Chapter 33: Cormac

“When’s she comin’ back?” Tara asked Cormac. He hadn’t been outside with the men that much now that Isabelle was running around town and poking her nose into this messy shifter business.

“She didn’t say nothing ‘bout that,” Cormac admitted. He had asked her where she was going and how long she thought it would take, and Isabelle told him politely to stay out of it.

“Investigations take time,” she said without a trace of concern. Cool as ever; cold as ice. “You’ll just have to let me do the work.”

But the day was getting late and Cormac was getting nervous. He had been able to keep an eye on her for a few hours. When she entered the town to talk to Gus, he had moved along. Joey had let him borrow his truck for the day even though he had a million questions as to why. Cormac just responded that his own truck was acting up a bit, and he couldn’t trust it not to break down on the drive. From Joey’s cockeyed expression, he knew he wasn’t buying that story but handed over the keys without another word. Blood thirsty he was, stupid was never the case. Joey always seemed to be watching, absorbing, paying attention to what other people were doing.

“Last I saw her,” Cormac started, surveying the driveway and the road past it through the screen door of the main house, “she had gone into Gus’s and was probably askin’ him all sorts of suspicious questions.”

“Gus won’t say nothin’.”

“Let’s hope not.”

Cormac didn’t have much faith in Gus being able to pull the wool over Isabelle’s eyes. She was too sharp for him, and Gus had never needed to cover his tracks to a reporter before. Neither had Cormac, for that matter, but he was a more subdued personality anyway. It was easy for him to just grunt and nod and have people assume he was some quiet, slightly dumb cowboy type. Gus was talkative, an open book. About most things at least. He spent his day shooting the shit with the old men parked outside his store and chatting to everyone about their families and their pets and their infirmities. For him to suddenly clamp up and keep his mouth closed seemed nearly impossible.

Down the road a ways, a small sedan was headed to the ranch. The sight of it flooded Cormac was relief stronger than he had ever felt before. It was Isabelle, he was sure of it. Not too many people around those parts drove a compact car.

He didn’t want to be so powerful and quickly connected to someone who was essentially still a stranger. The fact that she seemed to return the feelings only made it harder. This was a bad route to go down. If Isabelle didn’t know that yet, she’d know it soon. Shifters and humans didn’t make great couples.

“Ya know, ya can’t ‘elp who you love,” Tara said as the sedan got closer to the ranch.

“Tara, please.”

I’m just sayin’ that if you fight it, you’ll only make it ‘urt more.”

Cormac stuck his head into the kitchen and narrowed his eyes at her. “I’d expect you of all people to understand the dangers of fallin’ in love with a human.”

Tara nodded and turned her attention back to the dinner she was making for the three of them. “I know the dangers ‘bout everything,” she said after a long silence. “Everything ‘as danger, ya know.”

Cormac tried to tamp down his anger towards her. Tara was trying to be helpful and she wasn’t without her wisdom but this was not the time for it. This was a situation neither of them had dealt with in the past, and she was treating it as if the biggest issue was his attraction to Isabelle. Or her attraction to him. He wasn’t sure she understood the ramifications of their story getting out or just how quickly news could spread in the more connected modern world.

The tires of the sedan crunched the sparse gravel of the driveway. When Cormac was a kid, his father would never let the place get as rundown as Cormac had. Maxine and Tara had reveled in building a home together, keeping the ranch in as pristine condition as was possible in a landscape of wind and erosion. Since her death, Cormac had watched it crumble around him, a desperate man in his own private house of usher. He had an excuse for the cottage, and nobody pressed him on why that lovely little bungalow was falling into disrepair but he could see the ranch hands shaking the loose posts of the fences and pulling on the holes in the chicken wire. He could see Tara tug at the peeling paint on the walls and try to launder the dirty, grease stained curtains. She wanted to return to the place to its former humble glory but she was handicapped by Cormac and Cormac was handicapped by Maxine. Or the lack thereof.

Isabelle got out of the car and shaded her eyes even though the sun wasn’t very strong. It wasn’t late enough to be twilight; the roiling orb above them was starting its descent, still prominent in the sky. The glare of it bounced off her dark hair, caught the high glowing color in her long cheeks. Cormac found himself without words as she approached the house.

“Find anybody willin’ to talk to ya?” he asked, swinging open the screen door to draw her into the dimly lit depths.

“Only Gus, and he wasn’t too thrilled at my being there.”

“Gus probably just wasn’t too thrilled ‘bout what you were saying,” Cormac said, following Isabelle into the kitchen. Tara had disappeared at some point between the sedan pulling in the driveway and Isabelle coming into the house. The two of them were alone, truly and completely alone.

Isabelle settled on the couch in the living room while Cormac pulled two beers out of the fridge. He popped the cap off of the first one and handed it to Isabelle before cracking his open. Isabelle took a swig and shook her head.

“He got startled by me asking anything at all,” she said, lowering the bottle to her lap. “He got startled and he got defensive.”

