottles, and the like, plus stuffed animal prizes. She’d also organized non-competitive activities, like wine and cheese tasting, karaoke night, a ’70s disco dance party. Then the excitement had spun back up when the community installed a gigantic field of padded Astro Turf in another area of the cave, opening the way for miniature golf, soccer, croquet, and the best, a football game with teams consisting of both the warriors and Luken’s big-boy construction workers. The game itself had been awesome, but the halftime show had been the real fête champêtre. Alex chuckled again. He shouldn’t laugh, though, because a part of it had been kind of awful.

  The ten new Dragon females had been the cheerleaders for that event, all decked out in midriff letterman sweaters, mini-skirts, and pom-poms. When they’d skipped, cartwheeled, and bounced onto the field, then commenced their sexy high kicks and swishy hips, over-stimulated Vârcolac watching from the sidelines began dropping like grooms at the altar.

  Alex wiped the smile from his face. Actually, it wasn’t funny. The condition of blue balls around this town had reached epidemic proportions, his own so blue by now they’d gone Smurf on him. Hell, it’d been months since he’d had sex, and he wouldn’t be getting busy any time soon, either. He couldn’t have sex until he bonded permanently with a Vârcolac female, and the only woman he was interested in these days was Luvera, who’d become an expert at avoiding him. He sighed. At least he could debug his own hard drive, so to speak, to relieve the pressure, whereas Vârcolac men were physically incapable of… He shifted his feet.

  No wonder the men were snapping at each other over every little thing. After three months of nothing but platonic dating, stress was the buzz word for the couples: the male Vârcolac were on the verge of implosion and the human Dragon females were awhirl with confusion. As beautiful as they were, Alex couldn’t imagine even one of the Dragons dating a man for three months and not getting pounced upon. At this point, the gossip surrounding Ţărână’s anti-sex phenomenon was becoming less than flattering, which meant that an explanation about it needed to be forthcoming soon. This time, the Big Explanation that was The Truth.

  “Hey, Alex, you haven’t had a turn, yet, have you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Hadley was holding out a laser tag vest to him, the kind that blinked and made an annoying buzz sound whenever a player was “shot.”

  “Um …” Alex shrugged. “I haven’t fit in with any of the pairings.”

  In true Hadley-style, she’d made today’s game more interesting by requiring the players to work in pairs, tied together at the waist by a three-foot-long cord. The couples’ game had gone off first, and since he wasn’t in a couple… God, but it’d been funny to watch that fierce competition.

  The Arc-Beth team had been one of the first to get “killed,” surprising, considering Arc was a fighter supreme. Arc had later redeemed himself by winning the warrior bout with his brother, Thomal. But Beth hadn’t been able to do much more than go Gerber baby face whenever a rival team had borne down on her. Arc had finally picked her up and bodily hauled her around the course, but that had saved them only minutes. Next, the non-warrior couples had been picked off like sick gazelles, leaving the field open for an intense battle for the top three positions.

  Third place had eventually gone to Dev-Marissa. They’d been a strong team the whole way, but were thwarted in the end because their feet got tangled and Dev tripped. The trip itself hadn’t done them in. No, Dev had been back on his feet in an instant. It was just that on the way down he’d split his pants, and Marissa’s subsequent laughing fit had turned the two into a pair of sitting ducks. Second place went to Jacken-Toni—go, sis!—a major upset for the first place spot, which was nabbed by Chelsea Bryant and Gábor Pavenic.

  “Everyone has to go at least once,” Hadley interrupted his thoughts, plunking the vest over his
head and belting it in place. “Don’t worry, it’s easy.” She smiled at him, and even though he wasn’t interested in her at all, a gulp built in his throat. Hadley had one of those smiles that lit up her whole face…and an essence about her that invariably jerked a knot tight in his belly. No wonder Thomal was absolutely noodle for her. “Just point your laser gun at anything that moves and squeeze the trigger.”

  Alex glanced over at the entrance to the course, watching the other players gear up. They were the wild Stânga Town kids. He grimaced. Even though he’d recently penetrated their tight inner sanctum and befriended a few, he was still going to get creamed. “You do know that I’m a pacifist, don’t you?”

  “Ah, great,” Hadley reached out and snagged a passerby, “a partner.”

