Mine to Claim (Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts) (3 page)

Turning my head slowly, I looked at her. Saw the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, the soft curve of her breasts in a dress that did nothing to hide her ample assets. She wasn’t very tall, but her legs were strong, like she was no stranger to walking or maybe even running. It was her face that wreaked the most havoc, the purely innocent look she was giving me that was haloed by this smoldering aura that called to a very primal part of my being.

“Glad you enjoyed the ride. Sorry about what happened at the bar,” I said in all honesty.

“I just wanted to have some fun tonight,” was her next admission and I almost frowned. She had no idea what type of “fun” she’d been about to get into with those jerks at the bar.

I shook my head because I didn’t want to sound like a scolding father, but I did want her to understand the consequences of her actions. “You need to be real careful about what type of fun you’re out to have. That dress, those shoes, they kind of signal that you’re game for anything. And those guys at the bar caught that signal loud and clear.”

Her brow furrowed, lips clamping shut in anger.

“I told him I wasn’t interested. I told him to go away,” she insisted.

I shrugged even though I’d been beyond pissed at the sight of that drunken loser putting his hands on her. “Don’t doubt that you did, but you’ve got to be more careful about the signals you’re putting out so as not to attract the wrong element.” Like me, I wanted to say. “Look, you’re home safe now. Go inside and sleep this off, things will be fine in the morning.” Or at least I hoped so.

She nodded in agreement at that point and took a step back like she was ready to leave, thankfully.

Then she paused once more and the corner of her mouth lifted in a small smile that reached right inside my chest in search of something I knew I didn’t have to give.

“The bike ride was fun. Thanks for that,” she added before turning away and walking toward the steps.

If she was purposely trying to torture me she was doing a damned good job. My eyes did their own thing, following the sway of her ass as she walked in those heels, the tightness of her calves. Then nature kicked in and a breeze brought her scent front and center to my nostrils until I almost choked on its sweetness.

“My name’s Grace,” she said over her shoulder just as she was about to walk through the double doors of the dorm. She waited expectantly and I grit my teeth reluctantly.

“Nice to meet you, Grace. I’m Aidan.” That was more than enough information and more than enough time spent in her company. I wasn’t going to remain the guy that had given her the fun ride on the bike much longer and would rather she not witness that in light of everything else she’d gone through tonight.

So I revved up the engine and pulled off, leaving the sweet scent and innocent look of Grace behind, for good.

CHAPTER 3

Grace

This was the first time today that Scarlett had let me out of her sight. I was breathing a huge sigh of relief at that fact because having her over my shoulder every second of the weekend had been as tedious as living with my parents.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” she’d said last night after we’d had a mediocre cafeteria meal and were walking back to our dorm.

“I’m fine. I’ve told you that a million times.”

“I should have stayed with you,” she’d admitted again.

This conversation had been going on since Friday night, or I should say the wee hours of Saturday morning when Scarlett had burst into our room grabbing me up in a bear hug designed to choke instead of soothe.

“I shouldn’t have made you dress up and go there. And then I insisted you have a drink to relax and to have fun. I all but pushed you into Chris the Creep’s arms. I still cannot believe he tried to attack you right there at the bar, the asshole!” Scarlett was a very visual talker, meaning her hands worked as hard as her mouth to convey her message. When she’d called Chris an asshole she’d used balled fists to swing in the air as if Chris were standing right there in front of her.

I chuckled because the thought of Scarlett with her long painted nails and even longer fake eyelashes physically fighting anyone was just funny to me.

“I’m a big girl, Scarlett. I can handle myself. I should have had my Mace so I could have blinded his dumbass though. But then my guardian angel appeared.”

Scarlett stopped, grabbing my arm as she did. “Whoa, Aidan Sanchez is not a guardian angel. He’s an older recluse that probably had the same ideas in his mind about you that Chris did.”

