by Ruby Dixon
“It’s muddy,” Griffin says at my side, and he reaches for my elbow. “Watch those little shoes of yours.”
I jerk my arm away from him, because his touch gives my nipples instant headlights, and hurry forward. The parking lot is treacherous in my strappy, sexy little heels, and I wobble awkwardly until I hit the paved curb. Then I glare at him again as if this is all his fault.
He ignores my glares and opens the restaurant door for me.
I sweep inside, trying to look all business while one of the local girls smirks as she seats us in a private booth. Hideaways has tall walls separating each booth and a tiny flame-lit lantern on the center of each table for ambient lighting. Given that it’s a drizzly day outside, it’s kind of dark inside, and that just makes things seem more private.
I’m hating this, even though I’m pretty sure my panties are liquid at the moment.
The booth is U-shaped, and I slide in…and then all the way around to the far side. Griffin slides in right next to me and promptly moves all the way over until he’s practically brushing elbows with me.
I grab my menu and glare at him. “Did you want this side?”
“Only if you’re going to sit on it with me.”
“This is not appropriate for a business meeting.”
“Didn’t come here to talk just business with you, and you know it.”
I open my menu and pull it so close to my face that I practically hit my nose.
“You still mad at me because I ate your honey?”
Oh, God. His words make my pulse take a trip down to my panties. “Don’t be ridiculous.” I sound like I’m choking even as I protest. Not gonna be super believable. I clear my throat and peer at him over the menu. “It was honey jam. And you didn’t even ask!”
“So if I’d have asked, you’d have let me lick it all up?” There’s a roguish, confident grin on his face. Down, nipples, down.
I smack him in his smug face with my menu. “Quit being so dirty! We’re trying to have a business meeting here.”
He pushes aside the menu I’ve shoved in his face and leans in closer to me. “You and I both know there’s more than just business between us, Alexa. I realized today that I don’t want a few jars of honey to come between what could be a real good thing.”
For the first time, what he’s saying sinks in.
I know about guys like him. Guys who use a girl, get their kicks, and then never call the next day. Mrs. Bell warned me about the shifters in town—how it’s a secret and it’s not something shared with the outside world. Her husband had been a shifter, but he left her for another wolf, and she was a little bitter over it. Bear shifters are the worst, she told me. They have no respect for humans and think of them as a quick lay and not much else. And it’s clear to me that if Griffin’s a shifter, he’s definitely a bear. His entire demeanor screams grizzly—it’s his size, his swagger, the slow, delicious way he grins at me.
The way he ate six jars of honey jam simply because I’d left them unattended. Yeah. Definitely a bear.
And a player. All around, a guy to avoid.
I narrow my eyes at him. “You and I have been on the outs for years now. What brought about this change of heart?”
Griffin shrugs those magnificent shoulders, and my stomach gives a little shiver in response. “Buddy of mine hooked up with a girl this weekend, and it made me realize that you and I had some stuff to work through.”
It’s like a splash of cold water over my horny body. So his buddy got laid and he decided to come after low-hanging fruit? The nerve.
“You know what? Keep your wood. I don’t want anything to do with you.” I grab my purse and get up from the table.
He snags my hand before I can leave, frowning at me. “Now hold on, Alexa—”
I turn and give him my fiercest glare. “If you don’t let go of me, I’m going to start screaming.”
Griffin’s lips pull back in a snarl, but he releases my hand. I sling my purse back over my shoulder, pull out my keys (and my pepper spray) and hustle back out of the restaurant and across the parking lot to my car.
I lock the doors and glance at the clock. Less than ten minutes. Good lord. Ten minutes and we can’t get along. Ten minutes and he pretty much asks me to fuck him.
Ten minutes and my panties are sopping wet with need.
I drive back to the library in a daze that’s part anger, part horniness. There’s no denying that I want Griffin, that he absolutely turns me on, but I refuse to be anyone’s quick fuck on the side or their late-night booty call (if we get to that point). Been there, done that, never again.
