Uncaging Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves Book 4) (11 page)

“There was a new guard. It was her first day, and she was human, and she couldn’t have been more than twenty, maybe twenty-two. This tiny little thing. Being a prison guard can be pretty taxing, so there’s a lot of turnover, and sometimes they end up hiring people out of desperation.”

He took another bite of his quickly-melting ice cream.

“Anyway,” he went on. “One of the prisoners didn’t do what she said the second that she said it, and she got in his face. I think she had this idea that she needed to make an example of him, show everyone right off the bat that she wasn’t going to take any shit.”

“The same way new prisoners will pick a fight with the baddest bitch their first day in,” Scarlet offered.

“Exactly,” said Gavin. “See, people are all the same.”

“Not all prisoners,” said Chase. “I was perfectly behaved. Almost.”

“He’s just abnormally good-natured,” Gavin said. “Anyway, she got in this guy’s face, and the guy just
snapped
. Grabbed her around the throat, shoved her against the wall, screamed in her face. I really thought he’d broken her neck for a second, so I tackled him, got him off her.”

Scarlet didn’t seem impressed yet, but Gavin wasn’t done.

“Then, even after he was on the floor in cuffs, I just couldn’t
stop
,” Gavin said. “I still don’t know what happened, but I
couldn’t stop
beating him, even after I broke his nose and he was unconscious, lying there on the floor. I’ve never felt more out of control, or more like an
animal
, and I didn’t even shift.”

“Were you there?” Scarlet asked Chase.

He shook his head.

“I was out by then,” he said. “He told me about it later, though.”

He paused for a moment.

“I won’t lie, it made me nervous,” Chase said. “I wasn’t
that
long out, and I remember thinking, did I just get out of the frying pan and into the fire?”

“Everyone has something bad deep inside them,” Gavin said, leaning forward. “And being in that position of total, physical
power
was what brought it out in me, the willingness to beat a handcuffed man unconscious.”

“He did choke a guard,” Scarlet said.

Even though she sounded reasonable, her eyes were wide and just a little nervous.

“He was on the floor in handcuffs,” Gavin said. “Surrounded by a couple of shifter guards. He couldn’t do anything, but I beat him anyway.”

He tilted his ice cream cone back, drinking the rest of the melted ice cream inside, and then put the rest of the cone on a napkin on the table, not hungry anymore.

“I quit a week later, after I had a backup plan in place,” he said. “The whole time, I was afraid that I’d do it again, but kill someone this time.”

“Did you get in trouble?” Scarlet asked.

Gavin just shook his head.

“Nah,” he said.

She didn’t look surprised.

“Now your job is help people get their lives back together,” Chase offered.

“Sometimes,” Gavin admitted. “A lot of the time, it’s feeling helpless as people ruin things for themselves over and over again.”

Chase leaned over and kissed Gavin’s temple.

“You’re trying,” he said. “That’s all anyone can do.”

Chapter Twelve

Chase

“Do you have a dark secret in your past?” Scarlet asked.

Chase took Gavin’s hand in his, and his mate squeezed.

“Not like that,” he said. “Right after I got out, I used to think all the time about leaving society behind completely, becoming a hermit in the woods somewhere. Leaving my job, leaving Gavin.”

Chase paused for a moment, trying to find the right way to tell it.

“One night, I got as far as sitting down and making a list of places I could go, where I could build myself a cabin, forage for food and hunt, places where I thought no one would ever find me. I hid it somewhere that Gavin wouldn’t find it, and I even set up a schedule for myself: when I’d start hoarding supplies in the woods, how I’d steal supplies. When I’d leave.”

“I didn’t know that,” Gavin said.

Chase shrugged.

“Things got better,” he said. “I realized that it wasn’t what I really wanted, and then I didn’t want to tell you, for fear that I’d make them worse again, and then I just... stopped thinking about it. I haven’t thought about where I could escape to for
years
now.”

Gavin squeezed his hand again.

“Besides,” Chase said. “I grew up in a hippie commune in the mountains. I think I had my dark side
ommed
out of me by the time I was ten.”

That got a laugh from Scarlet.

“I think we had very different childhoods,” she said.

“I think we did,” Chase confirmed. “But it sounds like we both knew more about guns that we might have otherwise.”

