Chapter Sixteen
Seamus felt Bree’s anxiousness and anger. Felt it, for real, coming up into him. He also felt her desire, both physical and emotional. For him.
Empathy? Or a Shifter knowing his true mate?
“My daughter asked you a good question,” Nadine said, plucking another scone to pieces. “Well? What’s it going to be?”
Sean and Dylan looked only at Seamus, no one else. “We discussed it,” Sean said slowly. “Me and Dad and Liam. And we decided ...” He let out his breath. “That we’d be sorry excuses for Shifters if we made Seamus stay. You’re free to go, lad. Anywhere you wish. We’d like to hang on to Katie, but only for her own protection until she’s of an age to decide for herself, but you ... ” Sean lifted his hands. “It’s whatever you want. Francesca, you too.”
Now everyone was staring at Seamus. The many pairs of eyes on him—the intense blue ones of the Morrisseys, dark ones of Ronan and Rebecca, the light blue of Walker, interested ones of Carly and Bree’s mother, gray of Broderick and also of Francesca—made Seamus a little cagey. They were waiting to see what he’d do. Accept? Or run?
Francesca said, after drawing a breath, “I’m staying with Katie.”
Seamus figured she would. Katie was hers now.
The only person who didn’t look at him was Bree. Seamus didn’t want to have the conversation he needed with her in front of all those stares, so he lifted her to her feet and stilled her startled questions by pulling her out of the room.
None of the others followed or called after them. They knew.
Seamus took Bree up the stairs to the room they were sharing. Behind them, he heard the Shifters and their human mates burst out talking at once, the crowd making enough noise to drown out an army. All the better.
Seamus led Bree into the bedroom and closed the door. She faced him in the middle of the floor, her lake-blue eyes enormous.
“What are you going to do?” Bree asked him.
Seamus stripped off his shirt. “Right now? Make love to you like I can’t stop. Like I’ve wanted to since I met you. Like I would have if we hadn’t kept getting interrupted.”
He growled the last words as he kicked out of his jeans. He’d put on underwear today in deference to the ceremony, and that came off too.
Bree didn’t snap her gaze away, or scream, or try to run. She looked him up and down. “Nice.”
“Glad you like it. Join me if you want. Your choice. I would never force you.” Seamus took a step toward her, tenderness sweeping through him along with need. “I would never hurt you.” He brushed Bree’s hair from her face, reveling in the silken touch of her hair, her skin. “Never.”
Bree ran her fingers up his chest to the hollow of his throat. “And after?” She studied his collarbone, not meeting his eyes. “Are you going to disappear forever?”
“I haven’t decided.” Seamus’s heartbeat sped, the warmth in him becoming surging heat. “Whatever I decide, I want it to be with you. I can’t offer you a damn thing—life in a bedroom in Shiftertown, or hiding out in a safe house ... somewhere. It would suck.”
“That all depends. I really liked that bungalow you found downtown. It’s cute. Or will be after we fix it up.” A sparkle lit Bree’s eyes, then dimmed. “What I don’t want is for you to be caught because you stuck around to be with me. I don’t want to watch you be rounded up, or whatever it’s called, arrested because you don’t have a Collar, forced to wear one, or killed.” She pushed against his chest and stepped away. “I won’t be the cause of that. I’d rather know you were out there—free—even if it means you can’t be with me.”
Tears beaded on her eyelashes, and Bree closed her mouth, as though fearing to say too much.
Seamus put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him again. Not enough. He put his arms all the way around her, sinking into her warmth, kissing the curve of her neck.
“I know what freedom is now.” Seamus kissed Bree’s throat and then lifted his head to look into her eyes. “True freedom is being with the one you love, no matter what. It’s not a place or a time, or running through fields looking for somewhere to hide.” He brushed a kiss to her mouth. “It’s loving who you need to love.”
Bree’s lips parted. “Are you saying you love me, Seamus McGuire? After knowing me two days? Most of those on the run?”