I storm back into the library and slam the door to my office shut. I rip the blinds down, and Mrs. Bell knows not to come in and bother me. It’s clear I’m in a mood.
I sit down at my desk and clench my hands on the arms of my chair. My fingers tap on the wood after a moment. I’m antsy. My nipples ache, and if I squeeze my thighs together, I can feel the moisture in my panties. I’m wildly aroused, and I think back to the first time I met Griffin Love.
I’d gone into my office to grab my jars of honey jam for the county fair, only to find an enormous, bearded god sitting on my desk, licking his thumb clean of the last of my jam. He’d lifted one gorgeous eyebrow, eyed me as if he’d wanted to start licking me next, and then said, “If you taste as good as your jam, I’ll be in heaven.”
“Beg pardon?” I’d stammered.
“Just tasting a lot of sweetness in this office. Like you sat here and touched yourself to make all this delicious honey. For me.” And his tongue snaked out and licked a shiny spot on his skin clean.
It was the most outrageous thing anyone had ever said to me. And how had the man known that I liked to masturbate in my office? That I had a sex toy in the top drawer that I pulled out when I was stressed or lonely?
I’d gotten flustered and angry and kicked him out, but every word of that conversation was burned into my brain.
I look over at the desk drawer and then pull it open. Out comes the bullet vibe that looks like one of those trendy lip glosses. I flick it on, hike up my skirt, and then push it into my panties, resting it on my clit. Like I’d suspected, I’m wet as hell.
I lean back in my chair and close my eyes, picturing Griffin’s face between my legs as I gently rub the vibrator over my clit.
Chapter Three
GRIFFIN
Humans. I don’t get them. Alexa wants me, but she keeps denying herself. I wonder if that’s why she’s so tense all the time. Telling herself no has to be frustrating as hell. I know I’m wound tighter than a clock because I want something I can’t have.
I’m going to change that for both of us.
“Hey, Mrs. Bell,” I hail as I stroll through the library toward the closed office door. “Alexa left something at the restaurant. Mind if I go in?”
It’s a blatant lie. I don’t have anything in my hands, but Mrs. Bell smiles and nods. “You go right in, Griffin. Library closes in five minutes.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“No. Thank you.” And then she winks. Mrs. Bell might be old, but she ain’t slow.
“Alexa, I want to—” My apology dies in my throat as Alexa’s hands fumble underneath her desk. In her agitation and hurry to cover up whatever she was doing, her chair tips backward. If I didn’t have preternatural speed and strength, she’d have been kissing the floor.
“What are you doing here?” she squawks. “Where’s Mrs. Bell?”
I help her upright and make no mention that her skirt is halfway up her thighs and that the room is thick with her arousal.
“She’s closing up.” I walk back to the office door and close it. The lights are already out.
“Well, I need to be getting home, too.” Alexa stands up and starts collecting her stuff, all cool and calm as if I didn’t just walk in on her trying to diddle herself.
“You want me to follow you there, or are you going to ride with me?”
I lean against the wa
ll and watch her. I’m not going to prevent Alexa from leaving, although a good part of me wants to bend her over that desk and finish what she started without me. But it’d be a big mistake on her part if she thinks we’re somehow done. We’re just getting started.
“I’m going to my home. You are going to,” she waves her hand, “wherever home is for you.”
My home’s with you.
“That sounds good,” I say agreeably. “So which is it going to be? Ride with me? Or follow me? I suppose you’d rather take your car home so that everyone doesn’t think you’re using me to get a big donation for the library.”
“What?” she sputters. “You’re the one following me around! You’re the one using the big donation to get me into bed!” She stomps over to me, shaking a finger in my face. “I’m the victim here!”
“Only because you won’t let yourself have what you want.” I take a few deep breaths, but that desk of hers is looking more and more appetizing.
“Just because my body wants you doesn’t mean I’m giving in to it,” she snarls. “I’m not an animal.”
