Jack wasn’t quite sure what Madi’s Breed form actually was, but she was thinking Naga—the snake people. There was something deeply hypnotic yet also friggin’ scary about the brunette that made Jackson glad that, for whatever reason, Madison had decided to like her instead of view her as lunch.
Madison shook her head, wearing the look of a woman about to impart some truth. “You’re not from around here, Jackson, so here’s a little word of advice from one woman to another. All three brothers are trouble with a capital T.”
Leaning in to whisper, Jack asked, “August has brothers?”
“Mmhmm.” Madi licked her front teeth, the gesture almost angry and defiant at the same time. “All of ‘em bastards.”
There was definitely a story there. And Jackson would be a liar if she said she wasn’t intensely curious about it.
“Do what your kind does best, siren. Love ‘em and leave ‘em because if you don’t, he will.”
“How did you—”
Rolling her eyes, Madison looked more annoyed than angry. “Wasn’t hard to figure out what with how you get the men and women panting over you like sex-starved teens with their first fucking hard-ons. Hell, tap Blue if you’ve got an itch. He’s good for a fun time, no strings attached. But stay away from August. He’ll just burn you. It’s what those assholes do.”
Jackson had never really been good at thinking before she spoke. “Why? Did he do that to you?” It would make sense. Madison was hot. August was...
Her heart flipped thinking about those two together. It wasn’t hard to imagine. Like attracted like, and beautiful people usually wound up finding their way to each other—Breed, human, or otherwise.
A little burn of jealousy inched up her throat, and it was all she could do not to growl about it. If August and Madison had dated, it would have been long before Jackson had arrived at this Podunk place. It was also none of her business.
Sirens never got attached to lovers... or even potential lovers. It wasn’t in their DNA. Madison was right. Sirens really were the love ‘em and leave ‘em types. Except for most sirens, that generally meant a swift death for their partners once the fun was over.
Jackson, on the other hand, was broken. She was considered an outcast among her peers because she’d never been like the rest of them.
Madison’s nostrils flared, and this time, Jackson could have sworn she’d seen a lick of flame burn through her irises before she said, “Not him. Phoenix. But those Hawthornes are all the fucking same, believe me.”
It sucked, but a thread of relief wormed through Jackson at the realization that Madison hadn’t been talking about August. Jackson barely knew him. She shouldn’t want him the way she did.
But she did.
Dammit, she really did. And that was bad.
“If they’re so bad, why are you still working here?” She couldn’t help but ask.
Madison’s laughter was caustic. “Not like there are a whole lot of opportunities for work out here in the middle of effing nowhere. I like you, kid.”
Madison looked a good five years younger than Jackson, but there was something about her that made her presence feel far more ancient.
“Be smart. Grab Blue and screw August out of your system before it’s too late for you too.”
She shook her head. “I’m not into August”—that’s a lie—“and besides, I doubt he’s into—”
Again, Madison scoffed, and she definitely seemed irritated. “Think whatever you want to think, but it’s obvious to all of us.”
Jackson glowered, upset because she hadn’t asked for Madison’s advice.
“You just keep lying to yourself, pretty siren. Live in denial. Just don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. In eleven months, him and his good-for-nothing asshole brothers do their mating ritual. You know what that means... it means we’re out of the running. It means they don’t tie their hearts to anyone or anything. It means the second they start to think things are getting too serious, they bounce the hell out of there. They. Don’t. Give. A. Shit. Okay?”
Madison’s breathing had grown erratic and upset, and finally, Jackson got it. Phoenix had burned her.
She wanted to remind Madison that most Breed went through that ritual eventually— even Madison most likely would—but this was so not the time.
Laying a hand on Madi’s shoulder, she squeezed softly, pumping just a little of her magick into her friend. True, she’d basically shot her up with a boost of lust, but lust was preferable to feeling pumped full of rage and hurt.
