It Happens

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  So yes, I was in a bad mood right along with everyone else.

  “Thanks, Liner.” I waved to him. “See you tomorrow at church.”

  We had a meeting planned with the entire group of Bear Bottom Guardians and would be discussing what had happened over the last few days, and what we could do to fix it.

  Jubilee stomped right past Castiel, who’d been there for the last hour watching my house and making sure it was clean of any intruders and headed straight inside.

  “She looks happy,” Castiel muttered.

  I snorted. “Happy. Yeah, that’s exactly the vibe I got off of her for the last two hours of our trip. You’re very astute.”

  Castiel grinned. That grin died just as suddenly as it’d arrived.

  “I’m floundering here,” he admitted. “I had techs at her house for the last twenty-four hours trying to find everything they can get. I even got some woman in the house about an hour ago. Her name is Janie. She’s apparently a fuckin’ genius with computers. Phoebe recommended her.”

  Phoebe was Bayou, our president’s, wife.

  “Then hopefully she finds something,” I admitted. “Because I’m ready for this to be over and it hasn’t really even started yet.”

  “Five bodies means it’s very started,” Castiel disagreed. “One of which happened weeks ago now.”

  That was very true.

  Very, very fuckin’ true.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. “Do I let her go back to work?”

  “Slowing things down might make him a little more rational,” Castiel admitted. “If he sees her going back to normal routine, then maybe he’ll lose the vengeance act and simmer the fuck down, giving us time to figure things out.” He paused. “Or, when we slow it down, things will change and he’ll think that now that he has her back, he might as well take her.”

  “What makes you think he’s going to try to take her?” I asked carefully.

  “Well, I don’t think it was ever his plan before,” he admitted. “but now? Now that he’s gone about a week without knowing where she was, I think that he’s not going to ever let that happen again.”

  I felt sick to my stomach.

  “How long do you think that this has been going on?” I asked, not wanting to hear the words, but knowing I needed the answer.

  “Since I was sixteen,” Jubilee said softly, coming up beside us. “I told you before that it felt like someone had been watching me since my accident.”

  “What do you mean since your accident?” I asked softly.

  “Well, it started when I no longer had Annmarie there. Like, the feeling that someone was there, watching, but I couldn’t see them. Fast forward to that week that you got skunked. That Monday, I’d gone to the grocery store. I felt like someone’s eyes were following me all the way through the grocery store. Then when I got out to my car, there was nobody in sight, yet it still felt like they were there.” I shook my head. “I don’t really know how to explain it. Just the presence, I guess.”

  I closed my eyes, hating to think that she was right, but knowing in my heart that it was true.

  It must’ve been going on for a very long time.

  I had every confidence that Jubilee knew exactly what she was talking about.

  My eyes met Castiel’s.

  “He has pictures of her on his desktop,” he admitted. “Some of them come from years and years ago. The night that she went to prom. The night that she graduated high school. The night that she went to your basic training graduation. The night that she went to your wedding. Etc.”

  Fuck.

  That was what I was afraid of.

  “Son of a bitch.” I scrubbed my hands over my face.

  “You were in them, too,” he said. “Basic training graduation. Graduation. Everything y’all ever did together is documented. That’s when the pictures get weird.”

  “What kind of weird?” I asked curiously.

  “The kind of weird where he started to superimpose himself over you into your pictures when y’all were together,” a woman’s voice came up from behind me.

  We both turned to look at the blonde standing behind us.

  I stared at her with confusion.

  How had I not heard her walk up? Or drive up?

  Then I realized she’d been sitting at the curb since we’d arrived, because I noticed the only other vehicle was the one that was currently parked a house down from mine.

  “Lovely,” I admitted. “What now?”

  “Now, we continue to dig. I’m Janie, by the way,” she said. “Anyway, saying that, out of all those pictures he took you out of and put himself in, I still haven’t gotten a clear view of his face. And he signs all his stuff—emails that I’ve been able to find, as well as a few financial documents—after someone that we know isn’t him.”

  “Who is it?” I wondered.

  “Some random doctor off of television. Gregory House.”

  Chapter 20

  You gonna cry or act like a boss?

  First of all, I’m going to do both.

  -Text from Jubilee to Zee

  Jubilee

  I could tell he was pissed.

  And not at me.

  I contemplated getting rid of my own pissed off attitude long enough to tell him I was sorry, but I couldn’t find it in me to be the bigger person right now.

  One of the reasons was because I had a stalker that’d been stalking me since I was sixteen.

  Secondly, because I wanted my fucking food at my fucking house, and he wouldn’t let me get it. I was hormonal. So, sue me.

  And finally, because I was just goddamn pissed at the world.

  I tugged on a pair of sweatpants that I’d luckily thought to pack when we’d originally left Bear Bottom and sat down on the couch to gather up my socks and slip them on to my feet.

  “What are you doing?” Zee asked.

  “I’m going to go run,” I told him. “I haven’t gotten my long run in, and I need it. And before you say anything, no, I’m not going to allow you to stop me from going.”

