The Beast of Bodmin Moor Page 4

  “I lost a bet,” Jake explained (not at all), rather than dwell upon the decimation of his sanity.

  “Oh! Like a forfeit?” Midnight eyes sparkled with mischief, sprinkled with starlight.

  “Yeah. Like that,” Jake was left nodding like a dog on a parcel shelf. Too taken aback to elaborate. On what planet had that been believable?

  “Oops.” His chuckle was as incorrigible as it was infectious. “But how did you end up here, wearing my robe? Was it my fault you lost the bet?”

  His fault? Why the hell would he think that? Jake was far too famished to fathom the unfathomable.

  “No…I found you out there,” he hedged, with a shrug. As if this was a matter of no import. “You’d hit your head and seemed a bit worse for wear…so I wanted to make sure you made it back to your van. I was worried, so I stayed, in case you were sick in your sleep. It was a bit cold to sit here starkers, so I hoped you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed your robe.”

  “No, of course I don’t mind. I…thank you. For bringing me back, I mean. I do get…lost sometimes.”

  “Lost?”

  “I get a bit distracted and forget to do concentrating.”

  “I wouldn’t fret about it, if I were you. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be…concentrating.” Jake had sighed before engaging his brain. “The results are rarely worth the worry. Unless…I just focus on things that aren’t.”

  Where the hell had that come from? Jake never admitted this, even to himself.

  Why bother stating the blindingly obvious?

  Who asked for your tuppence worth?

  Why bother et cetera, et cetera…?

  Fuck off.

  Chance would be a fine thing. Just sayin’.

  Jake couldn’t argue with that. Clear indication that it was all going to hell in a handcart. Worse still, it was hard to care less, when he’d never felt less bothered in his bloody life.

  7. Phin

  How would Phin ever get it right if he was supposed to sift through stuff and choose what to do concentrating on? He never did choosing; Phin just knew what he wanted. Or did not. If he didn’t, then he never would, simple.

  If he was asked: ‘would you rather do this or that?’ his brain had a fit of the fizzies. It was impossible to decide between two things he had no wish to do…and yet, he mustn’t say that, it was rude. Selecting one was the considerate thing to do. That seemed a bit rich to Phin, when making him pick one must be an inconsiderate thing, too?

  So many rules to follow. It was exhausting, which is why he preferred being on his own—except for today, of course—it was ‘the exception that proves the rule’.

  That particular phrase was just plain loopy. How could a not-rule prove a rule? Barmy. Phin was convinced these things were made up on purpose to fox him.

  Speaking of which…he sure wasn’t wishing away his newfound foxy friend. It had been kind of him to bring Phin home, especially when he was, no-doubt-about-it, a bit of a scoundrel. A snaffling one, at that, so it was a wonder he hadn’t just ‘borrowed’ some clothes and done scarpering.

  “…okay.” Oh dear. Phin may have wafted off with the faeries again.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said: I should get off and leave you in peace, now I know you’re alright.”

  “Oh…have you changed your mind?” He tried not to sound sad. People seemed to do changing theirs a lot, as if was a jumper. Phin was stuck with his. “About being thirsty,” he clarified, when Foxy looked puzzled.

  “No…I just…thought you’d rather I left, I wasn’t exactly invited,” Foxy grimaced.

  “I don’t—want you to go—I mean. I’m glad you’re here, which is oddsome. Tea…?” Phin threw back the blanket and sprang to his feet, which wasn’t the best plan he’d ever had. Oouch. Worth it though; if switching the kettle on sharpish qualified as tea-in-progress and thus, an impolite time to leave. Ow…Phin’s spine felt like a length of rope, knotted at intervals. Stretching might help, while he waited, not least cos he felt too skittish to stand still.

  “Are you okay?” Phin wondered, upon hearing the strangest noise after planting his palms on the roof of the van. It sounded like rusty indigestion.

  “Yeah…” Foxy winced. “Sorry, I…cricked my neck. Tea would be great.”

  “Ouch, that hurts. That’s why I’m stretching my back—I’m all kinky—are you sure you’re alright?”

  “M’fine,” he insisted, between strangled cat sounds. He was the worst fibber in the world.

  “’Kay, if you’re sure,” Phin sighed, letting his arms fall to his sides. It was rude to do pointing out porkies, unless the lie was likely to be lethal, or do a damage. “Four sugars. I’m on it.”

  Phin still seemed to be wearing his coat—inside—which was a bit daft, so he shrugged it off. Urgh, he niffed to high heaven. Typical…his first ever foxy visitor and Phin reeked like his grandad’s slippers.

  “Do I smell?” he worried, aloud.

  “Huh?” Foxy frowned, for all the world as if sleeping in a trench coat was a sure-fire way to smell as fresh as a daisy.

  “Oh, you’re being po-lite, aren’t you? Is it shocking horrible? I don’t usually go to bed in my coat, honest,” Phin promised.

  “You don’t smell…bad,” Foxy flat out lied, attempting to smother a smirk.

  “Ah…I know that one. You’re being kind, so you told a white lie. It’s alright to tell those, mostly when a girl asks if her bum looks big in this. My sister told me.”

