Maybe she should have worn a thong under it.
No, she decided. She would not be going to bed with Griffin Montgomery on the first date. Quality men wanted quality women, and—
Ellie hastily typed out a message to Maddie on her phone, Do you have any condoms to spare?
Just in case. Men of quality didn’t care if women used their sexual freedom to go to bed on the first date especially if they benefitted from that woman’s freedom.
If he was anything less than she deserved, she was better off without him.
Three dots appeared in the message window. They stopped. They resumed. Ellie nibbled her index fingernail and waited.
Maddie: OMG. Are you really going to get nasty with him on the first date out? Come get this whole box.
Ellie: Do you think it’s a bad idea? What if he loses interest?
Then you got good (hopefully) sex from a hot guy and pastries can remain your one true love, Maddie replied. Another text came through saying, Most men don’t judge for that shit anymore anyway. Not grown-ass adults. That kind of stupid crap is for incels.
Ellie lingered in the bathroom with her phone in her hand, staring at her reflection. There were permanent dark circles beneath her eyes, her tits had stretch marks, and she’d never lost those last forty pounds of baby fat from her pregnancy with Emma.
An insidious whisper wanted to know what the hell the chief saw in her. The voice of confidence answered: her pastries. And her legs. She had amazing legs.
“One last thing to do…”
After popping the tube of lipstick into her clutch purse, she slid both her engagement ring and wedding band off her right hand. Both of these, she placed on the bathroom counter. Her hand felt fifty pounds lighter and leaving them behind was a bittersweet moment of freedom, like taking her first breath of air after trudging underwater for miles.
With nothing else to keep her, she slipped into knee-high suede boots and swept Emma across the road. Her daughter was already in pajamas and ready to snuggle on the couch with her second- and third-favorite people—Maddie had been insulted to find Dean awarded her former title.
The door opened before Ellie even reached the porch. Her best friend’s sweetheart stepped onto it barefoot, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his jeans. He flashed them a grin.
“About time you got over here. Cutting it close, aren’t you?”
“Only a little.” Ellie hadn’t been on a date in years. It wasn’t that Greg hadn’t liked taking her out, but that once he received his promotion and they moved away from Crisis, they couldn’t make time to do anything together but sit down for dinner at the end of the night. A couple years later, Emma was born, and the romance had…died.
Then her husband also died.
“Dean!” Emma cried with the enthusiasm of a child eager to hang with her only reliable father figure.
“Hey, short stuff. C’mere.” He swept her up from the porch. “You ready for a Toy Story marathon?”
“Yes!”
“Then let’s get this show on the road.”
Ellie grinned as Madeleine stepped beside her fiancé and popped a kiss on Emma’s cheek. “Thank you both for watching her.”
“Any time,” Dean said before disappearing into the house.
A few seconds of silence passed before Emma stood tall and held out her arms. “Okay. How do I look? Be brutal. Do I look like an old woman? Am I dressed like an elderly widow shopping for a new husband?”
“No. More like a librarian trying to be sexy.”
“Dammit!”
Madeleine burst out laughing. “I’m joking! I mean you sorta do have that LILF thing going on, but in a hot way. Don’t worry about it. The guy just wants to take you out somewhere nice and buy you a couple drinks.”
“Right. A couple drinks.” El blanched. “Should I drink? He’s a cop; he won’t touch a drop, I bet. Is it rude to drink if he can’t?”
“He’s also a shifter. He’ll drink, trust me.”
“You don’t know that. He could be entirely ordinary. Every hot man in this town isn’t a shapeshifter of some kind.”
“Crisis attracts shapeshifters. It’s the very nature of Swan Lake. Besides, I have a feeling. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed it about him too.”
Sometimes all the man had to do was enter the bakery and all the fine silver hairs on Ellie’s arms rose, skin tingling with intuition. She’d always assumed those delicious shivers racing down her spine were because the guy was drop-dead gorgeous, not because he was one of their kind.
“I’ve felt it, but that doesn’t guarantee anything.”
“All right. It doesn’t prove it. But Dean kind of alluded to him being some kind of bird shifter. He has that fox nose, and I trust his sense of smell.”
“How do I bring it up?”
Maddie shrugged. “Just ask him. If he’s one of us, he’s in the know, and he probably knows who most of the declared shifters are in Swan Lake anyway since he’s the chief of police. And if he isn’t a shifter, he’ll think you’re crazy and you can blame it on the wine.”
“Maybe I don’t want wine.”
“Girl, I don’t care what you drink. Get fucked up and take your sweet time coming home if you want. Or don’t come home. We have Emma for the night, so there’s no rush. We planned to take her out to IHOP in the morning.”
“Don’t let her have too much syrup. She’ll bounce off the walls. And no coffee this time.”
“Coffee is off the menu. Now go!” Maddie took Ellie by the shoulders and spun her around, nudging her off the porch. “Have fun! Be wild and carefree.”
5
Her date had one hell of an aim with a pool cue, but he couldn’t defeat Ellie’s trick shot. She won three out of five games at the pool table.
