License to Shift (14 page)

He opened his truck door for her and helped her climb in. It was sweet and courtly, and she couldn't have been more pleased if she were stepping into a limousine. Then he popped around the other side, and soon they were on the road.

“Was your father really in polite society?” he finally asked.

“Absolutely. Remember that traveling salesman? He made it big with the Crescent Brass and Pin Company. Not Henry Ford kind of money, but he did just fine. According to family legend, his daughter became a society matron.”

“But your dad was probably an academic when he was still in diapers.”

“Much to the despair of the women who kept trying to make him into a dashing young lad.”

“So how did your parents meet?”

“School, of course. University of Michigan. Dad liked her practical side. She kept him on track, grounded him when he was prone to lose himself in his research.”

“And what did she see?”

“A romantic. Flowers, poetry, and badly sung ballads in the moonlight.” Julie sighed. “They divorced when I was a teen. Turns out poetry pales when someone's forgotten to pay the water bill.”

“Ouch.” He looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “Which side do you favor? Practical or romantic?”

“You can't guess?” She didn't mean to test him, but it was an old habit with her. Had he really been paying attention? Or had everything they'd done been an elaborate dance for ulterior reasons?

“Oh, you're practical through and through,” he said glibly. “Pay your bills on time, have a boring car and a responsible job.” Then he flashed her a heated look that set her blood on simmer. “But you give your heart easily and too well. Romantics like that get taken for a ride. So you try to be logical, but then it happens again. A guy shows up with flowers and pretty words, and there you go.”

She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Damn, he'd nailed it right on the head. Except this time it wasn't pretty words and flowers that had caught her heart. This time, she'd tumbled headlong into a man of magic. “Makes me sound like a sap,” she said as she turned to look out the trees whipping past the window.

“It's a miracle, Julie. Do you know how hard it is for me to connect?” His voice was calm. As steady and even as the freeway they'd pulled onto. “Animals love instinctively with very few. Child or mate, that's it. Everything else is food or rival. Carl's my best friend, but the minute we became teens, my bear started to assert itself. Carl's the alpha of my generation, but to my bear, he's the man who's going to kill me when the time comes. At best, he's a rival. At worse, he's my predator.”

“That's awful.”

“That's animal. Don't get me wrong. Animals feel love, especially pets. But I'm a wild animal. It's the man who makes human connections, and even before my teens it was hard.”

She twisted in her seat, needing to see his face as the talked. “Why?”

“Because my parents were shifters. Strong ones who shouldn't have mated. But the drive hit and nine months later, I was born. They tried to make it work for my sake. Mom stuck around long enough to get me out of diapers, but in the end the wanderlust got her. Or at least that's what Dad says. I don't remember her.”

“None of this is in your bio,” she said. He shot her a surprised look, and she shrugged. So yeah, maybe she'd read every inch of his company website. It was mostly gaming stuff, but his bio was front and center in her mind. Plus Ellen might have sent her links to every article about him. Which was a lot. “It talks about a glorious childhood in a welcoming community.”

“That's all true. The Gladwin grizzly clan raised me. Plus, Dad stuck around, and his girlfriends helped. Carl's mom was a steady female until she died. All in all, a good childhood.”

“And yet you say you can't connect easily. If at all.”

He nodded. “I can't. I try. I talk to people. I look them in the eyes and fight for the empathy.”

“And what happens?”

He shook his head. “I don't know. It's just not there.” Then he looked at her. “Except with you. Except every moment I look at you, I want you.”

She sighed, knowing the truth now. Hearing it loud and clear. “That's mating, isn't it? The instinct to carry on the species.”

“Yes.”

Talk about stabbing her in the heart. It hurt so bad that she had to turn away.

“But I think it's more. We connected when we were teens. Do you remember eating ice cream together? I do. I remember what you wore, how you laughed, and how I wanted to lick the chocolate sauce off your lips.”

“Horny teen.”

He didn't even deny it. “But I knew I wasn't getting laid. I knew you lived in Chicago and whatever happened would be temporary. We had nothing in common and I couldn't tell you anything about who and what I really was. I didn't care. I just wanted to be with you. I still do.”

None of this made sense. On the one hand he sounded like he was warning her off. Reminding her every way possible that a relationship between them was doomed. He didn't connect. His only attraction to her was the instinctive need to mate. And then he said despite all those things, there was something else. Something that drew him to her, that made him want to be with her outside of animal hunger.

