“Jack,” he said coolly, in no way hinting at the inner turmoil he suffered, knowing they were completely alone for the first time since their encounter in the freezer.
She laid a hand on his shoulder and tugged on his shirt until he was forced to either turn around or let her tear it. The thing was as ratty as hell, but it was his favorite ratty-as-hell shirt, so yeah...
Sighing, he turned.
She was dressed in another one of her skimpy tops, just an a-shirt with the white-stenciled Junk Yard logo on it. Her long, sexy legs were wrapped up in skintight blue jeans that looked practically painted on. Her hair was long and loose. Normally, she wore it up. Even more rare, she wore makeup. The smoky eye shadow made her clear blue eyes pop electric, and her red lips had him instantly hard.
He shifted on the balls of his feet, lifting an irritated brow, not at her, but himself. Just looking at her turned him into a prepubescent cub.
“Why’d you send Madison home like that? You know I have a—”
Cutting her off before she could say anything else about Blue and his fat, ugly face—neither of which was technically true, but whatever—he held up his hand. “I sent her home because Phoenix and Chance are dropping by in about ten minutes.”
Immediately, he saw the fire in her eyes fizzle out. Her stiffened shoulders slouched, and she covered her eyes with her hand. “Sorry,” she mumbled—more like gritted, really. “I thought you were just being a douche again.”
He supposed he deserved that. August wasn’t really sure how to fix the mess he’d created.
Jack hadn’t expected anything out of him after that kiss, other than for him to not act like a giant D-bag. He’d gone out of his way to either ignore her or treat her with indifference when he did actually decide to acknowledge her.
If he told her the real reason behind why he was treating her the way he was, he doubted she would care at that point. He’d done a damned fine job of burning that bridge.
It was late. He’d had a beer, and his guard was down. For months, he’d seen her flirt and tease everyone in that bar, charming the pants off of everything she met because that’s just who Jack was.
And every day, he kept swearing that finally he would shake whatever the hell compulsion she had on him. But he was a liar, and he knew it.
Sirens could affect people without touching them, but a person could feel the grip of their magick when they did it.
That didn’t mean the victims were unaware of the compulsion. She had played by his rules, turning on the charm only when she sang in front of a crowd, but her magick hadn’t been dark or deadly.
She’d done everything he’d asked of her without complaint.
Swallowing hard and knowing he would damn himself in the morning for what he was about to do, he curled his fingers around her trim biceps and held on for dear life.
Save me, Jack...
For the first time in ever, he damned the necessity of an arcane ritual that was screwing up his life. He knew he had to do it, knew there was no way around doing it. Always a company man, August had taken life at point blank. Things were as they were, and that was that. If you couldn’t escape your fate, then you just embraced it and moved on.
But now he found himself cursing the necessity of it, loathing the very idea of it. He was being forced to love another, not because his heart wanted to, but because instinct told him to. What kind of shit was that?
She gasped, going absolutely still, the way prey would right before being consumed.
But she was no prey. Jackson had the power to bring even a mighty dragon like Madison to her knees if she really wanted to.
“What are you doing, August?” Her words were a scratchy burr that made him weak in the knees.
He sucked in a sharp breath at the sound of her voice, hearing the telltale shiver of magick behind it. That quiver in her voice told him one thing—she wasn’t as unaffected by him as she tried so hard to make him believe.
He’d screwed up royally. He knew that. But he also knew there was still a chance for him if he was willing to take it. Stepping completely into her bubble of space, he shook his head, a silent recrimination for what he was about to do.
The fire had been a slow burn between them for months. Stolen looks. A touch of a hand here or there. Even when they fought, the energy of what was happening between them grew.
Inhaling sharply, she was the one to make the first move. Moving her hand, she fisted his shirt and shoved him hard against the wall. Her face hovered mere inches from his. She shared his breath, and his skin danced with power.
“You play with fire, August,” she hissed.
Nodding, he said nothing. What was there to say? She was right. Reaching up, he tugged at one of the loose curls of her hair, wrapping his finger around it and jerking just enough to make her exhale sharply. She pressed her breasts flat against his chest as she moved deeper into the curve of his body.
The juncture of their thighs touched, and he knew she felt him when her eyes widened.
They hadn’t even really touched, but already he was on fire. His stomach churned with need, and his cock ached. All he would have to do was rub against her a few times. That friction alone would be enough to make him shoot off in his pants.
But she deserved so much better than that, than this, than him. In a few months, he wouldn’t care about her. He would forget everything about her, about the way he felt at that moment. She would cease to matter to him. He would have no choice, and neither would she.
He wasn’t being fair to her.
“No!” she snapped, shoving her fists into his chest as though she’d read his thoughts. “You don’t get to decide my life for me, you stupid, pig-headed grizzly.”
Without further warning, she swooped in, taking command of the situation as she kissed him. The kiss was as rough and violent as it had been the first time.
And he loved every damn minute of it. Angry and desperate, he reversed their position. He pushed her up against the wall, fucking not only her mouth with his own, but undulating his hips against hers, creating a friction of need between them.
