by Vremont, Ann
But, instead of some cop Lonnie had called, Cruz heard Tamsyn arguing her way past Dom.
"He’s not here, Tam."
The lie was followed by the echo of Dominic in Cruz’s head. Stay put.
Smiling, Cruz let his pants drop.
Don’t even think about it, Manito.
Ignoring the command, Cruz nosed the door open. Tamsyn had traded her waitress uniform in for school clothes -- for a change, she'd put on sexy hip hugging jeans that made him want to howl. Up top, she wore a light green tank with a low v-neck underneath a jeans jacket. If that was how she dressed when she was pissed at him, he'd have to piss her off more often.
Tamsyn let her leather bag crammed full of books and notepads slide to the floor. "He’s here, he’s always here."
Dom circled her until he was blocking the path to Cruz’s bedroom door. "I didn’t want him here if the cops showed up."
"Fine, I’ll wait." Tamsyn took a step back, stumbling as her eyes went wide. "Jesus, who’s been feeding that dog steroids!"
Dom turned, swearing. His arm shot out, pointing at the bedroom door. "Inside!"
"What the hell? When did you guys get a dog?"
"Dog sitting for a friend." He pointed at the door. "Back."
"You don’t have any friends. Just you and Cruz. No room for anyone else."
"Fine, belongs to the owner of the car I’m working on. He’s paying us an extra fifty for the week while he’s on vacation."
Tamsyn dropped to the ground. "It’s huge. Is it friendly?" Not waiting for an answer, she clapped her hands gently together. When Cruz met her gaze, she gave a small, delighted laugh. "Its eyes look like gold glitter! C’mere, boy."
Cruz stepped up close to Tamsyn and licked her ear. She threw her arms around his neck and then ran her fingers along his back. "Ooh, I wish I had a coat like this. Look at the blue streaks!"
He licked the line of her jaw, scented the warm spice of her skin. Shit, he was just a few strokes of her gentle hands away from popping a wolfish boner.
"You can’t wait here, Tamsyn." Dominic wrapped his hand around Cruz’s muzzle and gave it a hard shake. "Bad dog!"
Cruz faked a yelp.
"Dom!" She rubbed Cruz’s head, stroked his ears. Her breasts bounced as she smoothed her hands along his back. "Poor baby. Did he hurt you?"
Cruz ran his tongue along his teeth and then yelped in earnest as Dominic grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back to the bedroom. "You really have to go."
He shook Dom’s grip off. Walk her home, bro.
Dominic picked up Tamsyn’s bag and started walking toward the door. "I’ll tell Cruz you stopped by."
It’s late. Lonnie’s out there pissed. Walk. Her. Home.
Cruz could feel Dominic’s probing, followed by a sigh of relent.
You’re lucky I don’t have a leash, Manito.
*****
Cruz waited until he heard Dominic’s key leave the dead bolt and then he counted to twenty before starting to dress. He dressed quickly but without rushing. Dominic would stick to the streets with Tamsyn. He wouldn’t lead her through alleys or take short cuts. He’d pass businesses that were still open--bars and restaurants with people going in and out. They’d walk at Tamsyn’s pace. That left Cruz with plenty of time to beat the two of them back to her apartment.
Even with Dom bitching at him inside his head as soon as he had picked up Cruz’s intent.
Cruz waited outside her building, casually leaning with his back against the brick wall. Dom looked ready to tackle him again. Tamsyn looked…
Beautiful…
And only a fraction less pissed at Cruz than Dominic was.
She stood in front of him, hands on her hips, head angled slightly up so she could glare at him. "You’ve got some nerve, that shit you pulled today."
Dominic gently edged her out of the way until he was chest-to-chest with Cruz. He put his hands on Cruz’s shoulders, the grip looking far more casual than it felt. "You need to come home."
You need to stay out of my head.
"He’s not going anywhere until I’ve talked to him." She stepped in close to both men, near enough that her soft body brushed Cruz and Dominic. Her hip against Dominic’s thigh, her arm against Cruz’s.
