Truth or Wolf: A Small Town Shifter Romantic Comedy (Wolf Brothers Book 1)

Chapter 6

Six

Another werewolf thing. Like most animals, we spent a large part of our lives engaged in the three F’s of basic survival. Feeding, fighting and…reproduction.

— KELLEY ARMSTRONG

“Coming in hot,” Atticus muttered, plucking the kittens from my arms. “Best of luck with that.”

I sat up, brushing off dried mud and cat fur. Alice was stomping toward me, ponytail swinging with her wrath. She was covered in dog fur and looked adorably hot.

My lizard brain promptly arrived at the only sensible conclusion: I was going to make Alice mine.

Hot damn!

But first I was going to lay down a few rules.

This is where you lose the girl. Unless she’s into Fifty Shades stuff?

“Ford…” The way Alice said my name was a challenge, one that made my balls tighten and my heart squeeze.

Alice was looking at me as if she were waiting for something. I was almost certain she was playing one of her movie scenes in her head, and I just wished I knew which one. I had no idea what my lines were supposed to be.

Instead, I handed Atticus the kitten I’d rescued from underneath the porch. I was gonna need both hands to coax Alice into seeing things my way, and the first thing we’d be discussing was why it had taken her five days to search me out. It irritated the heck out me that she’d waited so long. She hadn’t texted me. She had, in fact, flat-out ignored me since Friday.

It had been five days. Five days since I’d kissed or held or touched her.

It had felt like an eternity. I was not good at being a gentleman, but for her I was trying. I hadn’t wanted to push, so I’d stayed away and let her consider what I was offering. Had I made yet another mistake in giving her space? Perhaps I should have been showing her what I could do for her, proving that my wolf wasn’t a bad thing.

“What do you want?” Irritation seeped into my voice. I’d made it clear I wanted her, and I couldn’t be anyone other than the wolf I was. She’d have to accept it or I’d have to let her go. I was hoping and praying that acceptance was the way this thing between us was headed, however.

And bed, my wolf interjected. Let’s not forget the bedroom, ’kay?

My wolf was a horndog.

Alice blinked and gave herself a little shake like she’d been a long distance away, somewhere in her head. Her gaze focused on my midsection.

“So about my tree problem.”

“What about the tree?”

“You removed it.”

“I did.”

She was wearing a hot pink T-shirt with Vanity Fur Salon embroidered on the teeny-tiny pocket on her right boob. You couldn’t fit more than an SD card or a condom in a pocket that small.

The shirt was tucked into a blue-and-white-striped skirt that belled out around her hips and stopped several inches above her knees. There was a big bow at the base of her spine that I itched to untie. She wore a pair of bright red Dr. Martens, the kind that made no sense at all.

You’d never blend into the woods wearing those. You’d stand out and make a target of yourself. It was good she had me to look after her.

“And then after you removed my tree—without my permission—you removed my trailer?” She glared at my belt buckle like it had personally offended her.

I shrugged. “There wasn’t much to salvage there, sweetheart.”

I’d gone through the debris, though, setting aside anything that looked like it might be of interest to her. Truth was, after six thousand pounds of pine tree had landed on her place, she’d owned a pancake, not a trailer. I’d seen scrap metal compressed less thoroughly. Still, I’d picked up what I could from the yard and organized it into piles. I had plans to put something in the trailer’s place.

“You should have asked!”

“Excuse me for helping. But that tree wasn’t stable, and there were electrical lines down. I figured you didn’t want to accidentally set half of Moonlight Valley on fire.”

“If I wanted your help, I would have asked you.”

I felt her words like a visceral punch, cutting through my ribs and slicing into my heart. I must have flinched because she paused and looked like she was searching for an explanation. She started to stammer out something about impositions and not having the money and not meaning whatever it was I thought she’d meant.

I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear her say I had no chance at all with her. It was pure torment being near her when I couldn’t have her, couldn’t touch her, help her, fix what was bothering her.

I lifted my hands up. “It wasn’t a big deal. This is the South, sweetheart. Everyone owns a chainsaw.”

“It must have taken you hours.” She sounded disbelieving, as if she could not imagine a universe in which someone would do this for her.

It had taken me most of yesterday, but I was happy to do it for her. I would have done it for any of our neighbors, although I preferred doing it for her.

“We want to buy your land, and I can offer you cash.”

“Can you wait a minute?” Alice’s gaze shot up to meet my eyes, stormy and turbulent. I could feel the telltale amber sheen rippling over my own eyes as I got worked up.

“You can get a new place, something with better insulation and more square footage.”

Alice ignored my real estate pitch and stepped into me. I wasn’t prepared. One second she was trying to kill my belt buckle with her eyes, and the next she was leaning up on tiptoe to press her lips against mine. That was it, I conceded our battle.

My wolf whined. No!

