Shadowing the Teacher (Perfect Pairs Book 3) (4 page)

“Fucking … hell…” His legs got stronger with each step towards the front door, his feet no longer dragging as he walked.

His eye caught his reflection in the hallway mirror, and he stopped to stare. His skin was pinker, his cheeks fuller. What had she done to him? He rolled his shoulders and flexed his arms, his muscles strong and tight.

“For God’s sake!” He opened the front door and practically ran to the car, his heart pounding against his ribs, strong and healthy. “How did she do it?”

He’d spent the past year starving his body of all its needs. He had expected to die and had put up no fight, watching his healthy and largely muscled body shrink away. In one single touch, it felt like she’d undone all the past year.

He felt alive, and he was hungry.

Damn.

Reid jumped in his car and drove away, his heart breaking at the knowledge that he might have been wrong. His belief and faith in their legends had bolstered his life, his love for Amanda. When he’d lost her, he’d lost his future, but he’d found solace in the legends that promised he would follow her soon.

This woman threatened all that he held dear, and he wished more than anything that they had never come to this bloody town.

He shook his head as he pressed his foot harder to the accelerator, the ghost of the future returning to haunt him like a long forgotten dream.

Chapter Four

Sam’s belly clenched with need for the man in front of her. She’d never been so attracted to a stranger before, and her body seemed to be betraying her with its clenching and throbbing. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Scott stepped closer, and a buzz of people circled them as everyone drew closer. “Come inside.”

Sam let the men around her lead Kane away, and Laura gripped her elbow, directing her around the house and into a front sitting room that was empty of other people.

“Laura, do you know what’s going on?”

Laura nodded and squeezed her hands. “Yeah, I think I do. What did you feel when you touched Kane and Reid?”

Sam let go of her cousin and lifted both her hands and looked at them, palm up. She couldn’t believe that there was no lingering mark to show what had happened to her.

“It was truly the strangest thing. Buzzing, like being zapped after getting off a trampoline, only a hundred times more full on.”

Laura laughed and rubbed her swollen belly. “Yes, I remember.”

“You
remember
? Pardon me?” Sam stared at her cousin, Laura’s eyes soft and dreamy as she stared off into the horizon for a moment before finally turning her attention back to Sam. How could Laura
remember
something that happened to her? She must mean something else.

“The electricity means that you are the perfect match for Kane and Reid, as I am for Tyler and Brandon, and Ashleigh is for Jack and Scott. There must be something special about our genetics because it’s just getting freaky now. I mean, what are the odds that all three of us would be designed for three sets of cousins?”

Sam stared at her cousin, her brain spinning like a top.

That’s impossible.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She couldn’t be a wife to two men she’d never met. They had to be wrong. “No judgment meant in any way, sweetie, but I don’t want two husbands. One would be more than enough for me.”

Laura laughed, slapping Sam on the thigh. “You don’t get a choice, sweetie. It’s preordained by fate.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Sam shook her head, fear and anger gathering in her belly like a tightly coiled snake. She considered herself a fair, good person, but she wasn’t being told what she
had
to do, by anyone.

Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t actually available. But they didn’t know that yet.

The men walked into the room, the bustling noise they were making stopping the moment they stepped onto the carpet. Silence. And three sets of staring eyes.

Talk about uncomfortable.

Sam jumped to her feet and stared at the three men approaching her, her traitorous gaze straying to Kane’s beautiful brown eyes and strong jaw. He couldn’t possibly be who they said he was.

“What is this I hear about being some perfect, fated … something?” She crossed her arms over her chest and put as much heat into her stare as possible.

Kane mimicked her action, crossing his own arms over his chest, and frowned. That wasn’t good. What was he so worried about? She was the one feeling adrift in totally foreign waters.

Scott shared a worried look with Jack, then stepped forward.

Sam lifted a hand, stopping the muscle man in his tracks. “And what’s with the non-identical twins in this family? You all don’t match properly. It’s bloody confusing. Scott looks like he should be Tyler’s twin, and Brandon should have been Jack’s.”

The men all smiled a little, a chuckle coming from Jack’s big chest.

