“Get to the point, Kaylee.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if I just moved in here?”
“Here? It’s a pretty small apartment. With a small closet. And a small kitchen.”
She sidled up close to him. “I wouldn’t mind being crowded in with you,” she said. “And if we’re both working maybe we could get a better place.”
“You’ve got your mind made up, don’t you?”
“I sure do.”
He bent over and kissed her. It was meant to be a light, quick kiss, but it soon deepened. He pulled her tighter against his chest and her towel came loose. The feel of her skin against his was enough to get him aroused again. When he pulled away she was breathless, and his voice was deep and husky. “When do I have to drive you home?”
“If I moved in you wouldn’t have to.”
“That’s blackmail.”
She wrapped a hand around his shaft and caressed him teasingly until he groaned.
“Yes. Fuck, yes.”
She kissed him. “I love you.”
Jules had his arms full of boxes when his cellphone rang. “Can you grab that?” he shouted as he came in the door. Kaylee appeared from the bedroom and fished the phone out of his front pocket with a wink that made him growl.
“Hello?” she said as he went to find some empty spot to stick the pile of boxes. “Jules, it’s Remy.”
“Okay, hand it to me. Jules here.”
“I know you two are moving into your new place today, so I’ll keep it short. Gia had her baby.”
“Finally!”
“Brock is so happy he’s speaking gibberish, so I’m making phone calls. It’s a boy. They named him Paul Giancarlo, after the grandfathers. Give them a few days before coming by.”
“Of course we will. Good thing we’re basically at the new moon.”
“I’ve never heard of a shifter changing while their spouse had a baby. I still have to call Philippe. He should be up by now.”
“Okay, I’ll pass the news along to Kaylee.”
“What news?” Kaylee said as Jules hung up the phone.
“Gia had a boy, Paul Giancarlo Tandell.”
“Oh, how precious.”
“You’re going all starry eyed. You’re not going to ask for a baby next, are you?”
She laughed. “Oh, you should see the look on your face, Jules. You look terrified. Don’t worry. I do want kids—someday. Let’s just enjoy being together for a while first.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “Now, that sounds like the perfect idea. How are things coming in the bedroom?”
“Just about done. How many more boxes?”
“Just the one more trip to get the dishes and the living room furniture and we’ll be done.”
“Good, because I’m looking forward to celebrating with you tonight.”
“If you don’t keep your hands to yourself, I won’t get that last load done.”
She giggled and pulled her hands out of his pockets. “I love you.”
“Good, because I love you too.”
Mundo
MC Bear Mates II
by
Becca Fanning
Chapter One
Jimmy ‘Mundo’ Aston stared out the minuscule jail cell window and sighed mournfully at the world.
Getting banged up never grew easier, no matter how many times it happened. This time, it was sixty days. The last time, it had been two years.
The human authorities thought he was in his fifties, and technically he was, only for Shifters, fifty was like twenty. Soon, he’d have to be careful about getting caught. Lies about plastic surgery would only get a Shifter so far, and Mundo preferred to live under the radar.
Shifters had been outed during the Second World War. They’d come out in droves to help the war effort, and special military units had banded together to help fight the cause. Of course, when the American Shifters had come out from the shadows in which they lived, so had the Nazis and the Japs.
All in all, being outed had cost a hell of a lot of lives. Mundo thought the price had been too high, considering it had kick started prejudice among the humans for Shifter kind. Trouble was, Shifters had had to reveal the truth because on the battlefield, under extreme duress and with lives at stake, a weaker Shifter might have transformed.
Poof. Like magic, out of the middle of nowhere, a wolf could have appeared where a man had once been standing.
As a military tactic, it might have been useful, but on a larger scale, revealing the truth had its uses as well.
Each Shifter had the right to withhold the truth of their origins, and Mundo was one of them. His parents were too. They weren’t on any register monitoring his people, and no Aston ever would be if he had a say in the matter.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t completely off the radar. His rap sheet was a mile long thanks to a very rebellious start in life. Now, he was working his way up the ranks of the Nomads MC, and things had to start calming down.
A lieutenant had to set an example. Getting caught wasn’t the way to go about doing that, but it was easier said than done. Rebellion had been a part and parcel of Mundo’s life since his earliest days, and letting go… well hell, it was boring as shit.
Scraping a hand over his jaw, he looked at the blue sky with longing.
One more day.
Christ, that day was feeling longer than the previous sixty.
