by Becca Van
She turned, mouth gaping open and closed like a fish out of water and met Karter’s twinkling eyes. He was smiling and looked as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. She gazed behind and to either side of him to see that Zayn and Jace were standing near the doorway, their arms crossed over their chests and wide grins on their faces.
“Do you like it, baby?” Zayn asked as he and Jace moved closer until they were standing on either side of Karter.
“It’s amazing. Why would you do this?” she asked. Tami wanted to thank them for setting up the place, but she didn’t want to presume that they had done this for her, even though she suspected they had. She was excited and humbled, but she needed to know for sure they’d set up a hairdressing salon for her to run.
“Because we wanted to,” Jace replied in a flat voice as the grin dissipated from his face.
“You want me to run your salon?” she asked.
Karter shook his head and reached toward his back. He pulled something from his pocket, and she gazed at the sheaf of papers he held out to her. Tami frowned as she took them, unfolded them, and began to read. Tears blurred her eyes, and her heart swelled with wonder and so many emotions she wasn’t sure what she was feeling.
“You’ve…why…how…”
Zayn cupped her face between his hands after stepping closer and said, “Breathe, baby.”
The tears that had been stinging her eyes pooled and rolled down her cheeks. Her chest was so tight with feelings she wasn’t sure she could speak even if she wanted to. After taking a couple of deep breaths, she gripped Zayn’s wrists, the sheaf of papers crinkling as they were crushed between their skin.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’re doing, what you’ve done, but why would you do this?” She glanced at Karter and Jace to find them frowning at her. “You all don’t know me that well. We’ve barely known each other for twenty-four hours.”
“Tell me you don’t feel the attraction between us,” Karter stated firmly as he took a step closer.
Tami licked her lips and tried to shake her head. Since Zayn was still palming her cheeks, she couldn’t move very far and decided she needed to verbalize. “I can’t.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to speak any louder.
“That’s a good thing, darlin’,” Jace said as he, too, moved closer to her other side. “We were attracted to you the second we saw you.”
“But what has that got to do with you giving me the deed to the salon? Aren’t you scared I’d try and sell it out from under you?”
“No,” all three of them answered instantly.
“I just…don’t understand.”
Zayn removed his hands from her cheeks, grasped one of her hands in his, and turned toward the small hallway leading to the back of the shop. He pulled her along with him, paused in front of a closed door she hadn’t seen tucked around a corner, opened the door, and guided her into what she presumed was a break room. There was a coffee machine on the counter next to the sink. A small fridge was lodged between the counter and wall. There was a small round table and four chairs set up near the opposite wall. The room wasn’t large, but it was big enough for her and three other people to sit and talk while drinking coffee or eating lunch. Karter and Jace skirted around her and Zayn and began pushing the table and chairs closer to the wall. Zayn released her hand, clasped hold of her shoulders, and guided her toward the counter and sink. She gazed at him askance when she was leaning against the counter.
Karter and Jace walked toward her and stopped when they were standing on either side of Zayn.
“We want you to stay with us in Ambrose,” Karter said.
Jace piped up without giving her chance to respond. “We want you living in our home.”
Tami’s mouth dropped open, but she quickly closed it again when Zayn started speaking. “We want to have a relationship with you, baby.”
“I-I…” What she was supposed to say to their declarations she had no idea. Although she was highly attracted to these three men, she didn’t really know them from a bar of soap. How could they sound so certain they wanted to have a relationship with her after knowing her for so little time? “Why would you…how do you…” Tami clamped her lips together and tried to get her raucous thoughts under control, so she could speak coherently. She wasn’t sure she’d ever make sense again. She was in too much shock.
“We’ve never been attracted to a woman the way we’re attracted to you,” Jace said emphatically.
“We want you in our lives permanently, honey,” Karter stated firmly.
“We’ve been waiting for you for a long time, Tamika. We know you’re the woman we want to spend the rest of our lives with.” Zayn stroked a finger down her arm, causing her to shiver.