  “She was quite right.” Foxy grinned—it made his eyes gleam cerulean and shiny—like the coconut eclair in a box of Quality Street. A thought that made Phin’s fingers twitch. Magpies had nothing on him.

  “Are you hungry?” he wondered, wearing his best host hat. Who knew he had one to don?

  “I’m ravenous.” Now that was true. Foxy damn near growled it.

  “What d’you fancy?”

  “I…ah…”

  Duh. Phin hadn’t offered him any options. “Why don’t you have a mooch and help yourself while I get changed? The whiff won’t put you off your breakfast then. I went to the shops yesterday, so there’s lots to snaffle.”

  Phin was gifted another coconut eclair smile as Foxy raked a hand through his hair. Quite why he bothered when it slithered straight back down to dangle in far too tempting tendrils, Phin knew not. It was excessively sexy hair.

  Someone is allowed to touch those silken strands whenever they wish. As thoughts went, that one was about as welcome as a second visitor. Get changed, make tea, rustle up some breakfast and stop driving yourself doolally. That seemed excellent advice, despite its source, so Phin whipped his jumper off and tugged his jeans down to puddle at his ankles. He was wearing boxers, which was not always a given, so he was still decent. Foxy was a fella, so he wouldn’t be offended, and the undies were clean whitey tightys. Not unseemly in the slightest. Phin might stink something chronic, but at least he was sporting posh pants.

  Foxy abruptly shot off his seat and…yanked open the fridge door to stick his head inside. Blimey, he’d shifted himself as fast as a ferret up a trouser leg, he must be starving.

  “Ahhh…bacon,” he groaned. The latter was a husky rumble that sounded as if Foxy was gargling gravel. Oh help…nooo. Tight pants. White pants. Fucketyfuck.

  Phin was staring at them in horror when a sharp inhalation shattered the silence. A split-second later he found himself plastered to the cupboard door by a body forged from steel and feverish heat. He’d scarce registered a clasp at his nape before his mouth was crashed down onto lips that did snatching his breath away. Plump, glistening like glacé cherries, blowtorched by blue curaçao eyes; senses reeling as if Phin had guzzled an exotic cocktail when he’d never even done so much as sipping flat cider. Before breakfast, t’boot.

  Phin’s brain did short circuiting. The rest of him sort of froze; blitzed by a torrent of heat, taste, touch. The heady haze of scent engulfing him made grappling hooks of greed do tugging at his guts. A tinglin
g insistence too intense to do ignoring, even if he’d wanted to. Phin did not. It was a too much avalanche of never, ever, enough. There were fingers in Phin’s hair, which might have become his new favourite thing if not for the kissing and the tongue that did darting between Phin’s teeth. His head was about to do blowing up. The world behind his eyelids was a starburst of silver-bright and scarlet. It was…dizzying, dazzling. Phin couldn’t even worry about whether he was doing it right, responding as he should, when he couldn’t do thinking at all. Let alone fret about failing his oh, so foxy friend.

  Phin had never imagined it was possible to feel this way, this much, as if every fibre of his being was aflame with a fury of need. Foxy was all fire, the brush of his fingers sizzled along Phin’s skin like a spark scarfing a trail of gunpowder.

  It was the most incendiary onslaught of Too Much that had ever done happening to Phin in his life. It was sublime…he never wanted it to do stopping.

  8. Jake

  “Ah…bacon.” It was all Jake could do to force himself to place it on the counter after retrieving it from the fridge. Rather than shred the packet with his teeth and cram it in his mouth.

  Fuck…a sudden, sharp spike of white-hot want and cinnamon spice assaulted Jake’s senses. Blazing a trail through his system like molten molasses. Need so intense he could barely breathe. His heart reacted as if seized by a huge fist and squeezed, forcing the blood through his veins in a scorching trip south. A scent so persuasive, it propelled Jake forwards in a surge of sheer instinct and inhuman speed. Irresistible, as if it had been brewed to wreak havoc on a soul starved of sustenance, concocted by an alchemist hell-bent on blowing his mind. Pure, unsullied sex, too potent to resist, the most intoxicating elixir on Earth.

  Jake had to answer it. Had to. It was a compulsion, beyond comprehension—let alone control—a desire too consuming to deny. They couldn’t deny him. Anything. A knowledge that might’ve been as devastating as he was deranged if Jake hadn’t been too delirious to care. That was his last conscious thought for a while. Jackal instincts took over, decimating all else.

  Jack didn’t burst from his body, but some bone-deep certainty understood why. I didn’t fight him, there was no battle for Jack to win. No reluctance to refute, or refusal to override. Jake went willingly, obliterating a chasm of space in a heartbeat. Flinging himself into the flames of a need he could no longer negate. What should have been a tentative brush of lips—more query than kiss—was a melding of mouths so incendiary, Jake might not have noticed if he’d burst into flames. It was a clash of lips, teeth, tongue; far from rebuffed. For about a snatched-off breath, He seemed stunned to stillness… before melting into Jake’s arms as if He’d waited a lifetime for Jake to succumb to the inevitable.

