Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (25 page)

Can It Be Dessert Time? Please?

Mal was sitting at the kitchen table in Al’s house. From the heat blazing between them all of the way here, she had been sure she would be screaming his name by now. Instead, she was twiddling her thumbs as he made her dinner. At first, she tried to deny she was hungry. He was having none of that.

Next, she tried asking for scrambled eggs. Everyone has eggs. And they’re fast. She wanted fast so she could get to the naked portion of the evening. He was having none of that either. She even offered him naked time, and that only led to him walking out of the room for a moment before returning as if she’d said nothing.

After all of her attempts were thwarted, he mumbled something about letting him prove his worth in peace and went into full on chef mode. She offered to help quite a few times and he refused. She tried to step in and help and got the evil eye. For some reason she could not fathom, him cooking for her was important, so she eventually took the hints and let it go.

He was still sporting a more than respectable hard on, and at some point, the discomfort of having it pressed against his zipper was going to sway things in her favor. She tried to be a lady. Really, she did, but it called to her. Yes, his penis called to her. Maybe he was the Pied Peen of Cedarville. The joke tasted sour in her head. The thought of his cock being admired by anyone else but her had the green eyed monster poking in, and that was the last thing she needed.

“I hope you like shrimp Alfredo. I didn’t have a lot in the house that didn’t need to be thawed and shrimp thaws quickly.” He placed two plates of pasta on the table. It looked like it belonged on the page of a cooking magazine and smelled even better.

“This looks amazing.” She took a bite and moaned. “Oh my goodness. How are you not a famous chef? This is … I don’t think they have invented a word to describe how good this is.”

Al puffed up at her approval.

“I don’t know that I would say I am famous worthy, but I have always loved to cook. So does my sister. She started her diner a few years before I started the bar.”

“April is the owner, not a waitress?” She took another bite of yummy goodness as he nodded his reply. “Speaking of her diner, why is it Town
Café
instead of
Diner
?”

“I razzed her about that for years. She says it sounds ‘upscale’ and people will appreciate the food more.” He popped a shrimp in his mouth.

“I’m not even sure how to reply to that.”

His smile brightened.

“What about the Town?” She ate some more, waiting for his reply.

“That’s easy. Mom’s maiden name was Towne with an E, so April thought Town would be like a tribute to her and make it seem like it was the only place to go for people passing through. Town Café must mean it is the only one in town, right?” He looked to her plate. “Can I get you more?”

She shook her head. She still had half a plate, and as out of this world spectacular as this was, she really just wanted to get to
dessert
.

“In your case, aren’t you the only bar?”

“We are, and the only restaurant.” He seemed to find that as amusing as she did.

“I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but if you can cook like this, why are you the bartender?” She scooped another fork load in, in a feeble attempt to prevent herself from continuing on this path of rudeness. She really did have a filter before today.

“That’s not rude.” He appeared the gentleman in many ways. Letting her verbal spews go was one of them. “I used to be the chef as well as doing all of the managerial stuff. I loved it. After I became Luke’s second, though, I needed to step back a bit. I was doing too much and something had to give. I like bartending and seeing all the people. I hadn’t realized how much people time I missed being behind the scenes.”

“Luke’s second?” Oh crap, if she was going to be working for Al, she couldn’t sleep with him. If she couldn’t sleep with him, she was going to die of need. For realz. This was not good.

“Why do you look like that is the worst thing in the world?” He reached across the table and she pulled her hands back and sat on them.

“I’m here to intern with Luke.”

“And … I can tell there’s a lot more to that.”

“And if I am working for him and you are too, and I’m an intern and you’re a boss, then I can’t be here right now, no matter how hot you are and …”

“And that is why you look like someone kicked your kitten, popped all of your balloons, and then licked your birthday cake?”

Even in the midst of all of this, that brought a smile to her face. “Something like that.”

“So you think I’m hot.” Mischief started to dance in his eyes again.

“Heck to the yeah on that one.” She looked down at her plate. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be a tease. It doesn’t really change anything. I need this job. I have nothing else.”

“Don’t say that. Please, don’t say that you have nothing else. It riles him up.” He was barely loud enough for her to hear and once again the code was beyond her comprehension. “So Luke is the … Mayor and I am the … Lieutenant Mayor.”

She felt lighter and he hadn’t even finished.

“Your internship has nothing to do with town politics.” He wasn’t asking.

“No, technology.”

“Oh, his computer program hobby. Huh, he didn’t tell me he was taking it to a new level.” He seemed to be speaking to himself more than her, so she didn’t interject about the impact his program had in the building industry. “So in closing, counsel would like to reiterate that you will not be working for me in any way, shape, or form, and therefore ‘naked time,’ as you so eloquently put it, is back on the table. If you so wish.”

“So, counsel, is it time for deliberations?” She gave him her best sexy eyebrow raise which probably looked ridiculous. Eh, who was she fooling? She would have caved even if he had been her direct supervisor. “I hear these kinds of cases can take a long time.”

“About how long are we talking? Hours? Weeks? Months?” His face went from playful to serious in a fraction of a second. “I have waited for thirty-five years, so long is a relative term and I’m a patient man. I’ll wait as long as you need. So just out of curiosity, how long do you think that might be?” His tone lightened up a bit with the last question and that put her more at ease.

Mal stood up. “I’m trying to calculate it in my head, actually. Somehow my head is all foggy tonight and I can’t remember that formula. I am thinking it is nine point eight seconds squared. Maybe it is cubed. Darn it, do you remember?”