“Why?” she pressed. God, she just wanted to know where she stood with him. “What makes me so special?”

“You just are. In every way, you just are.”

That wasn't a satisfying answer, though only a fool expected a man to be articulate about his feelings. Still, his words resonated with her. He sounded sincere, and though she'd been fooled before, he'd done everything he could to dissuade her from an attachment. Was it his fault—or hers—if she felt special when she was around him? He made her believe in her own beauty when he was beside her.

“Okay,” she said softly. Then she repeated it with more strength. “Okay. I'm awesome. You're magical. Let's go eat something really fattening.”

He looked over at her, his lips curving into a slow, sexy smile. “Yes,” he said. “Exactly that. Yes.”

So they did. They had steak and cheesecake. They chowed on hot rolls with butter and tiny salads because it was served with the meal. And they talked. He wanted to know everything about her job and her plans for the future. She delved deep into his thoughts about his company and where he would take it if he had all the time and money in the world. They talked about her college and his lack. And by the time she was waddling back to the truck from being overstuffed on good food, they were laughing together like old, dear friends.

Well, old, dear friends who wanted desperately to get into each other's pants.

And when she struggled in her now-tight dress to climb into his truck, he swept her into his arms and lifted her inside. She squealed, of course, and laughed as she threw her arms around him. He was strong and she had tumbled headlong into love. She didn't want to admit that to herself. Didn't want to acknowledge the way the moonlight made his hair glow like magic or that she could drown in the mystical blue of his eyes. So rather than think, she kissed him. She pulled him close when he set her down in the cab, and she let herself play with his mouth, the contours of his chest, and the hard ridge of his cock through his jeans.

It didn't take him long to respond. Not when he began to growl his words and lick her face. She thought she'd be repulsed by the way his bear took over when they made love. But the way he touched her was all need. Fingers, tongue, teeth—all of it everywhere.

Thrilling.

She couldn't stop stroking him, and he returned the favor to her breasts. Oh wow, she loved it when he touched her like that. She arched into him, loving the squeeze of his large hands. Needing the pinch on her nipples. And wishing they were home already. Wishing…

He separated her knees simply by pressing closer. Then it was a simple matter to brush aside her skirt and stroke her wet panties. She jolted at the feel and grabbed his shoulders to steady herself.

“Get me home,” she said against his mouth.

He'd dropped his mouth to her neck, scraping his teeth across her flesh as both his hands found their way to between her thighs. “Citrus honey,” he murmured. Then he ripped the thin cotton apart.

She jolted as he suddenly stroked her without the fabric barrier. “Did you just—”

“Come for me,” he said as he pushed a thick finger inside her.

“Here?” she squeaked even as her body tightened around his invasion. Not to restrict him, but to pull him in deeper.

“It's late,” he said. “No one is around. And even if they were, I'm blocking the view.”

“But—” she squeaked again. She couldn't think with him between her thighs. Not when he pinched her clit. “But…” she tried again, her mind stuttering over the objections. They were outside. They were in public. She might have gotten over the fear of him seeing her naked, but random strangers?

He eased back on his sensual assault, though he still kept it going with slow thrusts with his fingers and even slower strokes over her clit. Then he lifted his mouth to whisper in her ear. “You're with a wild animal now, Julie. And he wants to lick your come off his fingers. He wants to hear you cry out. And he doesn't want to wait.”

Oh, wow. Just…wow.

“Does it excite you to know how much I want that? That I don't care who knows or who sees? I just want you orgasming all around me. Right now.”

It did. Oh, wow, did she ever want that.

“Tell me, Julie. Tell me you want—”

“Only if I get to return the favor right afterwards. Only if you climb into the driver's seat and let me suck you dry.” She'd never wanted to do that in all her life. She'd never thought she'd be a woman to sit in a dark parking lot with her head bobbing up and down on a man's lap. And yet, she did. The public setting. The hot need. All if it combined to make her want to do everything and more. Right now.

He didn't wait to answer. She felt it in the sudden thrust of his fingers deep inside her. She took everything he gave her. Especially when he played her clit like a drum. She didn't even know how he did it, but he set up a beat and he kept tapping out a tempo that drove her wild. Slow, fast, feather light, then heavy push. Her legs were spread as wide as she could make them and he was wedged between them as far in as he could fit. And still the drumbeat rolled through her body like thunder. Wild. Unpredictable.

Explosion.