Seamus gave her a shrug. “It can happen fast. When it’s right, it shouts to you. I’m an empath; you know I’m right.”
Bree put her hands on her hips. “Is that going to make you full of yourself? Because we’ll have to work on that.”
“Maybe. None of that matters, though, until you answer. Do you want to be with me, love?”
Bree lost her cocky smile. She rose on tiptoes and held him, her tears wetting his cheek. “Crap on a crutch, Seamus. Of course I want to be with you. Always. To hell with us only knowing each other two days—who gets to set the time-limit rule? I love you. I know this better than anything.”
“Good.” Seamus let out the breath he’d been holding, the dizziness of it smacking him. He started to fall and swung them both around so they landed on the bed, Seamus on top of Bree. He pressed her wrists into the mattress, and she smiled up at him. “Because I’ve decided to stay in Shiftertown. I don’t want to leave Katie, and Sean’s right. I can help them.”
Sean had told him today about a few things they were working on with the Collars, trying to get them removed from all Shifters. Going feral was a danger, and Seamus’s ability to survive without one could make a difference.
“But I’m only staying if you’ll come visit me,” Seamus said. “And do this ...”
He kissed her. Bree wrapped herself around him, opening to him, deepening the kiss. The fabric of her pants brushed his skin and lit every fire inside him.
“I’ll do more than visit,” Bree said when the kiss ended. “I’ll shack up with you. I’m a Shifter groupie, remember? Or at least, I used to be. That’s what we groupies dream of doing, you know, moving in with a Shifter. Now that I’ve got a Shifter of my own, though, I won’t need to dress up and hang out anymore.”
“I don’t know.” Seamus traced around her eyes where the cat makeup had been. “Maybe you can wear the makeup and costume sometimes. The cat’s ears are damn sexy.”
“Ooh, kinky, are you? This sounds like fun.”
Seamus drew his fingers down her white blouse, aching for her. “You’re wearing too many clothes right now.”
“They’re Carly’s. Cute, aren’t they? She has good taste.”
“You’ll have to buy her more,” Seamus growled.
Shifters could rip into clothes swiftly and precisely. In the work of a few moments, the shirt and pants and her underwear lay in shreds around them, Bree squealing in delighted surprise.
Her cries softened to those of pleasure, and then a groan as Seamus slid inside her.
The bed creaked as Bree drew her hands down his back. Seamus forgot about pain, sorrow, grief, hurt, emptiness, and filled himself with Bree. Her generous love, her smiles, her beauty, her sensual little growl as he started to move.
Seamus was one with his mate, feeling her joy, her love surrounding him and making him whole. Everything he needed.
End
Read on for an excerpt of
White Tiger
Shifters Unbound, Book 8
Chapter One
It was almost time. Addison Price slid the coffeepot back on the heater, unable to keep her eye from the clock. The diner closed at midnight. Every night at eleven fifty-five on the dot, he came in.
Tonight, though, eleven fifty-five came and went. And eleven fifty-six, fifty-seven.
She’d have to close up. The owner liked everything shut down right at midnight. He’d come in about fifteen minutes later and start going through the accounts for the day.
Eleven fifty-eight. The last customer, a farmer in a John Deere cap he must have picked up forty years ago from all the grime on it, grinned at her and said, “Ni
ght, Addie. Time to go home to the wife.”
He said that every night. Addie only smiled at him and waved good-bye.
Eleven fifty-nine. In one minute, she’d have to lock the door, turn the Open sign around to Closed, help with the clean up, and then go home. Her sister and three kids would be asleep, school day tomorrow. Addie would creep in as usual, take a soothing shower, play on the Internet a little to unwind, and then fall asleep. Her unwavering routine.
Tonight, though, she wouldn’t be able to analyze every single thing the white-and-black-haired man said to her and decide whether he liked her or was just making conversation.
The second hand on the analog clock above the pass to the kitchen swept down from the twelve toward the six. Eleven-fifty nine and thirty seconds. Forty. Forty-five.
