I chuckled at that. “You can call me that whenever you like, June-bug, but if anyone asks we were reorganizing the storage room tonight.”
Podcast lifted his hands high so that we could see his words.‘And what about the smell?’he asked, waving a hand through the air to waft the thick mixture of sex and our mixed scents at me.
I thought about it for a moment before shrugging. “At that point I plead the fifth. I’m banking on no one coming in here until it’s had a chance to air out anyway.”
‘Fair enough,’Podcast replied and reached back to pat my cheek.
The sound of a soft snore brought our attention to Juneau who had drifted off to sleep at some point during our conversation.
Podcast’s chest shook with more laughter and I joined in with a quiet one of my own. I wasn’t sure what the future held with Juneau, but now that I was fully in, I was going to fight like hell to keep her.
Chapter Twenty
Aftermylessoninthe storage room I woke up inside of my nest and for a moment I thought I was alone. I patted around the nest confused until my hand connected with Podcast’s sleeping face and he huffed an annoyed breath and rolled away. It was just the two of us in the nest, but I could smell Doc’s lingering scent in the air.
I could feel the distant thump from the music in the bar vibrating through the house, which told me that it hadn’t been long since I fell asleep. I wasn’t sure how they had gotten me up the stairs without taking me through the bar, but they’d managed it somehow. They had also dressed me in a soft pair of pajamas.
I rolled onto my stomach and propped my chin in my hands, staring at Podcast’s sleeping face.
Things had changed irrevocably today and I was surprised at how content I felt. In the past I could never have imagined having a man’s hands on me, at least not one of the many men who my mother put in front of me.
It had felt so right to let both Doc and Podcast touch me, and I couldn’t push down the feeling of wanting more of it.
Then I remembered that there was a time limit to my time in the future and my mood took a dive.
I reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair off of Podcast’s forehead, my thoughts a complete mess.
Curling up close to him and laying my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Even though tonight had complicated things, I didn’t regret a thing.
“This one doesn’t look as if it is developing at all,” my voice was glum as I held the little pigeon egg out to Bat. I was in the coop helping him get the birds ready for the next storm that was rolling in from the coast. He was busy hanging the tarps across the chicken wire so that the wind couldn’t get in and I was filling out the egg logs.
Bat took the egg and I held the flashlight up to it to show him. “That does happen sometimes, sugar,” he said, slipping the egg back underneath the pigeon.
“Why do you put it back underneath the mama?” I asked, scribbling down my notes about the egg in his notebook.
“Don’t want to stress her out by taking the egg away from her, once the other egg hatches in a few weeks we’ll get rid of it,” Bat explained as he leaned down and hooked the tarp on the nails at the bottom of the coop, effectively blocking the chilly air from getting to the pigeons inside.
It had been a few days since my lesson about knots and I still blushed every time I thought about it… but I was also eager to do it again. Back home I’d never been overly interested in touching myself unless I was close to my heat. After that night, though, I’d slipped into my nest every chance I got to quell the new urges that I was feeling, using the memory of that night to drive me on.
Afterward I always sprayed the nest down with the de-scenting spray that they had given me and if they could smell it, they didn’t say anything. I was fairly sure that the rest of the packwasacutely aware of what we did in the storage room that night, though Podcast assured me that he had muted his bonds during the duration of our activities.
Something had irrevocably shifted that night, we were all stuck in a standoff waiting for the other to say something.
‘You know you don’t have to go back to 1915, right,’the voice that always appeared at the worst times said in my head. He sounded further away than normal, like the whisper on a wind. His next words were closer, stronger.‘You could stay there with them. There is a reason that you were pulled here.’
I had also learned that I didn’t need to speak out loud for the voice to hear me. He could read all of my thoughts, even the ones I didn’t want him to.‘Stop listening to my inner thoughts. It’s violating. You always pop in at the strangest times.’
‘It’s not as easy to communicate across time and space as you think it is, Juneau,’the voice responded dryly.
‘So says the person who yanked me through time and space as if I were a rag doll,’I shot back and though I couldn’t see his face, I could almost hear his eyes rolling in the void.
I waited for him to say something else, but he was gone again and the buzzing that always seemed to occur when he was speaking to me disappeared.
“The voice again?” Bat asked, hunkering down so that I was eye-level with him. I must have been silent for much longer than I thought because he looked worried.
I shrugged my shoulders. “He likes to appear at the most inopportune moments,” I said, not wanting to talk aboutwhathe had felt the need to comment on. Truth be told, I had been considering staying in the future even without him needing to say anything at all.
Everything was new and interesting in the future. I could feel all of the possibilities for me in the air and it was addicting.
