by Jessica Sims
As he watched, Mandy’s expression grew carefully blank, even though her smile was welcoming. “Oh, it’s been a busy time for me, Penny. Some stuff came up at home and I had to drop a few classes.”
“Oh no.” Penny gave her a fake pink pout. “Well, ring me when you get back to campus, okay?” Her gaze slid over to Adrian, and her eyes widened and a coy look crossed her face. “Is this the boyfriend you were so excited about? I can see why.”
“What? No!” Mandy’s startled gaze went to Adrian, then back to her friend. She shook her head vehemently. “This is…just a friend.”
“Mmmhmm.” Penny winked at him. “Well, let me know if your friend wants my number, then.” She sauntered back to her own table, a little swing in her hips.
Mandy carefully put a hand to the side of her face, discreetly hiding. “I am so embarrassed.” She shrank lower in the booth.
“Why? Something wrong with being seen with me?”
Her face grew even redder. “She thinks you’re Johnny,” she whispered.
“But I’m not.”
“So you want her number then?” Her look was unreadable.
“Nope. She stinks of human.” He was interested in an entirely different prey.
That got Mandy’s attention, though. She sat up and tilted her head. “What do I smell like?”
“Like tiger,” he told her. And the scent was intoxicating. “But faint. It’d be stronger if you changed again.”
The mulish look returned to Mandy’s face. “I don’t plan on changing. Ever again.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You think that’s gonna be possible?”
“I don’t know if it is or not, but I’m going to try.”
“It’s not,” he said bluntly. “And you’re just going to make it harder on yourself if you don’t try to shift, even a little.”
She shrugged. “Maybe the whole shifter thing was a temporary change. I haven’t felt the need to shift.”
“You will.”
“But I haven’t,” she told him stubbornly. “And I won’t.”
“And I was born with a tail,” he told her, amused at her sheer tenacity. “And I’m telling you that you will, and when it comes on you, the longer you wait, the more alarming it’s going to be. It’s better to just meet it head on instead of avoiding things.”
She simply gave him that infuriatingly patient look that told him she thought she knew what she was doing. He knew the truth, though. Mandy could deny, but he knew all too well what happened to a shifter that fought their animal side. It’d pop out when she least expected it, and probably rather violently.
Which was why he was chaperoning her. Johnny had pointed out that Mandy hadn’t shifted since they’d returned from Alaska last week. So Adrian said, “I’m going to give you lessons on shifting whether you like it or not.”
One of those red eyebrows lifted in a challenge. “Give it your best shot, buddy boy.”
Adrian grinned, liking her spirit. “I will do just that. In fact, I bet I can have you shifted and purring like a kitten in three days.”
Her lip curled. “Will you listen to yourself?”
He shrugged, still smiling. Everything he said was designed to crawl under her skin. If she was pushed out of her comfort zone, her body would react quicker, and spur on a change.
“Three days?” She repeated. “You’re on.”
A waiter passed by with a plate full of steaming meats, and he noticed Mandy’s attention wander there, her shifter side unable to resist the scents. Yeah, this would be the easiest three days. She put up a good verbal fight, but the physical cues of an imminent shift were all there. Whatever she was repressing was going to come roaring out soon enough. “What are the stakes?”
She considered for a moment. “If I don’t shift in 3 days, you’ll let me go?”
“Let you go where? You’re not being held captive.”
“Aren’t I?” Her voice was bitter. “I’m being told where to go, where to sleep, who to spend time with, and what I can do with my day. For a while there, I was even being told who my mate was.”
“It’s for your own good.” Well, all but that last part.
“Bullshit. All that’s missing is the collar.”
He shrugged. “I suppose that’s fair enough. Fine. If you don’t shift in the next three days, I’ll let you go…on one condition.”
Her eyes lit up. “What’s that?”
“That we don’t leave each other’s presence in the next three days. At all.”
Mandy’s eyes narrowed. “What about bathrooms and showering?”
Adrian shrugged. “I’ll allow the former as a solitary effort but not the latter.”
“Are you crazy?”
No, just possessive. But he only smiled. “That’s the rule.”
“Fine,” she bit out. “I just won’t shower for three days.”
“Suit yourself.” When she continued to look pleased, he added, “Aren’t you going to ask what I want if I win the bet?”
Her brows drew together. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“But you’re going to anyway?” Because his Mandy was brave.
“I am. What is it you want?”
Adrian leaned forward on the table, eyes gleaming. “If I win, you’ll consent to be my mate.”
~~ * ~~
So Adrian played hardball, it seemed. Mandy was still reeling from his admission of what he wanted.
Her as his mate? Seriously? What was with these tiger guys that they all decided to claim her? She knew what Johnny had wanted – into her pants. He was man-child enough to not think past that. But hearing that Adrian wanted her as his mate? It made her feel…strange. And uncertain. Just what exactly would being Adrian’s mate entail? And why was he interested in her?
There was no doubt in her mind that Adrian was the most handsome of the good-looking Merino tigers. He was also the quietest, so she never quite knew what he was thinking, unlike Johnny, who constantly ran his mouth.
