by Nikki Winter
“Sure you will, Humphrey.” Anoki was clearly amused. His mouth twisted and he suddenly threw up his hands. “I’ve grown bored with your presence now! I’m off to talk to someone who has larger breasts than yours and knows how to use them to her advantage.”
Then he was gone. And yes, Maddox remained lying there, on the ground, contemplating what brand of torment he could inflict on the asshole when he finally caught up with him later.
***
“I feel like an idiot.”
“Would you just trust me?”
“Cree—”
“Trust!” she shouted, standing on her tiptoes.
Ransom looked seconds away from laughing as he leaned backwards but replied, “Alright, alright. Jesus…”
“This will work, Kissyfur and do you know why?”
“Er…no.”
“Because you’re recreating the most important moment in your and Fallon’s lives,” she answered, rather proud of herself. She’d come up with this little plan in lieu of a traditional proposal because Cree could remember the way her friend had been so completely shaken while describing what occurred in this very spot a year ago; Fallon and Ransom’s first kiss.
Despite her adoptive father’s gruff acceptance, he’d given his blessing and Helena seemed more than a bit happy that her wonder pup was finally going to take a walk down the aisle…even if she had to be dragged there. Meanwhile Lorna and Callum McKenna’s excitement was both loud and vocal. It seemed Ransom’s mother had been trying to get him locked into anything close to commitment for a long time.
If Ransom would just stop fidgeting and get himself together, they could make this thing sing. “Give me the towel,” Cree demanded.
He suddenly looked awfully nervous. “But—”
“Towel. Now.”
“You really want me to do this while naked? All my important—and extremely praise worthy–parts left on display?”
“Are you someone who irritates me? Would I lead you astray on purpose?” she questioned.
“Seeing as how I’ve never required stitches or an E.R. visit after an encounter with you, I’m going to say no.”
“Then do what I tell you to and bare your ass!”
Ransom blinked. “At what point did our relationship take such a strange turn?”
Her mouth twisted. “I dunno, my friend. I’m simply trying to help and while my methods may be aggressive,” Cree suddenly reached down and snatched the towel from around his waist, making sure to keep her eyes on his face. “They’re necessary.”
He opened his mouth but she wound the towel and snapped it. “On the porch, grizzly!”
Groaning a little, the bear did as she bade while she put her gaze on the roof of his and Fallon’s cabin.
“I want you to do it just like we rehearsed, alright?”
Ransom grumbled.
“What was that?”
“Alright!” he bellowed.
“Don’t roar at me!”
“That wasn’t a roar! When I roar, you’ll fucking well know it!”
“That definitely sounded like roaring to me! Would you like that aforementioned visit to the E.R.?”
“Would it involve me being unconscious while the sound of your voice became a distant memory?”
“No but it would definitely involve snot bubbles and excruciating pain! Does that sound pleasant enough?!”
They both stopped, stared at each other for a bit then began to laugh.
Ransom nodded his head at Cree. “You’re treating me like family aren’t you?”
She gave him a soft smile. “Because you are family. If it weren’t for you, Fallon would be a lot more violent and a lot less happy. Don’t let your fears intimidate you. She loves you and even if she growled through the entire ceremony, she’d marry you tomorrow.” Cree backed away. “You’re exactly what she never even knew she needed.”
Turning to walk back to her own cabin, she stopped when Ransom quietly asked, “And you? Have you found out what it is you’ve always needed yet?”
Cree didn’t face him when she countered with, “You mean Maddox?”
“Yes.”
The snort of laughter left her before she could draw it back. It was hollow; hard. “Between the two of us Ransom, your brother could’ve been the best thing to ever happen to me.”
“Could’ve been?” he gently prodded.
She nodded. “Yeah. Could’ve been.”
“Any reason why it sounds like those particular cards have been swiped from the table?”
“Because,” she cast him a quick glance over her shoulder. “I would’ve been the worst thing to ever happen to him.” With that she walked away.
A few yards down the road, Fallon caught up with her. “And where have you been?”
Cree’s mouth curved. “Helping out a friend.”
“When you say helping…does it have a sexual connotation?”
She laughed. “No, you pervert.”
“Well the mischievous smile says otherwise. What else am I supposed to believe?”
Bumping her shoulder into her friend’s, Cree said, “Go home.”
“Why?”
“Because Ransom’s waiting for you.”
“And?”
Cree stopped. “And he has something to talk to you about.”
Fallon’s expression turned anxious. “Is it more wedding bullshit?”
“Would you just go?!”
The she-wolf drew back. “The yelling is a bit excessive.”
Lowering her brows, Cree pointed back towards Fallon’s cabin. “Go.”
Her brave, strong, capable alpha stomped her feet and pouted. “I don’t wanna!”
“Fallon. Wilder.”
The other woman threw up her hands. “Fine! Fine!” She then proceeded to march all the way to her home, fists balled at her side, head held high.
Cree grinned just a little when in the distance she heard Fallon query, “Why, by all that is holy, do you have your naked bear ass on my beautiful, hand crafted, porch? What did I tell you about naked bear ass on the porch?!”
