Page 147 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

“You sure you know how to work that?” I asked for the third time since we parked.

Clay fiddled with the app on his phone that should allow us to hear inside of the phone booth. We were hoping it would allow us to hear both ends of the conversation, given our very heightened sense of hearing, but the guy who installed it said it was unlikely.

He jammed a few more buttons and got another error screen. I rolled my eyes and took the phone from him. “Let me see.”

He relinquished it with a frustrated sigh and leaned back in the passenger seat, glaring at me.

“If I can’t figure it out, then you—”

“Done,” I announced, passing the phone back to him with the correct screen within the app open. It showed that the device was recording, and we could even hear the wind and the slight rattle of the phone booth doors.

“How did you...never mind.”

“You’re welcome.”

I cozied up in my seat with the blanket I brought, peering out the windshield at what I could see of the starry night sky through the fingers of the tall pines reaching high above.

We found a side road to park on, tucking the Chevelle in a small drive that looked like it’d been months if not years since anyone had used it. It kept us hidden from any road traffic and boxed in with closely clustered pines and shrubbery.

I rolled the window down a little, letting a bit of cool night air in to try to clear the quickly fogging windows.

“Think she’ll go tonight?” I asked after a few minutes listening to the drone of the wind through the app on Clay’s phone.

His lips pressed together into a tight line to match the ones carved deep into his forehead. “Guess we’ll just have to wait to find out.”

If the last several nights were any indication, there was likely about a fifty-fifty chance she would show. She didn’t come every night from what we saw, but she also didn’t seem to miss more than a night or two at a time. She missed yesterday, so we hoped that meant she would be here tonight.

As much as I loved snuggling up in my Chevelle, with her leather seats hugged around my curves and her old car smell settling my nerves, this wasn’t exactly my idea of a chill time with my mate.

Getting a wicked idea, I licked my lips and slid my hand over the center console, walking my fingers over his muscled thigh toward the fly of his jeans.

He caught my hand before I could undo the button, cocking his head at me, a question in his stare.

“She usually doesn’t come until after midnight,” I whispered into the shadows between us, wanting to ease some of the tension from his soul, and maybe some of my own as well. It was only eleven. We had time.

For a moment, I thought he might reject me again, like he had with Jared earlier before we’d all fallen asleep in the afternoon, but…he released my hand, groaning appreciatively as I let it glide over his growing length through his jeans.

“We need to stay focused,” he breathed as his button popped and his fly slid down. He wasn’t fighting me though, so I knew I’d already won.

“Fine,” I said with a sly grin. “Then you keep an eye on that,” I nodded to the phone clenched tightly in his mammoth hand. “And I’ll keep my attention…elsewhere.”

“Baby,” he groaned, but his words cut short on a growl as I freed his cock from his jeans and stroked its length.

I hushed him as I leaned over, positioning myself to take him into my mouth. His hand on the phone loosened, falling, and I tsked him, nudging it back up into his view. “Focus,” I teased.

His head fell back as I closed my lips over his tip, suckling lightly in that spot I knew drove him wild before taking him all the way in.

“Fuck,” he hissed, and his free hand came to rest on the back of my head, fingers twisting into my hair. He pushed up into my mouth, hips bucking as he found the back of my throat and shuddered.

He was too big to take all the way in so I slid my hand around his base, stroking up and down slowly at first, but picking up speed as I bobbed my head in time with the thrusts of his hips as he fucked my mouth.

His pleasure was my own as his ecstasy passed through the mate bond, making my core tighten as his did. I moaned against his cock, jerking when his hand slid out from my hair to reach beneath my crouched form, finding the waistband of my joggers and slipping beneath.

His fingers flicked aside my panties, finding me already slick as he rubbed the rough pads of his fingers over my clit, making my body come alive with sensation.

“That’s it, baby,” he whispered, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves quicker. His expert touch driving to the edge of my own release just as surely as our shared pleasure through the bond.

He thrust into my mouth harder, and I worked to pump the base of his cock with wild abandon until I felt him harden to bursting under my tongue.

“Allie,” he moaned as he found his release, and I came with him, crying out against the girth of his cock as I came hard on his fingers. His warmth slid down my throat, and he jerked beneath me.