  His lips turned down into a fierce scowl.

  “You’re not going to run,” he immediately disagreed. “In fact, you’re not leaving this house until we figure out just what in the hell is going on here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What the fuck ever. You’re not the boss of me.”

  However, after I slipped my shoes on and started to head toward the door, Zee’s big body blocked my way.

  “Move,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at him for good measure.

  If he didn’t know that I was pissed at this point, he never would.

  “Negative,” he said.

  I pushed him on the chest with one hand. “Move.”

  “I’m not moving.” He laughed in my face. “And it’s honestly quite cute how you think that you can force me to.”

  “I can force you to.” I pushed him again.

  He didn’t even rock back, and I’d put quite a bit of effort into the push.

  Then he continued to laugh at me, and I got mad.

  “Why are you such an asshole?” I screeched.

  He bent over and picked me up around the waist, tossing me easily over his shoulder and carrying me bodily away from the door.

  I glared at the gold knob, wishing that I had powers to control inanimate objects. If I had, I would rip that doorknob straight off the door and shove it up his ass.

  “I’m not being an asshole,” Zee said as he took me deeper into his house. He stepped over his dog, a Golden Retriever named Bronco, and kept walking. Bronco didn’t even flinch at Zee’s movement. His ears did quirk up a bit, though. “You’re the one being irrational. There’s a guy out there murdering people, all because of some suggested slight on their part against you, and you want to go out and run without any protection?”

  Now that he laid it out all bluntly like that, it wasn’t hard for me to
understand why I hadn’t at least asked him to go with me.

  I was blaming my lack of rationale on my lack of food.

  That, or maybe not working out had really tanked my good sense.

  But now that he was tossing me through the air, onto the bed, like a child, I was thinking maybe I wasn’t over my attitude just yet, even though he made valid points.

  As he glared down at me, hands on his hips, I thought about what I’d do next.

  Kicking him in the thigh hadn’t really been in my plans, but when I suddenly rolled over to make a mad dash toward the bedroom door, I caught his leg with my foot—hard.

  However, despite my kicking him in the thigh, he was able to catch me around the ankle before I even made it all the way off the bed.

  He dragged me back kicking and screaming, and then practically flattened me to the bed by allowing his entire body weight to smoosh me into the mattress.

  “Listen, Wednesday Addams,” he groaned into my face. “You’re not leaving.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not goth. I’m me.”

  “Whatever. You’re a pain in my goddamn ass,” he growled.

  I contemplated punching him, but I settled for grabbing a handful of his beard and yanking his face down to mine.

  “Get. Off. Me,” I growled.

  He didn’t get off of me.

  He kissed me.

  Solidly.

  So solidly, in fact, that I stopped struggling for a few long seconds.

  Though those few seconds were all that he needed because the next thing I knew I had my pants off and he was forcing himself between my thighs.

  I was dazed and confused as he suddenly turned me over onto my knees and forced my thighs open with his.

  “Up on your knees,” he ordered.

  “Fuck you.” I finally came back online and started struggling. “Get off me, you big bastard.”

  He growled and bent down, sinking his teeth into my neck, causing me to still.

  He didn’t hurt me, per se, but he did shock me enough that I once again went still, allowing him to yank me up onto my knees.

  Slightly coming back to my senses, I rolled and tried to sit up, but before I could make it so much as into a half-crouch, he was once again following me down and pinning me to the bed.

  I could feel his erection against my now-bare pussy, and I wondered if this was how it was going to be for us from now on.

  All I had to do was feel his cock, and I was hot and wet for him.

  Then again, I was already hot and wet for him, because riding back to town on the back of his motorcycle, including all the vibrating? Well, let’s just say that’d been part of why I was so pissed off.

  With myself.

  My body had zero control when it came to that man.

  It was like a moth to a flame for me.

  He only had to look at me, flick his finger in my direction, and I’d come running.

  Well, not exactly, but I’d definitely turn my attention toward him.

  “You’re thinking too much,” he growled against my mouth.

  Then his tongue licked between my lips, and I started to gyrate my hips against his.

  His cock was pressed bare against the lips of my sex, and he was rubbing himself back and forth between my legs at a steady pace.

  Each time he’d drag himself all the way down, it made my belly clench.

  “Just put it inside of me already. Jesus Christ, Zee,” I hissed, pulling his face down to mine, once again using only his beard.

  “What is it with you and manhandling me via my beard?” he asked.

  I reached between us and grasped his cock.

  It was slick with my juices, and I gave it a few pumps with my closed fist before guiding him toward my entrance.

  My annoyance from earlier was gone, and what was left in its place was need.

  Need only he could sate.

  “Hurry up already,” I growled when he started to slowly push inside.

  He laughed and pressed a kiss to the corner of my lips. Then my nose. Followed shortly by my ear.

  All the while he filled me slowly. Reverently.

