Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
JESSE
Jesse took the coffee Matt shoved at him—did the man live on coffee?
—and settled at the table, watching Matt and thinking.
When Matt had touched him by the chicken run, arousal had jolted through Jesse, wild and insistent.
He’d wanted nothing more than for Matt to throw him down to the ground and fuck him.
Well, maybe Matt could have controlled the unbridled lust long enough to get him to the hayloft first because Jesse wouldn’t have appreciated having the chickens as a loud and interested audience.
But God, he’d wanted something to happen.
He still did. And when Matt’s gaze flicked to his across the table and they held… It was like nothing Jesse had ever known. His breath caught in a stifled gasp. Damn it, why the hell had that sounded like a fish out of water rather than sexy? Matt looked sharply away again.
Jesse wasn’t imagining things. Matt wanted him, even though it seemed like he wasn’t going to do anything about it.
Screw it. He’d been fighting this since they met, and for what?
Giving in to want wasn’t surrender. Might as well take what he wanted, and if he wanted a session tangled up with a broody alpha, he was going to take it.
Just maybe not right now, with a heavy oak table between them and Matt looking away from him.
Jesse would keep watching, he’d pick his moment, and when it came—Matt Urban was going to beg. Jesse would make sure of it.
And until that moment came, things here weren’t as bad as he’d thought. It’d been kind of nice, working alongside Matt. Almost like he fit.
Dangerous thought. Urban might not be what he’d first believed, but at heart he was still a bossy alpha, in control of everyone all the time.
Which made Jesse wonder, given how many shifters must live here, why it was so quiet.
“Where’s the rest of the pack?” he asked, breaking the long silence that had been oddly comfortable.
Matt looked at him, and Jesse lost himself in those eyes for a while, scarcely hearing his answer. “Bryce and Jason are at work, Christian and Dave are up in the top pastures, Karl’s patrolling, and Tristan’s at college.”
Jesse eventually tore his gaze away and processed Matt’s words. “What about everyone else?”
“That’s my pack.”
Jesse knew his jaw dropped. “What, five… no, six shifters? And no women? How does that work?”
“Guess you’re not asking for the birds and bees talk,” Matt drawled, and Jesse didn‘t know whether to roll his eyes or grin. In the end he grinned, because—unexpectedly—he liked Matt.
“This was never supposed to be a pack, but Bryce got a call one night from an ex who was in trouble. He came home with this shifter kid, all floppy hair and big eyes, who needed a home. And Bryce, the softhearted pushover, gave him one. So, Tristan came to live with us, and then Dave came along when I was looking for a hand to help with the horses.”
Matt smiled—the first time Jesse had seen it, and it was a fucking revelation. It was like the sun coming out. Jesse did that dying fish thing again, and thank God Matt didn’t seem to notice.
“I doubt Dave had so much as touched a horse before in his life, but he learned. With some help from Christian, who was the next one to turn up.”
“He just knocked on your door?”
“It’s odd,” Matt said slowly. “I never thought about it before, how so many stray shifters turned up here. I put it down to Bryce being Bryce and scooping up anyone in need who crosses his path. But I wonder… When we first came here, the land felt as if there’d been shifters here before.
It felt right. I wonder, now, if maybe we can sense things we’re unaware of, and something draws shifters to the ranch, to Elk Ridge.
” His eyes flicked up, spearing Jesse like a butterfly on a pin.
“Like you. You had hundreds of miles in which to run, but you ended up here. Don’t you think that’s more than a coincidence? ”
Well, no, actually—Jesse didn’t. He didn’t believe in mystical shit like that, like fated mates or shining wolves.
But even as he thought about saying that, Matt’s face changed, grew pale, and he rushed on without waiting for an answer, almost like he wanted to bury the words before Jesse could poke at them.
“Christian didn’t so much knock on my door as get hauled out of a bar fight by Bryce.
He was offered the choice between a night in lock-up or coming up here and doing some chores.
Turns out Christian’s on the claustrophobic side, so he chose here.
And then, like the rest of them, he never left again. ”
“Jason and—Karl, is it?”