“Why exactly are you trying to remember science formulas from high school?” He cocked his head to the side as if they were spending far too much time on the matter.

“You asked about how long deliberations would take, and I wanted to be as accurate as possible.”

“And that takes high school science calculations, why?”

“Well, I estimate that deliberations will take about as long as it takes my panties to hit the floor and I needed to—”

He slung her up and over his shoulder before she could finish her sentence. Mission accomplished.

“Put me down, you brute. I’m not only a sure thing, I can walk too.”

Smack.

“You swatted my ass.”

“I did. You were being a brat. I may do it again.”

“I may like it again.”
Smack.
Oh yeah, she did like it, and if the chuckle he seemed to be holding in was any indication, he knew it.

He put her down in front of the closed door she assumed was his bedroom. She was here. Warning bells should be going off all over the place. She wasn’t this girl. She didn’t go home with random guys. Never. She’d made Joshua wait for almost a year to get to this point. Not that he was the example of her ability to make good choices.

“Malory, I don’t bring women into my den. Ever. You will be the first, and I need you to know that and I need you to be sure.” He was a fidgety, nervous mess. Gone was his self-assured, almost cocky manner from the diner. What she said next mattered. She only wished she understood the question.

“I know you can’t be saying you have never been with a woman because … well, look at you. So please tell me what you are saying. No codes. Just say it. I feel like I’m in a foreign film where half the subtitles are wrong and I’m guessing what the words mean.” She reached out and grabbed his hand, needing to feel his touch.

“I’m saying that you are the first woman I have ever brought home. The first one I have ever invited here, into my … space. I’m saying it matters because you matter, and I know none of that makes sense to you yet, but you feel it too. I know you do.”

Mal nodded. She did feel it. She didn’t understand the feelings, but she felt them.

“You feel like you need to be near me. That we are not close enough unless we are touching. You missed me when I wasn’t there. Your feelings go beyond attraction, but you feel like that’s impossible and you keep pushing them back.” He leaned over and kissed her nose. “And you think I’m hot.”

“Well, aren’t you mister spot-on today.” She tried to add levity to things because he was
too
spot on. He nailed it. All of it, to a T, and that made things increasingly too real.

“I am ‘spot on,’ as you say, because I feel the exact same way, with one exception.”

“You don’t think I’m hot.” Oh—she knew he did. Constant boners don’t lie. She just needed to say something and everything else seemed too serious.

“No, the one exception is that I’m not pushing down those feeling. I know they aren’t impossible. I’m holding onto them and savoring them, all while knowing that you can walk out this door at any time and take my heart with you.”

Mal slid down to the floor, back against the wall. She just stared at the door in front of her. Five minutes ago she would have been racing in there without a care in the world other than making sure the alarm was set so she wasn’t late to work. With one confession from the gorgeous hunk of man in front of her, things went to a whole new level. A level she was pretty sure was beyond anything she had ever gotten close to before.

Al sat next to her, their bodies barely touching.

“Hi.” She was officially lameness personified.

“Hi. Want to tell me what is going on in your head? You didn’t leave, so I’m holding onto that like a lifeline even as you stare at my door as if it holds all your greatest fears.” He held out his hand and she grabbed onto it.

“Once upon a time, I met a boy and he wooed me off my feet. A decade later I was still living with him, but miserable. He was a user and, I’m pretty sure, a cheater.” She inhaled deeply. She didn’t want to share this story but she was certainly not going to share details right now. She had probably already blown any chance she had at rekindling the heat from earlier, but Al was too open and honest for her not return the same.

“I worked hard. I finished school with honors and no student loans, no credit card debt, and money in savings, all while pretty much supporting us both. But I had a plan, you see. I was getting out of there. I wasn’t going to get trapped. I’m not that girl.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. She might not be that girl who gets stuck, but if today was a barometer, she was
that
girl who cried at the drop of a hat. He just rubbed his thumb on the back of her hand, letting her get it all out, letting her know she wasn’t alone.

“I learned about Luke Russel’s programming breakthrough in class. The job market is tough now, and I was a tenth-year senior. I needed something to give me an edge. Something to help me land a steady job, so I messaged Luke and pretty much begged him for an internship.” At the time, she thought she was jumping through bells and whistles. Reliving it all now, the videos, multiple resumes and cover letters, paired with the phone calls and social media tags was probably on a stalkerish level.

“Thinking back, I don’t even know why this was so important. I was offered amazing internships that would have opened doors, and there I was, bugging a recluse who told me more than once he wasn’t really pursuing tech stuff anymore.” She leaned her head on his shoulder and he kissed the top of it. She was a blubbering idiot, but he seemed content to listen to her and she felt better with everything she shared.

“So he finally said yes after some woman told him to ‘cut the crap’ loud enough for me to hear. I broke all ties to my city, paid up the last of my bills, and even paid two months ahead in rent so as not to break the lease or make the huele bicho homeless.”

A roar of laughter broke her from her tale of woe.

“Did you just call him a huele bicho?”

She turned to face him. Oh, he knew what it meant.

“Well, he was Ass-hat for a long time, but after today he was promoted to huele bicho.”

“What happened today?” His amusement dissipated.

“Long story super abbreviated: I drove nine hours, met a nice lady and ate a burger, met a super hottie, made a fool of myself with said hottie, committed a crime that was then covered up by nice lady only to make fool of myself again with the same hottie, drove to the B&B only to have my credit card declined.”