by Zoe Chant
“Both of us, kid,” he said.
Drew stared back at him. “You barely know me.”
“I know the quality I’ve seen in you the last couple of days,” Carlos said quietly. “And I know Pauline better than I’ve ever known anyone in my life. That’s what being mates is. I want us to be a family.”
“Here’s your paperwork.” Betty gave them a long look over her glasses; Pauline got the sense that it meant Take your squishy feelings elsewhere and bring back my forms when you’re done.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go sit down and fill these out.”
***
“I want to make a statement first,” Pauline said to Sheriff Misty Dale, before Drew could speak up at all.
“Okay,” said the sheriff slowly. “About what?”
“About this.” Pauline held up the Mysterious Package.
“Wait a second,” Drew protested.
“Nope,” Pauline said. “Me first.”
Misty looked back and forth between Pauline, Drew, the package, and finally the warm, hulking presence of Carlos standing behind them. “Well, I can see that this is going to take some unraveling,” she said. She pointed at Pauline. “Since you volunteered, you first.”
Pauline gave Drew a reassuring smile and followed Misty back into a room.
She was reassured when it was just a room with a couple of chairs and a table, no two-way mirror like in the movies.
“Okay, Pauline, what’s up?” Misty asked her.
Misty was in her mid-forties, about Pauline’s age—they’d been in school together, although they hadn’t been friends. Misty had been heavily involved in sports and had had a very strict father, while Pauline had had a much more relaxed high school crowd. Mostly centered around Gary, of course. She had a brief recollection of high-school-age Misty turning up her nose at the idea of shaping your life around whatever some boy wanted.
They hadn’t gotten to know each other as adults at all, and Pauline had never run into Misty in her professional capacity, but she hoped that long-ago acquaintance would help a little.
“This kid needs help,” Pauline said.
Slowly, she explained the situation. Misty leaned forward at the first mention of the wolves, paying careful attention, and taking notes even though she’d set up a recording when they sat down.
“Well,” she said finally, once Pauline was done. “If what you’re saying is accurate, this could be a hell of a break for me.”
“I just need to know that Drew’s going to be okay,” Pauline said urgently. “If you could—”
Misty held up a hand. “Look,” she said. “I can’t make any promises, because I only have your perspective on the situation so far. But...what I can say,” she said carefully, “is that if the situation is like you’ve told me, I will make sure that kid gets out of this clean.”
Pauline relaxed a little. “He’s got a recording,” she reminded Misty.
“So you said. And I’ll get him in here to tell me everything himself.”
“Can I be in here with him during the interview?” Pauline asked, but wasn’t surprised when Misty shook her head.
“He’s a minor, and you aren’t his legal guardian.”
“But I’m—” Pauline started, and Misty held up her hand.
“I know. I get it, Pauline, okay? I’m not trying to isolate the kid to try and interrogate him, I promise. One reason I interviewed you first is that I’m waiting for Child Services to get here so we can do this all on the record. Legally, so that whoever deserves legal consequences will get them, okay?”
She met Pauline’s eyes. Hers were a piercing blue; they seemed to look right through anyone they focused on.
Pauline sighed. “Okay.”
“Let’s get back out there, then.”
When they stepped out, they found Drew and Carlos sitting next to each other. They didn’t look like they’d been talking, but Carlos had a hand on Drew’s shoulder, a sight that reassured Pauline a bit. Drew knew that they were there for him.
Misty was taking a call, and as Carlos and Drew stood, she hung up and said, “Brenda from CPS is on her way. This is going to take a lot longer than Pauline’s statement, though; we’re going to have to go over everything several times, and Brenda’s going to have to do her own interview, probably.”
“We can stay here and wait until you’re done,” Pauline said firmly.
“Pauline, no, come on,” Drew spoke up. “You guys shouldn’t just sit here in these crappy chairs for five hours or whatever it’s going to take.”
“You won’t be able to see him or anything,” Misty said quietly.
“Will he be able to come home to us afterward?” Pauline asked.
Misty pinched her nose, and then sighed and looked Pauline in the eye. “I can’t release him into your custody,” she said. “You’re not his legal guardian, not yet, and that paperwork won’t go through today. But I can leave him to wait in the lobby for a bit while I fill out some paperwork later. Is that clear enough?”
Pauline absorbed that. She looked at Drew, who gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine,” he said.
Heels sounded in the hall, and Misty turned, her face lightening. “Brenda. Great. Let’s get started.”
Pauline scrubbed at her face as the two women turned toward the room she and Misty had just left.
Carlos took her arm. “Hey,” he said. “I thought of something we can do.”
Pauline let him tug her away, with one long backwards glance towards the closing door.
***
Carlos
The sheriff was only doing her job.
Carlos reminded himself of that. She had to separate them from Drew, not just for legal reasons so she could take down Ryan for good, but also because it was good precedent not to let semi-random adults into an interview with a minor. Law enforcement shouldn’t do that.
His tiger was still growling in his chest, though. He wanted to go back in and insist they let him stay. He wanted to show Drew that they were already becoming a family, no matter what the legalities said, and that he’d protect him from anyone who thought they might hurt him.