But I was a predator at heart, so it took me only another second to respond.

I wrapped an arm around her waist, preventing any retreat, and deepened the kiss. I wanted everything Alice would give me. Surprising me, she was on board with this plan of mine, moaning and opening up to me. Her hot little tongue invaded my own mouth, taking no prisoners. I growled.

I’d done nothing but remember what she’d felt like when I’d had her in the front seat of my truck. Her soft curves, the way her breasts filled my hands just right, and her delicious ass. Five days of imaging her stripped down and welcoming me. Five days of a never-ending hard-on.

I had apparently discovered unknown stores of restraint because I wanted to do more than growl. I wanted to shift, to give her my mating bite, to put my scent all over her, everywhere, so that everyone in Moonlight Valley and the whole world would know she was mine.

Part of me even wanted to attempt the mating bite so she could be with me in every way. I wanted to run by her side, to show her the dark world of the woods, to den with her, to fill her up with my cubs.

Let’s go! We can do it right now. Love on her, leave our mark!

No. I doubted her third cousin twice removed, Alessandro the Asshole, would like that, but I didn’t care. His feelings on the subject didn’t count, and as far as I knew, Alice had no other family close by.

Alice kept right on kissing the heck out of me, oblivious to how close she was to becoming a werewolf’s forever mate. Her tongue in my mouth was slick and determined to make me hers, a plan I was wholly onboard with.

Bite, bite, bite!

I needed more. We needed alone time and to not be kissing in a public space in front of my brothers and her girlfriend.

Not breaking our kiss, I lifted her off her feet and carried her past Atticus’s boots, now sticking out from underneath the porch where our barn cat had had her kittens, past the kennels where Ranger was feeding a stray skunk, and into the barn.

Alice never said stop. More miraculously, she wasn’t issuing directions, orders, or commands either. I guess we’d finally found something we both agreed on. She curled against me, tilting her head to better fit herself into our embrace.

She’d moved on from my mouth, pressing a trail of kisses upward, over my cheek, along my ear. She also had a death grip on my neck, her legs wrapped tight around my waist, her heels digging into my ass. It was easy as pie to waltz her across the floor and into the empty tack room.

As soon as I got her inside, I shut the door because my brothers were too nosy to stay outside for long. They’d be along, offering advice, hooting and hollering and generally trying to make one or both of us blush. Plus, I had a plan for that door. I turned and pressed Alice up against it. Her hands fumbled with the edge of my shirt, shoving it up.

It was not the best moment to realize, surrounded by bridles and saddles, reins and halters, that I didn’t want hot, quickie sex with Alice in my family barn.

I mean, I did, but I was playing for keeps and shoving her pretty little skirt up and tearing her panties off, putting myself inside her and riding her hard the way we both wanted, wasn’t going to win Alice over. Not for keeps. Not the way I needed her.

I thought about giving it to her. I sure did.

But sex wasn’t all I wanted with her.

I wanted her to be my mate.

I wanted to marry this girl.

Finally! What have you been waiting for?

Alice. I was all in, and wasn’t that the truth? Someday after we’d been married for a day, or a year, or forty years, we’d have hot quickie sex in this tack room. We’d make those kinds of memories together and they would be worth waiting for. We’d have all the spontaneous, dirty, hot sex…when I’d put a ring on it.

But now wasn’t that time. It was too soon. I needed her to take me seriously as a suitor and respect me. If I put out now, I’d be nothing but fun and games to Alice Aymes.

But laid, my wolf griped. You’d be laid.

I grabbed her hands when they started in on my belt buckle and dragged them over her head. It was hard to focus on the next step in my plan with her hot curvy body pressed up against mine.

It was even harder to think because Alice was a kissing fiend. I needed to distract her fast, or I was going to lose this argument.

I kissed my way down her cheek, trying to cool my engines. I was hoping I had forever. The next ten minutes were a drop in the bucket compared to eternity with this woman, so my dick would have to wait.

She wriggled, her husky little moan doing wicked things to me. We were pressed up against the wall, her riding my thigh. I could feel the heat of her through her panties and my jeans, and it almost undid all my good intentions. Her scent was amazing—musky and sweet. I’d have known her anywhere.

“You’re so good at this.” Alice’s words were flatteringly breathless. I could make her scream and holler my name with a little more time and attention, and I loved that thought.

“At what?” I rested my forehead against hers, letting go of her wrists. I could count each freckle on her nose. Kiss them. I’d mussed her up good: her hair had come down from its cute little twist and her shirt was all untucked.

“Loving on me. Kissing. Making me hot.”

Alice was honest to a fault. If I made her unhappy, she’d let me know. And if she was happy, she’d share that, too. She didn’t hold a grudge, but she’d push back if I pushed her too hard. I respected that about her.

Her hand fisted my T-shirt. “I think we should kiss again. Consider it an experiment.”

