Page 61 of Lost and Bound
“The Kimballs hang out in Lacey—”
“Try another excuse, Jare,” Ian said. “You know we’re all buddy-buddy with the Kimballs now, too. Colin’s not a fucking idiot like his dad.”
“Story of our lives,” I said, not able to help a grin.
Ian laughed, shaking his head. “No kidding. The only Armitage less competent to lead this pack than my dad was your dad.”
Or me. But I didn’t need to say that, and I didn’t think Ian had been thinking it, either. He and Matt really had put the past in the past; I hadn’t heard a word about it, like Matt had promised me.
“I just want to get out a little bit,” I said, hating that I sounded like I was pleading. I didn’t need Ian’s permission to leave our territory. Granted, I did need his permission to take a car, but fuck, everyone in the pack used those crappy beater cars. They’d even let Calder drive off in one without batting an eyelash. “Get some air.”
“We have a lot of air here.”
Frustration welled up, and for the first time since I’d been back, I genuinely wanted to smack Ian upside the head like I had when we’d been younger. We’d tussled all the time. I’d always lost. Hadn’t stopped me from starting shit the next time, though.
“Fuck off, Ian. I want different air. I was locked up in a concrete fucking box for two years. I want to drive a car and roll the windows down and stop somewhere for a fucking drink, okay?”
I almost felt guilty when Ian’s face softened, his eyes going wide. Reminding him of how I’d been a prisoner was dirty pool. But I needed to get out. Get a drink. Five or six drinks. As many as necessary to get me plastered enough to pick up a willing woman and charm her into taking me home, enough to fuck her and enjoy it and not spend every second of every day aching for Calder’s knot in my ass, jerking off until I felt raw, pinching and teasing my own nipples until they were swollen and sore, shoving two fingers inside myself and still not being able to get myself to come.
And he’d only been gone for three days.
Worst of all, I didn’t know if any bar within fifty miles would have enough liquor to make me forget how it felt when he stroked my hair and smiled at me. That real smile. Or the way he’d started laughing at my dumb jokes part of the time. Or the way he’d told me about Arik’s childhood and made me promise to keep it to myself—because he trustedme, and no one else. Or the way he’d told me he thought I was brave. That I’d paid for my mistakes. That I deserved to have a home, a family.
He’d come back, I didn’t doubt it. He’d said he would, and Calder followed the letter of his own law. But he’d only be coming back to break the bond and leave again.
I had to be ready to bear that, when it came. That meant distraction, and detachment, and getting drunk and laid by someone else.
“I’ll come with you,” Ian said at last. “We can take my car. Like old times, yeah? Blast some Metallica on the way. My sound system’s awesome, I upgraded it last year.”
“Which of your internal organs did you have to sell to afford it? Are we both missing a spleen now?” The comeback felt a little mechanical, but Ian laughed and flipped me off, so maybe he didn’t hear the echo of how hollow I felt.
“Fuck you. I hustled some pool in a bar in Lancaster, actually. Ended up having to beat the shit out of the pansy-ass vampire who lost the money, and his two dickwad friends. So maybe we shouldn’t go back to that bar,” he added.
I didn’t want him to go toanybar with me, that was the fucking point! Ian wouldn’t let me get wasted and wander off with some chick, because he was all mated and monogamous and boring now, and he’d try to impose the same standards on me. Never mind that my mating couldn’t have been more different from his.
“I’d rather just go al—”
“Come on, hop in,” Ian said, totally ignoring me. He tossed his keys up in the air and caught them. “We can go to Laceyville. It’ll be fun. That dive at the corner of Main and Walnut got a new jukebox. It’s not all country anymore. And they have Bear’s Head on tap now too.”
I gave in to the inevitable and opened the passenger side door of Ian’s Barracuda. He’d get distracted by arguing with some asshole about his jukebox picks, and I’d be able to down some shots and at least sneak off to that dark alcove down the hall from the bathrooms and make out with one of the girls who always hung around the bar looking to hook up.
And screeching around the corner onto the highway with the windows rolled down and the music blaring, Ian’s driving as out of control as always, did feel pretty fucking good. My hair blew back and tangled around my face and the bass riff vibrated through my bones. I shouted along with lyrics I hadn’t heard in years but still remembered word for word.
I turned my head and grinned at Ian, the expression almost feeling genuine, and found him grinning back.
Shit, it was good to be alive.
And Calder would be out of my system in no time.
Two hours later, I was drunk enough to almost convince myself of it. A short, curvy redhead drinking with a couple of friends over by the dartboard had been eyeing me for a while. She’d do. She’d be great. I loved petite lovers, smaller than me. Large breasts. Slender arms, with small, soft hands that couldn’t break me in half if they wanted, but instead would stroke along my inner thighs and cup my tits and…fuck. I grabbed the next shot off the bar, already poured and waiting for me, and knocked it back.
Ian’s voice boomed over the cacophony of the rowdy bar, saying something insulting about Aerosmith. I glanced in the direction of the jukebox. The guy next to him started waving his hands around, getting in Ian’s face.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to end well. I thought about going over there and trying to defuse the situation, chat the guy up until I found a band he and Ian could agree on, get everyone to get along. Like I always used to when we were out for the night.
And then if it didn’t work, I’d back Ian up in the inevitable fight. I’d always done that too.
I flexed my fingers, keenly mourning the lack of my claws. Although that guy looked human, and what scent I could isolate from the many people around us smelled human, too, with no trace of magic. Claws would be so redundant, especially since…Ian. He made most other combatants, and their various natural or carried weapons, redundant on his own.