There was most assuredly a roar in response, more yelling and then the slamming of a door. Since Cree couldn’t hear begging or bellowing she assumed that the pair had both been inside the cabin when said door slammed, which meant her plan worked.
Her lips lifted into a faint grin. Mission accomplished.
But how long will you be around to watch all your pretty little strategies succeed?
Cree’s amusement melted as quickly as it manifested. She didn’t have an answer for that. There were days where she felt like she had a say, a voice among the many inside but when she became too comfortable, too complacent, they proved that she didn’t. This morning had shown her that she couldn’t fight it forever.
Blood will tell…
She’d grown up hearing that very phrase over and over again. It seemed to be more true than she’d wanted to admit at one point but as of now, she realized that it had always been a fact and not a nonsensical statement made by her tribe to frighten her. Constant analysis of everything she did aside, they’d been right. She should’ve believed it after seeing what her mother had done to her father. The gentlest woman she’d ever known was someone who she suddenly couldn’t recognize. There were days that she could still remember the feral stare Nuna had cast her while hovering over her mate’s body; her eyes like that of something that had crawled from the bowels of hell.
Maddox had taken it as a joke the first day they’d crossed paths and she’d informed him that she was the very thing his mother had warned him about. Cree hadn’t been kidding; she was. And with time, if she didn’t leave, he’d see it for himself. They all would.
Cree’s steps slowed as she reached her cabin. There was a large hunched over figure resting against her porch. Said large, hunched over figure smelled a lot like lemongrass and looked entirely too much like a male she’d been trying to avoid all day.
“You’re trespassing,” she announc
ed.
Maddox looked up, an ice pack pressed to his head. “You gonna shoot me?”
“I don’t have a gun that fires angry bees on steroids so…no.”
“Then quiet down, wily female,” he grumbled. “I’m here to apologize for being a dick earlier. Although I consider myself the largest and prettiest dick you will ever encounter, I was still a dick.”
Her lips twitched. Why couldn’t he just be annoying all the time? Like a rash that just wouldn’t go away?! Instead she enjoyed having him around—which just made things much more complicated.
She shrugged. “Why deviate from the normal routine?”
“Because the normal routine has been getting me nowhere,” he answered, standing straight. “And it’s frustrating. Do you know why it’s frustrating?”
Cree folded her arms across her chest and stared up at him. “Can’t say that I do.”
He leaned down until they were nose to nose. “I am not just a horny, grubby handed, tit-grabbing bastard.”
“Wow…really?” Her brows had to be touching her hairline.
Maddox nodded. “Yes, really. Could I kiss you and leave you singing my praises to the gods in a slight A3 mezzo-soprano? Most assuredly. Could I make you curl into a little ball and weep in pleasure? Of course. Could I convince you that you should be pregnant with my offspring as of right now? Definitely. But what’s the issue there?”
“Um…I’d claw your eyes out of your head then hang them on the rear-view of my jeep like fuzzy dice, watching them jiggle every time I hit a pothole?”
He swiped a finger down her nose. “Cute but wrong, beautiful. The issue is that I don’t want to have to convince you that this,”—he waved a hand between the two of them—“makes sense. It’s something you’ll have to see on your own and then we can spend many pleasurable hours with you tearing up a duvet, or four, in worship of the power that my pelvic muscles wield.”
“Right,” she stated slowly. “This alternate universe that you live in, is there crack?”
“No but there are masturbatory visions of you and that’s really all I need.”
God he was insane.
“Maddox. Go away.”
“You’ve been telling me to do that since this morning but you haven’t give me an incentive to follow through.”
“If you leave now, I won’t be tempted to leave you naked and crying on your brother’s steps.”
His eyes twinkled in the dimming light of the sun. “You want to see me naked. Admit it, you’re obsessed with all my glory.”
She sighed. “Can you just…annoy other people?”
Maddox’s head cocked. “You really want me to go?”
“I really want you to go.” Before I do something stupid like ask you to stay for dinner.
“Fine,” he replied, straightening his shirt. “I have other things to do; important things.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.” His expression turned haughty. “Things that don’t involve moody little shifters.”
He started to walk away.
Cree breathed a sigh of relief and started up her porch steps brut froze when he said, “Oh and Cree?”
Shoulders tense, she waited.
“Moody or not, you’re still the center of my masturbatory visions.”
She would not laugh. She would not laugh. Goddammit! The hand she slapped over her mouth did her no good and from the way Maddox ambled off whistling, she knew he’d heard her.
Five
“So this is what you do every morning,” Maddox murmured staring down at Cree. “Can’t claim that I’m particularly opposed but it is a bit,”—he grimaced—“gruesome to say the least.”
Rather than leap up like he expected, his delicate little flower rolled over to her side on the ground, mouth parting on a sleep growl that was both disturbing and cute. Disturbing particularly because she was resting a few feet away from a deer that Maddox silently hoped had a will for its young; as it was now missing its head and back left leg. When he found himself at her front door just before the sun rose, he hadn’t counted on the wood hanging off its hinges and her scent being sharp enough that he had no choice but to follow it. His bear had led him at least a mile away from the lodge and in no time, he’d stumbled across a peacefully sleeping, incredibly naked, blood covered Cree. In all honesty, the sleeping and naked parts made him quite happy. They also made his cock hard enough to drill for oil but the blood…
Maddox squatted. “Cree?”