This was another part of the previous night’s conversation that I didn’t want to endure again. Aidan was nothing like Chris, I could tell by the way he looked at me and talked to me. I’d said as much to Scarlett already but she was hell-bent on convincing me otherwise. Which could actually be the story of my life—everybody telling me what to do, who to talk to, who to like. I was beyond sick of that crap and not appreciating how Scarlett’s reaction was pushing me down memory lane.

“He’s bad news too, so stay away from him,” she finished.

“He’s bad news that rescued me from Chris and his friend at the bar, then again from the cops that were combing the streets looking for whoever had started the bar fight,” I quipped, then clamped my mouth shut because the last thing I wanted to do was argue with Scarlett. She was the only friend I had in Victory and I wasn’t so sure that messing that friendship up for a guy who’d given me a ride on his bike then disappeared into the night was such a good idea. No matter how deep and sexy his voice was.

“He’s old, Gracie. Should have finished college years ago. Plus, he just showed up here at the beginning of the semester out of nowhere. Nobody knows anything about him because he doesn’t talk to anyone, like some kind of hermit. All he does is ride around town on that bike of his, glaring at everybody behind those dark-ass glasses like he knows something we don’t. He’s creepy.”

Aidan hadn’t been wearing dark glasses Friday night. I’d seen his eyes, which were admittedly dark and sort of soulless, but it had been dark in the bar and then again outside, so I could be mistaken. That didn’t necessarily make him a bad person. Plus if he was so bad why had he saved me at all? Why not just let Chris do what he wanted with me—although I’d already been thinking of how loud I could scream and how hard I could kick him in the balls to keep anything else from happening between us. I wasn’t totally helpless even though people often looked at me that way. And I’d had some experience fighting off unwanted advances, just ask Rory Athens back home. The ridicule and accusations that had followed after that incident had been what pushed me to come to school as far away from home as possible, as far away from the memories as I could legally run. I kind of liked that this episode had ended differently.

“Lots of new kids came to town at the start of the semester, Scarlett. I was one of them. That doesn’t make me some crazed serial killer. I just don’t think Aidan’s that bad. He dropped me off and went on his way without once trying anything,” I said in Aidan’s defense and as a way to stop thinking about the past. “It’s over, Scarlett. Can we just drop it now?”

She’d wrapped her arm through mine as we took the stairs to our dorm.

“Okay, we’ll drop it, but I am very sorry for leaving you and that this happened to you. I’m the older one, I’m supposed to be looking out for you here.”

“You’re doing a great job,” I told her, really meaning it because if she’d never dragged me to that bar, I would never have met Aidan.

And I was feeling pretty good about meeting Aidan.

At least I had been yesterday when the thought of combing the campus for a glimpse of him had been a glowing possibility. Now, at almost five o’clock I hadn’t seen him at all. That wasn’t a huge surprise since until Friday night I’d never seen him and apparently he’d been a student here all semester. I wondered what type of classes he took, what he wanted to achieve by going to school, what he planned to become, and who he planned to spend the rest of his life with.

Now that was lame and so totally like the old Grace I wanted to scream. All through high school I’d been looking for the love of my life. My parents had met in high school, followed each other to college, and married two weeks after they’d graduated. They’d never loved anyone else, never doubted they were meant to be together. Considering genetics and all that, I figured I’d be the same way. Meet a guy, fall in love, spend the rest of my life with him, no questions asked. Then I’d met Rory and I was sure all the pieces to my life were falling into place. But he was a jerk, a gorgeous, popular jerk and so were his friends—the ones I thought were also mine. All of them sucked big-time and I was so glad to have found that out before it was too late. But finding that out had punched a gaping hole in what was my reality.

College was my new start. It was the place where I’d come to study biology, which had always been my favorite subject, and to figure out who I was and what I really wanted out of life. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be married forever, having kids and doing whatever it took to support my husband. Maybe I was destined for something more.

I chuckled at that thought as I turned the next corner. We were reading the illustrious works of Jane Austen in English class so my mind was whirling around themes such as freedom in modern societies and at the same time bittersweet romance that pinched at the heart. What I wasn’t doing was paying attention to where I was walking and thus, what or who I was about to bump right into.

