by V. A. Dold
A few screws in place and he stepped back. “Okay, you can let go and hit the power button.”
The frozen drink maker came to life, auger blade turning, and ready for the drink mix.
“I know quite a few people who will be very excited about this,” Julia said, grinning. “Have I told you lately how amazing you are?”
Logan shook his head grinning as he wiped his hands on a bar towel. “Not yet today.”
“Well, you are. You’ll make some woman a wonderful mate one day. I hope it’s very soon, too.”
“Thanks,” Logan said, turning a slight shade of pink. He never could take compliments without embarrassment.
The day had crept by. The dinner rush was already in full swing, and Thomas still hadn’t arrived. Every time the door opened, her gaze shot up to see if it was him. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all.
She turned away from a large group filing through the door. Thomas would be coming alone so no need to search that crowd. With a sad sigh, she went back to the drink she was mixing.
Seconds later, the hair stood on the back of her neck in awareness, and her wolf lifted her head to sniff the air.
Julia glanced around the bar, and there he was, alone at a table, staring at her. Her breath caught in her throat. How could he have become more handsome in the last few hours? Thomas was the most extraordinary representation of male physiology she had ever laid eyes on.
He wore his hair a little longer than most would expect someone in his position. After all, he was a very powerful man as the head of security for Uncle Isaac. But, she admitted as she grinned to herself, she liked it. His dark mane looked slightly tussled tonight. If she didn’t know he was the sheriff, so to speak, he’d look one hundred percent bad boy. It wasn’t hard to picture him on a Harley speeding down the highway.
His blue eyes, though soft and sweet when he looked at her, could turn lethal before you blinked when he was on duty. The contrast of those eyes and his tanned skin had her totally hypnotized, and now had her mouthwatering. Quickly she dabbed the corners for drool. Thank Goddess for small favors, she hadn’t made a fool of herself yet, but she still had the night ahead of her, so she knocked on the wooden bar top just in case.
There was something very wild and masculine about the casual way he sat at his table drinking her in. Slowly, his gaze traveled from her eyes to her mouth. As his stare became more intense, he licked his lips, and she almost dropped the drink she was making. Her heart pounded, and her knees went weak. She had no idea how she was going to make it through her shift.
“Something wrong?”
Startled, she jumped, and then, like an idiot, stood blinking at Logan, who was watching her very closely.
“No. What would possibly be wrong?”
Logan frowned at her skeptically. “You have a dazed kind of expression that I’ve never seen before.” Before she could bat his hand away, he felt her forehead for a fever. “Are you feeling all right?”
She leaned away and growled at him. “Hey, keep your hands to yourself, buddy.”
Thomas seemed to be keeping his distance and allowing her to work her shift without distraction. That was laughable. His being in the building was all it took to distract her. Logan made worried noises behind her as she messed up yet another drink order.
“Oh, shut up and mind your own business.”
“I’m really concerned, sis. You never screw up like you are tonight. Want to tell me what’s going on?”
“No.”
“That’s it? No?”
“Exactly. I’m fine, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
Logan eyed her again, shook his head, and took the next order.
“Thomas?”
Thomas went rigid as a provocative purr he knew all too well whispered next to his ear, and arms draped across his chest from behind. Lori. Average, curvy, and stacked with double Ds. Once upon a time, she had aroused his lust. Not anymore. Not even close.
Julia opened his eyes to what true passion and love is.
Thomas let out a long, exasperated breath. He really didn’t want to cause a scene. And he especially didn’t want Julia to see Lori hanging all over him. He grimaced as she massaged his chest and shot a worried glance toward the bar.
Before he could peel her off, she said much too loudly, “I want you so bad, baby. Let’s get out of here.”
Oh. Hell, no! A hard jerk dislodged her claws from his shirt, leaving a small tear behind. Hopefully, no one would notice, primarily, a certain bartender or her now glowering brother.
SHIT! Lori rubbed her wrist where Thomas grabbed her. Thomas learned a second later that she still hadn’t gotten the hint. Apparently, she thought he was playing rough or something. A fire lit in her eyes right before she shoved her hand into his pants and grabbed him. Then, to seal his fate, Lori rubbed her cleavage against his face.
“Get the hell off me!” Thomas barked a bit louder than he intended as he launched himself from his seat.
Lori looked stunned by his outburst, but slowly the surprise turned dark. “You aren’t mated, are you?”
That would be the natural assumption of a woman as self-absorbed as Lori was. Of course, there could be no other reason for a man to reject her as far as she was concerned.
Like a snake striking, she pulled the collar of his shirt open, looking for the mating mark.
Yanking his collar from her grip, he spat, “Yes, I’ve found a mate, and it isn’t you, thank God.”
Lori looked like he’d slapped her, then leaned closer to hiss, “In your dreams, little man. My mate will have more to offer down,” her gaze trailed to his crotch, “there.”
With an evil smile, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and sauntered to another table. Poor guy, he hoped the man knew what he was getting into.
With more composure than he was feeling, Thomas gave a nod to the patrons eyeing him and sat at his table once more. Afraid to look toward Julia, he focused on his beer.
