Protect Me (Sawtooth Shifters, #3) (3 page)

K
iera

I looked like a monster. Not one of those slick CGI ones that everyone laughed at, but a truly horrifying old-school, low budget one that hooked horror lovers on the genre. I wasn’t even a woman anymore—the fireball had scorched my left tit leaving me with an ugly lump of scar tissue. Still having one as a souvenir was even crueler.

Baron didn’t run. Part of me wanted him to, to justify my shame. Instead, he seemed to be a fan of the macabre.

His gaze had the opposite effect on me. Hot and slow, his eyes took in every inch. I never let anyone see my scars besides the doctors who treated them. I wore long sleeves on even the hottest days. It was easier that way. I didn’t have to answer any questions, or acknowledge the pity in someone’s eyes when they realized I’d been ruined. I could be reading this all wrong, but Baron’s heavy lids and parted lips weren’t saying
eeew
.

And he definitely wasn’t complaining when he traced his fingers along my cheek, steadying me before he brushed his lips against mine. Soft and gentle, it was everything my life had been missing. If I’d known anything about kissing when I drew my prince and princess wrapped in an embrace on the final page of my book, I would’ve described it just like this.

But our story was just beginning. Letting Baron come inside, I needed to show him my appreciation. He’d run toward the ticking bomb, detonating it before it exploded. We explored each other, using just our lips and tongues, hungry for things we’d never tasted before. Baron needed this as much as I did. I wasn’t the only one with something missing.

We parted with a gasp. Baron’s eyes fluttered like he’d woken from a dream. “Do they hurt?” he asked.

“Not anymore. The scar tissue is numb.” An absence of feeling. “Healing was excruciating.”

He pursed his lips together, pissed. “You won’t believe me if I tell you they’re beautiful, but I can’t keep it to myself.”

“No, I won’t.” But A for effort. “If you want to make me feel better, I really liked that thing you do with your mouth.”

“Which thing?” He narrowed his eyebrows. I wasn’t the only one who grew up in house full of rowdy boys. Two could play this game. “I’m not a one trick pony.”

Something I hadn’t let myself experience in a long time rippled through me. “First of all, you’re a wolf, not a pony.” I leaned back in. My one nipple could’ve cut glass when it grazed against his shirt. “And secondly, if you’re good at something, you should share your talents with the world. It would be selfish to keep them to yourself.”

“The world, or just you?” His lips curled up into a smile.

“Just me.”

“Who’s selfish now?” I didn’t have a chance to answer because those delicious lips were back on mine, not so gentle this time. I’d missed roughhousing, not being cut any slack. Baron nipped my bottom lip, catching me by surprise. Our teeth clashed together, tongues wrestling. His hands slipped into my hair, pulling it and caressing at the same time, guiding me in the frantic rhythm of the kiss. I gripped his shoulders, pushing him down on the couch. I couldn’t risk him changing his mind and trying to escape. Baron moaned, his head falling back. His stubble scraped my lips as I explored his face and settled on the warm, throbbing crook of his neck.

For the first time in a long time, the scar tissue wasn’t numb.

“Oh.” Lyssie broke the spell with a giggle. She’d come out of her bedroom, empty glass in hand. I gasped, covering my left side. Thankfully, it was against the couch and she wouldn’t see anything I didn’t want her to. “Don’t mind me. Keep doing what you’re doing.” She scurried into the kitchen.

No, my best friend and roommate had never seen my scars. I meant it. No one saw them.

“Do you want to go in the other room?” Baron asked.

If we went in the other room, I’d show him everything. I wasn’t ready for that. “No.” I slipped my shirt back on, not that it mattered because Lyssie covered her eyes she trotted back into her room. “That kiss was pretty epic, and I don’t want it to get overshadowed. You know how things have a way of trying to one-up each other.”

“I do.” Baron sat up, dragging his fingers across his lips and grinning. “And they will.”

**

T
he next day dragged on forever.

“He’s not going to call.” Stupid me had blurted out that Baron wanted to go snowboarding but as time crawled and my phone stayed silent, I wished to hell I’d kept my mouth shut. The humiliation would’ve belonged to me only. But Lyssie wanted to know why I brought my snowboard with me to work, and I couldn’t keep my excitement in.

