by Dannika Dark
Jesus, maybe I did. His eyes scraped down my stupid miniskirt and tight-fitting orange shirt that said Sweet Treats on it. For anyone who wasn’t familiar with the area, he might have just assumed I was the sweet treat. I did a mental facepalm and tightened the grip on my keys.
“It looks like this was a waste of your time and mine. I drove all the way out here hoping I would get a serious offer. I don’t come with the car and this isn’t a sex transaction. Get out of my car or I’m calling the police.”
Lorenzo stood up and approached me. I nearly fled, but that stupid impulse was quashed by the logical voice in my head, once again, trying to convince me that I was overreacting.
Except the skull and crossbones tattooed on his arm caught my eye. As did the matching design on the back of his truck window. Men who had skulls on their bodies were usually trouble.
I backed up and he caught my arm. But gently. Not in the way that would make a girl throw her knee against a man’s balls. It was a soft touch with just the very tips of his fingers, and his features no longer appeared hard and unpredictable. Lorenzo’s brown eyes were as warm as his hands and melted me like caramel in the summer sun. To look at him, Lorenzo was a very handsome man, but I hadn’t made up my mind on his personality.
“My offer is serious. I won’t hurt you, Alexia. I just think you’re exceptionally pretty and I want to show you I’m interested.”
Well, hell. What’s a girl to say to that? I almost wanted to ask if he was still going to pay me double for the cootiemobile.
“Do you really want to buy my car?”
He glanced over his shoulder and chuckled warmly. “Not really. Sorry, it’s not what I’m looking for.” And then his eyes melted over me and my breath quickened. He really wasn’t so bad if you didn’t notice the skull inked on his left arm.
“I need to go,” I sputtered.
“Alexia, please don’t go without giving me your number. Let’s have one conversation and you can decide if I’m a bad guy or not. Unless you have a boyfriend.”
Maybe it’s the mouth-twist thing girls do when someone brings up a boyfriend who doesn’t exist, but he read my expression and a satisfied look glittered in his eyes. Lorenzo pulled a pen from his back pocket and held the tip to his palm. “Number?”
And like a freaking zombie, I found myself reciting my home number. Why not? I’d met the worst mistake of my life in a shop full of sugar. Maybe I’d meet the man of my dreams in a rundown parking lot by a shoe store and an overflowing dumpster.
“I’ll ask around to see if anyone I know is interested in the car,” he promised me. “I know what it’s like to have something you want to get rid of, but for some reason, it keeps hanging around like a curse.”
“Thanks,” I said. “The car needs to go, so if anyone you know wants to take a look at it, give them my work number. Tell them about the car before they show up and change their mind—you’ve seen it, so you’ll be able to sell it better than I can.”
He smiled. Not the kind with teeth, just a broad smile with his lips pressed together. “I’ll do that, Alexia. It was a pleasure to meet you,” he said, raising his hand in a wave. “And my name is Lorenzo Church. Friends call me Enzo, business associates call me Church, but you can call me anytime.”
He bowed his head, and I listened to his black boots tread heavily on the pavement as he walked back to his truck.
***
The next day, I called in sick. I’d caught a bug of some kind and it was slowly taking my body hostage. My fever hovered around one hundred degrees Fahrenheit for most of the day. Stuff like this happened a lot when I first started working at the shop. Kids collected germs, which is why I became vigilant about wiping down the counters with sanitizer. But lately, I’d been lucky with my health. I’d managed to accrue about twenty sick days, so I made the executive decision to use some of them.
I also handled food and giving our customers Ebola wasn’t high on my list for the top ways to earn a promotion.
It was the night of Naya’s party, but I’d already told her I wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be able to make it. I called April at work to let her know she was still invited, but she shied out and made up an excuse about painting her bathroom the color of lemons. I really wanted to see her cut loose and have a good time. She was too young to be sitting around the house and not going to parties and dating. The strange thing was how little I knew about her, but sometimes people don’t like to show all their cards until they’re ready to go all out.