Yes, his tiger hissed. If he’d been shifted, his tail would’ve been lashing. No one hurts our cubs.
We’re making sure of that, Carlos thought. As they stepped out into the sunlight, he took out his phone. Grabbing Pauline’s hand, he squeezed it as he dialed.
“Carlos!” came Ty’s startled voice on the other hand. “What’s up, man?”
“I had a professional question for you,” Carlos said.
“Professional? What do you need to know about troubled kids?” Ty sounded skeptical.
Carlos grinned. “A thing or two. I have a situation...”
As briefly as possible, he explained. The result was a minute or so of stunned silence.
“What is in the water up there at Glacier Park?” Ty finally said. “You know, I was there for the wedding, too, am I going to zombie my way up north next week?”
“I don’t know,” Carlos said, “are you looking to settle down? Because this seems to be the place to do it.”
“No way,” Ty said. “So let’s focus on your problem instead.”
“Let’s,” Carlos said. “I want this to go as fast as possible. I am happy to throw money at anything that’ll expedite the process. The sheriff wouldn’t respond well to that, but if there’s anyone at CPS...”
Ty made a noise in his throat. “Bribes are probably not the way to go unless you know the lay of the land better than this. But I know a guy who transferred up north when he was over and done with all the big-city stuff. He’ll have a better idea of what the regional scene is like, and I’ll do my level best to get some help for you from that. Can I get back to you?”
“Please,” Carlos said. “And tell me if you buy any plane tickets up here yourself.”
“Yeah, right,” Ty said, and hung up.
Carlos shook his head, pocketed his phone, and turned back to
Pauline. “He’s going to make some calls.”
“I heard,” Pauline said, and of course she would have, with her owl’s ears. “Do you really think he can help?”
“I really do,” Carlos said. “Ty is one of the most dependable, reliable, loyal men I have ever met. If he says he’ll do his best to help us, then we can expect some help.”
“Okay.” Pauline bit her lip. “I hope so.”
Carlos took her other hand. He liked holding both of her hands in his, he was finding—they were small but strong, and it meant that they created a little pocket of space between them, where their eyes met and their voices were low, and it was like he could feel her presence pressed up against his.
“We have to wait, now,” he told her. “Maybe for a while. Ty’s got to do whatever calling around he needs, the sheriff has her whole process to go through. Will you come back home with me?”
Home, he realized with a shiver, was what he’d automatically called Pauline’s house. Without a thought; it had just come out of his mouth.
Good, he thought fiercely.
Pauline nodded, squeezing his hands with hers. “Home,” she said.
She would need some distraction, he thought as they got in the car. Hell, he needed some distraction, so that he didn’t sit there with his tiger’s tail lashing for all of the hours that it would take for the sheriff to be done.
Well. He had an idea or two.
***
Pauline
Pauline was looking forward at a long, bleak afternoon.
Should they go back over to Stella and Nate’s, she wondered? Take Troy and Val back, spend time with them? But Troy at least would want to know what was going on, and she didn’t have any good answers for him.
Maybe it was better to let them play, carefree, for the rest of the day. She would be happier if she had them around to distract her, but she wasn’t going to disrupt their day just to be selfish.
But then, as the door to her house closed behind them, Carlos enfolded her from behind, his mouth hot on the back of her neck.
“Oh!” she said, startled, and shivered despite herself. But...”We can’t.”
“Why not?” he murmured.
“Well, not now—what sort of disrespectful kind of almost-parents would we be?”
Carlos pulled back a little, but didn’t let go entirely. Now he was speaking right into her ear. “We can’t do anything to help anyone right now,” he said quietly. “We have to wait. And we won’t help Drew by working ourselves up into an angry, anxious state. I could sit here on tenterhooks for the whole afternoon, waiting to pounce the second I hear something—and then the second I hear something, I’ll pounce. That’s not what Drew needs. He needs thinking, feeling adults, with their heads on straight, who’ll act calmly and do the right thing for him.”
Pauline could feel her body start to soften just at his words. It was true—without anything else to do, she knew she’d spend the afternoon getting tenser and tenser, more and more anxious. Hadn’t she just been thinking of getting the younger kids as a distraction?
This was a distraction that wouldn’t hurt anyone.
“Cell phone ringers turned up high,” she said.
“Absolutely,” Carlos agreed, letting go of her to pull out his phone. “We won’t miss any news. I promise.”
Pauline dialed up her phone’s volume to its highest setting, and then put it carefully on a side table—and then Carlos was on her, his mouth hungry, his hands searching. She gasped, and suddenly it was like all the energy that had been fueling fear was transformed—she was on fire.
She clutched at him, devouring his mouth, wanting to lose herself in his body. He caught her close, pressing her against his body. She could feel his cock half-hard already, as his hands slid down her back to cup her behind.
The only warning she got was a sudden tensing of his shoulder muscles, and then he lifted, bringing her smoothly up with his hands under her butt. Pauline let out a giggling shriek that she hadn’t known could even come out of her own mouth, and wrapped herself around him, arms and legs both.
