ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (215 page)

He was mysterious, and that was part of the reason why she was attracted to him. It was like he had a magnetic field around him, and whenever she was with him it drew her.

“The season is turning,” Bruce said after a while. “It will be fall soon.”

Jenna nodded. “I feel it too. It smells different. The mountain air betrays so much.”

“It’s not just the air though,” Bruce said, and then he rolled his eyes up to glance at her even though his face was turned down still. It was almost like he’d said something he hadn’t meant to. But Jenna nodded again.

“I know,” she said softly. “It’s almost as if the air is loaded with the promise of change. And something else, but I don’t know what.”

Bruce frowned and looked at her, facing her full on now. She immediately felt like an idiot for saying that. In the years they’d been friends she’d never mentioned how she felt about the nature around them, how it felt like it could speak to her.

“What do you mean?” he asked and narrowed his eyes slightly at her.

She shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “It sounds dumb, doesn’t it?” She forced a laugh.

“Not dumb,” he said and his voice, his dark eyes, were intense. “Just different.”

“Different isn’t good, not around these parts,” Jenna said and stared into her half-empty cup.

“No, not around these parts it’s not. But it’s not bad. There are places were different fits in.”

Jenna glanced up at him. The atmosphere around them was loaded, and she struggled to breathe. Bruce suddenly smiled and the intensity evaporated like it had never been there to start off with.

“Listen to us, getting all deep and dramatic,” he said and laughed. Jenna laughed too, relieved that he hadn’t taken it seriously. That he hadn’t thought she was strange.

“I know. I think it’s the night air and the coffee. Coffee always reminds me of bonfires and tall tales.”

Bruce looked at her, urging her to keep talking.

“We were a lot more primitive when I was younger, if you would believe that’s possible. Williamsburg just doesn’t keep up with the times. When I was little, my dad used to make a big bonfire in the square, right in front of Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt’s Butchery. They used to be furious. But all the kids came and sat around the fire, and he used to tell us stories about animals that lived in the mountains that could change shape. They came out of their caves when the moon was full and sang a song to her – the full moon – until she accepted them and gave them their blood.”

Bruce’s face had changed while she told him the story, and afterward she chuckled.

“It sounds crazy, I know. My dad had an imagination on him, and living on the edge of the forest like we do didn’t help tame it. Now that he’s gone the stories have gone with him.”

Bruce’s face was haunted, his eyes were darker and they seemed sunken into his skull.

“I’m very sorry to ask, but how did your father die?” Bruce asked. That was one thing they’d never discussed. Jenna didn’t often speak of her father, it hurt to talk about it, and everyone already knew. Everyone except Bruce, who had come years after he’d gone.

“He was killed by wild animals up in the mountains. He was so used to the woods, and he could handle a gun. But it wasn’t enough.” Jenna’s eyes burned with tears but she swallowed them down. “Living this close to nature always has its risks.”

Bruce nodded, but that haunted look stayed with him. Thinking about her father was always bitter-sweet. Jenna had loved him, he’d been the light of their lives, the light of the town. Every childhood memory was colored with his presence. But his death had been too soon, and the town had mourned his death for months. It had been difficult to come to terms with, and her mother had never been the same.

She’d often been ill afterward.

“I have to get going,” Bruce said, glancing toward the window. The curtains were drawn so there was nothing to see, but he cocked his head like he was listening.

Jenna strained her ears but she couldn’t hear anything. These were the small things that made Bruce different. The look in his eyes when a squirrel ran across their path. The way he listened as if he heard things no one else could. The way he got so intense sometimes, and then it washed away like it had never been there.

“I’ll see you around,” Jenna said and she was aware how much she sounded like Drew had a bit earlier. They all had their obsessions, she thought. But unlike her stiff reaction to Drew when he’d said it, Bruce smiled at her and it warmed her entire body.

“Yes you will,” he said and it was a sure thing. Not sarcasm, not resentment. Just a fact. A fact that made her happy.

Chapter 3

“Have you thought about it?” Tara asked Bruce. They were alone on the plateau, and it felt like a small, cramped space. Not the wide open platform underneath the stars that it really was. There wasn’t space enough for the two of them with Tara’s roiling energy filling up the space and making it feel like there were a thousand other creatures crawling in the dark.

Bruce nodded. He sat next to Tara, and in human form she was small. Her thick black hair was pulled back from her face, revealing sharp, hard planes. Bruce wondered if it had to do with who she was, or if it was genetics.

“Well, that’s settled then. We’ll have to tell the Family.”

He took a deep breath and blew it out again, billowing his cheeks. Telling the Family the moment they’d decided it seemed rushed. Deciding to be together in the first place just seemed wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, all politics and smooth moves. But Tara turned to him and her eyes were the color of the sky.

“It’s going to do us good,” she said. All of them. Tara had asked Bruce to stay behind after the last meeting. When it had just been the two of them, she’d stepped right up to him so that they were chest-on-chest, and her power had danced along his skin like a hot air.

“I like you,” she’d said. “I’ve watched you, and you have power. A lot of it.” Of course it wasn’t even close to hers, but it was second in the pack. The rest were below him when it came to power. “I think we should unite our powers."

He’d blinked at her. He understood what it was that she was saying, but the way she’d said it had sounded like a business proposal.

“You mean a relationship?” he’d asked, and she’d nodded matter-of-factly. It wasn’t that he didn’t think she was attractive. She was beautiful. But it was in a way a tigress was beautiful. Or a python. Beautiful but deadly. You rather admired it from a distance.

“I’ll have to think about it,” he’d said, and he’d done that.

