Hunger for You (Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts)
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Authors: A.C. Arthur
HUNGER FOR YOU
A.C. Arthur
ST. MARTIN’S GRIFFIN
New York
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More from A.C. Arthur’s
Shadow Shifters
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Caleb
I’d say she was like a breath of fresh air, but I don’t talk like that. I don’t think along those frilly little lines. Still, I was too observant to miss the fact that she was different, that my reaction to her was different.
For the six weeks I’d been in D.C. I’d been coming to this little bar just about every night of the week. Five of those nights, six if I was really lucky, she was here. The tight miniskirt and even tighter T-shirt that was the waitress uniform didn’t really go with her quiet smile and soft brown eyes. The black hair that fell in wavy strands down to the center of her back, elegantly arched eyebrows, and pouty mouth, did in fact match the sultry ambiance the bar reeked of. Contradictions—there were so many of them where she was concerned. I’d begun keeping a mental list.
For instance, she served everything from domestic beer to top-shelf liquor eight to ten hours a day and yet I’d never seen her put a glass to her lips. On her breaks she had water or soda, never liquor. Sure, that could be because she wasn’t allowed to drink on the job, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t a drinker, I was sure of it.
Another one was that I knew she made good tips. Hell, I gave her at least twenty to thirty dollars a night when I was here, but she drove a beat-up old car and lived in a shabby room she rented from an old drunken man who was probably charging her much more than the shack was worth. Yeah, I’d followed her home a time or two, on those nights when she’d closed up the bar and was driving home alone at three in the morning. I just figured it was safer that way, figured if anything happened I’d be there … to protect her I guess.
All those years of training that I’d detested so much didn’t seem to go away, no matter how far I’d run.
Two weeks ago I’d landed a job at a warehouse, filling orders of computer equipment for what seemed like long hours on top of hours. It wasn’t a career, it was a paycheck, and a damned good one at that. I had an apartment, my truck, and I came to the bar at night for hot wings and cold beers. Life was good.
Except she was too damned pretty, too damned innocent-looking for me to ignore. I craved the sight of her more than the beer and wings I always ordered. Needed to see her, be near her, more than I needed to breathe on most nights.
“Another Blue Moon for you?” she asked in that low, sweet voice she had.
I did a double-take because for the last hour or so another waitress, the “hot-and-I-know-it” one with the blond braids, had been waiting on me. Her short skirt, fishnet stockings, and tits falling over the rim of her low-cut T-shirt definitely fit her “whatever-you-want-I’ll-provide” attitude. I didn’t care for her much, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t the one I’d come to see.
“Sure,” I said, instantly happier now that the pretty one, the one I couldn’t get out of my mind no matter how much I drank or how hard I tried, was waiting on me. “I mean, yes, thank you.”
I thought I should smile but I didn’t do that often. Then again, I didn’t feel this way often. She had that effect on me. She made me want to do things I didn’t usually do, didn’t usually even think about doing. Although I was taught proper etiquette for the human world, I didn’t use “please” and “thank you” much. Hadn’t met many humans that actually deserved good manners in my travels. As for the females, well, there wasn’t a
lot I tended to say to them beyond, “Yeah, I got a condom,” and “No, I’m probably not gonna call you.” I did, however, believe in honesty. I’d much rather hear the truth, good or bad, right up front, than be hand-fed one lie after another. But with this female, I was always clearing my throat to make sure my voice was steady and concentrating so that my accent didn’t make it hard for her to understand whatever I was saying.
I made eye contact with her, listened intently to whatever it was she was saying, even if I didn’t need her to run down the nightly specials, since they were always the same.
“Are you finished with that plate? I can get it out of your way if you are,” she offered, nodding her head in the direction of the half-eaten plate of hot wings sitting in front of me.
I’d been starving when I got off work two and a half hours ago, couldn’t wait to get here and get the piping hot and heavily seasoned wings that I’d come to favor. But after eating only half, I’d lost my appetite. Or rather I realized my appetite had actually been centered on seeing her again, being close to her providing a different type of sustenance than the food had.
“Yes, I’m finished. Except for the beer,” I added because I didn’t want her to forget to come back.
“No problem,” she said, giving me a half smile. She leaned over the table a bit to pick up the plate.