He spun them around and pressed Pauline up against the wall. She’d never been in this position in her own home before, and suddenly the idea struck her as ridiculous—why was she so staid? Why had she thought that this would be disrespectful, that connecting with her mate like this, with love and joy, could be anything but good for them, and for the people around them?
Then she lost her train of thought because Carlos was kissing his way down her chest.
His mouth was hot and insistent, dipping down into her cleavage. Pauline let go of his shoulders, trusting him to hold her up, and unbuttoned the shirt, wiggling out of it and tossing it aside. Carlos was like a rock under her, not a hint of a waver.
But the second she put her hands back on his shoulders, he was kissing her breasts, his tongue tracing a hot line down between them. Shivers ran down her body at his touch, and she squirmed against him. His belt buckle was right—right—
“God, you’re gorgeous,” he said against her skin, which wasn’t a word Pauline had ever associated with herself.
“You’re the gorgeous one,” she murmured, and he shook his head slowly, the hint of stubble rasping against her skin, his dark hair brushing her chin. There was so much of him, holding her up, drinking her in. And he was all hers.
He relaxed his hold slowly, letting her slide down the wall in a long aching move that rubbed all of her against all of him. Then he repeated it from his side, going slowly down to his knees, catching the button of her jeans as he went, tugging them down with him.
Pauline gasped as he pressed his mouth to her mound, over her panties, his hot breath filtering through the fabric to caress her without a touch. Then he reached up and tugged them down, spread her lips with his big hands and licked her.
Pauline shuddered, her hands pressed against the wall, trying to hold herself up as her knees went liquid and pleasure burst through her, centered right on her clit where Carlos’ tongue was exploring.
He was slow but confident, seeming to remember everything she liked from last time, sucking in all the right places, following every noise, every twitch of pleasure, to its peak, until Pauline was a quivering mess against the wall. She was damp with sweat, making high-pitched noises with every breath, and still his tongue was relentless.
Carlos brought her off like that, against the wall with her jeans and panties tangled around her ankles. She shrieked in pleasure as her entire body contracted, all of her nerves seeming to coalesce at the point on the tip of her clit where his tongue was, her vision darkening with the power of her orgasm.
Carlos didn’t hesitate. While she was still shivering with the aftershocks, he stood up and caught her up again, bridal-style this time—her jeans still holding her feet hostage. “What—” she half-laughed, pleasure still rippling through her.
“Bedroom,” he growled, and snagged her phone with one hand before taking them off to her room. Their room.
He laid her gently on the bed, then set her phone just as gently on the nightstand. Even in the middle of sex, he’d remembered what the most important thing was.
Heart swelling, Pauline reached out for him. “Come here,” she demanded, breathless.
“Here.” He was, too, right up close to her, dropping a kiss on her mouth. “What do you want?”
“To take my turn,” she said. She finally got rid of her jeans and panties, unhooked her bra, and pushed herself up to kneel, naked, on the bed. “I haven’t seen nearly enough of you yet.”
He smiled a little, and started stripping. Pauline watched it like it was her own personal show, delighting in each new reveal of warm brown skin, tracing the places where his curly dark hair grew, sitting forward hungrily as he unbuttoned his jeans.
When he was naked, she hardly knew where to start. He lay back on the bed, putting his hands behind his head, watching her with that same small, happy smile. Pauline felt like she could bask in that warm look as if it
was sunlight.
She leaned forward and put her hands on his chest, tracing over his massive pectorals, brushing her thumbs over his nipples and listening to his sharp inhale. Down to his abs, then, marveling at the definition. Shifters were all strong, all fit, but it still took work to look like this. “Spend a lot of time in the gym?” she asked.
“My outlet,” he confessed. “I could hardly ever get away to shift and run, but my building had a gym, so I put in some time every day. It kept my tiger from going absolutely crazy.”
Pauline would have to remember to thank his tiger.
Struck by an earthy impulse, she bent down to taste the muscled expanse. He tasted warm with a hint of salt-sweat, and she could smell his arousal. He made a low noise, and the muscles low in her own abdomen clenched in response.
Slowly, she moved south. He was fully hard now, and just as big as the rest of him would suggest. He smelled earthy, musky, and her mouth watered.
Pauline had never felt much of an urge to do this. She knew that other women actively liked it, but she’d never been one. She’d done it occasionally as a favor to Gary, but this was the first time she’d wanted to so badly.
She tasted him, and it was like the taste had a hardwired connection to her clit. The salt-musk of it thrilled her, and she found herself just exploring, enjoying the taste and feel of him in her mouth. Above her, Carlos made a low, desperate noise, and she found she liked that, too—the proof that he was so affected by her.
Soon enough, though, she had some sympathy for him and got down to business, taking as much of him into her mouth as she could, wrapping her hand around the base of his cock, and licking and sucking with purpose. It wasn’t anything like the mechanical act she’d performed before, though—it was like his sex was her entire world, all she could feel and smell and taste. Everything else retreated into insignificance. Her senses were overwhelmed by him, her mouth was full, his groans echoed in her ears and sent vibrations through both of them, and everything was slick and hot and sexy.
“Enough,” he finally ground out, reaching down and catching her by the shoulder.
