Page 19 of Destined Prey
“What do you mean, what happened? I was taking a nap.”
Rhett’s boots came closer. The barrel of a rifle appeared as Rhett held the weapon down at his side. “Are you sick?” Rhett asked. “You left food out all over the kitchen. I thought…”
Jack huffed. “Yeah, I kind of feel like shit, actually. Think I might be coming down with a bug. You thought what?”
“I thought maybe that fucking ex of yours might have showed up or something.” Rhett’s voice held the sharp edge of anger. “I know. Stupid of me to worry about that. Just…things are going on here and I don’t understand ’em. It’s got me itchy between the shoulder blades, and I just feeloff. Like I’m missing a very important point. Think it’s making me paranoid.”
“Alex doesn’t know where the ranch is,” Jack said. “Maybe that feeling you’ve got is the same bug that has me feeling like crap.”
“Could be, I guess, but it doesn’t feel like a physical thing, exactly.” Rhett came closer still, then the bed dipped farther.
Ben was really glad he was under the other side of the bed. Otherwise, he’d have been in an even more uncomfortable situation.
“I just don’t know what’s going on, but as long as it’s you and me, little bro, we’ll muddle through it all.”
Ben suspected there was some kind of brotherly show of affection going on by the sounds of thumping and the obnoxious screech of the bedsprings.
“Don’t worry about dinner. I’ll get it going in the slow cooker, then I’m calling the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to see about getting some traps for those goddamned predatory animals.” Rhett got up, then he left the room.
Traps. Fuck! No, no, no. I have to warn Casey!The word sparked cold in his gut. Traps didn’t care who you were—shifter, animal, curious ranch dog. Pain, metal, blood. He swallowed hard, measuring breaths, counting heartbeats, waiting for any gap he could slip through without dragging danger to Jack’s door. Ben wondered how long he was going to have to wait to escape. At least until it was dark outside, because he’d almost certainly have to go out through the bedroom window, and the ranch hands might be out there until then. It was a long time until sunset. If he had any luck at all, he’d be able to slip out from under the bed when Jack left, and stretch his already-cramping muscles.
Jack bent over and began tugging off his left boot.
Ben looked at those long, lean fingers and his dick remembered just how much he wanted Jack.
That wasn’t going to help him out of his current situation any sooner. Ben clenched all over, trying to ignore the rampant need coursing through him. He fixed on the practical: floorboards, the scrape of a bootheel, the draft slipping under the window. Anything but the long fingers working at a lace, the slice of bare wrist revealed when Jack tugged. He really wanted to feel those fingers in him, though. He’d never bottomed for anyone, had never been asked to. The idea of having Jack open him up slowly, pushing one, two, then three fingers into him lit Ben up with somuch lust that he could have come just from stroking himself a few times.
The idea almost made him snicker. He could just imagine Jack peeking under the bed and finding a puddle of dried spunk. It was ludicrous and not something Ben would ever let happen, but he was able to perfectly see it happening.
“What the fuck?” Jack rasped, then the springs squeaked again, and Jack was looking at him upside down. “What—”
“Ssh.” Ben didn’t say anything else as Jack stared at him, hair askew, eyes wide, shock clear on his handsome features.
That chaotic racket kicked up in Ben’s head again, like someone was turning a radio dial that was linked directly to his brain, and all it was picking up was static and bits of words and phrases.
Jack slapped both hands down on the floor. “Ben?” He gulped.
Ben had no reasonable explanation at hand for him being there, and definitely not one for him being nude. There was no doubt about it—he was completely fucked. Still, the panic didn’t quite win. Jack had looked at him like a revelation in that alley. Maybe, just maybe, being caught wasn’t the end of this. Maybe it was the start.
Chapter Twelve
Jack rubbed his left eye, almost fell on his head and slapped his left hand down on the floor again. All the blood was rushing to his head, but he couldn’t shove himself upright. There was a gloriously nude, perfectly sculpted man under his bed—the very man who’d haunted Jack’s dreams and most of his waking hours for days now.
The problem was, Jack couldn’t seem to string together a coherent thought. There was a cacophony of gibberish trampling out everything else in his mind. There seemed to be some kind of mental tornado swirling around upstairs, an F5 that kept everything in disarray. It wasn’t just noise. Threads of feeling whipped through it—fear that wasn’t his, urgency like a hand on his back, pushing. The second it cut out, the silence was so clean it hurt, like stepping from wind into vacuum.
Then it stopped, and Jack snapped back to himself. He gasped, slid off the bed and hunched down to look at Ben from right-side up. “Ben?”
Ben blinked hard, scrunching his eyelids and eyebrows up as he did so. “Shh.” Ben sighed and looked at him. “Trust me. Please. I swear I’m not a psycho stalker.” Then he winced. The wince did more than the words. It knocked the edge off Jack’s panic—a human, helpless little tell in the middle of a nightmare he couldn’t name yet.
Jack should have run for the door. Should have, but he was remembering odd bits and pieces. “I passed out because I saw a coywolf, and it…”No, no that couldn’t be right,he assured himself. He hadn’t heard Ben answering in his head. Jack glared at Ben. “Why are you under my bed, why are you naked, and how did I get in here? Answer those three things in under a minute, or I’m going to scream the house down.” His palm was slick on his phone, thumb hovering over 9–1–1. He told himself to move, to run; his legs felt wired wrong, like any sudden motion would shatter whatever fragile thing was holding him together.
“I need more than a minute,” Ben whispered. “Please?”
“Please. Please let him listen to me. God, I can’t blow this, and the traps—they can’t put out the traps! My family could be killed!”
Those werenotJack’s thoughts. He skittered back, away from the bed. Cold slid under his skin, quick and mean. Hearing his own name in a voice that wasn’t in the room—and yet was—made the floor tilt under him. “I heard you. I heard you. How…?” He could barely make his voice work, he was so freaked out.
“Heard me what?” Ben asked, working his way to the side of the bed where Jack had just been sitting. “Say I needed more than a minute, please? Was that it?”