Addie sighed and moved to the glass front door.
Which opened as she approached it, bringing in warmth of a Texas night, and the man.
Addie quickly changed reaching for the door’s lock to yanking the door open wide and giving him her sunniest smile. “Hello, there. Y’all come on in. You made it just in time.”
The big man gave her his polite nod and walked past her with an even stride, the black denim coat he always wore brushing jeans that hugged the most gorgeous butt Addie had seen in all her days. Because this diner’s clientele had plenty of farmers, utility workers, and bikers just passing through, she’d seen her fair share of not-so-good backsides in jeans … or slipping inappropriately above waistbands.
Her man was different. His behind was worth a second, third, and fourth look. He was tall but not lanky, his build that of a linebacker in fine training, his shoulders and chest stretching his black T-shirt. The footwear under the blue jeans was always either gray cowboy boots or black motorcycle boots. Tonight, it was the motorcycle boots, supple leather hugging his ankles.
And, as always, Addie’s man carried the sword. He kept it wrapped in dark cloth, a long bundle he held in his hand and tucked beside his seat when he sat down and ordered. At first Addie had thought the bundle held a gun—a rifle or shotgun—and she’d had to tell him that the owner, Bo, didn’t allow firearms of any kind in his diner. She’d lock it up for him if he wanted while he ate. They had a special locker for the hunters who were regulars.
The man had shot her a quizzical look from his incredibly sexy green eyes, pulled back the cloth, and revealed the hilt of a sword.
A sword, for crap’s sake. A big one, with a silver hilt. Addie had swallowed hard and said that maybe it was okay if he kept it down beside his chair. He’d given her a curt nod and covered the hilt back up.
But that was just him. He was like no man Addie had ever met in her life. His eyes were an incredible green she couldn’t look away from once he caught her with a gaze. The eyes went with his hard face, which had been knocked around in his life, but he still managed to be handsome enough to turn the head of whatever woman happened to be in this late. Which, most nights, was only Addie.
His hair, though, was the weirdest thing. It was white, like a Scandinavian white-blond, but striped with black. As though he’d gone in for a dye job one day and left it half finished. Or maybe he simply liked the look.
Except, Addie would swear it was natural. Dyes left an unusual sheen or looked brittle after a while. His hair glistened under the lights, each strand soft, weaving with the others in a short cut that suited his face. Addie often studied his head as he bent over his pie, and she’d clutch her apron to keep from reaching out and running her fingers through his interesting hair.
In sum—this man was hotter than a Texas wind on a dry summer day. Addie could feel the sultry heat when she was around him. At least, she sure started to sweat whenever she looked at him.
For the last month or so, he’d come in every night near to closing time, order the last pieces of banana cream pie and the apple pie with streusel and eat while Addie locked the door and went through her rituals for the night. When Bo arrived through the back door, the man would go out the front, taking his sword … and the other things he always brought.
They came in now, walking behind him—three little boys, the oldest one following the two younger ones. The oldest one’s name was Robbie, and he brought up the rear, looking around as though guarding his two little brothers with his life.
“Hello, Robbie,” Addie said. “Brett, Zane. How are you tonight?”
The two littlest would chorus Fine, but Robbie only gave her a polite nod, mimicking his father. If he was Robbie’s father. The youngest ones did have the man’s green eyes and white-and-black hair, but Robbie didn’t look like any of them. He had dark brown hair and eyes that were gray—a striking-looking kid, but Addie figured he wasn’t related to the others. Adopted maybe, or a nephew. Whatever, the guy looked after all three with protective fierceness, not letting anyone near them.
They took four stools at the counter, as usual. Robbie sat on the seat farthest from the door, Zane and Brett perched in the next two seats, with their dad next to them, his bulk between them and whoever might enter the diner. These seats were also not in front of the diner’s windows, but at the very end of the counter, almost in the hall to the bathrooms.
