Shifter’s Surrender

by Jennifer Dellerman

  “You know,” Caleb said in greeting. “I don’t know if I should punch you out or congratulate you.”

  Dean dropped his keys in one of the cubbyholes next to the door and picked up a towel from the stack next to the shelving unit. “Because?” As Alpha, Dean did demand, and received, his due respect from his pack. But from Caleb and Brandon, his two best leaders, confidants, the closest things to best friends he’d ever had, Dean let many of their comments pass.

  Still not looking at Dean, Caleb continued to flex and retract his arm. “You’re sleeping with my sister.”

  “Ah, no. I’m not sleeping with your sister.” Dean stacked weights on the leg press machine, wandering what Caleb was blabbering about. The loud crash of a weighted dumbbell had Dean spinning around to see Caleb glaring at him.

  “You dare to stand there and tell me you didn’t have sex with Kaylie?”

  Dean glared right back, feeling his own sense of ire rise. “Kaylie is not your sister, and who I sleep with is none of your business.”

  “She might as well be as I’m marrying Tess. And yeah, as Alpha, you have a lot of leeway, but not when it comes to screwing around with someone I care about.”

  “Yeah?” Dean snarled. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with me banging her a couple of weeks ago.”

  Caleb snarled back, his eyes shimmering with amber as his beast rose up. Suddenly the two men were toe to toe, both exuding massive amounts of shifter power, blood in their eyes, claws extended in fury.

  “Saying it and smelling the truth are two different things,” Caleb spat.

  Recalling the restless night tossing and turning in Kaylie scented sheets, and what they’d done in those sheets the night before, Dean flashed his fangs in a smirk. “The physical reality is even better than the fantasy.”

  “If you hurt her …”

  Dean’s eyes flashed hot, mean. “I didn’t do anything to Kaylie she didn’t beg for.”

  “You cold bastard. She’s my sister!”

  “And she’s my mate!” Dean’s vehement declaration reverberated in the room, shocking him to his core. Though it had an opposite affect on Caleb.

  The other shifter’s anger melted into self-satisfaction. He grinned. “Glad you finally accepted it.” Then as if they hadn’t been about to rip each other apart, Caleb went back to his original position in front of the mirror and picked up the dumbbell.

  “What?” Dean stood there a moment, unsettled and not a little panicked. “What?”

  “Thought you needed a little push.”

  “And pissing me off was your idea of a push?” Still confused, Dean scrubbed his hands over his face. Luckily his claws had already retracted.

  “Got you to admit Kaylie’s your mate.”

  Dean choked at that. “I already knew that. Told you that.”

  “But now you two have started the mating dance. You only have to claim her.”

  “I can’t.” Dean’s words were muffled behind his hands.

  “Oh, don’t give me that ‘not good enough’ crap again. Our past has shaped us, physically, mentally and spiritually, into who we are today. If our past played out differently then the people we care for, we may never have known. And those who care for us may not view us in the same light. Think about that one.”

  Thinking about it gave Dean a headache. “You’re an ass.”

  Caleb sent his Alpha a wink. “But I’m a smart ass.”

  Shaking his head, feeling a thankful grin curl his lips, Dean settled into the leg press. “Truer words were never spoken. Speaking of which, why are you here instead of with Tess? Were you an ass and she kicked you out?”

  “Nah,” Caleb switched to a higher weight. “She cooked again for Dolen last night and I had the night shift. She called me last night at midnight and warned me that if I touched her before seven-thirty she would rip my head off, and not the one on my shoulders. But come seven-thirty, I get to have my way with her.” He glanced up at a clock on the wall. “Well, looky there. Time to go.”

  Dean only shook his head. Yeah, one might say Caleb was whipped, but seriously? Sex whenever he wanted? Who wouldn’t be whipped?

  Hours later Dean found himself at Dolen’s Cafe to help with an oven that was giving the man fits. Dean had stayed at Wolf Haven for over an hour, contemplating Caleb’s words and mixing them with Kaylie’s observations. Then he stirred it all with his feelings for Kaylie.

