Keeper of the Alphas - Complete (4 page)

Stealing his car had been a great idea at first but the second she saw it she instantly regretted it. He drove a rusted-out red 1977 GMC pickup truck and it was as clunky on the road as it looked. She kept the beast under the speed limit and crawled it into to town, praying it didn’t fall to pieces on the road. By time she jerked it into a parking spot outside Peaches & Cream and killed the glugging engine, she was already fifteen minutes late.

The small café was cute, faux vintage, with a kind of sophistication and bohemian style Cami wasn’t used to seeing around Tyburn. Jazz Age elevator music scatted from the covered hanging speakers as she glanced around the packed space.

“Camilla, darling!” Aunt Sadie was easy to spot, even when she wasn’t wildly waving her arms around, shouting Cami’s name. The buxom older woman looked like a peacock, perpetually dressed for summer with reds, greens, and yellows splashed over her dress and continuing onto her floppy sun hat.

Cami felt a weird press of emotion against her chest and suddenly wanted to turn around and bolt. Instead, she offered a smile and closed the gap between her and her aunt. “Good to see you,” she managed to squeeze out as Sadie pulled her into a bone-crushing hug.

“Oh, sweetheart, it’s been too long. But I’d know that face anywhere.” Sadie already looked wet-eyed and her bare emotions made Cami uncomfortable.

“Hey,” murmured Jenny, Cami’s cousin, who neither moved from her spot at the table nor lifted her eyes from her phone. Jenny was the
yang
to Sadie’s
yin
; she had her mother’s dark black hair, bright eyes, and china-doll round face, but that was where the similarities stopped. Jenny—Cami’s junior by only a year—was a slim little thing made of sharp edges—sharp shoulders, sharp hips—and wore a permanent apathetic frown.

Slightly more comfortable in the shadow of Jenny’s cold distance, Cami pulled up a chair beside her cousin and gave her well-intentioned but colorful aunt a wide berth.

“You look…summery,” Cami teased, trying to lighten the mood. Back in New York, she had a closet organized by the season.

Sadie made a sweeping motion with her hand. “Winter is just a passing thing, dear.”

Cami noticed Sadie’s left arm was dormant on the table; a heavy bandage ran up her wrist and under the sleeve of her dress. “What happened to your wrist?” Cami heard herself say before she could stop herself.

“You know me—I’m just a
klutz
,” Sadie said, brushing off the question. “I make poor Jenny crazy, don’t I, Jen?”

“Whatever,” Jenny muttered, not lifting her eyes from her phone.

“Are you hungry?” Sadie said, reverting into a mother hen. “We got some muffins and tea for the table.”

An assortment muffins sat on a platter in the center of the table, each stuffed artfully with chocolate chips, raisins, and a variety of colors. It looked like Sadie had already made a substantial dent in the platter, whereas Jenny still had a half-eaten bran muffin sitting on her plate. Cami was still full from breakfast, but she knew Aunt Sadie didn’t take
no
for an answer, so she plucked a blueberry muffin off the platter to be polite. “Thanks,” she said and peeled off the wrapping. “Sorry I’m late.”

“By about seven years,” Jenny came out with. The bitterness in her voice startled Cami—even when Cami was living in Tyburn, the two hadn’t exactly been bosom buddies. Why did she care whether Cami stayed or left?

“I swear, you look more like your mother the older you get,” Sadie said, pushing forward as though she hadn’t heard her daughter’s remark.

Though Cami knew Sadie had meant well with the comment, it only caused an angry heat to rise through Cami. A glass of ice water sat on the table in front of her and she sipped it to douse the flames of resentment. “Last I remember, Lynn never took her hair out of a bun.”

Aunt Sadie laughed—a loud, throaty noise—though her eyes went wet again with nostalgic sadness. “No, she didn’t, not after you were born. As soon as you could wrap your little hand in a fist you were tugging hair. Oh, but when she was young, she used to wear it back in a braid all the time. God, it was so pretty, I was always jealous…” Her voice trembled and tears threatened to fall.

Jenny huffed in her seat, sounding annoyed with her mother’s outburst.

“I bet I could do something with your hair,” Cami said, trying to simultaneously lighten the mood and ignore the itch to cut all her hair off so she wouldn’t bear
any
resemblance to her mother.

Sadie brightened up substantially. “Oh, yes—you cut hair now, don’t you?”

Cami gave a small nod and picked apart her muffin. “I work at a hair salon in New York.” Never mind that Seth kept her so busy answering phones, making appointments, restocking supplies, and opening and closing shop that she barely got a chance to get her hands on hair, but Aunt Sadie didn’t have to know that.

“My
gosh
!” Sadie exclaimed, as though Cami had just announced winning the Nobel Peace Prize. “That’s
wonderful
, dear. Your mother would be so proud.”

