Feral Read online

  “But nothing. I told Deric I’d take you home and I am,” he says definitively.

  “You know, I’m not some little girl anymore that has to be looked after. Deric can’t boss me around. I’m a grown woman,” I protest. I know I sound like I’m pouting, but this frustration is pissing me off.

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Dean answers, not looking back.

  His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. I’m not the only one who is frustrated.

  It occurs to me I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands. A delightfully wicked plan hatches.

  “Oh, shoot!” I exclaim, pretending to rifle through my purse.

  He looks over. “What? You lose something?”

  “It’s my phone. I must have left it at the Den,” I lie.

  “I’m sure it’ll still be there in the morning,” he grunts.

  I slide across the space between us, placing my hand on his forearm. “Please, Dean? I really need it.”

  His expression is impossible to read, and he doesn’t say anything, but when the truck does a U-turn, my nerves start to dance with excitement.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DEAN

  Ava is smiling at the road ahead. Her false confidence about her acting skills might be cute if I wasn’t the one being strong-armed into a position I can’t possibly resist. She’s dead wrong if she thinks she has any idea what sort of fire she’s playing with right now.

  Seeing Brody pant after her like a dog in heat woke something inside me. I’ve been fighting my demons for so long, trying to keep it all at bay, but when I came in and saw his squat frame looming over her, the lock slipped. I’m a man possessed. What little control I was clinging to disintegrated when she pressed her thigh against mine and touched me with those soft hands of hers.

  I should turn back around. I should just take her home. I know that. I really do. I’d be betraying my best friend’s trust if I did anything else. This is Ava, after all. I’ve known her since elementary school. They always had the perfect family, the perfect house, the perfect lives. Hell, they were the descendants of the guy who founded the damn town for fuck’s sake. Me? I was just some latchkey kid with a dead dad and anger problems who hung around her brother, getting him into trouble. I had no place hanging around her back then and I sure as hell don’t have any business doing so now.

  As much as Deric likes to give her grief, he’s always bragged about how she’s going on to bigger and better things, maybe even become the president of a hospital someday. She’s beautiful, smart, quick-witted, talented… What business does she have messing with me? It doesn’t add up. There is simply no logic in this.

  But logic isn’t holding a lot of sway over me right now.

  I glance over. Her eyes are round and full of anticipation, fragile almost. I figured she probably had a crush on me when we were kids. I saw the way she watched me, but it seemed innocent, harmless back then. Maybe that’s all this is for her—some quest to live out a preteen fantasy.

  “Sorry to put you out. I promise I’ll owe you a favor,” she says, biting her lip to contain her grin.

  Oh, you owe me a favor alright…

  It’s adorable she thinks she’s seducing me. I know she’s not exactly an innocent kid anymore, but Deric has mentioned things here and there about the goobers she’s dated—accountants, insurance guys… preppy nice-guys.

  She has no idea how out of her depth she is. All I need to do is illustrate the chasm between me and the kind of guy she’s used to, and she’ll go running scared. It won’t be the happy ending my cock is eager for, but it will be better for both of us in the end.

  I pull off the highway and wind down the gravel road. I love the way the forest looks under a full moon. The cold light makes everything so desolate, so foreign, like I’m on my own little planet and nothing can touch me here.

  But Ava is touching me. She never moved her hand off my forearm. It’s still there, warm and nervous.

  I park and we both climb out, but Ava jogs ahead. I can just barely make out a giggle coming from her.

  She’s already inside, switching on the lamp and making a big show of looking around.

  “You find it yet?”

  She glances up at me with a sly look. “No, just give me a minute, sorry.”

  Ava drops down to her knees and looks under the couch. If she thinks she’s turning me on with the way she’s bending over and posturing herself for my enjoyment, she’s right.

  Finally, she leans back and sits on the desk, looking up at me through her long eyelashes. “Weird, I have no idea where it might be.”

  I’ve got my phone in my hand and on her contact page. I press the dial button and her purse starts vibrating in her hands.