Addie took up the coffeepot and poured a cup of fully caffeinated brew for black-and-white guy and three ice waters for the boys. She’d offered them cokes when they first came in, but their dad didn’t like them having sugared drinks.
Considering how much pie they put away, Addie didn’t blame him. Sweet sodas on top of that would have them wired to the gills all night.
“You almost missed the pie,” Addie said to the boys as she set the dripping glasses of water on the counter. “We had a run on it today. But I saved you back a few pieces in the fridge.” She winked at them. “I’ll just run and get them. That’s three banana creams and an apple streusel, right?”
She looked into the father’s green eyes, and stopped.
She’d never seen him look at her like that. There was a hunger in his gaze, powerful and intense. He skewered her with it, and Addie looked back at him, her mouth open, her heart constricting before it started pounding.
Men had looked at her with suggestion before, but they’d always accompanied it with a half-amused smile as though laughing at themselves or telling Addie she’d have a great time if she conceded.
This was different. Black-and-white man studied her with a wanting that was palpable, as though any second he’d climb over the counter and come at her.
After a second, he blinked, and the look was gone. He hadn’t intended her to catch him.
The blink showed Addie something else. Behind the interest, his eyes held great distraction and deep worry.
Something had happened tonight, some reason he’d come here going on five minutes late.
Addie knew better than to ask him if everything was all right. He wouldn’t answer. The man was not one for casual conversation. The boys talked, but kept their answers general. They had not betrayed with one word where they were from, where they went to school, what they liked to do for fun, or why their dad kept them up this late every night.
Addie simply gave them all her smile, said, “I’ll be right back,” and ducked into the kitchen to fetch the pie she’d held back for them.
She took out pieces, already sliced on their plates, and sprinkled a little extra cocoa powder on the banana cream ones from the dented shaker on the shelf.
The guy who washed dishes—Bo went through a new one about every two weeks—wasn’t there. He liked to ducked out for a smoke right at closing time, coming back in when Bo got there to finish the cleanup. Addie hummed, alone in the kitchen, her pulse still high from that look black-and-white man had given her.
If Addie marched out there and said to him, sure, she was interested—in a discreet way in front of his kids—would he break down and tell her his name?
Or would he take her somewhere and make love to her with silent strength, the same way he walked and ate? Would Addie mind that?
Nope, she wouldn’t mind that at all.
She picked up two pieces of pie, still humming. At the same time, she heard a scratching at the back door.
Bo? Addie set down the pie and walked over. Bo always used his key to get in—they kept the back door locked. Even in this small town that was pretty safe, robbers passing through might seize an opportunity.
Bo often couldn’t get his key into the lock—his hands shook with a palsy that ran in his family. The dishwasher often had to help him, or Addie would open the door for him.
Bo was a bit early, but he was sometimes. Addie reached for the door, just as something banged into it.
“Bo? You okay?” Addie unlocked the deadbolt, carefully pulled the door open, and peeked out.
The door fell inward, a heavy weight on it. Addie looked down.
A curious detachment came over her as she saw the dishwasher, a guy of about thirty with greasy brown hair and beard stubble. He was dead, his brown eyes staring sightlessly. She knew he was dead because he had a gaping red hole where his heart used to be.
If this had been a movie, Addie would be screaming, fainting, sobbing, saying Oh, my God, or running outside crying, Somebody, help!
Instead, she stood there, as though caught in treacle, unable to move, think, talk, or even breathe.
A faint noise sounded outside, and Addie raised her head. She saw the round muzzle of a gun, one of the automatic ones that shot however many rounds a minute. Her breath poured back into her lungs, burning, and she knew she was looking at her own death.
A rush of air passed her, and the door slammed closed. At the same time a pair of strong arms closed around her, propelling her to the floor, the man with black-and-white hair landing on top of her.
In the front of the diner, every window shattered as bullets fired through it. Glass flew through the open pass between kitchen and dining area, as did bullets, shards of cups and plates, tatters of napkins.
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