“In the name of science?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded vigorously. “We should see if we can replicate our results, seeing as how our first attempt went so well.”

I could feel the grin stretch my face. I was on top of the fucking world as I pressed one hand against the door beside her face and tightened the other possessively on her butt. Since her skirt was rucked up, there wasn’t much between me and her. I hooked a finger in the side of her panties and tugged gently.

“That sounds like a plan.”

I dropped a kiss on her forehead where she had the faintest of freckles. You’d have to be close to see them—kissing close—and they felt like a secret she’d been keeping just for me.

“Great.” She tugged on my shirt. “Now?”

“Go out with me tonight?” I kissed one freckle, then its friends and neighbors. “You want to go see a movie at the drive-in? Get ice cream or dinner?”

Alice pulled back, frowning. “Go out? No. Not unless you’ve got a deserted island or a mountain cabin we can hide out in.”

“Alice…” I searched her face, looking for signs of humor. She wasn’t making a joke. My wolf whined uncertainly. I didn’t know where I’d gone wrong, how to salvage this situation. This couldn’t be just sex. “Alice, we can do whatever you want. Let me take you out on a date.”

Her frowned deepened. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I could feel her pulling away from me even before she shifted in my arms. Reluctantly, I set her down.

We had two different definitions of mating. She was thinking sex, but I was thinking something more. No. Not more. I was thinking everything.

“Not tonight.”

“Then you tell me when.”

“Why?” She straightened her clothes, tucking her shirt in. We’d crumpled the bow on her skirt.

“Because I want to take you out. I want us to have time together to talk.”

“About what?”

“Anything,” I said quickly. “You can read me the weather app. Or tell me about the firefly population in Moonlight Valley and who’s getting it on with who. Insect gossip.”

A smile tugged the corner of her pretty mouth. “Okay.”

“So that’s a yes?” I didn’t want there to be any doubt.

“Yes, I’ll go out on a date with you. You and me—Ford Boone and Alice Aymes. We can put out a press release, let the world know that hell has officially frozen over.”

I grinned at Alice Aymes’s backside as she strode away because her bow was all kinds of lopsided and she had creases where she hadn’t before. I’d left a mark, palming her ass.

We’re awesome, my wolf said. He was a self-satisfied son of a bitch.

She’d laughed when I’d pointed out her rumpled state. She didn’t mind that I’d messed up her pretty outfit and shrugged off my offers to make it up to her. I’d have liked to take her shopping and do something nice for her.

I hungrily watched her go, settling into the passenger-side seat of the car she’d come in. She shot me an impish grin and thumbs-upped me. Emperor Meowpatine was perched on her lap.

I thumbs-upped her right back. Let her see how big mine were.

“Do you have dirty inside jokes, Ford?” Ranger sauntered up next to me, a kitten riding his shoulder.

My grin faded and I shot my brother a look. “That’s none of your business.”

“I’m not thinking lusty thoughts about your girl.” Ranger squinted at the departing car. “I’m recalling a piece of unsubstantiated trivia correlating the size of a man’s thumb with his penis. Hold your hand up.”

Ranger waved his thumb in the air between us. I ignored him in favor of watching Alice’s ponytail whip back and forth as her friend’s convertible got going. She flashed me a smile that almost had me running after her.

She didn’t mind that my brothers and her girlfriend knew we’d been kissing.

“I’m not comparing thumb size with you.”

“Come on, I want to see who has the bigger thumb.”

“Shut it, Ranger. I’m not thumb wrestling with you.”

Was it too soon to text her? Make a reservation at a nice place to eat, one where she could dress up? The car disappeared. I debated shifting and running alongside, but if her friend noticed me, there would be questions.

“I don’t want to wrestle; I want to compare our pollices.”

“Not a chance.”

Fortunately, Atticus came over, although less fortunately, he wanted to know if Ranger had made it out to take care of Mr. Otis’s skunk problem.

A mama skunk and six babies were living underneath the Otis porch, which would have been a decent timeshare arrangement except that the entire skunk family had taken issue with Mr. Otis’s dog sticking its muzzle in their front door so to speak. Things had got heated and stinky fast.

Ranger groaned. “Listen, I move we discuss the issue before things go any further between Ford and his femme fatale.”

I narrowed my eyes at my older brother. “She is not a femme fatale. And also, what issue?”

“I meant it in the firefly way.” Ranger blinked innocently. “Not the French way.”

Uh-huh. I hoped he wasn’t about to bring up Alice’s infatuation with Atticus. An infatuation, I was certain, that had been cured at the waterslide last Friday.

“We’re good.” Atticus gave a brisk nod. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

“I think we should add it to the family agenda.” Ranger propped his hands on his hips. “Clear the air. Bring everything out into the open.”

My glance slid to Atticus like a car hitting black ice. “You know what he’s talking about?”

