Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts, The Complete Series: Mine to Claim, Part of Me, and Hunger for You

by A. C. Arthur

  “Then my timing is perfect,” I said, bending slightly so I could lift her into my arms.

  She stiffened in my arms immediately, dropping her arms in an attempt to cover the good parts, but I’d seen them and my body was reacting, regardless. Still, I kept my eyes on hers now as I moved us out of the bathroom.

  “You should have waited for me to get back.”

  “I felt icky,” was her reply.

  I nodded. Females usually didn’t like to feel “icky” so I understood. I also understood how good she felt in my arms. I cradled her closer, loving the slightness of her weight in my arms, the fresh smell of her skin, and the immediate aroma of her arousal. That just about drove me crazy and I gritted my teeth to try and hold back on my cat’s quick reaction to that scent.

  I took her straight to my room and put her on my bed, where she promptly grabbed up the comforter to wrap around her still-wet and very deliciously naked body. The action was pointless as the sight of her naked body with droplets of water clinging to every delectable spot would now and forevermore be permanently emblazoned in my mind.

  “Did you get my clothes? Was Dex there?” she asked after she’d tucked the comforter under both of her arms.

  Her face looked fresh and pretty even if her eyes were a little bright with worry. She’d pulled her hair back into a loose bun that was now wet around the edges.

  “No. He wasn’t,” I replied when I could think past the creamy tone of her skin. My fists clenched at the bruising on her neck and I turned away.

  “If you want something to eat, I can fix it or we can order out. There’s a place down the street that has good cheesesteak egg rolls, if you like them.” I was talking a lot which was definitely not like me. I was also offering to cook for this female when I barely liked to cook for myself. Frustration at all these changes pounded against my temples.

  “Um, I do like them,” she said. She sounded funny, like she was wondering why I’d turned my back on her.

  But I was so filled with all these emotions, sticky and questionable ones ran alongside dangerous and deadly ones and I was afraid of where all of them might lead.

  “Good. I’ll bring back a menu and rewrap your ankle, and ah, I’ll bring your clothes too.” I was out of the room before she could reply, stopping at the wall just outside my bedroom where I stood for a few seconds. My head fell back against the wall with a quiet thunk as I closed my eyes tightly, trying with everything I had inside me to focus, to put all this crap moving around inside me in some type of order. It wasn’t easy because all this human BS was intertwining with the shifter nonsense, pushing me right in the direction I’d never wanted to be. But I couldn’t actually run away from it, could I? My mother was a Shadow and my father a human. The conflict ran through my blood each and every day, why did I ever think my life could be any different?

  CHAPTER 10

  Zoe

  He’d bandaged me, fed me, kissed me, and now he was tucking me into bed. His bed.

  It was confusing to think of how I’d come to be in this place. Fearful to imagine that it might be the place where I’d always belonged. I’d crawled off that couch after Caleb left and into his bathroom, moving as best I could with the pain, but not feeling out of place or unwelcome at all. Even when he sat me on his bed—well, backtrack to the shower. I should have been embarrassed, should have felt so self-conscious about him seeing me naked, but I hadn’t.

  Instead, inadequate was more what I’d felt while he held me in his arms, up against his muscled chest. For the record, I’d never stood totally naked with all the lights on in front of a guy before. I’d never wanted that type of attention or scrutiny. So having Caleb’s gaze on me as I stepped out of that shower was uncomfortable to say the very least. Seeing his gaze grow darker once more and the immediate arousal growing between his legs was rewarding in a very basic way. As he’d taken me to the bedroom I envisioned longtime lovers doing this without any modesty or hesitation.

  Still, Caleb wasn’t my lover. In fact, what I could only call a lukewarm friendship at best had somehow led to him looking at me with undeniable desire in that bathroom—a desire that was 100 percent reciprocated. Attempting to cover myself had been the only defense I could come up with, not that my hands were actually covering very much. Then he’d put me down and practically run out of the room.