  She blushes and opens her purse. “Oh. My. Gosh. That is sooo embarrassing!”

  I’m already walking towards her. She looks back up at me, looking more and more nervous at my nearness. My hands are aching to reach out and grab her, but instead I walk around to the back of the desk. Behind her, I place my hands on either side of her hips and lean forward.

  I breathe in her scent and whisper, “Liar.”

  Her breath hitches.

  “I think ever since you were a kid you’ve wanted to come out here, to see what goes on after dark…” I pause, brushing the hair away from her ear and letting my fingers graze her neck and then softly down her arm. She sucks in air, her skin budding into little goosebumps, her thighs pressing together right where I want to sink into her. “Am I right?”

  She nods.

  “Well, you’re not a kid anymore… Are you ready to find out?” I dip my head down and touch her shoulder with my lips just enough for her to register the sensation of them on her skin.

  Her breaths are coming quicker and I realize her eyes are closed. I’m getting too turned on for this, but there’s no stopping now.

  She lets her head drop back against my chest, her neck exposed to me. “Yes… Dean.”

  That’s all it takes, hearing her say my name. It occurs to me she rarely says it, and I love the way her voice sounds saying anything, but when it’s my name it’s a whole different level of sexy.

  I put my hands to her waist and pull her back against me, lowering my head to the smooth skin before me. It gives me the perfect view of her creamy breasts, rising up with every rapid breath.

  Just show her a little and pull back…

  She twists, swinging her legs around to face me. I step between them. It’s not even conscious—she’s just there and I need to be closer.

  Our bodies are pressed together now, and my mouth is climbing up her neck until finally I reach her lips. I draw back for an instant and drink in the sight of her. She’s so fucking beautiful.

  We’re kissing and it’s like I’m out here in the Den making out for the first time. My hands itch for her skin. I slide them up and under her shirt, splaying my fingers across her arched back, pressing her closer and closer to me. She’s cradling me with her legs. Even through my hiking pants I can feel the heat of her, like a forbidden forest ripe for the ravaging.

  Ava’s worked her own hands under my shirt. She’s tugging at it desperately… until I let her pull it over my head. Her fingers brush over the muscles of my chest, trailing to my abs, then lower. She’s biting her lip and looking at me like the people I’ve pulled out of the forest look at a hot meal. She’s desperate.

  When she reaches my waistband and lowers her mouth to my chest, kissing and sucking at my tensed muscles, I have one last flash of rational thought.

  Pull back now. You have to pull back.

  This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, but it’s too late.

  Her fingers free the buttons of my pants and she’s pressing herself against my rock-hard erection.

  Pull back? Like fuck I will…

  And that’s it. That’s the last thought. Everything else is a tangle of skin and lips, groans and grinding bodies.

  It’s some time later before any blood returns to
my brain. We’re on the couch, she’s down to her panties and bra, and my mouth is sucking at the fabric, my fingers are knuckle deep in her slick heat. She’s got one hand between us stroking me over my boxers, and my first actual thought is that I can’t fucking finish in her hand. No, I need to be inside her.

  It takes everything in me to pull her hand away.

  “What’s… wrong?” she whispers between panting breaths, her eyes still closed while I keep caressing her with my fingers. She’s totally vulnerable, surrendered to my control, and I watch as the sensation builds up inside her.

  Fuck, I’m going to come just watching her.

  “Nothing… nothing at all, you’re perfect,” I reply.

  “Do you have a condom?” she asks, curling her hand around my girth, stroking me.

  “Shit!” I breathe, partly from the pleasure of her touching me and partly out of frustration. “No, I don’t have anything,” I admit. Normally, I’d always have at least two or three on me, but I was so goddamned determined not to let anything happen with her I got rid of them.

  “That’s okay, I think there are some in the drawer,” she says, jumping up and running to the desk, her perfect ass swaying as she walks. She bends over to open the drawer and the sight is all I can take.

