Luna Junction 1 Feasts with Wolves (W)

by Sage Domini

  FEASTS WITH WOLVES

  By Sage Domini

  Copyright 2013

  Smashwords Edition

  ***

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living, dead or somewhere in between is purely coincidental.

  Warning: Coarse language and lusty scenes abound in these pages! Adults only please.

  Chapter 1

  I listened to the last stragglers emptying out of the building to the music of rolling suitcases and eager chatter. Pouting, I rolled over in the narrow bed and pulled the purple down comforter over my head. It left me feeling curiously entombed, but no longer subjected to the merry sounds of departing holiday travelers. My roommate, Julia From New York, had left a day earlier. One was always aware that Julia From New York was indeed from New York because she told you. At least once an hour.

  “…’cause where I’m from in New York we do things blah blah blah…and in New York where I’m from it would be blah blah blah…”

  But really I didn’t hate Julia. We got along all right when she wasn’t using my Irish Spring soap and returning it enmeshed with a ribbon of her dark hair. I was just feeling bitchy because, alas, two days before Christmas there were no bells for me to jingle, no halls for me to deck. Of course I could hang some mistletoe in the dorm lobby and french the dirty walls but that would be even sadder than hiding under my purple comforter in a fog of my own stale breath. Once I’d had that holiday cheer, all the ho ho ho Santa shit and hanging stockings by the alabaster marble mantle with care. But then my folks divorced and my mom decided she wasn’t a caroling hot chocolate kind of gal. She was a new boobs on a holiday cruise kind of gal. My dad was still back home in San Jose but busily playing house with Becca Blowjob, as I affectionately thought of the former homecoming queen whose yearbook picture I had creatively enhanced recently with a handy Bic pen.

  All this middle aged personality rebranding left me without a place to comfortably spend the holiday break. Neither parent seemed especially concerned when I explained how I would be spending this joyous season alone. Alone! With only a couple of bewildered foreign students from unpronounceable countries remaining on campus. I explained it might be dangerous; a nubile young woman wandering a nearly deserted university. It was the stuff of cheap horror movies where the bosomy chick ends up dismembered. I asked what I ought to do if Ted Bundy began shadowing me. My father told me not to worry because Ted Bundy had been executed some years before. Then I realized the breathless manner of his voice was creeping me out and that Becca Blowjob hadn’t gotten her nickname for nothing so I threw the phone across the room.

  And suddenly the phone was ringing. I unfurled my purple shroud and peered at the screen. Odd that Matthew Landon was calling me. As far as I knew he was on his way to that Currier and Ives rural home he’d described on our handful of awkward dates. Matthew had stopped by the night before to give me a box of See’s Candies which was sweet and all but when I had deepened our kiss and pressed myself against his muscled chest he pulled away, muttering something about getting on the road early the next morning.

  I had stood there for several minutes with one nipple popping out of my bra, feeling inadequate. I looked down at my body. It wasn’t model perfect but my skinny mother paid a lot of money for breasts like these and what sort of twenty year old guy walked away from sex on a platter? I thought Matthew was actually a little quiet, boring even, but he was tall and broad and hot so I would have been willing to overlook the imperfections in exchange for some Christmas deflowering. Well…technically I had lost my virginity a year and half earlier on Senior Ditch Day, if you chose to count some painful backseat fingering followed by three stiff thrusts. Frankly, I didn’t.

  “Tatum,” Matthew’s deep voice lumbered when I picked up the phone.

  “Hey Matt. Did you butt dial me or something?”

  Matthew chuckled. “No. I’m downstairs. Listen, I’ll be heading back down here the day after New Year’s and, well, I was wondering if you would like to come home with me for the holidays?”

  “You mean to your house?”

  “That’s where home usually is.”

  I felt a trifle confused. I must have misread Matthew’s red-faced retreat from my eager clutches. Or else he felt guiltily sorry for me. Either way it didn’t matter. The season suddenly seemed a lot brighter as at the very least I could surely look forward to some surreptitious coupling in a barn. “Give me ten minutes.”

