First Bite - Shifter Romance Box Set: Anthology of First in Serials and Series

by Vaughn, V.

  I heard the doorbell ring and frowned as I looked at my watch. Billy was early by almost thirty minutes.

  I quickly poked my earrings into my earlobes as I crossed my small house and made my way to the door. I forced a wide smile onto my face as I pulled the door open. The smile fell a second later when I saw that it was Lukas standing on my doorstep instead of my date.

  I saw his eyes travel up and down my body in an instant. “That is not the kind of get-up I remember you wearing back in high school,” he said with a low whistle of appreciation.

  “What are you doing here, Lukas?” I felt like I was continually asking him this question these days. “Aren’t you supposed to be off in some secret clan meeting or something?” I crossed my arms. I knew that I should close the door in his face. God knows that he deserved it.

  He held up his arm, and I saw he held the neck of a bottle of wine in his fist. “It’s a peace offering. I don’t feel like we’ve gotten off on the right foot in getting reacquainted, Maren. I want to make it up to you.”

  I almost choked on the words that flew up my throat. What managed to come out was something along the lines of “Are you effing kidding me?” I didn’t like cursing, but it seemed as if Lukas brought that out in me.

  He frowned at the bottle’s label. “It’s a 2008 Bordeaux. Ms. Parsons assured me this is what you buy all the time.” Ms. Parsons was the owner of Greyelf’s only liquor store.

  I wanted to stamp my foot. I hated how much people in this town knew about me and freely chose to divulge to others. “I am getting ready to go out for the evening, so I need you to go.”

  Lukas stepped closer to the door frame and leaned his forearm on the doorjamb, causing me to take a step back. He was invading my space again, and I hated that there was a part of me that wanted more than anything to lean into him. He smelled of warm musk and the clean breeze of a fresh spring day. I didn’t need the wine to feel slightly intoxicated. He smiled at me as if he could read my mind.

  “Going out with your boyfriend tonight?” The way he said ‘boyfriend’ told me he still didn’t believe I had one at all.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” I said, raising my chin to meet his eyes. “So I’d like you to leave before he gets here.”

  “Afraid of making him jealous?” Lukas’s eyes traveled down my body again, and the heat in his gaze made my knees weak. “We’re just a couple of old friends catching up.”

  “We have nothing to catch up on,” I said firmly. I had no idea why he was deliberately tormenting me like this. Wasn’t it enough that he had slept with me and left me? What else did he want from me?

  “Cancel,” he said. He leaned closer to me. Now he was halfway across the threshold into my house. “Say you got sick or something. Let’s have a drink or two or twelve. We need to talk. You know that, and I know that.”

  I almost said yes. The way my heart beat in my chest, I wanted nothing more than to grab the front of his shirt, twist the fabric in my fist, and drag him inside. Then I’d find out if he was an even better kisser with a bit of age on his lips.

  “Come on, Maren. You know you never could say no to me.” His green eyes twinkled like this was some kind of inside joke between us.

  And just like that, reality slammed sharply back into focus. He was right. I had been a lovesick girl tagging along after a boy who never once looked at me the way that I wanted him to. I gave him my virginity with barely any protest. Time and again, I had gone over what happened that night in my head, and it always came back to the same thing. Whenever Lukas wanted to feel better about himself, he wound up on my doorstep. I let him in, no matter what he had done and no matter how he treated me the next day. I opened my body and soul to him, and, in the end, it hadn’t been enough. Was I going to let him waltz all over me again?

  “I’m not your consolation prize, Lukas,” I said. I pushed against his chest just like I had done two days beforehand. “I know you must be hurting about your brother and what happened, but it’s not my job to make you feel better. Figure it out. Whatever you think we used to have between us ended the minute you snuck out my bedroom window after sleeping with me and leaving town without saying goodbye. Believe me when I tell you this most sincerely, Lukas. You can go fuck yourself.”

  Then I finally did slam the door in his face, and even though it felt good, it didn’t feel nearly as good as I wanted it to.

  Sixty minutes later, I found myself seated at a candlelit table with Billy Miller. He was handsome in a wholesome Norwegian way that was common in this part of the country. Pale skin, blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall and a bit on the thin side, but I knew that he kept in shape logging hours upon hours at the high school gym. That was where all the cops in town went to work out. Greyelf wasn’t quite big enough to have one of the big fancy gyms come into town yet, so we made do.

  Billy was one of the more sought-after bachelors in town. Greyelf didn’t lack for potential male suitors, despite its size, but there were some that were definitely more attractive than others. Honestly, I had hardly bothered with dating since I moved back to town three years ago. I dated a bit through my college years, but I hadn’t found anyone that I shared the same chemistry with that seemed such a huge part of my formative years. Simply put, none of those guys were Lukas.

  Remembering his aggressive overture made me frown at the glass of Bordeaux that I had been looking forward to all day.

  Billy reached across the table and touched my hand. “Earth to Maren. Where did you go? Everything okay?”

  I felt like a jerk. Billy was sweet and more than attentive. Why he was interested in me at all was a complete mystery. Before Lukas’s reappearance in my life, I had been giving myself the appropriate pep talk that I needed to let things with Billy progress to the next level. I was attracted to him, but after several make-out rounds so far, I didn’t feel that passion or heat that I knew my body longed for.

