The Baby Shift- Kansas

by Becca Fanning

  “Keira? Is everything okay?” he asked, tugging his shirt down his belly and walking toward her. Keira stayed where she was, standing in the middle of his office, her eyes running back and forth across his face.

  She didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to be breathing, so Joel repeated his query.

  “Keira? Come on, what’s wrong?” Joel asked, taking a step closer. Suddenly, Keira jumped, causing Joel to stumble backward and nearly fall back into his open closet.

  “Jesus!” he muttered, trying to regain his balance.

  “You’re a shifter, aren’t you?” she whispered, her voice barely audible despite the tense quiet populating the room.

  At that, Joel’s blood ran cold. But, since there was no use in lying, not when he had planned to tell her the truth anyway, he nodded. “How did you figure it out?” he asked.

  “Your eyes,” Keira responded, looking deep into them from where she stood.

  “Right,” Joel muttered, nodding. “Most people just assume they’re a weird version of hazel.”

  “I read about them, once. In an article. About how shifters have golden eyes.”

  “Yep. One of the many wonderful traits that sets us apart from the fully human race,” he said, his voice sounding resigned. She looked so freaked out that he expected her to run from him at any moment.

  But to Joel’s utter and complete surprise, Keira asked, “What else separates you from people like me?”

  “Do you actually want to know? You look like you’re going to run any moment,” Joel said, eyeing her. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, you know.”

  Keira shook her head. “No. Tell me. I want to know.”

  Joel sighed. “Okay, but can we sit down? I’m so tense I feel like all my bones are about to crack in half.”

  At that, Keira gave him a little half-smile, and just that small grin was enough to make him tingle. God, this woman.

  Joel settled into the chair behind his desk while Keira took the one in front, lacing her hands primly in her lap and looking at Joel expectantly, waiting for him to inform her of all the delights that made shifters like him so special and scary to the rest of the world.

  And thus, ensued a two-hour conversation, during which Keira fired Joel with question after question, seeming to grow more and more fascinated by him and his kind with every answer he gave her. He made them a pot of coffee with the fancy machine he kept by his desk, watching the way the liquid coated Keira’s lips as she sipped, making her mouth glisten as she spoke.

  She had moaned when she took the first sip, declaring this the “Goldilocks brew,” and Joel had had no idea what the hell that meant, but he’d laughed all the same. God, she could make him laugh.

  He also watched her soften in his presence, her shoulders unfurling from near her ears and her eyes losing the abject fear that had colored them only a little while ago. If Joel wasn’t mistaken, she looked... interested. In him. Still! Even though she knew that he could turn into an animal that struck fear in the hearts of most Americans. Even though she knew he hadn’t had a girlfriend in five years, had, in fact, no idea how to even try doing the dating thing.

  She was even cooler than he’d thought.

  “Well,” Keira said, sitting back and putting her mug on the coaster Joel had placed in front of her. “This wasn’t at all what I expected.”

  “What were you expecting when you walked in here?” Joel asked. He had an inkling—she had had a pure attraction in her eyes when they’d bumped into each other earlier, but, especially considering their conversation, he wanted to hear it confirmed. He still didn’t trust that things were actually working out for once.

  “I was expecting that we would fuck on your desk, to be honest,” she said, grinning at him mischievously as she gave an exaggeratedly nonchalant shrug.

  “Me too,” Joel admitted with a laugh. “Though this has been nearly as fun,” he rushed to add. And it was true. He so rarely got to talk about what he really was with people. Sam and the other guys in the clan knew, of course, as did Rachel and her boyfriend, but that was it.

  There was no one else in Joel’s life he felt he could really vent to, and even with his close group of friends, he sometimes held back, worrying that they’d think he was too negative if he complained too often.

  “Maybe we could do that... soon?” Keira asked, her voice betraying a shade of uncertainty.

  “Wait, really?” Joel asked, surprised.

