ShiftinDirty-ElizaGayle (6 page)

***

Gage opened the cabin door feeling a little anxious to find Sienna and make sure all was well. What he didn’t expect to walk in on was her standing in the kitchen elbow deep in flour.
 

“What’s going on here?”

She jerked up at the sound of his voice. “Oh good, you’re here. Did you find the items I needed?”

He lifted the bag he was carrying and held it out to her.

“Can you drop it on the counter?”

He did as she asked and then slid onto one of the stools on the opposite side of the island.
 

“You planning to cook something?”

“Mmmhmm.” She mumbled, keeping her focus on the items she was withdrawing from the grocery bag.
 

While he was gone she’d changed her clothes. He hadn’t thought anything could be more flattering than the pink silk blouse and snug skirt. He was wrong. The skin tight jeans and red tank top showed off her body to perfection. From his seat he watched her work, opening the eggs and cracking several of them into a bowl, followed by sugar, spices and a dash of oil.
 

By the time she got to the flour she was really getting into her task.
 

“Sienna.”

“Hmmm?” She dug into the mixture with a fork and mixed vigorously and in turn her body shook with the movement, including her ample breasts being barely contained by a thin tank top.
 

“Look at me, babe.”

She lifted her head and met his gaze. “What did you say?”
 

He chuckled. “Just wondering what you’re planning to cook. Whatever it is you are certainly getting into it.”

“Donuts from scratch. Maple and bacon, pumpkin and maybe cherry blossoms.”

“Sounds like a lot of donuts.”

She paused her mixing, a worried expression crossing her face. “You don’t like donuts? I could make something else.”

“I love donuts. Pretty much anything with sugar actually. I have a daily love affair with sweets in fact.”

She looked him up and down. “No way. If you can eat sweets everyday and still look like that then the universe is officially unfair.”

She liked how he looked. That made his chest puff out a little more. “I have a really fast metabolism.”

That was the perfect segue into telling her that he too was a shifter. Except there was something about her fervent need to bake all these donuts that made him wary of revealing anything more that might upset her further.
 

“Figures,” she said. “Me on the other hand. I can’t eat a thing without it showing up on my hips or my butt.”

Gage swallowed the growl trying to escape. “I think your hips and butt are just perfect the way they are.”

She scrunched up her face. “Whatever. Easy for you to say with your perfect hot body. You probably don’t know what it’s like to go a day where everyone looks down their nose at you because of the way you look. In fact, I’d bet you’ve probably got a limitless supply of women at your beck and call.”

It was true that women to fuck were easy to get, but women like her? No, those were certainly not readily available. Someone like her, men sometimes searched their whole lives for and never found. Especially shifters. Some settled for what they could find and others, like him, lived with the assumption it wasn’t in their cards.

She was special.
 

His kinda special.

Gage stood and walked around the counter until he was standing next to her. She kept mixing the concoction in her bowl like he wasn’t even there.
 

“Babe, look at me.”

“I gotta keep this up. The quicker I mix and get them in the oil, the better they turn out.”

“Babe, look at me,” he repeated.

“I don’t want to.”

He gently took the bowl from the crook of her arm.

“Hey,” she complained.

After setting the mixture out of her reach, he pulled her into his arms and enveloped her in a hug. He had a feeling this sudden need to bake everything in the tiny kitchen stemmed from the trauma of seeing a man turn into a wolf whether she wanted to admit it or not.

“We need to talk about what happened.”

She buried her nose in his chest and shook her head. “Don’t wanna.”

“I can help. It doesn’t have to be scary.”

“Yes it does. Talking about it makes it real and I don’t want it to be real. It was some sort of trick. Like a really good magic show on television. They do all kinds of unbelievable things in those shows. That’s it.”

“No babe it wasn’t some show, shifters are real.” He brushed his hand over her hair, sifting its softness between his fingers.
 

“Stop saying that. It’s not true. It can’t be.”

He had a feeling she was in real danger of a complete meltdown if he couldn’t get through this wall she erected around what she’d seen. And if he couldn’t get her to accept shifters then they definitely had no chance of convincing anyone she didn’t present a danger to their existence.

“What do you think people see when they look down their nose at you?” Maybe if he used her situation to draw similarities he could make progress.
 

“It’s okay, Gage. I don’t care much about what those kind of people think. If they can’t see past some ridiculous societal norm that says we must all fit into a certain size box, then it’s their lives that are suffering not mine. They can think of me as fat or chubby or on the heavy side all they want. It’s their loss.”

He tightened his hold on this exceptional woman he’d discovered. “You are not any of those things. You are beautiful and soft and men should revere you as the queen you should be. You represent all that is fertile and superior in the female race.”

She pulled back and stared at him. “Fertile? Really? That’s what you see when you look at me? Doesn’t that make me the equivalent of like a brood mare? So I’m not fat, these are just birthing hips? That’s kind of gross.” Sienna pulled out of his arms and picked up her bowl. “C’mere baby, I want to impregnate you.” She snorted at the ridiculousness of her words. “Who are you and what planet did you come from?”

Another perfect opportunity to tell her the truth had presented itself and he slowly backed away from it. Females were critical to his kind and the fact the shifter population was beginning to dwindle put more importance than ever on birthing cubs. None of which he expected her to understand. Humans had an excess of population growth as evidenced by the shrinking areas of undeveloped land all across the continent.