  Damn Lukas Kasper.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “It’s just a busy week at the office.”

  “Tell me about it,” Billy said, relaxing into his chair. “You have no idea how happy I was to hear that your plans changed so that we could do this tonight. It’s been crazy at the department. All this hubbub with what happened with Markus Kasper, and then the sheriff is calling for extra shifts starting tomorrow night until after the Summit.”

  I felt bad that it didn’t even register with me until just this minute that it was Billy who had found Markus in the first place. “I can imagine,” I said as I took a sip of my wine.

  “Plus, the sheriff is hot under the collar about Markus’s brother showing up out of the blue,” Billy continued.

  Why did it seem like everything in my life these days revolved around Lukas?

  “I’m sure he’ll be gone again before we know it,” I said. I took a deep swallow of the wine and tried to forget the look on Lukas’s face when he looked at me through the frame of my doorway. I’d had ten years to get the experience that would have served me so much better during our first encounter. Lukas had looked at me the way that a man looks at a woman, no doubt about it. I just didn’t understand why after all this time. But I wasn’t about to play that game again.

  “You went to school with him, didn’t you?”

  I cringed inwardly. I had to remember that there were long memories in this town. “I did,” I said. “We were close in middle school. My dad lives a few doors down from his aunt Bea.”

  “That’s right,” Billy nodded. He noticed that my glass of wine was empty and refilled it for me. Billy was always the gentleman. “Everybody keeps saying that he had quite the bad-boy reputation back then. Kept both Markus and the sheriff busy. ’Course, it was Sheriff Nelson back then.”

  I tried to muster up a smile and a nod. There were long memories in Greyelf for sure. Billy had moved to Greyelf to take the position in the police department several years back, so he didn’t have the benefit of growing up here to witness all the things that happened with Lukas back
then. And for every biddy who thought she knew what she was talking about, there was another one who contradicted the story. But nonetheless, at the end of the day, Lukas had been far from a saint.

  I shrugged. “Teenage antics. We’ve all been there, right? I’m sure you had your fair share of pranks and practical jokes when you were a kid.” I wanted to avert the topic from Lukas as quickly as possible. The last thing I wanted to do after slamming my door in his face was spend the rest of the evening talking about him.

  Billy chuckled. “Oh, no, not me. I was a good kid and kept my nose clean. I’ve known that I wanted to be a cop since I was five years old. My granddaddy was the sheriff of my hometown for as long as I could remember, and two of my uncles went into the FBI. I was born to be in law enforcement. So I got good grades, stayed out of trouble, and have been working hard to keep it that way ever since.”

  My chest felt heavy. Billy was such a good guy it was almost ridiculous. What was wrong with me that I didn’t want to be with him? Something was seriously messed up in my head. I took another swallow of my wine. At this rate, I was going to be drunk by the time our entrees arrived. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  “Maren? Maren Lene, is that you?” My eyes widened as I saw Lukas appear behind Billy’s chair. He swung around the table, smiling widely at me. “Man, it’s been what, like ten years? You look terrific.”

  The wine I had just swallowed threatened to choke me. As I raised my napkin to my lips to block the sound of my cough, Lukas turned on Billy. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Lukas Kasper.”

  Billy stood up even as he grasped Lukas’s hand. I didn’t blame him for getting up. Lukas was so tall you’d get a neck crick looking up at him for too long from a seated position.

  “William Miller,” Billy said. His smile faltered for just a second. “But you can call me Billy.”

  Lukas slapped Billy on the shoulder. “It’s nice to meet you, Billy.” Then his attention turned back to me. I felt the heat of his stare as he looked down at me. “I’m supposed to meet a few friends of mine here in about twenty minutes. I guess I forgot how quickly I could get here from town. Do you mind if I join you until they get here?”

  “I do...” I started, but Billy interrupted me.

  “Sure, pull up a chair,” he said. “Funny thing. Maren and I were just talking about you.” I wanted to kick Billy under the table.

  Somehow a chair seemed to appear out of nowhere. Lukas sprawled into it and smiled at me again. “All good, I hope.”

  Now I wanted to kick Lukas.

  “Billy was just asking me if all the rumors he heard about you being a hell raiser were true,” I said, smiling sweetly. “And I was just assuring him that they were.”

  I expected him to scowl or growl. He threw back his head and laughed. Then he held up his glass in a toast that we were clearly expected to follow. “To the naiveté of youth,” he said.

  Billy clinked his glass, and I realized that if I didn’t follow suit, I was the one who would appear rude. Never mind that the man had intruded on my date.

  “I know we just met and all, but I just wanted to say that I am sorry for your loss,” Billy said after a short, awkward pause. I held my breath, not knowing what Lukas was about to say.

  Lukas gave a small nod. “Thank you. I know that my brother was well regarded in the community and has done us all a great service over the last eighteen years. I do wish that I had the chance to get to know him better once I was old enough to understand that, but time doesn’t always work in our favor.”

  “So you weren’t close?” Billy asked.