  I come up behind her and grind against her ass, kissing her back.

  She stands up. “They’re gone.”

  I sigh and she turns to face me. Our breathing is slowing, logic creeping back in as the full weight of the fact I’m here with Ava in the middle of the Den, barely clinging to the last thread of my control, sinks in.

  Shit, it’s probably a fucking sign.

  Right on cue, her phone vibrates on the desk beside her. She looks as frustrated as I feel reaching for it.

  “Crap, it’s Deric. Apparently, his fun was cut short tonight. He wants to know where I’m at,” she says, chewing her lip.

  I want to pull her back towards me so badly. My cock is still throbbing from where she was stroking me. I don’t trust myself, so I step back and rake my hands through my hair, trying to think clearly.

  “I should get you home,” I say, hating myself for even thinking the words.

  Ava nods, looking deflated but all kinds of sexy in her little lacy gray bralette I’m just now fully noticing.

  My phone dings too. Deric’s intrusion officially kills all possibility of me going home any more satisfied than I started out.

  We pull our clothes on quickly and get back in the car, neither one of us really talking. The massive shift between us has resulted in stunned silence.

  I roll the windows down and let the cold air do what it can to convince my hard-on it’s not needed any more. The light is on upstairs when I pull up to Ava’s house. Deric’s waiting for her. I’ve betrayed his trust tonight. The guilt weighs heavy on me now.

  She’s about to climb out until she seems to stop and turn back to me with a secret, sultry smile. “Just so you know, my curiosity is not satisfied. I expect you to show me the rest of what goes down out there after dark.”

  She’s slipped out in an instant, walking into the house. Every step she takes away from me seems to worsen this aching feeling. Fuck, what am I doing?

  What felt like a craving before, a desire to taste, has suddenly turned into starvation. There’s no use avoiding or denying it, I want her, and if she gets her way, I’m going to have her.

  My phone dings: Thanks for getting Ava home safe! You always got my back. I owe you one!

  I think about the way she looked, standing there in her underwear.

  I’m going to have her alright… but at what cost?

  CHAPTER TEN

  AVA

  “Holy crap,” I croak out as I wake up before my alarm goes off. I barely slept and the stupid smile hasn’t left my lips since I left Dean’s car.

  Part of me wonders if I dreamed the whole thing, but I know the limits of my narrow imagination could not have conjured the perfection I felt in his boxers. Good god, it felt like an out-of-body experience, and neither one of us was even fully naked!

  It’s all a little too surreal and my head is aching, either from the pent-up tension that had nowhere to go after Dean dropped me off or from the liquid courage that triggered the hottest make-out session I’ve ever had.

  I sit up. There’s a Gatorade and ibuprofen on the nightstand next to me with a note from Deric.

  Like I said, you can’t handle your liquor! Aren’t hangovers fun?

  I crumple the note and toss it, but grudgingly admit, despite his needling, I’m lucky to have him for a big brother. I wonder what he’d think about what I did with his best friend… what I still might do.

  My stomach knots at the thought, but it’s not like he’s never slept with my friends when he came to visit me at college, and he certainly wasn’t asking for my permission then. Hell, this is the twenty-first century. I don’t need anyone’s permission to do what I want with my body.

  So why do I feel like I’m still doing something wrong?

  Maybe it’s not the issue with Deric; maybe it’s the fact that while the preteen who was in love with Dean would be doing cartwheels and handsprings, the sober, grown-up Ava knows he’s not exactly the easy-going nice guy I’m used to. He probably doesn’t have health insurance. That’s not true, I know he does, but that’s only because I forced the guys to sign up for an employer plan.

  I survived the break-up with Perry because the temperature of our relationship was, at best, bathwater warm. With Dean, well, I’m overstepping to even call it a relationship, but gauging from last night, it’s closer to a boiling hot spring. But he’s not exactly Mr. Commitment. I’m not going to lie. I’ve done some thorough reconnaissance of his social media accounts. They’ve been pretty quiet for the last year, but before that there was no shortage of barely clothed women hanging off of him.