  He blinked stupidly at the woman Hadley strapped to him. “Luvera,” he said.

  Luvera looked at him, and her face went up in flames. “Oh, n-no. I can’t play. I’m terrible at these kinds of games.”

  “Nonsense.” Hadley tugged the two of them out of the viewing area. Event planner skills must include an expertise at ignoring protests. “Okay, then,” she nudged them onto the course, “have fun.”

  The Stânga Town kids surged around them, claiming ground, taking up defensive positions. Alex squinted his eyes against the gloom. Wow. The laser tag course was super neat, built in a dark, creepy part of the cave previously thought of as unusable space because of its shelves of protruding rock, dripping stalactites, and lumpy stacks of boulders. It was perfect for a game of chase-and-kill.

  He laughed, kind of giggled, actually. “This might be fun, Luvera.” He looked down at the weapon in his hand. “First, we need to figure out how to use—”

  A whistle blew, and the course erupted in rebel yells, red flashes of light suddenly streaking everywhere.

  “Holy mackerel!” Alex scrunched his head into his shoulders like a turtle.

  With a soft cry, Luvera ducked, her arms over her head.

  He stared at her for a moment, then laughed at the ridiculousness of that against lasers. “Come on! We gotta get moving.” He grabbed Luvera’s hand and pulled her into a run, sweeping his gun around and pulling the trigger over and over. “Shoot your gun!”

  She did, but that earned her return fire. “Yikes! We need to hide!” Tugging her hand out of his, she took off at a faster run.

  Hide!? That seemed awfully wimpy, even for him. He stopped running to argue. “But—” The short rope tethering them together twanged taut, then yanked him off his feet and flung him at her. He caught only the briefest glimpse of Luvera’s oh-no widened eyes before he crashed into her with a hard clacking together of their plastic vests. He knocked her to the cave floor, the two of them landing with a simultaneous umph of expelled breath.

  Rollicking laughter erupted from the viewing area.

  Alex blew out his cheeks. Yes, well…he supposed it was only fair that he should be the laugh-ee after all of his own amusement at others’ expense. He glanced down between them as their vests let out a dying ba-zuzz whine. “Bummer, I think we broke them.”

  “I don’t think I’m, um…” Luvera knitted her brow at him. “I was involved in art and theatre in school. No sports. You?”

  “Music, film making, and…” He pursed his lips. “Dungeons and Dragons.”

  She paused, then laughed, her silver eyes brightening and twinkling. “What a pair.”

  His heart went thump-bump. Damn, but Hadley had nothing on this girl’s smile. Luvera’s laughter sang through his blood like a drug, almost making—

  “Watch out!” she yelled.

  A Stânga Towner was jumping over the top of them.

  Alex ducked his head to avoid getting clobbered by a pair of boots, stealing a whiff of Luvera’s scent. She smelled like a daisy, fresh and clean and innocent. He could’ve laid on top of her for hours, but he forced his head back up. “Maybe we should…take cover.” Yes, yes, that sounded much better than hiding. He pushed himself to his feet, drawing Luvera up with him, and took off for a small hillock of cave rock.

  “Look.” Luvera indicated the whirling shadows of bodies they were dashing through. “We’re so obviously nerdy that we’re invisible to the others.”

  Hauling her around the boulder, he pulled her into a crouch next to him. “I take exception to the word nerd.” He held his gun muzzle up in a ready position, like he’d seen James Bond do in the movies.

  “Right.” She snorted. “I dress like a frump, and you’re a…like, a Yeti.”

  He swung his head around and frowned at her. “Damnit, Luvera, I told you I didn’t mean it that way.” Jesus, the woman had a memory like a steel trap. He’d implied her clothes were less than fashionable three months ago. “I was just saying that”—he snapped his chin down—“I’m a what?”

  She crinkled her nose. “A Yeti. You know, a very hairy creature.” She looked pointedly at the chest hair showing at the opening of his plaid shirt.

  He gaped at her. She had to be kidding. Lowering his gun, he turned on the balls of his feet to face her fully. “I’m incredibly not hairy for a guy, okay?” All the way through his sophomore year of college, his chest had been baby-butt smooth, and these days…well, no woman was at risk for getting her fingers tangled, he’d just put it that way.

