Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)

And that was just from a kiss.

His arms were around her now, pulling her close. She decided then they could worry about foreplay later. She had other needs that had to be dealt with right now.

But when she had his sweatpants pushed halfway past his ass, Shay abruptly pulled away.

She watched him, wondering if she’d done something wrong, when he suddenly announced, “I’ll be right back.”

“What?” she snapped. She didn’t intend to sound mean, but she was a honey badger and he was taking her meal away!

“Don’t move,” he ordered. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

Then he was gone. Leaving Tock to think of all the ways she could strangle him when he came back.

*

Finn was sitting on a couch with his arm around Mads. For the last five minutes, he’d been hearing heavy footsteps running back and forth past the “family room.” The footsteps seemed to stop near or in the many bathrooms in the house, but he wasn’t sure. He only had a general idea of the layout of this place. And since he didn’t know who was running or why, and no one was calling out a warning, he chose to ignore the sound altogether.

He didn’t want to interrupt the horror movie they were all watching. He wouldn’t say he was a fan of the genre, but it was the one thing the MacKilligan sisters could agree on. Since Finn didn’t want to hear hours of arguing from the three sisters, he’d agreed on their movie choice. And Keane, the Dunn triplets, Nelle, Streep, and Streep’s fiancée, Ash, didn’t seem to care one way or the other. So far, they’d already gone through “The Conjuring” series. And had just started “The Exorcist” series when Finn heard more heavy footsteps and then felt a hand on his shoulder. Before he could react, he was snatched out of the family room.

He unleashed his fangs, assuming a crazed wolf wanted to fight, but instead he found himself in the kitchen staring at his brother Shay.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you have a condom?”

“A condom? Why would you need a . . . oh. Oh!” He grinned. “Ohhhhh.”

“Stop it. Just give me a condom.”

“I don’t have one. Unlike you, I didn’t get a chance to go home to get my shit. At this moment, I’m wearing wolf clothing. It smells like them, too.” He pulled the T-shirt up, sniffed it. “And Downey. Anyway, my current lack of condoms is why I’m watching horror movies with bears rather than fucking my girlfriend in the room they gave me.”

“I need a condom.”

Assuming this was all about Tock, he asked, “Can’t you two wait until we get home?”

When his brother grabbed his sweatshirt and lifted him up against the wall, Finn said, “So that’s a no? You can’t wait?”

“What’s going on?” Mads asked. Not surprisingly, she’d been the only one to notice Finn was gone. Kind of hurtful after the day they’d had. He’d think his other brother would notice that Finn had been snatched from the room. What if Finn was in danger? Again!

“Shay needs condoms.”

“Condoms? Oh. Oh!” She frowned. “Oh, yeah. We don’t have any. I just figured later we could suck each other off.”

“Could you not?” Shay snarled while Finn smiled. He loved his girlfriend.

“Calm down,” Mads soothed. She’d gotten really good at managing his brothers. His past girlfriends had just avoided them completely. “Put Finn on the floor and let’s go see what we can do for you.”

*

The bedroom door opened and Mads’s aunt stood there in nothing but a sheet wrapped around her body and held there by her free hand. Her tousled gray-and-black hair practically covered her eyes. It did not appear that she had been sleeping.

“What?” the older She-badger abruptly asked Shay, Finn, and Mads. She didn’t sound mad or annoyed. Shay got the feeling that was just how she talked to people.

“Do you have any condoms?” Mads asked without even a little bit of subtlety, making Shay cringe in embarrassment.

“Are they going to fuck in our house?” a male voice snarled from inside the bedroom.

“Ignore him,” Tracey Rutowski said with a dismissive hand wave. “And in answer to your question, after more than thirty years of marriage, four dangerously unstable children—”

“And don’t forget menopause,” that male voice added.

The She-badger’s mouth twisted and her eyes briefly closed. That Van Holtz wolf she’d married did like to play with danger, didn’t he?

“Anyway,” she finally went on, “we do not have condoms, but let’s see if someone else does.”

Part of Shay was dying. He didn’t need the world to know he was planning to have his way with Tock. But they were dealing with honey badgers, weren’t they? They weren’t known for being a subtle species. Or cognizant of other people’s feelings.

Mads’s aunt pushed past their small group and over to the bedroom door across the hall, the gray sheet fluttering behind her. She knocked and, after a minute or two, another Van Holtz wolf answered. He hadn’t bothered with a sheet, so the door was only partially opened; he seemed to be naked, too.

“What?” he asked. What was with the people in this fancy house? None of them knew how to answer a door?

“Do you have condoms?” Mads’s aunt asked.

“No. We don’t—”

“I do!”

With an angry snarl, this Van Holtz wolf demanded, “Why the fuck do you have condoms? We don’t use condoms!”

“Oh, calm down. I got a bunch of them in a gift box from Dalia’s performance-art show, Sex Is My Despair.”

The wolf was pushed aside and CeCe álvarez opened the door all the way. Unlike her wolf, she had no problem with everyone seeing her naked. And Shay had to admit, he was impressed. She looked amazing.

She handed a bright pink box to Mads. “Here you go, hon.”

“Thanks.”

She winked at them. “You guys have fun now.”

“I really don’t want them fucking in our—”

The door slammed shut before they could hear the rest of the wolf’s complaint.

“Need anything else?” Mads’s aunt asked.

“No. This was it.”

“Great. ’Night.” She walked back to her room and, as the door shut behind her, they heard her growl, “I can’t believe you brought up menopause. Bastard!”

Mads handed the box over to Shay. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

He started to run back downstairs but Finn caught his arm and pulled him back. He removed the securing tape from the box and opened the top. He took a condom. Then took one more.

“Now you can go.”

Bastard!

*

Keane heard heavy footsteps run past the archway again, but by the time he turned to look, there was no one there.

“That was Shay,” Nelle told him. How she could tell since she never seemed to look up from her cell phone, he had no idea.

“Why’s he running?”

“No idea.” Suddenly she was pressed up next to him, their faces touching.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking our picture.”

“I don’t want my picture taken.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll put a black bar over your eyes. It’s those cheekbones I’m really trying to get.”

“Why? What’s wrong with my cheekbones?”

“Nothing. That’s the point.”

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