Sassy Ever After: Kissing Sassy (Kindle Worlds Novella) (4 page)

Olivia

She peered about the bedroom. Nothing fancy, but it was serviceable and boasted an in-suite bathroom, which was a bonus in her book.

“I’d offer you the room with the twin beds since you’ll be sharing with Cajun, but it’s being remodeled.”

That offhand comment had her gaze zeroing in on the queen-sized bed. That mattress was much too small for Cajun’s size. No way she would share a bed with the sexy wolf. Neither would she have sex with Sexy-pants in a room just down the hall from Barbara’s bedroom. They were wolves, their senses were stronger, and they’d probably hear everything. “It’ll do just fine, but Cajun’s not sleeping in that bed with me.”

Barbara shrugged as if she didn’t care either way. “He’s verbally marked you as his. Doesn’t matter if you two don’t follow through on the mating, his wolf won’t allow him to sleep too far away so long as you’re in danger.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Oh, it’s not a warning, dear, but the way shifters are. He’s had an unusual upbringing and a violent introduction to the human world, but he’s a good man.”

“He’s your nephew.” What aunt didn’t think their nephew was good?

Barbara leaned in and whispered, “My
favorite
nephew too.”

She smiled at the older woman. “The plot thickens.”

Her friend giggled like a schoolgirl. “Give him a chance, Olivia. I promise you won’t regret it.”

Despite her agitation at Barbara’s attempt at matchmaking, Olivia hugged the other woman, warmed by her dedication to family. Did she trust Cajun to keep her safe? Yeah, she thought he’d do everything in his power to aid her, if for no other reason than to make Barbara happy. But to give him a chance as her siren song, yeah, that would be a hard one to swallow. She trusted few, and she’d never trusted anyone with her secret until now. So why’d she pick one of her most vulnerable moments to put her faith in Cajun and the Wolfe family?

She couldn’t say and didn’t feel like analyzing herself. Tired, mentally and physically, she curled onto the bed and napped.

A few hours later, Olivia discovered her arrival had resulted in an excuse to have a family get-together and found herself sitting at the kitchen table. Barbara cooked, while her daughter, Ellie, and her four daughters-in-law, Jordan, Karla, Nicole, and Emma, chattered nonstop. She’d been introduced, but she was hazy on who went with which son. They talked too fast for her to keep up, and punctuated the chatter with unnecessary giggles that were too loud and piercing. Olivia couldn’t decide if too much wine flowed, or if they were high on life.

High on being mated to the loves of their lives.
Sound logic, she decided, since their auras showed their romantic feelings. These were some of the healthiest auras she’d ever seen.

That left Olivia wondering if the shifter mating heat was anything similar to the sorceress siren song. Not that she knew much about siren songs, but what she had felt since meeting Cajun she likened to being on a drug. Her senses were out of control and seemed attuned to just him. Every time she heard him laugh, her entire body vibrated with an all-over buzz.

Fucking ridiculous
! She hoped no one noticed.

Even now, she could feel the pull to put eyes on Cajun. The magnetism toward him was so strong, the longer she resisted the tug the more her skin began to feel electrified and tender. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, but not altogether unpleasant either.

God, I don’t want this. Not with him being my weakness.
Why would destiny put her with the one creature that wrecked her sorcery? Was it a cruel twist of fate? Cosmic irony? She couldn’t eliminate the possibility of it being a curse either.

“Olivia, what’s it like in Hollywood?” Aric’s wife, Jordan, asked, yanking Olivia from her reflections. Of the wives, Jordan was the only one Olivia could identify with ease.

Olivia fiddled with the rim of her wineglass, uninterested in imbibing since she couldn’t afford to lower her guard. “Too much traffic, smog, and rude residents.” Three reasons why she’d bought the stretch in Montana, to get away from all the congestion. “But the tourists seem to like it.”

