Gut Deep: Torn Worlds Book One

by Augustine, Donna

  Pen stirred across the room, and I purposely ignored her. She’d make her way over when she was ready. I flipped another couple of articles to see how many other uprisings there’d been this month. They had discovered a couple preparing for the end of the world in Arkansas, feeding all the rebels in the area from a root cellar packed with their home-canned vegetables and meats. Survivalists were the worst. I swear they could last a decade cut off from civilization.

  The edge of the bed sank. Guess it was showtime. I laid the tablet back on the nightstand, hoping I’d be able to perform if she cried or something equally horrific.

  She was on her knees, having shed everything but her bra. I would’ve thought she’d have left her shirt on. The bra was a nice touch. It wasn’t anything frilly, just plain white, but her breasts were full and it pushed them up in a becoming way.

  She wasn’t a shifter, but the body was surprisingly good and a nice match for the face. She had a lithe musculature that had been hidden in that ugly uniform. Her body would look at home on the finest female werewolf. One of the things I usually detested about human females was a lack of muscle, but she was toned, like she’d led a life of activity.

  She wasn’t crying, so that was a definite plus. This could work. My dick certainly thought so, and before now, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it up.

  “Top?” I asked. When I was with a woman for the first time, I preferred that position. Not that many women knew how to fuck the way I liked. But this wasn’t about fucking. This was about getting a job done. She could do the work. And hell, if having the illusion of control made her a little more comfortable, then that was fine too. Whatever made this go smoothly.

  She nodded a little too vigorously. She had no idea how transparent she was. Did she think she was safer on top? In truth, she couldn’t be safer from me if she were locked behind a vault. I didn’t want any part of this. She should be on her knees thanking me. Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. She had a nice set of lips on her. If things went south, that might have to be an option.

  Better not get my hopes up. I crossed my arms behind my head, trying to think about my last good romp to help things along. She was too frigid looking to have any fun at this, and a good body was only going to keep me hard for so long.

  I couldn’t believe I let myself get roped into this. Now I had the Queen of Frigid acting as if I were going to rape her. If you thought about it, I was the one about to get screwed against my will. She had something to gain here. Me? Nothing. I had plenty of women who’d happily fuck me and have a good time doing so. I didn’t need this.

  “Do you have a condom?” she asked.

  “It’s not really needed. We don’t get the types of viruses and diseases humans get.”

  “And you’re not worried about a pregnancy?”

  “It’s rare for a human female to carry one of our children. I doubt you’d be that lucky, but if it’ll make you feel better.” There were plenty of human women trying and failing. I rolled over, grabbed one out of the drawer I kept for when I fucked my own kind, and rolled it on just to end the discussion.

  She knelt on the bed, awkwardly working her way over me, trying to not touch me as much as possible until she had her knees on either side of my hips. I took one look at her face and had to close my eyes and think of something else. If she continued to look at my dick like it was going to split her in half, this was going to take a downturn, and fast. Most women liked my larger size, but she didn’t look like she was going to be joining the fan club.

  She managed to straddle my hips and began fumbling with my cock, arranging it so it was in the right spot. The moment she tried to mount me, all progress stopped. I didn’t need to be bareback to know she was probably as dry as the Sahara.

  I’d never had trouble with a woman wanting me before. If after all the fancy maneuvering she’d gone through to climb on top of me she started crying, I might be mentally scarred myself after this encounter. Some men got off on fucking women that didn’t want them. I was not one of them.

  “Get off.” This wasn’t working for either of us. I hadn’t wanted to take the lead, but something had to change if either of us were going to survive mentally intact tonight.

  “Huh?” She spoke like she’d forgotten the scary cock had a man attached to it.

  My brain made a lightning-fast list of werewolves who outranked me and might be up for the challenge presented here. Those on the very short list were either mated or so old it would be like fucking her grandfather. If she couldn’t stomach me in my prime, they surely wouldn’t be an improvement.

  “Are you giving up?” she asked, looking as if she’d cry if I said yes.