The collision was of the mild sort, if ramming my face into a muscled chest, bouncing back in horror, then dropping my book bag and purse and the cup of hot chocolate I’d just purchased from the campus version of Starbucks, and landing flat on my butt only to stare up in great mortification at Aidan Sanchez, could be classified as mild in any way.

Before I could figure out what to say or how to say it without sounding as embarrassed as I felt, his arms were moving around my waist as he lifted me off the ground. Yes, he lifted me in his arms and carried me to the nearby bench where he deposited me with a resounding thunk. My teeth chattered a bit at the jostling but again I didn’t speak, because by then he’d moved to where my bag and purse were lying on the ground only a few inches away from the spreading stain of hot chocolate and scooped them both up. I wasn’t really watching the rescue of my items as intently as I was watching the pull of the dark blue jeans he wore over his butt and thighs and when he turned back to me, the strain of that T-shirt over abs that I already knew were tight and a little bit irresistible. He wore a jacket today, a leather one that sort of reminded me of those old bikers in the fifties’ high schools—I watched a lot of old movies and right now,
Grease
was springing to mind. I half expected there to be some clique-like emblem on the back of his jacket and some secret code that would prohibit a nobody like me from talking to him.

He stood at the bench, dropping my bags down beside me then leaned so close to my face I thought he might kiss me. I prayed he might kiss me.

“Stop daydreaming and watch where you’re walking,” he said with a visible frown.

My voice finally made an appearance. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah.” He groaned as he stood up straight again. “You’re excused.”

I jumped up from the bench as he was turning away. “If I’m not mistaken you bumped into me, too. So maybe you were the one daydreaming.”

He looked back over his shoulder. “Not likely.”

“Oh, right, because you don’t dream. You just sit at bars late at night, drinking by yourself, then riding by yourself, then moping around campus by yourself. Does that sound about right?”

He stopped then and I wondered for a second why I’d said all those things, why I’d mysteriously found courage that had almost always eluded me with this guy that I’d actually been looking for all day.

When he turned, it was slowly, like maybe he might pull out a knife and come after me for what I’d said. Even though my words hadn’t been that bad, I didn’t think. The thing was that I just really didn’t want him to go so quickly. I’d looked for him all day and the moment I saw him he was about to leave. Something inside me screamed to not let that happen. Something I hadn’t known was inside me, but was there nonetheless. It was undoubtedly a part of the new Grace, the one I was trying with all my might to embrace.

With that in mind I squared my shoulders and looked directly into his eyes, well into the lenses of his pitch-black shades.

“What I do is my business,” he replied, his words clipped, lips drawn in either anger or irritation.

Folding my arms over my chest I frowned right back at him. “Same for me, so you should probably stop telling me what to do every time I see you.”

He took a step closer and every part of me went on alert—I mean even those personal parts of me that never seemed to perk up for any guy. His shoulders were much broader up close and in my face in broad daylight, instead of from behind in the dark of night. The jacket hugged his frame like it was made just for him, the jeans drooping only slightly from his hips. His skin, I could only see it openly on his face, was an olive complexion, smooth but for the shadow of a mustache and beard. The sun’s rays were winding down as fall had already claimed the campus and night was coming sooner, still his ebony hair glistened in the last light of day.

“Somebody definitely needs to tell you what to do in order to keep you out of trouble. But it’s not going to be me,” he told me as if he had a right to make that type of judgment.

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” I said even though, damn, if I did he would definitely be my first pick.

My arms hitched upward, involuntarily, the friction against my breasts was, however, welcome since I couldn’t quite seem to calm the ache there.

“You need something,” he said now that he was standing only a breath away from me.

Hell yeah, I needed something, and maybe he was it. Or maybe he wasn’t. I was getting carried away. The rampant beating of my heart, the slight watering of my mouth as I stared up at him, the definite heat vibrating between us, was probably muddling my thoughts. It had to be, because this wasn’t me. I didn’t incite guys like this, I didn’t taunt them, and I definitely did not stand this close to them wanting desperately to be closer.