A kiss wasn’t all he wanted; I could feel that much with him pressed against me. But it was a damn good start.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he said, when I didn’t answer.
Yes… No sound came out, but he heard me, anyway.
Jace’s lips met mine, and I tilted my head up to meet him. My mouth opened, and the kiss deepened. He was hungry for me, and I was half-starved from the recent famine. His lips were hot, his hands warm on my hips, even through my clothes. My arms slid around his back, feeling the play of muscles with each minute movement.
His tongue dipped into my mouth, and suddenly I ached in other, more sensitive places. We were making out in the hall, in full view, should anyone walk in. The thrill of possible discovery was unmitigated by the fact that everyone knew. That we were no longer stealing hidden comfort kisses in the throes of bitter pain and chaos. If anything, I wanted him more now. And he clearly wanted me….
The screen door squealed open from the kitchen. I jerked back from Jace and smacked my head on the wall. But he wasn’t interested in stopping and I wasn’t fast enough. Marc stood in the doorway, hands fisted at his sides, face lined in pain.
Jace stepped back and I straightened my shirt, but the damage was done.
Marc had only seen me with Jace once, in my bedroom, when I’d first returned to the ranch. It wasn’t real back then. Because I hadn’t taken Jace seriously, and Marc and I weren’t even together at the time. But Marc had ripped my door from its hinges and broken through the Sheetrock with Jace’s head.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he snapped, jaw bulging furiously. “Hell, why don’t we sell tickets?” He stopped when intrusive silence descended from the living room. Marc scrubbed his face with both hands, then crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the floor, clearly trying to get control of his temper.
“Marc…”
“No.” He looked up, flames raging behind his eyes. “Outside, if you want to talk.”
I nodded and headed for the kitchen, grateful that he hadn’t just stormed out again. Jace started to follow me, and Marc turned on him, growling, pulling one fist back.
“Stop!” I shouted. My father appeared in the doorway, tense and angry. Jace practically buzzed with fury. I sucked in a deep breath and grabbed Marc’s arm, pushing it down steadily while I stared straight into his eyes. I begged him silently to back off, fully aware that if he wasn’t willing to, I couldn’t make him.
“Faythe…” My father’s warning held little of the sympathy he’d shown earlier. He wouldn’t judge me, but he would preserve order. He had to. And so did I. “If you can’t handle this, I will.”
“It’s okay. I got it.” I let go of Marc’s fist and it stayed down, though his eyes still flashed with anger and an underlying personal agony. I gestured for Marc to head on out. Jace tried to follow again, and this time I stepped into his path. “Jace, give us a minute.”
“Hell, no!” He was tense all over, and I could feel fury radiating like heat from a bonfire. “You shouldn’t be alone with him when he’s like this.”
My dad growled in warning, and I glared at Jace. “Don’t tell me where I shouldn’t be. Stay here. I need to talk to Marc.”
He scowled, but nodded. I shot an apologetic glance at my father, then ran out the back door after Marc. But the backyard was empty. I raced down the steps, adrenaline flooding my veins, demanding an immediate search.
“Over here,” Marc said, and I whirled around to find him leaning against the shed near the tree line. I jogged across the yard and into the shed while he held the door open for me. He yanked the pull chain on the light, then leaned against the closed door, and I held up the wall next to him, giving him the two feet of distance he seemed to prefer.
I pushed hair behind my ears, wishing he’d look at me. Wishing he’d touch me, and show me that he could still feel something for me other than anger, even if that something else was buried way down deep.
But instead, he stuffed his hands into his pockets, reinforcing the physical and emotional distance he was building. He blinked into the glare from the naked bulb, and his face was blank. Completely unreadable.
“You were really going to hurt him.” I’d read that much in his posture. And then Jace would have hurt him back, and the situation would have been unrecoverable.
He rolled his eyes and let his head fall against the wood plank wall at his back. “Do you blame me?”
I sighed. He had every right to be pissed, but I had to think about the good of the Pride. “If this war really happens, we’re going to need him, and you know it.”
