Callan
For the next week, we work on getting Luna settled into her new place and enjoy our newfound freedom to Jacksonville pack territory. Warrick’s a dick about it, of course. He flaunts our ability to hunt on Creebay Preserve by going as near to the pack houses as possible to make a kill, marking his territory on every tree he trots past in wolf form, and roaring down Golden Glade Street on his motorcycle at all hours of the day or night when he’s in human form.
When someone questions him the first time, he flashes his gap-toothed grin and says, “Why don’t you and your Alpha have a little talk? He’ll tell you we’re welcome.”
After that, no one bothers us. They don’t talk to us, either.
Ethan’s just as bad. Like now, when Axel stops by for the tenth time today, this time asking Luna if she needs her plumbing fixed or the boards on her deck looked over for signs of decay.
“We’re taking care of her plumbing just fine,” Ethan says, throwing his arm around Luna, who’s standing near the counter, stacking her new dishes
in the cupboard. “In fact, we take turns flushing the pipes four, five times a day. Don’t we, darlin’?”
“I don’t know,” Luna says, a picture of wide-eyed innocence. “I haven’t checked the pipes at all.”
Ethan guffaws, and Axel glares.
Luna looks like an advertisement for domestic bliss standing in her kitchen, organizing all the items Axel bought for her. The kitchen has sunshiny yellow walls and curtains with sunflowers on them. New tile covers the floor, and her cupboards have been painted blue. It looks like something out of a damn magazine, and Luna loves it.
“Need anything?” Axel asks our pet, ignoring Ethan’s crude comments. “I can stop by the grocery store if you do. Food, cleaning products, anything.”
Luna taps her lips with her finger. “I do need a few things if you don’t mind.”
Axel brightens like she’s granted him his wildest dream. In a way she has, since she’s agreed to join his pack. If he was the one pounding her pussy every night, he’d be a happy man. But that joy belongs to our Alpha
-Warrick. I’m amazed Axel has been so good-natured about the whole affair. He hasn’t tried to take off any of our heads since our big fight a week
ago. He probably doesn’t know Warrick’s nailing his mate every which way after Axel goes home to jerk off alone each evening.
After she tells Axel what groceries she needs, he heads off, and Ethan roars off on his bike to pick up a paycheck from our last job. I cross the blue and tan tile floor, reach into the box with the remaining plates and bowls, and start handing them to Luna.
She holds up one of the brown-rimmed, blue ceramic bowls. “Aren’t these pretty? I picked them myself. Axel said I could have anything I wanted. Imagine!”
I glance at the bowl. What do I know about dishes? All I care about is that Luna likes them. “They’re real nice,” I say.
“You don’t like them?” she says, sensing my indifference. Her full lips form a pout. “When I lived in the swamp with Mama, I never dreamed of owning something this pretty. We barely ever used a dish at all.”
“I said they’re pretty,” I say, holding up a hand. “If you like ’em, I like ’em.”
“What do you really think, though?” she asks, setting the bowl in the stack with the others. “I want your honest take.”
“Luna,” I say with a grin. “Plates are hardly on my radar. I don’t give two shits whether they’re made of pure gold or you don’t use one at all.
You, however, are a different story.” I snake an arm around her waist and pull her into me. “I give lots of shits about you, pet.”
The cutest blush colors her face. I kiss her warm cheek until she pushes me away. “Quit,” she squeals. “I vowed to get all these dishes and pans put away before evening, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is coming right up.”
“That’s why I’m helping you,” I say, setting the stack of plates into the cabinet. “You need a break. Let me take you out tonight, Luna. A real date. My brothers can make their own dinner.”
“What’s a date?” she asks, her forehead furrowing.
“Something I haven’t done in a long-ass time,” I say with a grin, hefting a box of glassware onto the tan-tile countertop. “But it’s when people are getting to know each other, and they go out and do fun things.”
I slice open the box with a box cutter Axel got Luna. Dude thought of everything.
“Like when I went hunting with Axel,” she says, her lilac eyes lighting up the way they do when she catches on. She fishes a blue glass from the box and sets it on a shelf in another cupboard.
“Sure.” I hand her another glass. “Only on this date, we’ll go into town.
Maybe catch an old movie at the restored theater.”
“What’s a movie?” she asks, placing the glass next to the other one.
“It’s like TV but bigger. We sit with a bunch of other people and watch the show together.” I hand her the rest of the glasses and flatten the empty box, tossing it onto the pile of others.
“Oh,” she says. “So more like when I met the pack, and we all ate dinner together instead of at home with just us.” She arranges the glassware on the shelf in a neat row.
“That’s a good way to put it,” I say, smiling at her. “So, what do you say?”
“Okay,” she says, standing on tiptoes to put up the last of the glasses. As her little body stretches, my cock throbs in my jeans. I’ve kept my hands off her since the day she woke up. I still need to tell Warrick about that. Luna rambles on, not noticing that I’ve fallen silent as I try to control the stiffy that’s popped up from simply watching her do a mundane task. I want to fuck her again so bad it’s a constant battle with blue balls.
“TV is funny,” she says. “It don’t make no sense to me. I don’t even know those people. Why do I care about their stories? And then when I found out that half of them aren’t even telling the truth?” She shakes her head, then turns to lean against the counter.
I shrug, resisting the urge to adjust myself. “It’s entertainment.”
“Then let’s do it,” Luna says with a bright smile, right as Axel strides through the door holding two bags overflowing with groceries.
“Where are y’all headed?” he asks, eyeing us with a frown. I can see it’s eating the guy up that he can’t be with Luna the way he wants. I almost feel for the asshole. Thanks to his wolf, the cuts and scrapes on his face are almost all healed, and he’s back to looking like the perfect All-American asshole he is.
“To this thing called the movies,” Luna says before I can stop her.
“You can’t go to the movies,” Axel says, setting the heavy bags on the kitchen table pushed against the wall.
“Why not?” she demands, crossing her arms over her chest.
Oh, boy. Here we go.
Axel and Luna have a tempestuous relationship if this week is any indication. They bicker all the time. I can’t tell if it’s foreplay building up to some big, explosive fuck-fest when they give in, or if they really can’t stand each other despite wanting to fuck each other’s brains out.
“It’s not safe,” Axel says flatly. “I only granted these assholes access to our territory because you agreed to move onto pack land where it’s safe, and you’d be protected from lone wolves. The rest of Jacksonville isn’t safe.”
“How safe was I roaming the land when the lone wolf attacked me?”
“You weren’t, which proves my point,” Axel says, drawing himself up to his full height. “You weren’t on pack land.”
“I smelled the same wolf when we were out hunting at the preserve,” she counters.
“What you smelled,” Axel says, removing soup cans from the paper bag and slamming them on the counter. “Was Warrick. He even told you he was out stalking you, spying on us. Probably jerking off like a fucking pervert.”
“I know what Warrick smells like. It wasn’t Warrick,” Luna spits back at him.
“How do I know this asshole won’t run off with you and take you somewhere to have you all to himself?” Axel growls.
“This asshole,” I say, “has no intention of taking her away to have her all to himself. It’s more fun to have her right under your nose, Alpha.”