Aric shook his head. “Don’t look at me that way, Celia. It would destroy me if you were hurt.”
“How could a little kitty like me get hurt with a pack of supermacho wolves on my side?”
Aric didn’t find my attempt at humor funny. “Shit. What did I just get you into?”
“You didn’t ‘get me into’ anything. I think the wereraccoon managed that on his own.” I sighed. “Look, Aric, I also hate being the source of your problems. If helping you kill Tahoe’s latest superbeastie alleviates your situation with your Elders, let me.”
“Don’t for a moment think you’re the cause of my problems.” Aric leaned forward, sweeping his lips across my crown line. “What goes on between you and me is none of their damn business. But if eliminating this threat will shut them up, it’s more motivation for me to hunt and kill it.”
Aric wanted to mean what he said, except distress swept around his aura like a noose. Had I been of his kind, would his Elders have been as upset? Probably not.
“The purebloods are plentiful,” Aric continued as if trying to convince us both. “My Elders need to stop demanding that I associate with were-only females.”
Demand? Aric had practically growled his last statement. As one of the strongest weres in history, he didn’t like being told what to do. Even by those considered above him. I didn’t know much about wolves, or weres in general, and feared what the consequences his decision to pursue me might bring. So it only seemed right for me to help him hunt. Maybe he was right. In killing this monster, perhaps he’d prove he hadn’t lost his focus or abandoned his duties.
Stress further tightened Aric’s muscles. My tigress convinced me to comfort him through touch. I rubbed my face against his. “What will happen if they continue to insist that you do?”
Aric groaned, low and deep. His reaction had nothing to do with his Elders and everything to do with our contact. “Let me worry about it.” He cupped my face in his hands. “You and me, we can take things slow and see where it leads us.”
Aric tilted his head toward mine. This time I didn’t deny him. I think he only meant to give me a small peck. But when my lips parted, and the tip of my tongue met his, his beast growled with need. And so did mine.
So much for taking things slow.
Aric’s taste sent my tigress into a frenzy, craving more of him in my mouth. The clicking sound of the seat belt release sounded miles away. Aric struggled to free himself from its hold, all the while keeping his mouth hard against mine.
The steering wheel dug into his hip as he lurched his body across the center console, pressing his T-build firmly against me. If it were up to my wild side, I would have ripped his clothes from his body in pieces. But my inexperienced half took over, unsure what to do, and dumbstruck by Aric’s immediate effect on my delicate areas.
Holy . . .
Body parts I barely acknowledged pounded; the tips of my br**sts tightened. I slumped back against the side window, moaning, my lips pleading for Aric to explore. My hands swept over his back. His hard muscles tensed beneath my fingertips, and his arms beckoned me closer. I wanted Aric. Then. Now. Fast. Especially when his mouth moved to my neck and found a spot behind my—
“Celia Wird! You unhand that boy this instant!”
And that’s when the devil in support hose appeared. Sweet God in heaven . . . no!
Aric’s head snapped up. His face heated. “What the hell?”
I wrenched my neck to face my neighbor, Mrs. Mancuso. Her penciled-in brows angled in a permanent state of pissed-offness, her curlers tightened hard enough to make her scalp bleed, and her neck skin flapped in the wind. “This is a family neighborhood!”
And because having an eighty-plus woman catching me in a major tongue-hockey moment wasn’t humiliating enough, my lovely sister Taran came to the rescue. She didn’t have supernatural hearing, but she could spot a Mancuso attack a mile away. Taran threw open the front door and stormed down the steps. “Goddamn it, woman, aren’t you dead yet? Get back in the house and mind your own freaking business!”
“Whore.” Mrs. Mancuso dragged out the word as if she were teaching it to a bunch of preschoolers, accentuating it with two stiff ones. “Trollops, sluts, tramps!” she screamed, waving her middle fingers like flags.
I scrambled out of the car when Aric lifted his weight. Taran’s face was inches from Mancuso’s, her blue eyes firing with rage. “I am sick and tired of you calling us whores. It’s not like we parade shirtless men around here.”
As if on cue, Liam jogged around to the front of the house. Naked.
Mrs. Mancuso’s jaw dropped down to her Depends at the sight of Liam’s overly developed man parts. Fortunately the sight of Liam’s studly physique was too much for the old terror. She backed up abruptly and ran indoors, crossing herself to protect herself against the likes of us.