Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter (7 page)

Damn. I seemed to always say the wrong thing. I nodded. “I know. My head knows it, but my body takes a little longer to remember it.”

He regarded me for a moment more, then touched my cheek again. “Sleep.”

“I should probably stay up for a bit,” I said, testing my nose. Good. It had stopped bleeding. “Make sure I don’t shift again or attack anyone. I’ll probably be a little twitchy for the next hour or two.”

His hand cupped the side of my head. “Sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

“All right,” I said softly, unsure how to take that. It was . . . sweet of him to offer, but did I trust him to have my back? He stared back at me, unflinching and solemn. I realized that if this was going to work, we needed to be a team.

And I needed to trust him.

So I lay back on the bed and tried to relax, not anticipating being able to sleep at all. Ramsey’s dark eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and I knew he was watching me.

Despite my nerves and the anxiety of sharing an unfamiliar bed, for some reason I fell right back to sleep. This time my dreams were peaceful and quiet, and filled with the sounds of Ramsey’s soothing voice.

The next morning I awoke warm and cozy. I blinked a few times, wondering why I felt so delicious and safe. The scent of something unfamiliar brushed my nostrils, but my sleep-drugged brain didn’t seem to grasp it.

A hand slid down my back and pulled me closer,
and I realized the heavy rumble in my ear was a snore.

Blinking, I focused on the very broad, very bare chest I was curled up against. My cheek was laid against one blazingly hot pectoral, my fingers curled in blond chest hair. A massive hand rested on my back, pulling me close, and my legs were tucked close against his.

My breathing quickened and I watched his chest move up and down for a minute, trying to think of how to extricate myself from his grasp. My clothes were still on, which was a good thing. Ramsey was shirtless and, under the blankets, possibly naked. I sure hoped not.

The heavy, even breathing continued, but the snoring had stopped. Maybe I could sneak out before he was totally awake . . .

“I will not bite you,” his deep voice said in my ear.

I jerked my fingers away when I realized they were still entwined in his chest hair. “Oh. Of course. I know that. I was just figuring out how to get out of bed without waking you up.”

As his large hand moved off my back, I rolled away and got to my feet, straightening my clothes. My hair felt like a stiff mess and my eyes felt puffy, but the rest of me felt . . . pretty good, oddly enough. I stretched, testing my muscles. Who would have known I’d have slept so well next to a giant? Except for one small thing, of course. “I know we have this fake marriage thing going, but in the future can you not grab me when I’m sleeping?”

Ramsey swung his legs over the side of the bed, and I was relieved to see that he had slept in his jeans. He scratched his chest and my gaze was drawn to that big hand, the hard, rippling layer of muscles over his big chest . . . he was enormous. Gorgeous, but enormous.

“It was you.”

“Huh?”

“You grabbed me,” he said. “You had bad dreams and trembled in your sleep. Then you rolled over and grabbed me, and slept quietly. I left you there.” His level gaze seemed to add,
Because I’m a nice guy.

“Oh. Thanks. I think.” Jeez, I was pretty sure I was blushing. Had I clung to him while I’d slept? My sleeping self was either a total coward or a cuddler. Neither one was optimal. I adjusted the knots on my shirt, which had held up overnight but looked ready to go. “Where did you put my bag?”

“First we will talk about this ‘Roy’ person.”

I moved toward the door. “No, we’re not talking about him.”

Lightning fast, Ramsey’s big form blocked my way. “We’ll talk now.”

Memories flashed through my mind, and I immediately began to tremble all over at the sight of the blocked exit, panic looming in my mind. “Please . . . please move.”

Remorse flickered across Ramsey’s face, and he immediately moved to the side and held the door open. “Not trying to frighten you.”

“It’s okay,” I said, blinking to clear my mind of
foul memories. “Just reminded me of . . . bad things. Can we talk about stuff later? I’m hungry.”

He nodded silently, and I fled down the stairs.