“Did you guys get in a fight after I saw you last night?” Lyssie’s cheeks burned at the memory. “Because that lip lock didn’t look like he planned on blowing you off anytime in the near future.”

“No, we didn’t.” I pouted. I knew better than that. I could still taste his kiss, and it made every second without a message from Baron a hundred times worse. “Let me tell you about that kiss.” I matched Lyssie’s color with a flush of my own. I didn’t have a chance to elaborate—a prospective couple returned to the lobby with the dog they were considering adopting. This looked promising. Dex, one of our Shepherds, had a bounce in his step and his tongue hanging out. No shame in his joy.

When my therapists at CAST suggested I come work at Forever Home Animal Shelter as part of my therapy for PTSD, I laughed in their faces. What the hell was working with a bunch of animals going to teach me about readjusting to everyday life in the civilian world? I’d been a fool to underestimate this experience. These animals had been neglected, abandoned, even tortured. Some of them didn’t know love existed. Others did and were recovering from heartbreak. But every single one of them had something in common; they were willing, no, scratch that,
eager
to try again. They still had hope, even though they relied on people that might not be so different than the ones that wronged them in the past. They made the decision to trust. Each one of them knew they deserved something better than what they had.

The connection was just there. That couple had no idea what they were looking for when they came in. They just knew they wanted someone to share their love with. Trina had a system, and it worked well. She liked to let the animals choose the people. The animals were smarter than us, they had a sixth sense that humans lacked. Trina would never tell the customers how she did things, she preferred to let them think it was cute when a cat or dog or even a turtle came up to them and just knew they’d found their person. The one who’d keep them safe and would love them forever.

I’d been an arrogant jerk to think I couldn’t learn anything from a homeless animal. And now I wasn’t ashamed to admit I’d been humbled and on some occasions, awestruck.

“We’ll take him,” the man said. The woman had sunk to her knees, murmuring to the dog while he smothered her in kisses. When the man looked down at his partner, my heart threatened to burst at the naked expression of affection. It was hard not to cry every time this happened. “He’s all we’ve talked about since we met him.”

“He was hoping you’d come back. So, congratulations! To all three of you. Let’s get the paperwork started. I think Dex is anxious to see his new home.” Trina led them to a tiny room off the lobby. She looked over their heads and said, “Lemon crème.”

We celebrated every successful adoption with cupcakes. Lyssie and I always picked up a half dozen, because we liked to have options, and this bakery was the only place in town that made fancy coffee. My love of vanilla lattes was the girliest thing about me.

Lyssie waited until we got to the car until she said anything else. “Back to that kiss,” she giggled. Men made her nervous. Everything did, really. She practically shook out of her own skin the nights Dallas came over to babysit. I shouldn’t have kept trying to push the two of them together, but that’s what best friends were for. Dallas was just as gorgeous as his brothers, funny and outgoing. Exactly what Lyssie needed. “Why would you ever think Baron wouldn’t call you? You didn’t even notice me right away, you were so into each other. The way the two of you were touching each other was hot, Kiera. I know that sounds weird that I watched you guys, but some things you can’t look away from. Baron’s into you. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Lyssie worked at Forever Home for the same reason I did. She was dealing with some serious shit that drove her away from the real world. We knew most of each other’s stories, but we also respected the fact there were things neither of us wanted to talk about. We didn’t push. We understood when we hit each other’s boundary. Little by little, we’d tell each other everything. So to explain my reasoning now went past my comfort zone.

“I don’t want him to change his mind.” I took the first sip of my latte. I swear they laced these things with crack. “It’s weird, because he’s not here because he wants to be. Shadow’s making both of them guard us, and I wonder if they feel obligated.”

“Yeah, I wonder the same thing.” Lyssie opened the box and dipped her finger into the Oreo frosting on top of her cupcake, humming when she licked it clean. “And we rescued them, so it’s like they owe us.”

“What’s going on with you and Dallas?” I wriggled my eyebrows. “I keep catching him staring at you since the other night.”