“Maybe you both should have thought of that before you let him shove his tongue down your throat in front of—” Marc’s voice broke beneath obvious anguish, and my heart suddenly felt like it weighed ten pounds. “Why are you doing this to me, Faythe? Am I not suffering enough, knowing he’s been inside you? Is the floor show just to give me a visual? To make sure I know exactly how much you like it…?”
“No!” I took a deep breath, trying to compose my thoughts. “Marc, I’m not trying to hurt you. I swear. I just… You say I have to choose, but I don’t know how to do that if you won’t come near me, and you won’t let him near me, either. You won’t touch me, Marc. Not a hug. Not a kiss. You won’t even sit less than two feet from me.”
“And your solution is to let him grope you in plain sight?”
“I just wanted to know I wasn’t alone.” I closed my eyes, grasping for an explanation he’d understand. “I know how he feels. He wants to show me how he feels about me, and you don’t. You won’t. I miss you, and missing you is so much harder when I can still see you, and hear you, and smell you, but you won’t touch me. You hardly ever even look at me unless you’re too pissed off to avoid it, and I can’t tell if you still want me, or if you just want to make me pay for what I did.”
“You slept with someone else!” Marc whirled around and punched the wall of the shed, and his knuckles came away bloody. “Hell, yeah, I want you to pay! I want you both to pay. How am I supposed to look at you after you’ve been with him? Knowing you still want to be with him? I’m in the right here, Faythe. You screwed up—you screwed him—and I’m paying for it.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Sorry doesn’t mean anything! Not when you’re still with him. It’s not just that you cheated—it’s that he’s still here, and you’re still with him. It just goes on and on, and it hurts every single time I see you with him. I hate it that he makes you smile, and that there’s nothing I can do to stop this. I can’t think straight, and everything hurts, and nothing makes sense anymore. You’re shredding my heart with one hand and stroking his ego with the other. And it’s killing me, Faythe. You’re killing me. And it’s only going to get worse, now that everyone knows.”
I swiped tears from my cheeks with cold, shaking fingers. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to be sorry enough to tell him to go get his thrills on top of someone else’s girlfriend. I want you to swear I’m the only one you want, and the only one you’ll ever want, and that you’ll never even look at anyone else again. I want you to want me, Faythe. As much as I want you.”
“I do want you. I never stopped wanting you.” I couldn’t hold back the tears, and my words were halting half sobs. “This isn’t about you….”
“Well, it should be!” he shouted, and I flinched. “Everything I do is about you, and I want the reverse to be true, too.” I wiped more tears, my throat aching with words that would only make this worse. “What, you need a reminder? That’s what he was doing, right? And now you smell like him. You probably taste like him. You should taste like me.…”
He was on me before I could even catch my breath, his mouth bruising mine, and after that, breathing didn’t seem so important. Marc pressed me into the wall of the shed, his hands on either side of my shoulders. He kissed me like it had been years, rather than days. Like he was reminding us both.
My body responded wi
thout consulting my brain, and I clutched at him, pulling him closer. I’d missed him so much.
His lips trailed down my neck and his hands wandered beneath my shirt, claiming. Demanding. He pulled away just long enough to tug my tee over my head. My shirt hit the dusty shed floor, and my bra landed on top of it an instant later.
His mouth fed from mine, his tongue slid between my lips as his hands explored territory I’d thought abandoned. Then he dropped into a squat, leaving my mouth cold and empty, and lifted first my right foot, then my left, to pull my boots off. He dropped a trail of hot kisses down my stomach. I gasped when he tugged my jeans button free, but Marc was silent. Eager, but still angry.
I almost lost my balance when he shoved my pants and underwear down with both hands, then tugged them free and slid them across the floor with one foot. He unbuttoned his own pants and pushed them halfway down, then lifted me and held me against the cold wall with his own body.