There it was again.
Her mother
. She finally couldn’t avoid the topic. “I have some questions,” Cami said. “About what happened.”

She saw Sadie go visibly rigid but, to her credit, the older woman offered a broad smile. “Of course, honey. Anything.”

Cami ripped off a piece of the top of the muffin and popped it in her mouth as she measured her words. “How…
exactly
…did she die?”

She could feel Jenny come to attention beside her (
morbid girl
).

The word
die
seemed a little too harsh for sweet Sadie, who probably would’ve preferred to dance around the subject with a vanilla-bland phrase like
passed away
or
moved on
, and her teeth clenched in her smile. “Hasn’t anyone told you?”

“Just the bare bones,” Cami said. “Something about a…hiking accident?”

Sadie gave a small nod and grabbed a muffin as well to busy her hands. “You know your mother. She was at the old house on Argonne and must’ve gone out for a hike in the backwoods…” Sadie choked on her words and cleared her throat, starting again with a firm purpose. “Some…kids found her. You know, from the trailer park by your house?” She tore at her muffin distractedly with long purple nails. “They said it looked like a bear attack, claw marks, you know.”

So she
did
still visit the old house.
What was the relationship between Lynn and Marcus?
Thinking too hard on that made Cami uneasy, like finding
Playboys
in grandmother’s house.

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Cami blurted out. “She lived in that house for twenty years. She’s not
stupid
. She knows how to watch for animals.”

Cami spotted a look that passed between Sadie and Jenny, but didn’t know what to make of it.

“Being
smart
doesn’t protect you from bear claws,” Jenny said. “Especially in mating season.”

Cami frowned and glanced down at her plate. “Bears mate in spring, not fall,” she muttered, but her mind wandered distractedly. She remembered when she was just a kid—six or seven, maybe—and her mother had given her the privilege of going out to play in the woods on her own. Lynn had crouched down to zip up Cami’s poofy coat.

(You remember what to do if you see a bear, don’t you?)

(Stand your ground.)

(And?)

(And…uh…)

When little Cami drew a blank, her mother had demonstrated for her. Lynn spread her arms out and waved then, roaring dramatically, before swooping her little girl up in her arms and the two fell into a fit of giggles.

So what had happened? Had Lynn finally met her match? A bear that didn’t back down in the face of naked aggression?

Cami tried to blink away the memory. Animals were animals. No rhyme or reason. She was reading too much into it.

Maybe it had just been wrong place, wrong time.

She tried to ignore the nagging feeling inside of her and nibbled a muffin, despite her loss of appetite. A sudden noise from Sadie jerked her back to the present and, within seconds, her aunt’s arms were around her, holding her tightly.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” She wept a bucketful of tears against Cami, who went stiff as a board. Sadie sobbed apologies into her shoulder and Cami shut her eyes tightly, trying to block out a flurry of dormant emotions inside her.

Keep it together.

Cami dug her nails into her palms and counted to ten.

“Strawberry margarita,” Cami called out to the bartender. She leaned over the bar, arms folded on the stained surface in front of her. After spending all day with her weepy-eyed aunt and her monosyllabic cousin, she needed a drink. The Tipping Point—which had been here since as long as she could remember—seemed just what the doctor ordered.

She leaned back and glanced around the bar. At one point in her life, she might’ve known everyone here. She could have had friends who never texted to say they were coming, they just all showed up eventually as if drawn forward by an unseen force. She could have had rivals, the catty band of judgmental moms who were married and pregnant before Cami even had her second date. She could have had a string of close-knit ex-lovers who were all somehow connected by a degree or two, men who it was awkward to be around but who eventually stopped caring because it was impossible to avoid anyone in a small town like this (unless you were some wild man who chopped wood at 5 a.m.). Hell, maybe Cami would’ve even made friends with some of them. Married one, even.

But this was all a sea of strangers. There were a few older men at the end of the bar—seasoned workers in plaid and dust-brown jeans. A flock of college kids laughed in a booth. Beside her, a handsome hipster chatted up a pretty little thing in a skimpy dress. On one hand, Cami felt a step ahead of the crowd. She’d
left
. Made something of herself in New York. She was a big-town girl in a small fishbowl and she had every right to stick up her nose at the place she left behind and turn tail.

On the other hand, she was lonely.

Cami’s drink arrived and she leaned forward to sip through her straw. Her dress strap slipped down her arm as she did, baring her shoulder. No one noticed.

“Cami?” Well.
Almost
no one. She noticed his eyes first—soft, soulful brown—mirrored with short blond hair and light, manicured facial hair. Cut, cleaned, not military extreme but groomed like a show dog. And stud he was—lean, limber, like glass. A single freckle at the corner of his right eye.