  He’d made a mess of things, but to be sure, he was already messed up. Fighting himself and his beast to protect Kaylie was taking its toll. He wanted to keep her, wanted to love her forever, but his past—despite Caleb’s words—still haunted him. Was it more selfish to go with his heart and soul and claim her, or to follow his head and let her go when the mating heat ended? He just didn’t know, and the internal battle was messing him up even more. The only thing he did know for certain was that loving Kaylie was so fucking easy it was almost as if they’d been together for years, not days.

  Loving Kaylie? Where the hell did that come from? He meant fucking Kaylie. Yeah. That was it. Every stroke was so acutely erotic it bordered on pain.

  Dean’s body shivered in remembrance, his cock swelling even now, in the bright, late morning sun, as he pictured Kaylie’s lips around his cock, her tongue teasing his shaft.

  “Hey,” Dolen called out to him from the back door of his cafe. “You gonna sit in your truck all day or what?”

  Dean glared at the older man through the open driver’s side window. He just might sit there all damn day if Dolen was going to give him shit. Or at least until the current cockstand he was sporting eased up. “Give me a minute.”

  Dolen grunted, eying Dean with suspicion. “You okay?”

  “Working on it.”

  Another grunt, and then the man thankfully left Dean alone to get himself under control. Five minutes later his head was in an oven and he was able to put Kaylie out of his thoughts for several minutes at a stretch while he banged away and cursed along with Dolen at the temperamental appliance.

  By the time Dean headed back across the highway for the judging of the pies, which he couldn’t avoid, he was back to his normal self, ready to handle any situation, namely Kaylie. But what he wasn’t ready for was her absence. He tasted and rated each contestant’s offering along with the other judges, and picked out a winner. Of course it was Ruth Gentry. Her pies were legendary. But Kaylie was nowhere to be seen. And that ticked him off. He was ready to face the woman, and she was AWOL.

  He finally found her buying cotton candy from a vendor. Dean reached her side just as she started walking off in the opposite direction, heading for the rides that were located in the school parking lot across a large expanse of grass from the edge of the south loop.

  “Didn’t see you at the pie judging,” Dean said casually, as if he hadn’t been frantically scouring the grounds for the last fifteen minutes, scenting her everywhere, and finding her nowhere.

  Kaylie looked up at him, her eyes guarded. “Someone had to stay at the booth.”

  That might be the case, but considering his bipolar moods of late, her standoffish attitude now was a clear sign of avoidance. Not that he could really blame her. But now that he’d found her she wasn’t getting away until he was good and ready. Double standard? Definitely. So sue him. “Hmm. Where are you heading?”

  She suckled on a large wad of the sweet confection, drawing his eyes to her pink lips. “Ferris wheel. I love being at the top. You can see for miles. It’s beautiful. Don’t you think?”

  “I’ve never been on one.”

  “What?” Kaylie exclaimed, nearly choking on the spun sugar. “You’ve never been on a Ferris wheel? Are you serious?”

  His lips curved in an amused smile, pleased his Kaylie didn’t hold a grudge for long. Wait. His Kaylie? He eyed her speculatively. Temporarily or permanently? God, he was so not in control.

  “Yo, Wolfboy. Are you going to answer me?”

  Shaking off his thoughts Dean responded. “It’s n
ot all that odd, Kaylie. I’m sure many people haven’t been on one.”

  “You not afraid of heights, are you?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “Nothing like that. Just never had the desire.”

  “Well you’re going to go now.”

  “Am I?” He asked a bit distractedly, catching an out of town shifter looking at Kaylie a little too long and hard for Dean’s taste.

  “Definitely. It’s just over there.”

  As they made their way through the jubilant crowd, Dean noticed more of those lingering stares from various shifters. Instinctively he put his shoulders back, eyes flitting from side to side as if sensing danger. In a way he was. Belatedly he realized that the male shifters were ogling Kaylie, not just because she was a fun, friendly and beautiful woman, but because of the mating heat. The shifters scented a female in full arousal, and that made her all the more enticing to each and every unmated shifter. Which meant, if he let Kaylie go when their time was over, she wouldn’t want for male companionship.