Madison’s reptilian irises were flared, and her breathing had grown erratic. She stared down at Jackson’s hand and shuddered. Her pretty face was a tightly controlled mask of emotion.
“Thank you,” she gritted out, then deliberately, but slowly, eased away from Jackson. Taking a much calmer breath, she nodded. “Maybe I need to follow my own advice.”
“I’m not into August, Madison. I just think—”
Shaking her head, the sexy Breed mumbled softly, “I used to say the same thing, Jackson. If you give them a toehold into your soul, believe me when I say, they’ll crush it and leave you worse for it in the end.”
Madison brushed past her and was almost to the door when Jackson quietly asked, “Madi, what are you?”
It was considered bad form to ask Breed what they were. It was like a human asking another, “are you gay?” For some Breed, keeping their identity close to the vest was the safest way to survive. Especially if a Breed was prey, and everyone around them was predator. But there was nothing prey about the fiery brunette.
Turning her head so Jackson could only see her face in profile, the pretty woman smiled and said, “I’m dragon borne, little siren. Wanna play?”
Jackson froze, her stomach going cold when she realized that not only was Madison a predator, but she was one of the most badass ones around. What the hell had Phoenix been thinking when he’d decided to make her his enemy?
Swallowing hard, she said nothing. Madison only snickered nastily, shoved open the door, and left. The chilling echo of her laughter turned Jackson’s blood to ice.
She took many deep breaths then supposed she’d kept Blue waiting long enough for his beer. With an angry growl, she swiped a bottle out of the milk crate. Shoving it against her wrist, she twisted quickly, forcing the cap off almost like magick.
“You’re an idiot, Jackson,” she muttered lowly. She shoved the door open, only to bounce off a hard-as-steel chest. Her heart slammed violently against her ribcage, knowing without even looking up who she’d just bumped into.
August’s hands gripped her biceps as he held her steady. His skin was so damn hot that it made her cold flesh prickle with heat. His palms were callused and rough. An image exploded in her head of that hand dipping lower and lower down her body until it reached the soaking wet apex of her thighs and rubbed her to orgasm.
He sucked in a sharp breath, sharing her vision. But unlike times past when he yanked his hands away, he kept his hands where they were. His voice was rough as he said, “Blue’s waiting, Jack.”
She hated his nickname for her, but only because she loved the way he made it sound—like a curse and a prayer at the same time.
His hot hands were still on her, and his thumbs lazily traced circles. “No sleeves?”
She didn’t ask him to explain what he meant. She knew what he was referring to. She’d tried covering up the first few nights but found the limitations to her powers restrictive and unnatural. It was the touching of her skin that caused her powers to truly manifest.
He knew that very well as he had yet to let her go. The way she figured, he had asked for this by doing what he’d just done. She wasn’t in any rush to back up either. She would be a liar if she said that her skin didn’t tingle with a rush of blood and want. For the past few weeks, the only way she’d managed to get herself to sleep every night was by imagining it was August’s hand between her thighs each night and not her own.
What kind of a freaking
siren was she that she’d rather masturbate than go seek actual, living, breathing company each night? A stupid one, that’s what.
Normally, Jackson had no problem taking the lead with sexual foreplay unless her heart was wrapped up in it too. She barely knew August, but she was growing obsessed with him.
Leaning just slightly closer, she took a greedy gulp of his scent, letting it saturate her senses. His irises widened, and he wet his lips. A low, humming sound vibrated between them, and she had no idea if that sound was hers, his, or theirs.
The world had ceased to exist outside of that moment. No music filtered in from the bar. No chatter of Breed sounded outside the doors.
She wet her lips, her fingers tingling to reach up and trace the bottom line of his mouth.
A hard grunt followed by a curse dropped from his tongue, and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he peeled one finger off of her at a time until finally he had released her and stepped back.
“I’m no good for you, Jack.” His words dripped with gravel.