She was drawing a blank on his name. Completely. “Um…,” she started, deer in headlights.

“Oh, wow. You don’t remember me. This is embarrassing. For you, I mean, I’m really enjoying watching your brain struggle.” God, his smile was charming.

“I know you,” she said.

He just smiled and wrapped his lips around his beer.

“We…went to school together.”

“Cheap guess,” he said.

“You’re…Michael. David. John.”

“Now you’re just guessing apostles. Alright, let me give you a hint.” He put his drink on the bar (his arm brushed hers) and then cupped his hands over his mouth.

And cawed. Loudly. Like a rooster. The bar slipped momentarily into a distracted silence, only punctuated by a loud screech from Cami, right before she threw her arms around him.

“Oh my God…Jayce!” She squeezed him, tightly, and felt him squeeze back.

“Hey, Cam,” he murmured as he held her. “Long time.”

“You’re not kidding,” she said when she finally pulled back but kept her hands on his arms, needing to
feel
him, to make sure it was really him. “It’s been…what…?”

“Seven years,” he said without missing a beat. His hand, too, lingered on her side. “You look…”

“Fat?” she piped up. She was feeling it, suddenly. She’d been a skinny little thing (too skinny, if she was being honest with herself) all through middle school and now…

He let out a laugh, a breathy sound. She decided she liked that noise. “I was going to say
good
.”

She tried to swallow down the heat that crawled up her neck and bloomed in her cheeks. “And what about you?” she said, motioning to him. The last time they saw each other, he’d been a lanky, awkward teenager with a spotted face and a big nose. Her favorite merry little misfit, even when she’d graduated through the social ranks and far surpassed him. But they’d grown up together, on and off, for years. Her mother’s house was deep in the woods and he’d lived with his dad in a trailer park not too far off. No trace of the vagabond teenager now, who would run through the thick of the trees with her, cawing, shouting, playing, until they were both thoroughly caked in mud.

“What about me?” he asked, wrinkling his nose.

“You grew into your snout,” she said, giving his nose a playful yank.

“I think I’ve still got some growing room,” he said. His smile faded, though, and he added, “I heard about your mom. I’m so sorry.”

The
M
word was like a bucket of icewater dumped on her head. For just a second, she’d been able to forget what she was doing here. It’d almost been
nice
to be back in Oregon. She felt her walls go up again and she stepped back, clinging to the stem of her margarita. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“She was like a mother to me too, you know,” Jayce said somberly.

More of a mother to you, Cami thought. At least she didn’t throw you in a psych ward to get rid of you.

“When I heard over the radio about what happened—”

“Over the what?”

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you.” Jayce’s expression brightened again, that sly, cocky smile falling over his lips, and the mood brightened with it. He propped himself up on the bar next to her. “I’m a man of the law now.”

“You’re shitting me,” she said, smile wide as she leaned in as though suddenly privy to some juicy gossip.

“Am not,” he said, equally coy.

“Show it to me.”

“What?”

“Your-fucking-badge what.”

He dug into his pocket, plucked out his wallet, and flashed it at her briefly before flipping it shut again.

“Show me again.”

“I just did.” He flashed it again for a millisecond.

“Stop,” she laughed and grabbed at it. “Gimme.”

After a short struggle, she yanked it from his hands. When she’d walked into the bar, she’d felt sexy, exotic, a worldly, accomplished outsider. Within minutes of reuniting with Jayce, she’d somehow reverted into a giggly, playful fifteen-year-old girl. She flipped the wallet opened and frowned.

“This isn’t a badge. What is this?”

“It’s a permit. I’m still training.”

“Do you carry a gun at least?”

He shook his head and sipped his drink. “I’m a pacifist.”

“I think you’re going into the wrong field, my friend.”

“Cops, by definition, are keepers of the peace.”

“Yeah, with clubs and pepper spray.” She tossed the wallet back at him. “That’s anticlimatic.”

“You calling me an anticlimax?”

“Yeah. You’re that feeling when you get really close to an orgasm and then the batteries run out.”

He smiled at that. “I’m a good fuck.”

She sized him up with her eyes. “Prove it.”

Jayce’s eyebrows shot up with surprise. There was some satisfaction in throwing the cocky man so clearly off guard. “What?”

“We’re not fifteen anymore,” she said, stirring her drink with her straw before wrapping her lips back around it.

“Maybe I am,” he responded, though his eyes never left hers.

“You got handcuffs?” she asked.

“I’ve got handcuffs.”

They didn’t make it to his place. A couple hours and about five drinks later, they tumbled into the back seat of his Camaro, mouths locked together, limbs tangling. The alcohol made her bold and she pried his teeth apart with her tongue, tasting him. He fell into her kiss easily and moaned into her mouth; she felt his hands clasp over her wrists, pinning them down against the car. There wasn’t a lot of room to stretch out, so her legs wrapped around his hips.