Not an animal.
Those words strike me hard, like a physical blow. I jerk back. “Nothing wrong with animals.” The shifters I know are honorable folks and, for the most part, aren’t given to subterfuge. They say what they mean, tell you want they want.
“You know what I mean.” She jerks the door open.
“Actually I don’t. I’m a big animal lover. Animals are the truest beings around. They live by instinct and seek to survive, but they’re not bad or evil.”
“They’re fine…in the woods and stuff.”
Does she really not like animals? That’d be…awful. A mate who hates half your being? Surely the gods wouldn’t be so cruel.
“You have a bad experience with an animal?” I follow her out of the office and into the darkened lobby.
“Actually, I have.” She double-checks to make sure all the terminals are put to sleep and then points to a rear door. “I was bitten by a neighborhood dog when I was eleven. I wasn’t much of an animal lover then and I’m not much of one now. I enjoy Pine Falls, but I could do without all the wildlife.”
Could my scent receptors be off? I mean, we usually detect our mates by smell. Plus there’s the problem downstairs. My dick only gets hard around Alexa. A parade of Victoria’s Secret models could walk naked through the parking lot and all I’d be able to raise is my hand because nothing is rising in my pants unless I’m sniffing Alexa.
“Some dogs aren’t raised right,” I tell her as we step out onto the asphalt parking lot. “Trained right, and even the meanest breeds aren’t going to bite unless their master tells them to.”
“I don’t know. I was eleven, and I took a shortcut through a neighbor’s yard. The dog came barreling out from under the porch. I didn’t even see him. He had me around the calf before I knew it.” Alexa stops at her car and absently reaches down to pat her right calf. She probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. “I screamed, and Mr. Wilkins finally came out and pulled his dog off.” She looks at me with sad eyes. “I never took another shortcut.”
“Oh, baby. You’re still scared.”
“What?” She gives herself a little shake. “No I’m not. I haven’t thought of that dog bite for years until you reminded me of it today.”
I crouch down, but I can’t make out the scar—and there would be one from a bite like that—in the dark light. What I do know is that she’s still in pain, and I want to take that away. I cup that small calf and then lay my tongue across the old wound, licking it like I would if it were freshly made.
“What’re you doing?” she hisses.
“Making you feel better,” I murmur. “Showing you that not all bites,”—or animals—“feel bad.”
“Don’t,” she says, but that’s all she can get out before I open my mouth and bite gently around her muscle, feeling her strength between my incisors.
She gasps, and leans against the side of the car as her legs give out on her.
I raise a hand to steady her, turning her slightly so she’s leaning against the car door. Between my arm and the car, she’ll stay upright. I nibble my way up from the calf to the back of her knee, all the way to her thighs. The inner skin is damp and smells like needy sex.
I growl against her ass cheek, head under her full skirt. I’m surrounded by her, and it’s fucking amazing.
“Griffin, you…stop…people.” She stutters a few words. I know what she’s concerned about. The sight of the sweet Pine Falls librarian getting eaten out in the parking lot of the library is bound to shock some folk, but she’s parked in the back corner of the lot—no doubt to make room for the patrons—and other than the tavern and the restaurant and grocery store, there isn’t much open at that this hour. Two sides are shielded by a line of trees, and we’re obscured by the dumpster about ten feet away. No one’s seeing this go down unless they’re throwing out trash. I make a mental note to install some lights in the corner here. If she’s going to be parking here, I’m going to make it is safe as can be, which means it’s going to be lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Then you best be quiet,” I suggest. I tug down her panties with my teeth, exposing her plump cheeks to the cool night air. My lips drag along the curve of her ass until I hit that crease between thigh and ass. I lay my tongue along that line and lick from the outside of her hip to the inner corner of her thigh, stopping right before her pussy. I’m saving that.
Alexa shifts beneath my bracing arm, widening her stance.
