Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
“‘I haven’t even accepted that you’re my lover, and now you want me to except [sic] that you’re something off the Sci Fi Channel.’
‘A werewolf.’
‘Yes.’”
— SARAH MCCARTY, RUNNING WILD
L et’s shack up!
Build a love nest!
Wanna be my bedroom renter?
I pulled my attention back to the tour guide. Sadie was dressed rather melodramatically from head to toe in black: black dress, black jacket, black boots. When she gestured, she fluttered. Oh, her black hat looked like something out of Godey’s Lady’s Book . A (black) scarf kept said hat from either blowing away or being snatched by mischievous ghosts.
They did not mess around with wardrobe in Crickety Creek. Even though the historic site was the tiniest pinpoint on a map and a good half hour from Moonlight Valley, I was secretly hoping for a gift shop where I could buy the entire ensemble.
“Are you nervous?” Sadie asked. Spoiler: audience participation was not required, so she kept talking. “The mill is haunted by the ghosts of the miller, his wife, and their three cats. There was an unfortunate incident with the waterwheel.” She lowered her voice. “Squashed flat, the five of them were.”
Maverick held up our lantern. It was pitch-black outside the circle of light. What time was it? Midnight, of course. Partly this was because midnight was a ghost-appropriate and gawking-people-free hour, but mostly it was because, like a vampire, I wasn’t available during daylight hours (thanks to my filming schedule rather than any bloodsucking dietary requirements). When he’d asked to take me out tonight, I’d been expecting maybe a movie or dinner. Bowling. Cow tipping. A classic Southern date.
Instead, we were on a group date with ghosts.
I freaking loved it.
So far, we’d been treated to stories about two Civil War soldiers—naturally, bitter enemies who’d had opposing political views—as well as some very salacious details about a group of spinster ladies who shared a cabin, a cemetery full of specters, a Frankenstein, and a genteel gentleman who insisted on making an appearance at the full moon despite his grave having been salted.
Crickety Creek was like one of those fifty-five-and-older retirement communities, except here the criteria was being a ghost. Although it did not host any living inhabitants, it did have a tiny church with spooky wrought iron detailing and a cemetery crowded with tumbled down tombstones. Dark alleys snaked between the main street. By the old mill, a waterwheel creaked eerily as it churned up the water. We’d reached that by way of a wooden bridge that dipped and swayed as we clomped over it.
Maverick leaned down. “Are you scared?”
Since he’d whispered this in my ear—and his teeth had nipped my earlobe ever so gently—the honest answer was nope. Turned on? You bet. Quaking in my Dr. Martens? Not so much.
I patted his butt while Sadie opined dolorously about the supernatural happenings at the mill. So far, we hadn’t seen any ghosts, but it’d been fun, nonetheless.
Eventually, Sadie ran out of stories and looked expectantly at us. The show was over.
Maverick slipped Sadie some discreetly folded bills, she wished us a restful death (not my favorite line in her tour guide spiel), and then she disappeared with impressive stealth. Sadie was not interested in hanging out with a famous person; she was only interested in the dead.
We’d parked by an ancient corn crib with a red tin roof. I could see straight through the wooden walls and, if I squinted, I could almost see the ghosties of mice past dancing around.
And so now, here we were, after our third date, sitting silently in his truck. I had to be up early to shoot, while Maverick had the day off.
I wasn’t nearly as tired as I had been on our first and second middle-of-the-night dates. After I’d fallen asleep in the middle of the drive-in movie, I’d started taking naps in the afternoon when I had a break. Maverick didn’t seem tired, either. He was preternaturally alert, his eyes scanning the darkened woods around us, constantly shifting his body as something caught his attention. He’d looked particularly tense when Sadie had insinuated that the nice ladies of Crickety Creek had held some stellar orgies in their cabins.
Sadie honked her horn and drove past us in a flutter of waving black draperies. I stared out the windshield of Maverick’s truck.
We were alone in a ghost town with nowhere we needed to be for hours.
Tonight’s date had been hot-hot-hot, and I was hoping it wasn’t over yet. Certain parts of me were very much awake and hoping there would be a good-night kiss or six. I was also open to heavy petting and anything else Maverick might be comfortable doing.
I just didn’t know what that was.
I needed a Maverick rule book.
We were definitely a couple. Heck, we were a fifty-years-married couple, except that I hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of his penis naked. I would have loved to remedy that tonight. I’d tried to follow the speed limit laws in Mavericklandia; I’d come to a full stop at all stop signs, merged carefully, and hadn’t tailgated. He had to set the pace in the bedroom (or his truck cab, my front porch, my trailer, and the fine Tennessee state parks) because I was the speed demon in this relationship.
FYI, I’d been having this internal debate since the Great Frosting Incident in my trailer.
“Boo,” Maverick said, making me jump. He chuckled lightly, stretching an arm out behind me along the seat back. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t actually mean to startle you. Are you tired?”
“Nope. Not at all.” I shook my head vigorously, as though he’d accused me of cheating on my taxes rather than sleepiness.
