by Thalia Eames
Daz deepened the kiss, his tongue flickered across the corner of her mouth before slipping between her lips to take over. As he molded her to him he moved his hands to her hips, guiding them in slow circles across his erection. Impatient, he broke the seal of their mouths, quickly nipping her chin when she protested. Then he nuzzled her nipples through her knit top and all protests ended.
She melted into him, her fingernails teasing through his beard, her mind blown by the livewire energy between them. It’d been years since she’d felt this kind of connection with a man. All the years of her life, to be honest.
His touch burned a fever through her. Wait. Touch. Physical contact hurt him. Jules jerked sideways, pulling herself out of his arms and rolling off his delicious body. Daz growled and reached for her. She rolled away again.
“Doesn’t this hurt you?” she asked. Her question slapped him out of his daze. Daz pulled up onto an elbow. His gaze lingered on her mouth when he said, “No, Blue, you don’t hurt me at all.” Noticing her puzzled look, he flopped onto his back and threw an arm over his eyes to block out the sun. “I don’t know how that’s possible. But you’re the only person I’ve been able to touch in five years.” He glanced at her with lust in his eyes and she nearly came from the intensity of his desire alone.
“Touching you is the opposite of pain. I’ll think about what that means later. But for now…” He rolled onto his side. His eyes smoldered as he held out a hand to her. “Come back to me,” he whispered, and she felt his magnetism as a caress down her spine.
Jules would’ve crawled back into Daz’s arms if Cash hadn’t run across the lawn and interrupted them. Cash looked at the semi-crumbled house, down at Daz, back to the house, and down at Daz again. Shaking his head, Cash pointed at Averdeen Manor and with only the slightest trace of his trademark humor said, “That demolished house, my brother, is your ass.”
Jules grinned. “Yeah, Lennox and Garrett are going to hurt you,” she told Daz.
“I’m all right with dying now,” Daz said, emphasizing the now in that sentence. As in now that he’d kissed her. Not to mention the way he said “all right”, turning the all into an ah sound. He made the simplest phrases sound delicious.
Jules blushed, which she never did. Nothing embarrassed her. She said what she thought, did whatever she wanted. Well, not everything she wanted, but she wasn’t shy and she didn’t hold back too often. Blushing didn’t make sense within the realm of her personality but Daz had an effect on her like no other.
Cash noticed her blush too. He looked her and his brother over, then sniffed the air. “Were you two going at it while the house caved in?”
He looked more baffled than angry. That had to be a good sign. Jules started to shake her head no but ended up nodding yes because she didn’t like lies. She preferred to give and take honesty.
“She kissed me,” Daz said, as a statement of fact. Apparently he felt the same way about the whole honesty thing as she did. His timing could’ve been better, though.
“You kissed him?” Cash didn’t sound like he believed it.
She started to shake her head no but ended up nodding again.
“But I warned you about his condition.” Understanding must’ve kicked in because Cash went from calm to loud. “And beyond that, I just broke up with you.”
Daz growled. “Hit pause.” His voice deepened and his irises expanded to nearly fill his eyes with glittering darkness. “You two were together?”
“No,” she said, afraid of losing out on Daz before she got to know him. The realization made her take a mental step back. She didn’t want a man like Daz. She wanted a man like Cash. Okay…that wasn’t entirely true. Although Cash was the perfect guy for her, she wanted a man like Daz. Even though a man like Daz had ruined her before. Daz represented danger and chaos and all the things that had messed up her life. But danger boys were her type. The very fact she’d gotten drawn into Daz this quickly,so much that it ached, signaled she needed to keep a certain distance between them. Maybe build a mental fortress around herself to cut off the magnetic bond that constantly tugged her toward him.
What the hell had she been thinking when she kissed Daz? Jules nearly hugged Cash to thank him for interrupting her and his brother. She needed to wake the hell up and recognize the threat.
“Not really,” Cash answered his brother, oblivious to the battle in Jules’s mind. “We never even kissed.”