  I’d thought of it, but the forthcoming tears seemed to wash away the word yes from my lips.

  Penelope

  He was lying beneath me looking up as if he could barely tolerate me. I felt like a rapist who wasn’t turned on by the crime they were about to commit. Although I could hardly find fault with my victim, even his smell of sage and mandarin seemed to call to my senses. The ridges of his stomach nearly begged for a tongue to be dragged across them. If I didn’t feel forced to sleep with him, I might’ve enjoyed this. If I hadn’t had such clumsy lovers in the past, I might’ve looked forward to it, maybe even pursued him. Did all werewolves look this good undressed? Couldn’t be possible.

  “Are you giving up?” I asked again.

  I would’ve sworn he was going to say, “Yes, get out,” so when I heard, “No, we’re taking this in a different direction,” I sagged in relief.

  His hands went to my hips, and I seized up like an engine that hadn’t gotten oiled in a year. I expected him to slam me down onto his penis and be done with it. He didn’t. He flipped me over so I was flat on my back, staring up at him.

  “What are you doing? Are you quitting?” Could I blame him? I wouldn’t want to fuck me either. I was a mess. I hadn’t even tried to fake enthusiasm. He clearly didn’t want to fuck me, but he was here. I should’ve put on an act.

  “Turn on your belly,” he said, leaning on his side.

  “Why?” I really had to relax a little or this guy was going to run out of here. “Just curious, is all.”

  “Because you’re going to pretend I’m someone else so we can fuck and get this over with.”

  “It won’t bother you if I pretend you’re someone else?” That was the exact opposite of everything I’d heard about men. I’d had girlfriends tell me that they’d been broken up with because they accidentally called out another man’s name during sex. I could understand it, too. It would piss me off.

  “Not even a little. Turn over,” he said, as he pulled my hips and did it for me.

  I tensed, afraid of what would come next. He’d said let’s get it over with. Was he going to ram it into me now?

  He pressed his fingers down and then began a circling motion by my shoulder blades. Was he giving me a massage? That was what it felt like. And a good one. Not those namby-pamby ones where they didn’t press hard enough, or worse, they pressed too hard. This was skill. Even if I wanted to remain tense, it was going to be a battle to do so. He worked across my shoulder blades and then down my spine. Just when I thought he’d cop a cheap feel, he completely skipped over my ass and moved to my calves. He was using two hands now, running them up my legs, kneading all the tension out of me. He rubbed them for a solid ten minutes before he finally edged up beyond them and began working on my thighs. Slowly, he rubbed my legs, his thumbs riding higher and higher up the insides, and each time I wondered if he’d touch me there before he retreated.

  He ran his hand over the flesh of my bottom, cupping it and squeezing it, and still not touching me where I was beginning to want it most.

  He pushed his knee in between my thighs, and his fingers finally grazed the lips of my core before parting them and slipping in—easily. Too easily. If I wasn’t so aroused, I might’ve cared, but by the time he got to that part of me, I was swollen. He dipped in, curling his fingers a
nd rubbing at a spot I’d thought didn’t even exist. My back bowed and a moan escaped from my lips when his finger retreated, only to be replaced by two.

  I might not like him, I might not have consciously wanted to have sex with him, but my body was beginning to scream for him to push into me. I arched up, riding his fingers.

  He wrapped his other hand around my front, cupping my breast and pulling my back to him. His lips went to my shoulder before he cupped my chin and pulled my mouth to his, crashing down on me like we were lovers who’d been parted for months.

  He flipped me over, his mouth meeting mine as his tongue danced with my own, everything with a sudden urgency. He pushed my legs apart and settled in between them, and I froze, overwhelmed.

  I lay there, forcing myself to relax as he rested on his forearms above me, not moving.

  He stayed that way for a few seconds. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m all right. It was nothing. Let’s keep going.”

  His eyes dropped, and I watched his throat as he swallowed.

  Then he rolled off, lying beside me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know exactly what had gone wrong.