All my blankets were piled on the floor so I could stretch out across my bed. I had turned down the air conditioning, but nothing soothed my fever and restless legs. The blinds and drapes remained closed, submersing me in darkness.
My skin crawled, sensitive to everything. I didn’t have any violent fits of vomiting—thank God—but there was a gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach. Not hunger, but almost like when you’re at the top of the hill on a roller coaster, three seconds from going down a steep track. Odds are I had the latest bug going around, as the symptoms mimicked what I had heard about—minus the vomiting.
The music cranked up at Naya’s apartment as her festivities were in full swing.
Of all times to get sick.
A knock sounded at my front door and I sat up, listening. Sometimes partygoers got lost and wound up on the wrong doorstep. My stringy brown hair covered my face and I flipped it back. Getting dressed wasn’t high on my agenda that day, so the only thing I bothered putting on was a long black tank top that fell just below my panties. I would have never worn a silly shirt like that in public because of the giant pair of red lips on the front in the shape of a kiss. Due to my fever, I would have preferred to sleep in the nude, had I not been afraid of an apartment fire and having to run naked into the arms of a fireman. Not that it would be a bad outcome.
But then the knocking sounded again.
“Dammit,” I murmured, dragging my bare feet across the carpet. Too tired to look out the peephole, I pressed my cheek against the painted wood. “Who is it?”
“It’s Beckett.”
I made some kind of a growl and thumped my head against the door.
“Come on, Lex. Just give me five minutes and you’ll never have to see me again. I saw your ad in the paper for the car and you won’t be able to sell it without the title. I brought it over; you left it at the house.”
Double ugh. I’d never sold a car before. Did I need a title? Damn.
“Five minutes,” I warned, turning the locks and opening the door.
“Jesus, Lexi, you look like shit.”
“Thanks,” I said as he shouldered past me and casually walked inside.
Beckett flipped on a small lamp beside the balcony door and I squinted. “By the way, you shouldn’t put your full name in the paper; that’s just fucking stupid.”
My living room was modest with a cozy sofa facing a small window, two tan chairs, and a couple of end tables. The dining room, bedroom, and kitchen were all connected. You could essentially stand in the living room and see my entire apartment.
A chill rolled through my body and I leaned against the cool door. “Where’s the title?”
Beckett involuntarily dropped his eyes to my legs. Involuntarily, because Beckett had no self-control when it came to tits and ass. A sign I should have paid attention to from the beginning, but I’d naively thought I could change him.
“You look damn sexy in that shirt, Lex. I always liked it when you wore it to bed.”
Beckett brushed his hand through his bristly hair. It was dirty blond and styled close to his head. He just got off work because he was still wearing his black work shirt with a logo of a red duck on his left breast. The name of the bar where he worked was Ducky’s Dive.
He walked right up to me and intimately rubbed his hands over my bare shoulders. “Let’s try it again,” he suggested in a smooth voice. “I fucked up and I want a second chance, Lex.”
Beckett was encroaching on my space an
d had that look in his eyes—the one that was dripping with lust. Before I could protest, he peeled off his shirt and slid his arm around my waist, grinding his hips against mine. His mouth trailed along my neck and I felt feverish, as if it were a dream. I wanted to object, but the fight was hardly in me.
My body trembled.
Beckett’s hands slid over my bare hips and his fingers bit into my ass. “Ah, shit, Lex. You feel so fucking good. You have no idea how hot it feels to be near you.”
It was a familiar feeling that suddenly made me uncomfortable. I no longer liked the way he touched me, his smell, or even his whiskey voice. My stomach knotted; I was trapped. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want his hands on me.
A knock on the door made me jump.
“Fuck off,” Beckett yelled out.
I flattened my hands against his sticky bare chest and pushed. “Beckett, no.”
Sex-filled eyes devoured me as the music from Naya’s apartment pounded like something you’d hear at a strip club.