He’d gone to ask Jenna about it. Because she was the only person he cared about in every way, and he wanted to know that she would be okay with it if he tried to love someone else.

She’d been distant. Stand-offish even. And it had hurt, but it had pushed him over the edge. If she didn’t care that he was with someone else, Tara was a good bet. She was strong. She was powerful. She would give him power, more than he already had. And the Family would be better equipped to defend themselves against the Assassins if they ever found them.

“Don’t you think we should get to know each other?” he asked. She laughed, and for the first time he paid attention to it. She didn’t laugh very often. Her stern face was the one he was accustomed to. But when she laughed her features lit up, and the person she would have been if she was human, if the wereleopard didn’t rule her so much, showed. Her laugh danced around him, prickling along his skin, and he was reminded of her power.

No matter how beautiful she was, he would always be reminded of her position. She kept smiling, and her eyes were bright and alive. Her teeth were pointed and it was scary, but she was feminine.

Her face changed, and she leaned forward, her face inching closer to his. He didn’t move. He didn’t know if it was because he was scared to, or because he wanted this. It was strange territory for him. He hadn’t had long term relationships. His experience with women was dismal. And Tara was his alpha.

When her lips touched him, energy washed through him and his own power rose, answering her call. The air around them seemed to come alive, vibrating across his skin and passing through to her body. He knew she could feel it too. It was intoxicating. It sucked him into a vortex of power and magic, and when she finally broke the kiss he was panting.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, and it was one of the few times she was caught off guard. It could have been romantic. It could have been special. But Tara put her business face on again, and the heat that built between them drained away until it was just the normal, suffocating energy that hung around them.

“I would like to come down to the village with you,” she said. Her voice was soft but her eyes were alert and watching his face intently.

“Why?” he asked. In all the years he’d been in the Family, none of them had ever cared about the village. As long as no one there knew about them, they didn’t matter.

“If we’re going to be together I think it would be good to see these humans you’ve grown so fond of. Besides, I haven’t been down to the village in years.”

He shook his head, but he didn’t protest. Tara narrowed her eyes at him, and he knew that somehow this was a mistake. Being with her as a woman might have been fine, but as an alpha, as an animal, Bruce wasn’t the dominant. And he realized just a little too late that it was something important. Something he should have been aware of.

“You look weary,” she said.

“I just don’t see how the humans are of any consequence,” Bruce said. “I have a routine there. They don’t ask questions. I’m not new anymore. I’m scared bringing in a foreigner is going to kick up the dust again and make me a point of focus.”

“And so? It will be good that the most attractive bachelor in town is finally taken.”

Bruce wasn’t sure, but it sounded like possession creeping through. And with a sense of possession always came jealousy. This was a fact that counted for animals too. Mates, food, it all fell under the same idea. He sighed and agreed. If he could do it right Tara and Jenna would never meet.

Friday. That was when Tara wanted to come to Williamsburg. Bruce told her he would say she was from Rhodestown. She was happy with it. He had one day to prepare the village for her arrival and he had no idea how to do it. He realized that they were his people. They’d become a part of him during the past couple of years, and he didn’t want her to meet them.

He didn’t want his human life and his preternatural life to mix. Williamsburg and its inhabitants had become like family in a way, and it was like bringing the snotty new girlfriend to a family gathering. The fact that he thought about Tara as the ‘snotty’ new girlfriend already said a lot.

And how was he going to prepare them? The only person Bruce could really warn beforehand was Jenna. She deserved that much. He couldn’t stop her from meeting Tara. He’d thought about it, and he knew that it would be impossible. The town was too small, news traveled fast and Jenna would never be the only person not to know what was going on.

He walked to her cabin just after dawn. The air still held hints of the night, and the air was crisp. He had goosebumps on his skin, and at the same time he was sweating. He’d never been nervous to talk to Jenna. Being with her was always easygoing. Comfortable. She was the one person he could be himself around.

Well, almost.

But having said that, he also had never introduced a new girlfriend to Jenna. And somehow that seemed wrong. He didn’t want to do it. He lifted his hand and hesitated to knock. If she answered he would have to talk. And he would have to tell her. And everything they’d had before was going to disappear, and they were going to go into a new chapter where Jenna was just another woman in town.

The door suddenly opened, and he stood there with his fist in the air. Jenna nearly bumped into him and made a small yelping sound.

“Sorry,” Bruce said. “I was just about to knock.”

“You have great timing,” she said and her eyes smiled. He loved her eyes, green and powerful. And soft. All at the same time.

“Or not,” he said. “You nearly ran me over, there.” She laughed and her laugh was wholesome. Real. He couldn’t help but compare it to Tara’s laugh, and notice how different it was.

“Right, you’re a block of a man. Do you want to come in?”

Bruce nodded and stepped through the door. The moment he did he regretted it. He’d been in the cabin a hundred times before, but now it seemed small. Tiny. Like he was just too big to fit into it. He struggled to breathe, and forced himself to suck in a deep breath.

“What is it?” Jenna asked.

“Well, I wanted to talk to you. You know I was here the other night, talking about the woman I met?”

Jenna nodded and looked down at her hands.

“About that,” she said. “I—“

“I’m not finished,” Bruce said, cutting her off. He couldn’t have interruptions, not now. He needed to get it out as quickly as he could so it would be over.

“Please, Bruce,” she said, but he shook his head. He was determined to carry on with his sentence. Jenna let out a groan of frustration, and took a step forward. The sudden closeness took Bruce’s breath away. Before he could think, before he could do anything, Jenna put her hand on both sides of his face and kissed him.