by Thalia Eames
Jules squeezed his thigh and swung around his bent leg to the floor. “Ick.” Popcorn and the sticky remains of spilled soda clung to her skin. “It’s sticky down here.”
Daz leaned around her to look down. “Stand up,” he said. When she did he rested one hand on her hip, squeezing the soft flesh there. With the other arm, he pulled his heather gray shirt over his head and laid it on the floor. Bare-chested and beautiful, he said, “That should take care of it.” They smiled at each other as Jules resumed her kneeling position.
The low light in the theater made what she was about to do that much more sensual. She knew she only had until the trailers ended to feast her eyes on him and she didn’t want to waste the light. Her hands found his button-fly. With a flip of her thumb and a pull of his zipper; she eased his pants open and took the velvety weight of him into her hands.
“Hmm,” he groaned, sliding both hands into her hair and massaging her scalp. “I’ve been dreaming about feeding you my dick.”
“I’ve been dreaming about tasting it,” she murmured back.
The long thickness of him looked better in person than on screen. The rich bronze of his skin extended his entire length up to the tip, where it turned a plummy warm color. Jules’s mouth watered and she took her time taking him.
“Why are you so beautiful, Dashiell?” she asked. “Your body, your spirit, the way you move through the world. Everything about you, even your dick, is just so heart-stoppingly beautiful.” His sharp intake of breath pleased her.
She had him right where she wanted him, and now she’d share a touch of the truth. “I can’t wait to see you when I wake up. It’s like my days are all wrong until you come around and then I’m all right.”
She kissed his swelling tip, not wanting him to doubt her. She moaned at the heat of him, and opened her lips slightly to suck in his crown, teasing it with the silky skin on the inside of her mouth. Then she slid that same soft lining down his cock, licked the seam between his balls with a flickering tongue, and treated the other side of him to the same silky slide back up. The hands he’d buried in her hair tightened and his passion-bright eyes closed.
He groaned, bucking gently against her lips.
“Quiet!” came from the female half of the other couple. The taboo of their surroundings and the danger of being caught sent a blaze of arousal from Jules’s straining nipples straight to her clit.
It was her turn to go to work. She cushioned her teeth with her lips and sucked Daz in. He trembled beneath her fingertips and she smiled around his cock, drunk off the power of it.
Using her tongue she licked the ring around his tip and sucked him deeper on each pull and plunge of her head. She worked him that way, going deeper, humming, working her tongue, and stroking his balls until he writhed in his chair.
The woman a few rows in front of them stood up and announced she was going to complain. The trailers hadn’t ended yet but Jules had run out of time. She gripped Daz’s waist and crawled her fingers up to his nipples. Her thumbs rubbed his sensitized flesh, then she pinched them with a little tug. At the same moment she deep throated him and gargled. His hips shot out of the chair as he came against the back of her throat.
Lost to sensation, Daz’s thrusts filled her mouth while she played with his nipples and hummed in complete satisfaction. By the time the movie attendant shined a flashlight in their faces, Jules and Daz were curled up together, innocently eating their popcorn.
Chapter Thirteen
After the movie, they wound their way to the Hellion for the ride back to Averdeen Manor. Daz pulled Jules’s hand into his, entwining their fingers in a warm grip. She bumped hips with him to show her pleasure in his gesture. Hopefully, they’d finish the sexing they’d started off so nicely later.
They’d just passed the ice cream shop with Daz slowing down to waggle his brows at her over the spinning ice cream cone flanking the door, when someone called her name.
“Juliana Vivian Perlas,” said a voice dripping with snake oil. Daz’s grip on her hand tightened as they caught sight of a shadowy figure ahead of them on the sidewalk. The figure sauntered over, allowing the light of the spinning cone to catch his craggy face: Larkin Grace.
If Willie Mae ruled as queen of the Grace family, Larkin stood as the queen’s right hand. The town gossips said Stan had beat the shit out of Larkin more than once for infractions against boar clan rules. But Stan hadn’t renounced Larkin like he’d done with his own son, although he seemed to want to.
Jules knew this particular Grace seeking her out meant no good. “Larkin Grace,” she said, “This is Daz Warren, my date.”