The light knock at the door turned into a hammering fist. “Lexi, open up the damn door,” a dangerous voice demanded.
Austin?
Beckett’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s that?”
“No one.”
“Good. Get rid of him. I want to talk, and you don’t look like you’re up for watching an ass-kicking tonight.” His muscles flexed as he laid down the threat. Being a bouncer, Beckett knew how to handle himself, not to mention he loved starting shit with other guys for no reason. All that wrestling he watched had gone to his head.
He backed up and stood beside the balcony door with his arms folded in order to draw attention to his thick biceps. I turned around and cracked open the door. “Austin, what are you doing here?”
Austin’s eyes hooded as he studied my face. “Are you okay?” His voice maintained a frightening level of control—a little bit like a gun about to go off.
“I’ve got a virus. You should go; it might be contagious.”
Being that Austin was taller than me, he had the vertical advantage of seeing over my head and into the apartment. When I heard his knuckles crack, I knew he’d caught sight of Beckett, shirtless in my living room with the smug expression he always wore.
“Who’s in there with you?”
“It’s just my ex. He brought the title to my car and…”
“And he decided to mend fences by groping you in your condition?” Austin slid his jaw from left to right, something he did whenever he was pissed. Perhaps it was the slight lift of my brow, but his answer flashed across my face. Austin had a gift at reading people.
“I want him out,” he demanded.
I tried to shut the door, but Austin wedged his foot in.
“Just go,” I whispered. “He’s a big guy with a temper and I’m too sick to deal with a fight.”
Austin Cole lowered his head as well as his voice. A muscle tightened in his jaw and I knew he meant business. “You may not realize this yet, Lexi, but you’re in my pack. And nobody fucks with my pack.”
The door pushed open and Austin stood beside me. Beckett had never looked so small.
“Time for you to get the fuck out of here,” Austin said in a calm voice, the kind that made all my hairs stand on end.
Beckett looked intimidated just for a split second before going into stupidity mode. “Says who?”
Those two words had started more fights than I could even remember.
Austin reduced the space between them to nothing and I became nervous about what was going to go down. All my furniture in ruins, lampshades torn, curtains ripped, tables smashed to pieces…
Austin threw a hard fist into Beckett’s face and knocked him out cold. It sounded like bones cracked. I gasped when it happened and covered my mouth. There was no warning. No words were exchanged. Beckett fell to the ground like a tranquilized deer and Austin grabbed him by the ankles.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed.
He dragged Beckett all the way outside. I cringed with every thump of his body down the steps but remained inside my apartment, peering through my door. Naya’s partygoers were scattered about, enjoying the balmy night air and barely paying attention.
Austin Cole walked coolly into my apartment, closing the door behind him. “Did he hurt you?” He placed his large hand across my forehead and then touched my feverish cheek. “He put his hands on you, didn’t he? I could smash his face in for trying to take advantage of you.”
“I think you did smash his face open,” I murmured.
Before I knew it, my feet were off the ground. Austin lifted me in his arms and carried me to the bedroom. I mumbled incoherently and everything became hazy and dreamlike. He placed me gently on the bed and kicked off his shoes, climbing in.
“What are you—no, Austin. No,” I said firmly, trying to roll off the bed.
He tucked himself against my back, holding my body in a tight grip. Something strange began to happen. The sensation was similar to having hunger pangs and taking that first bite of a cracker. My body filled with relief, and I suddenly craved more of Austin, as if he weren’t just a cracker, but a Ritz.
“That’s it,” he said, brushing his hand through my hair. “Relax. It’s my power you feel. Perfectly natural.”
My left leg slid over his and he hissed, pushing it back. Austin was essentially spooning me and trying to hold me still at the same time.
“I need to see a doctor,” I groaned. “I’m sick.”
His chest filled with air and a deep sigh warmed my shoulder in the most delicious way.
Oh, God. Austin was turning me on.
