by Amelia Jade
“No worries,” he told her. “That part’s all covered. I already got a gift. Nobody even knows you’re coming, and they won’t care since they’ll realize you don’t know any of them. Trust me, it’ll be fine!” He sounded a lot more positive than she felt. “Oh, we’re here.”
Her mind was in a thousand different places as they unhitched the ATVs. It was tough for her to be mad at him, because what they were about to do was making her giddy. Even now as Joel kicked the first vehicle to life, a sharp cough followed by a quickly increasing roar, she felt like dancing from foot to foot.
The feeling increased as she followed Joel down the muddy path, quickly learning how the particular ATV handled. They were all a little different, and she wanted to ensure she didn’t embarrass herself in front of him. He was taking it easy at first, she realized, letting her get back in the groove of things.
Shortly, however, he came to a top of a hill where they saw an extremely muddy and water-filled part of the path ahead of them. With a few gestures of his hand, Joel got across the point that they would have to gun it and hope they could use speed to get far enough before the mud sucked them down.
He went first, and she watched as he gunned the engine, rapidly picking up speed until he hit the large puddle, where he then sent a huge spray of mud out in all directions. He managed to get across it, slowing down and turning back to watch her once he had reached ground that was more sturdy.
“Okay, you can do this,” she told herself out loud, settling her helmet back into place and revving the engine a few times.
“Oh hell yes!” she shouted, pouring on all the speed she could until she hit the puddle. Almost immediately the tires began to spin out of control, quickly losing any traction they might have had. All that was keeping her going now was momentum. Her back tire grabbed at something, threatening to send her into a spin, but she easily corrected for it and continued across until she slid to a halt close to Joel.
The two of them whooped with joy and happiness and then took off again. Courtenay cried foul as Joel hit the gas hard, spewing up mud that splattered all across her.
“I’ll get you!” she yelled, vowing revenge. Somehow.
They followed the beaten path, howling and shrieking with delight as mud flew everywhere. Courtenay quite literally felt that no matter the protective gear she was wearing, that it had gotten into every crack. It just made the experience all the better.
Without warning Joel’s vehicle suddenly stopped underneath him. The sheer deceleration was too much for him to handle and she watched in horror as he flipped over the handle bars and went flying through the air. His body collided with a tree and he slid to the ground.
“Joel!” she screamed, slamming on the brakes and slewing the machine into a turn as she tried to stop before her ATV hit his.
She came to a stop about five feet shy of his vehicle and threw herself off, running through the muck to get to his side.
“Joel! Joel are you okay?” she said, struggling for footing as she got closer, her boots slipping out from under her, sending her down to land on all fours. Instead of struggling to get up she simply pushed herself through the muck to get to his side.
“Joel!” she said, looking at him.
“Ow,” he groaned, lying flat on his back, spread-eagled in the mud.
“Are you okay?” she asked, terrified that he might be seriously hurt.
Joel frowned at her. “Yeah,” he said slowly, confusion clouding his face. “Of course. Why?”
Courtenay returned the frown. “Because you just went flying into a tree,” she said matter-of-factly.
She watched as he gingerly pushed himself up into a sitting position, and flashed her a smile.
“It hurt, but I’m a shifter, Courtenay. It takes a lot more than that to cause damage to me.”
“I know that, you idiot. But look.” She pointed up at the tree, where a branch several inches long was covered in sticky-dark liquid and ripped material.
Material the same color as Joel’s jacket.
“No wonder my back is still killing me,” he muttered, trying to stand.
“Now hold on there, mister,” she said, putting pressure on his shoulders until he relented and sat back down. “You let me take a look at that. You’re probably fine, but if there’s still some wood in there, that could cause some issues.”
Joel wisely didn’t say anything. Probably a good idea, she thought. He was smart enough to know that if his skin closed over any remaining chunk of branch, that it would be an extremely painful few days while it pushed itself out. Or an equally painful procedure for her to cut him open again to extract it. Either way, it was easier for him to sit still for a few minutes now and let her work.
She grabbed a clean pair of gloves and water from her ATV.
“Strip,” she commanded.
“Out here?” he asked with a smirk. “As long as you’ve heard of shrinkage, Doc. It’s kind of cold.”
Courtenay snorted. “Your top, smartass. Now.”
Properly chastised, Joel tried to pull off his jacket and sweatshirt. She saw him wince as he tried to raise his left arm however, and she quickly helped divest him of the clothing. His now bare skin revealed the puncture wound on the lower left portion of his back. Splashing water on it, she cleaned away the mud and dirt from when he had been lying down as best she could.
“I wish I had a first aid kid,” she muttered. They had one, but it was back at the truck.
“I don’t need any of that,” he told her.
“Well, I could sure use tweezers right now,” she told him. “Besides, I’m not a bear shifter. What if that had been me?”
Joel didn’t say anything. She hadn’t meant to be that harsh, but it was quite clear now that leaving the kit had been a stupid idea. His right hand reached into his pocket.
