Bearly Dated (The Enigma Shifters) Page 4

  It was his turn to shrug. "I like new people just fine. We're happy to put out the welcome mat. Just so long as no one does anything stupid that makes us have to yank it out from under them."

  This conversation was going exactly nowhere she wanted to go, and her frustration level rose. "What exactly does this have to do with fresh tracks around the cabin? Am I in danger from something?”

  A sliver of fear worked its way into her mind. Maybe it had not been prudent to completely ignore her sister’s warnings.

  He shrugged “Animals and people are more curious than you think. A hot little number like you moves in, and every unattached male in three counties is going to be interested."

  She nearly choked on her coffee. "Hot little number?" Her brain was about to explode. She barely set her mug on the outdoor table when a series of coughs consumed her body. Not to mention the burning in her nostrils from half the liquid going up her nose when she snorted in disbelief.

  "What?" He held up his hands in question. "Was I supposed to be more politically correct and call you a beautiful woman instead?" He quirked his mouth and eyebrows at her. "I called it like I see it. An average human male thinks about sex about twenty times a day. Do you really think their brains are popping out words like beautiful and sweet? Fuck no. They're thinking about dirty, sweaty, against-the-wall or rock or whatever surface is available kind of sex. That's the reality, Violet. Might as well face it."

  Listening to Carter talk about dirty sex made her brain explode on the spot. And she was half a second away from asking if that's what he was thinking about, too. It took a severe bite to her lip to keep the question inside.

  Contrary to what Carter thought, most men did not seek her out for sex. Most would rather dismiss her than date her.

  That thought was a nice blast of cold water to the face, cooling her down from the rush of arousal that had seized her only a moment ago. The kind of men who often showed interest in her were more like thugs than gentlemen, and she'd had her fill of them a long time ago.

  Just because this one smelled exceptionally good compared to his counterparts did not make him better. However, if he was as good with his tools as he was with his sharp wit, then they should get along fine. As long as she could keep her head on straight.

  “Uhm. Are we still on the same topic of conversation? What does this have to do with the animal tracks you saw? Were they not from an animal?” That thought actually frightened her. If there were people stalking her cabin, then maybe she had a bigger problem than she knew, and she should not have refused the security that Jami and her husband offered.

  “Probably just coyotes.” He dismissed her fears, but she had that nagging feeling that he was not telling her something important. The burning question about his knowledge of shifters terrorized her tongue as she bit it to keep it inside.

  She really needed to talk to Jami again. But with her cell phone not working and the road blocked, it was going to have to wait.

  Best thing she could do at this point was to get to work. She needed the distraction.

  “Okay,” she said, pretending that she believed him and that all was fine. “Ready to work?” She picked up her coffee and sauntered into the house without waiting for an answer. His possible play on words and her paranoia were not a good mix. Her little cabin getaway was beginning to feel less like a getaway as the walls felt like they were closing in on her.

  The vibe she'd picked up in the middle of the night from her dreams had not been good. Her instincts had put her on high alert and that's something she'd learned to take seriously.

  A few moments later, Carter followed her into the house and set to work on the electrical. She consulted her to do list and tried not to watch him from the corner of her eye. But it was hard. He really was gorgeous, and whether he knew about shapeshifters or not seemed less and less important as the day wore on.

  Her mind had also kept taking a hard right turn down the gutter every time she caught sight of him. It was so out of character for her she couldn’t explain it. She blamed it on the jeans he wore. Yes, the jeans. They were snug around his thick, solid thighs, and his butt looked so good in them. Then there was the front…she inwardly groaned. They gave her more than a hint of what might be underneath, and that intrigued her.

  Violet turned away. Nope. This whole train of thought had led her down a path of sheer insanity, and it was not the way to get this project done. However, with the pent-up frustration now egging her on, it was the perfect time to tackle the partial demo of the kitchen. In particular, the upper cabinets were old as crap and had to go. Nothing could be done for miniature dark cabinets so high she needed a stool to get into them.

  Problem solved, she grabbed her drill and got to work.

  6

  Hours had passed and Carter was sweating his ass off. The end of summer wasn't normally this hot by the mountains, but apparently Mother Nature wanted to remind them she was still here. It didn't help his situation that every time he walked by the kitchen and got a glimpse of Violet working in her favorite short shorts and today’s tight tank top, he got hotter.

  Like now, she was bent over the counter in front of him using her power drill to screw in a cabinet door. Just thinking those words put images in his head that made him groan.

  He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. Tight quarters, warm blood keeping him hard as hell, and a tantalizing woman who didn't seem to notice him a bit since that one moment during the storm.

  He touched her shoulder to get her attention. "Mind if I get a glass of water?" he asked.

  She jumped off the counter, taking away his beautiful view when he spoke. Stupid move on his part.

  “Jesus.” She clutched at her chest. “You scared me half to death.”

  "Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt."

  She reached up and wiped a few strands of hair out of her eyes. “No problem, really. I should have already offered you something.” She scooted around the cabinets and farther away from him so she could reach into the fridge for some bottles of water. “A break right about now sounds really good. Want to take these outside and see if it's any cooler out there?”