That’s when I knew I must have been running a high fever, because the control button in my brain was out of order.
When his hand curved around my hip, I brought it between my legs. A deep growl rumbled in his throat and he immediately pulled it back to my waist.
So I arched my back until I pushed against his groin. He didn’t move, but I could feel how much he enjoyed it. A deep ache filled my body, one that made me desire the man behind me like never before. Now he was in my bed—all these years, something I’d dreamed about for so long. I reached around, clawing at his jeans with my fingernails.
“Lexi, no,” he said firmly. Something compelled me to obey. He gently pulled loose strands of hair away from my face with his right hand. “I need to tell you something.” Austin swallowed thickly. He played it cool and stayed absolutely still. I could smell his skin and taste his power. “When we had the talk in the Laundromat, I got close to you and picked up on something I hadn’t before. You’re a Shifter.”
I stopped moving while Austin spoke against my ear.
“I didn’t know it when we were younger, but now that you’re going through the change, it’s like turbulence on my body. It explains why you were so drawn to me, Lexi. I’m an alpha wolf, and females respond to alphas. It’s instinct. I’ve always felt protective of you and now it all makes sense. Humans are naturally attracted to female Shifters, but it’s sexual, and some are weak and unable to control those urges. Most of our women don’t date humans because they have trouble letting go and become obsessive. It’s why we’re protective of our women when it comes to humans or any other Breed.”
“I’m not a Shifter,” I protested, struggling to get free.
He kept a tight hold and threw his left leg over mine to tether my legs down.
“A Shifter can only come from Shifter parents—no exceptions. You must have been adopted or something.”
Finally, my mouth began to work. “What are you saying? Why are you doing this to me? I’m sick, Austin. Don’t fill my head with—”
“With the truth. We don’t shift until we’re adults, and it’s different for everyone. Usually the first time occurs in our late teens to early twenties. You’re a late bloomer; maybe your animal was suppressed for so long because you’ve lived with humans all your life. If you’ve felt sick the past day or two it’s because your animal is getting restless and tr
ying to come out. It’s nothing to be afraid of, and it won’t hurt. You’re going through the change, Lexi. Don’t fight it; just relax and let your animal free.”
I wriggled away from him and he finally let go. I wasn’t thinking straight and everything felt like a dream. “Are you the cause of this? Are you the trigger that’s making me change because you’re some kind of an alpha wolf?”
Had I a non-feverish cell in my brain, I wouldn’t have even entertained the idea.
Austin sat up and leaned forward on his knuckles, lowering his dark brows. I flinched a little from his intense stare and he spoke in a rich and textured voice. “If that’s true, then this is the proudest fucking day of my life.”
And then I blacked out.
Chapter 9
My tired legs stretched beneath silken sheets, and my limp body relaxed on the soft mattress. The wooden ceiling fan rotated above my head, swirling a cool breeze around my bedroom. It was a quaint little room with a shelf full of movies and photo albums sitting below a painting. Two black lamps were on either side of my bed, and the dresser had a few photographs of my family.
I touched my cheek and blinked a few times. My fever must have broken.
“How you feeling?”
Oh shit. It wasn’t just that Austin was in my bedroom, it was the feeling of complete nakedness beneath the covers.
I scrambled beneath the sheets and sat up, my hair a tangled mess.
“Eat this,” he said, carrying in a large plate of food.
As he sat on the edge of the mattress, my stomach did a flip. Austin had several bandages patched to his left arm and a gnarly cut on his chin.
“Where are my clothes? What happened to you?”
He wasn’t listening. He held a sausage between his fingers and tapped it against my mouth. “You need your strength.”
“Tell me what happened,” I ground through my teeth. “You’re scratched up, I’m naked, and I have no memory of last night.”
That’s when I noticed the condition of the room. The curtain rod was hanging down at an angle and the drapes were shredded. There were long scratches on the bedroom door and tiny feathers covered the bed from a torn pillow.