Though she’d never kissed him before, he tasted
familiar
, somehow. Underneath the sappy gin and cinnamon spice cologne, there was the boy she grew up with. Her trailer park boy: a metallic nighttime musk, dry autumnal leaves, and pipe smoke. She felt his breath at her lips and his need pressed hard against her stomach. She sealed the kiss and, when he dove in for another, tilted her head out of reach with a giggle.

He snorted a laugh. “We’re playing that game, huh?”

“Mmhm,” she nodded, still smiling.

“Two can play,” he said and tilted in to kiss her neck. She felt his teeth and gasped with surprise, her fingers tightening around his for something to hold on to. She felt safe underneath him, warm and excited all at once, the thrill of fucking a stranger without him being a
complete
stranger. He pried a hand free of hers to slip down her shoulder straps and peeled back the low cut of her dress, exposing one of her breasts. He covered it with his mouth, his tongue swirling in a way that shot straight through her and made her whimper. Her reaction drew a grunt from the back of his throat and she felt his hips jerk against hers; he was strong, hard, all for her, and it poured gasoline on the flames of her excitement.

Her head spun—partially from his lips, partially from the sweet margarita—and she slipped her fingers through his short, soft hair.
Jayce
. She and Jayce were making out in the back of his car like a couple of teenagers.

Jayce pulled her nipple under his teeth and the tug felt connected to her clit, which pulsed in response. He was good.
Really
good.
Too
good. Had he done this before? How often? She thought of Seth, suddenly. Back in New York, curled up with his
whore du jour
. And then Jayce. And then Jayce and Seth, double-teaming her, one in her pussy, one in her mouth. High-fiving over her naked body.

The thought made her laugh suddenly, and he lifted his head, both amusement and confusion written on his face. “What’s so funny?” he said, breath short.

“Nothing, nothing.” She waved her hand, and then moved it back to his head to press him down again. “Go back to…what you were doing.”

He looked skeptical, but he kissed down her breast again. She tried to hold it back, but another giggle rose up from her throat.

His soft brown eyes met hers and he let out a light chuckle. “Alright,” he said, hanging over her. “You gotta let me in on the joke.”

“Remember,” she giggled, “that time when we broke into Kramer’s farm and set his chickens free?”

He grinned, nodded. “I broke an egg over your head.”

She laughed at that and he kissed her. He sucked her bottom lip between his teeth and she gasped, delighted. His kisses moved down…down her throat…her breasts…

And she broke into another fit of giggles.

He pulled back, looking half-exasperated, half-endeared. “What now?”

“Oh…you just…remember the time we caught Maggie and her boyfriend in the lake and stole their clothes?” Cami’s eyebrows knitted and her mouth pursed in a pout. “She was
such
a bitch, but that was kind of a dick move on our part.”

“We were dumb kids,” Jayce said. He pressed a small, sweet kiss to her mouth and then peeled back. “You know we don’t have to do this.”

“But I
want
this,” she said. Cami moved her hands under his shirt to feel his skin underneath, hot to the touch.
God
he was fit. She could trace the outline of the muscles in his abdomen. She felt him shudder lightly under her fingertips.

“This was a bad idea,” he said, gently. “You’re drunk.”

“And wet,” she protested, taking his hand and guiding it between her legs. “Feel.”

She felt his fingers ease under her panties and let out a small moan as his fingers began to explore, sliding between her slit. His touch felt slow, deliberate, and she could
hear
how wet she was.

“You
are
wet,” he breathed.

She sucked in her lips and nodded, innocent-eyed. “Mmhm.”

“Guess you want me to do something about that, huh?”

She nodded again, vehemently.

She could see he was torn between lust and an old need to protect her. A decision crossed over his eyes and he leaned in, kissed her sweetly, and then in the space between their lips he murmured, thickly, “Let’s see what we can do.”

His head dipped below and out of sight. Cami felt his hands slip up her thighs, under her dress, and he pulled her panties down, slowly…

They came off her legs and he tossed them into the dark of his car. She felt him settle down between her thighs, and then—

Cami gasped, her breath catching in her throat. She lay flat in the backseat, her head propped uncomfortably on the edge of the door, but all that melted away when she felt warm, wet run over her inner folds. She felt his hot breath when he exhaled and craved more, aching to be closer. He complied effortlessly and pinned her legs apart, pressing his tongue deeper inside her. She squirmed and mewled under his lips as his tongue worked wonders between her legs, licking, sucking, flicking. Like he knew exactly where to lick, exactly how hard. Everything felt sensitive, on fire, and she felt the pressure inside her building.