  “We’re done.”

  Denial wasn’t working. “Is it because I stiffened up?” Yes, maybe I’d stiffened for a second, but weren’t all the other signs enough? I wasn’t going to beg him, though. I had my pride.

  “I think I may have marked you enough by what we did. I can smell my scent on you.” He stood, grabbing his briefs from the chair and donning them while I watched.

  “Are you sure? Maybe we should try a little harder.” I should be happy we were done, and yet I felt a little cheated. Why’d I have to panic? I was such a fucking ninny. Don’t beg. You said you weren’t going to beg.

  He leaned near, but backed away before I could form any hope.

  “It’s not strong, but it’ll have to do. Huddy will have made sure that Mallard knows you were marked. It should be enough,” he said, clinical and detached. “Relax here. I’ll have Bigs drive you home after enough time has passed.” He walked into the other room, shutting the bedroom door.

  What was wrong with me? Why was I disappointed that I didn’t get to fuck the werewolf? It was his fault. Why’d he have to be so good at everything? Why’d he have to look so perfect?

  Eleven

  Donovan

  I sat outside on the veranda, the house quiet, wondering what had just happened. I’d fucked a lot of women, from every level of society, tall and short, blonde, brunette, and every color of the rainbow. There were smart ones and the dippy variety, prudes and sexual carnivores. Athletic, curvy, and reed-thin, I’d sampled them all. Not one of them had pulled on me the way this one did, and I hadn’t even fucked her. I’d wanted to, though. The more I touched her, the way she’d moved, smelled, felt, the more I’d wanted her. When she stiffened up right before I’d stuck my cock in her, it was like a stab in the gut.

  She was a little slip of a girl, a nobody to me, so why was I sitting here replaying every touch, moan, toss of her head? Why did I give a shit if she made it home? I’d made sure every woman I slept with got home okay, but I was actually worried about this one. She hadn’t even let me walk her to the car. She’d been eager to be rid of me, and I should’ve felt the same.

  She hadn’t wanted me. Maybe that was the catch? It was an ego thing, although it had never been like that with me before.

  Maybe it was Mallard. We’d always clashed. He wanted her, and I wasn’t going to let him have her. That competitive drive must be doing something to me; claiming her was robbing him. It couldn’t be her. It was the situation.

  It didn’t matter anyway. I’d marked her, mostly, and that would be the end of it. Mallard would back off, I’d go home, and that would be the end of things. I’d never see her again.

  Bigs pulled up, and I watched as he exited the garage and walked toward the house.

  “Were you waiting for me?” Bigs asked as he came closer.

  “Just having a bourbon.”

  Bigs nodded. “Well she’s home. All went well.”

  I nodded, and he went to leave.

  “You saw her go in her house, right?” I asked before he’d taken more than two steps. It was only right to make sure she got in safely.

  He turned back toward me. “Yes, she went inside before I left.”

  I spun the bourbon in my glass. “Anyone else lingering about?”

  “No. I checked the perimeter like you asked.”

  He didn’t move, waiting to see if I’d ask him something else.

  “I’m good, thanks,” I said.

  “Good night.”

  “Night.”

  I had about five minutes of quiet before Huddy walked around the house and came to sit beside me.

  “How were things at the club?” I asked, knowing he’d headed there after dinner was done, even before our agreement of tonight was put in place. When I got hung up, Huddy was my eyes and ears, and there’d been lots of rumblings all over the place lately. Vampires pushing boundaries, werewolves pushing back. The other species all swinging back and forth with the tug of war. It was a miracle the pact held together at all.

  “Not great. Some low-level vamp named Steven went into Kyle’s shop and trashed some of the stuff. If Steven had been there at the time, we’d have had a dead vampire on our hands. I was able to calm the situation down, though. If the vampires keep stepping on toes, someone is going to lose their temper, and it’s going to go down.”

