That crumbled the moment I met Jeff Holliday in Nightingale’s infirmary, the aloofness went out the window. Just a few moments talking to him, and I hadn’t been able to walk away.
I’m so fucking screwed.
My fellow club members seemed to be finding love and companionship around me like it was all the rage. First Scott with Oriana, then Karma with Eric, and now Michael with Haley. Even Attila seemed to be romantically restless.
Things are going south fast.
I’d never felt romantic inclinations for anyone in my long life and I hadn’t been about to start.
Until Jeff. Who’d been avoiding the compound for the last two months.
Haley looked the way I felt; sad, anxious, and out of sorts. Oh, sure, she still got excited when she figured out something new about the Backlog story and she appeared content with Michael’s love. Who wouldn’t want an archangel’s undivided attention? But I could scent her wistfulness and it mirrored my own.
Which is all kinds of wrong.
I tried to throw off my malaise and focus on my jobs of managing the club’s strip joints in Fort Collins and Wellington. But whenever I saw a young, hot male dancer, I’d remember Jeff’s perfect golden-brown skin and tall, taut athletic body, and my cock would stand up to attention. Unfortunately, some of the dancers thought I was reacting to them, but the moment they offered me their bodies, my dick would wilt.
Not a great way to inspire my employees.
I’d heard Haley’s conversation with Jeff about our club’s secrets hadn’t gone well, but Jeff had given me his cell number while he’d helped her research her story three months ago. I’d told him it was just in case he couldn’t get a hold of Haley, he could contact me to get through the gates. But in truth I just wanted his number to text and call him.
And for the first month, it had been great. We’d shared funny memes and small talk, building an unlikely friendship through digital communication.
Then Haley told Jeff he had to choose to keep our secrets or lose her forever.
And he stopped answering my calls or texts.
I’d taken to wandering the edges of the compound, looking outside the walls for something, and I didn’t know what I wanted to find. But something was definitely missing.
Yeah, you brainless kit, love, companionship, and intimacy.
I ignored my inner smartass fox and kept up my circuit around the compound in an effort to outrun the truth. I’d never been lonely before. Why the hell was I feeling such a disappointing emotion now?
Fortunately, a commotion near the front gate of the compound distracted me from my inner turmoil, and I gratefully turned my attention outward as a familiar figure strode into the yard. I immediately left my perch on the hillside in an effort to meet the man who’d somehow captured all of my attention. But I stopped before I made a spectacle of myself. I thought my heart would explode and tears started in my eyes as Jeff walked into the yard and Haley came to meet him.
I swallowed a growl of envy as I inhaled the scent of him. He reminded me of delicate cherry blossoms of my homeland with the deep strength and depth of the gnarled trees that grew on mountain slopes. He had a thick shell around his tender heart and I couldn’t stop the need to figure out the puzzle of him.
I blamed the fox in me.
Jeff hugged his cousin and the scent of her relief matched my own. Haley had broken the news to Jeff that the Concrete Angels weren’t all human and he’d have to make the decision to join us in keeping our secrets or let us all go, including her. I’d felt his silence harder than I’d expected for only knowing him a month.
Jeff stood back and kissed Haley on the forehead before his gaze slid away to find mine. Those amber brown eyes, so much like a fox’s, hit me like a two-by-four to the chest and I grunted with the physical impact of our connection.
You know what this means.
I ignored the voice and inclined my head deeply to show my love and respect for my beautiful and precious kit.
And he’s definitely mine.
I shoved the thought away, because if I acknowledged it, I’d be bound to Jeff forever. Once a kitsune found his favorite, there was no going back. I didn’t think Jeff was ready for that. Hell, I wasn’t ready for that.
I made myself wait for him to approach, hiding behind my perfect, stoic mask.
“Hey, Sam. How’s it goin’?” Jeff stood back, dipping his head and looking to the side as if afraid to meet my eyes this close.
“Better. You haven’t answered my calls or texts.” I couldn’t help the censure in my voice. The pain of his silence still stung my heart.
He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I, uh, had a lot to think about.”
I tilted my head, but didn’t say anything.
He shot a look around at the people still in the yard staring at him. “Could we, uh, go somewhere a little more private to talk, maybe?”
I let him sweat a few more moments before I gave him a sharp nod and turned on my heel and headed back for the hills. To my cabin with the little serenity garden and a sacred cherry tree grown from the seeds of my great grandmother’s grove back in Japan. I never brought anyone to my cabin, not even the honeys who stuck around the club specifically for sex. Jeff would be the first. I just hoped my decision wouldn’t bite me in the ass.
The End
About Siobhan Muir
Siobhan Muir lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with her husband, two daughters, and a vegetarian cat she swears is a shape-shifter, though he’s never shifted when she can see him. The dog doesn’t care. When not writing, she can be found looking down a microscope at fossil fox teeth, pursuing her other love, paleontology. An avid reader of science fiction/fantasy, her husband gave her a paranormal romance for Christmas one year, and she was hooked for good.
In previous lives, Siobhan has been an actor at the Colorado Renaissance Festival, a field geologist in the Aleutian Islands, and restored inter-planetary imagery at the USGS. She’s hiked to the top of Mount St. Helens and to the bottom of Meteor Crater.
Siobhan writes kick-ass adventure with hot sex for men and women to enjoy. She believes in happily ever after, redemption, and communication, all of which you will find in her paranormal romance stories.
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NEWSLETTER
Other Books by Siobhan Muir
Queen Bitch of the Callowwood Pack
Her Devoted Vampire
Bronco’s Rough Ride
The Navy’s Ghost
Rimshot’s Hard Target
Bam-Bam’s Inked Hart
Deli’s Take Out
Cloudburst Colorado Series
A Hell Hound’s Fire
The Beltane Witch
Christmas I.C.E. Magic
Cloudburst Ice Magic
Cloudburst Coffee & Spa
Courting the Dragon Widow
Concrete Angels MC Series
My Forever Cocky Biker Encounter
Dude with a Cool Car
Angel Ink
Elemental Hearts Series
Wildfire’s Heart
Rifts Series
Take the Reins
A Centaur’s Solstice Wish
In Death’s Shadow
Triple Star Ranch Series
Rope a Falling Star
Star Light, Star Bright
Star Spangled Banner
Capitol of Second Chances Series
Second Chance Succubus
Ultimate Recon Series
Darwin’s Evolution
Warbler Peninsula Series
Order of the Dragon
The Valkyrie’s Sword
Burning Yuletide
The Ivory Road Serial
A Walk in the Sand
Outback Dreams
Anthologies
Spank or Treat 2014
Spank or Treat 2016
Coming Soon
Second Chance Whiskey (Capitol of Second Chances #2)
Outfoxing the Kitsune (Concrete Angels MC #4)
The Concrete Angel (Concrete Angels MC #5)