Cormac’s throat was dry. He tried to remember if he had had any water at all that day. The bubbles in the beer burst against his throat, silken and painful simultaneously. It hit him deep in his stomach, and he realized he hadn’t eaten that day either.

“There was something really weird about how Gus reacted to me today,” Isabelle said, crossing her legs over each other and reclining against the back of the couch. “Like he knows way more than he’s letting on.”

“I assume you’ve figured out that he’s one of us too.”

Isabelle nodded, sipped her beer. “I had put that together once you confirmed that the thing I saw that night was actually what I thought it was. I wasn’t positive that Gus was one of you but I had a feeling. At the very least, I knew he was aware of you guys and didn’t want others to find out.”

“So it’s understandable that he got defensive.”

“I mean about more than that though. I think he knows more than he should about a lot of things.” She tapped a finger to her chest. “Like me, for instance. Or…” She trailed off then pressed the heel of her hand into her forehead. “I get this weird feeling he knows something about why I’m here. Why I was sent on this assignment.”

“Gus knows a great deal ‘about many things but he’s not god, ya know.”

Isabelle sighed and lifted the long neck of her beer back to her lips. Cormac watched them fold around the opening, drinking the nectar straight from the spigot. A faint line of sweat beaded across her upper lip. Cormac had a flash in his head of him leaning forward and licking it off of her, dragging his tongue across her throat to taste the salty surface of her skin. The way her back was arched elevated her breasts; her nipples were tight and obvious through her shirt. Ever the gentleman, Cormac tried not to stare though he was fairly certain Isabelle wouldn’t mind.

A tingle of a scent glided over from where Isabelle was sitting on the couch. Cormac raised his nose in the air and inhaled deeply. “You’ve got urine on you,” he said after a moment. He sniffed again. “Or it’s on something in your pocket.”

“Urine? You mean, like, piss?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” His focus went to her front pocket that bulged with a small lump. “Ya got somethin’ in there?”

“I picked up some nice rocks I found. That’s about it.”

Cormac fought the urge to plunge his hands into either side of her pants, digging around until he found what she was squirreling away. He wondered if it was the film; that she had scooped it up on her travels and was getting ready to hand it over to the highest bidder. His gaze moved to her face, and he was startled by the soft, inviting smile.

“Sit next to me, Cormac,” Isabelle said, shifting on the couch so there was more space for him.

“What for?”

“Just...can you sit for a minute?”

There was a drape of exhaustion that lowered over her features as she spoke. The initial excitement of sharing the information and experience about Gus had faded, and he could tell she was back to remembering the reality of their situation. They were lying to people, sneaking around, trying to keep under wraps a dwindling population that wanted to be left alone. He didn’t have the right to be short with her; she was doing what had to be done, a quality he admired.

“Ya alright?”

He sat close to her, their knees touching. He almost put a hand on her thigh to comfort her but thought the gesture too intimate for people who had only recently kissed and then done nothing else physical together. The way her legs fell apart, splayed just the right amount to be enticing, and the long slope of her body was driving him wild. He could tell the animal instinct was rising inside of him, begging him to take what he wanted.

“I don’t trust…” Isabelle sighed, took another sip of her beer. “I don’t even know what I don’t trust. I don’t trust my boss Wes and I don’t trust that I’m actually safe here and I don’t trust…” She turned her face towards him. The words faded on her lips.

“You trust me though, right?” He moved closer, his frame hovering over her supine form. “You must at this point.”

“I guess I do,” Isabelle answered gently.

“You guess you do?”

“I don’t know what else to say. I have to trust you.”

Before he knew what he was doing, Cormac leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. He felt the swift, nimble motions of her tongue as it slipped into his mouth, and he ran his fingers through her hair to hold her head in place. Pressure was applied; Isabelle moaned and whimpered and pressed herself to him.

“We should just forget all this,” he whispered in her ear, his mouth moving down along her neck. “Forget your boss and the story. Give up Denver and stay here with me. We’ll make love until our bones turn to dust.”

“I don’t make love, Cormac,” Isabelle told him in a sultry voice. “I fuck.”

Cormac sat back, the taste of her still on his tongue. He laughed lightly but there was a burning in his stomach and cock, churning and riling up inside his balls. The word had rolled out of her mouth so effortlessly that it stunned him. He wasn’t used to women who talked dirty, who used crude curse words casually and dismissed the notion of making love. Something about it turned him on more than he expected it to. She wasn’t a shy, sweet maiden waiting for a man to tenderly kiss her. She was another beast all together, and she was out for blood just like the rest of his pack.

“You’re a wild one,” Cormac told her.

“Between the two of us, that’s not the case.”

Cormac smiled and shook his head. “No, even with me being whatever the hell I am, you’re a wild one.”

Isabelle laughed and rolled her eyes. Through the window of the living room, the western sky blazed as the encroaching sun scorched its way across it. They could hear the men shouting to each other and Tara bustling around wherever she was but there was a moment of peace and silence between them, and they both sat completely still, terrified to be the one that shattered it.