  She laughed, nodding her head, which causing her ponytail to bounce in a way that was surprisingly girlish and cute. “Yes. I will admit, at first, that the shifter thing freaked me out quite a bit but talking about it helped. And... well, I still want you.” She shrugged as she said that like it was the simplest thing in the world to utter those three words. Three words that meant so damn much to him.

  Joel wanted to make those words his ringtone, the sound of this beautiful, intelligent, talented, cool as hell woman telling him that she wanted him, his body, on her, in her.

  Trying not to betray the giddy celebration going on inside him, Joel shrugged as well, though he knew he didn’t pull it off nearly as well as Keira. “Yeah. I’d be cool with that.”

  Keira laughed again, smiling as she stood up and smoothed her shirt down her lean, flat stomach. “Good. I’ll email you my address. Meet me there around 7? I’ll make us some dinner.”

  Chapter 7

  As Keira walked home later that day, after yet another meeting with Dr. Gaines about the special projects she was going to head and more than a few meetings with students who made her re-evaluate the value of youth, she had nearly forgotten about her dinner with Joel.

  Not.

  It was all she’d thought of all day. He was all she’d thought of all day.

  She knew he had expected her to run screaming from his office the moment he mentioned his shifter nature, and Keira had had half a mind.

  She’d expected him to be an easy hook-up, a fun fuck boy she could use to get Greg off her mind once and for all.

  But as Joel had told her about himself, explaining just what being a werebear entailed, how it had changed his life in ways both good and bad, Keira had found herself wanting to know him. And not just in the biblical sense.

  Joel was cool. That was really the only way to describe him. He was so sure of himself, so open and honest with her, and every time Keira thought of the face he had pulled as he’d told her about his past, his trouble with women, the girl who had broken his heart when she found out who and what he was, she’d wanted to kiss him.

  Thoughts of kissing him, both on the lips and in other places, had, in fact, colored most of her thoughts throughout the day. Keira had barely been listening as Gaines droned on about project researching sediments in the Caribbean, and she knew for a fact her eyes had glazed over when the third student in a row begged for at least one of the answers on the exam she had scheduled for Friday.

  Keira touched her lips as she turned the corner onto West 9th Street, her apartment nearly in sight, trying to imagine what it would feel like when Joel finally pressed his against her. Would they be soft, a bit rough from his stubble? Would they start out slow and then deepen the kiss, or would they just go at it like sex-crazed teenagers, open mouths and hot heat erupting between them as their bodies met? She couldn’t wait to find out.

  Keira walked in her door at 5:33, which gave her just under an hour and a half to prepare dinner and figure out what the heck she was going to wear. What outfit said: “I value you as a person and want to get to know you, but also really want to have a pants-off dance-off with you?”

  This was one of those times when she really wished she hadn’t been so intent on climbing the ladder of academia that she’d forgotten to make friends.

  Meanwhile, across town, Joel was having similar issues, but thankfully, he had Rachel. And Greyson. And Sam and his clan. Rachel and Greyson were sitting on his bed, methodically going through each of his t-shirts and evaluating it for its sex appeal. The clan, mean
while, was arguing over Skype about whether Joel should go for jeans or khakis.

  “People!” Joel suddenly shouted, unable to take it any longer. “This does not matter! What matters is that I am going to a woman’s house for the first time in over a decade, and she obviously wants to have sex with me, and I think I am in love with her, and I don’t know how to deal.”

  “Woah,” Sam whispered. “Joel’s officially lost his cool, guys.”

  Joel jerked his head toward the laptop and pointed at the pixelated version of Sam’s scruffy face, which was 75% covered with the most luscious brunette beard.

  Joel sighed and took a seat next to Greyson on the bed. “I just... what if I fuck it up, you know?”

  Rachel patted Joel on the back. “But you won’t. You like her, and she likes you. Things might get a little awkward because you don’t quite know each other yet, but it’ll be fine. She knows about you, Joel, and she still invited you. She’s a keeper,” Rachel said, emphasizing the last word.