“We can explain that later, but yes, you are correct. We believe you are the perfect partner for Kane and Reid.”

Sam’s mouth fell open for a moment before she snapped it shut and stared at the men in front of her. These people were insane. What sort of asylum had her cousins married into? “But … I have a boyfriend! I can’t possibly be what you say I am.”

The room went so deadly silent Sam’s stomach sank with a weird version of panic. She’d just said something terribly wrong, hadn’t she? She glanced around at all the shocked faces, including her cousins.

Laura stared at her then cleared her throat. “Ah, is it serious?”

Sam threw up her hands and wheeled back.

I give up.

She let herself fall onto the couch, her legs sinking down like leaded weights.

“Ah…”
What was the question? Right.
Her head was so muzzy. “We’ve been together for just over a year. He’s…” Sam couldn’t bring herself to defend her relationship as being serious. They did spend two nights a week together and they got along well, but Bill wasn’t exactly her dream man. But she didn’t feel like giving up that piece of information yet.

“Everyone told me you were single.”

Sam narrowed her eyes at her cousin as Laura fell down onto the couch next to her. “Who did you ask?”

“Ashleigh, she invited most of our single cousins because she thought we … ah…” Laura stopped, blushed, then glanced around at her men.

Sam stared at the people in the room, the pieces of a very strange puzzle falling into place like a clunky old car. Her two first cousins were married to two sets of twins. Ashleigh hadn’t been playing matchmaker, had she?

“Are you telling me that Ashleigh only invited the single girls so that she could set them up with more of her new family?”

Sam saw the guilt in her cousin’s beautiful face and pushed herself up and off the couch, her hands trembling with anger. How dare they?

She glared down at her pregnant cousin, still beached on the soft couch.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Laura? What sort of cult is this?”

She needed to get away from these crazy people. She began to back away, glancing over her shoulder for an exit. There was a door behind her, but she had no idea which way it went or where it would take her.

“No, Sam, please stop. It’s not a cult, but there’s some very special people around here.”

Yeah, special. As in loony bin special?

Sam put her hands on her hips and spread her legs. She may feel like a fucking dwarf in a room with all these giants, but she was no pushover.

“Oh really? And what’s so special about them?”

She tapped her foot and took turns eyeing each of the three men and her pregnant cousin.

Laura motioned to the men to leave with large hand gestures. “Guys, I think I need to talk to Sam alone. You’re only going to make matters worse.”

One of the men, she thought it might be Kane, made a keening noise in his throat that almost broke her heart. He sounded wounded, hurt. Had she done that?

Scott and Jack began to back away. “That’s cool. We’ll go get a drink.”

Kane’s brown eyes were wide and scared as they pulled him away by the elbows. The last look he cast at her almost begging in its intensity, and delivered a deep gut punch more effective than any physical blow could be.

When the men finally closed the door, the room was too big, and Sam collapsed into the chair opposite Laura.

Laura placed both hands on her swollen belly and settled back into the cushion. “Whoa, where do I even start?”

Sam glared at her. “You can start with what’s up with Kane.”

Laura laughed and shook her head. “That’s the end of the story, although I like that you’re focused on him.”

Sam snorted and looked away. She didn’t want to be here.

Laura laughed softly. “I better start at the beginning.”

Sam sighed and looked back at Laura. She didn’t want to listen to what her cousin had to say, but she folded her hands in her lap in a semblance of calm while butterflies flapped away in her tummy. She didn’t know if they were a sign of apprehension or excitement, but she knew that something huge was about to happen and she was not ready for it.

Laura took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her hands circling her growing babe in a loving rhythm.

“You were right in your observation of the twins. In Brandon and Tyler’s family, some of the men are born into fraternal twins that they call a Perfect Pair. Exact opposites of each other in both physicality and temperament, but perfect complements, too.”

Sam nodded, understanding on a superficial level. “You mean like one skinny, one muscular, one tall, one shorter?”

Laura smiled. “Yes, but it’s more than that. Like with my set. Brandon is taller, more muscular, gruff, possessive and passionate, and he can joke me out of a bad mood any day of the week. Tyler is shorter, thinner, more intelligent, and more serious. Between them I get the perfect man. Possessive and serious, lighthearted and sensual.”