He slid inside me completely with one stroke, and I had to wrap my arms around his neck for balance. This was not gentle, tender sex. This was desperate need and scorching lust, part revenge, part passion. This was him reclaiming what he thought he’d lost and giving what he thought I’d asked for.
Every thrust was fast and hard. Every stroke was deep and long. Friction burned between us, and my pleasure built too fast to be savored, too hot to be held. By the time he shuddered against me, within me, slamming me into the wall over and over, shaking the entire shed with our fierce union, my own intense, tight coil of pleasure had eclipsed all sight, smell, and sound that wasn’t Marc.
He collapsed against me, his shirt damp with my sweat and his. I clung to him, still throbbing around him, breathing hard as my heart pounded, stunned, and finally hopeful.
Then, without a word, he lifted me and stepped back, withdrawing in every sense of the word. He set my bare feet on the dirty floor and zipped his pants up. I stood there naked and in shock, staring after him as he shoved the door open and let in a frigid draft. “Maybe now you’ll remember.”
Then he was gone, and the world was cold.
I got dressed slowly, all alone, reeling. I could still feel echoes of him, deep inside. I could still smell him on my skin, taste him on my lips. But I’d never felt more alone in my life. Abandoned. Dismissed.
My shirt and jeans were covered in dust. I brushed them off as best I could, but still looked like I’d rolled in it. Was that what he wanted? That I smell like him and look like we’d just rolled all over the ground? Had I been marked? Reclaimed, then left to wonder what the hell just happened?
Stunned, I crossed the cold yard, plodded up the steps, and opened the kitchen door slowly, to keep it from creaking. I needn’t have bothered. Marc wasn’t there. But Jace was.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded in a whisper, as voices floated in from the living room—the others still discussing the upcoming vote.
“I…” I brushed past him, headed for the soda I’d poured half an hour earlier. I gulped from the glass, trying to figure out what to tell him, and nearly choked when a melting sliver of ice wedged in my throat.
“You smell like him, he smells like you, and you’re wearing half the damn mountain on your clothes,” Jace hissed. “I guess I know what happened.”
“I’m not sure I know what happened….” The glass was slick in my grip, so I set it down, still trying to gather my thoughts. “But I think I just got a dose of my own medicine.”
Jace scowled. “I’d say we both did. Marc’s back in the game.”
I drained my glass and poured a refill. “I’ll be right back. I need a shower.” But the floor creaked when I stepped into the hall, and Marc heard it. He’d probably been listening for it.
“You two boycotting the meeting, or are you gonna get in on this?” he called.
I groaned on the inside. Marc was going to make me pay. He was going to humiliate me, like I’d humiliated him, by making me show up for an important strategy meeting smelling like him and covered in the dirt they’d assume he’d rolled me in. Everyone would know what we’d done, if they didn’t already.
He was making a statement. Staking his claim. And Jace and I would have to live with it.
But with any luck, if I let him have his moment—let him publicly air his grievance—he’d be able to work past some of his anger. Please let him work past some of his anger….
“Faythe?” my father called, clearly oblivious to the game Marc was playing—so far.
“Yeah. I’m coming.” Dialing up my courage, I brushed more dirt from my clothes with my free hand, then marched back through the kitchen and into the living room with my head high. Or at least not drooping. Jace followed me and took up a post in the doorway, looking angrier than I’d ever seen him.
Marc sat on the arm of the couch, watching me, apparently at peace with the world, at least for the moment.
I leaned against the wall, sipping from my glass, trying to ignore the stares as they roamed down from my hair—evidently disheveled—over my shirt and pants, taking in the smudges I couldn’t get out without detergent. “Okay, as much fun as this awkward silence is…” I had to force my hand to relax around my glass before it cracked. “What’s the plan?”
My father cleared his throat, mercifully drawing the collective focus from me and setting us all back on track as only he could. “The vote takes place in an hour and a half. When they ask for prevailing business, I’ll make the formal charge against Malone, then we’ll present our evidence. Faythe?” My father turned to me, and for once, I was glad I couldn’t read his expression.