“How?” she asked. “How do you know that when we don’t know each other? For all you know I’ve been lying to you about everything and have that money stashed away somewhere.”
“No, you don’t.” Jace crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at her.
He and his brothers all sounded so certain about what they wanted, and they wanted her. Tami had no idea what they saw in her pudgy size-fourteen body. She wasn’t anything special. Yeah, okay so she wasn’t butt ugly, but she wasn’t slim, taut, and terrific either. She was carrying extra weight, and other than being passably pretty to look at, she was no supermodel.
“I just don’t…understand.”
Zayn glanced at his brothers with a raised brow. First Karter and then Jace nodded before Zayn turned his gaze back onto her. “We know when someone is lying, baby.”
“How? Can you read my mind?” She mentally snorted at that crazy idea.
“Emotions have scents, darlin’,” Jace said. “When someone lies to us, we know because they put off a bitter, acidic aroma.”
Tami shook her head. “What are you talking about? Emotions don’t have smells attached to them.”
“Not for a normal human being they don’t,” Karter said as he stared deeply into her eyes.
For a moment Tami wondered what she’d gotten herself into. Do they think they’re aliens? What the hell is going on?
“We’re shapeshifter’s, darlin’,” Jace said so casually that, for a second or two, she didn’t comprehend what he’d said. For all the inflection in his voice, he could have been talking about the weather.
“What?” she whispered when she had enough air in her lungs to do so. Her heart had skipped a beat and was now pounding fast and hard inside of her chest. She looked down as she wondered if it would burst out from under her skin.
“The reason we know you’re the one woman fated to be ours is because our senses are way more enhanced than the average human’s. We’re faster and stronger than any man on earth. We see in the dark as if it’s daylight, and our sense of smell rivals a wolf’s.” Karter was looking at her expectantly, but she just stood there like a lump of clay blinking up at him as if he had two heads.
She shifted her gaze to Zayn when he moved back from her a couple of paces, and she gaped at him when he tugged his T-shirt up over his head with one hand. He dropped the material onto the table and then pulled the button of his jeans open before lowering the zipper.
Tami’s breathing escalated, and her heart slammed harder and faster against her sternum. She shifted nervously on her feet as she tried to keep her gaze from wandering over all those fabulously toned muscles and bronzed skin, but there was so much to look at, as he was so damn sexy, she couldn’t help herself. His wide shoulders rippled, and his bulging biceps flexed as he hooked his thumbs under the waistband of his jeans. The rigid striations of his washboard abs twitched as he began to shove his jeans down over his hips. She stopped breathing when he removed his thumbs from the edge of his pants and then gazed with lustful awe at the muscles in his back after he bent over at the waist. He lifted each foot to tug his boot and socks off before straightening again.
And then he moved so fast his arms were a blur. Tami didn’t know
if she blinked or what, but when her eyes were once more in focus, she had to bite her tongue so she didn’t end up moaning. He’d pushed his jeans and boxers down his legs and he was in the process of kicking them aside. While she tried to keep her eyes above his waist, they drifted downward without her permission. She gasped loudly when she saw that his cock was so hard, long, and thick and it was pointing right at her.
Tami’s knees began to shake with lust, and liquid heat pooled low in her belly. Her breasts swelled, her nipples hardened, and she started panting for breath. She was only vaguely aware of Karter and Jace moving to lean against the counter on either side of her.
“What are you…doing?” How she’d forced those words out when her tongue was so dry it was almost sticking to the roof of her mouth, she wasn’t sure. Finally, with concentrated effort, she lifted her gaze up to meet Zayn’s heated blue eyes.
“I’m going to prove to you that we are what we say we are,” Zayn answered as he sank down onto his knees before dropping forward onto his hands. “I’m going to show you that Karter, Jace, and I are wolf shifters.”
“As in werewolf?”
“We don’t refer to ourselves as werewolves, darlin’,” Jace said as he laced his fingers with hers.
