by Megan Morgan
She shook her head. “I value my internal organs.”
The three laughed. Jack grabbed the jar from Deacon and held it out to her. “Just give it a whiff.”
She stepped forward and took a tentative sniff, and grimaced. Like huffing gasoline. It probably tasted the same. They laughed again as she stepped back. Jack handed the jar to Deacon.
“So how are you all related?” she asked. “You all have the same grandparents, right?”
Jack nodded. “They’re our parent’s parents. My Daddy, Deacon’s Daddy, and Zeke’s Mama.”
“We grew up pretty much as brothers,” Zeke said. “Me and Jack both got a sister too, and Deacon has two brothers.”
“They don’t live here though,” Deacon said. He took a sniff from the jar and winced. “One lives in Nashville, the other in South Carolina.”
“My sister lives in Harlan,” Zeke said.
“And mine’s standing over by the fire.” Jack pointed.
Everyone laughed, except Deacon. He studied the jar.
“You gotta try just a little of this,” he said to her. “Since you’re here. You can’t visit Appalachia and not ride the lightning at least once.”
“It seems dangerous.”
“It’s only dangerous if you drink too much,” Jack said. “My Daddy’s careful. He don’t use no radiator and he gets rid of the foreshot. Ain’t no one gone blind from his shine.”
She had no idea what he just said, and it didn’t comfort her.
Deacon capped the jar and walked over to her. He shook the jar, and held it up. The firelight shone through it.
“See the big bubbles?” He tapped the glass. “That means it’s nice and strong.”
“Great.” She took a sip of her beer. “Go big or go home, right?”
“I’ll just give you a thimbleful. We ain’t trying to kill you.”
Apparently they were trying to kill her, though. They passed her a tiny bit in a little plastic shot cup and after a deep, bracing breath, she threw it back. Surprisingly, it had a vaguely sweet flavor, and a smoky aftertaste, like good scotch. But it coated her tongue and throat with liquid fire and made her lips and face go numb after a few seconds. She boggled as all three of them did a full shot each.
“Does being Lycan give you a higher tolerance to alcohol?” She was already buzzed.
Deacon grinned. “Nah, that’s just a Kentucky thing.”
After that, she took it easy. She sipped her beer, as well as water from a bottle Jack kindly provided her.
Zeke introduced her to his pretty wife and his two daughters, blond, bouncy girls both under the age of ten. They ran and skipped around the fire.
She also met Jack’s wife Melanie, who joined them for a short time. In contrast, she was a plain, mousey woman. She kept to herself, even when Jack tried to engage her in conversation, and she seemed painfully shy. Lorena marveled at her. What was a boisterous man like Jack doing with such a frumpy, awkward thing?
As the night wore on the effects of the moonshine faded somewhat, but the party got rowdier and the people around her drunker. Then the second stereotypical, but charming, aspect of the night unfolded.
They needed some music and people had instruments, Deacon among them.
He retrieved a fiddle case from the barn. Of course he called it a “fiddle” and not a “violin,” though they were the same thing. This made her giggle in her semi-drunk state.
She sat in a lawn chair while Deacon sat on a stack of crates, doing something with the instrument across his lap. Messing with the strings—tightening them, tuning them? She didn’t know a thing about music.
He glanced up at her. “What are you laughing about?”
She giggled more. She still had a half-full beer in her hand. Maybe she needed to put it down. “I should have expected this too, like the moonshine. We’re about to have a hoedown.” She burst into laughter.
“I think we shouldn’t have given you that shot.”
“Probably not. Holden is going to be quite vexed at me.”
“He don’t seem like he has much fun anyway.”
“I don’t think he actually believes fun exists. He needs to capture a specimen and study it.”
The other musicians joined Deacon, including Jack, who had a banjo. Once they began playing the mood of the party livened further: things became raucous, loud, and people started dancing.