A cursory search of the house showed me that my bag had been left in the foyer. I rummaged through it, looking for my favorite pink T-shirt. I took it to the bathroom and yanked it over my head, tossing the other. The bathrooms were cleaner than the rest of the house, thank goodness. This one had peeling wallpaper and a broken mirror, but the tub, toilet, and sink were intact. I frowned at my reflection. Dried blood had run into my hairline on one side of my face, the black makeup had landed underneath my eyelids, and my hair stuck out in all directions. Charming. I turned on one of the faucets, and the entire wall groaned as if in pain. I quickly shut it off again and took a step backward. “Do you have water, Ramsey?” I yelled up the stairs.

“Sometimes.”

“Great,” I muttered. Using a clean sock from my bag, I spit-cleaned my face as best I could. At least I could use the sink at work. My wild blue hair was tamed with a shoelace headband, and I was ready to face the day. Day one as Mrs. Ramsey Bjorn. Yikes.

The kitchen proved as empty and broken down as the rest of the house, and I opened the fridge and quickly shut it again, waving a hand in front of my face to clear the smell. “Did something die in your fridge?”

“No,” Ramsey said, turning the corner and entering the room to the side of me.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. His shaggy blond hair was wet and slicked away from his face, curling around the dark blue collar of his security T-shirt tucked into his pants. It emphasized the breadth of his body, and I found myself oddly fascinated as those hands slipped underneath his belt, adjusting the shirt. “Where’d you get the water?” I asked.

“Well. It’s outside.”

That sounded . . . rustic. I frowned and gestured at the fridge. “Your cupboard’s bare, dude.”

“I don’t eat here.”

I raised my eyebrows. It shouldn’t have surprised me, given that the house was falling down around our ears. But still. “But we’re mated. We need a real kitchen, and a fridge if we’re going to live here. Where do you normally eat?”

“With the Russells.”

That didn’t help much. I looked back at the ancient fridge, not daring to open it again. “That fridge croaked long ago. Do you ever stay here?”

“Rarely.”

“Then why own such a dump?”

He gave me a quelling look, as if horribly insulted. “Needed a home.”

“Judging by the look of this place, you still need one. I can’t believe we’re going to stay here for the unforeseeable future.”

“It’s your fault.”

I stared at him. “
My
fault?”

“Your plan, wasn’t it?”

He had me there. “The next time I have a brilliant plan, tell me to shut up.”

Ramsey snorted. It sounded like agreement.

Chapter Six

T
he guesthouse turned out to be a cute little mother-in-law-type cottage on the other side of the murky pond behind the trees. It had a running air conditioner, power, and running water. And a roof, which automatically made it better than the main house. I supposed that was where Ramsey normally stayed when he had to crash here.

I knocked on Connor’s door. When he opened it, I gave him my cheeriest look. “You about ready to head in to work with me, shadow?”

He gave me a wary look. “You okay this morning?”

“Of course,” I said, pretending last night’s embarrassing transformation hadn’t occurred. “It was just a fluke accident. Never happened before.” Much.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”

That was the last thing I wanted. I already had Ramsey crawling all over me; I wasn’t about to start confessing all my dirty werewolf secrets to Connor. “I’m going to be late to work if we don’t get moving
soon,” I said, turning and leaving because that was the only way I could think to get him out of the guesthouse. “So we’d better get going, or Ramsey’s going to be cranky.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Connor muttered, but I heard it anyhow.

It was decided that we’d grab breakfast on the way in. I knew Connor would be shadowing me, but I hadn’t realized that Ramsey would be sticking to my side as well. I couldn’t act like I didn’t want Ramsey protecting me, though. That was his job in this charade. I did my best to look delighted at the thought of Ramsey at my side all day, but I’m not sure I succeeded.

The ride into town was uncomfortable. Ramsey didn’t talk to me, and Connor was still giving me that skeptical look, and I knew he was thinking about my messy, involuntary shift last night. To distract him, I fired question after question about his family and the pack.