“The hippies had guns?” she asked, her eyebrows going up.

“I spent a lot of time hiking through the deep backcountry alone,” Chase said. “There’s
animals
out there.”

She laughed again, then shoved the rest of her ice cream cone into her mouth. Her cheeks bulged out as she chewed.

“All right,” she said. “What now?”

Chase looked at Gavin. His mate’s blue eyes were serious and steady. Chase knew that Gavin would probably want to take things a little slow right now, get Scarlet’s number, take her out to dinner in a couple of days.

That’s why it’s my job to be the impulsive one sometimes
, he thought.

“Give us your num—” Gavin started.

“Come over for dinner,” Chase said. “You like lasagna?”

“I love lasagna,” said Scarlet.

Gavin shot him an
I’m pretending to be annoyed
look, and Chase winked at him.

“Good,” he said. “When I make lasagna, I make a
lot
of lasagna.”

When Chase pushed open the door, the sun was coming through the high windows on the west wall of their house, lighting the whole high-ceilinged living area in a warm golden glow.

Five feet in front of the door sat a large, indistinct black spot with yellow eyes.

It meowed.

“Hi, Piney,” said Chase, taking his keys out of the door and walking in.

“You’ve got a cat?” Scarlet asked, moving toward Pinecone a little uncertainly.

“More accurately, she’s got us,” Gavin said, shutting the door behind them. “She basically just moved in one day, and now she lives here.”

“Hi, Piney,” Scarlet said. She bent down and reached a hand toward the cat, who moved her head backward and gave Scarlet a very skeptical look.

Then Piney walked off, fluffy black tail waving behind her.

“She had a whole pinecone stuck in her fur when we first found her,” Gavin said. “So we named her Pinecone.”

Across the room, she jumped onto a low bookshelf and sat, wrapping her tail around herself as she watched the three of them.

Chase shrugged.

“Cats,” he said. “I guess this is how they are.”

“I know more lion shifters than house cats, but I can see the similarities,” offered Gavin. “You want a drink?”

“Sure,” said Scarlet.

“You promise not to try and fight me, like the last time I offered?” Gavin said, a wicked look lighting up his face.

“Absolutely not,” Scarlet said, following him into the kitchen, where she leaned against the counter. “I should warn you that the
last
person who surprised me, before you, spent a little while in the infirmary.”

Chase raised his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Gavin, before they both looked at Scarlet.

“She’d already tried to get me once,” Scarlet said, a little defensively.

“I don’t know if I should be letting you drink,” Gavin teased, pulling a bottle of red wine off of a rack.

“Don’t let him lie to you,” Chase said, leaning against the counter next to Scarlet. “He liked it.”

Chase could smell her from where he stood. The faint, slightly medicinal scent of the ointment covering her new tattoo, and underneath that, something sweet and spicy, almost cedar-like.

“No, I didn’t,” said Gavin.

“Yeah, I figured that out eventually,” said Scarlet. A wicked smile started on her face as she watched him pull a bottle opener out of a drawer, flipping out the corkscrew.

Chase felt his wolf waking up, the animal inside him pacing back and forth, wanting to get
out
.

“Don’t act like you’re all refined
now
,” Scarlet said.

“What do you want me to act like, then?” Gavin asked. He turned to the side, sticking the corkscrew into the cork, winding it down. As he looked at Scarlet and then at Chase, there was no mistaking the hunger in his eyes.

Scarlet laughed.

“I wasn’t a delicate flower the first time we met and I’m not one now,” she said, then looked up at Chase, her bangs falling out of her eyes.

There was no question about what she wanted.

In one swift motion, Chase stepped in front of her, then lifted her onto the kitchen counter, shoving their blender out of the way.

Like this, they were almost face-to-face. Scarlet only an inch or so higher than Chase, and she yelped in surprise, then wrapped her legs around him.

“Noted,” he said, and then pressed his mouth hungrily to hers, the back of her head lightly hitting the cabinet.

She didn’t seem to notice or care. She kissed him back fiercely, opening her mouth under his, pushing her hands through his hair and then down his neck, onto his shoulders. Her legs squeezed just a little harder, pushing him against the hard counter, and he groaned quietly, his hands on her waist.