She remained in her chair and clapped along, since she would make an ass of herself if she tried to dance. The last time she danced was at her supervisor’s wedding and that proved a complete failure on her part.
Deacon fascinated her. Maybe the booze muddled her brain, or maybe her barely-repressed lust had taken over. His hand moved the bow with ease and swiftness, the other delicately cradling the neck of the instrument. The fiddle looked tiny and fragile in his massive grip. Yet, despite his size, his grace across the strings was impeccable. He played like a professional, or at least, he did in her humble uneducated opinion.
He was so damn sexy she squirmed in her chair.
She tore her attention away from him and directed it to the dancers, to keep her mind from wandering to dirty things. People stomped in the bare dirt of the barnyard, whooping and hollering. Some obviously knew what they were doing, while others were just having a good time. Zeke’s kids ran around and added to the cacophony. If any Wolvites were nearby, they’d surely be scared off.
After a few lively songs, the musicians slowed down. A slow, glistening tune started up and a few people paired off to slow dance. Deacon handed his fiddle off to one of the dancers.
He walked over to her chair and she widened her eyes.
“Feel like dancing?” He held out a hand, the one that had so delicately held the fiddle neck a moment before.
Her cheeks warmed. “I don’t really know how to dance. I’m terrible at it.”
“Aw, come on. I’ll lead. It’s easier than you think.”
Her blush deepened as she placed her beer next to her chair and stood. Her ill-fated assigned dance partner at the wedding must have hated her, as she kept stepping on his toes. The sheer awkwardness of it—she didn’t even know his name—nearly killed them both.
Deacon took her by the hand and led her out into the dirt circle, in front of the musicians. Despite being loose from the booze, she tensed. He positioned her hands on his shoulders. Standing right in front of him, so close, his wide frame and lofty stature intimidated her. He smelled like whiskey, sweat, and the fire.
“Just move one foot at a time.” He rested his hands on her waist and his fingers nearly met in the middle of her lower back. “I’ll lead.”
She struggled to follow, and spent the first few steps staring at her feet, until she actually achieved some rhythm. He smiled, the firelight in his eyes. She focused her attention on his hands that rested comfortably above her hipbones.
She felt even drunker now, but on something more powerful and wicked than the moonshine.
“So,” she said. Her feet moved easily now. “I hear you won some money tonight.”
He furrowed his brow. His grip on her waist remained light, yet promising, and kept her from the indignation she struggled to feel.
“I don’t follow.”
“You made a bet you could get me here?”
His confounded expression morphed into one of incredulity, then dismay. He slowed his steps, and she mis-stepped, and nearly got his toes. Not that it mattered, as he had huge clunky work boots on.
“Damn it all, Zeke.” He shifted his jaw. “I know it had to be him that told you. He can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life.”
“So this was all a bet?”
They stopped dancing. He took one hand off her waist, but left the other. The weight of it reassured her. She wasn’t as mad at him as she should have been, or wanted to be.
“It ain’t like that. The three of us—hell, we bet each other on everything. We bet each other on which way the wind is gonna blow, or if it’s gonna rain. We
got so much of each other’s money, I reckon we just been passing the same dollars back and forth for a decade.”
A smile quirked the corners of her mouth and betrayed how offended she wasn’t.
“It ain’t…” He stumbled on his words, oddly sweet since his tongue unraveled so easily any other time. “I swan, I do like you, I ain’t making that up. I didn’t ask you here just to make some money.”
She smiled wider and let him keep talking.
“I think you’re smart, and interesting, and pretty, too. But I actually want to get to know you. This ain’t just me chasing some tail, though I reckon I’ve been accused of that in the past, and rightly so.”
She slipped her hand over his on her waist. “Zeke also told me you’re terrible with women. That’s why they bet you.”
His firelight-filled eyes turned stormy. He scowled. “Zeke really does talk too much.”
She laughed. She stepped in and placed a hand on his chest, on his soft plaid shirt.