To think that he wanted her as his mate unsettled her. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive – because he was gorgeous. It was that she never knew if he was attracted to her. At all. He never gave the slightest indication that she was anything other than a pain in his ass.
Which was pretty dang confusing if you thought about it.
She pondered their bet all through dinner, eating rack after rack of delicious spiced meat. She pondered it as they drove back to the Merino land and she headed back to her guest cabin. One thing she’d noticed about shifters – they tended to really stick together. All the Merinos lived in a series of houses spread out over a few acres, and becoming a Merino meant that she was expected to live ‘on site’ with everyone else. A free roof over her head any other time might not have been too bad, but right now she was too unhappy about the situation to be content with rent-free living if it came with Merinos.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Adrian said as she started to head down the path to her small guest cabin.
Mandy paused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, where are you going?” He moved next to her, his feet crunching on the gravel path. “Did you forget about our deal already?”
Their deal? “Are we starting already? I thought we were beginning in the morning.”
Adrian shook his head. “Nope. We started over dinner.”
“We did? Are you sure?” She looked longingly at her cabin. She was feeling a little antsy and a hot shower and maybe a little masturbation would help her feel more at ease. Plus, she just really wanted to be alone. “Don’t you want to start in the morning?”
“No.”
“You could have a full night to strategize—“
“No.”
“And we could start fresh in the AM.”
“No.”
“And you’d get all those extra hours in which to enact your plan.”
“Mandy,” he said, and his voice was low and husky as he moved toward her. God, why did it sound so purr
-like when he said her name? “I don’t need extra hours.”
“Because you’re going to lose?”
“Because I’m going to win,” he purred (definitely purring). He was standing rather close to her, and her skin was prickling with awareness. “But until the third day is up, we’re together constantly, remember?”
Damn it. “All right,” she said, taking a step away from him to increase her breathing room. “So are you sleeping on my couch, then?”
“No.”
“You can say more than one word at a time,” she snapped.
“No I’m not,” he said, enunciating each. Was he enjoying himself? What a dick.
“Where, then?”
“My bed.”
“Where am I sleeping?”
“My bed.”
“What?”
“You’re sleeping in my bed.”
“But…why?” Mandy stared at him.
“Because that’s the only way I’m going to keep an eye on you while I’m sleeping.”
“You have a couch, don’t you?”
“I can’t watch you from my couch.” He didn’t even turn around, just kept walking. “You backing out?”
She sputtered. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then come on.” He continued toward his own house.
Frowning, Mandy followed behind him. When she first moved to the Merino land, she thought it was odd that they all lived together on the same farm but under different roofs. Now, though, she was rather glad that she didn’t live with Vic and Johnny and had her own place. Following Adrian to his house, though…it felt strange. He must have liked his privacy, she thought. While her little house was squeezed in between Vic’s big place and Johnny’s smaller one, Adrian was at the far end of the land, a good walk away from where they’d parked. She’d seen his cabin of course, but she’d never gone inside.
The interior was sparsely decorated with only a flat panel TV hanging on the wall. The furniture was also sparse, but of a good make. Leather, too. She ran a hand over one couch. “Nice stuff. Better than my little place.” The little house she’d been ‘awarded’ after joining the tiger clan had hand-me-down furniture with worn spots and mismatched throw pillows for her ugly couch.
“Your place was designed for visitors,” he told her. “It wasn’t intended to be a permanent home.”
Right. She was supposed to shack up with Johnny. After he’d bitten her and changed her into a were-tiger, he’d just assumed she’d fall into his bed, flinging her panties aside in gratitude. Jerk. “My place is fine,” she told Adrian. “And I’d really like to go back to it now.” That craving for privacy was growing stronger and stronger. “Please.”
“Nope,” Adrian said. “Unless you want to forfeit.”
“I’m not forfeiting anything!”
He grinned at her, and for a moment, he was so stunningly handsome he took her breath away. “Good. Now, come on.” And he stripped off his shirt.
Mandy’s jaw dropped and she remained still as he continued to strip. “W-what are you doing?”
He tilted his head at her in a catlike move, even as he leaned over to pull off one of his shoes. “Undressing for a shower?”
“I thought we were supposed to stick together for the next three days!”
“We are.” He gave her another one of those confident, sexy grins. “But no one said I had to give up my showers.”
“I-I’m not going in there with you!”
“So you’re giving up?”
“No!”
“Then you’re going in with me.” He undid his zipper and then reached for the waistband of his jeans.
Mandy covered her eyes. “I do not believe this.”
“Let me tell you something about shifters, Mandy. In case you hadn’t already noticed, nudity isn’t an issue for us.”
Oh, she’d noticed. Since the day she’d been changed, the tiger clan had a ‘group’ shift in which everyone pulled off their clothing and changed as if it were normal for a bunch of adults to get naked together. She hadn’t participated of course – she refused to shift – but they’d still made her stick around and watch.
But there was a difference in a bunch of people being casually nude and one tall, sexy, determined man stripping in front of her, hours after he’d declared that he wanted her as his mate. So she kept her eyes closed and tried to seem as casual about things as possible. “What about me?”