  “Take your time. I’ll be waiting.”

  I tied my hair up hastily and pushed my thighs into my tightest pair of jeans. The academic effluvia in my backpack was dumped on the floor as I sorted rapidly through clothing and packed the most flattering boob-busting articles I could find along with the only real piece of sexy lingerie I owned; a medieval-looking black corset thing. Julia From New York had purchased it as a gag gift for my birthday in October. Or else she was a lesbian and hoped I would be lounging around in our room clothed as a dominatrix as I idly paged through Nietzche. I didn’t think she was a lesbian.

  Chapter 2

  Matthew Landon was leaning casually against the frame of his beat up pickup truck and frowning into his phone. His hair was dark blonde and he had rather a wholesome air about him which made it difficult to picture wrapping my legs around his waist as he pounded my body against a wall or a mattress or even the cold dirty ground (hell, I wasn’t picky). He smiled politely when he saw me and held the door open so I could climb inside.

  Matthew’s truck smelled of pine needles because he had one of those garish scent refreshers hanging from the rearview mirror. “It smells like Christmas in here,” I said brightly because I had promised myself that I would play at Happy Tatum until I was deposited back here on January 2nd. After all, whatever the reasons, the dude had been kind enough to tow me along to meet his family. Oh, and I still sort of wanted to have sex with him.

  I tried to keep up a steady stream of chatter as Matthew smiled vaguely and piloted the truck up the I-17. I’d already understood he was a guy of few words and didn’t mind single-handedly propping up the conversation. But when he turned up the volume on Manheim Steamroller’s Greatest Hits, I took a hint and stopped regaling him with Tales of Tatum.

  I looked outside the window, noticing the landscape change. The brown barrenness of the Sonoran desert was giving way to greener scenery as we climbed into the northern part of the state. “So,” I finally said. “What’s the name of your hometown again?”

  Matthew glanced at me as if he were surprised to see me sitting there. “We don’t actually live in town, but Luna Junction is the name of it. Dad owns the hundred acre wood surrounding the house.”

  “Hundred Acre Wood!” I exclaimed. “Got any honey?”

  He blinked at me, puzzled. “What?”

  “Winnie-the-Pooh.” Matthew still looked a bit nonplussed. “He lived in the Hundred Acre Wood!” I realized I was shouting and lowered my voice. “I loved that story when I was a kid. But not as much as I loved fairy tales. I had this huge gothic-looking Grimm’s Fairy Tales volume that I used to drag under the covers and devour with a flashlight. Must have read that thing a thousand times.”

  Matthew was quiet for a moment. “You realize fairy tales are made up garbage penned by s
uperstitious hacks, right?”

  Seriously? Did Little Red Riding Hood piss in this kid’s cornflakes once upon a time? “Um, yeah. Right.” I returned to gazing out the window but I was starting to have doubts about this little trip. Matthew Landon may be fine to look at but he was also at turns dense and humorless. We just weren’t clicking and if nothing changed then it was going to be a long ten days in the middle of Lunaville or wherever the hell we were going.

  I heard him sigh and realized somehow this was difficult for him too. I still wondered at his motivation for inviting me along; at best our dates had been lackluster and if he’d been after something more carnal he had yet to make a move. But there we were and with the valley several hours behind us it was too late to turn back. I cleared my throat and turned the conversation in a new direction. For the rest of the drive we chatted amiably about college football and pondered which dining hall meal was truly the most wretched. (I said it was country-fried steak and he argued for teriyaki meatloaf.)

  By the time I saw the small roadside sign for Luna Junction the vegetation had blossomed from stoic saguaros to towering conifers. I knew we were somewhere up in the Flagstaff-ish northern quadrant of the state but my geographical senses were sketchy. I drew out my phone and Googled ‘Luna Junction’ and found only a brief Wikipedia entry which listed it as an unincorporated municipality with approximately 236 residents of ‘demographics unknown’.