The edgy growl remained embedded in Daz’s voice. “How does a man break up with a woman who isn’t his?” Jules let her gaze run over the tense lines of his body. He didn’t like the idea she’d dated his brother, or perhaps the confusion about her relationship with Cash bothered him. She hated that, but if he thought she and Cash used to have a thing it would make it easier for her to escape his pull on her.
Cash turned away, his limp suddenly more pronounced. He leaned forward and stroked the back of his head. “I don’t know, man.” He exhaled slowly. “Maybe because we both felt something between us. A bond that seemed like it could be more but—”
Daz interrupted his brother. “What kind of bond? Does it feel like you’re being pulled into her by gravity?”
His younger brother studied him for a moment. “What?” Cash asked. He gave Daz another once over, frowning. A second later, his eyes widened as though he’d realized something. Whatever it was it didn’t sit well with him, Cash’s shoulders slumped and he took a breath while rubbing his chin. “I don’t know.” He exhaled long and slow. “I can tell you it never went past friendship. But I guess it’s too late to do anything about that.”
The tension began to ease and Daz’s eyes went back to normal. He blinked, his expression transformed with concern as he watched his brother.
Cash continued, pacing between them and Averdeen Manor. “She never let me in. I couldn’t get past her wall of friendship. But you…” Cash stopped pacing and looked at the ruined house. An amused chuff escaped him before he mumbled, “It figures.”
Closing the gap between them, Daz asked, “What figures?”
“You. It’s what you do.” Cash nodded toward the wreckage. “You break things open. You tear down walls.”
Jules couldn’t take the implication behind Cash’s words. They left her exposed. Cash had told the truth but for the first time honesty betrayed her, left her vulnerable.
“Not these walls,” she told the two men.
She turned to her left and walked off through the hot pink spring blossoms of Averdeen Manor’s peach trees. And she didn’t look back.
Chapter Five
“Please be home,” Jules whispered as she approached Dr. Dillon Reardon’s place. Dillon lived on the other side of Averdeen Manor’s peach orchard and they’d grown up together, along with Lennox and Dillon’s currently missing pack leader, Ian. Jules didn’t want to think about Ian. It bothered her to wonder when or if he’d ever come home, because they all missed their friend like crazy.
The front door of Dillon’s English Tudor home opened before Jules could pound the hell out of the doorknocker. The dead ringer for Prince Harry grinned from inside the house and asked, “Is Averdeen Manor going to make it through another year? First, the fire a while back and now the demon demolition. At least that’s what Gran is calling it.” He paused for a second. “Aww,” he said, “come here.” He opened his arms for her and Jules tucked into him. He leaned down to cuddle her. “What’s wrong, Miss Juliana?”
“Danger, Girl Robinson. Danger!” she mumbled into his forearm.
Amusement vibrated in Dillon’s chest. “Since you came to me and didn’t go to Cash, I’m guessing the trouble has something to do with him? Yeah?”
She nodded. “His brother. He’s a danger boy. Worst I’ve ever seen.”
Dillon perked up. “Which brother?”
“Dashiell,” she answered and shuddered. Even the man’s name made her nipples hard.<
br />
“Daz Warren, The Wolverine? The undefeated Shifter Mixed Martial Arts League champion for three years before he retired! He’s here and you buried the lead?” Dillon pulled away and jogged down his front walk. “I have to go meet him.”
The news about Daz’s former career made things so much worse. Daz was a fighter—exactly what Jules wanted. She had been waiting for someone who would fight for her rather than let others mess up their relationship the way her ex had. Rock stars tended to be such jerks.
“Hello?” Jules waved her arms at Dillon. “Friend in need over here.”
Dillon stopped walking but Jules could tell he wanted to keep going straight over to Averdeen Manor. Proving her right, he tossed a longing glance toward the peach orchard separating his house from Lennox’s.
“He’s my hero,” Dillon said. “I had the pleasure of rebuilding some of the faces he bashed in when I still had my plastic surgery practice.”
