Page 87 of Fighting Furry

He bent his head and kissed me. God, I'd missed his taste, the feel of his lips against mine. In seconds, the kiss went from tender to smoking hot and I had both legs around his waist and my hands in his hair. When someone tapped me on the shoulder, I pulled away from Axel, good and ready to be annoyed, but it was Clarissa and I was happy to see her, too. Happy she was still alive.

I hopped off Axel and hugged her. “I'm glad you didn't get yourself killed,” I said. “But you're almost as bad as Axel, running off and trying to be the hero.”

She grinned. “You're the hero today, Julie. Thank you for saving our pack.”

I looked around. The pack was already dancing and someone was laying food out on the tables the council was hurriedly vacating. “I'm pretty sure I just saved Axel,” I said. “The vampires probably still want our pack and the council still probably wants to give it to them.”

“Kind of hard for them to enslave us to vamps when we're being filmed all the time,” she said, gesturing to the cameras.

“Cut,” Sarah shouted. She trotted over to us. “Don't mention the cameras, okay. Just go about life like we aren't here at all.”

Clarissa's eyes widened and then she laughed. “You and Axel are going to have so much fun with this.”

I shrugged. “It was the price for saving his ass.”

She walked away, still laughing and I turned back to Axel. “Let's dance.”

“Let's go home and fuck,” he said. “We are under house arrest, remember?”

I glanced at the camera. “Let's dance for a little while, I want to see everyone. Then maybe we can go zip lining.”

He raised his brows and I slanted my eyes at the camera crew. I thought it might be a good way to lose them and get some alone time to ourselves.

Axel grinned, kissed me, and led me to the dance floor.

***

We weren't dancing long before someone grabbed Axel and pulled him away. He grasped my hand and pulled me with him. We were led over to a quiet corner by Clarissa. Some of the folks from the town senate and some people I recognized from town were waiting for us.

“We don't want the camera crew in our town,” Paulie said. Sarah and her crew were of course right behind me, filming the whole thing.

“That camera crew saved my life,” Axel said. “And the longer they're here, the less likely it is that the vamps will show up and try to take over the pack.”

“Vamps?” another one of the group asked. “What do they have to do with anything?”

“They want our pack as their personal blood bank,” Axel said. “It makes sense, since I never thought Alpha was smart enough to come after us the way he did.”

I looked at Axel, eyebrows high, curious as to why he didn't tell them about the council's role in this. He kept his focus on the group, but squeezed my hand. The group got quiet after Axel's announcement and no one suggested that the council might help us out, so I figured they already had their own negative opinions of the council.

“I think it could be good for business,” one of the men said. He looked into Sarah's camera and smiled. He was a good-looking guy, young, and his smile was clearly flirty. “I run the hardware store and I carry just about everything you'd ever need for your home improvement projects. I also offer classes, I can teach you anything from how to caulk a hole to how to lay some pipe.” He winked at the camera and I went from thinking even a reality show wouldn't bring a hardware store more business, to thinking he'd be over-run. He was not hard on the eyes. Not. At. All.

Axel dropped my hand and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me tight against him like he knew what I was thinking. “I understand your concerns,” he said to the group. “We should meet to discuss them tomorrow. Tonight, let's have some fun, celebrate. Remember there are cameras rolling, so try to keep the idiocy to a minimum.”

Everyone nodded seriously, not a one of them taking offense to Axel suggesting they might get up to something idiotic. My heart warmed. These were my people. This was where I belonged.

Axel nodded and pulled me back to the dance floor. He put a hand on my lower back and pressed me tight against him, swaying and grinding to the music. It took all of ten seconds of that before I was ready to get the hell out of there. He nuzzled my neck and nipped my ear. “Think we can lose the camera crew more quickly?”

I looked to the flashing lights overhead and considered our options. “Think Esther is around?”

He grinned and pulled me from the dance floor again. We searched the crowd and finally found Esther just outside the barn, trying to talk someone into waterfall diving. It was a middle-aged man, who appeared to be honestly considering her suggestion.

“Hey, Esther,” I said. “You going to do that thing tonight where you climb to the top of a waterfall and dive off?” I spoke extra loud and slowly to be sure our camera crew didn't miss it.

“I sure am, honey,” she said. “You want to dive with me, tonight?”

I yawned and stretched. “I'm exhausted. I think I'm going to go home and go to bed. It'll be terribly boring, nowhere near as exciting as waterfall diving.”

Behind me, Axel chuckled and the sound sent shivers over my whole body.

---