Page 20

Chapter 20

One Fine Day

VANESSA

“V anessa, over here!” Someone shouts.

Another yells, “Vanessa Bedalia!”

“Can I get your autograph?” asks another.

Beaming, I step toward the small crowd gathered outside the Mesa grocery store. “Of course!” I reach for a photo of my headshot, handed to me by a fan, and sign it with the Sharpie I now keep in my purse. I was stunned the first time it happened, but I’m getting used to the attention.

It’s been two weeks since we’ve been back from our Wolf-Haven visit. While we were away, the marketing team for the film went into overdrive and everyone in Mesa now seems to know my name.

“Back off!” Keenan snarls shoving our grocery cart to the side and stepping toward the crowd, elbowing them away from me.

“Prince Keenan Wolven-North!” a woman shouts, shoving a picture of a wolf at him.

I snatch it from her, frowning. “His wolf looks nothing like this. If you’re going to obsess over my mate, at least get it right. He’s not grey, he’s white, and his ears are bigger.”

The one downside to my newfound fame is that Keenan seems to be gaining just as much attention. I don’t mind sharing the spotlight, but I do mind that his adoring fan club is mostly women going ga-ga over my handsome wolf boyfriend. He doesn’t seem to care, and in fact, seems downright hostile toward them, which takes away some of my annoyance.

I stay and sign headshots and notebooks for a few minutes while Keenan growls at them impatiently from my side, which only sends a thrill through his fans. I’ll need to remember to tell him that his intense growls merely rev their motors.

“We’re leaving.” He pulls me away from the group as I sign one last autograph and wave goodbye.

“If it bothers you so much, we can get our groceries delivered.” I lift a bag from the cart, which he takes from me and places in the back of the Jeep.

“You love it, so we’ll keep coming back until you hate it.”

I kiss him and climb into the vehicle while he closes the hatch. If there’s one thing I can always count on, it’s Keenan’s desire to give me all the things in the world that make me happy.

The second thing I can count on is Keenan’s urge to take his aggression out on his mate in the sexiest of ways. And I am down for that!

The second we enter the bungalow, he drops the grocery bags and picks me up. I wrap my arms and legs around him, meeting his lips as they descend to mine. We tangle tongues as he backs toward the bedroom, slamming into a wall before orienting himself.

I tear my lips from his. “Out by the pool,” I say breathlessly. “I want to feel the sun on my back as I climb on top of you.”

A groan rips from his throat and he bites at my flesh, placing stinging kisses beneath my ear as he stumbles us toward the back of the house. I grope for the door, unlatching it and turning the knob while he kicks it open in a practiced move because we’ve done it half a dozen times before.

Once we started having sex… well, we never really stopped. It’s been going on five or six times a day and night for weeks. We do it every chance we get. In every room of our house, outside by the pool, next to the bushes, even once in the neighbor’s yard when they left for the evening. Sometimes we do it in the Jeep in the garage, sometimes on the driveway.

We try to restrain ourselves when I’m working but we’re overcome by… umm… the natural order. We’ve rocked my trailer a dozen times and the other day, I almost got caught giving him a blowjob in the storage room. We’d told the startled assistant we were making sure the shelves were bolted down.

“Keenan.” I freeze in his arms.

He tightens his hold, nipping at my neck as he mumbles, “What, sweetheart? You want it on the lounger, or should we take it to the grass this time?”

“Nowhere,” I say, unwinding and lowering my legs to the ground.

“What?” He looks confused.

“There’s a dragon floating in our pool.”

His brows lower and he turns to confront the pink dragon who stands in the pool, water splashing everywhere. Laughing, I approach, waving up at her scaly head. “Pinky! When did you get here?”

She shifts to human, disappearing beneath the water for a moment before resurfacing. She swims to the edge, grinning up at me. “I’ve been here for hours. I ate all the leftovers in your fridge and then came out here to wait for you. Thought you’d be home ages ago.”

I sit on the pool deck, dipping my feet into the water. “Zach’s filming schedule is nuts. I’m there from sunup to sundown most days, but he let me leave early today. I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t wait to show you the set!”

