Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(106)

Suddenly, Tock didn’t care where they were. Whose house it was. What her friends were doing. She was only touching him with one hand but that alone was making her squirm. Tock did not squirm a lot. Squirming when working with explosives was never a good idea. She was well known for her stillness.

Shay’s eyes opened and they were pure gold. Cat gold.

She didn’t bother waiting anymore. She leaned in and kissed him, pressing her mouth against his. His lips parted and their tongues met, and it was like one of her homemade pipe bombs going off while she was too close. Every part of her seemed to be vibrating and stunned.

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.