“I don’t rightly know, Ford.”

Ranger settled his big paw on my shoulder, nodding like a preacher over a dead body. “The truth is, Ford—and I know you’re still in the limerence stage of your true-love agenda, but that doesn’t negate an outstanding issue that?—”

“Ranger, we don’t have until the cows come home.”

“Fine. The issue is that none of us likes Alice’s third cousin twice removed, Alessandro Aymes.”

I exchanged a look with Ranger, then Atticus and I looked at each other. We were twins; we could about read each other’s minds. We’d done it before we could talk even, and it had driven our momma nuts. Our unspoken conversation went something like what follows.

Together: No one likes Alessandro except for some ladies down at the bar. He’s a jackass.

Me: Didn’t he write you up for having a dog off-leash?

Atticus: Yep. It was Rebel.

Me: Hope y’all peed on his truck.

Atticus: You’ve liked Alice since she first showed up in Moonlight Valley. I’d never get in the middle of you two. I’m planning on being the best man in your wedding (which was only slightly jumping the gun).

Me: Thanks for having my back.

Atticus: But she’s hot and smart, so you owe me.

Me: I could see that.

Atticus: Good talk.

“Knock it off.” Ranger waved his hand between our faces, snapping our magic twin bond. “Y’all need to use your words so everyone can participate.”

Atticus sighed. “Ranger, no one likes Alessandro and not because his name spells ass. After the moves he tried on our sister?—”

“And the times he arrested Maverick for illegal animal possession,” I added.

Alessandro was not only a dark-eyed, fantastically good-haired, handsome bastard, but he actually had the power to arrest, unlike many animal control officers. It was an unfortunate fact that he particularly liked to harass my brothers.

“Although in all fairness, Mav likely did have illegal animals,” Ranger observed. “He broke those lizards out of the zoo in Nashville that one time, and then there was that dog-fighting ring he busted up?—”

“None of that was ever proved in a court of law,” I said.

Someone needed to stick up for our oldest brother.

“Precisely,” Atticus said. “But Alessandro brings it up all the time. He’s certain we’re up to illegal animal shenanigans here. When he was at the Cattywampus last week, on account of their Friday night two-for-one drinks, he suggested that Mav was likely the person who’d made off with Jennie Dean’s Pekinese on account of his being a known pet thief.”

I shot him a look. “Mav hasn’t liberated an animal in over four years, but Alessandro won’t let it go. Plus, Mav can’t stand small dogs. Says they yap too much and won’t stop growling at his wolf.”

We’d had our share of run-ins with Alessandro Aymes over the years. It didn’t matter whether we were breaking the law. He was always right there, breathing down our necks and asking questions.

I’d always figured this was because Alessandro hadn’t recovered from Mack’s teenage rejection of him. We’d all written him off as a self-important windbag with shampoo-commercial hair.

Ranger propped his hands on his hips and nodded thoughtfully. “So we are all in agreement. But that doesn’t change the fact that Alessandro Aymes has it in for us and Miss Alice is related to him.”

“Is there a point to this story of yours?” I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned at my brother. Ranger usually did have a point—and often an important one—but it took him longer to reach a conclusion than it did to drive from one end of the state to the other.

“My point is Alessandro may feel that, as Miss Alice’s third cousin twice removed, he should be standing in place of her father and nonexistent brothers. He won’t take kindly to your attempts to date her, and that’s even if she doesn’t spill the beans about our lycanthropy.”

“Alice wouldn’t do that,” I said. “We can trust her.”

Our daddy had worried about Momma telling the world about werewolves. It was one of the many ugly reasons why he’d bitten her, to try to change her over. He’d figured that if she was one of us in every way, her family wouldn’t want the truth coming out.

“My intentions are honorable. She’s my one and only.” When wolves mated, we mated for life—and I’d found mine. I was sure of it.

“I know, Ford.” Ranger’s mouth tightened. “She’s your bald eagle, your Appalachian elktoe. We all know she’s rare and you’re gonna do everything you can to keep her safe. But don’t expect Alessandro to welcome you with open arms.”

“I have no desire to hug Alessandro.”

“Ranger is right.” Atticus tipped his head toward me, his eyes holding mine. “Alessandro will hate this. And since he’s a sneaky asshole, you need to watch your back.”

“He’ll try to make trouble for you,” Ranger continued. “Say the word, and I’ll make trouble for him.”

This shocked me. And by the arrested look on Atticus’s face, Ranger’s eye-for-an-eye approach toward my dating life and its potential roadblocks was a surprise to my twin as well.

Ranger looked innocent and pleasant—and people underestimated him. Sometimes I forgot he excelled at figuring people out because he was an emotional chameleon himself. Relationships and emotions didn’t come easy to him, and he’d gotten real good at mimicking the people around him.

The most important thing, though, was that he had my back.