  Hey, I’m not a creep. Who hasn’t googled their childhood crush? Honestly, even that wasn’t necessary. My brother and his friends all have their own lady-killer reputations. Am I just setting myself up for some devastating level of hurt? Is it worth the risk to find out?

  I honestly don’t know anymore.

  I gulp down the Gatorade, not wanting to think through all of this. For now, I made out, and more, with the guy I’ve dreamed about since I was in braces. That’s enough for my aching brain to process. I pull out my phone wondering whether Dean’s texted me, even though I know damn well I would have leapt from the bed if my phone had made any sound in the night.

  What I do find, however, is an email I wasn’t expecting. It’s Cathy’s niece, Lindsey, inviting me for an interview next week. I scan the message quickly. The position is basically a glorified assistant to the director of the clinic, but the pay isn’t bad, and it’d look good on a resume, plus they’re associated with a larger health care group that might have opportunities for upward movement.

  I start to type a response and stop. I read over what I just wrote and delete it. I’d be so beyond stupid to turn down an opportunity like this, but… after last night, part of me is dying to know where this could go with Dean.

  I can’t sacrifice my chances at a stable career, but I also can’t quite bring myself to write back just yet.

  Ugh. Too much drama, not enough food.

  I make it down to the kitchen to scrounge up some oatmeal. Deric jogs down the stairs, freshly showered and full of energy.

  “Look alive, Ava, we’re leaving in ten minutes, hungover or not. I’m taking a group of climbers out this afternoon and I need to get prepped,” he warns.

  Crap, I forgot I left my car at Gracie’s. I stuff my mouth full and rush upstairs, desperate to get in a quick shower before Deric leaves without me. He had his license long before me, and Mom and Dad made him drive me to school, but he’s never been patient. If I wasn’t ready when he was, he’d go without me.

  I step out of the shower when I hear him call, “I’m starting the car. Hurry up!”

  Of course the day after Dea
n and I finally hook up I have to go into work make-up free in with damp hair and no time whatsoever to deliberate over what outfit to wear. Well, if Dean was having doubts about last night already, my plain Jane look today ought to put the matter to rest.

  I hop into Deric’s Subaru Crosstrek. It’s pristine except for the heaps of rope in the backseat.

  “Big climb today?” I ask, as we pull out of the driveway.

  “Yup. Three days camping and climbing in Skookum Canyon,” he says, going on about the details of the trip. He’s always loved climbing—something he got from Dad, I guess, along with the monster paws he has for hands, or maybe that’s a byproduct of climbing. I’m not sure.

  I glance back to the rope. “I take it this isn’t one of your ‘suicide’ climbs, correct?”

  “You are correct. This will not be a ‘fun’ climb,” he laughs. “But I don’t do free solo climbs with groups. That’d ruin the fun. I’d have to be worried about other people.”

  “You should be worried about yourself.” We’ve had this conversation too many times to put too much energy into it.

  “Trust me, it’s no fun not being able to breathe,” he jokes about his asthma.

  Deric’s ideas of a good time come in two forms: sexually aggressive women and climbing dangerous routes by himself without any kind of safety system. Still, he won’t listen to reason when it comes to either.

  We ride for a bit discussing Dex’s situation, when he remarks, “You seem a little off today. You still buzzed from last night?”

  “Oh, whatever. I wasn’t falling-over drunk,” I retort.

  “Then why have you not once complained this morning about working in BFE today? In fact, you seem almost excited,” he says, glancing over at me suspiciously.

  “Maybe you’re the one who is still drunk,” I counter.

  He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m not a lightweight like you.”

  “Then what excuse do you have for making such an embarrassing spectacle with your groupie last night?”

  He wiggles his eyebrows. “Hey, I can’t help it if I exude raw sexual magnetism. Besides, word gets around when you’re packing a lethal weapon in your drawers,” he snickers.