His grin grew. “You up for doing something else?”
Who needed sleep? I’d just order up a case of energy drinks. Run an IV of espresso into my veins. Breakfast on dark chocolate.
“Absolutely!” I nodded again for emphasis. Should I say something else? But what? I did want to spend time with him. It was just that I also would like that time to be spent in a bed, both sleeping and not sleeping.
Will there be kissing?
A comfy horizontal surface? Possibly a sturdy vertical surface?
Can we DO each other?
Can I do you?
Should I download a thesaurus of romantic terms?
At this rate, I’d be declaiming the infamous “Roses Are Red” poem to him. This was embarrassing. I was a New York Times best-selling author!
I bit my lip to keep from offering him a blow job while he drove us to wherever this something else would be taking place.
Maverick studied me, his eyes narrowing, his left hand gripping the steering wheel.
“You ready?” he asked, his voice deliciously hoarse.
Yes, yes, I was.
I nodded some more. “Can’t wait!”
I expected him to turn the key in the ignition, but instead he frowned. His eyes dropped to my mouth. The truck’s cab warmed up faster than a greenhouse in summer. He lavished a heated look on me that almost had me combusting on the spot. I gripped the sides of the passenger seat to keep from launching myself toward him.
Breaking the moment, Maverick exhaled roughly and abruptly, tearing his gaze away from mine. His eyes flashed amber, but then he composed himself, gritting his teeth.
I stopped holding my own breath. Inhaled a lungful of Maverick’s delicious, pinesy scent. What would he do next?
He started the truck.
We drove silently along the mountain roads. Silently past trees and more trees, a rock spill, and a deer that watched us from the bushes.
I expected him to maybe comment on the tour and make a joke about seeing ghosts, but he stayed silent. Focused on the road. The urge to blurt out words, to fill up the silence, grew in me.
Resist.
I had to resist.
“Did you know that ferns are a triceratops’s favorite food?” I blurted out.
Maverick’s eyes flickered to mine and then back to the dark road. We were driving by starlight mixed with headlight. It should have been romantic, although fern fun facts might not have been helping the mood. Still, he grinned.
“Pteridology is a sadly underrepresented field of study,” I continued. “Perhaps you could consider that once you’ve exhausted the possibilities of snake venom.”
He nodded, but his grin faded. He slowed the truck and signaled a right-hand turn.
Outside the windshield there was nothing but mountain road and trees. Lots and lots of trees. I was a big fan of botany and perennial plants with large stems, but these did not seem particularly interesting.
After three minutes of bumping down an unpaved, unmarked road like kernels in a popcorn popper, Maverick stopped. Shockingly, there were more tall trees, along with an impressive collection of inky shadows.
“This is Buzzard’s Bluff. I thought we could check out the stars. We won’t get any lights from town up here, and it’s a clear night.” Maverick proposed this plan calmly, as if he merely had some platonic celestial gazing in mind.
Nevertheless, his statement had parts of me palpitating.
My heart did some excited, anticipatory thumping.
He wants to sit around in a truck in the middle of nowhere staring at the sky.
He had to have an ulterior motive, right?
Right?
Before I could convince myself that the answer was HELL YES, Maverick had parked and stepped down. While he rummaged around in the back of the cab, I got out.
I’d dressed casually for our date: black Uggs, black leggings, and a long-sleeved, slouchy brown sweater with a patchwork crocheted scarf that my mami had made for me when I was fifteen. I loved my scarf, but it was not up to the mountain air past midnight. My wardrobe would need reinforcements if we hung out here for too long. Feeling antsy, I walked around to Maverick’s side of the truck just as he tossed a squashy bundle of something into the bed of the truck.
Of course, Maverick’s date-night improv included a DIY construction project. We were probably going to build birdhouses. Or a sauna.
I would love to use his tool.
I kept this to myself, however, because boundaries were important. Instead, I politely asked, “Can I help?”
Maverick nodded. “Can you hold the flashlight?”
I accepted a big bright-yellow flashlight from him and aimed it at Maverick while he tossed two more squashy fabric-wrapped blobs into the truck bed.
“Are we burying bodies?”
He flashed me a grin. “Nope.”
He followed this up by striding to the back of the truck. I bobbed along behind him, dutifully beaming the flashlight at his butt. I, for one, liked what I was seeing. He lowered the tailgate and vaulted into the bed. It was nice to be a wolfman.
“Point that over here?”
I bit back an inappropriate joke about pointing and planted the flashlight on the side of the truck.
The squashy things turned out to be Japanese floor mattresses, rolled up into cute little logs. They had pillow friends and throw blanket friends as well. I stared at them and at him as he worked, the earlier palpitations increasing and moving to areas south of my belly button. He was building us a nest. To cuddle up in. So we could look at stars.
It was the best date ever.
“Are you cold?”
I blinked up at him. He was frowning at me. The cutest little crinkle of a question mark had formed between his eyebrows.
“Not yet,” I promised him.
