The full moon isn't the only thing about to rise in Stillwater. Leila Dupree has been a lone wolf for the past year since escaping from her brutal pack and the sadistic alpha who turned her. Leila has had enough of wolves and men.. She never stays in one place to long in an attempt to shield her heart and stay out of her old packs' clutches. Her latest job is at the Stillwater Bar and grill in a sleepy little town near the Florida Everglades. But the uncomplicated life and solitude Leila seeks is threatened both by the dashing bar owner Sterling Mount and the murder of one of the bar regulars right outside the bar during a full moon. Leila joins forces with the charming Sterling Mount in an effort to catch a killer. Murders are bad for business but not so much for budding romances it seems.
View MoreThe air was so heavy inside the Stillwater Bar and Grill, it felt like it was suffocating Leila Dupree, and she could feel the sweat sliding down between her breasts. The joint was packed tonight, just like every night, as there wasn’t much to do in this one stoplight town. It smelled of cheap perfume, cigarette smoke, beer, sweat, and pheromones. Of course, ever since she had been turned, Leila could smell things more sharply. She preferred the open spaces of the great outdoors to appease the wildness that lived just beneath her surface.
She paused to lean against the bar and fanned herself with a cocktail napkin. Her eyes drifted to the corner of the bar, where Grandpa Roy strummed his acoustic guitar and sang into a beer smelling microphone about losing his true love. Tonight, he had a bandanna tied around his forehead to soak up the sweat, rather than imitating one of his inspirations Willie Nelson. The old man’s button up shirt was also baptized in sweat, and his face as red as coke can. Leila had already given him three bottles of water on the house, and worried he would suffer a heat stroke.
She waited for Grandpa Roy to finish his song, before she shot a glance at the bartender. Sterling Mount stood behind the bar with ruddy cheeks and his usual knee-weakening grin. He slid a double shot of whiskey across the counter to the awaiting palm of a regular. Even though Leila had enough of men, and had sworn to stick to self-pleasure for those undeniable urges, it was impossible not to notice how irresistible and well sexy as hell the young bar owner was.
He had a head full of thick, brown hair just enough for a gal to run her hands through, but not so long to make his mama scold him for. His chiseled jaw was crowned with just the right amount of stubble to give him that rugged look without obscuring the perfect shape of his jaw. Or his pleasantly shaped bow lips. But Leila decided she liked his bright, cerulean eyes best of all. A girl could get lost in those bedroom eyes of Sterling Mount.
A girl could also enjoy the feel of his taut biceps and rock hard abs beneath his tight, cotton shirt. Right now, christened in sweat, the fabric curved deliciously over his skin, nearly making it transparent. She could see the peak of his hard nipples. She wondered what they tasted like. She wondered what he tasted like. She felt her own nipples begin to peak in response.
At least until she remembered she had sworn off men, and contented herself to making purchases from the online store Miss Lucy’s Pleasure Trove, for the rest of her celibate life. Besides, she always got hornier and more restless the night before the full moon. She reasoned that was why she was currently eyeing her boss like he was a piece of meat she would love to devour. That and this damn heat, was getting to her head.
She waited until Sterling caught her eye across the bar, and her heart fluttered inside her chest when she was on the other end of that smile of his.
“What can I do you for Miss Leila?” he crooned, in that deep, raspy voice of his.
“Could you please check the ac again Mr. Mount? Some of the customers are starting to complain.”
She fanned herself again. But being that close to Sterling Mount alone was enough to make the sweat slip down the length of her spine. You really need to get it together girl, she scolded herself as she eyed him so long it was obvious. She stopped herself before she licked her lips.
“Sure thing Miss Leila. Right on it.”
He slung the towel he had been wiping the bar with across his broad shoulder and walked out from behind the bar. Leila couldn’t help but notice how well his Levi’s fit him. Particularly in the backside. She bit her bottom lip and talked herself down from pouncing on him right then and there.
