by Jessica Sims
Ten minutes passed, and I played with the lime on the edge of my glass. Where was he? Maybe he wouldn’t show up. Maybe he’d called the agency back and told Sara that he wasn’t going to meet me. I knew what the Alliance went for in a woman, especially the shifters. All their dating profiles read the same—muscular, lean, aggressive. Gorgeous. Enthusiastic. Morally ambiguous. Most shifter women pursued the men as hotly as they were pursued back. Even the vampire women were elegant, delicate creatures.
Me? I was a desk jockey for the glamorous. A mousy blonde encased in power panty hose that were going to cut off her circulation. He’d take a look at me, laugh, and ask to meet the harpy after all. Twitchy at the thought, I took a bite out of my lime and sucked on it. After ten more minutes, this guy could consider himself out of a date. I wasn’t going to wait here all night like some pathetic loser. I put my lime rind on a napkin and tossed back the rest of my drink.
By the time seven more minutes passed, I’d had it. Enough was enough. Mr. Russell wasn’t coming to our impromptu date. Part of me breathed a sigh of relief. At least Giselle wouldn’t have anything to be upset over, and I’d fulfilled all my obligations. I left a couple of dollars for the bartender, tucked my bag under my arm, then stepped away from the bar—and saw him.
He lounged nearby, leaning against the bar as if he owned the place. He was turned toward me, a half-full beer on the bar beside him. It was obvious he’d been there some time, and just as obvious that he’d been watching me without bothering to introduce himself. The jerk.
A slow smile curved his lips, and my heart stuttered. I’d seen beautiful men, and I’d seen sexy men. But I’d never seen a man who was as powerfully masculine as this one.
I was finding it hard to breathe.
It wasn’t the sleepy, sexy eyes with the dark lashes. It wasn’t the piercing gray irises that assessed me as if they could see me naked. It wasn’t the impressive spread of his shoulders or the narrow waist, or the thick fall of tousled brown hair over his tanned forehead. None of that caused my breath to evaporate quite like the confidence that poured from him. It was there from the easy way he carried his big frame to the crooked smile that tugged at his lips and emphasized his amazing cheekbones.
This man was going to be trouble.
The room grew fuzzy at the edges, and black stars flashed in front of my eyes as he crossed the floor to meet me. Everything about him was effortless, graceful motion, like a predator stalking its prey.
He leaned in close to me, and I could smell his musky clean scent. “You need to breathe, Bathsheba.”
Breathe. Right. I sucked in a breath and my vision cleared.
He smiled at me again, that soft, lazy smile. “That’s better.”
I fought the urge to wipe it off his face, annoyed that he’d made me wait while he’d been here all along.
He gestured at the sea of white-linen-covered tables. “Shall we sit?”
That depended on his answer. “How long have you been here watching me?”
The smile widened into a grin. “You caught me,” he admitted. “I wanted to watch you for a few minutes. Is that so wrong?”
“It was very uncomfortable for me,” I said coolly. “I believed I was being stood up.”
He took my hand in his and lifted it to his mouth for a kiss. His lips brushed against my skin, sending a shiver through me. “I apologize,” he said, looking serious. “That was thoughtless of me.”
I tried pulling my hand out of his.
He didn’t budge.
I raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Russell, you know that humans aren’t allowed to date in the Alliance. On behalf of my company, I didn’t want to leave you stranded tonight—but I could lose my job over this. So if I stay, Giselle must never know about it.”
His thumb rubbed against the back of my hand. “Of course not. The last thing I want is for you to get in trouble at my expense. Please stay—I ordered the tasting menu,” he coaxed.
I’d never been to a tasting dinner, with its multiple courses of fancy tidbits, all designed to show off the chef’s culinary skills and imagination. It would be fun—and he seemed sincere. I pulled my hand away and nodded. “Fine. I’ll stay.”
“Thank you.” At the table, he pulled my chair out as the waiter hovered nearby, then he sat down across from me and flicked his napkin into his lap with a flourish.