  “You’re going to take this slow as fuck, aren’t you?” I wondered.

  “Yes,” he answered. “That a problem?”

  I wanted to say that yes, it was.

  But the way he was filling me up was making me want to scream.

  That, and despite his slowness, it felt really, really good.

  So good, in fact, that I considered telling him so.

  But I didn’t want him to think he could do this anytime he damn well pleased.

  On the other hand, having him between my legs, filling me up?

  Well, there wasn’t another feeling in the world quite like it.

  It didn’t matter if we were spitting mad.

  Something this good—this perfect—was never wrong.

  He looked into my eyes as he made sweet love to me. Filling me in slow, unhurried thrusts.

  My body was slowly building to something beautiful when he stopped and stared straight into my eyes as he said, “There’s not a single thing in this world that I wouldn’t do for you.”

  I felt my heart swell.

  “Like run a marathon with me?”

  He paused mid-thrust.

  “No.” He paused. “I’d even do that. I’d run myself ragged for you. I’d sell my soul to the devil, and I’d move heaven and earth to make sure that you were safe.”

  I felt tears prick my eyes.

  “I wasn’t thinking straight,” I told him. “I just thought that I’d like to go for a run and didn’t think any more about it. I should have. I know. But shit, this feeling sucks.”

  He pressed a kiss to my forehead and left it there as he continued to fill me. Over and over and over again.

  My legs were weak, and at one point he had to grasp one of them and hike it up higher, making his invasion go just that much deeper.

  We were both panting, sweaty messes by the time my orgasm hit me.

  By the time his hit him, I was a boneless, quivering mess.

  I was also lying there limp as he pulled out of me and tugged me with him to his shower.

  That was where I fell in love with a showerhead.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Caressing your faucets,” I admitted. “What does this do?”

  I pressed a button only for showerheads about shin level to turn on.

  I gasped. “You have shin showerheads!”

  He snorted and pressed a few more buttons, turning on other showerheads, as well as what looked to be a steam feature. Not to mention the rain head that was directly over the top of the shower.

  All in all, there were eight places where water came out to spray.

  “I need one of these in my life,” I told him as I stepped under the spray. “Preferably forever.”

  “I can make that happen.”

  I blinked and turned, swiping water out of my eye.

  “What?”

  “I said I can make that happen,” he repeated.

  “Make what happen?” I asked.

  I mean, I knew what I thought he meant, but I was fairly sure he hadn’t meant for it to sound the way it had.

  “I can make it happen,” he repeated. “You staying with this shower forever.”

  I frowned. “How?”

  “By you moving in,” he said. “And later, by you marrying me.”

  “Are you asking me to marry you?” I felt my heart skip a beat.

  He grinned. “Not yet, no. But I’m not saying that it won’t happen. I want more. For once, I’m happy that I was wrong…because we’re happening. Eventually, you will be mine for real.”

  That’s when I threw a bar of soap at him.

  “Bastard.”

  He laughed his way through his shower.

  And I tried not to let on that I was happy, too.

 
; It wouldn’t do for him to know he didn’t annoy me as much as he used to.

  Chapter 21

  You curse so much that I’m not sure if my name is ‘fuck’ or not.

  -Text from Zee to Jubilee

  Jubilee

  “I’m going to be fine,” I insisted, pointing at the camera on the wall. “I’m working on a dead body, who has no ability to hurt me any longer. I’m also locked inside this room where there are no windows or doors. The only way in and out is with a passcode that only a handful know. Trust me when I say that I’ll be okay. Go. To. Work.”

  I didn’t want to work.

  I wanted to snuggle with him in bed, but Zee had been off for over a week and the sheriff’s department he worked for wasn’t doing great. The flu had hit them hard, and they had over ten officers down with it.

  Likely the only thing that had saved Zee was due in part to him not being there.

  “I’m going,” he grumbled. “You’re going to stay here all day?”

  I nodded. “I am.”

  “You won’t leave. Not even for lunch?” he pushed.

  I shook my head. “Not even for lunch. I’ll have pizza delivered here, and I’ll have them leave it at the front desk. I won’t come out until he’s gone.”

  He blew out a steadying breath.

  “Even if Turner calls you, and she’s lying in a ditch on the side of the road?” Zee pushed.

  “I’m right here,” Turner pointed out as she curled the hair of the dead woman that she was working on. “And I don’t plan on going out either. Therefore, there won’t be a ditch for my body to find.”

  “I’m going to check in on them,” Castiel pointed out. “Plus, I’ll spend my lunch break over here.”

  “Perfect,” Turner drawled. “We get to see Castiel the Contemptible for lunch.”

  Castiel ignored her, as did I, as we looked at Zee who still seemed half convinced.

  “You know,” I pointed out. “Your area is still within driving distance of me. There’s no one saying you can’t come check on me.”

  Zee’s shoulders seemed to loosen the slightest of bits. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “That way we can share some pizza,” I teased.

  Zee winced. “I don’t do pineapple on my pizza.”