“Oh!” Like Lyssie didn’t know. “Nothing like that kiss. Yet, anyway.” She turned crimson, but this was huge for her. And I was going to do everything I could to make sure my best friend got her happily ever after.

Baron didn’t call. Instead he followed his brother into the shelter at the end of the day. He and Dallas took turns staying at our apartment, per Shadow’s orders. The other one stayed in Sawtooth. My heart dropped to my stomach when Baron came over to me, a mixture of relief and excitement rattling against my skin. “I thought maybe you’d want to grab something to eat before we headed to the mountain?”

I’d been so worried that things would be weird after last night. Now that he knew exactly what he was getting with me, he’d try to find a way out of his invite. “That sounds great.”

Lyssie mouthed
I told you
so behind Baron’s back, and I tipped my head in Dallas’ direction. He didn’t notice, because he saw nothing but Lyssie. Trina and Shadow were so far past our awkward stage, and they’d wrapped themselves around each other. This was awesome. The three of us had all been alone with our pain for so long, to find whatever this was at the same time was almost too good to be true.
Please don’t let it be too good to be true.

I wondered if our rehabilitation center, CAST, sent us here to help the animals, or because they knew the Channing brothers were going to need us as much as we needed them.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been out to eat.” Baron smirked while he drove. “My favorite place in town is that flatbread restaurant. Have you been?”

“Lyssie and I go there all the time.” As much as we could, anyway. Neither of us had much money, but if we were going to splurge on a night out, that’s where we went. “The cheeseburger pizza and a cranberry wheat beer, Heaven!”

Baron shook his head. “The pulled pork pizza and a stout.”

“Whatever,” I scoffed. “If you want to waste your time on inferior pizza, that’s your prerogative.”

“Inferior? You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Baron pulled into the parking lot. Granger Falls proper would fit on a postage stamp. The sprawl that claimed the wolves’ forest land was mainly houses and farms. We met each other at the back of the truck. “Here’s the plan. We order both, see if you can convince me to change my mind. But I have a feeling, next time we go, you’ll be ordering the pulled pork.”

“Never gonna happen, but deal.” I put my hand to shake on it, fist bump, something, but Baron had other things in mind. He took my hand in both of his, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. In front of the door of The Pizza Pub, with everyone watching. He laced his fingers in mine, holding my hand, as he held the door open for me.

He held my hand.
It was the littlest thing, but everything inside me danced when his fingers laced through mine. Before I went into the army, the only guys I’d ever met were my brothers’ friends and people at church. My broad shoulders and big mouth didn’t come from nowhere, and it was pretty clear that I was off-limits. In the army, I was free to do whoever, and whatever I wanted, but nobody was taking long walks on the beach and whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. We needed each other to express feelings we couldn’t name, and it never had anything to do with the other person. We just fucked. As hard as we could. I’d been disappointed, because it didn’t do anything for me until one staff sergeant let me dominate her.

So I thought maybe I was a lesbian. But I wasn’t. If the right person had been a woman, I’d be all for it. Now I didn’t think I could be with a woman because I’d be too jealous of her perfect body to enjoy our time together. Anyway, I was pretty sure it was the control part that turned me on. After spending my whole life listening to men bark orders at me—having someone do exactly what I said was
heaven.
It was the first time anyone had actually listened to me, hanging on my every word for my next command.

None of them had done anything as sweet as kiss my fingers and hold my hand. Baron was proud to be seen with me. Even after he’d seen what I worked so hard to hide from the rest of the world. It was a lot to take in, especially when I hadn’t been proud of myself for a long time.

“Ask for a booth,” I said, my heart pounding. Baron furrowed his brow in confusion. “I have to be able to see the whole room.”

I didn’t need to explain there were parts of the war that would never leave me. The hostess brought us to a booth and took our drink order.

“Cheers.” I bumped my cranberry wheat beer against Baron’s stout. Most people gave me a hard time about the little things that freaked me out, like I could just ignore them and they’d go away because normal people didn’t worry about sneak attacks while eating pizza. But I did, and it was nice not to have to apologize for it.