Her gorgeous skin began to glow with siren magick, turning lambent shades of mother-of-pearl wherever the light struck it.
He was lost in her, in her taste, her touch, her tiny mewls of pleasure. Grizzlies were violent and rough, but she took it all with greedy need.
He felt the pump of her magick everywhere she touched him. Lusty images of them sprawled out naked flooded his head. He imagined her going down on him, him going down on her, and August couldn’t say the thoughts were because of her magick alone.
He’d wanted her for months. The magick between them came from both of them. The intense sexual energy robbed him of any and all reason but what they were doing right then.
Their teeth knocked in their need to get at each other. She tasted of fire and water, cold and hot, making him thirsty for more. Drawing her tongue into his mouth, he sucked on the tip of it. He squeezed his eyes shut as he drowned out the words of warning ringing through his head like bells.
Right now, he only wanted her. He needed to feel her touch.
Her hands slid down his hard abs then slipped beneath his waistline. She was taking the lead.
With a heady growl, he flicked her hands away and tore the button on his pants open. She was manic as she unzipped his jeans then reached between the slit of his boxers, pulling him out and holding him tightly.
“Shit.” He swore as she began to slowly pump him.
“Me too,” she whimpered.
He knew exactly what she was asking for. August wasn’t gentle. His own Breed magick was out of control. He was using far too much force but was unable to stop himself. He tore her jeans button off then ripped at the zipper, tearing that too.
“Yes,” she hissed when his fingers slid beneath her drenched panties, finding her clitoris in one bold stroke. “Oh gods,” she hissed as he continued to rub at the hardened nub with his thumb.
La
ying her head on his chest, she pumped her hips against his hand as he rubbed her.
Their ragged breathing was the only sound they heard in the absolute stillness that surrounded them.
She trembled in his arms, and her sex convulsed upon him as she orgasmed.
“Keep going,” she whispered when he started to pull back.
His thoughts were dizzy, and his cock was so damn hard that he knew he would soon lose what little control he had over himself.
Unable to keep from panting, he rubbed her harder and harder. She orgasmed one right on top of the other.
On her third orgasm, he finally let himself go. “I’m coming,” he hissed. “Fuck me.”
His knees buckled as she did something with her hand that made him feel as though he had not only ejaculated but had been forced to expel his very soul from the tip of his cock.
His whole body shook as he gave into the best orgasm of his life. It felt like forever before he could open his eyes again. When he did, he realized his head lay on her breasts, and she was gingerly running her fingers through his hair and whispering softly in his ear.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “You’ll be fine. Just come back to me, Auggie.”
A region in his heart trembled as she spoke to him. Moving his hands away from her thighs, he knew he should let her go. He should back off and apologize, but he was too weak to do anything but stay exactly where he was.
He’d never come like that in his life. He felt as if he hadn’t just orgasmed but balanced precariously between life and death.
She kissed his brow, and for just a moment, he smiled. He felt blissed out and more at peace than he had in his entire life. “What was that?” he finally managed to mumble after another minute.
Her laughter was infectious, causing his own lips to tip up at the corners.
She kissed his temple softly. “That’s what happens when you mate a siren.”
Then her hands were on the corners of his jaw. “Look at me, August. You don’t get to pretend that this isn’t happening this time, you hear me?”
He growled, not wanting to have this conversation right now. All he wanted was to stay lost in this moment, to forget about the damn mating ritual and the fact that Blue still waited for her, wherever the hell he was. He didn’t want to admit that he shouldn’t have done this or that his heart was way too wrapped up in her to be able to keep this casual or string-free.
But she was persistent. Her nail dug into the corner of his jaw, snapping his eyes open as a sharp, quick burst of pain brought him forcefully back to reality.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he felt the wetness of blood before he actually smelled it. The little minx had cut him. That act of passion had him smirking despite himself.
Her hands were back on his chest as though ready to push him away even as her fingers curled into his shirt to keep him close. “For months, I’ve felt your eyes on me. I know what you’re doing. The games you’re playing. Don’t forget who I am.”
“Then why have you let me?” he asked simply.
Her beautiful face was a mask of contemplation before she finally said, “Because I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and realize that I’m here.”
He shook his head. All the usual arguments were on the tip of his tongue and ready to roll off. He’d never had this talk with Jack, but he’d had it plenty with his brothers. They had discussed the reasons why they couldn’t allow their hearts to become engaged with anyone right before the ritual.
“I can’t. The ritual.”
“Bullshit,” she snapped back, pushing her hands deeper into his chest.
He lifted a brow. “Bullshit?” He scoffed. “Bullshit is you going out with that fairy. That’s what’s bullshit.”
Her laugh was incredulous. “I’m only going out with him because you’re too damned chicken to ask me, August. So just ask!”
His nostrils flared. He’d wanted her from the moment he’d met her. Not just her body, but everything.
After a moment of intense silence between them, she laughed. But the sound was anything but happy. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You think I don’t understand the Breed? You’re wrong. I know what’s going to happen to you in a few months. I also know that until it does, you’re free to do whatever the hell you want. I’m a siren, August. I’m not looking for roses or romance.”