  When he returned he seemed calmer, maybe because he’d tossed three grocery bags of clothes on the bed and immediately went back into the kitchen to get the carry-out menu and the bandages and ice. The painkillers had begun to kick in by then and I’d propped myself up on his bed and watched him as he rewrapped my ankle.

  His hair was thick and dark as night. His fingers looked strong and capable, but touched me with feather-like care that made me want to weep. The food had been good, best cheesesteak egg rolls I’d ever had and then, I was tired. Or at least my body was. I yawned and Caleb said I should get some sleep. It was almost one a.m. and all things considered, I should have been tired as hell. But I wasn’t. I was edgy and needy and hating every second of it. Trying to sleep was the smarter option.

  Caleb had moved from the chair he’d been sitting in to the bed so both of us could see another big-screen television bolted to the wall across from it. I could smell him as he reached around me to take away one of the pillows I’d been laying on. It was a masculine smell, subtle, yet mouthwatering all at the same time. His shirt was so tight it outlined his pectorals and the ridges of his six-pack. My fingers itched to reach up and touch him. He reached for the comforter and I jumped because I thought he was going to pull it down and strip my clothes off—a testament to my very overactive imagination.

  For the life of me I had no idea why I was going through this, why I felt like a horny teenager, craving this guy’s touch like he was some type of drug. Considering my history, sex should be the furthest thing from my mind. But it wasn’t, especially not with Caleb. All I could think about was his hands, his lips, all over me.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Zoe,” he told me with the most honest look on his face I’d ever seen. “I would never hurt you.”

  Of course he would think my stiff posture was because I was afraid. My ex-boyfriend had just assaulted me. Dex had been one big lie that I’d been too naïve to see. As for Caleb, well, I believed what he’d said. With every fiber of my being I believed him even though I didn’t know his last name. I rationalized that by the fact that I knew Dex’s last name was Tavares and that he worked with his uncle just outside of D.C. and that he planned to take over the business when his uncle retired—or I think he said died, but whatever. I knew all that about Dex and up until about two weeks ago I’d actually been considering having sex with him. The violence I’d seen in his eyes tonight had never surfaced before. I knew pertinent facts about him, but not that he would beat a female in a dark alley.

  “I would never hurt you either,” I replied because the desolate sound in his voice said that maybe he’d been hurt at some point in his life as well. He probably needed that declaration just as much as I did.

  There was silence and I thought he would say something else but he didn’t. Instead he continued touching the comforter, tucking it around me and beneath my arms tightly. I actually considered lifting them up and telling him to join me. But I wasn’t quite that bold, no matter the bravado I sometimes liked to put up. In the end, I’d seen enough abuse to know that giving of myself completely might not end up well for all parties involved.

  Caleb reached for the television remote. When it was off and we were in complete darkness I thought for a second he would leave me there and go sleep on the couch. My chest constricted with the thought. But Caleb didn’t leave.

  After a minute or so I felt the bed shift with his weight and knew he was lying next to me. One of the gutsier heroines I’d read about would have rolled over and snuggled close to him. The shy and confused heroine that usually comes around in the end would have insisted he sleep on the couch and when he refused would
have crawled out to the living room on her own.

  Me, I turned onto my side. I wasn’t bold enough to ask for what I wanted and wasn’t afraid enough to run away. Folding my arm beneath my head I contemplated how that should be construed as progress and tried to sleep.

  ***

  “Why are you afraid of hospitals?” Caleb asked in the darkness of the room.

  I wasn’t asleep, had thought I might never find that solace, but had no idea he’d known that. My voice cracked when I began, I figured it didn’t matter. “I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid so I’d rather avoid them as much as I possibly can now.”

  “Were you sick?”

  I wasn’t, but my mother and her husband were, and the situation they both put me, my brother, and sister in was. I thought that over for a minute before I finally replied because for some reason I didn’t want Caleb to think my mom was a bad person. Even though she did nothing to stop all the bad things that had happened, she was the only real parent I had.