The waiter opened a bottle of expensive wine and, as we each took a sip, I said, “I feel that I should point out my first rule of dating, Mr. Russell. Just because you wine and dine me doesn’t mean I’m obligated to have sex with you. So going to the Worthington after dinner is not happening.”
He smiled, clearly not offended in the slightest. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Bathsheba. If I pay for dinner, the only pleasure I expect is your company.”
I stared at the six and a half feet of masculinity on the other side of the table. He looked amused, as if he liked a challenge. This could end up being very, very dangerous in a way I hadn’t expected.
I changed topics, trying to put a wall up between us. “So why did you want to watch me at the bar, Mr. Russell? Just in case I had warts and a hunched back, so you could make a hasty escape?”
“I wanted to see if the voice and name matched the body.”
“And? Do I look like a Bathsheba to you?”
“You do,” he said. “Soft. Delicious. Warm. Curvy.” His eyes glinted as he leaned across the table. “I bet you’d taste the same.”
Oh. My. An instant flush crossed my cheeks. “That’s a first,” I said, recovering swiftly. “Usually I’m told that the name Bathsheba reminds them of an old lady clutching her knitting.”
“They’d be wrong.”
Red alert. Red alert. All hormones on deck. “Mr. Russell—”
“Beau,” he said, interrupting me. “Short for Beauregard.” He gave me a sheepish look. “Old Southern family.”
I finally smiled. “I’m not about to give you a hard time about your name. You’re speaking to a woman named after one of the greatest adulteresses in the Bible. My sister’s lucky she wasn’t named Whore of Babylon.”
He laughed, his silvery eyes warm and crinkling at the corners. He lifted his wineglass and raised it to me. “Two very unusual names for two very normal people. We’re a match made in heaven, Bathsheba Ward.”
I wasn’t sure how normal he was, but I clinked my glass against his anyhow. I wasn’t used to hearing my full name all the time, so when we set our glasses down, I said, “My friends call me Bath.”
He clasped my hand between his warm ones. “But I don’t want to be your friend.”
His skin against mine was incredibly distracting. I felt the calluses on his palms, felt the strong grip of his warm, large hands, his nails lightly scratching at the back of my hand in an absent, comforting gesture.
Oh, dear. I liked that far, far too much for my own good. Licking my lips nervously, I asked. “So what’s on the tasting menu tonight?”
He grinned. “I have no idea. I just asked the maître d’ what was good and that’s what he recommended.”
The waiter arrived and we pulled apart, though Beau’s hand seemed to linger on mine.
“An amuse-bouche for the monsieur and the mademoiselle,” the waiter said, a hint of a Texas drawl coloring his French. He set down two tiny plates. “A patisserie with caviar and crème fraiche,” he said, then left.
Beau popped the amuse-bouche into his mouth. After a moment his expression changed and his chewing slowed.
I eyed the concoction on my plate. “How is it?”
He chewed for a moment more, then swallowed hard. “Interesting.”
Well, that was a ringing endorsement. I eyed mine, and nodded that I was done when the waiter arrived to take the plates away. He returned a moment later with two bowls of bright orangey-yellow soup.
My eyes widened at the brown thing floating in my soup.
“Butternut bisque,” the waiter announced, “with quail egg in nest.”
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br /> Oh, dear. The waiter left and I looked at my bowl, then at Beau. He was staring at his food with an odd expression on his face.
“Is that a real bird’s nest?” I asked him. “Are we supposed to eat it?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, then tapped his spoon against the egg. “I know I’m a were-cat, but this is ridiculous.”
I giggled and took a large swallow of wine, no more eager to eat mine than he was. “Maybe I’m not as adventurous as I should be when it comes to eating,” I admitted. “What’s next on the menu?”
“Cheese,” he said, looking down at the piece of paper.
“Why the face? That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“A savory mixture of goat and … yak cheeses,” he said, continuing to read.
“Er … oh.” I took another swig of my wine. “The wine is very good, at least.”