Cruz could smell their scents mingling. His woman’s, Dominic’s. Something dangerously possessive boiled up and he placed his palm against Dominic’s chest, forcing his big brother to take a step back. Out of his space and out of Tamsyn's.
"I’m staying. Go home."
And stay the hell out of my head, Dom. I mean it.
The two men stared at each other for one, two, three heart beats -- and then Dominic blinked. I can protect you from everything but yourself.
Dominic’s gaze flicked to Tamsyn and then he shook his head, spun on his heels and headed back down the street.
Tamsyn pushed the door to her building open. "I don’t know which one of you is the bigger dick."
He followed mute up the stairs, eyes locked on the swing of her ass, still tasting the salt of her skin on his tongue. She wanted a fight after the way he’d behaved today. Not what he had in mind. He waited until she had her key in the door and then he put his hands on her hips.
She froze. "What the hell do you think you’re doing?"
"Open the door and I’ll tell you."
When she didn’t move, he took the keys from her and finished unlocking the door, his other hand still on her hip. She retreated inside, turning beneath his touch until she faced him. He shut the door with his foot, let the keys fall to the floor so that he could have both hands on her again.
She pushed at his chest. "You’ve got some fucking nerve, Medina."
"You’re mad. I understand." He slid the bag off her shoulder, ran his hand up under the jeans jacket, his palm flat against the center of her back as he coaxed her closer. He remembered the last time he’d gotten so close to her -- her senior prom two years ago. Dom had relented, allowing Cruz to accompany her, even paying for both their outfits.
He cinched her closer, felt the curve of her lower stomach against his cock. He dropped his head, his lips lightly brushing against her neck.
"You’re a bastard, Cruz. You think you can…" She stopped, throat clenching to strangle the words, and shoulder slugged him.
He shushed the broken sounds coming from her. He kissed her ear and then the high rise of her cheek bone. Reaching down, he untucked her shirt, ran his hand up her back once more, fingers stroking the bare flesh.
Her body assaulted his senses. The heat emanating from her, the sweet and secret smells, the deep breathing, the beat of her heart loud in his ears. He kissed along her throat, just under her chin in the hollow where her pulse throbbed.
She was clutching his shirt, her body immobile except for the rhythmic push of her breasts against his chest as she inhaled.
"Leave," she choked out.
"We both want me to stay." He slid a finger under her waist band and traced the curve of her hip round front to the top button of her jeans. He thumbed it open and grasped the pull on her zipper. "I want the same deal you offered Lonnie. Three songs."
"Bastard!" Tamsyn boxed his ear and then knotted her fingers in his hair so he couldn’t pull away.
He had no intention of pulling away.
He unzipped her slowly and then smoothed both hands into her jeans, pushed them down over her full hips. He captured her hands, eased them down to her sides and slid the jacket off. Then he ran his hands back up her waist, pushing her shirt higher while his head dipped down to press a kiss against the exposed top of her breasts. The bobbed up and down, twin suckable, fuckable mountains that he wanted to squeeze and lick and kiss.
A shiver rolling through him, Cruz released the front hook on Tamsyn's bra and pushed the cups out of his way. Then his mouth was on her, sucking at the full flesh, teasing the nipples as he pushed her panties and jeans further down her thighs. He could smell her arousal, even as she weakly pushed at his
chest in angry protest.
She let him guide her to the recliner, falling gently over one arm and onto the seat, leaving her legs naturally elevated so he could slide her sandals and bottoms off. He turned her until she faced forward in the chair and then he cupped her exposed breasts, squeezing, kissing and caressing them. He sucked the nipples in turn, relishing the tremble in her body and the way she fought not to succumb, her hands white-knuckled as she gripped the arms of the recliner.
"Let me take your shirt off, Tam." He kissed her throat, nibbled at her ear, feathered the bridge of her nose and closed eyelids with more soft kisses.
"Two years…"
Yes. For two long, hard years he’d shut her out, given her blank stares and disdainful shrugs. "I’m so sorry, baby."
