Page 5 of Destined Prey
“Probably, I should have given you one of those safe-sex talks, but I’d seen the browsing history and—”
“Stop!” Jack yelped, his face hot with his embarrassment. “Oh my God!”
Rhett shrugged. “Wasn’t trying to make you feel bad, Jack, just telling you I knew years back. It made it easier for me to understand why you didn’t want to live in a place like this. Equality might be happening, but out here, well, I understand how hard it is, being different.”
Jack froze.Did Rhett just…did he…what?“What?” he managed to get out, though he didn’t know how. His tongue felt thick and he just knew he had to be misunderstanding.
But Rhett gave him a bashful smile and a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s not like we ever talk—talked—about this kind of thing.” His cheeks were splotched with pink. “Um. Sex, and I guess… I guess, sexuality. I didn’t ever see a need to. Did you?”
“You’re gay?” Jack finally asked.
Rhett nodded. “Not that it matters. I’m out here, by myself. This isn’t a hub of homosexuality.”
Jack giggled, and it sounded kind of hysterical. He thought he should be mad, maybe, that Rhett had never mentioned it before, but then again, neither had Jack.
“I wish I’d been able to tell Mom and Dad,” Rhett continued, finally letting go of Jack. “I wanted to. Was scared Dad would be done with me, and I wasn’t sure about Mom.”
Jack had thought about this many times. “Mom would have been okay with it. Maybe she’d have been upset at first, but only because she’d worry about us. Dad would have come around,too. Not as fast as Mom. She wouldn’t have let him be mean about it, though.”
Rhett seemed to consider that for a minute before he said, “Yeah, I think you’re right, but it haunts me sometimes, wondering. Regretting. Makes no sense that I kept it from you, then, but I did. You didn’t tell me, either.”
“Well,” Jack drawled, doing his best cowboy impression. “You coulda been wrong.”
Rhett laughed. “But I wasn’t.” Then he winced and touched the bump on his head. “Aw, hell. I need some ibuprofen and a shower, then maybe you can help me figure out what the fuck happened out there.”
Jack had a flashback to hands on him, hands that didn’t belong to Rhett and weren’t brotherly in the least, not with the way arousal tried to warm him up, down south of his belt. The memory jolted through him, unwanted and confusing. That voice outside—deep, rough, inhuman—had curled around him and left heat where there should have been only terror. Jack swallowed hard, shaking his head as if that could rid him of it.
“I can try, but I swear to God, I don’t think I have a clue.”
Chapter Four
Ben winced as Lacey cleaned the wound on his forearm.
“You’re lucky that’s as bad as it gets for you, considering the way you were so distracted by the pretty boy,” she said.
“He’s not a boy,” Ben growled. “Don’t make him sound like less than he is.”
“Oh? And what would that be?” Lacey spread antibiotic ointment on his arm. “Do tell.”
“You said it like he’s less than us,” he accused. “And he isn’t a boy. He’s a man.”
“You sure are touchy. Maybe you need a nap.” Lacey wrapped the wound in a light covering of gauze. “Don’t glare at me. I’ll poke you in the eye, brat.”
Ben tried to roll his eyes, but his chest was tight, his pulse still running hot. He’d been in plenty of fights, he’d been hurt worse than this, but he’d never walked away with his head this scrambled. One look at Jack and he’d forgotten the basics—teeth, claws, survival. He’d almost gotten Emil killed because his brain had been full of wide green eyes and shaking hands clutching a rifle.
She probably would, too. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Just…just don’t say anything else about him. I was only trying to keep him and that Rhett guy from getting killed anyway. That’s what Casey told me to do.”Crap!He was babbling, and everyone who knew him knewthatwas a tell—one letting on that he wasn’t exactly being honest.
“Ohreally?” Lacey drawled. “His name is Jack, by the way. Well, Jackson Tucker. He’s Rhett’s younger brother, visiting from New York.”
Ben pulled away from her. “How do you know that? You’re making shit up, aren’t you? Just to fuck with me?”
But when Lacey said his name, Jack Tucker, the syllables caught and held in Ben’s mind. Jack. It tasted right, too right, like something he shouldn’t know but couldn’t forget. His chest went warm, his stomach twisting with the kind of need that had nothing to do with hunger or blood. A human shouldn’t be able to do this to him, not with a single look.
Lacey cackled, her golden eyes twinkling at him. “As much fun as it is to torment you, no, I’m not. I know that info because Rhett came into the diner last week with Olivia. I overheard them talking about Jack coming home for a while.”
Ben swallowed down some of unaccountable nervousness he suddenly felt. “You know Rhett?”
Lacey waved one hand. “Nope. Never talked to him. I only know his name because several of the other waitresses drool over him and talk about all the dirty, dirty things they’d like to do to him.” She frowned. “No, that’s not right. What they wanthimto do tothem. Damn, it’s like a sexual revolution never occurred in this backwoods town. They’re all, let me lie on my back andget pounded.” She grinned wickedly. “If I swung that way, I’d ride that man—”