  “I took my mother to the emergency room a lot,” was all I’d decided to say for the moment.

  I’d never told anyone about my mom or our home situation. Even when the school nurse had called me in to question me about a bruise on my brother’s face, I repeated the same story I’d told him to tell her. When the calls came to the house I used the money I’d earned from running errands for Mrs. Babarackus to pay one of the prostitutes that worked a couple blocks from our house to return the calls and give them the same report.

  “Your mother was abused.”

  He said it like he already knew so there was no need to pose it as a question. I didn’t know how him assuming that knowledge made me feel, so I considered what to say next. Denial? Outrage? Offense? Acquiescence?

  I cleared my throat.

  “I don’t know why she didn’t fight back. He was a bastard and we didn’t need him. She should have put him out or beat the hell out of him one good time. She should have …”

  My words drifted and my lips clamped down tight. I closed my eyes but opened them quickly. Seeing the nothingness of the dark room was better than seeing images from that time—Mama’s black eyes, her broken arm, her busted lip.

  In my mind, I wanted to pull away when Caleb’s hand touched my shoulder, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. The warmth of his body coming closer to mine was comforting and alarming all at the same time. While an hour ago I may have welcomed his touch, now, after the memories his questions had stirred, I didn’t know how to feel. A part of me wanted to get away, to find my own space once again and stay there until my shields were in place and I was ready to face the world.

  Another part wanted to let go, to relax the tense muscles in my body against Caleb’s embrace and let all that had worried and scared me over the years, be washed away by the sound of his voice, the understanding in his tone.

  “You fought back,” he whispered, his lips right up against my ear now.

  He’d spooned himself against my back, his hand moving from my shoulder to around my waist where it rested on top of my own.

  “I swore I’d never be in that place, never be with a guy that would abuse me.” I heard my voice, listened to the admissions I was making and couldn’t believe it. Why was I telling him all this?

  “And you’re not in that place. You are no longer with that … that guy.”

  Caleb’s hesitation had me smiling fleetingly. I didn’t want to consider Dex a guy either, more like an asshole. I put my hand over Caleb’s and let the warmth of his closeness lull me.

  “Thank you for being there and for being so understanding even when I was acting like such a bitch toward you,” I told him honestly. “Maybe if I’d listened to you sooner it wouldn’t have come to this.”

  “Then you wouldn’t be here with me now,” was his reply. “I wouldn’t be able to hold you close and promise to keep you safe. I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

  His lips were warm against my ear, his tongue damp as it traced a line along my lobe. Desire was like a switch inside me and Caleb had his hand firmly on it, making me want him with the simplest of motions. No, kissing my ear didn’t seem that simple but that wasn’t the only thing he’d done to make me want him, almost need him, I’d venture to admit to myself.

  I leaned back into his embrace, closed my eyes with the wonderful sensations of his tongue against my skin. Warmth escalated to full-blown heat as he pressed into me and all I could do was sigh.

  “I don’t know why but I’ve been drawn to you from the first day I saw you,” he whispered between kisses.

  His words drifted in the darkness of the room, falling to wrap around me as securely as his arms were. To hear him say what I’d been feeling for weeks was a relief that I wasn’t in this alone, at least not on the attraction end.

  “Mmm, I don’t know why either, but I looked for you each night I came in to work,” I said since it seemed like tonight was for true confessions.

  “You did?”

  He seemed surprised and the kissing stopped so I opened my eyes. Rolling onto my back I looked up into Caleb’s eyes. Of course it was dark and really the only thing I could manage to see was the outline of his body leaning over mine, but there was something else. There was a spark of light, a glimmer of something golden. I blinked, believing I’d finally romanticized this moment enough that I was seeing things. With my eyes fully open again I reached up to touch his cheek.

  My heart hammered in my chest and a small voice way in the back of my mind warned me not to say what I was thinking, not to put myself out there with this guy in this way. I didn’t listen. I couldn’t.