  A sentiment that just may have prompted an inner rolling of eyes, if his shadow self had been in any fit state for snarky asides. Very fine impressions of furry hearth rugs did not count, despite all claims to the contrary.

  Mine…whispered like a cool breeze through Jake’s body, holding his human self together. Taking the place of the frantic scramble to surface he’d feared. Never, had Jake felt so certain he wouldn’t explode in a frenzy of fur and frustration.

  Jake tightened his arms, fusing them closer still; there was no close enough. A helpless groan rattled in his throat when a searing fact blow-torched his consciousness, blazing its way to his lust-glazed brain: There was a ridge of hard heat branding his lower belly. Scalding through flimsy cotton and soft fleece, too insistent to ignore. The very notion of dragging his own hips back, even to slip a hand between their bodies, would have been too cruel to contemplate…had Jake not accomplished it, before he caught up. Christ.

  A sharp intake of breath shattered the kiss when he cupped ruffled warmth; a heady weight that thrilled through Jake’s veins as liquid lust. A soft whimper slipped free; distinct from his own, the single most erotic sound he’d ever been gifted. Nothing, no one—not even Jake—could make him relinquish the right to earn himself a symphony of sighs. A flight of fancy hijacked by an abrupt snap of lean hips, urging him on. Fuck. The racket that rumbled in Jake’s throat when he recaptured ripe lips was close to a growl. It sounded half feral; more animal than human.

  Mine… The source of that was uncertain, Jake could only hope it hadn’t made a bid for freedom. Its repetition was a very near thing when he finally closed his fingers around feverish flesh.

  “Ahhhhh!” His head snapped back, breaking the kiss when his hips jerked reflexively. A loss that suggested a gain far too tempting to resist. Jake had dropped to his knees before he could consider the wisdom of this cunning plan.

  “Jack…” he cautioned.

  “Huh?” floated out on a bewildered breath. Crap…he’d said that. Out loud. It had been intended as a whispered word of warning to gentle the jackal.

  “Er…Jack. My…name,” Jake managed to stammer—the only fudge that seemed feasible.

  “Hmm…it suits you.” That creamy smile was sin itself. “Phin.”

  Phin…was a sigh of sublime satisfaction so smug, Jake might have smirked. If he’d had a leg to stand on.

  A feat in itself, y’must admit. Considering.

  9. Phin

  Almost before Phin could do mourning the loss of the palm clamped to his back, it had slipped between their bodies and cupped his balls. The kiss had felt as if electrodes were taped to his temples as his heart was blitzed with resuscitating paddles. The cupping nearly finished him off—in one way or another—it was tricky to tell. Matters were either about to get excessively sticky, or Phin would just do dropping dead from too muchness.

  As it was, a sort of strangled shriek ripped from his lips as his legs turned to noodles and his heart went into hyperdrive. As if it was on a mission to make the Kessel Run in ten parsecs. The effect of all this on Phin’s hips was more than a mite strumpety. He felt a tad too hyperkinetic to care, which was fortunate, or he would have forgotten to do concentrating on calming down. As it was, Foxy didn’t appear to mind overmuch, and that was all that mattered…particularly when the only word in the world that did, was more.

  Phin couldn’t help the whimper escaped when Foxy palmed his aching cock through his pants…about a galloping heartbeat before they were gone. Vamoosed. This, with a growl like gargled gravel, succeeded by a groan of relief (which should have been Phin’s) when his cock was enclosed in a sure fist. The gasp that ripped from his lips instead made his head crash against the cupboard door, but he scarce felt it; every one of Phin’s excessive sensory receptors had hurtled south. To fling themselves into never held before festivities. Literally.

  The head slam thing had done the unforgivable though; wrenched Phin from kisses he’d never wanted to end. But what if Foxy thought I did it on purpose? The brain-boggling grip on his cock hadn’t gone—yet. A thought obliterated by the fact that it had—in a flash—swiftly followed by the heavy heat of Foxy himself. Gone. Where? Phin’s eyes flared wide with panic-on-the-bullet-train to hypersomething or other (when he couldn’t do breathing and everything went fizzy).

  The ‘where’ was too impossible to be true. Those bewitching blues were no longer level with Phin’s lips, they were gazing up at him from formerly virgin (on the ridiculous at twenty-two) territory. This was too staggering to take in, too…inconceivable to compute. Phin had never even done imagining he might be kissed anytime soon; that he had been was too bedazzling to believe. But this? Was a fancy too far…

  Why the bejeezus would Foxy even want to do it—to Phin? Not in general. Phin had longed to do it for…ever. But only to someone special, which pretty much put the kibosh on its likelihood. Phineas Finley was not special, well, not in that way. His sort of special wasn’t the sort folk aspired to being. His brain was far too busy blowing up to let his ears do listening to whatever Foxy all-but barked roundabout then.

  “Pardon…?”

  “Jack…m’name.” It was a good job Phin had done focusing as hard as his cock or the blast of hot breath that co
shed it would have deafened him. Jack. It seemed a bit of a novel time to introduce himself, but what did Phin know? Perhaps it was considered the po-lite thing t’do when…eye to eye (as it were) for the first time.