“Yeah.” I set my glass on the coffee table and lifted my coat from the back of an armchair. From the inside pocket, I pulled a clear, gallon-size freezer bag—the only size big enough to hold two fourteen-inch-long thunderbird feathers—and held it up for everyone to see.
The south-central cats had all seen it, of course, but Di Carlo’s men had not. They gathered around for a closer look when I laid the bag down on the coffee table. “Can we open it?” Teo Di Carlo asked, and my father nodded.
“Just for a minute, though. The blood’s already dry, and the scent is only going to fade with time and exposure to air.” And we needed everyone at the vote to be able to tell without a doubt whose blood stained that feather.
Teo carefully pulled open the seal and held the bag to his nose. His eyes brightened as he inhaled. “That’s definitely Lance Pierce.”
“I can smell it from here,” one of his fellow enforcers added, from the other end of the couch.
“There’s no doubt about it, Greg,” Bert Di Carlo said, his voice rumbling throughout the room. “Now, whether or not Malone’s allies will accept the obvious conclusion… That remains to be seen.”
And that’s what we were most worried about. Michael—my oldest brother was an attorney in the human world—had warned us that our evidence was circumstantial at best. It only proved that Lance Pierce had bled on a thunderbird feather, not that he’d killed the bird. Or that the feather had even been attached to a bird when it was bled on. But since the werecat legal system didn’t mirror the human one, we were hoping it would be enough. I’d been tried for murder with less evidence.
Of course, I’d been found innocent of that particular charge….
“Bert, would you mind going to fill Rick and Ed in?” My father asked. “Then we can all meet at the main lodge in half an hour.” My uncle Rick Wade and Ed Taylor—Alphas of the East Coast Pride and the Midwest Pride, respectively—were sharing a cabin on the other side of the main lodge.
Di Carlo nodded and rose, motioning for Teo to join him. On their way out the door, they let in a frigid draft and a glimpse of the rapidly darkening winter sky, and seconds later their footsteps faded into the distance.
“Everyone get ready,” my father said, then he disappeared into his room to change into his suit.
Marc followed me into the bedroom we were supposed to share with Jace and snatched Jace’s duffel from the flo
or. Before Jace could protest, Marc tossed the bag to him. “You’ve got the first shower. Take your time.”
Jace bristled, but I only shook my head. “Please, Jace. I’m tired of fighting with my own Pridemates. Let’s just save it for the real fight, okay?”
Jace spun without a word and stomped off toward the only bathroom.
I set my bag on the dresser and unzipped it, and was digging for clean clothes when Marc crossed the room and closed the door. “You can change and brush your hair, but don’t you dare take a shower.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I turned to find his hard gaze trained on me, his forehead furrowed.
“You owe me. Everyone knows you slept with Jace, and Dean will tell anyone who’ll listen that it’s because I couldn’t keep you interested. You’ve turned me into a walking joke, and the least you can do is make sure everyone knows I’m not out of the game yet.”
“This isn’t a game, Marc.” Why did they both keep referring to it as such?
“The three of us, all tangled up in knots? Hell, no, it’s not a game. It’s my fucking train wreck of a life. But you walking around smelling like we just had a roll in the shed? That’s just more of you lying in the bed you’ve made. With me, this time.”
I sighed and sank onto the side of the bed, holding my change of clothes. “Fine, if it’ll make you happy.”
He snatched his own change of clothes from the dresser and left the room, slamming the door.
Jace came back a few minutes later, as I was pulling a clean shirt over my head. He stopped cold in the doorway, his hair dripping on his shoulders. “Aren’t you going to shower?”
“I can’t.”
“The hell you can’t. He’s doing this on purpose. Punishing us both.”
I sat on the end of the bed and grabbed my left boot. “Don’t you think we deserve it? We humiliated him, and this is just the beginning. What do you think everyone’s going to be saying behind his back? It’s not going to kill either of us for me to walk around smelling like him for a couple of hours.”
Except that I hated being marked, and Marc damn well knew it. Which was the whole point.