Shifter Mountain: A BBW Paranormal Romance (9 page)

Secretly, Jordan was amazed to see her laugh so openly for the first time since he met her.  If it took him looking like a total fool to get her to laugh like that, then so be it.

Bob stepped in.

"It's a fantasy, Kay," Bob corrected her. "Although, she's right.  You were overdoing it a bit
, Jordan.  Although...hey, whose camera was directly on Kay?"

The crew was rolling three cameras.  One on Kay, one on Jordan, and then one on them both.

Bob went over to replay the footage of Kay alone.

"You know, this isn't half bad," he called over to Jordan. "When she's alone, you can't tell she's laughing at
you
.  She just looks really happy. It's a sad song mostly, but there has to be some moments of levity. We can use it probably."

Bob walked back over.

"Okay, enough of Jordan singing.  Let's just get some interactive shots.  And we'll guide them slow.  Jordan, remember the script."

"What do we do now?"
she asked.

"Well first," Jordan said with a slight smile
, "I'm going to take you in my arms like this."

He slowly wrapped his arms around her waist, but he didn't pull her in too tightly.  Kay caught her breath at his touch, and she stiffened up a bit, without meaning too.

"Relax.  We'll just stand here for a second while they film it."

The three cameramen rolled their footage, then one of them gave Jordan a nod.

"And then, I'm going to turn you around like this," he said.  Jordan guided Kay until he was essentially spooning her from a standing position.  The cameramen were all moving now, changing their angle.

Jordan rang a finger down Kay's right arm, and then back up, sending a feverish shiver down her spine.  Then he turned her back around, nearly nuzzling her neck.  He grazed her forehead with his lips, now making her really nervous.

Jordan could feel the effect he was having on her.  Having established that her husband was a no good bastard, he did not feel one bit guilty about moving in on her like this.

"It's just acting," Jordan lied to her, in an effort to get her to relax.

"Right, right," she said hoarsely.

"Now, I want you to put you arm around my neck."

"Ah, okay."

Bob interjected.

"This is looking really good folks, keep it up."

"Should I kiss her, Bob?"

Kay totally froze when she heard that.

"Yeah, a few times.  Give her a soft quickie, then one that lasts a little longer.  You can nibble her neck a bit, but since this is rated PG-13, no obvious tongue please."

"Oh my God did he really say that?!" Kay blurted out.  "No tongue!"

"Why, did you want some tongue?!"

"Don't you talk to me like that, I'm nervous enough."

"Don't be nervous, when I kiss you, it won't hurt a bit."

In addition to the entire production crew, Kay and Jordan's feathered observers were still stationed high up in the spruce tree, also keeping an intent watch on their romantic theatrics.

The three Mandrell brothers bounced and swayed slightly on their respective branches, as they waved in a high breeze.

Daryl's hawk eyes were sharp, and they fixated on the female he saw below, making him a little curious.

"Why
the hell do they have a chubby in a music video?" he cawed to his brother. 

"Huh?" Cephas responded.

"The girl — she's a little large for a video vamp."

Cephas hadn't really noticed.  He was too busy leering at Lawless.

That's when he turned his attention to the woman.  A hot anger started to singe his mind, all the way through his feathers.

"Goddamn
— that's Kay.  He's got my wife down there and he's all over her!"

Below them, Kay was about to be kissed properly by an adoring man for the first time in her life. 
The fact that she had an audience heightened the experience for sure, but within seconds, she forgot the whole world.  In her mind, there was only Jordan.

When his lips first caressed hers, she wasn't sure how to respond, so she just stood still.  She felt his breath slightly, and then she relaxed.  He pulled her close into him, and she started to respond by parting her lips.

"No tongue, remember," Jordan teased her with a whisper.

Suddenly, a dark and heavy weight rained down upon them.  Cephas had descended upon the twosome in his hawk-form like they were mice and prey.  His talons clawed at Kay's hair, and then he snapped at Jordan with his beak.