  I sighed like a man who’d been at it too long. “We aren’t the only pack having issues. You can’t expect two races that have warred for millennia to suddenly accept peace. There’s too much bad blood. Too many bloody battles and long-fought wars. But we will not be the reason the pact fails. We both know where that will lead.”

  “Maybe it won’t end badly?” Huddy asked.

  “If the vampires and shifters war, the infrastructure crumbles. The humans are weaker, but they’re plentiful. We won’t be able to keep them in check, and then they’ll want vengeance. I didn’t choose this life, but it’s what we have, and I won’t be the reason our race is destroyed.”

  “Maybe we say fuck it and leave?” Huddy suggested, pulling out a cigar from his jacket.

  “Can’t. Not now, anyway. If we leave, the pack will divide and then be picked off by vampires. Our leaving would be the nudge that starts the dominos falling.” I’d be damned before I abandoned my pack.

  “It’s not right we have to sit with this bag of shit, considering neither of us wanted this. You didn’t vote for it.”

  He was right. When the alphas all gathered and decided whether to enter into a pact with the vampires, I was among a handful of nos. Everyone else saw glory.

  “It doesn’t matter what I want,” I said. “What I do now is what counts. If I don’t hold this pack together, it will lead to the end of our race.” He offered me a cigar, and I waved him off. “On a lighter note, how’d things go at dinner with my mother and Mallard?”

  He finished lighting his cigar before he said, “As you might imagine, one was happier than the next. I think I’d prefer the downfall of the pack than sit through that again. How’d things go with you?”

  “They went. Hopefully that will be the end of it.”

  Twelve

  Penelope

  Ricky: You sure you’re coming in?

  Me: Yes.

  Ricky: You’re absolutely sure?

  Me: Yes.

  Ricky: Okay then.

  I put the phone down on the bathroom sink, doing my best to ignore the glare from Sassy as I finished getting ready.

  “You’re really going back there?” Sassy stood in the doorway of the bathroom, hands on her hips. She stared at my service uniform like it was a python strangling the life from me.

  “Yes.” I never should’ve told her about the encounter with Mallard. I’d only come clean because I thought if she heard the entire story, marking a
nd all, she’d understand why I could go back. At least I hadn’t told her the true reason why I was going one last time, that it was for her. That this might be my last chance to get her a cure. If she knew that, I’d never get out of the house in one piece.

  I’d been waiting for Mallard to show up at Tessa’s events for a long while, and now things were lining up in my favor. I couldn’t run off now, when I had a real chance. Not only was Mallard still there, I knew his exact room and I was protected from him. There might never be an opportunity like this again. Even if it scared me to death, I had to take it for Sassy’s sake.

  “How can you do this?” she asked, right on schedule. You could set a watch by the number of seconds she could hold on to her opinion.

  “Because we have to eat. Eating means credits. Credits mean working.”

  Sassy shook her head. “You can’t be around those monsters and survive. We know this better than anyone.”

  I pulled the rest of my hair back into a tight bun. “I’m not Mom. I’ve got this worked out.”

  She moved so her hip was against the sink, and I couldn’t avoid her face “You didn’t work it out. You slept with the head werewolf of the D.C. territory.”

  “I didn’t sleep with him.” I’d given her the broad strokes of the night, and she’d run with it.

  “Do you know what they look like when they shift? They aren’t cute little puppy dogs. You’re not even with a lower-level monster, but the top one. That’s more dangerous.”

  I gave up on trying to get all my crazy hair into a smooth bun. I’d have to be a little sloppy tonight.

  “I don’t know if he’s really that bad. I don’t think he’s a monster, at any rate. He didn’t even want to sleep with me. He wants nothing to do with me. He was doing me a favor.” I left out the part about Donovan hating Mallard and wanting to screw him, or how his friend had nearly begged him to save me. That wouldn’t get me out of the house any easier. I also omitted the part about how I was more than willing by the end. How perfect his shape was and how amazing he smelled. How I’d nearly begged him to come back and fuck me. Those things definitely did not need to be discussed.