Zero fox given, p.11
Zero Fox Given, page 11
One of the picnic tables used for barbecuing. Zelda helped to lift her hips off the edge so Victor could push her onto the table itself. Their mouths briefly separated, and then came back together again only when Zelda grabbed Victor by his ears and yanked him forward.
He had such nice human ears. She loved the feel of them, the shell shape and their softness. They might have been the only soft thing on him because he kissed her like an alpha in heat.
Had he been a shifter instead of a subhuman, he very likely would have been an alpha.
Her alpha.
She opened her thighs for him, welcoming Victor between her legs just as she welcomed his tongue back between her lips. Her breasts felt tight. Zelda blindly reached out for one of Victor’s hands, which were back on her waist, bringing one up to cup her breast beneath her shirt.
“You drive me crazy.”
Victor’s words were hot and heavy against her mouth. She felt the thrum of his body as he began to pull at the waist of her black yoga pants.
She lifted her hips just enough so Victor had an easier time of getting the elastic waist around the curve of her ass. Her tail thumped against the table now. The wood was rough and cold.
But Victor was so very warm, and as he pulled her black pants down her legs—being gentlemanly enough to not toss them on the grass, he put them next to her on the table instead—Zelda’s body shivered.
She trembled as though filled with too much energy, as though her body was at capacity for how much anticipation and excitement she could handle.
Her sex felt swollen and wet. Zelda’s thighs clenched eagerly as Victor worked the belt of his jeans, his fingers pulling down his zipper, the metal teeth spreading open for him.
“God, finally.”
He looked at her, his eyes flashing with something she didn’t entirely understand. More guilt for what he was doing?
No. Zelda couldn’t have that. She kissed him again, licking teasingly at the crease of his lips, desperate to distract him.
She didn’t want him to have any second thoughts about this.
Which was also why she angled her hips, curled her legs around his thighs, and pulled him closer.
The sudden move had an unexpected impact on her as well. Zelda moaned softly as she felt the heat of Victor’s cock against her bare sex. Nothing separated them now.
All he had to do was push inside.
He moaned against her lips. Already he thrust his hips, his shaft sliding against her sex.
Zelda shuddered against the rush of pleasure. Her mouth left his, but it was as though her body reacted against her will now. She had no control.
A sigh escaped her throat as she dug her nails into the back of Victor’s neck and in his hair. “Oh my God.”
Victor said nothing. He continued to move his hips, as though he was also under the same spell. If he was still fighting with how wrong he felt it was for him to do this, he wasn’t giving any indication of it. Or he was possibly too far gone for any of his previous excuses to matter.
Zelda was more than happy with that. She’d take whatever she could get at this point.
Victor didn’t spend long teasing her. He thrust against the lips of her sex as though he only wanted to feel how wet she already was. Or slick his cock. Either way, when he reached down, taking his shaft in hand by the base, Zelda knew what to expect.
He lined up with her opening, pushing forward and sheathing himself inside her at the slightest give.
A single, hard, well-placed thrust, and Zelda felt her body come alive in ways she’d never thought possible.
She shouted, her thighs squeezing tightly around Victor’s waist as he thrust into her again and again. She couldn’t seem to hold on properly because already she was coming. Zelda was coming, and the consistent motion of Victor’s hips pushed her climax even higher.
Until she collapsed against his body, hardly able to breathe, hardly able to think about anything other than the pleasant aftershocks, and how nice if felt to feel his thick cock still filling her.
Victor groaned low in his throat. He fucked into her wildly, as though he’d lost all control and could think about nothing else but reaching the end.
Zelda blinked, feeling sated and even kind of sleepy, but she remembered her manners.
She let her hands slide around his shoulders and chest. She touched him everywhere she could reach, pushing her fingers up beneath his shirt and finding his nipples.
“Come inside me. I want to feel it.”
Another hard growl, another sound that made something within Zelda perk up.
She felt herself responding to him, to the motion of his body on top of her, the smell of him, the heat that radiated from him, and the way he moved inside her.
She almost couldn’t believe it, and it was enough to make her burst out in a short laugh.
Zelda’s pleasure was rising again. Already. After only having one of the best orgasms of her life about a minute ago. She felt her pleasure rising as naturally and easily as though she and Victor did this every day.
As though they were already well versed with each other’s bodies.
And it was good enough for her.
Zelda reached down, her hand sliding against the folds of her sex.
Victor’s eyes briefly widened when he realized what she was doing.
Touching herself while he was inside her. She couldn’t imagine that was the kinkiest thing he’d ever seen, but she had never been daring enough to do that with Harry.
Zelda grinned, clenching her thighs around his waist, trying to make her inner walls tighter for him.
Victor groaned, turning his face away from her, though the movement of his lower half never stopped. “Why. The hell. Do you. Have. To. Be. So. Damn. Perfect.”
He moaned again, grabbing her by the bottom of her shirt and yanking it up, shoving aside her lace bra and exposing one of her breasts before Zelda could say anything to him, could respond to his comment.
