Authors: Anya Nowlan
“Yes!” she squealed.
That monster inside of Dahlia that Austin awakened demanded more and she clenched down on him hard, tears prickling at her eyes from how heavenly it felt. His rutting grew more erratic, and Dahlia bit his ear and snaked her tongue into it, drawing the final grunt of satisfaction from her. When his hard, calloused hand hit her on the ass, spanking her once, she was gone.
Lost in her own personal bliss, her pussy milked Austin’s cock greedily, until he couldn’t stand it either. With a powerful sigh, he pumped into her one last time, emptying his load into her with a sound that could only be compared to a roar.
After a while, Dahlia slowly slipped off of him, moving gingerly. She grinned as Austin’s hands found her before she could wander anywhere and tuck her right next to him, kept safe and warm.
“Don’t you go anywhere,” he murmured into her ear.
“Why not?”
“Because we’re just getting started here, missy.”
CHAPTER NINE
Austin
Austin was almost literally purring since the night with Dahlia. He hadn’t felt that kind of attraction for a woman since Amelia’s untimely passing and for once, he dared to hope. But there was something that still needed to be taken care of.
Dahlia was in town with Teresa, who she’d hit it off with well, leaving the men to fend for themselves. That was not a problem, of course, seeing as Marcus spent most of his time outdoors and Austin had plenty of work to do. He didn’t want to crowd the boy when he was barely settling in for their stay, but there’d been something weighing on Austin’s mind that he wanted to put straight.
Standing up from his office table, he rolled his shoulders back a bit and stretched, feeling the life flood back into his limbs. Paperwork was not the kind of thing a predator wanted to spend his time on, but in today’s world it was a necessity.
Sometimes I wish we were back in the saber-toothed tiger phase,
Austin mused to himself.
At least there wouldn’t be any tax forms.
Chuckling to himself, he stalked outside and took a deep whiff of the air. He shoved his big palms in his pockets and started casually walking in the direction of the smell he’d determined. Rustling through leaves and underbrush around his home, he finally made it deeper into the woods and found who he was looking for. Marcus sat on a big rock by the stream that ran down the length of Austin’s property, whittling a makeshift spear that looked to have no other use than to make the time go by. Austin could understand that. After all, it didn’t feel like
so
long ago that he’d been a broody, angry teenager himself.
“Mind if I join you?” Austin asked, taking a seat opposite of Marcus on a fallen tree trunk.
“You didn’t really wait for a reply,” Marcus snapped, but there was no bite to his growl.
Austin frowned mildly. He’d talked about Marcus with Dahlia a few times. She was soft with him, but he could understand that. Deep down inside, she must have felt guilty about what happened to Arthur and so it was no surprise she went out of her way to try and make her son at least somewhat contented. But with teenagers, that was a slippery slope – Austin knew. Still, it was not his place to intervene, not until he had a ring on that gal’s finger.
And he certainly intended to have that done in the near future.
“I figured you could use the company,” Austin said lightly, brushing off Marcus’ attitude.
“How come?”
“Seems like you’re angry a lot and I’m not sure you know why, Marcus. Why don’t you talk to me about it?” Austin offered, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees.
This wasn’t exactly something that came superbly naturally to him, but he broke it down in his head. He wasn’t talking as the prospective boyfriend/mate of Marcus’ mother, but as a werecougar to another of his kind, one who maybe needed some assistance. It sort of felt like hunting, talking to a teenager. He was ready to have his prey jump up and run off hissing at any moment.
“Why should I?” the boy said, looking up from his spear for the first time.
“Because I want to see your mother happy. And I think nothing would make her happier to know that you’re happy,” he offered.
“Mom doesn’t get it,” Austin snorted, flinging the spear at a patch of grass and having it plant itself firmly in the ground. “She doesn’t miss dad like I do.”
“I think you’re wrong about that, Marcus,” Austin said, keeping his voice level.
“Yeah? Is that why we’re here, with her making goo-goo eyes at you? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do, man,” Marcus said, waggling his finger in an accusing way at Austin. “You want her to stay, You want me to stay, too. But this isn’t my home. New York is.”