I licked his crown wickedly, drawing another shuddering groan from his lips as I came up for air. Before I could pull away, his fist found the front of my t-shirt and he yanked me up to his mouth, crushing his lips against mine.

I breathed in sharply in surprise, letting the brutal press of his lips unwind me.

“Damn,” he muttered as our lips came apart and he pressed his forehead to mine. “That was…”

“Hot as fuck?” I supplied, and he smirked as I settled back in my seat and patted the Chevelle’s dash. “I figured it was about time we popped her cherry,” I joked.

Clay’s eyes narrowed on me. The glow of his inner wolf receding as his heartbeat returned to a more normal rhythm. “You mean you never...not even with Jared?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

He chuckled softly, giving a one shoulder shrug that told me he was more than a little pleased with himself and trying to play it cool. “At least I got a first something,” he joked, but I sensed something more serious lingering beneath the surface level sentiment.

Jared had been the first one I slept with.

But, thinking back, I realized there was another first Clay and I had shared. “You were the first one to…” I let him put the pieces together, glancing down at my still throbbing core and biting my lower lip.

The first time Clay and I had done it, he’d been so insistent on making me come first. He didn’t say as much, but I got the feeling it was because he was worried he wouldn’t last more than a hot minute once he got inside me.

Turned out he did just fine. First with his tongue and then with his cock. He’d gotten me twice that night.

I flushed at the memory. At how awkward we both were at first until we just gave in to our baser instincts and let our bodies do the talking. Then it was as easy as breathing. Just like it had been with Jared.

A clattering noise in the car made me jerk my attention back to the phone.

“Is it…?” I said in a breath, afraid to speak too loudly for fear Sam could somehow hear me from her end of the bug, which I gathered was absolutely ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it. Fuck, I’d make a terrible spy.

Clay hushed me and lifted the phone between us like it might spontaneously combust in his hands.

Please be her, I thought. But also…

I hope it isn’t her.

We listened as metal gears groaned with the closing of the payphone door and a receiver was lifted. A rustling sound and the clatter of coins shoved into the metal slot blocked out all other sound except for the chirp of numbers being pressed on the dial pad.

“Breathe,” I reminded Clay in a quiet whisper, noticing how his face was going a very vivid shade of crimson. He took a breath and some of his regular tan pallor returned.

I gestured to the phone, offering to take it, but even though his hands were shaking, he shook his head.

“It’s me.” A voice that was unmistakably Sam’s filled the cab of the Chevelle, shoving out any last hope that it might’ve been someone else and ushering in the reality that she was definitely doing something she wasn’t supposed to. Now we just needed to figure out what the fuck that was.

Clay and I shared a look as someone on the other end of the call spoke. It was way too quiet for us to hear much more than the garbled drone of a male voice on the other end.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Sam said, her voice low and shaky, making me all the more confused.

“I wasn’t able to get away or else I would—” A pause.

“I know. There’s no excuse. I’m sorry.” Another pause, this one longer.

I nudged Clay. “Can you hear anything from the other end?”

He shook his head once, sharply.

Fuck.

“Well, they have a new meat order coming in. They’re picking it up on Friday, and I think I heard Seth say Jared was going to be the one to collect it.”

Fucking little bitch.

“I don’t know. I doubt they’ll take the backroads again after what happened. They’ll probably take the main highway and go around through Forest Grove and hike in.”

“I’m going to kill her…” Clay said in a violent whisper so low that it shook deep in my belly and sent shivers racing up my spine. A vein throbbed in his temple and he was beginning to bend the metal case around his phone.

I peeled his fingers back and took it from him, feeling sick as we continued to listen to the conversation. Praying that she would say something that could be of use to us. A name. A location. Fucking anything.

“I don’t really know about that,” Sam said after a moment. “They’re still sending out search parties, but they usually decide the routes right before, not in advance. I could try to—”

The male voice rang through the receiver in a clipped tone. It was distant, far away, but he must’ve been shouting real loud for us to be able to make out the words find out.

Something about the tone was familiar, and I immediately racked my brain, trying to place it. Could it be Forrest or Harrison? Still pissed about Ryland and looking for revenge after four fucking years? Seemed unlikely, but I would consider every option.