“I don’t believe him, though.” She lowered her voice. “I can’t see how someone as charming and handsome as you, who’s also a musician, could do bad with women.”
A smirk turned up one corner of his mouth.
“I’m glad someone has faith in me.” He dropped his voice as well. “I’m real sorry about this. I wasn’t betting on you like a racehorse or something. It was just us being our usual fool selves.”
“I forgive you.” She curled her fingers in his shirt.
The musicians still played and Jack, sitting on a crate with his banjo, watched her and Deacon.
“Guess we better finish this dance.” She drew her hand away.
He placed his other hand back on her waist. His grip tightened and he drew her closer. He didn’t start up the steps again, though. Her breath caught, her body light and tingly.
“I gotta go fetch something from my truck,” he said. “You wanna come with me?”
She nodded before she even consciously made the decision. Perhaps she’d made it already, when he first picked up that fiddle, or handed her the shot of moonshine. Perhaps she’d made it on the ride there, or the first time she met him, when he projected an assuredness she had rarely, if ever, seen from a man.
They left the barnyard, walking away from the music and firelight. He took her hand as they crossed the grassy field to where the vehicles were parked. If anyone watched them go, she didn’t notice. She was giddy and anxious.
No one else was out by the cars, and he’d parked his truck away from the others, farthest from the barn, out where the night cloaked them. Maybe he’d done it on purpose.
He pressed her against the cold metal of the truck and the warm solid mass of his body covered hers.
His kiss left her breathless. It was firm and hungry as he fed on her mouth. His facial hair bristled against her chin and tickled her nose. He explored her body with his big, powerful hands. His touch made her feel tiny and acutely feminine.
She caressed the stone hardness of his muscles in return, the broad girth of his shoulders, and his thick biceps and bare forearms below his rolled-up shirt sleeves. He pinned her against the truck with his hips, and the power he exuded made her shudder.
He stopped kissing and nuzzled her neck, his wet lips dragging across her skin. He sniffed her and breathed in where her hair met her neck. The need that had started to burn low in her belly intensified. His actions were primal and feral. She dug her fingers into the short, soft strands of his hair and gripped it tight. The scent of the fire clung to his clothes, the faint acrid tang of moonshine on his breath.
He pulled away a little. “C’mere.” It was more like an animal’s growl than the voice of a man.
He opened the passenger side door of the truck. The interior light popped on, dull and white against the darkness.
He maneuvered her to the door and lifted her up on the seat, so her legs dangled out of the truck. He stepped up on the running board and reached around her, and flicked off the dome light.
“Give us some privacy,” he said as he drew back. “So we don’t attract no nosy attention.”
Some rational part of her still tried to reason that fraternizing with him was unprofessional, even as she didn’t stop him from undoing her button and zipper. Lust had caught her in an inescapable net.
Yet, beyond the professional part, maybe they also shouldn’t do it right there, in the truck, at the party. Did he have condoms? She didn’t. However, full-on sex wasn’t his intent. He made this clear as he hauled her jeans and panties down over her hips and dropped to his knees on the running board.
She fell back on the seat, onto her elbows, and took inventory of herself: hanging half out of his truck, her pants and underwear around her ankles. Shameless. He made a low sound, a lusty growl, and she couldn’t spread her legs fast enough—as much as they would spread, anyway.
“Damn, you smell good.” His voice was a rumble. His beard brushed across her inner thigh, smooth and prickly at the same time.
“Do I?” Her words were a gasp.
“I always love the way a woman smells, but you smell different. Better. Best damn thing I ever smelled.”
She would have thanked him for the compliment, but he dove in and she couldn’t remember her own name let alone how to express gratitude.
His tongue, hot and soft, lapped at her with both precision and eagerness, as desperate and animal as his kiss. He grabbed her hips. She whimpered and tightened her thighs around his head, and sprawled back on the seat. She quickly became soaked, both from his mouth and with her own juices.