“You gonna start crying?” asked one of his cellmates, a schmuck by the name of Bruce who was inside for beating on his old lady.
Mundo hated the bastard on principle. His daddy had been a mean son of a bitch, with fists that were constantly ready to strike at the most minor acts of disobedience. Mundo’s mom had rarely been without an evolving black eye. Be it black, blue, green, or purple, she’d often sported the look of a battered wife.
As such, Bruce was his least favorite celly. “Am I fuck,” he gritted out, even though he did feel a little tightness at the back of his eyes.
Freedom meant more to his kind than to the humans.
He hadn’t shifted in close to seventy days, and his bear was more than ready for freedom.
To the beast, his human form was a cage the animal had to constantly inhabit. That was in regular life. So, when Mundo was incarcerated, it was even harder on the creature.
His last sentence of two years had been an experiment in torture. To this day, he wasn’t certain how he’d managed to contain the bear for that length of time. But neither did he care about finding out. He’d done it once and could probably do it again, just not if he could help it.
“Why you sniffling at the window then?” Bruce asked, getting up off his fat ass to trudge across the miniscule cell they shared with two other dudes so he could stare out. The nosy bastard’s biggest flaw was his curiosity. It led him into a shitload of trouble.
“I don’t need to sniffle at the window. I’m outta here tomorrow. Thinking about what I’m gonna do when I break out of this place.”
Bruce shrugged. “Just another day for me.”
“I never said it wasn’t, dumb ass. And I know your sorry behind is here for another eighty days, but mine isn’t.” Satisfaction laced his tone. Christ, it felt good to know he was out of this shithole tomorrow. Felt even better to know he’d be taking a crap without an audience and eating a dinner with a vegetable that didn’t herald from a tin can.
“What ya gonna do, Mundo?” Louis questioned from his bed on the upper bunk. “Gonna get your dick wet?”
Mundo peered over to look at the only celly he could stand—because Harrison was a major dick too—and saw Louis was looking as chilled as ever.
Nothing seemed to faze the slick SOB. He lay there on his bunk, reading, writing sometimes, but mostly chilling. He’d been here the longest and would stay here far past any of his four cellmates. Rumors abounded about his incarceration. No one knew why he was inside. He’d never shared his papers, and by now, no one really wanted to know.
Mundo didn’t really
mind. Louis was cool as fuck. Mundo kind of wondered if Louis was a Shifter, mostly because there was something about him that resonated well, but he couldn’t say for sure. Shifters didn’t recognize other Shifters. He was a bear, and he’d have recognized another Shifter bear in his human skin, but he wouldn’t be able to discern a wolf from an eagle from a full-blooded human.
So, the only thing Mundo knew for certain was that Louis definitely wasn’t a bear, and that was it.
“Yeah. I think I’ll fuck one of the bunnies,” he said after a while, earning himself a grin from the other three men.
“Wish I could,” Louis retorted immediately. “I’d fuck them so many ways they’d be walking funny the next day.”
“That’s how I fuck them all the time,” Mundo teased, chuckling when Louis flipped him the bird. “It’s how I roll, bro. Ain’t you figured that out about me yet?” He pumped his hips forward and made a slapping motion with his hand.
Louis snickered. “I’m learning, I’m learning.”
They shared a grin before Mundo turned back to the window and stared out at the freedom that beckoned but was just out of reach.
He hadn’t been able to look outside for the entirety of his incarceration. Not without his bear wanting to tear the bars down. Now that he was close to going home, the ache was bittersweet. Intolerable but bearable nonetheless.
Rubbing a hand over his heart, he prayed for tomorrow to come. He had shit to do the minute he got out because the one upside to being jailed was he’d met his mate.
No way was he going to fuck a bunny. That was the last snatch in the universe he wanted now that he’d scented his woman.
No, siree, the first thing he was going to do was claim his mate. Claim her, mark her, and fuck her until there was no doubt about whose woman she was.
***
The next morning dawned bright and early. Jealousy and envy loaded the atmosphere with a weighty tug that pulled at Mundo’s nerves. He wanted out of there just like the others did, only today was his lucky day, and it wasn’t theirs.
Only Louis’s farewell wasn’t begrudging. The dude even clapped him on the back in congratulations. Knowing the guy was cool, he’d extended an invitation to visit the clubhouse when he was out, because Mundo felt dead certain his instincts were right about him being a Shifter of another breed. He could have asked, but Mundo understood the need for privacy. If someone had asked him if he was a bear Shifter, it wouldn’t have pleased him. If anything, it would have put him on edge.