"Cut! Cut!" Bob shouted. "What the hell!  Get that rabid bird off them!"

Two crew members came at Cephas and sho
oed him away.

"Are you okay?!" Jordan asked Kay in a panic.  "Are you hurt?"

Kay ran her fingers through her hair, checking her scalp for blood.

"No — I think I'm okay."

"That had to be your husband," Jordan said in a low tone, so no one else would hear.

"Yeah, it had to be."

Cephas had disappeared at this point.  He flew back up toward his brothers.

"What the hell did you do that for — in front of everyone?!" Daryl yelled at him.  "You should have waited until he was alone!"

"Yeah, well, you try watching some other man kissing your woman right in front of you."

"We need to get out of here," Johnny said.

The three brothers flew off, careening high above the spruces, descending lower and lower until they reached the creek where Daryl had first followed Jordan in the form of a Hellbender.  Once they alighted on solid ground, they shifted back into human form and headed home.

Chapter 10

Kay had removed all her makeup, washed her face, and changed out of her dress. She would wait until morning to take a shower, because she wanted to enjoy the rest of the evening without the obvious presence of the bruises that her husband had mottled her body with over the past months.

She had felt something rise up in her that day that she didn't know quite what to do with.  She had felt desirable.  And she had felt desire. 

The object of her desire was within walking distance, back at the other cabin.  She had an almost
irresistible compulsion to go to him, but it would be a very bad idea.  The shoot today had been really a fantasy.  Pure fiction.  Although at times she felt that Jordan Lawless really was attracted to her, she didn't think he would feel the same way when he got back home to Nashville.

She paced around her living room.  She had a shot of moonshine.  She even walked out the front door and stood on the porch, staring up at the moon, daring herself to take a chance.  Then she walked back inside and tried to go to sleep.

But she lay wide-eyed in her bed.  Sleep would not come.  If she dared to go to Jordan, she'd have to walk past the film crew camped outside the other cabin.  They would think she was a loser.  They would immediately know that she was throwing herself at a celebrity, like a pathetic, needy fool.

She was obsessing now.  Replaying the kiss in her mind.  Reimaging his hands on her body.  She could lie
there alone in her bed and sweat it out, tossing and turning, or she could dare to go and get what she wanted.

Then a thought occurred.  She could go check her stills!  She always worked the stills at night!  Hell, that's why they call it moonshine.

She could go check her two stills out behind the other cabin.  No one would question her about that.  How she would approach Jordan once she was done with the stills, she didn't know.  But now that she had a reason to walk on over there, she felt less foolish. 

Even if it was total pretense!

Kay got dressed and walked through the dark with a flashlight.

The stills were actually empty now, and it was time for a new batch.  The
general store and other buyers would expect to replenish their supplies pretty soon. She had cleaned the stills already, but they had been sitting there for a couple of weeks, so there was no reason she couldn't clean them again.

The camp outside the cabin was more active than she expected.  It had been a long day, and they were doing more shots of Jordan tomorrow so they had to get up early.  Kay had the feeling that these folks were pretty hard partiers, though.

The production company had hired a four-star chef to take a week off to come fire up Kay's father's old barbecue grill. The smoky smell of ribs and roasted veggies wafted around outside the cabin, even this late at night.

She tried to tiptoe past everyone, and thankfully, no one seemed to question her presence. 
A poker game was going on by a campfire, and she swore she heard some uncensored moaning coming from one of the tents.

Around back, she found the st
ills, and from that angle she could actually see into the living room of the cabin.  A light was on, but she didn't see Jordan anywhere.  She also didn't see anyone else, even though there were three bedrooms in the cabin.  No one seemed to be moving around in there.
Maybe Jordan had already gone to sleep
, she thought.

She had no idea what to do, so she picked up a wrench and started banging on the side of one of the stills.  It was totally dumb, but it
succeeded.

"What the hell!  Who's back there!  Bob?!"