  “I looked for you, Caleb. Every night I wanted to see you, even if I didn’t wait on your table and we didn’t speak, I still wanted to see you.”

  “Why?”

  Gone was the contained anger, the blatant candor of his voice, and now there was only this questioning and disbelief. Caleb was a great-looking guy, from his chiseled face and brooding dark looks to his perfect body and unruly hair. No way he didn’t believe that I’d wanted him; girls probably wanted him everywhere he went.

  “Because you’re different,” I admitted, emotion clogging my throat so that I had to stop and swallow. “I don’t know how I knew from the start or in what ways exactly, I just know and I guess you could say I’m intrigued. I know that it was probably wrong to want you when I was with someone else, but I did. I mean, I do.”

  Tears filled my eyes once more and I tried to figure out why. I wasn’t thinking of anything sad, wasn’t recalling what had happened with Dex. I was feeling a storm of sensations, venturing into unchartered waters and I was both anxious and afraid.

  “You have no idea,” were his final words before his lips came crashing down over mine, taking me for a glorious ride of intense desire, barely restrained passion, pure and simple lust that had me panting in his arms.

  CHAPTER 11

  Caleb

  This was wrong on so many levels, warning bells sounded loudly in my ears. I ignored them all and focused only on what I wanted, what I needed more than air itself.

  I’d touched her hair, her face, her ears, her neck, but hadn’t touched anything else and the need burned deep inside me. So deep the cat stretched, chuffing inside impatiently. With as much gentleness as I could muster I moved so that one of my legs was between hers and my body was flush on top of her. Propping myself up on my elbows to keep from completely crushing her, I took the kiss deeper, loving the feel of her tongue brushing against mine, the hunger that was obviously inside her as well. Her hands were flat on my back, moving up and down, leaving paths of heat in their wake.

  Out of breath and struggling for calm I pulled my lips away from hers, the task much harder than anything I’d ever done in my life. Her little gasp and the way her fingers clenched, grabbing my shirt, said she didn’t want me to leave any more than I wanted to. But I needed something else. With trembling fingers—they’d never done that before—I touched his fingerprints on her neck. />
  I had night vision, courtesy of my shifter heritage. I could see those prints as plainly as if all the lights in this room were on. A little growl rumbled in my chest. She turned her head so that she wasn’t looking at me, wasn’t watching me remember what he’d done to her. She thought I blamed her, but she was wrong. There was only one person here to blame, one bastard that would never get the opportunity to put his hands on her again.

  Leaning forward I kissed each mark, lips closed, barely brushing over the softest skin I’d ever felt. My hands moved down, pushing the thin straps of the tank top she wore over her shoulders. I’d touched and I’d had a little taste and it wasn’t enough. Would anything where Zoe was concerned ever be enough?

  I swear I wanted it to end, this deep pressing desire that had hung over me since the first day I saw her. It was like a plague, like a demon, chasing me with the intention of running me completely down to the ground. I felt it right between my shoulder blades even as I pushed the top of the tank top down and over her breasts. Tight nipples stared up at me as if they’d been waiting for me all their life. I blinked, tried to refocus but all that did was push the cat closer to the brink. I held my hand back, praying for no sharp claws. I wanted to touch her again, to hold those breasts in the palm of my hand. Instead I lowered my head once more and touched my tongue to her nipple. She hissed and arched her back. I continued, feeling the warmth of her skin against my tongue, loving the sweet taste of her, the sound of her, the scent that was all Zoe.

  Her shirt had to go. The ripping sound echoed through the room. Before the material could totally escape my fingers I was onto the boxer shorts she’d put on that made her look entirely too sexy. She lifted her hips and I pushed them down. She was naked, her body like shimmering gold as she lay against the dark sheets on my bed.

  “Caleb.” She said my name so softly I almost missed it.

  I lifted my head to look at her, praying whatever she saw wouldn’t frighten her away.