“It could be your home,” Austin said, taking a deep breath.
He’d offered that Marcus should go and spend some time with Slate, because he knew that Marcus needed to let out a bit of steam. But if this was the relaxed version of the young man then Austin had to admit he was even more impressed that Dahlia had managed as well as she had. He was a handful.
“Why? So she could forget all about dad and just live here? No, that’s not right,” Marcus snorted.
“Nobody’s trying to make any less of the memory of your father. But do you think he would want your mother to be unhappy?”
“She’s not unhappy! She has me!” Marcus snarled, his eyes wild with indignation.
“I don’t mean that. You keep getting kicked out of school and she ends up losing her jobs because she’s trying to find you a new place. Don’t you think that’s hurting her?”
“I…” Marcus paused, frowning, before continuing on. “I don’t like those schools. They’re…”
“Suffocating?” Austin offered, knowing full well what it felt like being a shifter, and a lonely shifter, in a school full of humans who didn’t understand him.
Being at that fragile age and without a father must have been times worse. His heart went out to Marcus and as no surprise to himself, he felt a strong surge of protectiveness for the boy. As much as he was infatuated with Marcus’ mother, Austin also admitted that he had always wanted a family and he would have been more than happy to treat Marcus as his own. In any case, as long as Austin was tied to Dahlia, he would be tied to Marcus as well and they would get no objections from him. No matter how much attitude was flung in his way.
“Yes,” Marcus agreed, glowering at Austin suspiciously.
“It comes with the territory,” Austin said with a chuckle. “Teenaged years are supposed to be rough, but nothing like when you’re a shifter. And nothing like when you’re a shifter without someone to guide you.”
Marcus visibly bristled at that, jumping up. Austin could see the uncertainty in Marcus’ eyes, the desire to believe and share, but also the pride that kept him from doing that. There was a lot there that Austin recognized and remembered from when he was the same age and frankly, he knew all too well how it worked. What he also knew was that if he forced himself on Marcus, the boy would never learn to trust him.
He was a scared and confused young man, one who had been without his father or any other strong male role model for far too long. Being in Shifter Grove was a step in the right direction and Austin knew that with time, they could come to understand each other. If for no other reason than because they both loved Dahlia, that much was plain to see.
“I don’t need any handling by you or my mom! You’re not my dad! Just stay out of my life, is that so much to ask!”
“Marcus!” Austin called, standing up as Marcus ran deeper into the forest, his slim, long legs carrying him further quickly.
Shaking his head, Austin sighed and turned back towards the house.
That could have gone better,
he thought.
He could have now made things worse, but he was an old enough man to know that when the skies were at their darkest, the sun was going to come out and be the warmest it had ever been. Sometimes, things just needed to deteriorate a little before they could really get good. He had to believe that.
CHAPTER TEN
Dahlia
Floating on air was pretty close to how Dahlia could describe her current state of mind. There wasn’t a cloud in sight and everything seemed to be bright and cheery, no matter where she went and how late it was. The sunshine in her life had nothing to do with the weather, but with the man beside her.
She’d spent a week in Shifter Grove now and the only thing that was really wrong was the fact that her flight back was nearing with alarming speed. They’d agreed on two weeks, and one week in it didn’t seem like nearly enough. The last thing that Dahlia wanted to think about was returning home to their drab apartment, where Marcus would blast his music again and actively hate everything, while Dahlia desperately looked for a job.
In Idaho, none of that seemed like the reality afforded to them. Marcus spent more time outside than in, dashing around the forests like a pup let out to play for the first time. And Dahlia could really breathe for the first time since her husband passed, finding the strength and most of all the desire to greet every day like an opportunity, rather than a chore to get through so she could get back home and wait for the next one.
Austin had taken both her and Marcus to see all the sights around Shifter Grove and they’d met most of the locals as well. She had yet to meet one she didn’t like, and she was beginning to think that all that fresh air was playing tricks on her. No way one little town could feel so… right. Like she was meant to be there all along.