Sam’s throat caught on a breath. “That sounds,” she swallowed, “perfect.” She’d often known her perfect man list of qualities didn’t exist. “You can’t really get all of that in one man, can you?”

Laura laughed and shook her head. “No, you can’t, and Jack and Scott are similar to my pair, or so Ash says.”

Sam slid to the edge of the couch, her heart beginning to pound like a drum. “And Kane and Reid are the same?”

How incredible would that be, in theory? To get everything she’d ever wanted in a person, just spread out?

Laura’s eyes shadowed as her face grew serious. “Yes, they’re a Perfect Pair.”

Sam frowned, her forehead growing low and heavy. “That’s not what I asked.” Laura was hiding something.

Laura sighed. “Kane and Reid’s wife died a year ago, so they aren’t quite themselves at the moment, or so Tyler told me.”

Sam gasped and put a hand to her heart. “Oh, how horrible.” Those poor men.

Laura agreed with a nod. “Yes, and for a Perfect Pair, they usually only have one mate, so they fully expected to die within the year and follow her.”

Tears pricked Sam’s eyes, and when she blinked, two salty tears were running down her face in empathy. “Oh my God, imagine loving someone that much.” She’d dreamed of such a thing but never known it.

Laura sighed. “In their family, that’s the legend, or so the parents have said. But Kane and Reid haven’t died, and today you proved why.”

Sam sat up straighter, wiping away the tears that still lay on her wet cheeks. “What do you mean?”

Laura sat up and reached out across the small space between them, taking Sam’s hands in her own. “Please hear me out without freaking out. These men are part of a very special family, but I think it’s better I tell you that part later. This is more important. A Perfect Pair only gets one wife, because she is a perfect match to them. The biggest sign to them is an immediate attraction and the electricity on first touch. I had it with my twins and Ash with hers.”

Sam pulled her hands out from her cousin’s heavy grip. “You mean that thing I felt before?”

Laura nodded. “Yes, it means you are a perfect match for Kane and Reid.”

“No!” Sam gasped and threw herself back on the couch. It was impossible. “But I … how?”

“Did you feel an immediate attraction to them before the electrical touch?”

Sam searched her memory through the cloud of confusion.

“Ah, yeah … though they don’t look very well.”

She had been attracted to them, very much so. When she’d been dancing with her cousins she’d felt them watching her, and he body had been tingling with awareness. But she hadn’t thought anything of it.
Shit.
This was all so strange!

“They’re not. They’ve been through a lot. You really should talk to Ash about it actually. Scott especially was pretty damaged when she met him. His ex-wife did a real number on him.”

“Ah yeah, ok. Hang on… What am I saying? How can I actually be considering this?”
Because the evidence in front of you is pretty damn convincing.
“Oh, shit. Laura, what am I meant to do?”

Her nose began to tingle, and her throat closed up as her fear got the better of her. “This is just too much to take on.”

She covered her mouth with her hands and blinked away the tears. It was all very overwhelming.

“Look, Sam. How long are you staying for?”

Sam forced her unfocused eyes into looking directly at Laura, her green eyes strong and sure. “Ah, I took the week off work, and I’m staying at Ash’s house as of tomorrow.”

“Well, that’s perfect. You have the week to get to know Kane and Reid, if they’ll let you, and you can go home at the end of the week if what you learn about them doesn’t suit you.”

Laura’s voice went up an octave as she finished the sentence, and Sam fixed her cousin with a dry look. “Yeah, and what do you think the likelihood of me just walking away is?”

Laura giggled. “Not much, but you still have a choice. Your men have been to hell and back by the looks of them, so your task isn’t as easy as mine was.”

Sam let her head drop into her hands, shocked to hear the words coming out of her mouth. She was actually agreeing with this ludicrous plan.

“And the whole boyfriend thing?”

Laura patted her on the head and said with a condescending tone. “I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end.”

Sam groaned, loudly and with no ladylike etiquette. “I think I need a drink.”