Her hands and feet twitched and he laughed softly. Reaching out, he brushed her hair back from her face. “Cree?”
One hand shot up and grasped his in a hold that was surprisingly strong before her eyes opened wide. He held his breath as irises the color of fire took him in with one fell swoop before bleeding into a fathomless black then finally fading into the topaz shade he’d come to know so well. Her lashes fanned a few times as a line formed between her brows. “Maddox?”
He exhaled. Jesus.
She looked down at his hand. “What are you…?” Her words trailed off as she took in the fact that they were outside. Her stare landed on the mangled deer, bounced to her bare form and then jerked up to what he knew was an extremely confused expression. “Fu-huck,” she whispered.
That about summed it up for him too. Cree finally let him go and jumped up. “Shit, shit, shit…Oh my God…what did I…shit, shit, shit…Oh my God…”
Maddox sat back on the ground, forearms resting on his knees as he watched her. Even while looking distinctly like a murder suspect—which if they were being honest, her victim was slain horribly—she was beautiful. Hands in her hair, back to him, she stood facing the sun and he could see every curve of her, worthy to be exalted, physique outlined in the rays, her skin glowing faintly. Her shoulders were small but strong, leading to a smooth, well defined back, hips that curved delicately and legs that stretched on silkily.
The halves of her buttocks were so perfectly formed that for a moment he considered forgetting all about the horror crime scene he’d found her in and the demonic gaze. Maddox simply wanted to crawl towards her on all fours, panting and begging for a chance to skirt the golden flesh with his teeth before…
She abruptly turned around, selfishly depriving him of his view!
“Maddox?”
The way she said his name, the plea in her voice, had his scrotum drawing up. He put his stare on her face and not her nipples. Although he really wanted to stare at her nipples. “Yes?”
Cree folded her arms across her chest, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she shifted from one foot to the other. Her face told him how lost she was. “I need a favor.”
His head tilted. “From…?”
She blew out a hard breath. “You.”
He blinked. “You want a favor from me?”
“Yes. You.”
He went back on his elbows. “And this favor would be…?”
“Your shirt.”
Maddox quirked a brow. “My shirt?”
“Yes. You’re shirt.”
“Because you’re naked,” he stated, running his eyes down the curves of her frame again. Bloody or not, he really wanted to find a soft patch of dirt and see if he could knock down the walls of her pu—
“Yes,” Cree snapped. “Because I’m naked!”
“Heh.” Maddox lay all the way back on the ground, folding his arms beneath his head as he gazed up at the sky. He’d spent the night before replaying the sound of Cree’s laughter in his head over and over again before he’d finally fallen asleep just to jerk upwards hours later with his cock tenting the sheets and his skin hot. Like a demon she haunted him; her ever changing smell, her impish grin and her husky voice. He didn’t pretend to know what it was that he’d encountered this morning and truthfully, he wasn’t sure he was completely ready to understand it, but the fact that she needed him for something—anything—stroked over the basic male side of him.
He suddenly had almost six feet of glaring female block
ing out his view of the clouds. “Well?”
Maddox’s mouth twisted. “Well what?”
Cree momentarily tucked in her lips. “Are you going to give me your shirt?”
“Perhaps if you asked a bit nicer…”
“Can I have your shirt before I give into the overwhelming urge to beat you with the carcass a few feet away?”
“That wasn’t very nice,” he tsked, wagging his finger in admonishment.
She stepped back, tugged at her locks and sighed, “Maddox…please.”
Chuckling, he sat up. “On one condition.”
He watched as she stiffened. “What?”
Holding her stare, Maddox quietly answered, “Let me spend a day with you.”
Cree’s eyes narrowed. “You want to spend a day with me?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “You. Cree Chayton. Five-foot-eleven. Approximately 160 pounds of sin and decadence. The owner of amazing hair, a wonderful smile, sick sense of humor and tits that could bring down a fighter jet.”
She rubbed her temples. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to spend a day with me?” Poor thing looked genuinely confused; as if it were beyond her comprehension. She had no idea did she? She really didn’t know.
Rolling his shoulders, he retorted, “For all the reasons I just named and because I want to see if my theory is correct.”
“And that would be…?”
Maddox gave her his widest grin. “Whether or not my cock seeks you out like a drug dog hunting illegal contraband.”
Her lips parted and he could see a response forming on her mouth but she shook her head and only questioned, “You’re not even going to ask about”—she waved a hand at the deer—“that?”
He shrugged. “You planning on repeating those heinous offenses against nature on yours truly?”
Her face reddened. “No.”
“Well then I find myself uninterested in such things.” At least for now. Oh, he had many questions about this but at the moment, intuition told him that even uttering one would have her sprinting off and once again avoiding him. Couldn’t have that now could he? He’d play naïve, give her the innocent stare and when she was nice and placid, jump on her like a cougar with an unaware runner.