She still wouldn’t budge and so he reached behind her, shredding the shirt’s thin fabric. Tamsyn gasped, brought her arms up to shield herself but only aided him in stripping the remains of her top and bra off as she finally let go of the arm rests.
"I’ve wanted you all that time, wanted you that night." So many nights. He slid down her body, kissing away her resistance, melting it with the play of his tongue over her breasts, down her stomach.
Her legs proved more malleable than her arms. They parted as his mouth trailed lower to the dark fur of her sex. She was wet, her thighs moist, the hair between them slick and beaded.
She’d been dry as ash for Lonnie. He knew that, had smelled it. Now her scent was liquid spice and all his. He slid his tongue between the plump folds of her sex, touched it to the swollen clit.
Tamsyn jerked and wrapped her arms around her head, fighting a little grind of her hips before she finally lifted herself to him. No music played, no song measured his progress. Her body did that for him, growing hotter and wetter, her muscles flexing and rolling beneath his touch.
Cruz felt ready to burst from his jeans, his cock a hard thick line against his zipper. His nipples ached. His flesh felt like acid had been dripped onto it. The change, all the nights spent thinking of her while he held himself, none of the sensations came close to having her in front of him, legs spread, constrained moans gurgling up from her throat as she fought to contain herself.
He slid his tongue lower, entering her to push in as deep as he could go. He felt her contract around him. She whispered his name, her hands dropping to cross over her breasts and grip her shoulders.
Cruz ran his tongue back up to her clit while his fingers gently explored the opening of her cunt. His other hand ran along her hip, up her waist to cup and squeeze her breast. He broke away to kiss her stomach, to tongue her navel and bite at the soft padding of her hip.
Sweeter, hotter, sexier than he could have imagined. He wrapped his arms around her hips and lowered his head again, devouring her flavor, bringing her closer and closer to the edge of climax.
Too close.
Tamsyn twisted away, rolling over the edge of the recliner’s arm to grab her jeans and press them to her.
"Tam…baby…" He made it onto his feet and moved cautiously towards her, feeling like he’d left his heart back on the floor.
"You need to go."
"No, baby." He reached out for her, tried to get closer but, for every step he took forward, she retreated. "Tam, I love you."
The look on her face told him he’d just ripped her heart out and tossed it next to his on the ground.
"Nice try, Medina, but I’m not the dumb, fat whore you think I am."
He started to say something, but she cut him off with the chop of her hand through the air. "You don’t pull the shit you’ve been pulling for the last two years, look away every damn time you see me, and then say something like that!"
She stepped over to her bedroom, dropping her jeans as she grabbed the door. "You must think I’m one hell of an idiot."
She slammed the door and locked it.
"Just go the fuck home," she yelled through the thin slab of wood, wood so thin it would crack like kindling with one hit from him.
Cruz approached the door, rested his forehead against it. He could hear her crying, the sound muffled as if she had her face pressed against a pillow. He placed his palm against the wood. "Tam, I don’t want to hurt you. Please, baby."
Stay away, Cruz. Stay away.
The words slammed into him from two directions -- from the room beyond and out there, somewhere in the night. He couldn’t fight them both. Cruz turned, scooped her keys up and placed them on the table. He lifted the torn blouse, brushed it slowly against his lips, deeply inhaling, and then he let it fall to the floor as he left and set the bottom lock behind him.
*****
Cruz took the rear stairwell, stepping out to the back alley along which he had stalked Lonnie the night before. He could still detect their presence, smell where he’d been alongside the dumpster and Woodrow’s increasingly erratic path. He followed it, letting the lingering odor of fear and sweat wash Tamsyn from his mind.
A new layer of smells competed for his attention -- diesel and oil laid down on the asphalt from the garbage trucks that had gone through that morning, interrupted by laundry forgotten for the night on the lines that spanned the buildings.
He stopped, suddenly hyper aware of the smells in the alley.
"Dominic?" He said it low pitched but solid, letting his voice carry. He was near a side alley, one that he knew dead ended and he stepped towards it, wary. There was more than Dominic’s scent here, something that worried him far more than Lonnie and his little crew ever could.