Angry at him for even assuming that she wanted him—even though she did, but that was none of his damned business—she snapped, “Good thing I already had plans for tonight then.”
She didn’t. She so didn’t.
His nostrils flared, and a light that looked an awful lot like fury burned through his intense blue eyes. His luscious lips tipped up at the corners, and he held out an arm. “Then by all means, go on about your business.”
Angry at him, and not even sure why, she turned up her nose and sauntered past. “No good, rotten, ass—”
Before she could even blink, he yanked her around by her elbow, causing her to drop the bottle of beer, and slammed her up against the wall, molding his body to hers as he came in for the kill. His lips stole hers. There was no wooing and no pretty words. He was fucking her mouth with his, and she loved it.
His tongue dove in, acting like it belonged inside of her. And dammit, she let him. Because she wanted it there. She was a siren about to explode from want, for release from this nagging, raging itch he’d started in her a month ago.
Jackson wasn’t soft or delicate. She consumed him, dragging her fingers along his scalp and digging in hard enough to make him hiss and squirm.
Something hard and long poked into her upper thigh, and she didn’t have to glance down to know he had a raging hard-on. Angry at him for making her want this, she fisted his shirt, holding him hostage as she plundered his mouth over and over again. Her teeth joined in the action as she sucked and nibbled on his tongue, consuming him.
He growled, and her head swam with dizzy thoughts of sex and moans and skin on skin.
“No.” He tore his mouth away and slammed his hands on the wall behind her, caging her in. “No. We can’t do this.”
Wiping at her swollen lips, she knew she looked as if she’d just been screwed good, but she was too angry to care. “I never asked you to,” she snapped, angry at him, at herself, at the whole effing world.
August wasn’t traditionally gorgeous. But there was something primal, raw, and rugged about him that appealed to her on a base level. Something primitive inside of her recognized the primitive inside of him.
He looked like a barely leashed animal ready to tear her head off. It was sick, but she wanted it. She loved his fire and his danger. She had always been a sucker for the bad boy, and no matter what had happened to her in Angoon, nothing had changed.
Jaw clenching tightly, he gritted out. “Not Blue.”
What? More confused than anything, she shook her head. The bluster died inside of her instantly. “Excuse me?”
“Anyone else but Blue.”
When it dawned on her what he was saying, what he meant, she couldn’t help herself. She slapped him.
He growled as his cheek glowed a bright cherry red. His look was wild, but his body was absolutely still. August looked as though he wanted to explode, to shift into his grizzly and tear her head from her neck.
“You don’t get to do that, August. You either want me, or you let me go and let me choose. And if it’s Blue, it’s Blue. You got me?” she hissed, breathing in raggedly, hating that she probably wouldn’t hear what she really wanted to hear from him. But she was masochistic enough to wait and hope.
“I can’t,” he whispered hoarsely.
It was as if someone had reached a fist into her body and twisted her gut in his hand, pulverizing it to bloody ash.
So when he reached out for her, she flinched, ready to open her mouth and shove all her siren venom down his throat.
But he surprised her. Instead, he took a lock of hair that had slipped over her shoulder and rubbed it gently between his thumb and forefinger. His movements were completely at odds with the fire that still burned through his gaze. “Jack, what are you doing to me?”
That peek of broken honesty finally caused her to listen to her instincts and run. From him. From the want. But most especially, from the memories of a man she had found and lost long ago.
Chapter 3
August
At well past three in the morning, the last barfly of the night finally straggled out of the Yard with a drunken, “gonna go get me sum” in his wake.
Shaking his head, August glanced over at Madison and Jack who were wiping down tables and setting up chairs so they could sweep, mop, and go home themselves.
It was a Friday night, and the haul had been good, the bar busy.
Madison lifted a brow. Without missing a beat, she continued her nightly cleanup and asked, “What’s up, boss?”
Lately, the she-dragon had displayed a bit of an edge. He knew why even though he tried like hell to pretend he didn’t.