  He nodded, following her out the back door and taking the seat across from her at the table. “So what got you interested in flipping houses?”

  She rolled the water bottle back and forth between her hands as if she were contemplating what to tell him. He understood her cautiousness with discussing her life with a stranger, but this inclination to think about what she needed to say before speaking troubled him. She evidenced the classic signs of someone with something to hide.

  He frowned as he waited for her response. He could be patient if he had to be, as long as whatever she hid didn't mean trouble for the clan. Life in Enigma, and by extension Summer Cove, was complicated enough. He didn't want her to be part of that.

  "I needed a way to make money and working on things was about the only skill I had. And I wanted to do something different that would give me the opportunity to explore a little bit of the world."

  An interesting answer. She'd given him a reason without getting too personal. It would be up to him to read between the lines.

  “So you like to travel?” he asked.

  She nodded and took a drink of the water. He watched as the lines of her throat moved with each swallow. When a drop of the water escaped her lips and slid down her neck, he reached forward and scooped it up.

  Her body jerked and the bottle dropped to the table, water going everywhere.

  "Shit!" She scrambled to pick it up and set it upright. "You like to startle me."

  It wasn't exactly a question or an admonishment. Simply a statement.

  "Wasn't my intention. It was a reflex."

  "You have a reflex to scare me?"

  He smiled, taking his turn to drink from his bottle while he considered his answer. She was skittish (although she tried to cover it with deflection) and the last thing he wanted to do was scare her off.


  "Do you want the truth?" he finally asked.

  She scrunched up her face at him before rolling her eyes. "No, please lie to me because it's so much more pleasurable." She laughed. "Of course I want the truth, silly.”

  "I definitely didn't mean to scare you. But I do feel compelled to touch you. One minute I want to know if your skin is as soft as it looks, and the next, I wonder how you taste."

  Her eyes widened. "I'm not sure how to take that. A normal girl would probably think you are some sort of perv and run screaming."

  "You're not a normal girl?" He took another swig of water to hide the smile crossing his face.

  "I guess it depends on your definition of normal. But I’ve been told that I tend to live in my own little world where life is straightforward and simple.”

  He lowered the bottle. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with straightforward and simple. Tell me more.”

  She shook her head. "Maybe some other time. I'm more interested in this touching thing."

  Her eyes nearly glowed as she spoke. There was definitely something lurking back there and it reminded him that he had an ulterior motive for being here, and it wasn’t supposed to be about sex or figuring her out. There were just some aspects of paranormals that his animal could place right away. Hers was more of a mystery.

  Either way, his brother had given him a job, and soon he would have to deliver. The road wouldn’t stay blocked forever.

  And yet, he didn’t want to ruin their time together by admitting the truth.

  He needed more time to get to know her and her him. And then he would tell her that he and his bear wanted more of her.

  Although like her, it sounded like more fun to worry about the touching than the hard, cold reality of their situation.

  “Are you now?” he asked, loving that his would be mate had just as much interest in him as he did her.

  She smiled, her face blooming red at the same time. That little pink flush of her skin about did him in. So he gave her the most straightforward response that he could, under the circumstances. “I’m attracted to you. Although spelling it out is certainly taking some of the fun away."

  "Not for me," she said. "We live in a crazy world. The world is hypersensitive and sometimes takes political correctness to the extreme, but on the other hand, it’s better than men who are too aggressive and bossy. A happy medium wouldn't bother me a bit at this point."

  He pondered that response. The only reason he hadn't already tried to lure her into a bedroom was because of his attempt at sensitivity. Any other encounter with a pretty girl he was attracted to would have resulted in hot, hard, and aggressive sex by now. Except in this case, he sensed the difference of a potential mate, and that excited him in many different ways.

  "Again, I won't lie. I can be every bit as aggressive as those men you talk about. And I sure as hell do like being in charge during sex, but this doesn't feel like every other time I've gotten horny."

  Her eyes widened and her bottom lip got sucked between her teeth. A sexy move that made everything tighten further. Maybe he was taking the absolute wrong approach here. Straightforward was one thing. Overtly honest another.

  How did she expect him to act even somewhat like a gentleman, when she looked at him like that? All he could picture was her little teeth scraping the underside of his cock as he slid into her mouth.

  Her nose suddenly flared, and he smiled. His words were turning her on. Good. It wasn’t as much fun if she didn’t feel as frustrated as him. About time she realized just how attracted he was.

  "I'm not looking for anything serious,” she blurted.

  He smiled, letting his lips curve up nice and slow. "No one ever is. I've watched many males from our town succumb to one intense connection after another and it's never done as willingly as you might think. That acceptance takes time. Nature makes demands, but we aren’t just animals.”

  "Maybe I should make myself more clear. I do not want anything serious.”

  "Why's that?" he asked. The curiosity of her was only making things worse. The idea of a chase, or better yet, a hunt, sounded like a fine idea. His bear perked up.