Keenan stands next to me, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression unreadable. I’m worried he’s annoyed at Pinky for breaking in, but when I dip into his thoughts, I can see he likes her. He sees her as a good guardian for me, which makes her friendship valuable to him.

I smack his foot. “She’s not my guardian, she’s my best friend. It’s not her job to look out for me.”

Pinky and Keenan share a glance and when she doesn’t meet my eyes, I wonder if maybe she does think of herself as my guardian. It doesn’t matter, Pinky is my friend and I have her back as much as she has mine.

She climbs naked out of the pool and wraps herself in a towel. “C’mon, I want to see what you brought home to eat. All that swimming made me hungry.”

After I’ve made up a guest room for Pinky and cooked some bean and cheese burritos for my hungry shifters, we sit in the backyard next to a cheerful fire Keenan built in the brick firepit.

“Why did you come?” Keenan asks Pinky.

I smack him. “She doesn’t need a reason to visit.”

“Thanks, Ness,” she says, flashing me a grin. “I sort of do have reasons for coming, though the most important one is a visit with my bestie. The other stuff could’ve been said over the phone, but I figured I should check this place out and make sure Mesa isn’t messing with my girl.”

Grinning, I throw an arm around her. “Why else did you come then?”

Her expression grows serious and instead of looking at me, her gaze meets Keenan’s. “You two have become the toast of Tinseltown since you’ve been away. The story of your arrest has become wildly romanticized and there’s some speculation that you two tied the knot during your visit to Wolf-Haven.”

“We know all that,” I tell her. “Laz calls regularly to keep me updated. He says the publicity is great and should land me more roles after this one.”

“Good for him,” she replies, her voice hardening. “But he’s thinking from a human perspective. Attention has never been a good thing for shifters.”

Guilt strikes me as I realize I hadn’t thought of how all the publicity would affect Keenan. “Do you think he’s in danger?”

She rolls her eyes. “He’s the second most dangerous kind of shifter after dragons, so no, I’m not particularly worried about your boyfriend.”

“Then why are you worried?”

Keenan answers. “Because you could get hurt by association.”

“Got it in one.” Pinky leans back in her chair and links her fingers over her stomach. “What’re you going to do about it, wolf?”

Ignoring the question, he asks, “What’ve you heard? I assume you have more of a bead on the L.A. shifter population than I do.”

She shrugs. “The main concern is that a shifter prince in our midst will expose us all.”

“And you agree with that?” I ask, annoyed at Pinky for thinking such a thing about Keenan. “He would never out another shifter.”

She looks at me with compassion. “I know you think that, but there are other ways of outing shifters than deliberately.”

“It’s a risk I’m aware of,” Keenan says, stroking his beard. “I’m treading lightly. I’ve only recently discovered how many of you are out there.”

“More than you can imagine,” she says, her tone hard. “We don’t all have lovely wolf cities and a royal family to return to. Some of us are the last of our kind and the human world is the only place left for us. But if you out us, we’ll lose the only home we have left.”

Her impassioned speech leaves me stunned. Pinky is usually so laid back, the consummate beach bum. I take her hand. “Pinky… are you the last of your kind?” She nods and I launch myself at her, climbing into her chair and hugging her. “I didn’t know! I’m sorry I never asked.”

She laughs, tugging at my arms and swiping at tears. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a very big deal,” I say insistently. “I knew your family was gone but I had no idea how truly alone you are. The last of your kind… oh Pinky.”

“Dragons are extremely rare,” Keenan says, his sympathetic gaze on her.

She nods, blinking rapidly. “It’s possible there’re more out there, but I’ve never seen one. As far as I know, it’s only me.”

“It’s not only you. I’m your dragon bestie at heart, which means you’ll never be alone. I’ll roar at anyone who threatens you. I’m really good at roaring.”

“You are,” she says with a watery laugh, laying her head on my shoulder. “Just be careful, Ness. Not everyone is as good as you think they are.”

“Oh, I know all about villains. I played King Richard the third in a Shakespeare in the park production.” I jump up from the chair, nearly toppling her. “Time to stop being so serious.”

We spend the rest of the evening by the fire, roasting marshmallows, laughing and cracking shifter jokes.