She’s so fucking glorious and I tell her that. “You’re so pretty, Alexa. I can’t stop looking at you. I wish it were lighter out so I could see everything in full Technicolor. I bet your pussy lips are red as the wild berries and just as tart and delicious. Should I see how you taste?”
“This is obscene,” she says. I can’t take her seriously when she’s creaming between her thighs at just the thought.
I lick my lips. My mouth is watering, and I can’t wait to suck down all her juices, but I need her to tell me that she wants this as much as I do. “Obscene and wonderful.” I nip at her ass. “Your pussy is so juicy, and it needs me. It needs my tongue on it. It needs my fingers spreading you wide while I just fucking devour you.”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “And then what? You’ll drive home?”
“Only if you’re with me.” Come on, Alexa. I’m dying here. My pants are so tight I can barely take a decent breath. My cock is so hard it might bust a hole clear through the denim.
“I know what this is,” she accuses. “It’s a hook-up. Well, fine. You know I want it. Then take it. But I won’t see you again.”
“Then I’m not taking a damn thing,” I growl.
I drop back on my heels, letting her skirt fall down to cover her delectable ass. Her panties are draped around her ankles. Fuck. If I’m not getting my tongue on her, I’m taking those panties home and wrapping them around my cock while I jerk off tonight. I shift my hand, and with one claw, swipe either side of her underwear.
She whirls around, and I take the opportunity to sweep up the torn fabric and stuff it into my jeans pocket. It’s a tight fit, but I manage it.
My balls appreciate it when I rise to my feet. The crouching position was wreaking havoc on my package, but all the pain would’ve been worth it if I could’ve had one drop of Alexa’s honey on my tongue.
Even in the dark, I can see her eyes are bright and shiny. She’s angry at me. But hell, she’s always fucking angry with me. I run an agitated hand through my hair. What in tarnation can I do to convince this woman that she and I should be together?
This is the problem with humans. If she was a bear, she’d know right away I was her mate, and we could be screwing in the library’s office right now. Hell, I’d take her up against the car door. It’d be easier than cutting down a tree to turn her around again, flip up her skirt and shove my rock-hard dick inside of her. I groan at the mental imagery. Based on how tigh
t my balls are at this moment, and the tingling sensation at the base of my spine, I could probably come just from replaying that image over and over. Wouldn’t hurt if her drenched panties were in one hand either.
“You men are all alike,” she fumes. Her hands are trembling as she tries to wrench the car keys out of her purse. “You just want sex. Once you have it, you toss that woman aside like she was yesterday’s trash.”
The car’s alarm beeps as she unlocks the door.
So she doesn’t like men or animals. Guess I’m fucked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Alexa. I’ve been trying to get you to go out on a date with me forever. Tonight I asked you out for dinner, but you left halfway through.”
“Because all you wanted was sex!” she shouts, and tosses her handbag into the passenger seat.
“I want more than sex from you.” Now I’m getting angry. Her unfair accusations sting. Yeah, I want to bone this beauty six ways from Sunday, but I also want to wake up next to her, fall asleep with her in my arms. I want to hear all about baking pies and running the library. I want to be able to tell her about my business partner’s transformation. I didn’t even realize there was a man underneath all that hair.
“Sure you do.” She pulls at the car door, but I catch it in my hand and won’t let it close. She’s going to have to drive off with me as a car ornament if she wants to leave.
“Yeah, I do,” I bite out between clenched teeth. My patience is worn through like the lace of a shoe that’s been stretched one too many times. “I’ve wanted more from you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. I saw you and was struck dumb, and all I could get out was that I wanted your jam. Because I don’t have the smooth moves of a city boy, you’ve been punishing me ever since. Well, I’m goddamn sorry that I’m not a better talker. It’s true I’m dying to fuck you, but I’d be okay with just sitting by your side as you watched television, too. But I can’t get close enough for you to let me show you that. You just keep turning me away. I want more from you than sex, and I guess I’m willing to wait for you to wake up to that realization even though my balls may petrify and fall off in the meantime.”