Chapter 19
So busy responding to an e-mail from her phone, Jess didn’t realize that Smitty had pulled over until he said, “Do you ever live outside your head?”
“What?” She looked up and around. “Why did we stop? Wow, it’s really raining.”
“Yeah, it’s really raining. Thought we’d get some lunch and hope that the worst of it will blow over. Interested?”
“Yeah, sure.” She looked around again, getting her bearings. “Uh…not sure we want to stop in this town, though.”
“Why?”
“It’s bear run.”
“The sign said ‘Martin County.’”
“That’s not the name. It’s a bear-run town. Literally, bears run it.”
Smitty shrugged. “So?”
“This isn’t like Smithville. They’re not friendly bears, Smitty. Not friendly at all. They don’t like outsiders.”
“Darlin’, we’re stopping for lunch. Not taking over territory.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Woman, you know how I get when I’m hungry.”
“Okay. Okay.
Still thinking this was a bad idea, Jess stepped out of the truck and followed Smitty inside the steakhouse restaurant.
It took a while to get her comfortable. But when she realized the place was run by full-humans she seemed to relax.
They ordered two inhumanly large steaks, rare, and several side orders they shared. Once they finished eating, they relaxed back and just talked. It was nice.
“You’re actually going to adopt Johnny?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Didn’t you say he was going to be seventeen soon?”
“This upcoming weekend.”
“Then doesn’t that make him a little old?”
Jess sipped her coffee. “He has to know he belongs. That he’s got family. I don’t want him leaving at eighteen and thinking he doesn’t have anybody.”
“What does he say about it?”
Jessie stared at him so long, he finally asked, “You did ask him about this, didn’t you?”
“I thought I did.” She squinted, trying to remember. “But I think we got sidetracked by brownies.”
Smitty rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “Okay. Let’s try this. He’s wolf.”
“So?”
“He doesn’t really belong in a dog Pack, darlin’.”
“Who says?”
“Look, I’m not trying to get you upset. And I’m sure you guys can be pretty tough when you wanna be, but you need to be realistic. He’s a wolf. At eighteen those genes are gonna kick in full force.”
“And you don’t think we can handle it?”
“I think you can try.”
“Unfortunately, Smitty, no wolf Packs wanted him. Children’s Services tried to place him with wolves and they wouldn’t take him in. We were the only ones who would.”
“What about his parents’ Packs?”
“Don’t know who they are. His mom had some…troubles. She cut herself off from her family.”
“His father?”
“No idea who he is and we’ve tried to track him down. Bottom line, all he’s got is us.”
Smitty cleared his throat. “You know, I can help.”
“Help? With what?”
“With the boy. You know, if he needs advice or something. I can help.”
Jessie stared at him again.
“Hello?”
She put her coffee cup down on the table. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She said it very politely and with a wariness he didn’t much like.
“Is there a problem?”
“No.” She glanced out the window. “Rain stopped.”
“Looks that way.”
“You ready to go?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He motioned to the waitress for the check.
“Since you took care of lunch last time, I’ll get this.”
Jessie threw down a black credit card on the silver-plated bill holder the waitress brought by.
She did it casually, without a thought. No worries there about her last big purchase.
They finished paying up and headed outside.
“Think we can stop by that Starbucks up the road before we head home?” she asked.
Smitty dug into his jacket pocket to fish out his keys. “Yeah, sure.” He’d just snagged the keys from his pocket when he walked right into the back of her.
“Jessie?”
He looked up and that’s when he saw them, leaning against and resting on his pickup truck.
Bears. About eight of them, none of them smaller than seven feet. Great. Just what he needed. Really big, really cranky bears.
Jess had been afraid of this. The local bear population was not friendly. They actually didn’t get along with each other either, but they teamed up in a heartbeat against outsiders. They welcomed full-humans, but cats and canines had no place in Martin County.
Smitty gently swiped his hand down her back before stepping around her.
“Can I help y’all?”
The one lying directly on top of Smitty’s hood seemed to be the biggest problem, his seven-five stature not withstanding. A polar bear, he had his hands behind his head as he stared up at the sky.
“I just gotta wonder, what brings a couple of dogs to our territory.”
“Just stopping to have lunch until the rains passed.” Smitty shrugged. “They’ve passed.”
“Yeah, that’s true. But I have to say I’m getting pretty tired of you people traipsing through our town.”
Smitty stood next to his truck. He looked calm, cool, completely rational, so Jess stepped behind a tree and out of the line of fire.
The problem was these Northerners had never experienced a true Smith wolf attack. They didn’t play like the other Packs. Besides, the dumb bastard had fucked with Smitty’s truck. You never fucked with a man’s truck.
“You know, dog,” the bear continued, “I’m thinking it’s about time we made an examp—”
Smitty didn’t even bother to let him finish. He just grabbed the bear by his foot and yanked all seven feet five inches and probably a good three hundred or more pounds of him off the hood of his truck, slamming the man face down on the concrete. Jess distinctly heard bone breaking. Probably the bear’s nose. Maybe some ribs.
