Hair of the Dog

Kelli Scott

When Grant, mayor of Mystic
Springs, asks Ivy to run the Mystic Springs resort, she’s so thrilled, she
accepts the job without so much as visiting the town first. Then she arrives
and meets Grant—and her goals change. She got her dream job, and now she wants
Grant…preferably at her mercy in the bedroom.

Grant’s inner animal is desperate
to take Ivy. And he’s not joking about the “animal” part—Grant and most of the
Mystic Springs residents are shifters. The spring is more than a landmark, it’s
the touchstone that grounds their powers and keeps them on the human side of
the shifter spectrum. But the spring is running dry…

The townspeople are convinced Ivy
is the woman who was prophesied to rejuvenate the spring. Local legend is rife
with rumors of sex rites that might help, and Grant’s only too happy to give
them a go. He just has to convince Ivy that he’s the man—er, wolf?—for her.

Ellora’s Cave Publishing

www.ellorascave.com

Hair of the Dog

ISBN 9781419935633

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Hair of the Dog Copyright © 2012 Kelli Scott

Edited by Meghan M. Conrad

Cover design by Caitlin Fry

Photos: William Langeveld and Yuri Arcurs

Electronic book publication April 2012

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Good Lord, what have I done?

The door to the mammoth bus closed with a hiss, leaving Ivy
Fontainebleau high and dry, not to mention quite alone at the side of the
country road too close to dusk. Too far from civilization.

Ivy coughed into her balled-up fist when a cloud of diesel
exhaust filled her lungs and coated her hair and skin with an invisible film of
yuck. She doubted the experience did anything positive for her plain
appearance, but at least the cloud was warm. Looking around once the exhaust
fog lifted, she stood smack dab in the middle of
What-The-Fuck-Were-You-Thinking, USA.

Having second thoughts, Ivy?
“Now that’s an
understatement.” She snorted a laugh.
Never too late to turn back
. “Hello!”
She thumped herself on the skull with her knuckles. “Anybody home?” It was way
too late to turn back. The ass end of the bus was nothing more than a dot on
the horizon that quickly vanished around a bend in the road. Another bus would
not be by anytime soon.

Ivy whipped out her cell phone.
No signal
. She walked
away from her luggage, which Homeland Security strongly warned against while
traveling. Throwing caution to the wind and her cell phone to the cellular
gods, she decided to take her chances. Ivy crisscrossed the tree-lined country
road, holding the phone up high, and then down low.
Nothing
.

Panic bubbled up like Old Faithful.
I’m going to blow
.
She recognized the signs. Panic led to rising body temperature. Heat turned to
a racing pulse. Erratic breathing wouldn’t be far behind. She knew the drill.

Ivy plopped down on a rickety bench. The only bench. Sitting
put her closer to the ground, which she might be face down on shortly, inhaling
back-roads-country dirt and gravel. A banjo strummed the
Deliverance
theme in her head.
That’s new
.
Must be a regional thing
. Dots
danced in her peripheral vision. Darkness closed in around her, taking from her
any conscious thought.

Next thing she knew, Ivy ran barefoot along the banks of a
familiar creek that snaked through a meadow toward a welcoming stand of trees.
Tall, dewy grass tickled at her ankles and calves. She shed her clothes with
wild abandon, twirling them above her head and flinging them through the air
with a “whoop whoop” and a “yippee” for good measure.

Reaching the trees, she did a cannonball into the calm,
cool, blue water of a pond beneath a trickling waterfall. Serenity wrapped her
in a welcome embrace.
Bliss.
Ivy swam frog style across the pond toward
the falls, the water licking her lovingly head to toe.
Joy.
Ferns grew
along the rocky, moss-covered banks. Birds chirped and the sweet smell of damp
earth tickled her nose. Rolling over midway across the pond, she finished with
a backstroke.

Being no idiot, she knew she was dreaming. Ivy had never
been a strong swimmer. In her fantasy, though, it came quite naturally. In real
life, her mother had put the fear of—well, everything in her. Drowning. Flying.
Strangers. You name it, her mother banned it.

Once Ivy had reached the falls that now spilled rather than
dripped, she scaled the rock wall to stand beneath the cascading water. She let
the refreshing wetness wash over her skin like a thousand sloppy kisses bent on
soothing the prickling sensation of flesh on fire with need no estuary should be
able to satisfy. Instead of soothing, the cold water doused her tingling flesh,
fueling her blood, boiling below the surface of her skin. The rush of
free-flowing liquid lapped at her erect nipples and sluiced away her
inhibitions.