  Here and there I glimpsed picturesque ranch houses set far back from the road. We had exited the highway some distance ago and the two-lane road was bumpy and twisted. Matthew paused the truck at a four way stop which I guessed to be the cosmopolitan center of Luna Junction. No other vehicles were in sight. An independent gas station stood on the corner and I was startled to see a trio of absurdly gorgeous men staring at us. I mean really, these dudes looked like Chippendale dancers pumped with cowboy steroids. Matthew raised a hand in quiet greeting and the largest of the hot dudes nodded.

  “Friends of yours?” I muttered.

  Matthew’s eyes returned to the road and he pressed the gas pedal. “No,” he said.

  I began to feel nervous although I could not have said why. If Julia From New York were here she should be frowning out the window and sniffing about how this place was utterly unlike New York. Actually Luna Junction was unlike anything I’d ever seen either. I’d never carefully considered what populated all that space on a United States map. Now I pictured eighty thousand Luna Junctions on those sizeable swaths; scattered populations eking out some semblance of a community. Matthew had always spoken of his hometown with affection and indeed a small smile played on his lips as he steered down the lonely road. It was certainly lovely, though very different from the dry desert. Snow capped the ring of surrounding mountains and immense ponderosa trees dominated the landscape.

  I cracked the window a bit and shivered at the chilly wind. Matthew’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel. “That’s snow air.”

  “Snow?” Too bad weather variables hadn’t occurred to me. My hack packing job had only been concerned with the appearance of my breasts. I certainly had not brought a warm coat.

  Matthew spoke absently. “Yeah, we get a white Christmas up here more often than not.”

  “That’s…awesome,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Perhaps if I tied the corset on underneath my clothes I could avoid hypothermia.

  Matthew sharply turned right and a long unpaved road yawned before us. “You hungry?” he asked.

  “I’m always hungry. I’m a grazer. Sort of like a cow.” Because cows are totally sexy, am I right??

  Matthew looked confused. “Well anyway, I’m sure my dad will probably have some meat ready.”

  “Your dad’s the cook in the family?” Matthew had only ever spoken of his father in brief, halting tones. I got the impression they didn’t really get along. “I know your mom died when you were little.”

  “I was nine. The twins were only four.”

  I tried to recall whether Matthew had ever elaborated on how his mother had died. I hesitated to ask for fear he may have already told me and the information had been lost in my infamous sieve of a brain.

  But Matthew had already moved on to another subject. He swore under his breath. “Wish he’d just find some female to pair off with. Might make him back the hell off.”

  “Who?”

  He looked at me. “My father.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, my dad paired off with the bitch who froze my underwear at a seventh grade sleepover.” I thought about the new long distance exuberance in my father’s voice as he told me everything I never wanted to know about male hair plugs. “But he’s happy,” I admitted.

  Matthew had either stopped listening or was feeling quietly sorry for me as he considered how to assuage my familial sorrows. I craned my neck to see up the road. It seemed we had travelled a long way. It further seemed there would be nothing at the end of this tree-lined dirt path except more dirt and more trees. The high beams blinded me and a scream ripped out of my throat as Matthew swerved the truck into a ditch to avoid the honking Chevy Avalanche which rolled to a stop fifty yards way. Two teenage boys spilled laughingly out of the cab.

  Matthew hailed them with a wide grin. “Who taught you assholes how to drive anyway?” He turned to me and explained. “My brothers.” One had Matthew’s light hair and sculpted features. The other was darker and square-jawed. I wondered which parent the boys took after.

  They greeted their brother with punches and obscenities. Having no siblings of my own, I was always fascinated by them. The light haired boy noticed me and froze, an odd look on his face as he turned to Matthew questioningly. The dark twin was quicker to recover. He extended a gentlemanly hand. “I’m Zane.” He nudged the other boy with a sharp elbow. “This moron is Benji.”