Her nipple was in his mouth before she knew it. He teased it with his lips and tongue, but also his teeth.
So hard, hot, and wild. Zelda panted and gasped for breath and before she knew it, that rising sensation was on her again.
“Oh fuck, you’ve got to be kidding,” she gasped.
Victor didn’t seem to notice she’d said a word. The sounds of his grunting became harder, the motion of his hips more violent and sudden. He was almost there. She could feel it, and the thought made her want his pleasure, made Zelda need Victor to come inside her so much that it felt as though she was waiting for Christmas.
“Please. Hurry. I need…I need it.”
Victor’s spine briefly tensed. He groaned, and his neck tightened as warmth filled her from inside out.
Which was about when she realized they not only didn’t use a condom, but she also hadn’t taken her birth control since getting home.
Shit.
Whatever. She’d deal with it later. Zelda had what she wanted; now all she needed was to reach that sweet release herself.
So close. She was so close, her sex still sensitive and he was still inside her. Even without moving, the pleasure was great and then…
Then she was there, throwing her head back and sighing, spasming. Zelda’s orgasm popped off as though by gunshot.
She blinked. Victor pulled himself off her, looking towards the source of that noise, which was not her.
“What—”
“Get dressed.” He pulled away from her, righting his pants, his eyes alert and watching the trees around him. “Right now.”
The sound of a popping gunshot hadn’t been in her head as a sign of her sudden orgasm. No. Of course not. She couldn’t just be that lucky.
Someone had actually fired a gun.
Chapter 16
“Come on.”
Zelda barely had her yoga pants over the round of her ass before Victor grabbed her wrist and started yanking her along. Through the trees and towards the sound of the gunfire.
Zelda could barely keep up with him. More than once his hard tugging nearly made her lose her balance, but also kept her on her feet.
She could hardly believe it. The fact that he was able to run that fast with her, faster than she could ever go, brought her inner fox to shame.
She wasn’t the fastest for a shifter, but she’d still thought she could be graceful when the time came for it.
Yeah, apparently not.
Just as fast as Victor started running with her, he came to a sudden halt. Zelda banged into his back and this time did fall onto her ass because he released her hand.
And she just happened to land on the sharpest pinecone in the damn woods. She swore the point of it got her right beneath her tail and just above her ass crack.
“Ow! Victor!”
He didn’t have to shush her. He motioned to her with his hand, as though asking her to wait, and though he wasn’t facing her, it was the look in his eyes that told her now was most definitely not the time to test him.
Zelda dug the pinecone out from beneath her tail, wincing as it scratched that sensitive spot, but it was the look on Victor’s face, the tightening of his jaw that did her in.
She almost forgot about the sounds of shouting, the sounds of tires squealing. The fact that her brother or uncle could be in trouble.
She pushed herself to her feet. Victor grabbed her just as she nearly stormed passed him.
“What are you doing? No, get back here.”
“What if Mike and Link are hurt?”
“They’ll be more hurt if they find out anything happened to you.”
She wasn’t talking about emotionally hurt and he damn well knew it.
His hand came up and covered her mouth before she could say a word.
“That was a gunshot. I don’t know if it was friendly fire or where it came from and I do not have my weapon on me. Do not go out into the open until we know what’s going on.”
It made sense. It really did.
The little nagging bitch inside her head that had popped up ever since she’d taken off from her previous life didn’t seem to care.
It was quite the struggle.
Zelda groaned, her body humming to get out there.
Victor wasn’t having any of it.
“No.”
All semblances of the man who had been between her legs, who had kissed her in the kitchen, and fucked like a wild animal, were entirely gone.
The moment was over, he wasn’t wrapped around her little finger anymore, and it was just the serious alpha warrior in front of her who wanted to keep her alive.
“Fuck.” Victor released her long enough to reach into his pocket. He grabbed his phone, his thumb moving with all the precision and skill of a teenager as he shot off a long text.
Zelda could barely make out what it was he’d written, but she’d taken in enough before he’d hit send to know he was messaging Steve.
He looked up and away from his phone multiple times, as though searching the surrounding area for threats.
The tension in his shoulders was starting to get to Zelda. She didn’t like it. Her tail whipped around behind her, and Zelda too started searching around for any signs of someone about to jump out of the bushes.
It wasn’t a good feeling. A little too close to how she’d felt in that alley behind the club, or when Victor had chased off the man who cut her breaks.
The fact that Victor continued to glance at and growl at his phone meant he wasn’t getting the reply he wanted. If any at all.
“Fuck. Come on. Come on.”
“Hey.”
Zelda screamed, jumping three feet in the air when a hand grabbed her shoulder.
Victor, still standing close by, dropped his phone, his fist swinging, and immediately he caught Link in the apple of his cheek before he was able to stop himself.
Zelda saw the entire thing in slow motion. The way Link’s feet went up before he came back down hard.
He might have landed on the same pine cone she did from the sound he let out when he landed.
“Fuck!”
“Link!”