  Dean growled low in his chest. He wanted to snatch Kaylie up, throw her over his shoulder and run from this place. He wanted to hide her away from the heated gazes that he damn well knew were coming from shifters imagining what she looked like under her clothes. He wanted to pound every man that looked at her with lust in their eyes into dirt. He wanted to shout at them that they would never have her, that Kaylie was his.

  The possessiveness didn’t take him by surprise but the shear intensity of it, mixed with a strong surge of jealousy, was startling. Even though she was by his side, she wasn’t claimed and by shifter law that made her open season. Until the full moon, the males would remain in human form and try to lure Kaylie into their beds by human seduction. At the time of the full moon they would shift into wolf form and some, if not locked up at the Haven, would attempt to simply take. And Dean would have to kill them. Not only because he was Alpha, but because Kaylie belonged to him, whether he claimed her or not.

  Oblivious to Dean’s contradictory and dangerous thoughts, Kaylie meandered through the crowd, smiling or waving to friends and acquaintances as they made their way to the Ferris wheel. She popped another wad of the pink cotton candy into her mouth. “Guess it’s a good thing you aren’t a vampire else you wouldn’t be able to enjoy this beautiful day.”

  With his eyes on three particular shifters, not of his pack, who were openly staring at Kaylie, Dean answered without thought. “With enough blood, vamps can walk in the sun.”

  Because Dean was busy picturing stalking up to the three idiots and slashing their leering eyes from their heads, he didn’t realize Kaylie had come to a halt, and was even now several feet behind him. He spun around and, at the shocked expression on her face, rushed back and gripped her shoulders, glowering with suspicion at everyone within touching distance. “What? Did something happen?”

  Kaylie, eyes wide, mouth forming a perfect O, just stared at him for a moment. “You said vampires were real. How …”

  “Oh, hell.” Dean squeezed his eyes shut as he ran the last few minutes through his mind. “I can’t believe I let that slip.”

  Kaylie’s breath came out in a rush. “So it’s true? How do you know? Where did you meet them? Where do they live? For that matter, do they live? I mean do they have heartbeats? Do they live in packs like shifters or in nests or …”

  Her words came to a mumbled stop as Dean did the only thing he could think of to shut down the questioning. He snatched up a handful of the cotton candy and shoved it in Kaylie’s mouth.

  “This topic is not open for discussion and most definitely not appropriate right here and now.”

  The spark of excitement in Kaylie’s eyes turned to irritation and then understanding as she surreptitiously eyed their surroundings. She swallowed. “Fine,” she hissed out. “But I want you to tell me more when we’re alone.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? You will because I own you.”

  Dean rolled his eyes. “You don’t own me, Kaylie.”

  She sniffed in disdain. “Real mates don’t keep secrets from each other.”

  His eyes glittered dangerously at the taunt. “A real mate wouldn’t let you out to roam in public while in the mating heat. You’re attracting far too much attention.”

  By then they’d reached the short line to the Ferris wheel. As if uncaring, Kaylie hummed and said, “I wondered if that was the reason for the sudden interest from the opposite sex.”

  Knowing the males weren’t even attempting to hide their interest, Dean crossed his arms over his chest, clenching his hands into fists as he fought the need to snatch Kaylie up and bolt out of sight. His gaze drifted back to her just in time to see her tongue dart out from between her lips to touch upon and melt a small piece of the cotton candy that clung stubbornly to the paper it had been wrapped around. Instantly every irritation was forgotten has he imagined his cock in place of that twirled up paper. Buttons pressed painfully into his sudden erection and he grimaced.

  “Dean?” Kaylie placed a hand on his bicep and tugged impatiently. “Come on.”

  It was their turn to slide into one of the cars, together. In close proximity.

  Suddenly, the thought of riding in a Ferris wheel with Kaylie took on a torturous angle.

  They settled in and began to move backward and up. To take his mind of her presence, her scent and those delectable pink lips, Dean blurted out, “I’m sorry for being a jerk.”

  Her small hands rested on the safety rail. At his comment she slowly began to stroke the metal rod. He fixated on the motion. “Which time?”

