Damnation: Reckless Desires (Blue Moon Saloon Book 1) (17 page)

Jess refrained from shouting
Right now!
and waved instead. “Um, sure…”

But Tina was already out the door while Simon headed in. “Sure to berry cheesecake?” His eyes twinkled.

She all but threw herself into his arms, because even a tough she-wolf could give in to her emotions from time to time. Especially when no one was looking except for her mate.

“Hey!” he protested a second later. “Why are you crying?”

“It’s all so…good.” So unbearably good. “Almost too good.”

He hugged her tighter. “It is good.”

“I mean…” She sniffed and tried to get her thoughts together. “Why do we have it so good? While Janna…and Soren…”

He sighed, ruffling her hair. “Janna, I reckon, is halfway to finding her mate…”

Jess knew what he meant. Janna had had her eye on Cole even before the fight, but Jess was still worried. Her sister had been unusually anxious and flighty for the past two weeks. Was Cole really the one for her? And if he was — then, damn. Female shifter-male human pairings were few and far between. She-wolves couldn’t turn humans as readily as their male counterparts could. Plus, another mixed mating would give the Blue Bloods an excuse to stage yet another attack…

“And Soren…”

Jess ached just thinking about him. To have lost his mate, and so horribly, in a fire…

She held Simon even tighter. They’d had a taste of that pain. They knew how hopeless, how empty life without a mate felt.

“But maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Remember how I told you we dug out a den and lay down to die?”

She fisted her hands in his shirt just thinking about it. If Simon had died…

“I couldn’t die for a reason. Because you were still out there,” Simon said.

“You think… You think Soren’s mate might still be out there? But how can that be?” When destiny brought two shifters together, they mated for life. And if one died, the other didn’t simply find someone else and move on.

Simon shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe he was wrong about Sarah being his mate? Maybe there’s someone else?” He sighed deeply, then gathered her closer again and tucked her head under his chin. Nice and close, so that when he spoke, his voice rumbled right into her chest.

“We can’t see the future, but I’d say right now is pretty damn good. And if it’s good for us…”

She swallowed away the lump in her throat.

“…maybe they’ll get their chance, too.”

They stood there for a long time, just holding on to each other, letting the silence carry their hopes.

Then Simon leaned away from her and kissed her knuckles. “Quarter Moon Café, huh?” His eyes twinkled again, chasing away her sorrow.

“It does have a ring to it,” she replied, slipping an arm around his waist. They both looked around the place.

“Dunno. All those muffins, in other people’s hands…”

She laughed. “What if I promise to always reserve you a few?”

“A few?”

“Lots. As many as you like.”

He made a face, but even that didn’t wipe the smile out of his eyes. “God, I can see it now,” he groaned. “Theme muffins.”

She play-punched him in the arm and led him out to the front room. “Theme muffins. Great idea. Like mesa muffins.”

“Sure. I can bite the tops off. That works for me.”

“Cactus muffins…”

“Those, you can sell. Fine with me.”

“They’d have pistachio glaze, dummy. To look green and lumpy on the outside, but still be tasty on the inside.”

“In that case, they’re mine.”

She sighed and headed for the front door, jiggling the key in her hand.
Her
key, in
her
hand. Simon stopped her, though, and backed her against the wall, pressing his body against hers.

“Monsoon muffins…” She tried staying on topic as he started kissing her neck. Her neck, damn it, the one place she could never resist.

“Try again.” His voice dropped an octave.

“Sunset muffins, with cherry and lemon…” Simon loved cherries almost as much as raspberries.

“Mmm,” he mumbled, sucking the skin of her neck.

Her cheeks burned. Her lips twitched. Her wolf yowled.

“Um… Pinto muffins, with different flavors mixed together…”

“Not so sure,” he whispered, nudging his leg between hers.

Muffins were the last thing she cared about now. Nothing mattered, not even the café. Not with her mate driving her wild all over again.

“I got it,” she murmured as his hands teased her breasts.

“Yeah?”

“Hungry bear muffins.” She angled her hips closer to his.

“Hungry bear,” he growled. “You got that right.”

“Hungry wolf, too,” she threw in.

“Then I better get her to bed. Er, to the kitchen, I mean.”

A lie, and she knew it. But two could play that game.

She took a deep breath and let her breasts push against his chest. Watched the color rise in his face, felt his hardness thicken in his jeans.

“Kitchen. Good idea,” she mumbled. “So get to it, bear.”

He threw her into a fireman’s carry and headed toward the back.

“Simon!” she protested.

“Still got that key?” he rumbled.

“Yes, but…”

“Bet it works on the back door.”

Her bear was a genius. They could go from the rear door of this place to the back door of the saloon, slip upstairs, and into their room.

She let her hands rove over his body as she bounced along. Being manhandled by a bear shouldn’t feel this good, but what the heck. She had to live a little, right?

“You going to make love to me all over again?”

“And again and again…” he continued, all the way around the back and up the stairs. “Until forever, and then I’ll start all over again.”

###

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Damnation!
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Temptation
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Damnation
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She-wolf Janna Macks knows trouble when she sees it, especially when it comes in the form of an irresistibly brooding cowboy like Cole Harper. Her fledgling pack is already in the crosshairs of a ruthless group of rogues, and falling head over heels in lust with a human will only endanger her loved ones more. The problem is, her wolf knows her destined mate when she sees him — and Cole is it.