She really should have taken the night off, locked herself inside until dawn, getting by on cold showers and burning through batteries on her toys. No man in Stillwater was safe tonight from the prowess of Leila Dupree. Well except for that handsy regular Clyde Morton who always rubbed her the wrong way. She would never be that desperate enough to jump that creeps bones. Even now when she looked at him sitting at the bar, already several beers in and it was only nine p.m., he saluted her first with his beer, then grabbed his crouch and smiled. Clyde was not physically all that unattractive, rather average looking with dark brown hair, though it was starting to thin on top so he had resorted to a comb over, a beard and mustache. But his middle was starting to protrude more and more, and his skin started looking a bit on the yellow side. It was no secret he was an alcoholic with one boot already in the grave. But it was personality that made Leila dislike the man. Things like personal boundaries and No didn’t seem to mean much to him. He reminded her in many ways of several members of her old pack.
But Leila needed this job. She needed the money to pay rent for her studio apartment, to help ensure she never went back to her abusive pack who treated her like an object to be passed around among them. Watching Sterling swagger across the bar towards the utility room, brought a stab of pain and regret. She knew her time here would come at an end, and she would miss this place. She longed for the day she could just put down roots and stay in one place, not having to look over her shoulder, or move around the country to stay a step ahead of her the pack and the Alpha. She knew that day would never come so long as Uric Blackwood still drew breath.
Stillwater seemed to feel most like home of all the places she had been in the past year since escaping the Blackwood Pack. Perhaps it was just because of this bar. More specifically the people in it. This place felt like home. It had a log cabin, country feel. A hodgepodge of odds and ends adorned the walls, like the lasso Sterling Mounts great great granddaddy used on his cattle drive to Texas, and the fiddle once played by oldest man alive in Stillwater, Old Henry Jones, aged 104. He was rumored to be quite a troublemaker at the old folks home with three girlfriends, nightly card games, and several nightcaps every night.
Old whiskey barrels served as tables. A mechanical bull named Diablo menaced patrons from his spot of infamy across the bar. Few had survived a full ride on Diablos. Speaking of rides, Leila suddenly envisioned herself taking a very different ride. This time on a stallion she would love to mount. Or perhaps she would even allow him to slam her up against the bar and mount her from behind.
But then Clyde was screaming at her across the bar to be a dear and grab him another beer, effectively obliterating the naughty images inside her head. She muttered a curse and stalked across the bar. She grabbed him a beer and made no effort to hide her annoyance as she slid the ice cold bottle to him. Clyde grabbed her arm and began stroking it.
“Soft as a baby’s ass. I’ll bet your soft like that everywhere darlin,” he said.
Leila jerked her hand out of his grasp. And gave him a distasteful look. She turned to attend to another regular Monty, when Clyde stood up, reached across the bar and latched onto her arm once more.
“Don’t be like that sweet tits,” he said his eyes slipping down to her breasts. “Your body is telling me an entirely different story. I got just what a girl like you needs.”
Leila knew Clyde was taking advantage of Sterling be occupied. Sterling didn’t tolerate such talk to his waitresses in his bar. Not even from a loyal regular like Clyde who had been here religiously since his twenty-first Birthday a decade ago.
“Get your filthy hands off me,” hissed Leila.
Perhaps it was because it was the night before the full moon that made Leila so bold. Perhaps she had just had enough of Clyde and his unwanted touches, or his undesired sexual innuendos. Whatever the reason, she had had enough of men putting their hands on her body against her will. She could feel the wolf clawing at her surface.
Clyde must have seen it on her face. The feralness that lived just beneath her big brown eyes and innocent looking heart shaped face. She had long black hair that laid in silken waves halfway down her back, rosebud red lips, small but perky breasts, and a curvaceous ass beneath a small waist .Leila had been chosen by Ulric for those very reasons. It had cursed her even before Ulric cursed her in another way entirely.
Clyde let go of her wrists and suddenly began very interested in his beer again. But Leila could smell the musky scent of Sterling approaching. Apparently he had witnessed Clyde’s unwanted advances. He slapped the towel against the counter and widened his stance.
“Do we have a problem here Clyde? Are you putting your hands on my gals without their permission?” asked Sterling
“No problem at all. I was just telling Leila here what a good job she does. A job well done deserves a tip.”
Clyde slid a ten dollar bill across the bar towards Leila. She crossed her arms across her chest and eyed the money with distaste. She needed the money, but she had some pride left. It seemed like hush money to hers. Sterling sensed the bad blood between the pair. He looked at Leila then back at Clyde and his empty beer bottle.