Jules scrunched her face at him and pointed to the spot beside her. Dillon hung his head and trudged back to where she directed. Once he hit his mark he begrudgingly opened his arms for her so she could tuck back in. “Better?” he said dryly.
“Much,” she answered on a sigh.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, his voice still dry as sand.
“Now you wanna pretend that you care?”
“I want to care, but you’re keeping me from meeting Daz Warren. The only man who’s ever made me feel all tingly inside.”
“That’s the problem.” Jules jerked up to look at Dillon. “He makes me feel all tingly too.”
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same tingles.”
“No?”
“God, I hope not. Go on.”
“Like I told you, he’s a danger boy. He drove his three-wheeler through Lennox’s house and had the nerve to turn on the car alarm afterward. And he talks to his helmet.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Then, when the freakin’ roof caved in, he picked me up, flew through the air with me, and somersaulted us to safety. Finally, just to prove his bad boy status, he dry humped me halfway to an orgasm. It was fucking fantastic.”
Dillon nodded, “He’s like a drug to an adrenaline junkie and you’re an addict.”
“Hyperbolic, but true.” A nod. “Now you tell me he’s a fighter, and a good one. And you know how badly I want that since all those rabid fans forced my breakup with Adam ‘the Rock God Asshole’,” she sneered. “Adam let his fans dox me and harass me to my face, yet he didn’t stop them. As far as the ‘the Rock God Asshole’ was concerned his fan rating ranked higher than his girlfriend. Me!”
Dillon nodded. “Did you hear the last Cross album? It’s great. I think there’s a song about you on it.”
Jules gave him a particularly ugly scrunch face. “Are you serious?”
Dillon’s lips thinned. “Go on,” he said, resigned.
“Fuck it, Dillon, I’m calling Lennox.”
He laughed in her face. “You tried that while you walked over here.”
He had that right. Lennox hadn’t picked up her phone. “Can I finish?” she asked.
“I get it,” he said. “Do you want me to encourage you or give you reasons to shut this down?”
“Help me shut it down, Dillon. I can’t deal with another freakin’ bad boy, especially not one this epic. I won’t survive the fallout.”
Dillon nodded and led her into the house. She flopped down on his couch and waited. “He wasn’t talking to his helmet, Miss Melodrama.”
“So he’s not crazy. Won-der-ful. That’s not helping.”
“He was talking to his YouTube subscribers. Subscribers are the fans of YouTube culture.”
She shivered. Even the word “fans” gave her the creeps. “How bad?”
“One-point-five million and climbing.”
“Yup, that did it. You’re damn good, Dill.”
“I’ve heard,” he said, patting her shoulder.
The news tore Jules between celebration and depression. There was no hope. Daz wasn’t only a danger boy, he had fans just like her ex, Adam Cross, Rock God Asshole, did. She paused. For some reason she had to say the entire insult when referring to Adam Cross, Rock God Asshole, it made her feel better. And feeling better mattered to Jules.
Back to facts, no way in hell would she dance with another devil with an audience. No way would she ever let Dashiell Warren touch her again. Whether it brought him pain or not, she’d be the one to get hurt.
One Week Later
Seven days. Jules made it through an entire week without talking to Dashiell Warren. She’d thought about him more than sanity allowed, but she stayed away. It had been torture though. Everything about Daz called to her. The man was a siren with sex appeal for his siren song.
Doomed. He’d fucking doomed her.
A couple of days ago, she’d messed up her timing on an errand to Averdeen Manor for Gran. Daz had been there, surveying the damage with some workers. A thin band of elastic held his dark hair off his gorgeous copper-bronze face. The white T-shirt he wore snuggled up to every muscle as though the cotton loved him, and low-slung jeans promised an epic ass if she just walked over and slid her hands inside the denim.
Man of doom.