Phoenix should have never gone there. He’d warned his brothers often enough to never mess with a dragon. They were far more territorial than any other Breed alive. But Phoenix just couldn’t resist sticking his cock in things that came wrapped up in a sexy package like Madi.
“Go home,” he said, weary and bleary-eyed. It had been a long-ass night. For the past three months, he hadn’t managed more than three or four hours of sleep a night max.
His body was readying itself for the mating ritual that was just around the corner.
It might be winter, but spring wasn’t far away. August keenly felt the lapsing of time like a fist to the gut.
“I still have shit to do,” Madi snapped then sharply slammed the seats upside down on the table, causing the sturdy steel base to wiggle from the impact.
Flicking a glance at Jackson, August was at a loss. After that stupid encounter with her in the freezer two months prior, he’d forced himself to cool things down to nil. He treated her no differently than anyone else.
That wasn’t really true. He was probably a little harder on her, a little more demanding with her.
“Jack can do it,” he said, not looking at her, pretending as if he didn’t feel her heated gaze slice right through him.
She was pissed, no doubt.
Earlier in the evening, he’d overheard Blue bragging to his buddy that he had a hot date with a hot piece of tail. It made no damned difference to August what Jack did on her time off, but she was still on the clock. If she wanted her paycheck. She would do as he said.
Clenching his teeth, he ignored that small voice in the back of his head that called him a damned liar. Of all the companions she could have chosen, why Blue, the town slut?
Blue would use her and leave her and—
Realizing what he was thinking, he shook his head. None of his business. That’s what she was. None of his damned business. He’d made that clear to her. There was no one else to blame for this mess but him.
Jackson tossed down her rag, and he was finally forced to look up at her. What he saw made his heart beat jaggedly in his chest.
Gods, she was gorgeous.
She only seemed to get better looking each day. Those luscious lips of hers—that he could never forget the taste and texture of even though he’d only sampled them once—were se
t in a flat scowl of disgust.
“I have plans, August,” Jackson said. “You can’t—”
He pulled all the money out of the till and slammed it shut. Snatching up the bank bag, he growled, “I can. And I have. Do as I said, Madison. Go home.”
Madison’s eyes grew to the size of saucers. Her neck rotated from him to Jack and back again as though unsure of what to do. But finally, she shook her head and mumbled, “Whatever. Sorry, Jack.”
Jackson was visibly seething as she took over where Madison left off.
In looks, the two women bore striking similarities, close enough that they could almost be sisters. They both had dark brown hair and light-colored eyes. They were even close to the same height, roughly five-nine or five-ten, with Jack being a little on the shorter side, but not by much.
They were big-breasted, long-legged, and sexy as hell. Clearly, he and his brother had a type.
Phoenix, being the oldest of the three, had given them all advice when the New Year had rolled around. Sex it up. Whore it up. But stay far away from anything that could entangle their hearts.
Chance had no problem keeping to that rule. The youngest Hawthorne was a proud man-whore. And while Phoenix had an eye for the ladies, he’d always been one who didn’t jump into anything quickly. One-night stands weren’t something he was comfortable with.
August was closer to Phoenix in his leanings, but where Phoenix would occasionally indulge when the need grew too strong, August had pretty much sworn off women.
It hadn’t even fazed him until Jack had walked into his bar, looking for a job.
Turning, he walked back to his office, blowing out a heavy breath as his overly sensitive nose caught the scent of Jack’s perfume. Cool and sweet, it almost reminded him of her waters.
“Damn it,” he bit out, wondering if he might finally be forced to break his fast and ask Chance if he knew of anyone looking for a good time with no strings attached.
The heavy stomping off Jack’s feet as she came after him pulled a smile to his lips. She might be a breath of fresh air, and while her temper was nothing compared to a dragon’s, she was a feisty siren all the same.
August: Mating Fever (Bears of Kodiak Book 2) Page 2