Two paths had been traveled, one in and one out. The trail was feral, carnivorous and dipped in blood. Cruz raced down the dead end. Trash littered the ground. Old paper had collected along the sides of the building and was layered thick at the end. A narrow shaft of moonlight reflected up from the ground as a pale, silvery blue.
It was enough light for him to see Dom in his shifter form, on his side and unresponsive. His clothes were strewn around him, the shirt shredded. He’d never smelled another shifter besides Dom, but he knew that was what he was smelling now. At least three different ones.
Stay away, Cruz. Stay away.
The warning that had echoed through his head back in Tamsyn’s apartment took on a new meaning. Dominic hadn’t been warning him away from Tam but from this. He put his head to the massive chest, felt the faint rise, heard the dull whoop, thump of blood still flowing through Dominic’s heart.
There was more blood on the ground than what Dominic could have bled. There was a pool of it and a drag trail back out to the main alley. Whoever they were, they’d left carrying their wounded and unable to finish Dom off.
Using his t-shirt and the remains of Dominic’s, he made a compress for the worst of the wounds--a nasty bite to the throat. He grabbed the jeans, found Dom’s wallet and keys still in the pockets. He stuffed them into his jeans and shredded the pants for more dressing before he picked Dom up.
Two blocks he carried him, then up the fire escape, praying to whatever god was there to listen that no one would glance out their back window. Cruz climbed through the window he’d left cracked and placed Dom on the bed before he rushed downstairs to the full first aid kit they kept in the garage.
Dominic had made sure they could take care of themselves. He had passed onto Cruz the skills from the emergency tech classes he had taken in the same way he’d taught him how to build a fire or change a tire. They could suture one another’s wounds, set up IVs, transfuse blood--whatever needed done.
That’s what Cruz did back upstairs with Dominic’s limp body. Stitches, super glue, a tube running red between their bodies. His vision blurring as he worked, he heard Dom’s voice faintly in his head.
Stop the flow, Manito. You’re losing too much.
*****
Cruz woke, tongue stuck to the top of his mouth, lips cracked. He was on the floor, a blanket over him. Lifting his left arm, he saw a band-aid over the inside bend of his elbow, a greenish bruise twice the size of a half dollar spreading beneath i
t. He lifted his head high enough to see an empty, bloody bed.
"Dominic!" He yelled the name, not caring whether the sound carried through the building’s bricks walls. He pulled himself up, calling Dom, listening for any sound in return.
He stumbled through the front room, checked the door to the front stair well and found it locked. Still staggering, he headed for the other stair well, saw that his web site was open on the computer.
The door to the second stairwell was unlocked. Cruz heard the squeal of the garage door’s hydraulics, the rusted rumble of the Ranchero. He half slid down the steps, into the garage bay. The door was coming down, early morning light filtered under it. The engine cut on the Ranchero and both vehicle doors opened. Dom leapt out, catching Cruz before he hit the ground. Dominic still smelled of blood and disinfectants and…
Tamsyn.
The passenger door slammed and then she was around the front of the Ranchero, leaning worriedly over him.
"What’s wrong? I thought you said he was okay?" Her voice was high, panicked. Cruz had never heard it like that.
"He’s low on blood."
"Where?" Her hands searched Cruz for injury, his face and throat, his torso, down his thighs. She checked his pulse and found it racing. "Is it internal?"
Just help me get him upstairs, Tam. It’s safer up there."
Tamsyn was stronger than her soft curves suggested. She’d spent countless nights as a kid and then as a teenager picking her mom up off the floor and helping her to the nearest couch or bed. And she had been forced to fight off her mom’s equally drunken johns, guys twice her size who thought she was fair game once the old lady passed out.
She used that strength now, bending at the knees and wrapping her arms around his chest, lifting him onto his feet. "How much?"
"Maybe twenty percent." Dominic pulled a second screen down on the garage door--a heavy steel mesh--and locked it into place. His own steps seemed shell shocked as he followed Tamsyn and Cruz up the stairs. "I need to get an IV in him."
Dominic locked the apartment doors once they were inside. "Set him on the couch."