Beau looked chagrined. “I’m sorry you’re not enjoying the meal.”
“We haven’t even started the meal,” I quipped. “The entree will probably be some unfortunate exotic animal served on a bed of seaweed. French seaweed.”
He laughed, then glanced at me. “There’s a sports bar next door. Want to go grab a burger?”
“And leave my bird’s nest behind?” I pretended to protect my plate, resisting the urge to break into laughter. At his grin, I put down my wineglass and stood. “Let’s go.”
He threw a wad of bills on the table.
In the sports bar, we grabbed a comfortable booth and ordered. As we waited for our burgers, an uncomfortable silence fell. Sitting across from him in a cozy booth in a dark corner felt far more intimate than sitting stiffly across from him at a fancy French restaurant had.
I clasped my hands together, trying to think of something to break the silence, but nothing came to mind. Crap. I hadn’t dated in so long that I didn’t know what to talk about. Football? I didn’t know if he was a big sports fan. The weather? No, that was just stupid—
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” he asked, misinterpreting my awkwardness.
“I’m just not very good at small talk. Or dating. I don’t date.”
He looked fascinated. “I can’t imagine why not. Tell me about yourself then.”
I froze. Talking about me meant talking about Sara, and I couldn’t talk about Sara. “There’s not much to tell,” I said in a stiff voice. Was this a probe for information? Was he going to sell it to the wolf packs? “I’m a very boring girl.”
He shook his head, that beautiful smile flashing across his face. “I sincerely doubt that anyone with a name like yours could be boring.”
I remained quiet.
“You really aren’t good with small talk,” he teased.
Shoot, what could I talk about that wouldn’t alert him to our secret? “I … like to read.”
He smiled at me over the plate of cheese fries the waiter set down in front of us. “Who doesn’t?”
Well, how could you not like a man who said that? “That’s about it, really. Now, your turn. Tell me something you like.”
I caught a flash of white teeth. “I like women. Soft, curvy women.”
I rolled my eyes. “That doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a given—like if I said I liked men with large packages.” I reached over for a cheese fry. “That’s like saying that you like breathing, or eating.”
“Sounds like we’re a match made in heaven,” he said lazily. “I like to eat, love to breathe”—he leaned over the table—“and I have a very large package.”
I choked on my cheese fry. “Not nice,” I coughed, trying to catch my breath. “You play dirty, sir.”
He picked up a fry and gestured at me with it before popping it into his mouth. “Your turn.”
“There’s really nothing else to tell.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Nobody’s life is that dull. I get the impression that you’ve got something to hide, Miss Bathsheba.”
Why, yes, Beau. When I was nineteen, my younger sister started dating a werewolf. He bit her and turned her, and I had to drop out of college to take care of her as she adjusted to growing fur and a tail. And since the werewolf pack wants her back, we keep a low profile in case we have to leave town again. Oh, and I like frat boy comedy movies. You?
I finished chewing my fry, pretending to think it over. I needed something bland and nondescript, to angle the conversation back toward safer ground. Aha! “I like bookkeeping.”
It was the one phrase guaranteed to scare a man off. Most women would say that they liked to date, or dance, or curl up at home with a movie. I liked general ledgers and balancing someone’s books.
He did a catlike tilt of his head that was a bit unnerving, reminding me that he was slightly more than human, for all his sexiness. “Bookkeeping? Like accounting?”
I waited for his eyes to glaze over with disinterest. “I find it enjoyable.”
He reached for another cheese fry. “Do you like math, then? The challenge of it?”
That wasn’t the bored look I was used to—or worse, the derisive sneer. It startled me, and I gave him a genuine smile. “I like the control aspect, being the one in charge. At first I hated it, but then it became like a puzzle to me, to figure out how to balance the books and find the right numbers that make everything click.” I enjoyed managing Giselle’s office. It made me think I could own my own business someday, so I considered it good practice.
“You ever think about starting your own business?”