Calmly, Smitty explained, “That’s for trying to threaten me.”
Before the polar’s companions could move, Smitty unleashed the claws of his right hand and brought it down on the bear’s Achilles tendon—shredding it with one swipe.
“And that’s for denting the hood of my truck with your fat ass,” he added, still calm, over the bear’s howls of unspeakable pain.
One of the females stared at Smitty as he stood up. She towered over him, but the fear on her face matched everyone else’s. “You…You’re a Smith, aren’t you?”
Smitty flicked his hand, the blood flying pretty much everywhere. “Why do you ask?”
“I met you people before. Smiths.” She said it with disgust and undeniable fear.
“Yeah, I’m a Smith. Out of Tennessee. And I want y’all off my truck.”
They got off his truck all right. They moved like lightning.
“Jessie Ann.”
She walked out from behind the tree and over to the truck. She didn’t run. She didn’t have to. The Smith name alone had put the fear of God into these people, parting them like the Red Sea.
Smitty held the door open for her and she stepped into the truck. He closed the door and walked around to his side. He got in, started her up, and backed out.
No one stopped them. No one did anything. And she had no doubt no one would.
Smitty drove about five miles until he saw an old gas station. So old it was still full service. He told the kid pumping gas to fill his tank and then disappeared into the bathroom.
After ten minutes, Jess followed him. She knew that look on his face. Remembered it clearly. He got it anytime he had to
use the brutal tactics drummed into him by Bubba Smith. The bear had forced that on Smitty, and now she had one less-than-happy wolf on her hands.
When she opened the bathroom door, which he hadn’t bothered to lock, she found him standing at the sink and staring into it. He hadn’t turned on the water, and blood still covered his right hand.
Jess slowly walked up to him, knowing better than to startle him or make any sudden moves. When she felt confident he knew she was standing next to him, she turned on the water in the sink and took his right hand in both of hers. She held them under the water, slowly washing the bear’s blood from his fingers. She took her time, grateful they had liquid soap from a pump rather than a bar she’d be loathe to use. Especially since this place didn’t scream “antibacterial clean” to her.
When she removed all the blood from his right hand, she washed his left for the hell of it. Then she took paper towels from the stack on the counter and dried his hands. Once done with that, she dried her own hands and tossed the paper towels away. She grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and forced him to face her.
“Smitty?” When he didn’t answer her, she said, “Bobby Ray. Look at me.”
He did and she literally forced herself not to run. This was Bobby Ray. He’d never hurt her. Even with his eyes shifted to wolf, he’d never hurt her. She knew that.
So when his hand whipped out and grabbed her by the back of the neck, she didn’t even scream.
He had to stop. He had to stop now. But, Lord knew, he couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself stop. All she’d shown him was the ultimate kindness in the last ten minutes. The kind of kindness only a dog could show. She should be terrified of him. She should be screaming and fighting him. But she wasn’t. She just kept staring up at him with those big, brown, innocent eyes. Those innocent eyes trusting him to do the right thing.
He didn’t. Instead, he slammed her back against the wall and forced his mouth on hers. Her arms flailed for a moment, but instead of fighting him off, she wrapped them around his neck and pulled him closer. He kissed Jessie hard, his tongue pushing its way in, demanding she respond. She did. She moaned and gasped and held him tighter.
Her hands dug into his hair and one leg wrapped around his waist. She writhed against him, letting him know she was all his. To do with as he would. Anything. She trusted him enough to give him anything and everything.
Snarling, Smitty pulled back, spun her around so she faced the wall. His hands unsnapped and unzipped her jeans in seconds, pulling them down until they were around her knees. He slipped his hands between her legs, his fingers sliding inside her. He growled like a rabid animal when he found her already wet and hot. He pulled his fingers back and stroked her clit. In less than thirty seconds he had her coming, crying out his name as he took her over again. With his other hand he yanked her jacket past her shoulder. He licked his lips, his fangs bursting from his gums. He leaned over her, wrapping his jaw around her exposed flesh.
She trembled in his arms. Trembled and panted and waited. Waited for him to take her like this. To do what the females of the Smith Pack referred to as the Smith mate-maul. Was he really going to do this to Jessie Ann? The woman who’d just washed the blood off his hands and accepted the fact that he’d mercilessly ripped the Achilles tendon off another being?
No. She deserved better than this.
Using absolutely everything he’d learned from his military training, he let her go.
He pulled his hands away and stepped away from her, like a recovering addict stepping away from his heroin.
Jessie looked over her shoulder at him. “Smitty?”
“Get dressed. I’m taking you home.” He walked to the sink and washed his own damn hands this time. By the time he dried them and turned around, she’d already walked out.
She wanted to cry. She really did. But she learned early on from her days in Smithtown that the quickest way to lose respect was to cry. So she kept her tears for her Pack because they understood her and they accepted her.
She couldn’t wait to get home. She wanted her people. She wanted out of this truck. She wanted away from the bastard who just broke her heart.
