ShiftinDirty-ElizaGayle (12 page)

She couldn’t disagree with that most of the time. It seemed second nature for most people to want to get their way and many would go far and above normal to get it.
 

“You’re honest. You tried to get in the middle of a fight outside a biker bar simply because you were worried someone over tipped you. Do you think many others would have done the same thing?”

She shrugged her shoulders.
 

“You love your family as much as I love mine. Even though I don’t understand at all why humans choose to live away from their loved ones. Shifters stay close because they draw strength from the bonds of their family. To be too far apart makes us weak.”

“Were you an only child?” she asked.

A pained look crossed his face and immediately disappeared. She didn’t know what to make of it.
 

“No. My mother had me and then never conceived again before she died. Conception has truly been difficult for decades and likely the only reason she had me was because of my father.”

“I thought you didn’t know who you father was?”

“I don’t. But I do know what he was. I got my wolf from him because my mother was a feline.”

His quiet words sliced through her as easily as a knife through butter. The pain etched in each one scraping across her nerves. “I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to pry.”

His thumbs touched her lips. “Don’t be sorry, Sienna. You have the right to know what you’re getting into. Prejudice is alive and well in shifter clans and half-breeds are looked down on as well as segregated. Some people can’t handle that well. Fortunately, I have Dark Moon. The family I have there may not be blood, but I love them more than blood and they’ve meant everything to me until now.”

“Until now?”

“Until you.”

Oh wow. Her stomach fluttered again. There was no such thing as a defense against that kind of brutal honesty. She was falling fast. Although if she really wanted to be truthful, she’d fallen the first time she saw him, and again at the cabin when he’d cared more about her pleasure than his, again when she saw him with the family he loved so much, or when he growled at Simon when he thought he was hurting her, and now, in the woods next to a hot spring with him standing before her naked baring more of his soul than she ever expected.

“I think I want to go swimming now.”
 

A slow smile spread across his face before he kissed her on the nose. “Sounds wonderful.”
 

She swore his eyes nearly sparkled. “You’re just excited because you want to see me naked.”

“True. Can you blame me?”

No. She absolutely could not. Not after the way she’d been eyeballing him. She yanked her cowboy boots off and swiped the shirt over her head in one jerk, loving the way his eyes heated when he saw her breasts.
 

Butterflies were erupting in her stomach as she unfastened her pants and pushed them to her feet. A strip tease in front of a gorgeous man was not exactly her style, but the way he looked at her fueled her confidence to the point that she ignored her rounded belly and didn’t think more than three times about her thick thighs.
 

And truth be told, she was craving his touch.

She’d found her perfect man.

Chapter Twelve

Gage stood by the spring looking her over. His gaze ran from the soft, silken strands of her hair all the way to her toes. Sienna had removed her shirt and pants and stood next to him with only her panties on. Not that the scrap of white lace hid much of anything from his gaze.
 

Instead they framed the gentle swell of her hips from a much smaller waist, accentuating every positive feature that drew him in the first place. As if the sight of her nearly naked body wasn’t enough, the fresh, clean scent of a fall afternoon was ripe with her arousal, making his body clench with need. Her tits bounced with every move she made, taunting him once again.
 

Everything about her made it difficult to keep the beast under control. Every feral instinct inside him wanted to claim the special female for his mate in every way possible. Although now that he was getting to know her, special had taken on a meaning far beyond being simply human.

“Are you just going to stand there staring at me or are we going for a swim?”

He grabbed her now bare hips and hauled her against him. “Sassy. I like it.” He bent down and nipped her bottom lip. “A lot.”

Gage ran his hand down her back, noticing the cooler touch of her skin versus the blazing heat of his own. “Are you cold?”

“Yes,” she answered, sounding breathy. A sound he wanted to hear again as he drove into her. His skin felt tight as he fought to maintain control in the face of her scent tingling his nose, the soft sounds she kept making in her throat without even realizing it and the feel of her body pressed to his from breast to groin.
 

Gage broke the kiss.

“Go, Sienna.” They both startled at the gravelly tone of his voice. She looked up at him. “Seriously. Unless you want me pushing you to your hands and knees right here so I can mount you, go and get in the water.”

“Maybe that’s what I want.”

His body went rigid. Everything he’d ever wanted was right in front of him for the taking. He knew it down to his soul. Except for one thing. “You have to be certain. Are you?”

She didn’t answer right away, giving him all the answer he needed. Her body was certainly ready and at the look in her eyes he guessed the rest of her was almost there, but not quite. She was not certain.
 

“Water now, babe.”

Sienna walked across the short expanse of grass and waded into the water. “Oh wow. It is warm.” She bent and ran her hands through the rippling water.

He gazed at her, drinking her in. For whatever reason she no longer seemed concerned about her nudity in broad daylight. Not like anyone would interrupt them. This land was shifter owned, specifically by Bhric, and a shifter could scent another shifter from a good distance away. Meaning, no one was about to walk up on them without announcing themselves long before they were seen.

Once she was fully submerged and safely hidden from his view he followed her into the water.
 

She turned her back to him as she surveyed the area. “This place is amazing, I can see why you like it so much.”

He wanted to smile and shrug off her earlier hesitation, but he couldn’t. There was so much riding on her decision whether to join with him or not, it was starting to burn beneath his skin. Like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

“When you look at me, Sienna, what do you see?”

