Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (10 page)

Chapter Five

Something snapped in the back of Sheena’s brain when she was on the way home from the print shop. “I’ve been waiting too long,” she said. “I’ve been in the Mating Call computer for two damn years and never had anything come back to me. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit around and let this one pass me by.”

She announced all this to the empty interior of her very reasonable, late model Corolla. It was just about the last car that someone who dressed with the aplomb with which Sheena dressed, and with which she carried herself, would drive. But, what the hell, it had five-star safety ratings, and she wasn’t much for big, fancy, fast cars anyway.

And also, she as able to buy the thing for two grand in cash, and she’d never been one to spend much money.

“Why am I doing this?” she asked herself, and the interior of her car, as she pulled to a stop at a deserted stop sign about eight minutes from her house. Even though she questioned herself, she did it as she scrolled through her contacts. She got to the M section and her finger hovered over the Mating Call entry. She hesitated, but wasn’t sure why. She’d never been a particularly pensive person, but for some reason, the thought of taking a chance at this, and possibly failing, it just stuck in her guts.

“Calm down, Sheena,” she said. “Just calm down. You met him, you laughed, he laughed, and all you’re doing is going on a date. Just calm the hell down. This isn’t as important as you’re acting like it is.”

Her lion senses had been flaring for what seemed like the entire afternoon. It wasn’t clairvoyance, nothing at all like that. It was just something akin to foreshadowing. Kind of a deja vu that took place before anything ever happened; a cloudy, incomplete memory of something that had yet to happen, but it was such a strong impulse that she’d learned not to doubt herself.

Suddenly, as though she hadn’t been aware she’d pressed the call button, the phone was ringing, loud and clear. “Mating Call,” a very tired voice answered. “Please tell me this is the Keurig repair company, because I’m pretty sure that if it isn’t, I’m going to keel over dead.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry,” Sheena said. “It’s uh, no well I’m not the Keurig guy but I absolutely feel your pain.”

“Oh hell,” Dora said. “But the sympathy made me feel a little better. I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t whine at a customer and sail right past that little bit of embarrassing mess if that’s okay with you. Wait, you
are
a customer, right?”

“An old one,” Sheena said. “I just needed a favor, I guess.”

Dora let out an unprofessional sigh and then immediately apologized. Sheena just laughed. “I’m really sorry,” she said, “but there’s just... it’s this guy that I’m trying to find. He’s gonna call me, but I want to surprise him with a—”

“This has been the most action packed match-up I remember making,” Dora said. From the way her voice twisted, Sheena could tell she had a smile on her face. More of those lion senses kicking in also gave Sheena the idea that maybe, just maybe, Dora had an idea that this was coming. “I had an idea this might be coming,” Dora said, to which Sheena chuckled softly.

There were things about being a lion that were great. The weird premonitions, being able to see in the dark and being able to hear so well that she could watch television in the middle of the night with the volume set on the lowest it could go and never disturb anyone.

The down sides of course were the undying hunger she had
all the damn time
that had resulted in a slight overage on her belt, what she jokingly called “a different kind of hangover, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less bad than the normal sort.” And then there was the loneliness. Lion shifters weren’t much different from their animal kingdom counterparts. Sometimes they lived in groups, but that was usually done by the traditionalists—by the older lions who didn’t mind living in a polygamist fantasy with one big, fat ass alpha male calling the shots.

That wasn’t Sheena, and it didn’t seem at all like Rex. Of course, she didn’t really
know
him, which made this whole thing even stranger. She just had the scent of him. She had just a taste of him, and those lion senses told her that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t as crazy as she thought.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Sheena asked. “I mean that I just show up there without any kind of phone call or whatever?”

“Hon,” Dora said, “it’s 2016. You want that man, you go and get him. But if you’re still nervous, I’ll tell you this much. I’ve been in this business a long damn time, you know? So has Eve. And neither of us have ever seen anyone get as excited as he did about you. Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. There may be a few precedents. But! Once you’ve seen a lion in love, well, I ain’t li—”

“Oh no, not again,” Sheena said with a laugh. “More lion puns?”

“More?” Dora asked. “I haven’t made any! Not to you, anyway. I might’ve made one to Rex.” She paused for a moment. “Actually I might’ve made more than one. But that’s all, I swear!”

“Sure,” Sheena said with a chuckle. “So you think me going to his place is okay?”

“He’s a party planning lion who fell in love with you from hearing you talk on a phone. I’d say you’d be crazier
not
to go. And anyway, did you see those eyes? And those cheekbones? I mean really, sweetheart, if you don’t go after him, I might come over to
you
place and make you go after him. Plus, like I said, he’s a party planner. They love that kinda stuff.”

“Really?”

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Dora said. “Er, lion. That’s not offensive is it? I can’t keep up with what I’m not supposed to say as far as species related humor goes.”

Sheena laughed, hard and loud. “No,” she said, “not at all. I hear you loud and clear. And Dora?”

“You’re sending a Keurig guy?”

Sheena snorted another laugh. “I can’t work miracles. But thank you. I mean it.”

“I know you do,” Dora said. “No worries, it’s what we do. To tell you the truth, I’m just glad he didn’t turn out to be some kind of creep. I didn’t even run a background check on him before I sold you out.”

“I can’t tell if you’re serious,” Sheena said.

“I trusted him. And I don’t trust easy. Also, something was wrong with our database, so... what I’m saying is, I’m glad he didn’t kill you.”

“Ha! Yeah, well, I guess I am too. Thanks,” she said again.

“Go get ‘em. And listen,” Dora paused, “I ain’t lion.”

Sheena groaned out loud as the phone went dead. She dropped the handset on the passenger seat and wheeled around in a wide, looping U-Turn. She shook her head, and for once, just thought about what she was doing instead of announcing it to the world.