“I always thought it was too much concrete. I like to stretch my legs and run with Aric.” Jordan gave a little smile. Olivia liked the girl. She was cute, and clearly adored Barbara’s oldest son.

“You mean you like to fuck in the woods with Aric,” Karla, Nate’s significant other, tittered, and the rest of the girls joined her giggles.

“Right, like you don’t jump Nate whenever you get away from your triplets.” Jordan waggled her eyebrows at the other girl.

“Yeah.” The goofy smile on Karla’s face tugged a grin out of Olivia.

She loved their teasing, and was a little envious of their ease with one another. She had friends, but none close enough to banter with like they did.

“You know that actor Aaron Blue, right?” Emma stared at her, green eyes wide and expectant as she leaned forward as if to hear Olivia better.

If Olivia remembered correctly, Emma belonged with Mason. Lots of women thought Aaron good looking, but in her opinion the Wolfe brothers weren’t just better looking but better men too. Aaron was a narcissistic asshole.

“Yeah, I know him.” They had a hate-hate relationship, without a stich of love between them.

“He’s such a hottie.” Nicole, Jake’s girl—
Right?
—fanned herself. “Not as hot as Jake, mind you, but a little eye-candy in a movie never hurts.”

Comments came so fast on the heels of that, she didn’t attempt to identify who said what.

“Sex on legs.”

“Bedroom eyes.”

Olivia gagged a little over that nonsense.

“A smile that makes me melt.”

“He has an ass that won’t quit.”

“He
is
an ass.” After two movies where they butted heads nonstop, Olivia refused to ever work with him again. The sudden silence her comment brought almost had her rushing to apologize for confessing the truth. Just because her relationship with Aaron was public conjecture, didn’t mean she had to ruin these girls’ fantasies.

Then suddenly everyone spoke at once…
again
.

“No shit?”

“I’d heard that about him.”

“Heard he sexually harassed a fan at a con.”

“What a jackass. He’s got nothing on Caleb.”

“Tristan thinks he’s gay.” Barbara checked on something on the stove as she voiced her husband’s thoughts. Whatever the matriarch cooked smelled divine.

“He’s openly bi.” Even though Olivia disliked Aaron, she wouldn’t give up any of his secrets, but he was upfront about his sexual orientation.

“That last movie you did with him,” Emma snapped her fingers, “oh, what was the name of it?”

“
Submission
.” Olivia supplied the title.

“Yeah! That one was
grrreat
.” Ellie pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Made for a great night with Caleb.”

Olivia had no idea what to say to that. Like many other viewers, they’d seen her bound and gagged, whipped, and pretend-fucked. Not that she minded others seeing her in a sex scene, or in the buff for that matter. She’d gone full frontal for the movie, and so had Aaron. The nudity alone had probably drawn in a lot of viewers. And if she had a problem with showing off her body—or the one she projected to the world since what others saw wasn’t the real her—she wouldn’t have signed on for the project. It’d been a blockbuster hit, and since she’d gotten a percentage of the profits, she’d hit the jackpot. She had no issues with baring all, or having hot, and very graphic make-believe sex. It was life, and nothing to be ashamed of. There was talk of a sequel, but Olivia wouldn’t play the part if Aaron reprised his role.

“Take that as a compliment.” Jordan blew out a breath. “You two were hot in it. Revved my engines too, but Aric said
ew
because he knew you.”

“Yeah, the mutt—”

“Mason,” Jordan explained who ‘the mutt’ was in Emma’s comment.

“—covered his eyes and told me to tell him when it was over.”

“I’ve not seen this one.” Barbara sampled something out of the pan before dashing in some salt. “Maybe if Tristan watches it with me, I’ll get lucky too.”

“Mom!” Ellie’s cheeks blossomed a rosy shade.

Olivia laughed, but asked, “Aren’t shifters used to seeing each other in the buff? I wouldn’t think they’d have a problem seeing me naked on the screen. I mean, when Cajun shifted from man to wolf earlier and then back to man, he was naked. And he didn’t seem the least bit bothered by his nakedness in front of me.”