Larkin tapped the side of his nose. “I know Daz Warren. I’m a fight fan, yet and still I wanna talk to you first.” The wiry man crowded their personal space.
If he’d meant to intimidate, he picked the wrong couple They crowded him right back. And they regretted it once they got a whiff of his tobacco-tainted breath. Larkin dipped snuff and the earthiness of the plant permeated his hair, skin and clothes. Daz and Jules held their ground regardless of the stink.
“You know what I came for, Juliana. You gonna tell me where you took Mariel and them kids,” Larkin said. Since it wasn’t a question, Jules didn’t answer.
“You heard me?”
Jules scrunched her forehead. “I heard.”
“Then tell me,” Larkin said, leaning against the brick façade of the ice cream shop.
Daz couldn’t take much more. “She doesn’t have to tell you shit.”
“That’s true,” Jules cosigned Daz’s dryly delivered refusal. “But I will tell you something, Larkin.” Jules held the hand Daz had entwined with hers. “I can honestly say I have no idea where Mariel and her babies are. The person who picks them up isn’t the person who takes them to the safe house. It’s a safety mechanism. Lennox calls it the Neo-Underground Railroad. It’s a system of getting the abused and oppressed away from the oppressors. The South has a long history of needing a system like that.”
A puddle of putrid brown splattered the sidewalk where Larkin spat. “Then you’ll tell me who I can get the information from.”
Jules gave him a sunshine smile. “Yup, you can get all the information you need from Sheriff Stan, The Exterminator.” She pulled her phone out of her skirt pocket. “I’ll call him.”
Larkin reached out viper fast, snatching the phone from her grasp. Faster, Daz took the phone back and handed it to her. Jules beamed at him. He shook his head and winked.
“Careful. You ain’t got your shotgun with you today, Juliana,” Larkin said, back to leaning lazily against the wall.
Jules pumped Daz’s hand. “I think I do.”
Larkin pushed off the wall. “That brings me to my other point. I hear you don’t fight no more.” His glare fell on Daz. “That true?”
“I protect what’s mine,” Daz said. “That’s all I need to do.”
Squaring off, Larkin scratched the tip of his nose. “Ion’t know if it is,” he said. “The way I hear it you got squeamish when you beat one gal into a wheelchair and tried to send another boy to the cemetery.”
A jolt of pain flashed through Daz. Jules felt it in her chest and she scanned him with concern. He remained impassive.
Larkin spat again. “Daz Warren, The Wolverine. ’Cept you ain’t really a Warren. Are ya’?” The wild boar shifter walked a leisurely half circle around them, forcing Jules and Daz to rotate to keep him in sight. “Naw, them Warrens is long, lean, and pretty as angels. And ain’t a single one of ’em a wolverine. We might not know what they are but we know you ain’t one of ‘em.”
Jules didn’t like the slant of Larkin’s words. She learned a lot from talking to the people she helped to escape their abusers over the years. One of the things her passengers who’d been adopted hated was having their identity challenged. Many of them struggled with establishing who they were for the
mselves. They didn’t need assholes calling it into question.
She stepped up. “He’s a Warren raised and true. You can ask his brothers when they get into town.”
Larkin snickered in a wheezing shudder. “Naw, that boy there is from another family I know of. They ain’t naturally First Nation Americans like them Warrens. They’s foreigners an’ they look just like him.”
Daz snarled, his shoulders tight.
“Chee hee hee,” Larkin snickered. “I knew I had it right. That boy comes from the most violent wolverine clan around. Out from Louisiana way. Say their name and all the little animals scatter. Hell, they’s so vicious we Graces would be proud to call them cousin.”
The insinuation he’d come from a family vile enough to get Grace approval didn’t seem to sit well with Daz. “Blue, the Hellion is across the street. Go get in it.”
“No,” she said, without looking at him. “We stand here together or we ride home together.”
“Go on and get in the car, Juliana.” Larkin’s tone turned mocking. “Your man don’t want you to know he’s a cast-off from the cold-blooded Tahvili family. I’m surprised he hasn’t ripped out your throat while you slept.”