“Maybe someday,” I said, uncomfortable again. I didn’t want to talk about my personal hopes and dreams with him.
“You could start up your own accounting business. I’d hire you to do my company’s books.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
He grinned back at me and my heart flipflopped. “The offer stands. You’re welcome to get your hands on my books anytime.”
It was amazing that he could make something as benign as accounting sound like a turn-on. I turned to my drink—a fresh mojito—and took a gulp, feeling a sudden need for liquid courage.
He smiled and leaned back, studying me like he might a delicious roast that he was about to devour. But then the smile faded and his shoulders formed a tense line.
Someone slid into the booth next to me. “Well, hello,” said a man in a low, growling voice.
I looked over in surprise, scooting farther back reflexively. Beau’s jaw had clenched into a hard line.
“What do we have here?” The man gave me a roguish grin, displaying big, crooked teeth. He had wild, thick hair that stuck up in tufts from his head, and a wrinkled polo shirt hung from his enormous frame. There was something wild about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but I recognized the way his nostrils flared, sniffing the air to catch my scent.
Shifter.
My pulse pounded in my ears and I stiffened, thinking of Sara. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This man could be a wolf, and therefore dangerous.
The man tilted his head, the crazy grin never leaving his face, his eyes on Beau. “Who’s your friend? She from out of town?”
I waited, afraid to breathe, for him to pick up Sara’s scent on me. To expose my secret.
Beau’s eyes narrowed into a distinctly unfriendly look, though the pleasant smile remained on his face. “Go away, Tony. This is my personal business, not the pack’s.”
Tony leaned even closer toward me. I shoved him away, not caring in the slightest that it was rude. “Get away from me.”
Undeterred, Tony grabbed my hand. He sniffed me and his eyes widened. He looked back to Beau with a knowing grin. “She’s not a were at all, is she?”
I took another gulp of my mojito, relief warring with anxiety. Sara was safe … but now I had a whole new set of problems.
Beau was supposed to have been dating a supe through the agency, but I was a normal. This was sure to get back to my boss. Shit.
As I drank, Tony reached out to touch my ear. I jerked hard, spilli
ng my drink all over the table.
Beau reached over and plucked Tony’s hand off me. “If you touch her again, I’ll break your fingers,” he said in a bored voice, but his eyes were flinty with dislike. “Understand?”
“Tsk tsk,” said Tony in a mock-playful voice. “It’s silly to get upset over human trash, Beauregard.”
Beau’s eyes narrowed into slits and I could feel the rage radiating off of him.
One wrong move and these two would fight. Beau looked ready to destroy the man, and Tony didn’t seem to have a lick of sense in his body. He just continued grinning and looking at me, his gaze flicking over my neck and pulled-up hair as if he wanted to touch me. “She’s cute for a normal, Beau. Not what I’d call your type, though.” He looked me up and down once more, his eyes a little too interested, then turned to Beau. “So where’s Arabella?”
I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Oh, God. Was Beau involved with someone? Or even married?
“I don’t know,” Beau said, his words a careless drawl. “I’m not her keeper.”
I checked his finger—no sign of a ring-sized tan line. Good. Not that I cared, of course.
“I can see I’m not wanted here,” Tony stood and grinned. “You know you’re not supposed to date humans. I believe that rule was set down by your very own little Alliance. Funny how you’re the one to break the rules.”
Beau looked right at me and answered Tony, “It’s none of your business who I date. When I need permission from someone, I’ll ask.”
“Suit yourself.” The shifter smirked in my direction. “The others are going to find this really interesting, though.” Tony winked at me. “Later, chicken.”
Silence fell as he turned and left. Beau clenched his hands, glaring at Tony as if he’d like to jump up and rip the man’s throat out. The other man didn’t look back, as he took his sweet time circling back to the far side of the restaurant and disappearing from sight. The waiter stopped by to mop the table and left me a new drink. Beau said nothing.
I was the first to break the silence. There were a hundred things I wanted to ask about. “Chicken?”