Jules had felt something between them since they’d met, a magnetic pull and Daz must’ve felt that awareness too because he stopped talking to the workmen and turned in her direction. She’d dived into the bushes to keep from getting caught. Speaking of bushes, hers suddenly flooded with heat for no reason at all. Jules was thirsty and she wanted a long drink of Dashiell Warren.
She refused to quench herself, though, and she’d tried everything to forget about Daz. She found a good book she couldn’t put down, but the romance between the hero and heroine swung too erotic. So she took a Daz-induced sex toy break. Yoga hadn’t worked either. Downward facing dog might as well have been code for doggy style. Shit. Damn. Motherfucker. Sex toy break, part 2.
Another day she’d stayed in the sauna to block him out of her mind, until dehydration forced her out, which made her a little delirious and she’d accidentally fantasized about Daz role playing as a space pirate from one of her favorite animes. After that, she’d considered going to the cathedral to drink holy water. She refused to be judged for it. Every one knew holy water got demons out of your system. Desperation made reasonable women try wacky remedies to cure sex-devil possessions.
Thoughts of Daz and all the dirty sex-drenched things they could do together, in all the places good catholic girls shouldn’t be caught with their pants down, took over her mind and refused to let go.
She’d made it through those seven days through prayer combined with fanatical use of her Hula Beads for physical, um, stimulation. And those two things were not supposed to go well together. Jules had also survived by working in the Peach Pit Diner during the day and by staying with Gran over at Dillon’s each night. Cash helped out by calling rather than stopping by with his brother in tow. Except for today. Her closest guy-pal had finally decided to come over to see her. He had news, which would probably make her head explode.
“A few weeks,” she said, and not nicely. “Why can’t Garrett do whatever he needs done himself?”
Cash glanced at her in annoyed amusement and sat down on Dillon’s neo Victorian beige leather couch. Jules admired how Cash found a way to keep smiling, no matter what. She didn’t know how he did that.
“Because Garrett is my boss and he’s calling me in?” Cash said. He stressed the last word to sound like a question rather than sarcasm. “Since I’m forcing Daz to stay to do the repairs to the Manor himself, I’m putting you in charge of him.”
“Oh no. Oh no. He’s all man,” she yelled. “He doesn’t need a watcher.”
Several slow pronounced blinks later, Cash asked, “Do you like LuPines?”
“Of course.�
� Jules eyed him suspiciously. She knew the setup to a question trap when she heard one. Bracing herself, she sat down beside Cash and curled one knee up so she faced him.
“Do you want to keep it?” he continued.
Definitely a question trap, but she’d go with it and see where Cash took it. “Pretty much,” she said.
“Then watch my brother. I’m telling you he’s going to pull some kind of stunt halfway between fun and the apocalypse. Do you want to be responsible for the fupocalypse?”
Cash had a way of making the most ridiculous things sound plausible. “Um, no?” Jules answered.
“Then I’m leaving you in charge.”
She leaned forward until her forehead hit Cash’s upper arm. Jules owed it to Lennox to make sure nothing else happened to her house. Daz had already taken down a tenth of Averdeen Manor on Jules’s watch. That qualified as decimation and she couldn’t let Lennox down again. They’d been friends for too long. When Jules had gone into hiding to escape the Rock God’s fans, Lennox had been her shelter. She’d given Jules a job, a place to stay, and all the love and friendship she’d needed.
Someone Lennox trusted needed to be there to oversee the repairs and Jules was the best choice. They couldn’t let Gran do it. The renovations would end up as some type of 1880s Parisian can-can dance club on par with the Moulin Rouge. Lennox and Garrett would get a thousand yards of red velvet and a windmill out front as their homecoming. Jules coughed and hugged herself.
Cash lifted a brow at her. “You just thought about what would happen if we left Gran in charge, didn’t you?”
“Uh huh.”
“Point proven.”
Jules sighed. “I can’t let Lennox and Garrett come home to a red velvet windmill.”
He shook with laughter.
“But, Cash, your brother is just so… so…”
“Sexy as fuck,” Cash offered, his tone even.
She frowned. “No. He’s…he’s…”