“Someone’s got a crush on Cajun.”

She glared at Emma. They didn’t know one another well enough for that type of teasing. “No, I don’t.”

“We’re shifters.” Jordan tapped her nose. “Smelled that untruth.”

“Rude to point that out.” Olivia gave Jordan a pointed scowl, to which the brunette just gave her an unfazed grin. Really, she didn’t know these girls, and she couldn’t talk about personal feelings with them. Then again, she didn’t have any girlfriends to talk to. “I don’t know him well enough to have a crush.”

“He’s got a crush on you,” Nicole chimed in, and that resulted in a snowball of comments coming from all directions.

“
Big
crush on you.”

“Kinda cute seeing him lovesick.”

“He’s hardly lovesick,” Olivia protested, but they all ignored her.

“He can’t keep his gaze off you.”

“Pfft… his gaze
devours
her.”

“Those devouring gazes make for great sex.”

Olivia gawked at that. They were a
long
way off from being intimate.

“Never seen him so smitten before.”

“He seems so lonely.”

“I’ve never seen him with a girl.”

“Not for lack of trying by the hos.”

“Spill it, how do you really feel about our bayou boy?” Karla put her elbows on the table and watched Olivia.

In fact, everyone gaped at her. Were all women this nosy? These shifters were relentless. Thank God she didn’t have any girlfriends.

Speechless yet again, Olivia looked between them.

“They won’t drop the subject until you spill all the beans,” Ellie gave what Olivia termed a sorry-not-so-sorry smile.

“He’s agreed to help me with a shifter problem. That’s all.” She mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that’d be enough because she preferred to keep private feelings private especially when she couldn’t make heads or tails out of them.

“Uh uh.” Jordan shook her head.

“‘Fess up. We know all about that,” Emma tapped her finger against her wineglass.

“We know the other shifter tried to force you to mate with him, but he was stopped before he could finish the bite. I was in a similar situation. It’s not fun.” Karla’s assertion was an understatement.

“We know Cajun took one sniff of you, and his shifter claimed you as his mate.” Nicole smirked at her. “Jake told me what went down at Sassy Wolfe.”

Traitor
. Olivia itched to slap the smug expression off Jake’s girl’s face.

“We want to know all the juicy details of what’s going on between you.” Olivia had thought Ellie
her
friend until she joined the mob. Then again, these girls weren’t just friends to Ellie, but were family, so that trumped Olivia’s friendship with her.

“He’s good looking,” Olivia hedged. They kept staring, and a glance in Barbara’s direction showed her interest too. She sighed, and gave in to peer pressure. “Fine. I’m attracted to him, but that doesn’t mean we’re meant for one another.”

“I get it,” Jordan said. “It’s harder for humans to accept the mating heat when they find their mates. I felt the same way.” Startled that Barbara kept her secret about being a sorceress, Olivia met the older woman’s gaze, and received her wink while Jordan continued to talk. “I had a crush on Aric for years, and he knew I was his mate all that time. He waited until I was ready.”

“He waited too long.” Barbara wagged her spoon at Jordan. “I was deprived of grand babies longer than necessary.”

“It’s not that,” Olivia said to Aric’s wife. Five pairs of expectant eyes watched her, waiting for her to continue. She decided to put it all out on the table. “I just met him, and our first meeting didn’t go so well.”

“What exactly happened?” Barbara’s hands landed on her hips.

“Doesn’t matter. We called a truce. What matters is I need time to decide if I like him as a person before I’ll even consider being his mate.”

That seemed to please the girls enough that they changed the topic, and went back to ribbing one another. Throughout dinner, she caught Cajun’s glances, and the girls’ surreptitious grins. She’d almost rolled her eyes at their high school behavior, but she realized they were genuinely excited about Cajun finding his soul mate. Didn’t matter that Olivia hadn’t consented, everyone seemed hopeful they’d work things out.