  “Exactly. What Rachel said,” Sam and the other guys on the computer echoed.

  “You’ll be fine,” Sam added. “Just be yourself.”

  “A mythical monster-like creature with a taste for salmon and a constant need to growl and scratch my back?” Joel quipped.

  “No, bear brain,” one of the other guys said, sighing heavily. “Be Joel, the smart, nice guy who thinks Keira Jetson is the coolest, smartest woman on the planet. Be that, and it’ll all be fine.”

  “And wear this,” Greyson added, handing Joel a navy-blue t-shirt and a pair of grey jeans.

  Joel nodded. “Thanks. I guess...well, I guess, here goes nothing.”

  Chapter 8

  Keira was ready seconds before the buzzer sounded in her apartment. Nervous butterflies flooded her stomach as she pressed the intercom and pushed on the button that opened the main door.

  The time between pressing the button and Joel actually knocking on her door seemed like both an eternity and no time at all, and then she was opening the door, and bloody hell, did he look good.

  “Hi,” he breathed as he walked in, carrying a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers in each hand.

  “Hi,” Keira whispered back, nervously tucking her hair behind her ears. “C-come in,” she stuttered, holding her arm out in a gesture for Joel to walk forward out of the doorway and into her home.

  “This is nice. I think I looked in this neighborhood when I first moved to Lawrence,” Joel said. Keira could tell he was nervous, and she liked him a little more for it.

  “Shall we go into the kitchen? I can uncork that for you,” she said, shutting the door and pointing to the bottle.

  Joel’s eyes heated at her words, and Keira blushed, realizing the double meaning of what she’d just said.

  Her kitchen was small, but she kept it tidy, so it was easy to find the corkscrew. When she’d walked over to the stove, next to which was the small counter with a drawer of utensils underneath, Joel had been a few steps behind her, but when Keira turned around, he was barely a hair’s breadth away.

  “Lemme do that for you,” he whispered, pulling the bottle and corkscrew out of Keira’s hands and setting it on the counter next to her. Keira watched in silence as uncorked the wine, his muscles flexing with each rotation of the corkscrew, giving her delicious ideas about what those arms might look like while he screwed her.

  “Glasses?” Joel asked, looking over his shoulder at Keira.

  “What? What about them?” she said, reaching up to touch the smooth black frames around her eyes.

  Joel laughed and shook his head. “No, I mean wine glasses. Where are they?”

  “Oh!” Keira said, laughing self-consciously. “They’re... they’re right…” she pointed to a cabinet over Joel’s head, her arm brushing against Joel’s shoulder as she did.

  And then suddenly, his hands were on her ribcage, and his mouth was connecting with her neck.

  Keira couldn’t help it—she let out a moan at his touch, relishing in the feel of his scruff and skin against hers as he placed quick, barely-there pecks down one side of her neck, stopping when he hit her collarbone.

  For that, he used his teeth, biting on either side of the bone in a way so delicious that Keira’s knees buckled under her.

  Quick as a flash, Joel was holding her up, one hand on her ass, the other on her cheek. It was dirty and sweet all at once, the perfect combination.

  “You have no idea how much I want you, Keira,” Joel breathed against her ear, running his tongue along the tip of her earlobe. The man did things with his mouth that Keira would never before have found remotely erotic, but now, she could feel the wetness blooming in her lace panties, no doubt soaking the gusset of her jeans. And she didn’t give a damn.

  “I want you, too,” she breathed, turning her head to kiss him.

  Keira had kissed enough men to know that this, what happened when their lips touched, was different. Even though their lips stayed closed, even though the kiss hadn’t yet deepened, Keira could still practically taste Joel’s need for her, and she knew her own mouth echoed her need for him.

  Keira had been holding Joel by the shoulders, but now she wound her arms around his neck, bringing herself closer, until her breasts were pressed against his chest, wishing the layers between them would evaporate completely so she could finally, finally feel his skin against hers.