Jules decided to end this. Daz wouldn’t fight and Larkin wanted one. If she didn’t get Daz away, he’d end up getting hurt trying to defend them both without raising his fists.
She had no idea she’d figured wrong.
Daz’s gloved fist clocked Larkin across the nose with a crack that split the night. Blood spurted and the wiry shifter hit the ground. Daz rolled his neck.
“Dashiell,” Jules cautioned, suppressing the thrill the violence set off in her. “You don’t fight anymore.”
The wolverine took over Daz’s voice, infusing it with a feral gruff. “That wasn’t a fight. That was a takedown.”
They both watched Larkin, but the wiry man didn’t move.
“You need me to walk you to your car?” Daz asked. Jules watched the muscles in his back bunch with tension from behind him.
She grabbed his arm. “I’m staying with you.”
Daz stared down at her hands. When his eyes lifted to hers she froze. Glittering liquid black inked the white from his eyes. “No.” His fangs descended. “You’re not.”
Chapter Fourteen
Daz pushed the Hellion to its limits. His claws dug into the steering wheel, and he went wild—off-roading in fields of wild flowers and spring clover. He’d wanted to unleash his wolverine but changed his mind. He and his animal shared the same level of fury and that wouldn’t do.
Larkin Grace hadn’t said anything new. Daz had heard how much he resembled the Tahvili family. Hell, he’d seen the resemblance for himself. The same rage that exploded within him was legendary in that family, and the need to dominate stood out as a family trait.
But Daz was a Warren to his soul. Whoever his Tahvili mother had been, she hadn’t wanted him. Had thrown him in the trash, in case there were doubts about his value.
The thing he regretted most wasn’t Jules learning about the shit hole of a family he’d likely come from. He could deal with that. His loss of control in front of her bothered him most. Tonight she’d seen the dominant alpha who had once needed to make the shifters around him submit.
Daz sped up, drifted into a wild curve and repeated the maneuver on the other side of the field. Then he mashed the accelerator, turned the wheel hard, and lost control, crashing into a wooden fence and taking a good one hundred feet of it out. The demolition didn’t slow him down; it fueled his need to break shit, to be that reckless kid who’d loved nothing more than fucking up.
Daz rode that way for more than two hours until the blue and red flashing lights caught up with him, and Sheriff Stan flagged him down.
Lucky for Daz he’d decided to go crazy in a shifter town. The sheriff understood the boiling blood of the animal inside. The sheriff also promised to punch him in the head if he lost control again. That seemed fair to Daz. And he avoided a night in jail by vowing to fix the fence and pay the owners for their trouble.
Worn out and ashamed, he crawled into his bed at Averdeen Manor thirty minutes later and passed out face first.
Daz woke after a few minutes of sleep when his bedroom door swooshed open. Orange blossoms filled his nose and he groaned. Flipping onto his back he waited for Jules. She didn’t ask permission. She just climbed into his bed, laid one hand on the crown of his head, and threw the other arm across his bare chest, before she snuggled into his side.
“You thought you’d scared me away, huh?” she asked.
He relaxed, but didn’t touch her. “Yeah, I did.”
“I’ll never be scared of you, Dashiell. I might get pissed but I’m not afraid of you.”
“Okay,” he breathed the word out, covering his eyes with his free forearm.
“You are a Warren, Daz,” she said, tapping his chest. “I saw you with Cash. You move like they do. Get into mischief the way they do. And you’re just as beautiful as any one of them.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that, Blue. I know what I am,” he growled.
“Okay,” she said and stroked his hair, snuggling closer. He kissed her forehead then threw both arms around her to press her body tight to his.
“Tell me about it?” she asked.
“The adoption?”
“Yes, please.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
Daz pulled her on top of him. With her enfolded in his embrace, he opened his legs so her hips lowered to fit against his. Resting his chin on top of her head he reveled in her. Damn it felt good to be held, to know a woman’s touch again. This woman’s touch.