  She shrugged. “You are compared to a Vârcolac.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it.

  She ducked her head, but not before he caught the sparkle in her eyes.

  Well, I’ll be damned. She was messing with him. He exhaled a soft laugh. “Been waiting awhile to tell me that, have you?”

  A smile formed slowly on her mouth, the expression knocking his heart against his ribs. She pulled off her vest and peered down at the long fissure marring the plastic. “We probably shouldn’t play anymore, you know, since we can’t be officially killed.”

  He took off his own vest, keeping his eyes trained on her all the while, and tossed it aside. He couldn’t agree more. They should head over to Garwald’s Pub instead, have a drink, and discuss this chest hair issue further. Maybe if she knew how soft his hair was, she might be willing to—

  Luvera whammed into him as a Stânga Town kid careened around their boulder and plowed into her.

  “Good heavens!” Luvera rolled off Alex and threw up her hands. “Don’t shoot! We’re wussies!”

  Oh, for the love of… With a grunt, Alex grabbed her under the arm, pulled her up, and towed her at a run to another part of the cave. “I took exception to the term nerd and you think I’m going to be just right as rain with wussy?”

  “Anybody who says right as rain probably should be. Hey!” she pointed, “head over there!” She steered him to a crevice in the cave wall, crammed herself into it, then pulled him in with her.

  Whoa.

  They both froze, eyes widening on each other.

  They were squashed together from knees to chest, pressed so close that…he could feel…every inch of her. He inhaled slowly, his heart beginning to thunder, heat invading his crotch. Her baggy clothing had left him utterly unprepared for just how ripe and firm her body was, how totally stacked.

  “A-Alex,” she said haltingly, her hands settling on his upper chest. “Are you wearing the mud?”

  “Of course.” As a Dragon male with Fey bloodlines, his scent was exceptionally strong to the unmated female Vârcolac. He was strictly forbidden to leave his room without a blob of scent-cutting mud pasted behind each ear. Otherwise, a Ţărână-wide unmated female orgasm attack was apparently a genuine possibility.

  “I think it might’ve come off.” Her fingers kneaded his chest like a kitten’s. “You smell…you smell so…” The sloe-eyed look she gave him tightened his burning loins on a painful rush of lust.

  He bit back a moan as he imagined what he’d be doing right now if they were both naked; how he’d take her by the buttocks and lift her off the ground, urge her to wrap her legs around his waist, then shove his member into her tight heat, making up for all
the time they’d wasted by—Uh oh. Now he had a…

  Luvera squirmed against his hips, twin lines of confusion appearing between her brows. “What’s that?”

  “That”—Jesus God—“would happen to be my penis. Please, don’t move.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered. “But…what’s it doing?”

  Oh, this conversation was just a bucket of fun. “Noticing how nice your boobs are. I think maybe we should get out of this crevice.”

  Her eyes went wide, all large, black pupils. “Wow, I didn’t know a…you know could get so…so big.” She wiggled again.

  A groan strained past his lips. “Luvera, it’s not such a good idea for you to keep moving.” He grabbed her hips to make sure she stayed still. “And I’ll slip you twenty bucks later for that ‘big’ comment.”

  Her confused expression returned, and he almost groaned again. How could a woman look so cute and way-out sexy all at the same moment. Carefully, he unwedged himself from the crevice, really needing some relief from her nearness before he said something like, “So who’s the wussy, now, eh, babe?” or anything equally boneheaded.

  He helped her out, too, just as a whistle blew and the overhead lights flared on.

  She shaded her eyes, blinking against the glare, her cheeks a lovely shade of rose. “Game over, I guess.”

  “It would seem so.” He untucked his shirt to hide his boner, then plugged his hands into his pockets when it occurred to him that he’d just missed a perfect opportunity to kiss her. Smooth move, dip-stick. One hundred points goes to Alexander Parthen for proving he’s a complete goober. And his prize? An extra-painful case of blue balls, and, oh, let’s just throw in a dying out of the Parthen name, too. Because he was such a drooling pinhead.

  “Oh, hey, Alex! There you are.” Hadley strode up to him, a clipboard tucked into the crook of her arm. “Did you guys have fun?”

  The two of them spluttered into some um…well nonsensical babble that Hadley used her event planner superpowers to ignore, of course.