“Stay still,” she said, fiddling with the wound, which was already beginning to close. He didn’t stop moving though.
“Can you stop?” she asked him sarcastically.
Joel held up his hand. In it was a multitool.
“Oh,” she said a little lamely, and grabbed it from his palm. The needle-nose pliers which were the main tool on it were a little big for the job, but they should actually work. She plunged them into the wound and squeezed tight around the bit of wood she had seen.
“Brace yourself,” she warned, and before he could say anything, she yanked.
“Argh!” he cried, a wordless sound of pain, and a two-inch chunk of wood came out of his skin, ripping it slightly as it exited him.
“Thanks for the warning,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
“I thought you were a big tough shifter?” she teased, moving so that she was squatting in front of him.
“I am. And we are tough,” he told her. “But that’s until we get a boo-boo. Then we need to be fussed over and pampered.”
Courtenay laughed as he tried to adopt a helpless voice and facial expression to go along with the words he managed to say with a straight face.
“You’ve been fussed over and pampered now, mister. So it’s time to act tough again.”
He looked at her, his eyes blazing with intensity as they bored into her soul. “There’s one more step, Doc,” he said, his voice dropping an octave and losing all pretense of humor.
Courtenay felt her throat go dry. She licked her lips nervously. “What’s that?” she managed to get out.
“I need you to kiss it better,” he whispered, reaching out to her at the same time, cupping her chin in his hand.
She didn’t care that his glove was covered in mud. That was a given. It was still tender, and though it lacked the skin-on-skin contact, she could still feel his warmth seeping through. Swallowing hard and trying to dislodge the lump that was there, she knew she had to respond.
Did she kiss him? What the hell should she do!
“Is that so?” she asked, afraid to breathe.
“Yes,” he told her, and his hand pulled gently on he
r. She didn’t resist, instead putting her hands on his shoulders to brace herself as she leaned into him. Her fingers splayed across the thick muscle, and she felt the definition of his individual muscles under her fingertips.
The connection was near instant this time. Flame raced up her fingers from his skin, moving so fast that the heat left a tingle behind as it returned sensation to hands numbed by the cold. Electricity raced from hair to hair, standing each one on its end individually in a rippling wave that reached her shoulders, behind her head, and then flowed down her spine.
Behind it came the warmth, a surging, pulsating, practically living thing that reached out and sunk its talons deep into her, increasing in ferocity as she neared him. At the last moment she closed her eyes, giving in to the desire that was clearly burning within her.
Their lips met and the heat surrounding her redoubled in intensity, becoming an inferno that threatened to suck the very air from the space around them. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and didn’t fight him as he pulled her close. Her legs settled on either side of him as he sat on his ass in the mud, while she felt her knees begin to depress into the ground.
The cold muck didn’t matter as the heat from their embrace banished it back into the earth from whence it had come. His fire ignited her own, the forge between her legs flaring to life in an incandescent nova of light and heat. It threatened to reach new heights as she felt his cock press up against her. Despite the thickness of their clothing, he was so hard she thought he would rip through it in a desperate attempt to get to her.
His lips burned against hers, searing her with their touch, but she didn’t back away. She pressed against him harder, not fighting the slight rock in her hips as she rubbed against his hardness again and again. She was losing control, but she didn’t care. The intensity of the moment swept her along in its wake, removing her control as if it hadn’t existed.
They continued to kiss, the seconds becoming minutes, until at last she broke away, gasping for air as blood rushed through her system. Immediately she began to recover, the explosion of sensation and warmth that had covered her cooling down from lava to boiling water.
“Is it always like that with you?” she gasped, her lungs still heaving with an effort to breathe. Joel, she noticed, was also out of breath.
“Me?” he asked in surprise. “I thought that was you.” A thoughtful look came over his face. “Maybe it’s us.”
“Either way,” she said, “I like it.” She pulled his neck toward her, hard, allowing him to press into her and roll her over, so that she lay on her back in the mud. Above her, Joel pressed down into her, melding their bodies together with the blaze of fire that followed.
***
An unknown amount of time later, they finally returned to his truck. They had kissed for a long time, and once the chill of the earth began to overwhelm the heat of their embrace, Courtenay had said they should call it a day. She was still susceptible to illness, and much longer in the chill would have likely left her with a cold.
What they hadn’t planned for was how stuck Joel’s ATV would become after having been left for so long.
“Holy shit, it’s nine,” he said as they finished strapping the second one to the trailer.
“So much for that baby shower,” she said, somewhat triumphantly.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” he said slyly.
“Whatever it is, no, no you did not,” she replied dangerously.
“Well,” he explained with a smile. “I never actually said the party was tonight.”
Courtenay quickly thought back over their exchange from earlier. Shit. He was right. Joel had never outright said when it was, only letting her assume that it was that day.
“When is it?” she asked, knowing that’s what he wanted her to say.
“Tomorrow,” he said cheerfully, pulling off the last of his mud-stained gear and tossing it in a bag, which went into the covered bed of the truck.
