Knotted
He had made more than his fair share of mistakes, but despite his reputation, Sam didn't normally lust after fifteen year old girls. Not that he was lusting after one now, either. Not quite.
Brigitte Fitzgerald wasn't the kind of girl one lusted after. She was too much of all the wrong things: too plain, too solemn, too self-contained. There was something about her, though, that intrigued Sam. Something that kept her waiting along the edges of conscious thought, drawing Sam's attention away from more immediate concerns again and again.
He found himself wondering how his hand would fit against the curve of her hip, and how the subtle swell of her breast would feel beneath his palm. It was a detached curiosity, devoid of any real heat or urgency. Brigitte was a strangely greyscale fantasy, if she could be induced to appear in one at all.
Finding out how the real Brigitte Fitzgerald compared to her fantasy counterpart wasn't worth the risk, even though Sam suspected that she wouldn't be opposed to the idea. Brigitte was too uncomfortable, too aware of male and female to be anything close to subtle. Reluctant attraction was made evident in the way she looked at him: briefly, from under a curtain of tangled brown hair. Her body stiffened when he stood too close: aware, and uncertain, full of contained jitteriness.
He liked Brigitte, liked her more than he did a great many people. He wasn't about to act on that, though, because he wasn't blind, he wasn't stupid, and the situation in which he found himself was, without a doubt, fucked.
Sam didn't have the luxury of lying to himself, not now, and he could admit that Ginger Fitzgerald was. . . disturbing. Fuck that, she was terrifying. There was an intensity to her that had nothing to do with human, and she gave more away than she realized when she looked at her sister. He doubted that Brigitte knew, if only because he didn't know how she could possibly stand the weight of Ginger's need otherwise.
The thought of a werewolf--a real, god damned werewolf--was easier to deal with than the idea of Brigitte and Ginger, together. The way Ginger had looked at him, had spoken to him, told Sam that he was fumbling along the edges of something that was best left unexplored. If he was as smart as he liked to think, he should back the fuck away from Brigitte, from Ginger, from this entire, unbelievable mess.
He couldn't bring himself to make the right move, the smart move.
He was involved in this, too, and he wasn't about to give up on Brigitte because it was safer. She needed him, and it wasn't like there was anyone else in Bailey Downs willing or able to help her deal with Ginger, now or later. For once, he was doing something good, altruistic, so noble it made his bones ache.
There would be time enough, later, to decide what he wanted to do about everything else.