Two hours ago when they’d showed up at the Brew-Haha, she hadn’t thought she could have so much fun surrounded by the smell of booze, music blasting and humans milling around on the floor beneath some of the tackiest disco lights she’d ever seen.
“You wanna dance?”
Ellie whirled toward her date and found his gentle gaze on her, the corner of his mouth quirked in a bemused smile. The slate gray button-down shirt clinging to his broad shoulders brought out the individual flecks of gold in his eyes. Accentuated the golden tan of his skin. This guy was all Texan hottie—tall, dark, and rugged as fuck with the shadow of a black beard on his sculpted jaw. Ellie imagined kissing it, tracing the contours of his face with her lips, tasting his mouth—
“Ellie?”
“Huh?”
“I lost you again for a second there. Did you wanna dance?”
“I don’t dance.”
“You sure glanced that way like you do.” He chuckled. “Well, more than a glance. You kinda stared longingly for about fifteen seconds.”
“I did not.”
“Okay, sure. Ten, then.”
“I don’t dance well. At least, I haven’t in a long while. Dancing is one of those things I save for concerts when the standing space is so packed no one can see me making a fool of myself. Just now, I was just thinking of how nice this place is.” And then her mind took a detour through Sex Machineville where nothing but fantasies of kissing Griffin Montgomery dwelled.
“Yeah. It’s real nice. I like to come out this way when I just want a nice beer and to watch the game.”
From what he’d explained to her along the thirty-minute drive out into Huntsville, the Brew-Haha was one of the few bars out near the college lacking a large concentration of college kids. Sure, a couple meandered in, but they weren’t the typical rowdy fraternity bro bunch that caused mischief.
Ellie actually liked the comfortable atmosphere. From the three televisions each displaying a different sports network, to the half-dozen pool tables, the bar had everything a friendly drunk needed for socializing. At one end, she counted three upright arcade systems, one of them a retro rig listing a dozen eighties games she’d played as a child. Next to those, they had
two lanes of Skee-Ball and a two-player Dance Dance Revolution machine. She eyed the latter, struck by memories of Maddie’s dad dropping them off at the arcade with rolls of quarters.
When they first arrived, Griffin had told her the small stage at the corner of the L-shaped building was for Thursday karaoke nights. On the last Thursday of each month, the bar took twenty-dollar entrance fees, and the winner won seventy-five percent of the pot. Sometimes that was as much as three hundred dollars.
Ellie considered herself lucky they hadn’t come on a Thursday. While she sang as well as any of her brethren, the issue with putting a swan may on stage was that humans tended to fall under their spell. And when humans fell under the enchantment of a swan, other people tended to take notice, especially if they came with dates.
Stealing another glance at the floor beneath the disco lights, Ellie pursed her lips.
“That’s it. You’re dancing with me.”
“I haven’t enough alcohol in me to make a fool of myself, Griffin Montgomery.” But then she relented. “You better get me another cranberry vodka sour if you want to see these bad moves.”
His dark brows rose. “I bet you dance like an angel.”
“An angel with no rhythm.”
“That’s all right.” He rose from his seat. “The fun is the part that counts, sweetheart.”
He headed to the bartender and returned with a fresh beer for himself, a cranberry vodka sour for her. They’d already had an appetizer tray with boneless wings and onion rings to help soak up the alcohol shortly after their arrival, though Griff stuck to beer, admitting he’d probably have only two during the night.
Taking it slow, she sipped her drink and considered the night so far. He was an easy conversationalist—but she knew that from his visits to the bakery, and nothing about his behavior screamed shifter.
But still, every time Griffin drew near, her skin tingled, and she ached for the slightest contact. Like the touch of his hip when she lined up a shot at the pool table, or how his fingertips grazed her back while she chose a song at the jukebox between pool games.
“Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton spilled from the jukebox next, chosen by a young woman in a flashy tank top, short shorts, and knee-high Western boots.
“You ready?”
They moved to the floor, and that was a mistake, because the moment he took her into his arms, like he’d done it a thousand times before, their bodies fit together like two puzzle pieces. Hips aligned, and she realized they were almost the same height, she and this dangerously sexy man with a body like a hired mercenary. With her arms around his neck, they swayed to the rhythm on the dance floor beneath dimmed lights, she let her imagination wander.
They clicked.
She felt something; a spark that had seemed long ago snuffed out in a cruel twist of fate. His arms around her were strong, the scent of his cologne wild and rough, like deep woods, bay rum, and a touch of smokiness she could have breathed in for the rest of the night.
A few yards from them, billiards clicked together and rolled over the felt table, but the noises of the bar gradually faded to nothing, dulling the quiet thump of darts and laughing companions.
There was just Griffin, holding her against his hard angles, the deep woods scent of his cologne wrapping around her senses and lulling her in.
“I’m having a really good time there with you tonight, Ellie.”
“Same.” Eloquent as fuck. He must have thought she was an idiot.
“And I hope we can come out again like this sometime,” he murmured.
He could take her anywhere he wanted, preferably on her hands and knees before—
God! Feeling shamefully sex-starved, Ellie tipped her head and smiled. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell you the last time I had this much fun on a date. You’re way less serious when you aren’t in uniform.”