She looked up at him, raking her gaze up and down over his partially submerged body.

“I—I—”

“Don’t hesitate. Or be afraid to always tell the truth. Just say the first thing that comes to your mind. I want to know what you see and think when you look at me.”

“Right now I see a large man with eyes tinged in gold, towering over me, looking seriously intense.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

She shook her head. “Not in the way that I think you’ll physically hurt me or anything. You’ve proven quite well you’re much more interested in protecting me.”

He frowned. She was hedging her answers.

“Then what are you afraid of?”

She looked up at the sky and sank farther into the water. “Everything else,” she said. “I’m still wrapping my head around the shifter thing. Although I thank you for showing me your wolf. You’re more gorgeous than scary.”

“Don’t forget we are predators though. Under the right circumstances our beasts can be quite vicious.”

Her head bobbed in agreement. “Humans can be like that too. All you have to do is turn on the news for five minutes and you’ll get a hefty dose of just how vicious we can be.”

“You’re not like that.” He crossed to her and cupped her jaw. “You’re sweet and kind, without a malicious bone in your body.”

She laughed, her whole body shaking, making the water ripple around her. “And that right there proves you don’t know me very well yet. I’ve been too shell shocked to really get mad, but trust me, I’ve been known to get quite cranky.”

“Then I guess when the time comes, I’ll deal with your cranky side. But you still haven’t answered my question. What are you afraid of, Sienna?”

“So I take it I can’t distract you from this conversation?” She smiled and swam behind him. There she plastered her front to his back and wrapped her arms around his stomach so her hands rested only a few inches above his groin.

His body clenched, coming to full arousal once again. “I love a good distraction, babe. When the situation calls for it.”

“Oh I think it calls for it.” Her right hand moved south another inch.

Gage grabbed her and stopped her from going farther. “Nice try, babe. Right now I’d rather hear your answer.”

She frowned, pulling her eyebrows together. “I told you my answer. Everything.” She pushed away from him and started to float away.
 

“You frighten me in that you come on really strong. I’ve never had that before and I don’t know what to do with it. Especially when you call me your mate.”

“Shifters are more intense than humans, babe. Especially when it comes to a mate. I swear every male I know, myself included, claims to not want or need a mate. Then when it happens they’re knocked off their feet and the need becomes a living breathing thing that instinctually must be fulfilled.”

She stilled. “I knocked you off your feet?”

A slow smile crossed his face at the earnest look on her face. “Babe, you flattened me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “So the whole caveman behavior is—”

“All about you, sweetheart. Every clench of my body when I capture your scent, every heart palpitation when I see any part of your body naked, and every squeeze of my heart when you do something sweet. Biology plays a large part in the initial attraction, but everything after that has been all you.”

She continued to move into deeper water until the level was up to his shoulders and she had to tread water to keep her head up. “You should know that I don’t believe in love at first sight. I think it takes time to grow after you’ve known someone a while. Everything else is lust.”

Tired of not being able to touch her, he pulled her into his arms. “Oh I definitely feel lust, no doubt about it.” He pressed his hips forward reminding her of the condition she left him in.

“Smart ass.”

“Takes one to know one.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her neck just below her ear. She shivered.

“I think I know the difference between lust and something more though.” He kissed her again, this time behind her ear. “I’ve had my fair share of experiences with lust. This is not that. Well, not
only
that.” He quickly amended.

“How can you be so sure?” Her voice had turned breathless and her heart was beating faster.
 

He pressed his hand over her heart. “Some things aren’t easily explained. Ask yourself if what you feel now is different from what you’ve experienced in the past.
 
You also have to open yourself to something new even if you’ve been hurt in the past. Trust your instincts. Nine times out of ten, you’re gut is right. And sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith.”

“That’s a big ask. I don’t want to get hurt again.”

“I don’t want you hurt either.” He leaned her back in the water so her upper body floated on the surface and then he wrapped her legs around his waist. From there he not only had an amazing view he had full access to her sweet body.

He raised his voice so she’d still hear him through the water. “You deserve happiness, Sienna. The kind that comes from love and security. I can’t promise you things will always be easy. There’s a lot of tension among shifters these days. Everyone’s on edge.”

“Maybe they need to get laid.”

“I don’t know about them, but we most certainly do.” He glided his hands up her stomach, stopping at the lower swell of her breasts. “You just need to say yes.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Gage felt an overwhelming desire to howl at the moon in the middle of the day. A couple of days didn’t seem like a long time, but discovering a mate was a monumental event and not consummating it immediately took more of a force of will than he realized.
 

He leaned forward and kissed her stomach, while skimming his palm over her breast. Her nipple was already tight as it bobbed in the water. He closed two fingers around the bud and squeezed.
 

She let out a soft moan as he left a trail of sweet kisses all over her torso. He was fascinated by her skin. The scent, the taste, the satiny feel…

As he did every time he touched her naked flesh, he took his time going as slow as he could. Shifters had a tendency to be rough, something most humans weren’t accustomed to. As he continued to play with her body, she remained perfectly content floating in the water, the only sounds were the soft sighs and gasps she gave when he touched something sensitive. The trust she gave him in this pushed his need to the brink.