“I wasn’t the best student in history class as a child, but I’m pretty sure I remember women being highly revered as mothers to future generations. Maybe it was a stereotype back then, maybe not. Either way you have a beautiful body and shouldn’t be ashamed of it. Whether or not someone wants to have a baby with you right now isn’t the point. That I’m attracted to you is.”

She stopped stirring and stared again. The air in the room stilled and Gage’s nostrils flared at the sudden sweet change in her scent. It wasn’t strong yet, but it was there.

The undeniable and exciting whiff of arousal.
 

He was damned glad he had his jeans on. He was hard as a rock.

Chapter Six

Sienna couldn’t speak. Not when her brain could only register the fact that this gorgeous stranger whom she’d brought to her parent’s old cabin, her most favorite place in the world, was attracted to her.
 

Her.

She was going to need more flour. And eggs.

Maybe if she baked long enough her brain could catch up with the rest of her and figure out what rabbit hole she’d fallen into and how to get the hell out before she went crazy.

She wasn’t ready to face the growing undeniable attraction between her and Gage. Instead she chose the other impossible topic to discuss.

“My mind didn’t play tricks on me did it?”

He shook his head.
 

“I saw him change from a man to a wolf…”

“It’s not as scary as it sounds.”

She dumped out the contents of her bowl and began kneading the dough. “But we ran and ended up here hiding in my parent’s cabin because you said I’m in danger. That sounds pretty scary.”

“Shifters are like humans in that there are some bad with the good. More important is the fact that they stay hidden to avoid being persecuted or worse because of fear. Like you they have families, and they’ll do anything to protect their family.”

The next question was on the tip of her tongue but she had a bad feeling she didn’t want to know the answer.
 

“You know a lot about shifters,” she said. With her hands busy cutting out her donuts she tried to appear casual.
 

“Yes.”
 

That’s all he said. No elaboration or explanation on why he knew so much. If she wanted to know she’d have to ask and then trust him to tell her the truth. She wasn’t sure at all if she trusted him. Seemingly he saved her life back at the bar, but how did she know it wasn’t him who was the dangerous one?

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and fought her rising panic. Now was not the best time to start questioning her instincts. In the midst of chaos she’d gone with her gut and left with him. Since then there were many opportunities for him to do something nefarious if that was his intent and he didn’t. So she had to believe her original assessment was right no matter what he was.

“Sienna.”

Her eyes popped open at the sound of her name right next to her ear. He was standing beside her, well within her personal space and she’d not heard him move. That he continued to do that unnerved her.
 

This close she got another dose of his scent and she liked it. He smelled like the sweet scent of the outdoors mixed with a little something else that made her think he was wild and untamed.
 

“I can scent your fear, babe.” He bent forward and nuzzled her neck just below her ear. “If you want to know, you just have to ask. I won’t lie to you.”

She closed her eyes, too afraid to face her fears. With every word and every breath caressing her skin she wanted him more. Confirming her worst fears might change that.
 

“I’m too scared,” she whispered.

“No, you’re not. Not of me. If anything you fear what you want.” His deep voice rumbled across her skin.

God he was right. If he was—she couldn’t even form the words in her mind. She needed to get a grip on her raging hormones if she wanted to get through this discussion. But he was so close and she wanted so badly…

Maybe her roommate had finally warped her brain when it came to sex, because that’s all she could think about. The fact her breasts were heavy and her nipples tingled with him this close. She thought she might die if he didn’t do something about it.

What she really needed though was some common sense. If he was what she thought he was then she should be afraid—not ready to jump his bones. Except with his nose buried in her neck and his teeth nipping at her skin, she didn’t care. At their core, he was a man and she was a woman. And he was smoking hot.

As if to prove they were on the same wavelength, he grabbed her hip and pulled them together with his groin rubbing against her soft belly.

Oh. My. God.

He was not only hard, he was
huge
.
 

“Ask your question, Sienna. I won’t take you with that between us.”

Take her?

What?

This was going really fast. She reached up to push against his chest and he captured her wrists, holding them still. Her heart pounded. She gulped for air.

He bent back to her neck, but this time he didn’t nip her. Instead, he clamped his teeth around her vulnerable throat and growled. She stilled, unsure what to do.

He waited like that, obviously expecting her to make the next move by asking him a question. Again, the way he held her should have scared her, but strangely didn’t. A sense of calm came over her instead. If he wanted her dead he would have done it by now.
 

They were alone in the woods where absolutely no one knew where to find her or even start looking and the only thing that seemed to matter was the throbbing between her legs. Since when did she react like this? Certainly never with her ex.
 

When he finally released her, he lifted his head and gazed down at her with eyes so gold they didn’t seem real anymore.
 

“Jesus, Sienna. Ask the fucking question before I die from wanting you.”

“Why me?” she asked.
 

He growled and released her hands. “You’re stalling.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No. I. Am. Not. I really want to know. Why me?”

He shoved his hands into his hair. “I don’t know why. God, that’s like asking why is the sun shining today. Because it just fucking is. There are plenty of things in this world that don’t make a damn bit of sense and this is one of them. Neither one of us should be here, but we are and I’m going to go out of my mind real soon if you don’t ask the real goddamned question.”