“Jason got dropped off in town by a ride, took a job at the diner, and lasted maybe a week before Bryce found him. He took one look at Jason and brought him up here. As for Karl… ” The slight smile playing around his lips faded, and he looked down into his coffee, his expression growing somber.
“Karl came to us about a year later, after his truck gave out a few miles out of town.”
He offered nothing more, and Jesse had the feeling he shouldn’t ask.
Matt’s eyes flicked back up to Jesse. “Now I’m overrun by goddamn wolves.” But his complaint was undermined by the warmth in his voice
Matt’s account of the pack raised more questions than it answered in Jesse’s mind.
How come an alpha like Matt wasn’t running a proper pack?
Most packs were at least a hundred strong, from what he’d heard, with some of the bigger ones being up to three hundred.
From the sound of it, Matt hadn’t had any pack before Tristan.
But he’d been living with Bryce… Must have, for him to bring Tristan here.
“Wait, you said Bryce brought Tristan home. Are you and Bryce—?” Not wanting to say it, to acknowledge the yawning pit suddenly opening in his stomach, Jesse instead gestured with his hand, hoping Matt would get what he meant.
Matt’s brows drew down as he stared uncomprehendingly at Jesse’s flailing hand, then he suddenly gave a bark of laughter. “Hell, no! He’s my beta, and my best friend, and that’s where it ends.”
Relief swept through Jesse so hard he thought he might end up on the floor with the way his muscles relaxed.
Laughter was still crinkling the skin around Matt’s eyes as he took Jesse’s mug and refilled it, along with his own. He sat down once again, pushing the mug across the table. And then, he pushed the sugar container over, too. Jesse’s breath caught. No one ever paid attention to what he wanted.
Nodding in thanks, he glanced up at Matt from beneath his lashes as he stirred sugar into his mug.
Matt really wasn’t what he’d thought. There’d been warmth and pride in him when he spoke about his pack.
As for taking in people who needed a place?
That—that caused a tug of longing in Jesse.
Right up until he realized what he was feeling and squashed it down brutally.
It might be nice for other people to have that, but they’d had to pay for it by surrendering their free will. And that wasn’t a price Jesse was willing to pay.
He was done belonging to anyone except himself.
MATT
This was the most relaxed he’d seen Jesse, and Matt was surprised to find he was enjoying his company.
Jesse didn’t see the need to fill silence with chatter, and now that he was no longer focused solely on survival, it was clear how sharp and perceptive he was.
Stubborn as hell, but Matt had to admire that.
A shifter didn’t survive long on their own without being tough as nails.
He found himself wishing things were different—that he could offer Jesse a place here. As it was, Matt would stick to the plan and send him on his way this afternoon.
Glancing at the clock on the wall, he became aware of a presence at the back door.
“Karl,” he informed Jesse, just as the door opened.
Karl stood silently in the doorway for a moment. Matt knew his keen senses were taking in everything—the way Jesse and Matt were settled comfortably at the table and the smell of coffee in the air.
Jesse had tensed, narrowing his eyes on the new arrival. Karl’s dark gaze rested on Jesse an instant longer before he came inside and prowled across the tiled floor to the pantry.
Jesse’s tension rose further, and honestly, Matt would have been worried about his instincts if he hadn’t reacted.
Karl was dangerous. He was in his early thirties, with dark brown eyes, and dark brown hair that brushed past his collar, framing a face that had half Elk Ridge swooning on the occasional visits he made to town.
But along with the movie star looks and the powerful muscles, there was also an air of ruthless competence, informing anyone with any kind of awareness that he knew more ways to kill a man than Jason knew how to cook an egg.
Karl didn’t talk about his past, but he’d told Matt just enough for Matt to let him stay, including that he’d done some covert work during his service.
Like the rest of them, he’d turned up here through a series of accidents, needing sanctuary, even if he never expressed it like that.
Knowing Karl, probably not even to himself.
Now, Matt relied on him to handle security while Matt was down in town.
Along with the possible threat from other packs, there were still a few zealots out there who thought shifters were subhuman, leading to occasional instances of packs being attacked on their own territory.
Karl had an almost preternatural sense of his surroundings, and Matt was glad of it.