“I think maybe you should call it a night Clyde. You’ve had enough,” said Sterling.
“It’s barely ten. I’m just getting started. I came here for a good time,” said Clyde.
“You can come back by tomorrow night. Half price Bud light from ten to midnight.”
When Clyde realized Sterling wasn’t joshing him, his smile turned into s snarl.
“Well aint this a load of horseshit! Throwing me out on my ear after all these years of my loyal patronage. All over this whore you want to fuck yourself. Well I’m willing to share her Sterling so long as I have the first go.”
Perhaps it was the heat getting to his head. Perhaps Sterling Mount was tired of Clyde’s bullshit, lewd comments, and his groping of the pretty waitresses at the Stillwater Bar and Grill. But whatever the reason, Sterling punched Clyde in the jaw. Down the man went like a bag of rocks. Clyde moaned and clutched his jaw on the bar room floor. A string of curses unfit for any ears spewed from the vile man’s mouth.
“Apologize to the lady, then get the hell outta my bar!”
If Leila had thought she had been turned on before, she was oh so wrong. She could feel the moistness spreading between her thighs and knew sweat wasn’t entirely to blame. Sterling reached down and pulled Clyde to his feet by his shirt collar. He called for the other waitress on duty tonight Peggy, to get Clyde a bag of ice to apply to his swollen and reddened jaw as he escorted him towards the door.
The whole bar watched the scene in rapt attention. Even Grandpa Roy had stopped strumming his acoustic. Peggy took her sweet old time getting that ice pack. Leila was surprised moss had overgrown on that woman’s backside by now. She took about fifty breaks per shift, her long nails nicotine stained, hair she dyed red, but it wasn’t her age to blame for her slowness. Peggy was pushing fifty eight, and had been lazy since the day she was born. The only reason Sterling kept her around was because she was an old family friend hired by his father back when he owned the bar before his untimely passing. The nights Peggy was scheduled, Sterling always had an extra waitress come in around 11 or so to pick up Peggy’s slack.
Clyde was still cursing as he jerked the ice pack from Peggy’s thin, skeletal fingers. The woman lived on cigarettes, coffee, mountain dew, gossip, and negativity. Leila had never seen her eat anything in the month she had been employed here. Peggy commented about Clyde being a degenerate as he put the ice pack across his reddened cheek and Sterling forced him out the door. Just on the threshold of the bar, with hot wind coursing through the air, crickets and frogs carrying on a tune of their own from the swamp nearby, Clyde turned back around to his awaiting audience.
“This ain’t over,” he warned.
His eyes found Leila’s and then Sterling’s. A threat and a warning in his bloodshot eyes. But Leila had little to fear from the words of a washed out old drunk. A few minutes later, the A.C. roared to life and an audible cheer arose throughout the bar. Grandpa Roy started up a foot stomping tune, and the bar came back to life as if it was resurrected like Lazarus himself.
Leila praised the sweet lord Jesus as she stood under a vent and the cold air blasted her from the heavens above. She pulled her sweat encrusted white t-shirt from her skin and allowed the air to her reach her beasts. When she looked back down towards the table she intended to clear the bottles from, she saw Sterling watching her. His pupils large. He swallowed before he strutted towards her with that lopsided grin of his. Leila found herself fanning her body once more.
“Are you alright Miss Leila?” he asked.
“Never better. Right as rain. Thanks for that. And fixing the A.C. Mr. Mount.”
“No problem. But please call me Sterling. Mr. Mount was my father.”
It was not the first time he had requested such a thing. He was young to be a bar owner, only twenty five. He had inherited the bar a few years back when his father Titus Mount had died unexpectedly of a heart attack right behind the bar in the middle of one of Grandpa Roy’s sets. Young Sterling had been away at college at the time, and wound up leaving school, moving home, taking over the bar and taking care of his mother Lucille.
“I’ll try my best Mr. Mount.”
“That’s all I ask Leila. Why don’t you take a break? You’ve earned it. Besides Zanna should pop in the door any moment now.”
Leila nodded. She could use freshening up in more areas than one.
“Thank you My Mount, um Mr. Mount Sterling, sir,” she corrected herself.
Sterling laughed as her cheeks flushed over her slip of her tongue. Even his laugh was sexy. Smooth and warm like melted chocolate. She knew she had to escape immediately before she did something she would come to regret in the morning.
