August: Mating Fever (Bears of Kodiak Book 2) (2 page)

She wasn’t exactly sure why she was trying so hard, except that every time August thought she wasn’t looking, he would give her a searing look that stole the breath from her lungs and made her nipples pucker tightly.

The man was just so intense. And though she’d sworn off anything serious with any man after what had happened in Angoon, her stupid body continued to betray her.

Blue—which apparently was his real name—snapped his fingers, giving her a questioning look when she failed to respond to him as she usually did.

Blinking, she shook her head and gave him a tight smile. “Bud, it is. Be right back.”

He laughed then winked before saying, “The fair dame knows me well.”

Every so often, Blue would slip into an archaic form of talking that never failed to make her smile. He was an idiot. But he was sort of an adorable one.

Of course, he had nothing on August’s broody force.

Rubbing his jaw thoughtfully, Blue flicked a glance to August who was manning the bar as usual, then back to her. It was almost as if he knew exactly what she had just thought.

She told herself not to look back, but somehow she found herself doing just that. She found her boss looking at her with the type of heat in his eyes that could incinerate her soul if he had really wanted to.

August was intense. There was no other word for it. He was built like a freaking gladiator with smooth, sleek muscles. He wore a head of shaggy, brown hair, and his eyes were as blue as arctic frost.

He smelled good too. She’d always been a sucker for a man who smelled good. His scent was pine and something darker, deeper. Something oozed from him like pheromones and called to her on a visceral, panty-melting kind of level.

Desperate to break the tension in her stomach, which was taut with razor-tipped butterfly wings, she twirled on her heel and raced for the back room. She could totally have gone right to the bar and grabbed the beer, but she needed a second to think without eyes all around her.

His eyes in particular always watched her, looking at her as though he saw something he liked, something he wanted.

But was he doing that because of what she was? That was the sticking point for her. Though she tried to tame her magick around him, it was impossible to eradicate it completely. Lust magick was as much a part of her as being a shifter was to him. It was who she was, how she’d been made by the gods.

Of all the patrons in the bar, she’d tried her hardest to keep her distance from August, to keep her magick away from him. She only tripped up when he would reach out and touch her. But that wasn’t her fault. Right? It wasn’t as if she was compelling him to do it.

She frowned. She wasn’t always in control of herself, especially not when she found something she liked. And she definitely liked what she saw when it came to August.

Jack shivered. Yanking open the cooler door, she immediately inhaled a deep breath of the icy air and leaned her head against a wire rack. Her overheated body barely felt the chill.

What the frack was wrong with her? Her fingers curled around the cold metal. Had she learned nothing in Angoon?

“Jack?”  Madison’s soft voice caused Jackson to yelp and stand straight. Her fingers fluttered around her tight, black work shirt as she pretended to dust crumbs off herself.

“Madison... what the hell? You scared me!” She nervously laughed.

Madison—a five foot ten glamazon with sleek brown curls and the most vivid and intense green eyes Jackson had ever seen—frowned back at her and gave her an okay-I-think-you’ve-lost-your-mind kind of look.

Jackson immediately straightened her back and shook her head. “I’m a mess.”

Madison, who was no one’s dummy and far more intelligent than her pretty face might lead one to believe, looked her up and down before coming to some conclusion. “Don’t let him get to you, whatever you do. Keep your distance, Jack.”

She frowned. “Blue? Please. I can handle a little dirty talk—”

But Madison shook her head. “Not talking about that fairy—”

Literally, Blue was a fairy, or sidhe as they preferred to be called. As Blue was fond of saying, fae kicked ass and didn’t grant wishes. Whatever. Fae, sidhe, fairy... it was all the same to her.

Jack pursed her lips. “I don’t know what—”

Snorting in disbelief, Madison wet her blood-red-stained lips. For just a second, the vertical slit in her eyes widened like a reptile’s.

Jack wasn’t quite sure what Madi’s Breed form actually was, but she was thinking Naga—the snake people. There was something deeply hypnotic yet also friggin’ scary about the brunette that made Jackson glad that, for whatever reason, Madison had decided to like her instead of view her as lunch.

