Grif (Tales of the Were - Redstone Clan) (12 page)

She slid onto his cock, imprisoning him within her body, just where she wanted him. Then she rode him to heaven and back again, whimpering when she came with the most amazing pleasure. A pleasure only this man had ever brought to her.

He was definitely something special.

The next morning, Lindsey had dark circles under her eyes when she showed up at work. Ed didn’t say much about it, for which she was glad. She went about her morning chores quietly while Ed did prep work in the back. Today was baking day in addition to all the regular stuff, so she probably wouldn’t see much of him out front until around noon.

The breakfast crowd was typical and Lindsey didn’t have a lot of time to think about the amazing events of the past day or two. Toward the end of the rush, some young werewolves came in and sat down at the back of the room. They were adolescents, barely out of their teens. She could smell them now. Her senses were so amazing. She could smell things she had never noticed before.

Even the food had taken on new, sensory delights as she served it. Ed was a good cook and every plate she served smelled it.

The wolves hassled her, making her feel unwelcome, as usual. Apparently nothing had changed in regards to how the wolf Pack felt about her presence in the area. She was a cat now, though, and her inner cat was snarling and ready to hiss at the dogs. Ready to claw.

That was something she hadn’t expected. Up ‘til now, the cat that now shared her soul had been surrounded by others of its kind. It had felt welcome. Faced with the wolf shifters in human form, her cat arched its back in alarm within her soul. At least…that’s what it sort of felt like. It was hard to describe accurately, but the cat did
not
like these inferior wolves messing with her.

Everything changed though, when the door opened to admit a familiar figure. Logan, the Alpha werewolf stalked into the place and sat by himself at the counter. She went over to serve him coffee and her inner cat seemed to recognize him as an equal. It was wary, but willing to give him a chance to prove his intentions.

They exchanged greetings and she served him a cup of coffee, passing his order back to Ed, then going back to her regular duties. The last of the breakfast crowd was on their way out, leaving only the table of young werewolves and their Alpha at the counter.

When she went back to the table, predictably, the young wolves started to hassle her again, complaining about food that was perfectly prepared—and they all knew it. She wasn’t taking any of their shit anymore and was about to give them a piece of her mind when a large shadow loomed up behind her.

A growl sounded low, over her shoulder. She turned to look and Logan was there. He’d moved silently from his spot at the counter to back her up. He was growling at his Pack members, not at her.

“Apologize,” he said in a low, menacing tone.

One by one, the young wolves gulped and said they were sorry to her. Lindsey could hardly believe it.

The youngsters got up, giving her more than enough cash to cover their bill and left the diner without another word. It was the human shaped version of slinking away with your tail between your legs and she would have laughed if she wasn’t so surprised.

Only the Alpha remained, standing at her side.

“I’m sorry about that, Miss Tate. Please let me know if you have any other problems with members of my Pack and I’ll take care of it.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. Logan, but you can warn the miscreants in your Pack that I now have claws of my own and unless they want to feel them, they’ll be civil.” Lindsey had had just about enough of the wolves’ attitudes. She’d done everything in her power to fix the debt between her family and these folks and it still didn’t seem good enough for some of them.

Logan laughed at her unexpected show of spirit. “Damn, the Lady really knew what She was doing when She made you a cat. You can hiss with the best of them, can’t you?” Her eyes narrowed but he didn’t appear intimidated. “And Logan’s my first name. You can drop the
mister
—or if you want to be formal, you can call me Alpha.”

She nodded tightly. “I don’t know all the protocol yet, but I’m trying to learn.”

“That’s okay.” He held up one hand, palm outward in a show of peace. “I’m not criticizing. I’m well aware of the drastic change that has been forced upon you, and I, for one, think you’ve handled it with grace.” His genuine smile warmed her a little. “If you have any questions your cougar friends can’t answer, feel free to give me a call, okay?”

He extended a hand in friendship and she took it after only a moment’s consideration. He seemed genuine and her newly enhanced senses couldn’t detect any untruth, but then she didn’t really know if she’d be able to smell that kind of thing from another werecreature. She guessed she’d learn in time.