  “Well, besides not being ready for that kind of thing, my life is too complicated. I'll be leaving here in a few weeks."

  "Don't like it here?" He mused, switching his water bottle from hand to hand.

  She turned and looked out over the water. “Actually, it's lovely here. That just means I chose my location well. That is the name of the game in real estate. Location, location, location."

  "Will you go back home when this place sells?" He watched her eyes darken, a hard expression covering her face. There was definitely something about home that did not sit well with her, and it intrigued him. Moments later, she released whatever took hold of her, and she plastered a bright, unrealistic smile on her face.

  "So are we going to do this or what?"

  "What's that?" He could hardly wait for her answer.

  "Sex," she said, with a completely straight face. "I mean, isn't that we've been negotiating for the last twenty minutes?"

  She said that so matter of factly, she might as well have been negotiating a business deal. He, on the other hand, about choked on his own spit, and thank goodness he had not been drinking water. "Wha—? I mean…” He took a deep breath to control his thoughts and make sure he didn't fuck this up with a dumb answer. "I wasn't sure that's what we were doing. I didn't want to assume."

  A flash of red crept up her neck and into her face. "I mean, if you're not interested…” She started to stand, and he grabbed her wrist before she could get away.

  No way did she get to run away now. Not when all he wanted to do was peel that sexy pink top of hers off her body and find out what other parts of her flushed red when she got excited.

  "I'm definitely interested. I just expected—"

  She flashed angry green eyes at him. "You expected you'd have to seduce me with dinner and charm to get into my bed?" She slapped her hand on her hips. "Well, you don't. This is the twenty-first century and if I just want to have a sexual relationship with a man then that's what I'll do. I don't have to submit myself to some societal norm, like dating, that was created for women who were forced to be chaste, unlike their male counterparts. Nor do I need to go to a bar or to some online dating site and lie or whore my ass off just to get an orgasm or two. We're beyond that, don't you think?"

  As the heat grew with every word out of her mouth, Carter had to hold himself back. While a bit shocking to find his soon-to-be-mate—and make no mistake, she would be his mate—so forward thinking, it made him fucking hot.

  "Then I guess you won't be surprised when I do this." He didn't wait for her answer. Fuck that. He pulled her hard against him and took the lush mouth he'd been dreaming about since the moment he’d seen her. He swallowed her gasp and pushed his tongue past her open lips.

  An explosion of heat and spice assaulted him.

  7

  He moved so quickly it made her head swim. Before she could think about where the hell that sexual revolution speech had come from, because she wasn’t that girl at all, his tongue slipped between her lips and tangled with hers. She groaned at the hedonistic pleasure of tasting him for the first time. She would never pretend she hadn't been thinking about this for hours, but her imagination had not done justice to the reality of his kiss.

  The man had talent. His hands cupped her cheeks, and she sank into that embrace. Heat shot through her and settled low in her core. She dropped the bottle of water, uncaring if she spilled every drop. Her hands itched to touch him, and she wasn't going to wait another second.

  As she slipped her arms around his waist, it was impossible not to notice the muscles. They were so taut and defined, she wouldn't be surprised if he'd skipped six-pack and gone straight to eight. Soon. She would find out for herself, and she couldn't wait to explore. Just as soon as she got enough of his drugging kisses.

  Just as that thought entered her head, he pulled fr
ee from her mouth, and she caught sight of something in his eyes, something so possessive it did take her breath away.

  "We're probably playing with fire if we do this." he muttered, his voice rough and low. "Although it might already be too late."

  She wasn't sure what that meant, but she had a feeling if she asked it would ruin the moment. "You're going to kill the mood." That was a lie. She was pretty sure nothing could pull them apart at this point.

  He narrowed his eyes, and she watched his eyes change from a green hazel color to what looked like molten gold. That look. Oh God. Her heart hammered in her chest as she waited for him to say something.

  Instead of the words she expected, he wrapped his hands around her butt and lifted her off the ground. She let the smile of satisfaction spread across her face and wrapped her legs around his trim waist. That look in his eyes, like she might be the only woman left on earth, was really hot.

  "Definitely wouldn't want to kill the mood," he growled before scraping his teeth against the top of her breasts right through her shirt. Next thing she knew, he was carrying her back to her bedroom, and tossing her on the bed.

  He grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, revealing exactly what she'd expected. Violet licked her lips at the sight. Holy crap.

  "How the heck were you made to look like that? That’s unreal.”

  He bent and pressed his knee into the bed as he slowly moved up the length of her body until he forced her onto her back and hovered over her. Besides him being shirtless, they were completely clothed, and she felt on the edge of orgasm. It might be insane, but that aggressive stance scrambled her brains and made her want to do things...

  "I'm glad you like what you see, but we're just getting started. Besides, it's my turn to look." He didn't move, and after a few seconds she realized he was waiting for her to make the first move. She doubted it had anything to do with being a gentleman though. More likely, he liked to be in control, and this was his way of showing her that.