“We prefer wolf shifters,” Jace reiterated as he slung an arm around her shoulders.
“Keep your gaze on Zayn, Tami.” Jace grasped her chin between his finger and thumb of his free hand and gently turned her face back toward Zayn. As soon as she locked eyes with him, the outline of his body began to shimmer and blur.
She held her breath when his nose and mouth elongated into a snout. She gasped when she saw muscles and sinew moving under his skin as his body began to reform. His back legs shortened as his hips narrowed down even more, and a tail began to sprout from the end of his spine. Dark charcoal-hued fur raced over his bronzed skin, covering his flesh, and his fingers shortened as they re-shaped into paws with black claws.
Tami didn’t realize she was practically hyperventilating until she began to get a little woozy. She was in shock, and her legs were trembling so much she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to stay on her feet even while she was leaning against the counter.
A loud ringing noise set up in her ears, and her vision wavered until she could see only a blurry outline of the large wolf standing where Zayn had been.
“Inhale, Tami. Now!” Karter demanded in a firm tone.
She sucked in a deep breath and quickly released it before doing so again. The encroaching darkness receded as she concentrated on breathing in and out. There was nothing she could do about her weak, trembling legs. When she started to slide down the cupboard toward the floor, Karter and Jace hooked their hands under her arms and eased her down. She was grateful because she probably would have landed hard on her ass, although why she was worried about that when she had plenty of padding she didn’t know.
There was a huge charcoal-furred wolf a yard or so away from her, and he was staring at her as if she were going to be his next meal.
Karter sat down next to her, and Jace did the same on her other side.
“You have no need to be scared of Zayn, honey,” Karter said. “Even though he’s in wolf form, he would never hurt you.”
Tami didn’t respond since she couldn’t. She was in shock at finding out that the legends about shape-shifters were true. Were there other kinds of shape-shifters in the world other than werewolves? If people could change into animals, did that mean that vampires, witches, and fairies existed, as well?
Zayn’s wolf whined as it took a cautious step toward her. Tami was still so stunned she just sat against the cupboard in stupefied shock as the animal came closer and closer. When the large animal was within touching distance, it dropped down onto its haunches. Tami didn’t consciously make a decision to reach out, nor did she know where her courage came from, but she felt as if she wasn’t really awake. The wolf dropped down onto its belly just before she brushed the tips of her fingers over the soft, silky fur covering its head.
When the wolf made moaning grumbles deep in its throat, Tami quickly snatched her hand back, but before she could drop her arm to her side, Karter clasped her wrist, and before she could protest, he guided her hand back toward the wolf.
Her fingers sank into the soft, thick fur at the side of the animal’s neck, and while she scratched him, she scrambled up onto her knees. Now that she was a lot higher than the wolf, her nervous trepidation began to dissipate. Tami leaned forward and caressed over the beast’s head, neck, and back. He made a weird moaning noise, and when she glanced down into his eyes, she realized he was enjoying her attentions since the lids were half-closed.
She glanced at Jace and Karter before looking down to meet Zayn’s blue eyes. “Can he understand me when he’s in this…form?”
The wolf nodded at the same time as Jace answered her. “Yes, darlin’. We’re the same as we are when we’re men while in our wolf skin. Even though our senses are stronger than any human on earth, when we’re in our changed forms, they’re out of this world. We can smell and hear so much more.”
Tami nodded in acknowledgement, and when a thought struck her, she blushed and glanced away from Zayn’s eyes. If their sense of smell was so good, did that mean they could smell her arousal?
Please don’t let Zayn, or any of them, be able to scent my desire.
Chapter Six
Zayn couldn’t believe how well Tami was taking their extra DNA. He’d sort of expected her to scream and run away once he’d turned into his wolf form but figured she’d been too scared to move. His poor mate’s legs had buckled under her, and if it hadn’t been for Jace and Karter catching her and lowering her to sit on the floor, she could have ended up hurting herself.