I’m gonna do this
, she thought.
I’m actually going to go to this guy’s house and do this. I might be crazy, but then again, if he opens the door, then he is too
.

Suddenly, as she was lost in thought, and doing her best to psych herself up for the first time she’d gone to meet someone she didn’t pick up at karaoke, her phone started buzzing. She shot it a glance and didn’t recognize the number.

And then there went the lion sense again. “Are you serious?” she asked her car. “No way, it can’t be.”

If Sheena wasn’t the sort of lioness to live in the suburbs, or spend a lot of money on flashy cars, she
definitely
wasn’t the sort to answer phone calls from unknown numbers. She’d had enough dealing with bill collectors a few years back to learn
that
particular lesson. Her car rolled to a stop, and she held the receiver in a hand that she couldn’t stop from shaking. It made no sense, none of this did.

She wasn’t a nervous cat, wasn’t given to panic and fear and... more than that, she wasn’t into being comfortable. It made her feel like she was losing her edge, like something about her instincts had started to weaken. Why else would a lioness jump headlong into a relationship?

“And there I go,” she said with an impatient exhalation, “jumping about fourteen steps ahead of where I am.” Her nerves frayed and her brain like the fried egg on that drugs commercial from the 80s, Sheena noticed that the phone stopped ringing.

“Oh damn it,” she swore as she hit the callback button. It just beeped at her.

“
You’ve reached Rex Steele Party Planning Incorporated. Leave a message and I’ll
—”

A series of tones interrupted his voicemail shout out, and she took a look. He was calling back. Sheena rubbed her thumb lightly across the screen, but the button just sort of wiggled. Thinking maybe the screen was wet, she rubbed it against her jeans, then tried to answer again.

“Hello?” she asked, as the line finally opened.

“Are you there? Hello? Sheena?”

“Rex! Hey! I was just, um... well I was on the way and—”

A flood of static smacked her in the ear and a second later, here came Rex again. “Hello? Sheena? I can’t hear anything, this damn phone is just a real asshole, I can’t—”

Sheena couldn’t help but laugh and laugh and laugh. She had gotten to within a couple miles of the address Dora texted over, and was trying to decide whether or not to try and call her technologically inept crush back before popping up at his front door. “Oh, or not,” she said as she pulled up to the front of 824, and pulled to a stop. It wasn’t a huge house, but it was a nice, compact little cottage-style joint not far from the middle of White Creek’s downtown. Of course, combining the terms ‘White Creek’ and ‘downtown’ was almost oxymoronic.

Just as she was about to open the door, the phone rang again. This time she just swiped to answer without thinking about it.

“I’m here,” she said without bothering to look at who was calling. She already knew.

“Good,” he answered. “I don’t think I can go until tomorrow without seeing you.”

“I’m not sure I’m completely sane,” Sheena said with a little laugh, “but what the hell, at least it’s a good kind of crazy, right?”

“I’m the one who hunted you down after a five minute phone call.” Rex’s voice was low and growly and just absolutely positively delicious. Sheena could hardly contain her excitement, but the knowledge that he was just on the other side of a front door made it a lot easier to contain. “If either of us is a whack job, it probably isn’t you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.

“Door’s open.” The line went dead. Sheena gulped, hard.

“No time like the present,” she announced to herself, and pushed the door open with her foot. She did one of her favorite distraction-inducing activities on the way in: hopping between the cracks in the sidewalk. What surprised her was exactly how much sidewalk there was between the street and the front door. She’d counted to thirty-eight by the time she got to the front door, and pushed at it with her foot.

It creaked loudly. Inside the room was completely dark. “Hello?” she called out. “I’m sure you’re not actually a serial killer, but I’m getting some real Buffalo Bill vibes right about now.”

No response. Sheena opened her eyes wide, letting in as much light as she could. The moon outside wasn’t terribly bright, but the silvery light was enough so that she could see at least the vague outlines of everything in the room. There were chairs to the west end, and a really poofy, comfortable looking couch in the center. A big TV reflected just enough light that it gave her a little bit of brightness overload until she looked away.

“Hello? Rex?” she called again, although if she was being honest, she kind of enjoyed the silly game they were playing. It was so lion. So, so lion.

A brief squeak of sound alerted her that something moved in the back. She crouched down, immediately consumed with something she hadn’t done in
years
. Letting her eyes and then her ears and nose shift made navigating the unknown surroundings slightly easier. Tilting her head upward, she caught a familiar scent.

“Rex,” she whispered. “Oh, Rex. I don’t think you’re actually trying to fool me, but you’re still doing a bad job.”

So softly that she made no sound at all, not even to lion ears, Sheena crept toward an open door which led to a hallway. She took another whiff, and nodded as the scent grew stronger. “God, I hope you’re naked,” she whispered to herself. “That’d be just about the best thing in the world.”

Her shape took on a vaguely feline structure: her legs grew thicker and stronger, her teeth elongated and her tail began to twitch in the air, detecting vague changes in gentle currents moving through the house. That time when she smelled the air, it gave her a thrill. The smell was harder, more masculine, than it had been before.

“I’m getting closer,” she said. She had a vague hope that he’d hear her and jump on her before she could find him, but she had to admit that the hunt was almost as thrilling as the idea of it ending in Rex’s arms. On second thought, no, that sounded pretty damn good. Still, this was fun.

From further back, she heard a coiling, throaty growl. The sound was so faint that only her cat ears let her pick it up. She turned her head and waited in the doorway of the furthest room from the front. The two-paned window was wide open, letting both moonlight and a gentle breeze come through. She let out a growl of her own as Rex’s scent slid along her nose.