Grasping onto those words like a lifeline, he snapped, “What are you looking for, then?”
Releasing him as though she’d just been burned, she flicked a glance at her hands and shook her head. Her fingers moved to her pants as though to fix herself, but then she frowned, realizing that he’d made fixing herself impossible. Her zipper was busted, and her button was gone.
Fluffing out her hair, she gave him her haughtiest look. “You know what, August? When you’re ready to grow up, then call me. Maybe I’ll listen. Until then, don’t you ever, ever do to me what you did tonight. Play games with me again, and I’ll turn into the siren I should be. You got me.”
Without saying another word, she turned on her heels and went back to the front of the bar, looking as regal as a queen.
It was everything he could do not to chase after her and demand she finish what she was getting at.
Did she just want a fling? A one-night stand? To scratch the intense itch between them? Even though it went against everything he was, he would do it. For her. It was fucked up for him to even think that, knowing that in a few months, she would be the only one left wanting what they both wanted right now.
He was trying to save her from worse. But he was pretty sure that tonight, he’d gone way over the line of no return.
Curling his hand into a fist and still smelling her all over him, he turned and walked back into his office. By the time he wrapped things up and walked back out to the front, she was long gone. Sitting at an empty table were his brothers.
Regret slammed into his chest like a boulder. He’d screwed up bad tonight.
Chance was slugging back a beer, and Phoenix was casting him knowing looks.
“Where’s Madi?” he asked without preamble.
Not in the mood for his brother’s shit tonight, August snatched up a tumbler and filled it half full of some good, peaty Scotch. Tipping his head back, he swallowed it in one gulp, breathing in the welcome heat of it as it washed down his throat. He immediately felt the effects of the liquor move through his bones and blood, easing the strain in his gut from Jack’s earlier look of fury.
She’d looked as though she’d wanted to coldcock him. He would have let her too. He knew he deserved it, hot and cold, always leading her on. He’d always sworn he wouldn’t be that kind of guy, but one slip of a siren had undone him completely. She’d turned him into a slobbering nut job who couldn’t seem to figure out whether he was coming or going with her.
“Sent her home,” he said, swaggering toward his brothers’ table before dropping into a seat, still hanging onto the bottle of Scotch. He’d given up on the tumbler at that point and was just tossing it back directly from the bottle.
It was a two hundred dollar bottle, and he was a fool to toss it back the way he was. He might as well have been burning money. But he didn’t really care.
All he could think about was Jack and Blue and that damned fairy hanging all over her, getting to watch her as she stripped, getting to touch her, taste her.
He growled. She was his, dammit. The thought ran like ice water through his veins and turned him cold. What the hell was he thinking? After the shit he’d pulled again tonight, she would never forgive him. That thought only pissed him off more.
Why the hell had he ever hired her?
“Who pissed in your bowl of Wheaties this morning?” Chance asked bluntly.
Rolling his gaze up to meet his brother’s laughing eyes, August swallowed the retort on his tongue.
Chance took after their mother in looks. Where August and Phoenix tended more toward the pale side, Chance looked much more Native American
with his dark burnished skin and clear amber eyes.
Growing up, August would have sworn that Chance couldn’t really be his brother. He and Phoenix tended to be more serious about life. Chance called it having sticks up their asses. More often than not, the tight asses were the ones constantly being forced to bail their idiot brother out of one scrap after another. As August saw it, Chance owed them both, and now was as good a time as any to pay up.
He needed to burn Jack out of his system, and there was only one way to do it.
“Call those women you’re always bragging about, Chance. Bring ’em here.”
Chapter 4
Jackson
Jackson found herself snuggled up on the couch next to Blue with his arm draped around her shoulders. Lit candles glowed on tabletops as they watched some romance movie. He’d obviously planned to seduce her.
“Netflix and chill” as young people called it.
She and Blue had been dating for four months. She’d tamed the bad boy... but the wrong one.
Even Madison had been impressed that Blue seemed to be toeing the line for her. He only occasionally flirted with other women. Their relationship wasn’t really all that serious though. They had an unspoken agreement between them that they could see other people as long as they let one another know in advance. As a siren, she had needs he couldn’t always meet.
It was fine. It was... whatever.
It was a way to pass the time, and that was basically it. They both knew it. Blue knew about August but didn’t seemed fazed by it, which let her know he was about as invested in their relationship as she was.
She’d done as Madison had suggested—she’d scratched an itch. But the itch had long since been scratched, and there was nothing really left to hold her there.
The excitement—what little there had been to begin with—had worn off. It wasn’t that Blue hadn’t been a good boyfriend. For a fae known to be as exclusive as a siren was, he’d been fantastic. He’d taken her on dates and bought her flowers whenever he was ready to get laid.
She also suspected that if she hinted at wanting more, he would possibly be willing to give it. He was an attentive lover, good enough to make her come a few times a night when she really needed that extra juice in her siren tank.
August: Mating Fever (Bears of Kodiak Book 2) Page 3