He answered them all with a lazy, casual drawl. His uncle was Levi, and the others were his cousins. His aunt Maybelle had been the mother to the Anderson pack, before she died a few years back. His parents lived in Arkansas. No, they didn’t like Texas. No, he didn’t miss them much. The pack kept him busy. His cousins filled out the rest of the wolf pack—Maynard, Owen, Wyatt, Buck, and Tony. The youngest was the only girl in the pack, his cousin Gracie. She was newly eighteen and a little wild, he admitted. The other wolf packs had
started to sniff around her, since she was getting to about that age.

All this talk about other wolf packs and sniffing around made me highly uncomfortable, and I just shrugged when the men ordered from the McDonald’s drive-thru, my appetite suddenly gone.

A coffee was shoved into my hand and a bag of food passed to me. Ramsey glared down at me. “Eat.”

“I’m really not hungry,” I said. Just the thought of all those wolves made my stomach lurch uncomfortably.

“To learn to be a proper shifter,” Connor said as he scarfed down a breakfast sandwich in two bites, “you need fuel and a mentor, and I’m here to help you with the second part.”

I could almost feel Ramsey’s glare in Connor’s direction. The cab of the truck suddenly felt very small, and I clutched the coffee closer. “Just a small breakfast sandwich, I guess.”

Connor made a noise of approval between bites of his sandwich. “One of the first things you’re going to figure out is that the wolf in you demands food—lots of it. Especially meat, the rawer the better. It’s best to pay attention to what your wolf wants, or else ignoring it could have nasty side effects.”

“Got it,” I said in a confident voice, though I didn’t feel confident. I’d been a shifter for six years now. I knew that I liked raw meat, but I avoided it for that very reason. I thought maybe if I could control my wolf urges, I could control my wolf. It
seemed like everything I thought was backward. “I feel like there’s so much I don’t understand.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Connor said confidently.

Ramsey’s hands clenched the steering wheel a little tighter.

“You want to encourage your wolf, Sara,” Connor continued. “It’s an important part of you now. The better you can handle the wolf, the easier you’ll fit in with the wolf pack.”

And there went my appetite again. I sucked in a breath, trying to calm my stomach.

Ramsey looked over at Connor with an almost violent expression. “Fuck the wolf pack. She doesn’t
want
to fit in.”

“It’s not about what she wants anymore, I’m afraid,” Connor said evenly. “It’s not my decision, you know. I’m just here to supervise and help out where I can. It’s all Levi. And because he’s the alpha, I can’t contradict him.”

Neither could I. The thought made my stomach churn even more.

We pulled up in front of the unassuming strip mall that Midnight Liaisons was housed in. I was never so relieved to get out of the car and practically leapt out behind Connor.

Ramsey was already there with his hand extended, ready to hold mine. The sight made me blush, and I handed him the bag of food. Then, coffee in one hand of mine, Ramsey’s hand in the other, and Connor trailing behind us, we headed into the agency.

“Sara, there you are,” my sister said with a smile and a wave from her desk. She had a phone cradled to her ear and covered the mouthpiece as she greeted me. “I was wondering if you were going to be late.”

“No, I’m ready.” Sorta.

“Good,” she said with a smile, then held the phone out to Ramsey. “Beau wants to talk to you.”

“Not right now,” he said. He released my hand, moved to my desk, and pulled my chair out.

I sat down and clutched my coffee, glancing at the bear-shifter hovering over my shoulder. Connor sat across from me and proceeded to devour breakfast sandwiches, unfazed by Ramsey’s glower. Ramsey stood directly to the side of my chair and waited, unyielding, his big form looming over me and my desk.

I gave my sister a
help me
look.

“Tell him that it’s not a request, it’s an order,” Beau’s laughing voice said over the phone. Every shifter in the office could hear it plain as day. Our hearing was magnified compared to a normal person’s. Even in human form, I could hear a pin drop across the room. I could definitely overhear a phone call, and so could the others.