“Eh, that’s just so everybody knows I mean business. I love Crisis, though. When I got out of the armed services, I just knew I wanted to settle down somewhere small. Friendly. A place that could accept somebody like me.”
Her heart trilled in her chest. Was he about to admit that he was a shifter, too?
She curled her fingers around the back of his neck and trailed them through the short hair above his nape. “And what exactly are you?”
Instead of an answer, Griffin slanted his mouth over hers in a sudden and confident, take-charge sort of kiss that she felt all the way to the tips of her toes. It jolted her on the spot, startling though not displeasing her.
Traces of beer and salt flavored his lips, and each unrushed stroke of his tongue reminded her of the years the had passed since she’d last been in a man’s arms. A man’s very sexy, muscular arms, like an iron cage of security wrapping around her just right.
Everything about kissing Griffin lived up to her expectations—no, surpassed them, because it was everything she’d fantasized about for the months he’d been visiting her bakery.
* * *
Griffin couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone on a date.
Actually, he could, but that had been a shit-storm and he didn’t want those memories tainting the night with Ellie. He forced them aside, back into the mental trash heap in his mind.
Then he kissed Ellie again. Her lips were soft against his, yielding to the flick of his tongue. She tasted of tart cranberry and sweetness, and her curvy body up against him was doing things to his imagination that couldn’t be resolved with his hand alone.
Just one more second. Just one more second.
Except one more second turned into five, but then he felt heat on his back and heard an awkward laugh. Griffin dragged his lips away from her mouth to notice they had an audience.
The song had also ended. Nice.
“Um.” Her husky chuckle warmed his ear. “Song’s over, I think.”
He dragged in a steadying breath, willing his heart to calm. “Yeah.”
When Griff and Ellie returned to the table, the waitress appeared with another round of drinks he didn’t ask for. He blinked up at her, confused.
“I didn’t order these.”
“It’s something to cool you two off,” the waitress said, grinning. “Figured you both could use a little something cold after that kiss. Lou says it’s on the house.”
Griffin laughed. “Thanks. Tell him we appreciate it.”
“Thank you,” Ellie said, her fair cheeks suffused with pink. Her smiled could have brightened the night sky during an eclipse.
“You ready for more than appetizers? You barely ate more than a couple onion rings.”
He hoped she wasn’t one of those women afraid to eat in front of a date. She had curves and a thickness to her that he appreciated each time her dress tried to ride up on her gorgeous thighs.
“Maybe, um…”
He cocked a brow at her. “If you’re afraid of running up my tab, don’t be. Payday is coming.” Not that he needed it.
Ellie rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll take the smoked pork sliders and a side of cheese sticks.”
“Good girl.” He ordered bacon-cheddar fries and jalapeño poppers. And another beer.
Being a shifter meant beer ran through him like water anyway. The really good shit that stayed with a man came from far, far away, and he hadn’t had a taste of that since he was in the military. The stuff wasn’t cheap and it certainly wasn’t easy to come by.
“So. Tell me about the military. Which branch?”
“Army.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“I’d have gladly stayed for another term. Hell. Maybe finished out my twenty years, but you’ve met my ex.” When Ellie grimaced, Griff nodded. “Yeah. That’s how I feel. She was…lonely here at home. Never liked being a military wife and said she wouldn’t have kids with someone who spent half the year away from home. So I did my ten years, stayed long enough to have benefits, and I got the hell out for her.”
Ellie skated her teeth against her plump lower lip. �
�Is… is it way too heavy first-date conversation if I ask what happened?” Her nose wrinkled. “Or too private? I don’t want to pry in—”
“You aren’t prying. It’s fine. The truth is that, even after I got out, she didn’t want kids. Kelly didn’t care for me being what I am.” A few pulse-pounding seconds passed while he waited for Ellie to either grasp what he was saying or force him to spell it out. “She claimed she did, but when it came down to it, she didn’t want children because of it.”
Her big blue eyes focused on his face, a blend of horror and confusion. “Because you’re a cop?”
Griffin didn’t miss the hopeful tone in her voice. “No, sweetheart.” He shook his head. “Not the cop part.”
Then her eyes filled with anger. “You’re saying because…you’re different—the way I’m different—she didn’t want a baby?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m not guessing at it either. Those were the words she used the day I came home and found her half-packed and throwing everything I ever bought her into the luggage my sister gave us as a wedding gift. Kids was something we’d always talked about, but something in her changed after we moved to Crisis. Hell if I know what.” Then he put on a smile and swallowed the treacherous knot of pain in his throat. He was long over Kelly. She couldn’t hurt him again. “Fuck if I care.”
“Good. All these women out here looking for good men and she just goes and throws one away.”
Griffin laughed at the scowl on her pretty pink lips but decided not to lean across the table and kiss it away. “Another game of pool while we wait for our order?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Looking for another ass-kicking?”
“Bring it.”
* * *
He shared his fries.
Ellie had dated at least a dozen boys during high school, and twice as many men during her college career, but the one thing she’d noticed about them all was that no man liked to share fries.
Except Greg, she thought.
Griffin nudged his container of bacon cheese fries toward her. “Sure you don’t want any more?”
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