  I shook his hand, wondering at the slightly worried look in his dark eyes. “Tatum Murphy.”

  Benji turned to Matthew accusingly. “You didn’t tell Cade you had a girlfriend.”

  Matthew blushed and stared at the steering wheel. Oh, awkward moment of all awkward moments. I chewed my lip and waited for Matthew to speak because we’d never exactly progressed to the ‘Who are we, what are we, and where is all this going?’ sort of chat. Though Benji could hardly be faulted for assuming things. I understood the wider world thought some level of commitment was involved when a guy brought a girl home for Christmas.

  Matthew’s cold hand found mine and squeezed limply. His tone was defensive, even a little annoyed. “Well he should be overjoyed. This is more or less what he’s been after me about.”

  Zane nodded sagely. “No doubt, big brother. Though it might have made him think twice about inviting his guest.”

  Matthew frowned. “What guest?”

  Benji raised his eyebrows and glanced at Zane. “Claire.”

  The effect on Matthew was electric. He dropped my hand and gripped the steering wheel as if it were a life preserver. Which left me adrift with the silent question Who the hell is Claire? I realized the twins were looking at me so I smiled gaily as if news of this Claire person did not trouble me at all.

  An uncomfortable silence reigned as Matthew drove the remaining short distance. We pulled up in front of a sprawling single story ranch house. The place was attractive in a gray, unassuming sort of way. There were no flowers or other small touches of beauty which usually indicate a feminine presence. A dark red barn loomed in the background. It was a very different sort of home than the lavish decadence I had grown up with in Silicon Valley.

  Matthew turned the engine off. “I’m sorry about this, Tatum.”

  I shrugged. “Hey, it was cool of you to invite me so no pressure, okay?”

  He coughed and closed his eyes. “The boys were right,” he muttered. “I should have warned him I was bringing you.”

  Warned? My presence required red flags and alarm sirens? I wondered what the hell kind of father Cade Landon was. The cabin of the truck was growing s
wiftly colder and I noted the approaching clouds in the winter sky. “Well,” I said. “I’m still hungry and you promised me a home cooked lunch.”

  He chewed on the inside of his lip, looking for all the world like a completely unsexy and worried little boy. “All right,” he swallowed. “Let’s go.”

  The inside of the house was austerely decorated with rustic touches. A small Christmas tree stood just inside the foyer. My boot heels clicked against dark wooden floors. I glanced up, admiring the exposed beams which gave the place a pioneer cabin feel. Matthew nodded at the large living room. “My dad built it all himself.”

  “No kidding? I love it. Must have been nice to grow up here. I used to wish I was a country girl out on a farm. You know, with a bunch of chickens to tend to. Or goats. I like goats too.” Somewhere in there I stopped making sense even to myself but Matthew didn’t appear to be listening. I smelled the heavenly aroma of searing meat and my stomach growled.

  I followed Matthew down the dark hall and into the kitchen. The table was piled with about a dozen steaks cooked so rare they still bled. Matthew stopped walking so abruptly that I smacked right into his back. The pert little blond sitting at the table smiled angelically when she saw him. The smile vanished a mere second later when she saw me peeking around his shoulder.

  Matthew swallowed. “Claire.”

  Claire managed a watery grin. “Hey, Matt. I’m sorry. Cade invited me. I didn’t know you had a…” Her sad eyes trailed back to me.

  I waved. “Hi Claire. I’m Tatum. Matthew and I go to ASU together.”

  Claire nodded vaguely, her eyes still on the spectacularly still statue of Matthew. I supposed I would have to literally push him out of the way to enter the room. Claire seemed to remember her manners and smiled at me shyly. “There’s plenty of meat.” Her eyebrows arched. “You are the sort who eats meat, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’m the sort. Not used to meat quite so thick and gory, but my stomach’s not apt to be choosy at this point.”