Madison shook her head, wearing the look of a woman about to impart some truth. “You’re not from around here, Jackson, so here’s a little word of advice from one woman to another. All three brothers are trouble with a capital T.”

Leaning in to whisper, Jack asked, “August has brothers?”

“
Mmhmm
.” Madi licked her front teeth, the gesture almost angry and defiant at the same time. “All of ‘em bastards.”

There was definitely a story there. And Jackson would be a liar if she said she wasn’t intensely curious about it.

“Do what your kind does best, siren. Love ‘em and leave ‘em because if you don’t, he will.”

“How did you—”

Rolling her eyes, Madison looked more annoyed than angry. “Wasn’t hard to figure out what with how you get the men and women panting over you like sex-starved teens with their first fucking hard-ons. Hell, tap Blue if you’ve got an itch. He’s good for a fun time, no strings attached. But stay away from August. He’ll just burn you. It’s what those assholes do.”

Jackson had never really been good at thinking before she spoke. “Why? Did he do that to you?” It would make sense. Madison was hot. August was...

Her heart flipped thinking about those two together. It wasn’t hard to imagine. Like attracted like, and beautiful people usually wound up finding their way to each other—Breed, human, or otherwise.

A little burn of jealousy inched up her throat, and it was all she could do not to growl about it. If August and Madison had dated, it would have been long before Jackson had arrived at this Podunk place. It was also none of her business.

Sirens never got attached to lovers... or even potential lovers. It wasn’t in their DNA. Madison was right. Sirens really were the love ‘em and leave ‘em types. Except for most sirens, that generally meant a swift death for their partners once the fun was over.

Jackson, on the other hand, was broken. She was considered an outcast among her peers because she’d never been like the rest of them.

Madison’s nostrils flared, and this time, Jackson could have sworn she’d seen a lick of flame burn through her irises before she said, “Not him. Phoenix. But those Hawthornes are all the fucking same, believe me.”

It sucked, but a thread of relief wormed through Jackson at the realization that Madison hadn’t been talking about August. Jackson barely knew him. She shouldn’t want him the way she did.

But she did.

Dammit, she really did. And that was bad.

“If they’re so bad, why are you still working here?” She couldn’t help but ask.

Madison’s laughter was caustic. “Not like there are a whole lot of opportunities for work out here in the middle of effing nowhere. I like you, kid.”

Madison looked a good five years younger than Jackson, but there was something about her that made her presence feel far more ancient.

“Be smart. Grab Blue and screw August out of your system before it’s too late for you too.”

She shook her head. “I’m not into August”—
that’s a lie
—“and besides, I doubt he’s into—”

Again, Madison scoffed, and she definitely seemed irritated. “Think whatever you want to think, but it’s obvious to all of us.”

Jackson glowered, upset because she hadn’t asked for Madison’s advice.

“You just keep lying to yourself, pretty siren. Live in denial. Just don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. In eleven months, him and his good-for-nothing asshole brothers do their mating ritual. You know what that means... it means we’re out of the running. It means they don’t tie their hearts to anyone or anything. It means the second they start to think things are getting too serious, they bounce the hell out of there. They. Don’t. Give. A. Shit. Okay?”

Madison’s breathing had grown erratic and upset, and finally, Jackson got it. Phoenix had burned her.

She wanted to remind Madison that most Breed went through that ritual eventually— even Madison most likely would—but this was so not the time.

Laying a hand on Madi’s shoulder, she squeezed softly, pumping just a little of her magick into her friend. True, she’d basically shot her up with a boost of lust, but lust was preferable to feeling pumped full of rage and hurt.

Madison’s reptilian irises were flared, and her breathing had grown erratic. She stared down at Jackson’s hand and shuddered. Her pretty face was a tightly controlled mask of emotion.

“Thank you,” she gritted out, then deliberately, but slowly, eased away from Jackson. Taking a much calmer breath, she nodded. “Maybe I need to follow my own advice.”

“I’m not into August, Madison. I just think—”

Shaking her head, the sexy Breed mumbled softly, “I used to say the same thing, Jackson. If you give them a toehold into your soul, believe me when I say, they’ll crush it and leave you worse for it in the end.”