Jordan emerged from the back door wearing jeans, but no shirt.  Kay had gotten his attention, that's for sure, but she hadn't expected him to be only half-dressed.

When Jordan realized it was Kay, he gave her a sleepy smile.

"Uh — hey," she said.

"What are you doing?"

"I gotta clean the stills.  I've got to get a fresh batch going after you folks head out."

"Ah," Jordan said.  He leaned up against the door jam, crossing his arms.  The affect caused his biceps to bulge a little more than usual, and Kay was half-tempted to just come clean and confess why she was there.

"I've been thinking about your 'shine, actually," Jordan said.

"You have?"

"Ah-yep.  How would you feel about going legit?  I mean, getting licensed."

"Can't afford that really.  Looked into it once."

"Sure you can afford it!  With the right financial backer.  That would be me."

"You want to be my financial backer?  I don't know what to say."

"
Sugar Fire
is some mighty fine white whiskey," he said. "And if you go the legal route, you could also take that recipe, alter it to meet official and traditional specs, and probably come up with a pretty competitive bourbon. Age it in some charred oak barrels."

"You
're a bourbon man, Jordan Lawless?"

"I am indeed," he said. Then he got a serious look on his face. "If you were unattached, you're the kind of woman I might want to take on the Bourbon Trail.
We'd road trip up all the way through Kentucky.  A lot of distillers along that trail."

"If I were unattached...That does sound like a lot of fun," Kay admitted.

"We'd have to take our time, since we get to taste-test bourbon everywhere.  I've never driven drunk and I don't intend to start. But
I could use a little vacation after all this, and something tells me you could use a vacation yourself."

Kay's eyes dampened.  Suddenly, Jordan moved in on her fast, caught her up in his arms and kissed her deeply until she thought she would faint. She let her arms go around his neck, and his strong hands held her as her lips parted and gave way to an even deeper kiss.

Jordan tasted Kay, tasted the
Sugar Fire
still on her tongue, and could not suppress a soft moan. His hand slid up around her waist and over her breast.  His mouth then travelled down her neck, heading for the softness of her upper cleavage.

"I'm yours if you want me," Kay said.

Jordan stopped and tried to regain his composure.  All he wanted to do was haul her off into the cabin and show her how a good man made love to a woman.

"This may not be a good idea right now," he said. "You told me you just recently had a miscarriage. 
Have you been checked out by a doctor?"

Kay shook her head no.

"There's something I have to tell you," Kay whispered.  "The fact is, Cephas beat me in order to make me lose the baby."

Jordan reeled back in horror. 
He knew there were bastards who beat their wives, and there were bastards who beat their kids, but this was a whole new angle on sadist.  That a man would deliberately beat a pregnant woman.  And not in a blind rage, but in a premeditated, calculated attack designed to kill the life inside her.

He did not want to scare Kay by exploding in anger over what she had just told him.  So he kept his calm.

"When we're done filming here, Kay, I want you to come home with me to Nashville."

Kay blinked in disbelief.

"You do?"

"I'm schedule
d to play at Grand Ole Opry this weekend.  Have you ever seen it?  You'll love it.  And with me, you get the VIP treatment."

Kay shook her head.

"He won't let me go.  We can have tonight — it doesn't matter what happened to me — you don't have to be careful.  I want to be with you, but he won't ever let me off this mountain.

"And when you're in Nashville," Jordan said, ignoring her protests, "you will file for divorce."

"Wh-what?!"

"I need to know more about the people on this mountain.  The skinwalkers.  My own family.  But we will come back for that.  Right now, I want you away from Scopes Mountain.  And don't worry about Cephas.  I don't know how I know this, but as long as I'm on this mountain, he and his brothers have to do what I say."

"Do what you say?"

"I don't know why — but
I've seen that have to obey me when I command them.  They don't have to like it.  But they backed down the other night.  And I think one of them was following me even before that night, and that creature backed down as well.  A Hellbender."

Kay shook her head.