“What about you?” He sounded amused.
“If you’re going to shower, where am I going?”
“In the bathroom with me?”
“It’s going to be rather steamy in there.” Lordy, why did that sound like a come on?
“Which is why I suggest you take your clothes off.”
“No!”
“Suit yourself.” There was a rustle of fabric and then a pause. “You coming?”
She put her hands on her hips, her eyes carefully closed. “I refuse to look.”
“Why?” Now he sounded just puzzled. “You’ve seen it all before.”
“Yes, but it’s different now.”
“How?”
Because we’re alone together, she wanted to tell him. Because you said you wanted me as your mate. But the shy words got stuck in her throat. Eventually, she managed, “It’s just different. That’s all.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. A moment later, a warm, callused hand gripped hers. “Come on, then, if you’re not going to look.” And he began to tug her forward.
Eyes squeezed shut, Mandy let Adrian lead her through the house. The acoustics changed as they walked, and when he shut a door, she assumed they were in the bathroom. Under her sneakers, it felt like tile, and the soft scents of soap and shampoo touched her nostrils, mixed with the warm, spicy scent of tiger-shifter and Adrian. She really should put her foot down, she thought, even as he began to whistle quietly and the water turned on.
He really was just going to shower like she wasn’t standing there. Curious, Mandy peeked just a little. Sure enough, Adrian was in the shower, rinsing his dark hair under the spray. His tight buttocks were visible through the clear shower curtain, tanned and taut. And he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to her. She relaxed and leaned against the sink, watching him shower. It really was odd to be here, watching a very naked Adrian get clean. She felt a little breathless as she watched him soap up his hands and then run them along his muscular arms and then down his stomach and over his ass. Mandy blinked repeatedly, unable to stop staring at the suds gliding down his skin. Well now. That was, uh…interesting.
She pressed her thighs together tightly, annoyed when a hint of her own aroused scent touched her nostrils. That was one of the awful things about being a shifter – you could smell everything. And right now? She smelled her own scent, and that bothered her. She wasn’t a blushing virgin, but shifters played by a different set of rules, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to jump onto the playing board.
“Sure you don’t want to join me?” He asked, interrupting her rather dirty thoughts.
“I’m sure,” Mandy retorted, her voice a little more vehement than it needed to be. Which was also embarrassing.
“I won’t touch you.”
“I know you won’t, because I’ll break your hand.”
He chuckled. “You need to get used to nakedness, Mandy. Shyness is a human thing, and you aren’t quite human anymore.”
She rolled her eyes at that. They were constantly pointing out how not-human she was. It was unnecessary, really. She was quite aware that there were changes in her body and she wasn’t quite ‘normal’ anymore. Heck, just the fact that she could smell her own arousal tingeing her nostrils was a big hint. No one had to beat it into her head.
But just because they thought they could make her one of them without so much as asking her if she had a problem with it? They were in for a bit of a surprise if they thought she’d just roll over and go along with things. Fuck all of that.
So she crossed her arms over her
chest and stubbornly closed her eyes again, waiting. “Hurry up already.”
Adrian chuckled again, but the scent of soap grew stronger and she heard him splashing as he rinsed off. Then, he turned off the water and she smelled fabric softener a moment before the rustle of a towel touched her ears. He was drying off. Good. They could hurry up and get out of the now-steamy bathroom and she’d have breathing room again.
A moment later, she heard a soft thump into what sounded like a laundry basket, and then Adrian’s hands touched her shoulders. She jumped, her eyes flying open in surprise at the touch. “W-what—“
“Just steering you out,” he said from behind her, his scent enveloping her nostrils. Something hard brushed against her jeans-covered ass.
“Something tells me that’s not your tail,” she retorted as she stepped forward.
“Can you blame a guy?” he asked, still amused judging from the sound of his voice. His fingers smoothed over her shoulders in an almost-caress. “I bet you watched me shower.”
“I bet I didn’t,” she said in an outraged voice.
“Mmmhhmmm.” He didn’t sound as if he believed her. “Well, shall we go to bed?”
She could not believe that she was seriously contemplating crawling into bed with Adrian Merino. Her head must have been screwed on backwards. Seriously. “I still don’t see why I have to sleep with you,” she protested as he guided her across the hall and into his room. “I don’t see what this has to do with our bet in the slightest.”
“Actually, it has everything to do with our bet,” he told her. “Your body relaxes while sleeping, and that’s when a change is most likely to kick in. If it does, you’re going to need help. And if we’re together, there’s no chance of you hiding it.”
It was like he knew exactly what she was thinking. Damn it. Grumpy, she glanced around at his room. “You’re kidding, right?”
Again, his bedroom was clean and neat, with minimal furniture. There was a dresser with a TV on top of it, a nightstand with a clock, and a bed. A rather narrow looking full-sized bed. Not king, not queen. Full. And since Adrian was a big guy, she suspected he’d be taking up quite a bit of the bed, which meant she was going to be hugging the edge of the mattress…or hugging onto him.