The minute dickwads knew you were Shifter, shit got real. Motherfuckers on the hunt for a dick-measuring contest started fights left, right, and center, and for a man desperate to go home, getting into yard battles was the last thing he needed. So, he proffered the invitation, feeling in his gut Louis was one of them, and left with a mock-salute to the other dude.
When he received his personal belongings, they came free with a disgruntled smile from the guard handing him his shit. Mundo was hard pressed not to flip him the bird and shove his smile where the sun didn’t shine, but an extended stay in county jail was the last thing he wanted, so he maintained control and walked out a free man. The SOB behind the desk deserved an ass whooping, but someone else would have to give it to him. Mundo was still pissed about the bastard locking him in solitary for a dreamed-up reason.
The instant the doors closed behind him, he let out a deep breath. Christ, it was the first full one he’d been able to take in ages. Even his brain felt a little woozy when the oxygen flooded it.
Two months free from wine, women, and song, and Mundo would ordinarily have been ready to party. As it stood, he wanted his woman, and he wanted her now. But before that, he wanted a burger and the biggest pile of fries this side of the Mason-Dixon line.
His mouth watered at the thought and he squinted past the sun to the parking lot where one of his bros should have been waiting for him. When the glare wouldn’t quit, he dug through his shit for his shades. This time when he looked onto the lot, he saw Kiko and Mars, two of his brothers from the MC, waiting for him on their hogs.
He wished like hell they had his with them, but Christ, no one could ride his bitch—not on pain of death—even if it meant he’d be able to ride her back to the MC after his extended ‘stay’ in jail.
Waving to them and feeling his heart fill with gladness at the sight of them, he ran over to their bikes. Maybe it made him a pussy to feel so happy to see them, but Christ, these dudes were more than just brothers by Clan. They were like his kin. His kin of choice.
Mars, the leader of The Nomads, got to him first. He grabbed him in a choke hold then rubbed the top of Mundo’s head with a fist. Both bastards laughed, but Kiko, The Nomads’ second, caught him and gave him a bro hug—half hug, half smack on the back.
Mundo’s grin was dopey as he stared at the pair of them. “Fuck, I know I’ve been inside too long if you two are a sight for sore eyes.”
Kiko cocked a brow. “They turn you funny in there?”
He chuckled, wriggling his own brows in retort. “Nah. A couple of the guys were interested in my pretty ass, and who could blame them? But they soon figured out the lay of the land.” He flexed his bicep. “See? This shit’s doubled since I was sent down.”
“Working out’s the only way to get through the days sometimes,” Mars reasoned, understanding in his tone. They’d all served at one point or another. It was almost an initiation rite. “Club first?” he continued, leaning against his hog with an ease that spoke of a longstanding comfort with the bike.
Considering it was a classic and worth a fortune, that ease could only come from someone who loved it for the joy of the ride rather than the prestige of the brand.
Mundo expected nothing less, as he loved his bike as damn much, and he knew Kiko felt the same way. All the brothers did. Their bikes were like family, and he knew that sounded like some crazy shit, but he'd missed the beauty of the ride as much as he'd missed being able to shift.
A shudder of longing raced through him. He needed to ride his woman and ride his hog.
Hell, he could think of nothing better than sharing his bike with her. His mate.
Kiko frowned at him a second, maybe spotting the need on Mundo’s face. “Everything okay, bro?” he asked warily.
Mundo rippled his shoulders. “Just ready to get out of here.”
Mars studied him closely, apparently seeing what Kiko had. “More than that,” he retorted. “What’s up?”
Both men were short on words, but Mars had gotten a little better since he’d found his mate four months ago. Annette had softened up the brick shithouse in some ways, but none that any of his brothers would ever see.
Sure, there were times you’d catch him cuddling up to his mate in their office, or she’d sit snuggled on his lap while they were at a gathering, but Mars would still beat the crap out of a brother if anyone looked at him in anyway askance.
That was how Mundo figured it should be, though. He knew he’d be the same once he got his hands on Christie.
Christie.
Just her name made him swallow back the need to growl. His bear wanted her. He wanted her. Shit, that burger was sounding less and less delicious by the minute in comparison to taking a big, juicy bite out of her.
Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2) Page 57