Damn it. I should have told him I was freezing. Requested that we share body heat lest I perish from hypothermia. Hypoglycemia. Hypomagnesemia? Whatever. Something that required an immediate application of his big, hot body.
He reached a hand down to help me up. Pffft. I might not be a sexy biologist who used his tools on a daily basis, but I was a sexy Hollywood television star who had a fitness app on her phone. I got myself up into the truck all on my own.
Despite my impressive truck-climbing skills and independent, can-do attitude, Maverick was right there before I could unfold myself from my frog-like crouch on the tailgate. He pulled me upright, banding an arm around my waist and offering unnecessary but still delicious support. He held my hand. He brushed his lips against mine. Then he kissed me for real.
I was pretty sure he’d gone off script, seeing as how we were neither lying down nor looking at any stars, but I always enjoyed a good ad-lib. Plus: KISSING. He dawdled, pausing each pass of his mouth with demanding nips of his teeth and consolatory licks of his tongue. His hands stopped holding me up and ventured lower, stroking and squeezing as they moved south.
“I missed you.” His voice was rough, surprisingly hoarse, and gravelly; my head swam so much that I failed to point out that we’d just spent the last two hours together, so what exactly had he missed? His hands inserted themselves beneath my sweater, callused fingers stroking my sides, his thumbs taking up residence beneath the band of my bra.
Kisses were pressed against the sensitive skin of my neck.
There were tiny, erotic nibbles.
I sucked in a breath as his hands moved down and into my leggings, cupping my butt. A hard ridge pressed against my belly. I tucked my fingers inside the front pocket of his jeans and tugged gently on the fabric. There may have been accidental brushing of that intriguing ridge. I wasn’t sure what the etiquette was for asking him to explain the guidelines for tonight’s make-out session, but I needed to know.
“Can I touch you?”
Tug. Tug, tug, TUG. I crooked my fingers deeper inside the pocket, petting him gently through the thin fabric. He was thick and hard and so, so warm.
He hissed, tensing. I waited for the green light. Or the red light. But I was really, really hoping for green.
“Yes,” he gritted out.
Wish granted!
I pulled my fingers out and wrapped my palm around him as best I could through the front of his jeans. I loved the feel of him, how he was hard and smooth, urgent and controlled. He was a man of delicious dichotomies and primitive urges, yet he kept himself under control at all times.
I tugged on his belt buckle. “Can we take this off? May I unwrap my present, please?”
He unbuckled his belt. Then said hoarsely, “Okay. Yes, please.”
I pushed his jeans and his boxer briefs down his hips and dropped to my knees in front of him. God bless those Japanese futons for their pillowy protection for my kneecaps.
I reached for him, framing him between my palms. The man was a work of art. Not the marble statue kind with the tiny, disappointing dicks—more of the robust satyr variety. He was thick and long, and I leaned forward and showed him my appreciation with tender kisses, gentle laps.
“You—” He swallowed a rough sound, his hips moving.
“Me,” I said happily, stopping my loving because it was just rude to talk with my mouth full. “Us. Together. Qué linda tu pija .”
He did indeed have a beautiful dick. I wrapped my hands around what wouldn’t fit, sucking on the thick, fat head. Paired with my tight, rough strokes, I hoped he felt how much I cared about him. How much I loved being this close to him. Trusted. Safe.
He threaded his callused fingers through my hair, gathering up my curls and tucking them safely away.
“I want to see you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Let me watch you, sweetheart.”
I hummed a note of agreement. He groaned.
“Look at me?” He fisted my curls gently, turning my face upward.
His eyes were half amber, half hazel, all desire.
“Hi, Wolf,” I whispered around him.
He growled, a low, rough sound. His wolf was happy to see me, too.
I watched him watching me take him deeper, careful of my teeth, reading his body like it was a love note written just for me.
And boy, were we on the same page here. Touching him made me feel good. The more I kissed him, dragging my lips over where he was hard and slick, licking and tasting a slow path up his length and then back down again, the more turned on I got. It was fun and I’d never felt closer to him.
“Sonnet,” he murmured as I took him deep again, working him inside me. “Sonnet.”
His hands in my hair tightened and his hips flexed, working. His fingers loosened, as if he were afraid he might hurt me.
“I’m going to come,” he said roughly. “I should?—”
He tried to pull away, but I held on. He was so big and thick, so perfect. I might have been humming a happy song when he released in my mouth with a hoarse cry.
I swallowed and then grinned up at him. I had no words. I was nothing but happy feelings and satisfaction.
From the look on his face, we were in agreement on that.
He nudged me upward. There might have been some unnecessary but totally gratifying lifting and carrying on his part. He wrapped us up in the blankets he’d brought, settling me against his chest. It felt so good, I thought I might never move.
“There was supposed to be stargazing,” he mock-growled. “Someone distracted me. That someone has derailed all my nefarious plans for the night.”
“I saw stars,” I promised him. “Supernovas galore.”
He chuckled. “A supernova?”
I winked. “Mmmhmmm. I’m just hoping it wasn’t Halley’s comet and therefore not due to make another appearance for a hundred years.”