Planting her foot on an outcropping of rock, Ivy opened her
legs, offering herself to the falls. The waterfall rewarded her by tickling her
clit with a rush of water. She caressed her breasts and abdomen, her thighs and
hips. Parting her lips, Ivy drank in the intoxicating liquor of the falls. The
icy burn deliciously seared her throat and scorched her stomach like whiskey.

The splash of water ebbed and flowed against her engorged
pussy, seducing her clit like the tongue of a skilled lover. A lover who only
visited her subconscious mind. The flow of water spraying her body, combined
with the dizzying elixir filling her senses from the inside, caused a warm glow
of pleasure from head to toe. The heat of desire burned hottest in her lower
belly. The pleasant glow transitioned into tingling, followed by trembling,
ending with an explosion of liquid heat in her pussy. The waterfall lavished
her with liters of love and acceptance.

Clutching at a growth of foliage, Ivy hung on through the
climactic burst of pleasure that only dreams deliver. The blissful thrumming
beat a joyful tune that echoed through her body, causing her blood to dance in
her veins. Her grip on the flora loosened as the pulsing subsided, but her
heartbeat continued to pound.

Her orgasm sadly over, she did a swan dive off the rocks,
zigzagging under the water with no compulsion to inhale. She glided through
cool water followed by warm, returning to a layer of cool. When she pushed
through the surface, darkness surrounded her. No stars or moon, just black.

Ivy sprang upright. Her heart pounded from the run and the
swim and the pure exhilaration of desire fulfilled. Her breath came out in
heavy puffs, chest heaving. She patted herself.
Not naked. That’s a plus.
On the minus side, she was still on that damn bench by the side of the road.
The dark of night loomed too close in her future. She snapped her head toward
the rustling of brush behind her. Too loud to be a squirrel or a bird. Way too
close for comfort.

Did I just hear something growl?

A car approached. More panic.
Do not black out. Do not
black out. Whatever you do, do not black out.
The newer model Jeep careened
to the shoulder and came to a stop amidst a cloud of dust. The rustling nearby
faded to quiet. Her heart followed suit. If only she could stop gulping for air.

Out of the Jeep popped a genetically perfect man from the
driver’s side. Height proportionate to weight. Symmetrical facial features. One
dark chocolate eye squinted against the last ray of the setting sun over the
trees in the distance. “Ivy? Ivy Fontainebleau?” he inquired.

She raised her hand. “That’s me. I’m Ivy. All day long.”
I’ll
be whoever you want me to be
. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her
nose. Not so much because they’d slipped. More out of habit.

“I’m Grant Grayson.” He smiled reassuringly, shook her hand
and lifted her bags into his idling vehicle before his words registered in her
brain as anything more than pleasant noise. Very pleasant noise indeed. “We
spoke on the phone.”

“Mr. Grayson.” His name escaped her lips quietly like air
leaking from a tire. Yes, she fondly recalled their verbal exchanges. His face
exceeded the picture his words painted in her mind and his physique was nothing
to complain about either.

“My friends call me Grant. I hope you will too.” He opened
the passenger side door for her, his gaze scanning the surrounding area. “Sorry
I kept you waiting.” His eyes flashed with awareness. His nostrils flared. “You
know how it is.”

As if in a hypnotic trance, Ivy slid into the seat. She
decided she’d slide into a flaming chariot from Hell if he opened the door and
smiled in her direction, flaring nostrils and all. While he rounded the front
of the car, she checked herself in the mirror. Sadly nothing had changed. On a
scale of one to ten, he was a ten. She was a five on a good day. Not so much on
a day like today after a seven-hour bus ride and an impromptu blackout on a
roadside bench while critters closed in around her.

Her eyes had an unfortunate habit of playing off the colors
around her. Hazel, some called it. Today they were probably a dull gray like
the pavement and the darkening sky and the interior of his car.
Why couldn’t
he have violet upholstery?
The poets would describe her hair in prose as
mousy brown, which rhymes with blousy gown and lousy frown. Nothing about her
stood out except her mediocrity and her inability to create sensible rhymes.

Grant took a seat behind the wheel and flashed her a
slow-motion-instant-replay of his previous smile. His smile melted her insides
to a warm, gooey liquid, but couldn’t melt the gold wedding band on his finger.
Even without the band, his starched collar, matching socks and pressed
button-up shirt gave away his domestic classification. Married. Like a
cherished garden, he was well tended.

“Beautiful, beautiful countryside,” Ivy said. “Just
breathtaking.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” he replied, easing his Jeep
back onto the country road. “Wait until you see the spring.”

“I can’t wait.” Her entire face ached from smiling. Muscles
she hadn’t exercised much in her twenty-nine years of life. Needing to fill the
silence, she said, “Funny story—”

“Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?” He checked his side mirror
before his eyes cut to her for the answer.