His satisfied growls vibrated through her. She clutched at the seat and jerked her hips up to the touch of his tongue. He pushed his fingers in, and filled the ache deep inside her. Little lights danced before her eyes, the music floating across the distance.
The way he fingered her, slow and deep, and the way he used his tongue on her, quick and insistent, gave her no choice but to succumb to his desire. He wanted to get her off. This wasn’t some precursor to his own pleasure, not some warm up before he stuck it in her. He wanted her to come for him.
And, she was helpless to do anything but obey as he pushed her to the edge, and over it.
She came hard, with two of his thick fingers buried inside her and his tongue flicking against her. A ragged cry escaped her. She shuddered against the seat and flooded into his mouth.
“Oh, God,” she gasped. “Oh, Deacon…”
He had the audacity to snicker, all smug and self-satisfied, still lapping at her.
Her vision swam. Her body buzzed. He continued licking and made contented sounds, like a happy puppy.
Then, something else growled, dangerously close by.
She reacted physically before her sex-saturated brain registered the threat. She snapped up into a sitting position and reached down. She had to stretch, because the waist of her pants was around her calves. The gun slid out quick though, and she aimed at the hunched shape a few feet behind Deacon.
Deacon had reflexive gun sense. He shrunk down, head still between her thighs, and clapped his hands over his ears. She pulled the trigger. The bang and flash filled the cab and made her wince, setting her own ears to ringing.
Despite her recent state, her hand proved steady and her aim true. A high pained yelp went up, and the dark shape reeled away. Deacon jerked up, leapt over her while she still had her sight on the beast, and grabbed a shotgun from the rack above her head.
The Wolvite trundled across the field, toward the trees. Deacon hurried around the front of the truck and took another shot. The shape crumpled to the ground.
The music had stopped. People were shouting. Quickly, she slid out of the truck and yanked her panties and jeans up. Her crotch was sopping wet, her back sweaty, and her face burned.
“Deacon!” Jack ran toward them through the cars. “Lorena! You okay out there?”
“We’re all right!” Deacon yelled back. A grin spread across his face. His beard glistened with her juices. “Da
mn, I’m sorry. If I didn’t have a nose full of you I would have smelled it coming.”
“Wipe your face. They’re all gonna be out here in a second.” She struggled not to look flustered.
He wiped his chin with the palm of his hand. “You’re as good a shot as you said. I’m pretty sure I just came in my pants. Or, maybe that wasn’t the shot.” He grinned wider.
The others closed in on the truck. “Jesus, I’m glad one of us was paying attention.”
Chapter 5
Deacon spent the night torn between guilt he’d let his guard down and nearly allowed a tragic situation to unfold, and a haze of lust with Lorena’s taste still on his tongue and her smell in his nostrils. Sleep didn’t come easy and didn’t last long.
He’d wooed a few women in his time, despite his cousin’s teasing to the contrary, but none of them affected him the way Lorena did. He couldn’t explain it. Most women smelled good, especially while getting frisky, but something about her scent drove him crazy. She clouded his head and made his senses sharper at the same time. Her taste was sweet, like honey and sunshine, but dark too, like a deep mystery. He abandoned all sense when he kissed her. He was lost as soon as he buried his head between her silky thighs.
Yet, his distraction resulted in a Wolvite sneaking up on them. He could have gotten her killed.
Damn if she couldn’t shoot the way she said she could though, and damn if it didn’t make her even more appealing. He thought about it as he lay in bed and burned with unquenched desire, and she was all he dreamed about when he finally did close his eyes.
In the morning, he and Jack drove out to the Thomas place, to pick up Lorena and Holden and show them where the Wolvites hunkered down out in the holler. Zeke had to work and couldn’t join them. Just as well, because Deacon didn’t need him running his mouth about last night.
“Maybe they got a point,” Deacon said as he drove the dirt road out to the farm. “Maybe we ought to start being more careful after dark. Zeke’s kids were out there last night. What if that thing had come up on the party?”
