The room fell into startled silence.
“Let’s talk about this like human beings.” Grandpa looked sharp in his white shirt, beaded vest, and bolo tie, a single eagle feather in his long gray hair. “I saw you hit this boy.”
Dean’s face was still flushed, and he was breathing hard. “He called me stupid.”
“No, I didn’t!” Mervin’s lip was swollen. “I said, ‘Don’t be stupid.’”
Grandpa held up a hand for silence and turned to Dean. “This is what you do when someone says words you don’t like? You hit them?”
Dean’s chin came up. He probably looked like a delinquent, a troublemaker, to most of the adults. To Naomi, he seemed like a scared little boy. “My father raised me to be a warrior.”
“You think hitting another boy makes you a warrior?” Grandpa Belcourt chuckled, moving toward the center of the room. “Listen, children, all of you. Too many of our people have forgotten what it means to be a true warrior, so I will tell you.”
Chaska released Dean. “Listen to Old Man now.”
Naomi got a knot in her chest. God, she loved Chaska. He was a mechanical engineer who spent his workday building satellites, not a camp counselor or referee. Still, he’d jumped headlong into this whole summer camp adventure because it was important to her.
After waiting a moment to let the tension build, Grandpa spoke again. “A warrior isn’t a man who hits people or fights with other men. A warrior is someone who sacrifices himself—or herself—for the well-being of others.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“Listen.” Chaska rested a hand on Dean’s shoulder.
Grandpa continued. “A man who protects the sick and the weak is a warrior. A woman who has a baby is a warrior because she suffers to bring life into the world. A boy who watches over his little brothers and sisters is a warrior. You want to be a warrior? Shovel snow from your grandma’s sidewalk and carry her groceries without being asked. Watch over those who are younger and weaker than you are—two-legged, four-legged, and winged ones. Think of others before you think of yourself. Then you will be a true warrior and worthy of respect.”
“Aho.” Chaska nodded.
Dean’s gaze dropped to the floor.
Chapter 2
Brandon Silver’sheart thudded in his chest, orgasm fading into a kind of blissful stupor, his breathing beginning to slow. Libby lay limp against his chest, completely spent, her long strawberry-blond hair a tangled mass that spilled over his ribs and shoulders.
They’d been lovers for the better part of two years now and had fucked in pretty much every way and everywherethey could. In the mountains. At his place. At her place. In the stacks at the new library. In the park. At the theater. In the Scarlet Springs cemetery. At the firehouse. In the front seat of the big fire engine. On the gurney in the back of the ambulance. On the stage at Knockers, where Joe Moffat, her boss and the brewpub’s owner, had caught them with their pants down. Behind the brew tanks at Knockers, where Joehadn’tcaught them.
Libby was as creative a lover as she was a brewmaster. Maybe the two were related. Maybe the same part of her brain that came up with things like Plow Me Orange Chocolate Peppermint Cream Stout was the same part that had her asking him to tie her naked to the sawhorse in her garage.
One day, she would fuck him literally to death, but until then...
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he loved her, but he knew that would send her running. Libby loved sex, but she wasn’t into commitment. The last time he’d slipped, she’d gotten angry, stomped off, and hadn’t spoken to him for days.
But, damn, hedidlove her, from the tip of her freckled nose to the toenails she’d painted with black and green stripes. He burned for her. He’d been a firefighter for ten of his thirty years, but he had no idea how to put out this kind of blaze.
Libby was his obsession.
His pager buzzed in his cargo pants somewhere on the floor, but he couldn’t do a damned thing about it. “Are you going to untie me?”
Right now, he was her prisoner, tied spread-eagle to her bed like an offering.
She stirred, raised herself, hands on his chest, her beautiful pink-tipped breasts swaying in a way that made him ache to suckle them. “I should keep you here. You have the body of a god, you know. I could play with you all day.”
She slid her hands over his pecs and shoulders.
“And how many gods have you fucked?”
“That’s my secret.” She explored the muscles of his arms, which were stretched over his head. “What would happen if you didn’t show up at work?”
“Hawke would have my balls.” Brandon was Hawke’s B-shift captain. It was his job to run the firehouse and respond to 911 calls—24 hours on, 48 hours off.