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But that would make me the monster I don’t want to become. And the beast isn’t raging. My claws aren’t out, my teeth aren’t sharp. Instead everything within me is cringing and hurting. For no damn reason, except that people can be cruel and horrible.
“I do get it,” I tell her—my heart thundering, my stomach a pool of acid, but my voice strong. “Your life right now is pure shit, and you’re reaching all the way back to high school to find something to feel superior about. So you go ahead, just keep on doing that. Wallow in your petty little jokes if that’s what makes you feel better. Me, I’m going to eat some ribs and chocolate cake, then go home and let my giant, gorgeous fiancé—who’s crazy in love with me—give me three or four orgasms.”
“I think we can do better than that,” Ranger says gruffly from behind me, his strong arms circling my waist, nuzzling his face into the side of my neck. “Usually we hit about six or seven.”
“Hush,” I tell him, leaning back into the warmth of his broad chest. “I don’t want Mike to start feeling bad about himself, too.”
“You only need one to outdo him,” Joy snaps, glaring at her husband before stalking away.
A flush climbing his neck, Mike plods after her.
Maria stares after them both. “What in the hell…?”
“It’s nothing,” I tell her—though I’m trembling, and I know Ranger can feel it. Trembling, but also feeling amazing. Maybe I’m not such an easy target now. “They’re assholes who deserve each other.”
“Ah.” She turns her gaze toward us, arching an eyebrow. “Also…fiancé?”
I did say that. “It’s not exactly official—”
“Yes,” Ranger says firmly.
Maria fistpumps, then heads toward another table, pointing back at me to say, “You, me. Trenches.”
A laugh shakes through me. “So I guess I’m well and truly caught.”
“You are,” he rumbles against my ear, holding me closer. “You want to go?”
“Not yet. I am hungry. Want to share a plate of ribs?”
“I’ll share everything with you, baby. Do you want to share with me?”
He’s not talking about the ribs. With a sigh, I tell him, “Maybe tonight.”
“No rush.” He kisses the side of my neck. “Whenever you’re ready. Until then, maybe keep a good hold on me so I don’t fucking rip apart anyone who even looks at you sideways.”
Oh, I’ll keep a hold on him. So tight. But not to save the jerks in this town. Fuck them.
I’m holding tight for me.9RangerAlicia finds me on the front porch of her farmhouse, sitting on the steps and watching a bunch of assholes light up the distant night sky with fireworks. With a sigh, she sits beside me, wearing nothing but one of my shirts—the T-shirt I had on at the barbecue today, stripped off the second we got home and I got her into bed. The jeans, I put back on before coming out here.
Tugging her closer to my side, I wrap my arm around her waist. “Did the noise wake you up?”
“Missing you woke me up.” She lays her head back against my shoulder, all that red hair in a pretty tangle over my arm. “Are you going to go hunt down whoever it is and scare the shit out of them?”
After no rain for three months, and strong winds kicking in? “Thinking about it. You want to come?”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet.”
“You wouldn’t have to transform.” Which still terrifies her. With good reason. I wake up sweating some nights, remembering Alicia screaming and her bones cracking. “You’re fast enough to keep up.”
She turns her head to look up at me with narrowed eyes. “Are you really going to turn into a werewolf and scare them?”
Shaking my head, I drop a kiss to her furrowed brow. “I called it in to your sister. And it’s better I’m here with my phone, in case one of the spotters sees something flare up.”
Though given what I heard at the barbecue after I started paying closer attention to what people were saying, a part of me wouldn’t care if half the fucking town burned. I don’t understand that kind of petty cruelty. I never will. And although Samantha mentioned it that first weekend Alicia and I were together, I figured the vicious shit was in her past and it was the emotional fallout she was still dealing with. But it’s not. Alicia must have been putting up with that bullshit ever since she came to live with Samantha and their mother.
Though she didn’t put up with it today. I was on my way to terrify the weeping Jesus out of the blonde and her husband, but Alicia took care of it herself. And I still don’t know what it was all about.
She tilts her head, listening. “Is Brandon out again?”
“Yep.”
Just like he has been every night that Samantha is on duty. The schedule’s worked out well for all of us, so we don’t keep tripping all over each other at the farmhouse. Samantha’s got a night shift, and usually heads out a few hours after I get off work at the station. My brother says he goes out into the hills behind their property and wanders around as a bear. Claims he’s giving Alicia and me privacy. But I suspect he’s keeping an eye on Sam while she’s on patrol, because his scent’s all over the town and highway…and not in the hills out back.