Rodeo pro Cole Harper has never felt this off-kilter before. One minute, he’s lusting after Janna, the spunky waitress he can’t get off his mind, and the next, he’s growling at a dark inner voice demanding all kinds of crazy things — like howling at the moon and claiming Janna as his own. There’s only one thing stronger than the overwhelming need for Janna, and that’s the fear that without her, he’ll succumb to the strange inner beast wrestling for control of his haunted soul.

Click
here
to read the excerpt or order your copy of
Temptation
today!

Cole Harper stood before the swinging saloon doors for a good minute. Maybe two. The sun had set, and the air had that crisp, cool quality it only got in high-latitude Arizona, and only in spring evenings, when everything felt fresh and budding and new.

Sounds and smells from the saloon clawed at his shoulders, begging him to come in. Laughter rang out and chairs scraped along the floor. Country music poured from the jukebox, and a couple was starting to dance. The bartender thunked down an empty glass, poured a dry gin, and slid it all the way down the bar.

All that, he got without looking, just listening. Christ. What was wrong with him?

Go in, already.

Cole kept his thumbs hooked in his jeans and hunched a shoulder, trying to resist the urge.

Scents assaulted him, one after another in a thousand little punches. The peaty scent of aged whiskey, the charcoal flavor of a malt. The mouth-watering, meaty smell of spare ribs smoked over mesquite.

His tongue darted out to lick his lips before he could stop it.

Hurry up, already.

He’d been hearing that inner voice for a while now, and it was driving him nuts, like the itch on his arm. He’d been cut two weeks ago — a little, bitty cut sustained in a fight in this very saloon, when he’d come along just in time to stop a couple of thugs from jumping the two waitresses. Unbelievably strong guys with weird, claw-like nails he’d managed to avoid, except for that one scratch. The skin had healed now, but the itch remained.

An angry growl built in his throat at the memory of the intruders, then died away when he noticed the sound was coming from him and not some passing dog.

Christ, he was growling, now, too?

He coughed it away. Squared his shoulders, pushed the saloon’s batwing doors wide, and marched in, letting them swing behind him. He took off his hat, glanced in the mirror next to the sign that read,
Check your guns at the door,
and ran his fingers through the blond hair that curled and feathered any way it damn well wanted to a point somewhere beneath his ears. Then he headed straight for his chair at the end of the bar. A chair some fool was occupying, which made the growl build in his throat again.

My chair. My spot.

The inner voice was ridiculously territorial. He clenched his fists, telling himself he would not pick a fight. Telling himself it didn’t matter who was sitting in which chair.

Except that fool sitting smugly in
his
chair needed to get the hell out. Now.

“Hey, Cole.” A voice like honey stopped him, and his head whipped around. And just like that, the tension strung through his body like a thousand volt current dissipated. The sights and sounds and smells of the saloon faded away, and he was standing in a mountain meadow. Felt like it, anyway.

“Hi, Janna,” he whispered.

“Hey,” she smiled back.

Janna! Janna!
The growl turned into a joyous inner cry.

She had her hair in two braids today, and it was really cute. Sometimes she wore it down and let it sway around her face like a liquid frame. Other times, she did this complicated french braid thing he dreamed of slowly unraveling and running his fingers through. And sometimes, she just wore a ponytail, and he liked that, too.

He liked everything about Janna. A lot. Her laugh, her smile, her way of tilting her head to listen when he whispered in her ear. He’d liked her since the day he’d first set eyes on the freckled spitfire who’d started waitressing in the saloon not too long ago, all sunny smile and sparkling eyes and bubbly voice. Her bouncy step and glossy brown hair was just as full of life as the rest of her. She had a way of looking at him as if she could see into him, and she didn’t even seem to mind what she found.

He tightened his fingers over his belt and ordered them to stay there. Because
liking
the vivacious waitress had slid right over to
lusting
for her in the past couple of weeks. Like he’d slipped and hit some dial that turned the testosterone up full blast. All he could think of was her. Or rather, him and her. Close. Unbridled. Uncontrolled.

Which didn’t make sense. He’d been there, done that with spunky cowgirl-types who could ride and rope and wrangle. What exactly did Janna have that turned every switch in a burned-out cowboy like him on?

Everything. She has everything. She is everything,
the inner voice sighed.

When he could think straight, it scared him.

But he couldn’t think straight around Janna. She was all the girls he’d ever loved times fifty. Times a hundred. A thousand. She made him imagine all kinds of crazy things, like standing knee-deep in wildflowers in that meadow she always made him think of. A perfect, peaceful place so unlike the reality that had been haunting him these days. The ceiling fan of the saloon that turned in lazy circles became an eagle, wheeling on a Rocky Mountain breeze. As long as Janna was around, he was in heaven.

He clenched his fists against his sides. He was in the Blue Moon Saloon, damn it. And he was not going crazy. Not yet.

“How are you doing today?” she asked, propping her drink try against her hip.

Not crazy yet,
he nearly said.
But getting closer all the time.
She was the only thing keeping him sane. In the hours he spent alone, he went through the wildest mood swings. One second, he’d be enjoying the scent of leather and horse as he saddled up a ride at the ranch he worked on, and the next, he’d be overcome with the bitterest fury, the weirdest urges. Like wanting to run naked at night. Wanting to tip his chin up to the waxing moon hanging over the desert and howl at it. To chase a deer, rip into it with bare teeth, and feast on warm flesh and blood.