His heart was almost beating normally again when a large hand slammed down on his tabletop. Lucky for the man attached to that arm, he wasn’t packing. Instantly, his sheriff persona was in place.
Any man or shifter with a lick of sense would have backed off. But not Logan, at least not when the situation involved one of his sisters. He was getting an explanation, and it was happening right here, right now.
“You’d better start talking, asshole. Your stench is all over my sister, and she told me she found her mate last night. I’m assuming that man is you,” Logan snarled. “So, the question is, if you’re Julia’s mate, why are you letting Lori shove her hand down your pants?”
Thomas knew better than to fight with one of Julia’s brothers. She wouldn’t thank him for that. Instead, he put his hands up in surrender and waved Logan to join him at the table.
“First off, yes, I’m Julia’s mate. Second, I dated Lori, once. I didn’t encourage her tonight in any way, and the instant she got handsy, I put an end to it.” Then Thomas glared at Logan. “Perhaps you missed the part where I told her I had indeed found my mate? Or the part where I told her to get off me?”
Logan clapped Thomas on the back and grinned in satisfaction. “Good answer. Welcome to the family.”
“Thanks.” Thomas sighed in relief. Then he frowned. “I had no idea Lori was a shifter.”
“She’s not, she’s human. Her sister is a mate, and ever since she found out about us, she’s been trolling for one of her own. I pity the man who gets saddled with that one.”
As if they had been discussing the weather, Logan walked back to his station behind the bar as if nothing had happened. Shifters are nuts.
But, as he considered the crazy world he was now fully a part of, his thoughts turned to Julia. The way she’d looked as she danced with him. Her lips kiss-swollen and her eyes begging him for more. Bingo. He was hard as a rock. A quick adjustment and he was a little more comfortable but not much.
; He wasn’t a coward by any means, but the thought of seeing a look of disappointment or hurt on Julia’s face had his gut in knots. Gathering his courage, he looked her straight in the eye. His heart lurched—she looked lost and hurt.
Sad.
Immediate action was required. Thomas pushed back from the table and made a beeline to Julia. Without asking permission, he walked behind the bar, took Julia’s hand, and caught Logan’s eye.
“We need a minute.”
He didn’t bother to wait for a response, experience with shifters had taught him when it came to mates, everything else was secondary, even work.
“Where’s your office?”
She nodded toward the far corner. “Over there.”
Once the door was shut, Thomas took Julia’s face in his hands.
“Baby, what did you see?”
She wouldn’t look at him, and when she attempted to answer barely a whimper came out.
“Sweetheart, that woman is someone I dated once and only once. I have zero interest in her, and if you were listening, I’m sure you heard me tell her that.”
Julia nodded but still didn’t look at him. Finally, she spoke. “I saw her,” she hiccupped, “caress you and stick her hand…” A sob broke from her throat.
“Did you also see me jump away from her and yell at her to get off of me?”
She nodded.
“So, can you tell me what the problem is?”
She hesitated. How do you tell your mate you suddenly feel inadequate?
He had no idea how, but he felt her anxiety and pain, and the only thing he could think to do was kiss her all better. Slowly, he leaned closer.
Julia wet her lips, which caused Thomas to inhale sharply when he felt her tongue flick across his lower lip. That deep breath took in her fresh snow scent and muddled all his senses. Fighting this attraction was downright stupid, and he had no intention of being stupid. No, his intention was just the opposite.
His desire pounded through his veins until he vibrated with it. Cupping her face, he captured her lips with his own. Excitement and desire tightened Thomas’s gut and forced a tortured groan from his throat that rumbled in the room. Thomas devoured her mouth like a starved man.
A soft moan rose from her lips as she kissed him back just as passionately. His fingers tangled in her hair. Then he angled her head perfectly to deepen the kiss further. He swore he heard the click of puzzle pieces snapping together, and he was lost.
Her hands slid around his neck to pull him closer, the fit of their bodies was perfection and the press of her breasts into his chest drove him wild. The feel and scent of her pushed his desire higher. He craved her touch, her companionship, her love.
The friction of hips grinding against hips brought him to the edge of release. His rock-hard erection was pressed against her belly straining for liberation from his jeans. But he knew, without a doubt, a quickie was out of the question and would never be enough to satisfy either of them. When he made love to Julia, he wanted the entire night to pleasure her and explore her body, not a tawdry few minutes in a public place. Damning the fact they were in her office with a hundred shifters on the other side of the door, not to mention her brother who would kick his ass, he slowed the kiss. She moaned softly into his mouth while his tongue danced with hers one last time.
It took all his resolve to lift his lips from hers, open his eyes, and press his forehead to hers. Only the sound of their ragged breathing broke the silence. The hurt that had occupied her expression before was now replaced with passion and longing.
Every breath brushed her pebble hard nipples against his chest. A shudder racked his body as he fought for control. He had to get them out of her office and put at least a sliver of daylight between them. Otherwise, his resolve wasn’t going to be enough.
Chapter Six
Thomas' finger combed his hair as he watched Julia straighten her clothes before checking her hair and makeup. He was relieved when she finished, and she looked like they had simply been having a conversation. The last thing he needed was Logan launching him out the door for molesting his sister.