She felt a tingle when she shook his hand, but she had no idea what it could mean. His eyes sparkled down into hers and he winked before he turned and left, taking some of the sizzling energy out of the room with him.

Ed called from the back door as he returned shortly thereafter and the bustle of the lunch crowd took her mind off the earlier encounter with the wolves. She worked straight through until after the lunch crowd cleared out and her shift was finally over. A few more of the wolves had come in but they had been quiet and caused no trouble for her.

It amazed her how easily she could scent a wolf now when she’d had no idea that so many of them visited the diner on a regular basis before. She had been pretty much surrounded by them before, and never knew. It made her realize there was a whole separate world out there she had only known the slightest bit about, and that idea intrigued her. She knew she had a lot to learn, but she had always been a good student.

She drove to her grandfather’s house after work, intending to spend the night there, even though Grif expected her to stay at his place. But she needed some space. After the disturbing emotions of last night and the amazing happenings of the past few days, she needed to gather her wits and that wasn’t something she could do anywhere near Grif’s incredibly distracting presence.

She should have known he wouldn’t let her be. Within an hour of arriving home, a huge, angry mountain lion sauntered into her house. She felt his approach, scented him while he was still on the back porch, using the pads of his huge paws to turn the doorknob in a way few other cats could do. She didn’t bother moving from her sprawl on the couch. She was tired, her feet—and other muscles—were sore, and she didn’t want to have this confrontation right now.

Grif slunk in, his supple body making not a sound as he twined through the furniture to come to a rest facing her from across the coffee table. He sat back on his haunches, his intelligent eyes sparkling over at her, waiting.

“Go away, Grif. I need time to think.”

He growled low in his throat, but she was too tired to be intimidated.

“I mean it. I need some space.” She flopped her head back on the couch, closing her eyes as fatigue weighed her down.

“I’m sorry, babe. I can’t give it to you. Not yet.” Grif’s voice was a gentle purr next to her ear as she felt the cushions of the couch dip. His warm, human presence settled at her side, not touching, but protective. She peeled her eyes open and looked over at him.

He was naked, but she guessed she should have expected that. Still, it was a bit of a jolt. The man was a work of art and she could look at him all day long and never tire of his devastating maleness. She looked up at his chiseled features and caught the slight wrinkling of his brow, the determination in his jaw and the worry in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

Grif sighed. “You can read me well enough already to tell when I’m worried, can’t you?” His gentle smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I don’t know whether to be amazed or horrified that I’m so transparent.”

“You’re ducking the question, Mr. Redstone.” Her voice held a note of teasing but his evasion began to stir worry within her. She turned on the couch to face him. “Tell me. What’s bothering you?”

Grif ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “It could be nothing, but then again, it could be something very dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“I told you a bit about why Belinda and I came up here, right? Well, I suppose it’s time you heard the rest of the story.” He seemed reluctant to speak but forged ahead anyway. “I think I told you about how my sister, Jackie, was murdered by her mate about a year ago.” He looked away, his expression dark with remembered pain. “Belinda was very attached to Jackie and took her death very hard. Jacki’s mate was a werecougar from back east named Bill Timmons. We didn’t know until it was too late that he was a brutal man. He beat Jackie and she ran home when she finally couldn’t take it any longer. We tried to protect her but I underestimated Bill. He let us believe he would let her go. Months passed while she stayed with us. My vigilance decreased and my brothers began to roam as before. I did too and one day when I returned, it was to find Jackie dead.”

Lindsey reached out to him, cuddling into the arms that came up automatically to accept her comforting embrace. “I’m so sorry.” She whispered the words into his chest, kissing him gently, offering sympathy and support.