“All I know about the first one, which was more foster care than adoption, I suppose, is that they found me at five or six days old in a trashcan behind Belle Starr’s Diner. Belle, the fifth woman with that name in as many generations, took me in and raised me until I was three. Around that time she realized she’d brought a wild animal into her home.”
Jules tilted her head to kiss him under his chin, continuing to place small kisses along his bearded jawline.
“Since I’d become a rescue animal in her estimation, Belle asked around for help to take me off her hands. I guess I can be thankful for that. Somebody got a message to Ruth Warren, my mother.” Daz grinned at the memory of meeting his mom for the first time. He’d recognized her, heart to heart. She said she’d known him for her son right away too. Poor thing had already been infested with that idiot Cash at the time. To Jules he said, “My mom says I ran to her and buried my face in her neck. When she asked my name, I said, ‘Dazzle’. I guess Dashiell was too much for my toddler tongue to manage.” He grinned. “My dad said he took one look at my ‘dazzle wittle face’ and said ‘fuck it, he looks like he’s mine’.”
Her laughter lifted his spirits. Tentatively, she asked, “But even though you found your mom and dad, the rejection from Belle still hurt?”
“Yeah, it did, Blue. Still does. I wouldn’t trade Ruth and Chaytan Warren for any parents on this planet but rejection at that age clings to you in ways you don’t expect.”
Jules sat up, straddling his chest. Gripping his face, her fingernails scratched through his beard. Then she leaned in, kissing the tip of his nose, his chin, both corners of his mouth. “You’re a good man, Dashiell Warren, son of Ruth and Chaytan.”
He rested his hands on her hips and gave himself over to her as she stroked and petted him to sleep. The first good sleep he’d had in too many years to count.
A presence in the room woke Dashiell up. He didn’t move, but cradled Jules’s still-sleeping body and scanned the room for danger. A teenage boy, fourteen, maybe fifteen, stood at the bedside. He drank what smelled like ruby red grapefruit juice from a tall cylindrical glass and looked Daz over.
Daz had been a shifter his entire life but he hadn�
��t seen a lot of kids as big as this one. Maybe among the polar bears but this boy carried wolf like a mantle around his shoulders. His eyes were a shade of brown just short of hazel, and Daz read a bit of Bengali Indian combined with Mediterranean in his features.
“Who are you?” Daz finally asked.
The boy sat down on the side of the bed, drank a little more juice, and handed the glass off to a groggy but awake Jules. She toasted him with the glass and downed the juice.
“Let’s go here first,” the teenager said. “I get home from visiting my boy in London and you’re in my house, sleeping with my Auntie. And you smell kinda like a couple.” He turned his head completely sideways. “Who are you?”
Whap. The boy caught an umbrella to the back of the head. “Nox,” Gran said, “you shut your pie hole.”
Nox, of course, otherwise known as Lennox Averdeen-Westlake. The son of Garrett Westlake and stepson of Lennox Averdeen.
“Don’t hit my head, old woman,” Nox said, his chill levels exceedingly high for a teen. “He’s sleeping with my Auntie Jules. Get him outta here. Does Cash know?”
Gran whapped her great-grandson several more times, chasing the boy as he ran around the room. “He’s Cash’s brother, you loon. You get out and go make us breakfast.”
Nox opened his mouth to protest but Gran caught him on the side of the head and he backed out of the room with hand held protectively in front of him. His footsteps made a lot of noise as he took the stairs two at a time.
Jules put the glass on the side table and said to Daz in her best Suzy Homemaker voice, “Good mornin’ and welcome to the house of Averdeen. Next stop: insanity.”
Chapter Fifteen
She ran. The beast followed, chasing her through night-darkened woods, its claws a loud scrabble on the moist earth. Not even the frantic drum of her heartbeat, echoing inside her head, drowned out the beast’s claws as it stalked her.
She had nowhere to run but she couldn’t stop. Keep going, despite the cramp knotting in her side. Keep going, despite the running shoe threatening to slip off. Keep going, or else. She stumbled, the roots of a grand Angel Oak ensnaring the loose sneaker. She lost the shoe. Felt the wetness of the forest floor seep into her sock. The beast nearly caught her then. Its claws snagged on the hem of her shorts and tore free.