She came with a startling choke in a moment between breaths. She came while he was trying to slow it down. She came while he had three fingers inside her, and she kept coming in waves of energetic pulses that exploded outward from where he was embedded deep.

And when she flopped backward in the cab, completely boneless and satiated, he slowly withdrew his fingers and licked them clean. He would have licked her, too, if she'd let him. He would have spread her right there and tasted her to another explosive orgasm, but she held him off.

Instead, she touched his chin, forcing him to look at her while she bit her lip then gave him a coy smile. Lord, who was this hungry tart? A woman who did scandalous things in a parking lot? She was finally throwing off embarrassment and self-doubt. Look at her, indulging in things completely of the body and reveling in every scandalous second.

So she lifted one leg and set it on his chest, steadily pushing him away.

“Get in the cab,” she ordered. “It's my turn now.”

His eyes widened and his nostrils flared. “You know you're making every single one of my adolescent fantasies come true.”

“Good. Because once I'm done with yours, we're going to start on mine.”

H
e didn't take her back to her father's cabin. He took her to his home. He carried her into his basement den and set her on the massive bed. And when she told him she was able to walk all on her own, he made it his mission to make sure she couldn't.

They did, indeed, work on fantasies, and she was as saucy as she'd never been. And as shy as she feared she might. It didn't matter. He met her wherever she was, coaxed her or demanded of her until she spent an incredible amount of time screaming around his pounding cock. And if it wasn't the moment for screaming Os, they cuddled together and murmured confessions while sharing slow kisses.

She didn't know it was possible to spend a night like this. She hadn't thought a man would ever want to linger over every second whether in a blissful doze or casual laughter. The whole night was magical, and the day never penetrated his bedroom cave.

He fed her when they got hungry. They showered when things got sticky. And if it weren't for the persistent buzz of her phone, she would have remained in this idyll forever. But her phone did buzz and her father was in the hospital, so she had to answer even if it was the last thing she wanted to do.

“Hello?” she rasped.

Mark murmured his protest against the small of her back. He was spooned against her, but had fallen lower along her spine when she reached for her phone.

“Did I wake you?” her sister's voice was disruptive to her bliss. But that was a sacrifice she had to make for family. Sometimes.

“This better be important,” she growled to her sister. “Otherwise I'm hanging up.”

“Dad's getting discharged. I've got to go back to the lab, but Mom's going to drive him to the cabin. Should arrive around four.”

Julie came fully awake with painful intensity. “Today?”

“At four.”

She looked at the clock. It was almost noon. “Okay,” she said, pretending that panic wasn't clawing at her throat. “No problem.”

“So get your hot, slutty self out of bed, kiss that man hard, then go clean up the evidence before Dad gets there. Don't want him having another heart attack, right?”

Julie straightened up, accidentally dislodging Mark. “I was not…” Except she had been. “I
am
not…” Well, she was and she'd liked it. “Oh, shut up!”

She hung up on her sister's peal of laughter. So Dad was coming home. He was better enough to be nursed night and day by her. This was good news, right? She'd wanted her father strong and healthy.

“Your father's been discharged,” Mark said as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes. He looked rumpled and sexy and…Hmmmm. He was very hard. And she was very wet.

“You've turned me into a sex addict.”

His eyes darkened, and his lips curved. She didn't see him move, but she felt his hand caress her. It had been on her thigh, but now curved between her legs. The movement was slow but absolutely undeniable.

“How long do we have?” he asked.

“Until four. But I need to clean up the place. Get groceries and stuff.”

“Hmmm. That'll take about an hour.”

“Plus a shower and…and…” He pushed her onto her back, spreading her knees as he kissed a trail down her stomach. “And I think there's plenty of time.”

She felt him smile against her belly. “That's what I think, too.”

And that was the last thinking she did for a good long, fabulous time.

But even great sex has to end sometime. They showered at his place, then headed to the grocery store. She said nothing about all the elaborate tricks he had in his house to make sure the man was in charge and not the grizzly. Why further ruin the moment? Especially when she didn't need a big yellow sign to tell her that their time was running out. So they shopped in quiet accord and headed back to her father's home. Mark was carrying the bags and she was unlocking the cabin door when it happened. Simple and quick.

She heard some pops. Almost simultaneous, but not quite. A sharp pain hit her back. Mark might have grunted. Maybe. It was hard to tell what with her legs going out and the porch coming up to slap her in the face.