Smiling, Dahlia shook that thought off. She was sitting on the porch swing, watching Austin teach Marcus how to chop firewood. Marcus’s face was twisted with concentration, focusing on the heavy blade in his hands and the block of wood before him. There was a hardness to his expression that Dahlia had never seen before but that struck her as entirely familiar.
That’s the way Arthur used to look when he was building something…
A sigh rose to her throat and she let it out, shaking her head a bit. There were all these moments she wished Arthur was there to see, but that life had denied him and her both. The true victim here was Marcus, though. He was the one growing up without a father. That had never been as clear as it was in Shifter Grove, where he was surrounded by men who were like what Dahlia wanted Marcus to grow up to be. Dependable. Assertive. At peace with themselves.
And she had to admit that with every day in Idaho he looked more like the kind of boy who could become that man. So different from the hurt teenager she saw in New York, the one she had to worry about constantly. Here, he was exactly like Dahlia had imagined him to be if Arthur was still around. Austin had a lot to do with that, she knew.
She hadn’t noticed at first, but he’d been spending a lot of time with Marcus. Whatever he could teach him, he did. From fixing small electronics to changing a truck tire, to driving and fishing, Austin let Marcus try his hand at everything. The way Marcus was beginning to look up to Austin for it was obvious as well. Yes, they had their squabbles, when Marcus’s fiery nature got the best of him, but these were growing rarer and further in between. Her child was growing up right in front of her eyes and she couldn’t be happier that it was with the help of the man who had completely won her over.
The one thing she still hoped and prayed for was that Marcus could really connect with his shifter side. She’d been patiently waiting for that primal part of him to wake up and demand dominance, with Austin reassuring her that he had no doubt it would happen if he roamed free and got his “forest legs” under him, but still, there was no sign that would lead Dahlia to believe that Marcus was truly following in his father’s footsteps.
Give him time,
she reminded herself.
“Looking good out there!” she yelled to Austin and Marcus, grinning as she got a quick wave and a smile back from Marcus.
She got up from the swing and went inside to make some hot tea for the hardworking men in her lives.
A girl can really get used to this,
she thought, adding some sugar into the drinks to sweeten it up.
Dahlia grabbed a tray of mugs and sauntered out with them, carefully balancing the tray as she made her way across the cold ground, her feet tucked in some warm boots.
“Thought you two could use a drink. Careful, it’s hot,” she said, letting both of them grab a mug.
Steam rose from their mouths as both Austin and Marcus took a sip. Marcus was breathing heavily, a healthy glow on his face and one foot on the heavy stump they’d been using. He looked… content. And that was an emotion she had very rarely felt about her petulant son. She shared a quick look with Austin, who gave her a reassuring wink.
They still hadn’t told Marcus that there was anything going on between them. Every day she found a new and perfectly reasonable excuse as to why she couldn’t do it yet, and every day it sounded perfectly feasible if she did say so herself. And Austin humored her, being the patient guy he was, but with time running out, Dahlia knew that she didn’t have that many chances anymore.
Standing there in the chilly October afternoon, with the sun already threatening to set, she felt at peace. Not only because Austin was standing next to her, giving her strength and inner calm, but because the one person she loved the most in this world seemed happy as well—her son. So it came as no surprise to her when she decided to spill the words and see where the chips fell, hoping for the best.
Dahlia put down the tray and decisively took Austin’s hand in hers. He was holding the steaming mug of tea with his other hand and a slight confused frown crossed over his expression, only to be turned into a guarded grin.
“Mom?” Marcus asked, surprised.
Since he had spent so much time out of the house, Dahlia had had no trouble sneaking around a bit with Austin over the past few days. But she was tired of hiding her happiness. She knew that if Marcus would let her then she could explain everything to him, especially the fact that no one could ever replace his father, but there was room in their lives for more love. And she wanted badly to get it out before it was too late—for her and Austin, for Marcus and her in Idaho, for damn near everything.