  I wasn’t the only one who made their living asking questions. I wasn’t sure if Billy was being polite or asking for another reason. My sensors went up immediately.

  “Not especially,” Lukas said. He took the liberty of refilling my wine glass. I glared at him. “But Markus was sixteen years older than me, so there’s that. He had already moved away and settled by the time our parents passed on. I am quite sure he had no idea what to do with me. That’s how we ended up in Greyelf. We moved in with my Aunt Bea.”

  “She’s a delightful woman,” Billy said. “Takes real good care of everyone.”

  “That she does,” Lukas said. His eyes lit on me again. “Maren and I used to play in the sandlot behind Bea’s store every day after school. You know how there’s the crick in the back? We would have a ball playing pirates or whatever other games struck our fancy. Then, we’d go into the store, and Bea would feed us ice cream until we got sick.”

  Despite my anger at him, I couldn’t help but soften a bit toward him as those memories surfaced. “My dad would get so mad that I’d go home all hyped up on sugar. I think he must have told Bea a million times not to give me any more ice cream, but she never listened.”

  “It’s because she thought you were too skinny and that your dad wasn’t feeding you properly after your mother passed away,” Lukas said. His eyes flitted down to my chest. “’Course, looking at you now, it doesn’t appear that she had anything to worry about. You filled out nicely in all the right places.”

  My cheeks flushed, and I saw Billy’s eyes narrow. “You just know all the nicest things to say to a lady,” I said sarcastically, taking another sip of wine. “What time did you say that your friends were getting here?”

  “Soon enough,” Lukas said.

  A chirping noise interrupted me just as I was about to ask him to leave. Again. Billy pulled out his phone and grimaced at the number he saw on the screen. “It’s Magda. I have to take this. I’ll be right back.” He stood up and hurried toward the lobby, where I knew the noise level was several decibels lower than the main dining room.

  “Nice guy,” Lukas said.

  “Are you following me now?” I hissed. “I thought I made it abundantly clear earlier that I don’t want to see you, Lukas.”

  “Well, I want to see you,” he said as he leaned in closer to me. “And if you expect me to believe for one second that you are really into this vanilla, corn-fed boy, I’d eat my socks.”

  “I am,” I said indignantly. “He knows how to treat a woman right, which is more than I can say for some people I used to know.”

  “Maren, I’m sorry about how things were left between us. Give me a chance to talk to you for five minutes,” Lukas said. He reached across the table and touched my arm, but I pulled it away as if he were a snake getting ready to bite me.

  “You had ten years to talk to me. Ten years! There are these things called phones that people use to communicate these days. Never once have you tried to call me. For Pete’s sake, you could have emailed, even. But nothing. Not one word. Especially after…” I choked on the words. But I couldn’t let him know how deeply he had hurt me. “Especially after what happened between us. I didn’t even get the courtesy of a ‘see you later.’ We were friends for eight years. I deserved more than that—better than that.”

  “I know,” Lukas started, but then Billy reappeared. I could see from the look that he gave us that he sensed he had missed something. I was on the verge of tears, and Lukas’s face was stormy.

  “Sorry, Maren,” Billy said. “There’s been some trouble out at White Oaks. I need to go.” White Oaks was the private neighborhood outside town where most of the Grizzly Clan lived.

  For the first time since he sat down, Lukas’s attention was wholly on Billy. He stood up. “What kind of trouble?”

  “Nothing that I am willing to discuss here,” Billy said.

  I stood up and used the movement of putting my napkin down on the table to cover how woozy I suddenly felt. I hadn’t eaten a thing and had downed three glasses of wine in quick succession.

  “I’m going too,” I said.

  Both men looked at me as if I had grown a third eye.

  “This is official police business,” Billy said.

  “Until we know what it’s about, it’s better that civilians stay out of the community,” Lukas said.

  “Civilians? Is that what yo
u call us? You and your grizzly army?” I knew by the tightening of the lines around Lukas’s mouth that I should probably close mine. Unfortunately, the wine had loosened my tongue. “Always so secretive up there in your private little community. Well, I am invoking the First Amendment. My readers have a right to know what’s going on.”

  Lukas’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t think that’s exactly how that works, Maren.” He swung his head toward Billy. “I can take her home, but I’ll be right behind you. Make sure the sheriff knows that.”

  I saw the slight grimace cross Billy’s face. Given the little tidbits that I had heard so far, I had no doubt that Sheriff Monroe would be less than pleased to hear that Lukas was on his way at all. Just like me, the sheriff was more than ready to see Lukas Kasper’s backside.

  It was the same backside that I was admiring a few minutes later as Lukas walked Billy out to his car. I could tell that Billy wanted to protest the plan, but he was also eager to get out to White Oaks now that he had his marching orders. That was just the kind of cop Billy was. The men spoke in low voices and kept glancing in my direction every few moments. I rolled my eyes at them. They didn’t need to try that hard to keep whatever they were talking about away from me.

  A minute later, Billy got into his car, and Lukas was striding back in my direction. There was something about the way he walked that sent shivers down my spine. It was almost a loping action, and it reminded me that no matter how he tried to dress it up otherwise, there was always something feral about him.