Ivy tilted her head and crinkled her brow. “A little of
both. Anyhow, when I graduated from high school—”

“Franklin High School in Arizona, class of—”

She held up her hand in protest. “Let’s not go there.” She
didn’t need to be reminded that her life was not on the fast track to success
for a woman her age. “As I was saying, I craved some adventure in my otherwise
dull life, so I pinned a map on the wall—”

Glancing over at her, he asked playfully, “Did you throw a
dart at a map?”

“Yes! How did you know? Oooh, look at that creek.” Ivy
pointed out the passenger side window. “Pretty. So, so pretty. Where was I?”

He threaded the car effortlessly along the ribbon of road
and said, “You threw a dart at a map.”

“Oh yes. You’ll never guess where it landed. Guess.”
Am I
babbling? Yes. Shut up, Ivy
. “I’ll give you three guesses and three guesses
only.”

“Mystic Springs?” he replied.

She smacked him in the arm, which probably didn’t happen
much to him, being the mayor of Mystic Springs and all. “Yes! How did you
know?”

He took one hand off the wheel and rubbed his arm. “It’s a
better punch line than Paris, France.”

“Which is sort of where I wanted the dart to land,” she
admitted with a regrettable laugh that took the unfortunate form of a snort.
“No offense.”

“None taken,” he quickly said. “I’d say that sort of thing
happens a lot. You know, random darts landing in unfortunate places. Did you
give yourself a do-over?”

“Yes I did, but you’ll never believe what happened.”
How
boring am I? Someone stop me, please. There’s no shame in comfortable silence.
“Never in a million years,” she babbled on. “Guess.”

“It landed in the same exact spot,” he guessed.

“Yes! You’re good at this.”
Wish I was. I wish I could
stop talking.

“I thought about guessing Paris, France,” he said, “but
again, Mystic Springs is a much better ending to—”

“An otherwise boring story?”
I know it’s rude to
interrupt, but he did it to me—twice.

“Not at all.” He smiled. Again. Warm. Brilliant. Kind. “It’s
a charming story.”

A charming story that I should keep to myself. It gets
better. I’ll save it for some other awkward moment when I should shut up but
can’t.
“That’s a darn big tree.” Ivy pointed at the darn big tree as they
whizzed by it and many other darn big trees. “Pretty country.”
I’m sure he
never gets tired of hearing that
. “Pretty, pretty, pretty,” she muttered.
If
you say pretty one more time…

“Out of curiosity, where did you end up going?” he asked,
probably to stop her from saying “pretty” again. Someone had to. “Not Mystic
Springs? I’m sure I’d remember you.”

Ivy’s eyebrow shot up.
Is that just something people say?
Am I so grotesque he’d remember me for ten years?
“Fate intervened. I got a
summer job at Pizza Hut and stayed in Arizona.”
Gained ten pounds.

“You should have come,” he said, teasing her with a warm
smile.

If only he knew she was still recovering from actually
coming
.
Her pussy was still throbbing a little. And his smile might make her come
again.

With a tone so husky he nearly growled, Grant Grayson added,
“Never tempt fate, Ms. Fontainebleau.”

“Ivy.” She sighed, an attempt to cover her wanton desire.
“Just Ivy.”
Just plain ol’ Ivy.

“Ivy.” He treated her to a softer smile. Like a private joke
between loved ones. It was nice. If his smile were a cocktail, it would be a
sweet and fruity umbrella drink. She’d slurp it on the rocks with a cherry on
top. She’d twirl that cherry around the tip of her tongue before sucking the
juices out and swallowing it whole. “We’re glad you finally made it,” he said.

I could totally get drunk on your smile
. Ivy had a
sobering moment, shaking her head before saying, “We?”

“The town.” He smiled again. A regular smile. Sadly. “Mystic
Springs.”

Of course. The town
. His wife included, probably.
Damn
ring.

Now, ten years after the double-dart-do-over incident, Ivy
had been approached and subsequently hired to be the general manager of the
Mystic Springs Resort, sight unseen. The classy name aside, it was probably a
shabby string of cottages with a burned-out neon
Vacancy
sign. She
pictured hourly rates for seedy hookups, weekly rates for drifters and vending
machines in the restrooms dispensing condoms for either or.
There’s no shame
in promoting safe sex
. Why else would they hire her despite her
less-than-impressive hotel management career as the assistant night manager at
an airport Econolodge? In other words, the graveyard shift at the front desk.

She had plenty of experience making coffee, scheduling
wakeup calls and folding towels.