I could see down the V of her blouse, the swell of her breasts that looked soft and creamy. Her complexion was almost as dark as mine, but everything about her skin looked smoother and much more enticing than my own. As if that weren’t enough to jump-start an erection, the fresh and store-bought vanilla scent of her wafted into my nostrils and I had to grit my teeth. My hands fell to my lap as I moved a little to make the appropriate comfort adjustments.
“I’d like some nachos and cheese too,” I said impulsively.
When she looked at me this time her forehead had the cutest wrinkle and she leaned back a bit before asking, “Are you sure? Because you didn’t finish your wings.”
I was sure that ordering more items would ensure her return to my table at least two more times tonight. That meant this insane urge I had to be close to her would be sated, sort of.
I nodded. “I’m positive.”
She shrugged, but didn’t offer me the smile again. When she walked away, even though the view of her tight little ass in that too little skirt was more than arousing, I found that I really wanted to see that smile again.
I liked the way it made me feel inside, the swirl and plummet effect it had on the pit of my stomach, the spreading heat it solicited between my legs. She was definitely hot and I
definitely wanted to taste her, what I wasn’t so sure of was if one taste would be enough.
***
This time I’d managed only a third of the nachos and half the beer in forty minutes. I couldn’t stop staring at her, couldn’t wrap my mind around anything else but the way she moved, the way she flipped her hair back behind her shoulders whenever she approached a table, and the adorable way she bit her bottom lip as she wrote the larger orders in her notepad. Each time she walked past me and I caught a whiff of her scent I thought I was going to jump up out of that chair and grab her. My palms itched with the desire to touch her, my mouth watered with the thought of tasting her.
I wanted this female with everything I was, everything I never wanted to be, and I didn’t even know her name.
Pathetic. I know. And I’d just reached into my back pocket for my wallet so I could pay and take my pitiful self home when he came through the front door and headed right for her. A growl rumbled deep in my chest and it was all I could do to keep my body—and the cat raging with jealousy included—in the chair.
He was about six feet tall, long arms on a mildly built frame. He wore faded jeans, steel-toed boots, and a long-sleeved thermal shirt. His hair was cut really short, almost bald but not quite and he had a straight, sharp jawline that ended with a
goatee. I’d never wanted to be like anyone else in my life. In fact, due to circumstances beyond my control, I knew that was impossible. Still, I admit to having considered cutting my light beard and mustache into a goatee, thinking maybe that’s what she liked. Thankfully, I’d changed my mind. I liked the completed look better and before now hadn’t thought twice about my facial hair or how anyone else would react to it. The inconsistencies about her had spilled over to me. That made me uncomfortable, really, damned uncomfortable.
I watched him walk straight to the bar and stop. Her back had been turned as she punched keys on the cash register, but it was like she knew he was there because she immediately turned to see him. A small smile appeared. It was tentative and possibly rehearsed as she held up a finger telling him she’d be with him in a minute. His hands clenched on the bar railing as she turned her back and my teeth gnashed.
It wasn’t any of my business I knew, but nothing short of an earthquake would move me from this seat. I picked up my beer and took a small sip, keeping my eyes trained on the bar. Hair rose at the back of my neck as the front door swung open again and another guy came in heading for the bar to stand right next to the bastard that had quietly summoned the pretty girl. It would help if I knew the names of all the players, but until this very moment that hadn’t seemed important. Actually, it
didn’t seem important now, all that mattered was that she remained safe, because the eerie feeling I was getting from these two wasn’t a good sign.
She turned away from the cash register and walked over to the two guys. My eyes followed her every move. The second guy gave a wicked smile to the first, patted him on the back, then moved away. The first guy instantly reached for her, grabbing her by the wrist until she was leaning over the bar close enough so that he could roughly kiss her lips.
I put down my beer with a hard clank.
“You finished with that, baby?” the blond waitress asked.
She was back. Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. Okay, maybe that wasn’t fair. Her voice wasn’t that high, it just irritated the hell out of me because I was so focused on that guy touching the girl I was just slightly obsessed with. He was touching
my
girl.
“No,” I replied without even glancing at the other waitress. I hated how they would switch off tables throughout the night without any rhyme or reason. When I thought I was sitting at a table that she would wait on, I’d get the blonde at least part of the night. They didn’t do that in any other place I’d been; then again, I didn’t go anywhere but here.