Because no one wanted to find out they weren’t good enough. Especially when she had to find out like that. Her body still shaking from climaxing, her pants around her knees like a goddamn truckstop whore.
The truck door opened and Smitty got in. She didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. Instead, she placed her hands between her knees to control the trembling, prayed there would be no traffic on the freeways home, and wished with all her geeky might that she could portal her black, wild-dog ass out of here.
Chapter 20
What she loved about her Pack was that she really didn’t have to tell them anything. They might not know exactly what was wrong, but they knew when she needed them.
As soon as she stepped out of the truck, May opened the front door for her. Jess walked in without bothering to look back. Smitty had barely spoken two words to her on the way into the city; she doubted he’d have anything to say now. Once inside, she shifted and went out the back. She sat in the cold, staring out across the yard trying to figure out how everything went bad so damn fast.
Before she could get a really good wallow going, Phil whistled for her and she trotted back in the house, up the stairs to her top-floor apartment, and into her bathroom. They had the bubble bath waiting for her and a box of her favorite chocolates. She went into the water as dog, but when she came up, she was human again. They let her soak in silence for a few minutes before Sabina asked what happened. As her four friends sat on the bathroom floor, she told them pretty much everything.
“Aw, sweetie. I’m sorry.” May leaned against the tub, handing Jess chocolates.
“I don’t know what happened. Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“You should talk to him,” May prompted, pushing gently. “Find out what’s really going on.”
“That would be the logical thing to do—and why start that ugly trend now?”
“He panicked, Jess.” Phil sat with his back against the sink cabinet and his wife resting between his legs. “Men do it all the time.”
“Smitty doesn’t panic.”
“They may not panic in a firefight in a foreign country, but a woman they care about makes them positively unglued. It’s a man thing. Don’t try and rationalize it.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
Jess shrugged at Danny’s question. “What is there to do? I’ll be honest, guys. I don’t think I can face him. Not right now.”
“Not a problem,” May reminded her. “We’re going away for the long weekend tomorrow.”
“Johnny’s birthday party. I completely forgot. I’m a horrible mother.”
Phil let out a long sigh. “You know, sweetie, if you want, I can start kicking your ass over bullshit if you’re getting tired of doing it yourself.”
“I hear sarcasm.” Jess opened her mouth and caught the chocolate May tossed into the air. “I’m not trying to be hard on myself.”
“But it comes so naturally?”
“Pretty much.” Jess’s cell phone rang, the tune letting her know she had a text message waiting, and Danny went into the bedroom to grab it out of her pile of clothes.
When he walked back in, he was staring at the caller ID and frowning.
She didn’t even dare to hope it was Smitty. “Who is it?”
He handed the phone to May, who flipped it open and held it up so Jess could see the screen.
“Oh…fuck.”
May shook her head. “You don’t have to see her tonight.”
“No, I better. I can stop by the office, grab the papers, and take them to her.”
“Why can’t we conduct business like we normally do with this woman?” Phil complained.
“’Cause she’s crazy,” his wife stated. “Like a rabid dog.”
“I like her,” May admitted. “She’s definitely crazy, but she makes me laugh.”
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“It doesn’t matter. This deal could bring us a lot of money. That and our connection to these guys will keep us in the happy, shiny place for quite a while. So I’ve gotta go.”
Sabina pulled away from her husband and stood. “Then we go with you.”
“You guys don’t have to do that.”
Dramatically, Sabina took the phone from May’s hand and stared at the small screen. “Do you really think we’d let you go here alone?”
“Or you could just admit that you really want to hit a club tonight.”
“True. I could admit that. But it would only make me look like a bad wife and mother. Give me ten minutes to put on something sexy and then we’ll go.”
“I guess you’re going too?” Jess asked May after Sabina walked out.
“Sure. It’ll be fun.” She kissed her husband and followed after Sabina, leaving Jess alone with Phil and Danny while she sat in a bathtub with dwindling bubbles. She didn’t care. It wasn’t like the two of them hadn’t seen her naked before. And had been duly unimpressed.
“And you guys?”
“You know we’d love to come, Jess,” Phil said.
“Really we would,” Danny added.
“But we don’t want to take away from you ladies getting in some nice girl bonding.”
“You just want to stay home and watch that documentary on the Roman Empire again, don’t you?”
“You know how much we love Nero. We have to see the scene where he fiddles while Rome burns.”
Jess chuckled. Honestly, the male dog obsession with the History Channel was simply not normal. “Go. Enjoy your carnage.”
Scratching her head affectionately, Phil asked, “You going to be okay, kid?”
“Yeah, I’ve survived worse. Although I have to admit, Smitty’s rejections are getting much more intense.”
Mace stared at the top of his friend’s head. It wasn’t that he was so much taller, it was that Smitty had his head on the desk. “Didn’t think you’d be in today.”
“Didn’t want to go home,” he grumbled into the desk. “It all smells like her.”
“That bad?”
“That good.”
“You going to tell me what happened or burrow your head into the desk like a badger?”