Zelda went to kneeling down. She put her hands behind his back, but he was already pushing himself up, his hand cupping his cheek.
“What the fuck?”
“Sorry. Thought you were…someone else.”
Victor offered his hand. Zelda expected some macho fight, or for Link to growl at the offering and get up himself before going chest to chest with Victor.
He took the hand instead, still wincing from the pain in his face, and still glaring at Victor, but it didn’t go any farther than that.
“Stupid prick. Watch what you’re doing next time.”
Victor paid no mind to Link’s words before he went back to business. “What happened? We heard a gunshot.”
“I don’t know. Your boy went and ran off chasing someone down in his car.”
Zelda didn’t understand. “Wait, what?”
“Someone came onto pack territory who wasn’t supposed to be here?” Victor asked.
Link shrugged. “I don’t know. I just came out here to get my sister before something happened.”
Zelda looked to Victor, trying, and failing, to keep from wringing her hands together. “What are you going to do?”
She already knew the answer as Victor shoved her towards Link. “Take her home. Keep the doors locked. Don’t let anyone inside until I get back.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Zelda didn’t seem to get a say in any of this as she was passed around like a hot potato.
And Link, her asshole brother, kept a firm grip on Zelda’s arms as he nodded. “Right.”
Men on missions were either the best or the worst. With her brother and her idiot mate, Zelda was leaning towards it being the worst.
“No, wait a minute.” She struggled against her brother’s grip, trying to get answers from Victor, who rushed off towards his car. “Where are you going?”
“Leave him alone. He’s working.”
And not getting paid. The only reason why Zelda kept that little jab to herself was because she knew it wasn’t Link’s fault, and he would only feel guilty to hear such a thing.
Victor didn’t answer her and Link didn’t stop yanking her towards their house. At some point, she stopped fighting it and went along with him because, well, there was someone with a gun out there and she clearly wasn’t getting what she wanted.
Mike waited for them at the door. He looked relieved, but frowned at the sight of Link still rubbing at his face.
“What happened?”
“Fucker got me good,” Link groaned.
Mike shut the door after them, locking it. He pulled Zelda into his arms. She went, comforted by his heat and the kiss he pressed to the top of her head, but he wouldn’t stop looking at Link.
Link waved it off. “I’m fine. I just snuck up on him.”
Mike grunted, though his next question to Zelda had her blood turn icy.
“What took you so long out there anyway?”
Her brain scrambled. “Uh, he was showing me some self-defense moves. I thought you knew that?”
“I did know that, but you smell…”
Zelda couldn’t move. Everything inside her screamed to run away as Mike sniffed her, but her knees and feet were locked.
She knew he had his answer when he yanked his head back. “Oh.”
Link growled low in his throat, shaking his head.
“He’s my mate.” She was getting sick of defending this, regardless of what Victor had already told her about it.
Still, it was because of Victor’s words that she tried to hold onto her patience, to understand the men in her life a little more and be aware that they were coming from a good place.
Mike’s mouth pressed to a thin line, and that was enough. Zelda pulled herself away from his arms. “He’s my mate.”
“I believe you.”
Zelda blinked. “You do?” She growled in her brother’s direction. “He doesn’t.”
Link crossed his arms, made a tsking sound, and walked off.
“Ignore him. He’s just worried about you. What he doesn’t like, and what I don’t like either, is that this man is supposed to be protecting you. He’s not supposed to be distracted by anything when he does that.”
“That’s what Steve’s for.”
Mike’s jaw tightened. “Yes, well, I’m starting to feel a little less grateful about the fact that Victor stopped taking my money now that I know why.”
“What? Why? Would you fire him if you could?”
“Damned straight I would. Mate or no mate.”
And now that he couldn’t and Victor was still technically doing a job, it left him in a tight spot.
Mike went to all the curtains, closing them. Zelda followed after him, reminded of the bigger problems they had on their hands.
She went to help him. He closed the curtains and Zelda dimmed the lights.
“Don’t worry about that, sweetheart. I got it.”
But he and Link had always had it. There was never a time in Zelda’s life when she could remember not being taken care of by someone. Even her crazy parents, who took off on her and Link, dumping them onto Mike and promising to be right back had still shielded her from the realities of the world.
Before blasting her with a very real, very harsh one involving child abandonment.
“I’ll get the kitchen.” She marched off before Mike could stop her.
He sighed, following her.
She shut the kitchen curtains, which were little more than lace, so she figured the best idea would be to keep away from the glass for as long as possible until Victor or Steve sent her a message that everything was all right.
Mike turned out the lights. “All right, come out of there.”
“Where are we going?” She could hear her brother stomping around the house. Likely he was doing the same thing. Locking windows, shutting curtains and turning out the lights.
“We’re going into the basement, cuddling up with some blankets, and watching a few movies until this ends.”
In that case, they were going to need some snacks. Zelda quickly went to the pantry, grabbed the leftover potato chips.
Mike stared at her with that look he used to give her whenever he thought she was doing something stupid. “You risked your life for that?”