“That’s not fair,” she protested, though only half-heartedly. Any excuse to spend more time with him was okay with her. Still, the thought of having to spend an evening with the entire Jade Crew—meeting them all like that for the first time—filled her with a bit of dread.
“It’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Besides, you already know Corey and Jenny, and they’ll both be there. Plus I think you’ve met Garrett before.”
She nodded. “In passing, yes. Well,” she said with a sigh, “at least I’ll be able to look more presentable than this.”
Joel stared at her for a moment. Then he burst into laughter. Deep, bellyaching laughter.
“What?” she asked, but he couldn’t reply. Instead, he pulled out his phone, doing his best to hold it steady through his laughter. The flash went off and she realized he was taking a picture of her.
“You may not look presentable,” he told her as he managed to calm himself. “But you look damn hot anyway.” He showed her the picture.
She was coated from head to toe in mud. The blue of her gear shone through in places, but most of it had brown coated everywhere. Her hair was clumped into several chunks, all of it a uniform brown, and even her face was coated. Only her eyelids, lips, and the tip of her nose showed the white of her pale skin.
As the picture sunk in, she joined him in a laugh, her arm hooked around his neck as they enjoyed a nice moment of brevity. It was so casual, so easy, that it took her several moments to realize just how intimately they were standing next to each other.
What had she gotten herself into?
Chapter Four
Joel
He swung his arms, thick forearm muscles twisting and flexing as he drove the pointed metal deep into the wall. Shoulders tensed and he yanked hard, sending rock tumbling to the ground. Feeling invigorated by the work, he swung again, making another solid connection. There was no twinge in his shoulder from where the piece of wood had been removed. That was completely healed and forgotten about, like most of the other injuries he had sustained over the course of his life.
There had been a few, he thought with a visible wince, that had left lasting impressions. He would always remember the sound his femur had made when it snapped under the pressure of another bear. Even now it sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.
It was very different from the feeling he had experienced while with Courtenay the evening before. Even when he had taken her home and received nothing but a chaste kiss on the cheek, Joel knew that there was something there. It was clearer to him than many things he had experienced before.
A smile blossomed on his cheek as he dug his pickaxe deep into the wall again, raining more debris down around him.
“Hey, c’mon man, pick it up! You’re crowding my style here,” Russell complained, kicking a chunk of rock that had bounced across the tunnel and landed beside him.
Joel laughed. “Russ, everybody knows that you have the least amount of style of any of us.”
“That is so not true!” he protested, his big arms sending the pickaxe in his hands flying into the wall.
He snorted at his friend, the second-in-command of the Jade Crew. Russell Warne was a big shifter, almost as big as their Alpha, Garrett. Which made a lot of sense, considering the two were stepbrothers.
“You know what, you’ve been improving, I’ll give you that.”
He waited for Russell to begin looking relieved before he finished.
“Gwen has good taste. I’m glad you’ve finally let her start dressing you.”
Russell snarled at the insult, dropping his pickaxe and leaping at Joel. The smaller shifter ducked and hit the oncoming attacker in the legs. They collapsed to the ground, rolling around as they delivered shot after shot to each other. Neither of them were pulling punches, but a minute or two later they parted, both of them lying on their backs and chuckling. Russell got to his feet first and bodily hauled Joel up next to him.
“Keep that up,” he threatened, “and I’m going to have her start dressing you too.”
/> Joel barked a laugh. “Good luck. She’s got enough trouble making sure you don’t screw up.”
“Someone has to look after you,” Russell said. “At least until you find a woman willing to put up with you.”
“If Gwen can deal with your dumb ass, Russell, then someone can surely turn Joel here into an upstanding gentleman. It’ll be half the challenge.”
The pair of them turned to face the newcomer, Joel laughing the entire time.
“Who invited you to the party?” Russell grumbled at Darren, as the big shifter sauntered down the tunnel toward them a few steps before pausing.
“Nobody, but if you two morons don’t stop fondling each other in the dirt, you’re going to miss lunch,” he said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder and heading back the way he had come.
Joel looked at Russell.
“First one up there gets Darren’s lunch!” the smaller man shouted, taking off at a dash down the tunnel.
“I don’t think so!” Darren yelled as the challenge registered with him, and he shifted on the run, trying to shoulder aside the other two as they came up alongside him in bear form too.
The three clattered up the well-worn path to the surface, mindful of the railway tracks that ran down the center, providing access for the powered carts that served to remove the debris they hacked from the walls. At first the opening to the mine shaft was nothing but a pinprick of light, but it quickly swelled in size, until the three of them burst through the opening in a tumble of fur and paws.
Joel was the first to get to his feet, reassuming his human form.
“Holy shit, guys,” he said, shielding his eyes. The others echoed his exclamation as they changed back.
The sky had cleared and the sun was beating down on them. It was the first time in over four days they had seen any sunlight, and longer than that since they had seen blue sky and warm sunshine.
“We are so going to have a barbecue tonight!” Russell crowed.
“Steak!” Darren shouted, much to the delight of all of them.