  Dean winced, knowing it was a legitimate question. He let out a harsh breath. “All of it. I’m just … Hell, Kaylie.” He fisted his hands on his thighs. “I’m just messed up.”

  Kaylie turned slightly, her eyes soft with emotion. “We’re all a bit messed up, Dean. And I have to say you were right about,” she waved a hand in the empty space between them, “what’s going on with us. It only adds to the confusion.”

  A knot he hadn’t realized was coiled in his gut loosened. “So you’re not mad at me?”

  One brow hiked up. “Mad? No. Never could hold a grudge. Frustrated? Yeah. I am. Half the time I don’t know if I want to strangle you or kiss you.”

  As for Dean, he didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her, or, well, kiss her. He’d known how important her acceptance of him was. Otherwise, why would his past matter so much? But now, sitting in the private car, having Kaylie so close, was escalating his need. He wanted his hands on her, and his mouth. Instead he wrapped his own hands on the safety rail to keep him from snatching up what he desperately wanted.

  As they’d been talking, the ride had progressed, one jerking motion at a time. Then they were at the top of the wheel, gazing out over the fair grounds, the treetops and everything as far as the eye could see. Dean sucked in air. Kaylie was right. It was gorgeous.

  “So? Am I right?”

  Dean shot her a sheepish grin. “Yeah, you are.”

  Kaylie opened her mouth to respond when the ride suddenly took off. They flew down and around and then back up again. Dean’s stomach dropped each time they descended, the momentum whipping the tail of his hair into his eyes. Gradually they slowed, only to soar in the opposite direction.

  Kaylie, the little witch, laughed as she rocked the cage, sounding so carefree that he felt an answering chuckle rumble in his chest. It broke free as the ride attendant reversed directions once again.

  When they at last came to a stop he turned his laughing eyes to Kaylie. “Wow.”

  She giggled with a childlike pleasure that warmed his heart. “Told you.”

  “So are we done?”

  “It’ll take some time to unload and reload so we have a few more minutes.”

  As they were currently five cars from the top, Dean guesstimated they had more than a few minutes to wait.

  “So,” Kaylie sidled closer, her thigh brushing his. “What do you want to do while we wait?”
/>   Dean choked as her hand covered the bulge in his jean. “What are you doing?”

  “Passing time in a constructive manner.” Her hand squeezed gently.

  He sucked in a lungful of air, eyes darting around frantically. “Christ, Kaylie. It’s broad daylight.”

  The ride jerked up one car.

  “Geez, Dean. I didn’t take you for a prude, especially after yesterday.” One handed, she popped open the top button. “Besides, the car tilts back and we’re high enough up, no one can see.”

  Greedy lust swept over him, making him want to nip and lick. He closed his eyes briefly before covering her exploring hand with his. “There’s not enough time for that.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She leaned in so that her mouth was a bare inch from his. “After all, you’re already halfway there.”

  He snarled. “So are you.”

  Undaunted, she grinned. “But you’re easier to get off.”

  Male pride demanded he refute that statement. But if he did, she might take her hand away. Two more buttons popped. Dean gritted his teeth. And there was no denying the fact he was already pretty damn close to losing his wad at this very moment. However, that wasn’t the point. The point was … hell. He didn’t know what the point was when she ripped open the final two buttons of his fly and wrapped her hand around his hard length.

  The ride jerked up another car.

  Dean cursed once and then, with a weak-willed groan, snatched her head with his left hand. “Lusty witch,” he rasped just before he slanted his lips over hers.

  She tasted like cotton candy, the sugary sweetness mixing with Kaylie’s unique flavor. Their tongues plunged and tangled. Eager to feel the softness of her pussy, he slid his right hand down and opened her jeans.

  Kaylie broke off the kiss. “What are you doing?”

  Despite the hunger gnawing at him, he grinned. “Tit for tat, Kaylie darling.”

  “But …”

  But Dean’s mouth was back on hers and his hand tunneled under her panties to lay claim to the tiny bud at the top of her cleft. Her hand tightened on his cock as he spread her open with two fingers and used his middle finger to rub over her clit.