  Joel growled at the movement, a primal sound that made her excited and wild, answering with a mewl of her own when his tongue brushed the line between her lips, asking her to open for him. She did it readily, hungrily, delighting in the way they could devour each other this close, this connected.

  Joel’s other hand moved from Keira’s cheek to her ass, and he lifted her up and onto the counter, shoving the wine bottle back with one hand until it banged against the tile backdrop. Keira didn’t hear any glass shatter, but she wouldn’t have cared if it had. All she cared about at that moment was Joel.

  “Spread your legs for me, Keira,” Joel whispered against her mouth, his hands now braced on her thighs. She made them as wide as her jeans would let her, and Joel stepped into the space they created, the core of him hot against the core of her.

  “God, you’re hard,” she breathed as he pressed his pelvis against her, his cock a rod of steel against her sweet, wet softness.

  “For you, yeah,” he breathed, laughing slightly as his fingers found the hem of her silk tank top and dragging it up and over her head, throwing it somewhere off to his left.

  Joel moved his fingers up and down her stomach with feather light touches, running his thumbs under the lace cup of her bralette before finding her nipples and pinching them through the fabric.

  “Jesus,” Keira whispered, arching into him as he tweaked and pulled, almost to the point of where pain met pleasure before backing off and rubbing them slowly up and down his palms.

  “You like that?” he whispered, ducking his head down to kiss the valley between her breasts.

  In response, Keira only moaned. Joel laughed darkly as he took one nipple in his mouth, running his tongue around and around the dark pink circle until Keira’s vision blackened and all she could see were stars.

  “God, Joel, I need you,” she gasped when he had switched his attentions to her other breasts, testing and teasing the nub with his mouth. She loved the way he was touching her, but she could feel the need building between her thighs, the sparks beginning to fly, and she didn’t want to come yet. Not until he was inside her.

  “What do you need, Keira?” he asked, letting her breast pop out of his mouth and looking at her with his beautiful golden eyes, the pupils of which were nearly taking over the irises, they were so dilated.

  “Your cock. I need your cock,” Keira replied, liking how dirty she sounded. She had never been like this with Greg, never been like this with anyone. Joel was special. That, she knew.

  Smiling, Joel stood up and cupped Keira’s face in his hands, giving her a long, slow kiss. “Then that’s wha
t you’ll get,” he whispered in her ear.

  Off came their clothes, one piece at a time flying through the air to land somewhere neither of them cared. Keira was far too focused on the way Joel’s cock bobbed when he finally set it free from his briefs, a bead of moisture at its tip telling her that without a doubt, he was raring to go.

  And when her panties came on, she was slicker and wetter than she’d ever been, making a mess of the faux granite countertop she was still perched on. That is, until Joel took her in his arms, a condom already deftly wrapped on his cock, and slowly, achingly slowly, slid her down on top of him.

  Those lean arms she had been admiring earlier, that firm ass and those lean runner thighs meant he had all the strength he needed to bounce her up and down on top of him, until both of them were buried in each other’s necks, crying out as orgasms finally took them from one plain of pleasure to another, a higher one that left them both breathless and leaning on each other for support.

  It was the best sex of Keira’s life, and there was no way in hell she was ever letting this werebear go.

  Chapter 9

  “So, how’s it going?” Rachel said, drawing out the words as she put her coffee on the table between them and sat down.

  It was the first time Joel had seen her in over six months, and even though they had texted and called and Skype, he felt like there were a million things he had to tell her. But the most important was:

  “Well, Keira’s pregnant, so…”

  Joel hadn’t expected Rachel to squee so loudly she drew the attention of half the patrons in the small university coffee shop, but then again, he shouldn’t have been surprised. He and Keira had been trying to conceive for months now, and everyone in their close-knit circle had been rooting for news that they were finally expecting.

  “Oh my god. How far along is she? When is she due? Are you having the baby here or there? Can I be godmother? Oh god, please tell me I can be godmother.”