Then Scarlet bit his lip
just
hard enough that he felt it, and Chase’s wolf nearly burst free of his skin, the animal barely under control. He grabbed one of her arms and moved it behind her back, holding it there, and he could feel her chest heaving against his, the scent of her arousal floating through the air.

At last he broke the kiss and leaned their foreheads together, the back of her head against the cabinets.

“Too delicate?” he asked, his voice rough.

“I’m almost afraid to see what you’d do if I said yes,” she said, her gray eyes dancing, totally unafraid.

“Don’t tempt him too much,” said Gavin from behind them. “Say the word and that relaxed hippie exterior is history.”

“I guess you’d know,” said Scarlet, still smiling. Then she tapped Chase on the chest with her free hand. “What’s under that exterior, then?”

She reached for the button on his pants, but Chase was too fast for her. He felt like he was about to burst out of his own skin with desire, and grabbed her wrist, holding it by her side.

“We’re all wolves here,” he growled, and then bit her earlobe,
just
hard enough.

Scarlet gasped. The gasp turned into a moan as Chase’s lips found the sensitive spot behind her ear, the delicate skin along her jawline. He nipped and sucked at the skin of her neck, feeling her pulse under his mouth and he inhaled, breathing her in.

He felt like he was underwater, drowning in her. He licked at the hollow of her throat and then released both her hands, pulling her shirt and tank top over her head with one quick motion, tossing them on the floor behind them.

Scarlet winced for a second, and he remembered the fresh marigold tattoo, masking tape anchoring the plastic wrap over it. He kissed along her other collarbone as he undid her bra, letting it fall to the floor as he took one nipple in his teeth, flicking his tongue over it until he heard her gasp again.

Gavin’s footsteps crossed the kitchen and then his hands were on Chase’s hips, his head over Chase’s shoulder as he kissed Chase’s neck, and then whispered.

“Quit hogging Scarlet, you greedy bastard,” he said.

Chase turned his head and kissed his mate roughly, shoving his tongue into the other man’s mouth. By now he was hard as a rock, and he could tell that Gavin was too.

“We could do this right here,” Scarlet offered. She put one finger in the neck of Chase’s shirt, and he pulled away from Gavin, leaned forward, kissed Scarlet’s belly.

“Let’s be civilized for once,” he said. “We’ve got a bed.”

Chapter Thirteen

Scarlet

Scarlet arched her back forward, her hands tangled in Chase’s hair. She could feel the vibration of his voice all the way through her, down to her toes.

“Fuck civilized,” she said, and then bit her lip.

Scarlet remembered
exactly
how good it had been the first time with Chase and Gavin. She’d spent a lot of nights alone under the covers with those memories, and now that it was actually happening again, she didn’t want to waste time getting to the bedroom.

Chase took her by the hips and pulled her off the counter.

“If you insist,” he said. He unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, then knelt to pull them all the way off as Gavin leaned forward, kissing Scarlet deeply.

She tugged on his shirt with both hands, but Gavin pulled away from her and laughed.

“Not yet,” he said. “If I remember correctly, you left your shirt on last time. Maybe I ought to do the same.”

Scarlet opened her mouth to protest, but instead Gavin leaned down and bit her nipple. At the same time Chase’s lips were on her lower belly, then the points of her hips, then just barely brushing her fur below.

“Get back on the counter,” he said.

Scarlet didn’t ask, just put her hands behind her and jumped back, Chase still on his knees in front of her. In one quick motion, he pulled her forward until her tailbone was just barely on the counter, her knees over his shoulders, her head against the cabinets.

Then she felt his tongue on her, tracing a slow circle around her clit without touching it, and she slid her eyes closed, her hands gripping the edge of the counter. Behind Chase, Gavin watched his mate, his own erection obvious.

“You just gonna watch?” Scarlet gasped, somehow finding her voice in between licks.

Before Gavin could respond, Chase ran his tongue between her lips, just barely parting them, and she moaned, squeezing her eyes shut and biting her lip.

“It’s a pretty good show,” Gavin said, and suddenly he was there in front of her, his hands anchored on the counter on either side of hers. “Watching Chase make you cum on our kitchen counter?”