As he held the office door open for Julia, he glanced over her head toward the bar. Logan watched them closely and gave him an approving nod when he saw his sister’s smile.
Chuckling under his breath, he shook his head. Shifters are strange.
A human would kill another guy for messing with his sister, but shifters were all good with it as long as you made the woman happy and respected her.
Julia took her place behind the bar without so much as a glance at her brother while Thomas found an open table. There was still a bit of time before she finished her shift, so he got comfortable. Not more than ten minutes later Stefan, Lucas, and Marcus joined him. El was speaking at a university tonight, which left Stefan with free time on his hands. As far as he was concerned, as long as they behaved themselves, he was happy to see them.
An hour later, Julia was cleaning her end of the bar and preparing to clock out. As she walked from behind the serving area, she had two bags of garbage in her hands. No man worth his salt would allow his woman to struggle under a load like that. He was at her side in an instant, relieving her of the bags.
“I’ve got those. Let me take these out while you finish up.”
Stefan watched Thomas head for the garbage bin behind the building. A disturbance among the wild creatures caught his attention. Something wasn’t right, and whatever it was had the wildlife upset.
Quickly he asked the birds what they could see. The image of half a dozen shifters circling a single man popped into his head. Thomas was about to be handed a shit storm of trouble and a world of hurt.
Julia was busy making a monster order of drinks when Thomas cursed in her mind, and she received a flurry of scrambled images.
The backyard.
Men all around.
Fists flying.
Tommy!
Stay…inside.
Frantically, she looked at her brother and then her cousins. She didn’t need to say a word. All the men were already headed for the door.
She bellowed what could only be described as a war cry and cleared the bar in one powerful leap. Mess with my mate, and you answer to me, boys.
She was right on the men’s heels as they rounded the corner of the bar and headed for the dumpster. Just like the flashes she’d received from her mate, a gang of shifters surrounded Thomas. It was one of the swamp packs. Wolves who rarely surfaced and lived like it was nineteen hundred instead of twenty-fifteen and most of them considered humans second-class. Which was asinine and why the majority of the men had no mate. Idiots. The human population was where ninety-five percent of the mates came from.
Julia recognized the ringleader, Blade. He’d been causing trouble since he cut teeth. After a bar fight that he’d started trashed her bar, he had been banned from The Backwater for life. Every decent male she knew hated that punk and was looking for the opportunity to take a bite out of him.
The moron had been hitting on her for decades even though he knew everything about him chafed her ass. The idiot didn’t seem to understand the word no. More than once, she’d wondered if his stupidity was a product of his shallow gene pool. The Goddess must really have it in for the swampers. The last mating was between cousins. No wonder they were so inbred.
His dunce squad was always looking for a fight. Her belief was their insanity stemmed from a lack of sex, their lack anyway. No decent woman would let them near her. Sexual frustration was her theory to explain their inexcusable aggressive behavior, and she was sticking to that theory.
Thomas had taken two of them down before they got hold of him. Both lay writhing at his feet, as he stood pinned between two others while a third used him as a punching bag.
He was trying to free himself to fight back, but he was held tight, covered in bruises, and blood flowed steadily from his nose and mouth.
Fury spread like a thick
red haze over her vision as she launched a hailstorm of empty liquor bottles from the dumpster, at the goon squad’s heads. Her enraged roar and the flying bottles stopped the rescue party in their tracks. There were so many heavy glass bottles in the air they had no way to reach Thomas without being knocked senseless.
Arms thrown wide, she drew every loose object within two hundred feet to her and directed all of it at Blade and his minions. After over one hundred years of practice, her accuracy and aim were unprecedented. Not a single missile struck Thomas, even though he was in the center of the hailstorm. Cries and howls of pain from the cowering swampers filled the air as more people filed into the yard from the bar.
Logan tentatively tapped Julia on the shoulder. “As much as I’m enjoying the show, we need to get to Thomas.”
Julia nodded once and allowed all the objects flying to fall harmlessly to the ground. All that is, except one. A rather large, heavy lead pipe from the plumbing renovations she had just completed slammed into Blade’s crotch before it joined the bottles and branches to lie silently around the bloodied swamp rats. Blade’s scream of pain made every man’s ears within two miles bleed.
Before Logan or her cousins could move, the dunce squad shifted and darted for the deep swamp. A group of men from the bar shifted to chase them down, but Julia knew they would never find them. They were already scattered like schoolyard bullies, and no doubt hiding in one of their secret holes no one was ever able to locate. In the deep bayou, they easily became invisible, using their ability to run and hide to survive.
“Damn, Julia,” Stefan said in awe.
“You ruined all our fun,” Marcus and Lucas griped.
“Momma is going to have a cow.” Logan shook his head. “You know how she feels about you using your telekinesis gift.”
“So, don’t tell her,” Julia panted. “Now come over here and help me get him into my house.”
Julia lived in a two-bedroom cottage she had built on the land behind the bar. It wasn’t a palace, but it was comfortable and convenient for her with the bar next door.