Madison brushed past her and was almost to the door when Jackson quietly asked, “Madi, what are you?”

It was considered bad form to ask Breed what they were. It was like a human asking another, “are you gay?” For some Breed, keeping their identity close to the vest was the safest way to survive. Especially if a Breed was prey, and everyone around them was predator. But there was nothing prey about the fiery brunette.

Turning her head so Jackson could only see her face in profile, the pretty woman smiled and said, “I’m dragon borne, little siren. Wanna play?”

Jackson froze, her stomach going cold when she realized that not only was Madison a predator, but she was one of the most badass ones around. What the hell had Phoenix been thinking when he’d decided to make her his enemy?

Swallowing hard, she said nothing. Madison only snickered nastily, shoved open the door, and left. The chilling echo of her laughter turned Jackson’s blood to ice.

She took many deep breaths then supposed she’d kept Blue waiting long enough for his beer. With an angry growl, she swiped a bottle out of the milk crate. Shoving it against her wrist, she twisted quickly, forcing the cap off almost like magick.

“You’re an idiot, Jackson,” she muttered lowly. She shoved the door open, only to bounce off a hard-as-steel chest. Her heart slammed violently against her ribcage, knowing without even looking up who she’d just bumped into.

August’s hands gripped her biceps as he held her steady. His skin was so damn hot that it made her cold flesh prickle with heat. His palms were callused and rough. An image exploded in her head of that hand dipping lower and lower down her body until it reached the soaking wet apex of her thighs and rubbed her to orgasm.

He sucked in a sharp breath, sharing her vision. But unlike times past when he yanked his hands away, he kept his hands where they were. His voice was rough as he said, “Blue’s waiting, Jack.”

She hated his nickname for her, but only because she loved the way he made it sound—like a curse and a prayer at the same time.

His hot hands were still on her, and his thumbs lazily traced circles. “No sleeves?”

She didn’t ask him to explain what he meant. She knew what he was referring to. She’d tried covering up the first few nights but found the limitations to her powers restrictive and unnatural. It was the touching of her skin that caused her powers to truly manifest.

He knew that very well as he had yet to let her go. The way she figured, he had asked for this by doing what he’d just done. She wasn’t in any rush to back up either. She would be a liar if she said that her skin didn’t tingle with a rush of blood and want. For the past few weeks, the only way she’d managed to get herself to sleep every night was by imagining it was August’s hand between her thighs each night and not her own.

What kind of a freaking siren was she that she’d rather masturbate than go seek actual, living, breathing company each night? A stupid one, that’s what.

Normally, Jackson had no problem taking the lead with sexual foreplay unless her heart was wrapped up in it too. She barely knew August, but she was growing obsessed with him.

Leaning just slightly closer, she took a greedy gulp of his scent, letting it saturate her senses. His irises widened, and he wet his lips. A low, humming sound vibrated between them, and she had no idea if that sound was hers, his, or theirs.

The world had ceased to exist outside of that moment. No music filtered in from the bar. No chatter of Breed sounded outside the doors.

She wet her lips, her fingers tingling to reach up and trace the bottom line of his mouth.

A hard grunt followed by a curse dropped from his tongue, and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he peeled one finger off of her at a time until finally he had released her and stepped back.

“I’m no good for you, Jack.” His words dripped with gravel.

Angry at him for even assuming that she wanted him—even though she did, but that was none of his damned business—she snapped, “Good thing I already had plans for tonight then.”

She didn’t. She so didn’t.

His nostrils flared, and a light that looked an awful lot like fury burned through his intense blue eyes. His luscious lips tipped up at the corners, and he held out an arm. “Then by all means, go on about your
business
.”

Angry at him, and not even sure why, she turned up her nose and sauntered past. “No good, rotten, ass—”

Before she could even blink, he yanked her around by her elbow, causing her to drop the bottle of beer, and slammed her up against the wall, molding his body to hers as he came in for the kill. His lips stole hers. There was no wooing and no pretty words. He was fucking her mouth with his, and she loved it.