"That would be Cephas' brother Daryl.  You saw him at the general store. He's the only skinwalker I know who would deliberately turn himself into a salamander."

Jordan kissed Kay again.

"When things are settled, and when you are truly feeling better," Jordan told her, "I'm going to love you until you can barely stand on your two feet again.  And it won't be because I've hurt you."

Kay felt her face flush hot. 

"Do you want to stay here with me?" Jordan asked her.  "We'll just sleep.  But it would be nice to wake up with you next to me."

"Yes," she said. "And I'll go with you back to Nashville and file for divorce like you want."

"Isn't it what you want, too?"

"Yes," she said.

They stared at each other for a moment.

"How is it possible that you came into my life just yesterday, and in just a day or two you have completely changed my whole world?" she asked him.

"I certainly wasn't planning on it," Jordan said. "But your world needed changing, and I'm glad that fate or whatever, or
whoever
, sent me to do what needs to be done."

He took her inside
.  Kay borrowed one of his T-shirts in lieu of pajamas, at first feeling embarrassed that was all she would wear to bed.  So she hopped under the covers quick and then it didn't take long at all for Kay to doze off soundly in his arms. When she woke up the next morning still in his arms, she realized that had been the first night in her life that she could remember ever really getting a truly good night's sleep.

Jordan had held back the night before, but Kay was
irresistible in the morning light.

"I've been thinking about it," he said, "and I still think we need to be careful.  But there's more than one way to make love to someone, and if you will let me, I'd like to show you how good it can really be."

Kay looked at him sleepily.  She gave him a slight smile.

"What I've been hoping is that you'd make me completely forget my husband
altogether, one way or another," she said.

Jordan couldn't have hoped for a clearer
invitation.

Jordan began by taking his time caressing every inch of her skin that he could reach that technically wasn't officially an erotic zone.  Technically, as far he was concerned, every inch of Kay was an erotic zone, but he felt it was important to keep his hand in safer places, like her shoulders and back, her arms and maybe her calves.  He wanted to be sure that with whatever he did, he paced things so that she always wanted more, not less, of what he was doing.

He kissed her forehead and her cheeks, and her shoulder. When he heard her first sigh, then he kissed her on the lips.

As he kissed her more deeply, Kay felt her back arch slightly, and involuntarily.  This Jordan took to be a very good sign that she was comfortable with him, and not feeling resistant.

He ran his tongue along her clavicle, and then dipped lower, finally venturing into a riskier zone.  His tongue traveled down her right breast, easily exposed through the neck of the T-shirt she wore and traced damp circles around her nipple.  Kay trembled at this, and he took a momentary break.

"Everything okay?" he asked softly.

"Yes," she whispered. "Everything is fine.  I don't want you to stop."

At that, he pulled off the T-shirt she was wearing altogether.

Some of the body makeup Gina had used to cover up Kay's older bruises had worn off, and Jordan had caught a glimpse of the marks the animal that was her husband had made.  He wisely said nothing about it, but being unsure at how physically painful these areas might still be, he resisted gripping her anywhere. 

Going slow was proving to be a bit more difficult than he
had expected.  His own need was getting impatient.  But the results would be worth it, if he could supplant Cephas in Kay's mind as her first and only man. 

Kay had never used the word herself, but Jordan was pretty damn sure that a good part of their marital union had involved rape.  He had no degree in psychology, but he had some idea of the trauma that inflicted on a woman, given the little bit that his mother finally had told him when he got older, about what had happened to her with his father.

His mother had never been able to give herself to another man after her father, and she died a lonely woman.  This was a tragedy. He did not want Kay to suffer the same fate, to be a victim twice over in this regard.   Kay would not live her life alone and be unavoidably overly self-protective, having separated from Cephas.  She would have him by her side from now on, if she wanted him.

And the language that her body was speaking to him now indicated that, thankfully, she wanted him very much.  She had begun to kiss him back with equal intensity, and her skin had become moist from the waves of their body heat.