His wolf was panting happily as he lapped up the attention from their mate. He was having a hard time keeping his wolf still since he wanted to crawl closer to Tami and inhale her delicious chocolatey-vanilla scent. She might not have let on that she desired him and his brothers, but there was no hiding the perfume of her need from him and his siblings. From the way Karter was clenching his jaw and Jace was clenching his fists, they were both fighting to keep their wolves at bay.
“So you can all change into wolves?” Tami asked as she glanced over her shoulder at his brothers.
“We can,” Karter answered in a deeper voice than usual.
“Will you show me? Or is there some rule against you all being as your wolves at the same time?”
“There are no rules, darlin’,” Jace replied as he shoved to his feet before moving away from Tami.
“Are you sure you can handle seeing all three of us in our animal forms at once, honey?” Karter rolled to his knees.
“This is all so freaking unbelievable. It’s hard to believe any of this is real. I feel as if I’m dreaming, but I’d love to see you all as your wolves together.”
“Whatever you want, Tami.” Karter rose and moved toward the table.
Even though Tami was still patting Zayn, her gaze flicked back and forth between his brothers as they stripped out of their clothes. As soon as they were naked, they got down onto their hands and knees and called to their wolves.
Zayn’s wolf belly-crawled forward inch by inch until he was able to rest his head on Tami’s thigh since she was once more sitting on her ass on the floor. Zayn didn’t want his animal to do anything inappropriate like sticking his nose in their mate’s crotch, even if he was tempted to get a better whiff of her wet sex. However, his beast behaved himself and kept his head still as he breathed in the moist musky scent of her drenched cunt.
He was eager to change back to his human form and explain to Tami that she was their mate, but he wasn’t sure it was the right time. She’d already had a lot of information dumped on her by finding out and seeing that shape-shifters were real. He didn’t want to overload her and send her running.
“Oh my god. You’re all so beautiful,” Tami whispered as she stared at Jace and Karter. She seemed
to be enthralled by Jace’s shining black coat and Karter’s chocolate-brown fur. Zayn was still having a hard time believing she wasn’t intimidated by their animals. They were big men, and in beast form, they were way larger than the average wolf.
The fear Tami was emitting had waned to nervousness, and then that had disappeared to be replaced by excitement.
Zayn thought enough time had passed since she now seemed comfortable with their wolves, and he shoved to his feet before backing up. He pushed his animal back and embraced the man. When he was back in his human skin, he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop a smile from curving up his lips. He didn’t want Tami to think he was being smug or laughing at her because he wasn’t. Yet he was elated that she seemed to be having a hard time keeping her eyes from his hard cock. Every time her gaze touched on his dick her breathing hitched slightly. He would have stood there naked all day long letting her look her fill, but quickly grabbed his clothes and started getting dressed when he heard the door to the salon open. Excited feminine voices grew louder with each passing second. Just as he’d finished dressing, Emmy appeared in the open doorway to the break room.
“Oh, hi, guys. Hi, Tami.”
A low chuckle escaped when Tami turned her gaze on Emmy, her mouth gaping and her eyes wide with shock. Emmy giggled as she hurried toward Tami. When the other woman was close to his mate, she offered Tami her hand.
“Close your mouth, Tami, you might end up catching a fly.”
Tami got to her feet, and after frowning in Zayn’s direction, she met Emmy’s gaze once more. “You know that Zayn, Karter, and Jace are shifters?”
Emmy nodded. “All the men in Ambrose are shifters. My mates are polar bear shifters.”
“Mine are lion shifters,” Pixie said as she peeked around the corner.
“Mine are Kodiak bears,” Dusty called out.
“Mine are panther shifters,” Kenzie said loudly.
When Tami swayed on her feet, Zayn leaped over to her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her against his body. He closed his eyes as he inhaled her amazing scent and savored having her sexy frame against his. After taking a couple of deep breaths, Tami straightened and pulled out of his arms. Zayn was reluctant to release her, but he dropped his arms and stepped back when she gazed at Emmy.