She excused herself and made a beeline for the bathroom. Luckily it was empty. The bathroom reeked of boob sweat and smoke. Leila locked the door behind her and proceeded to drench her hot body in cold water. She saw the flash of her wolf’s yellow brown eyes in the mirror above the sink. She gripped the porcelain until she felt it began to splinter beneath her fingertips.
“Easy girl,” she said to the wolf starring her in the face through the mirror.
It was going to be a long night indeed. She needed a release. If not, she knew she hate herself in the morning, though some male at the Stillwater Bar and Grill that night would have a night they would be unlikely to forget. But Leila wasn’t after a bathroom hook up or a one night stand. She attempted to convince herself she wasn’t after a man at all. Leila Dupree didn’t need a man. She slipped her fingers beneath the waistband of her lacy white underwear. Her mind betrayed her heart as images of Sterling Mount replayed in her mind as she stroked. She found herself already slick between her thighs. When Leila climaxed, she bit down the howl threatening to escape her lips. Instead a single name came from her lips as the peak of her self- pleasure “Sterling”.
Sterling stood tall and awaited his fate without flinching. The picture of surrender and compliance. This was a fight he knew he wouldn’t win, and there was more than one way to fight, to win. He had faith that the truth would come out at his trial and he would be found innocent. Leila tried to keep that faith too and wondered, if he stood strong and proud while facing down the law, for her benefit as much as his. To reassure those he held near and dear in the bar that night that true justice would prevail in the end.But Sheriff Thorne had a wicked glint in his eye, one that unsettled Leila and spoke of violence. One she knew all too well. He postured like a man with a small grasp of power in his hands, one who craved more, and was willing to get it at any means necessary. Men like Thorne were a plague to society, tale as old as time, and would be its ultimate downfall. Leila had known many of his kind among the wolves in the Blackwood Pack.“Sterling Mount, you are under arrest for
Leila should have been stunned, but she had heard versions of this before. The Sheriff had made claims that she’d been sleeping around with several men at the bar. But she was curious to hear this latest gossip on how Clyde’s death was her fault. Had Peggy fed this line to the Sheriff or had it been the other way around? Thorne had been insinuating Sterling had killed Clyde in a jealous rage because of Leila.Leila chuckled, “Let me hear it then Peggy. Go on. This town calling me a slut is nothing new because I don’t wear a wedding ring and don’t go to church, which neither do you come to think of it…But tell me why I’m the reason Clyde is dead?”The look on the shrew’s face was worth it alone. Peggy was insecure and jealous of Leila, and was probably the one who had spearheaded the smear campaign against the pretty young newcomer since Leila moved to Stillwater. Leila had never been overly flirty with anyone in the bar, except for Sterling, and had staved off all unwanted advances fr
Leila arrived early for her five p.m. shift at the bar the next evening to see if an extra pair of hands was needed to help get the bar up in running. But she soon saw that Ster had everything in tip-top shape, the window Gary Kline had busted was replaced, the food prep done for the night ahead, the place shiny clean, and even the band’s equipment was in tune for their eight p.m. set.She still tried to make herself useful. Her boss grinned at her from behind the bar with a dazzling smile and came to meet her halfway when she walked in. But Sterling let Leila control how far they were willing to take this, especially with an audience present. Amos Fox was visible through the kitchen window as he readied for the dinner service. Leila didn’t know the fifty-something man well, but he always talked about his wife Glory. They’d been married longer than Leila had been alive and it was a long running joke around the bar that Glory couldn’t cook a lick and burned water.Amos was a loving but
It wasn’t the warm, welcomed summer rain that sent Leila and Sterling indoors, as they lay naked and entangled in one another by the smoke of the dying out fire. Their passion for each other was not cooled by the rain or dampered by the smoke that curled around their still heaving bodies like the ivy that snaked up the side of Ster’s cottage. If anything, both Leila and her wolf were ready for round two, in fact she stole a kiss from his plump lips, and deepened the kiss when her tongue plunged into his mouth. He rose up to meet her kiss and the ferocity of her tongue stroke for stroke. One glance down between his muscled thighs told Leila all she needed to know. She threw a leg over his hip and made to straddle him. It wasn’t even the clash of thunder that parted the lovers, but rather the streaks of lightening reaching out across the inky sky. It touched down far too close to the ground for comfort. Thanks to her wolfblood, taking a lightening strike would likely only stun her, but