“I’ll never forgive myself for failing to protect my family and I will live with the guilt for the rest of my life.” He didn’t give her a chance to interject, squeezing her tight while he spoke quickly. “Which is why I can’t take any chances with your safety. A few times over the past weeks I’ve thought I caught Timmons’ scent, but I always lost it. I thought it might just be a product of my imagination. Still, it’s happened a few too many times now for my comfort. I called my brothers, and two of them are coming to help guard and protect you and Belinda. Timmons won’t come after me or my brothers directly. He’s too weak and too warped. But he will try to hurt us by hurting our women.”

She didn’t know what to respond to first. “Umm… I’m not part of your family, Grif. Why would he come after me?”

Grif pulled her in close and kissed her softly. “I keep forgetting you don’t know our ways. It feels like you’ve been in my arms forever and that you always will be.” He tucked a stray lock of her hair back behind her ear gently. “And you
will be
, Lindsey. You are my mate. I knew it even before the Lady changed you, but I didn’t understand how a human woman could possibly be mine. Now of course, it all makes sense. You’re cougar. The Lady could have made you anything, but She made you cougar. For me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Inside me lives the cougar, just as she now lives in you. Don’t you feel them calling out to each other whenever we’re together? Lindsey, my cougar knew you on first sight. I wanted you from the moment I saw you in the diner and nothing has changed since that moment, except now you can be my mate in every sense of the word. Forever.”

“Grif, this is all happening so fast. How can you be so sure?”

He looked deeply into her eyes. “Listen to your inner cougar. She knows the truth of it. We were meant to be together. Once our kind mates, we mate for life. I knew when we first made love it would change my life forever. I’m yours, Lindsey. As you are mine. In the eyes of all werefolk, we’re already a mated pair.”

“Oh, man.” She pulled back, confusion in her eyes. “Grif, are you saying we’re married or something?”

He chuckled. “Something like that. We’re almost there. Since I’m Alpha of a big Clan, we’ll have to announce it and have a party before everyone knows we’re fully mated. But you’re already mine, Lindsey, in every way that counts. Mating goes deeper than human marriage. It’s a bond that cannot be broken.”

“But you said your sister left her mate.”

He sighed. “It’s very rare, but every once in a while a shifter
will pair off with the wrong person, or one of us will become mentally unstable. I don’t know which was the case with my sister’s mating, but Timmons is definitely insane at this point. Whether it was because his legitimate mate—my sister—left him due to his violent ways or whether he was insane from the beginning is something I’ll never know, but the mating went drastically wrong in my sister’s case. That’s not the case with you and me, kitten. Can’t you feel the rightness of our joining? Don’t tell me you didn’t feel the connection when we made love.”

“I felt something…” She was hesitant to say too much. After all, he hadn’t given her the most important words she needed to hear yet. She knew deep in her heart that she loved him, but she didn’t know if he felt the same.

He tugged her closer into his arms, fitting her soft body to his hard frame. He kissed her long and hard, aligning their bodies on the soft couch and touching her intimately.

“You can’t deny this.” He raised his head. They were both breathing hard and his eyes glowed with desire. “You can’t deny we were made to pleasure each other.”

She panted but her gaze was steady. “There’s more to life than pleasure, Grif.”

“Much more.” He nodded. “We will live and grow together as the years move on. We’ll have youngsters to teach and nurture and we’ll share the freedom of being cougar with them and with each other.”

“Children?” She gasped. “You’re already talking about children and I’m not even certain I want to date you, much less be your mate.”

He laughed, but she could see the worry in his eyes. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s hard for me sometimes to remember you were raised human.” He stood and pulled her up by the arms to stand in front of him as he began unbuttoning her waitress uniform.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She tried to bat his hands away but he was too quick for her.

“Getting you naked.” He leered down at her comically. “The only way you’re going to learn what it is to be
were—
to be part of my Clan, part of my family—is to hang around with us. You can’t very well do that all the way over here, and I can’t protect you alone. I’m man enough to admit when I need help and my brothers know the stakes. Even more, they know the enemy and they won’t let him harm any of our family ever again. You need to come home with me, kitten. You need to meet my brothers and let us protect you and teach you what it is to be cougar.”