After the young lovers roamed the places on each other once forbidden, the moon was high and bright in the sky, and Leila dizzy from his kisses, Sterling wet his lips as his fingers stilled at the hem of her dress. A question danced in his bright cerulean eyes. He waited for Leila to control where they took this new and beautiful thing forming between them. He was so careful not to press his weight down on her. So far, his touches and kisses had been almost chaste. But Leila wasn’t sure she wanted him to remain a gentleman tonight.The wolf inside her longed for him to tear her dress to shreds and devour her. Her human side wanted all the promises making love entailed, emotions and feelings which had been denied her since she gave her body to the first boy she’d loved. Since Miles, the times her body had been taken, and the times she’d shared it willingly had met a carnal need, but never anything beyond those basic primal urges. Tonight, she wanted to feel it all. Something that trans
Leila was surprised how easy it was to carry on a conversation with her boss without Zen around to fill lingering silences or nudge the lovebirds into the right direction. Of course, now the man was so much more than just her boss to her. Looking back though, she realized Sterling Mount had always been more to her from the start. A friend when she needed it starting over in a new town with little money and no prospects. Never pressuring her like the others before him did and expecting her to sleep with him to show her gratitude Those friends had come with conditions. But the handsome bar owner had never expected anything in return for his good deeds of finding her housing and giving her a job. He was a good man and those were hard to find.They continued on with their flirty banter throughout their first course, and some of that nervousness dissipated like the ashes in the wind from the fire. Leila knew Sterling was also feeling more at ease and enjoying himself, if not for the smile
Zenia dropped Leila off at her apartment with the explicit instructions to take the rest of the night off from sleuthing and focus on her date to come with Sterling. But that was easier said than done as thoughts of this mystery woman kept intruding in her head as Leila got ready for her date. Was this scorned woman the key to solving this case? The smoking gun they so desperately needed to save the man she loved from being accused of a crime he didn’t commit? Or would this motel hook up prove to be just another dead end or red herring?Leila replayed it all in her head as she showered, hoping to pick apart any clue she might have missed. It would be hard to locate this woman when they had so little to go on about her. Hopefully, they would learn more when Spencer contacted them about whatever data he was able to recover from the dead man’s phone. As Leila scrubbed herself pink, took a razor to every inch of her body, then doused herself in scented oils like she was christening hersel
Leila and Zenia scoured the lot looking for guests, especially ones that looked like tenants. A man in a dark hoodie in the mid-July sun didn’t stop to even acknowledge them, which was probably for the best. He made a beeline across the cracked asphalt and disappeared into a room. It was likely he was about to take a hit of whatever he’d just scored. The sores Leila had seen on his face held credence to her theory. Meth and Heroin were the drugs of choice in these parts. Leila wasn’t as sensitive to the hot or cold since being turned, but even she began to feel like an egg frying on the pavement after twenty minutes of loitering around the rundown motel. She swatted at a mosquito and then it’s entire family it’d brought along to feast on her. Zen’s mood was deteriorating just as rapidly, especially when she stumbled on a pothole and about twisted her ankle. “Fuck this. I don’t want to catch hepatitis around here. I think this is a waste of time girl. Most of these people are asleep a
“Well fuck,” muttered Zen, “but I can work with this.” “Good luck. Looks like a tough crowd. I’m guessing you didn’t need to bring the girls to the party after all,” grinned Leila. Both women shared a look before they walked deeper in the lobby with dingy, linoleum floors, dim lighting, and the smell of unchanged cat litter permeated the air. At least Leila thought the obnoxious odor was from cats, but there was the possibility it was human waste in nature drifting from the bathroom with an Employee’s only sign on the door. Some past its prime potpourri was in a glass bowl on the counter near a small display of local town attractions, which held about three brochures in total, boasting an outlet store, a pizza joint with a nineteen-fifties theme, and a bowling alley. Dust mites flitted through the air in the breeze from the open door, and possibly some cat fur, giving Leila more credence to her belief of a feline also living on the property. The clerk gave an irritated glance in the
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