Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (9 page)

“Oh my,” Lita said with a grin. “I think you might just have found your perfect man. I wonder if, when the two of you are doin’ it, you’ll both narrate?”

“Shut
up
!” Sheena said, stifling a laugh. “Probably.”

She hopped up, ran to the back and returned with both a glass of water and a handful of wet napkins. When she handed over the supplies, her hand touched Mystery Man’s and for a second she thought she felt one of those sparks she always heard about in movies and had never once felt.

“Your hands are so warm,” she said, staring straight into his eyes that she noticed for the first time were swirling oceans of deep blue. “Do you have really good circulation or something?”

A half smile crept across his face. “I exercise some, you know. Helps the blood pressure.”

Her hand lingered there for a moment, and then she sniffed and recoiled, but not before curling her fingers against the back of this bizarre, mysterious man’s hand.

“We better wake him up,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll probably sit here all night before I finally work up the courage to ask you out and you finally let me. And then before we know it, it’ll be morning and we’ll still be here, and I’ll still be holding one of your hands and lovingly cupping your boss’s cheek in my other.”

Sheena looked down and noticed that instead of pulling her hand away like she meant to do, he’d slipped his fingers between hers.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he said with another smile. A tendril of his hair fell down across his forehead. She brushed it back for him without thinking about what she was doing.

“Feels right,” she said back. Her hand was a hollow echo.

“All right, lovebirds,” Lita piped up, “we probably should wake old man Dwyer up before you forget about him, start going at it right here and now, and end up getting the cops called on you when either he wakes up underneath the two of you, or a soccer mom wanders in to order a trophy, and sees you on top of him.”

Sheena felt a hot flush creep up her neck, and down her belly. Her nipples prickled to life, and then, a breath later, pebbled sweetly against her bra. “Yeah,” she finally said, taking a few slow, deep breaths to calm herself. “We probably should.”

Chapter Four

“Here’s the thing,” he said, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, I played football in high school and got knocked out plenty of times, and I even did a little amateur boxing, but I’ll be damned if I know how you’re supposed to revive someone.”

“Don’t they have those little tubes of smelling salts you break open? Or ammonia or something?” Sheena, along with Lita, and the man whose name they still didn’t know, but who they were both extremely impressed with, were all three crouched down over Dwyer, all three staring at him.

Lita shook her head. “I think you have to be at least a pretend doctor... er, a trainer or whatever they call them. I don’t know if you can just go buy smelling salts. I think the idea is you’re supposed to also check the person for a concussion at the same time.”

Dwyer groaned, and his eyes sort of fluttered. As if to facilitate his waking, Mystery Man patted Dwyer’s cheeks with the wet napkin. “Here,” he said, “you need a drink.”

Red-faced and obviously confused, the big, old walrus-shifting businessman sneezed, and then made a sound very similar to a cartoon snore. “D-d-damn right I do,” he said, “but not that. Go get the whiskey out of my desk. I keep it around for occasions like these.”

Sheena hopped to her feet, and was halfway to her boss’s door when she froze. “Wait, you have whiskey in your desk? This happens often enough that you have pick-me-up liquor?”

“Oh damn it, no, I was talking about walking out of my office to see one of my employees engaged in some kind of... of... erm...”

“She was cleaning my pants, sir,” Mystery Man said. “It’s a long story, but, well, I came in to make an order after we were cut off on the phone the other day, you see. And then they offered me a doughnut, which I took—thanks very much by the way—and when I bit it, the cream shot out the end, and onto my pants.”

“That story’s so stupid it can’t be made up,” Dwyer said. “And no, I don’t have any whiskey in my desk, although I could really use it with you around.” Sheena was starting to feel a little shit-on before he started laughing, but when he did, immediate relief rushed over her.

But then she realized that the relief came from a hand that had fallen on her bare shoulder. She shivered, then smiled, then put her hand on top, giving him a squeeze. The three of them, a moment later, heaved Dwyer to his feet. The big man let out a heavy puff. “So did she polish you off?”

All four of them burst out laughing, although Dwyer lagged behind a little, as though there was a lag in his brain that required a few extra seconds to get dirty jokes he’d made.

“Uh, yeah,” the big, tall, beautiful man said. “She sure did. Saved my pants.”

He paused briefly, looking around to everyone else before continuing. “Good, I hoped I hadn’t stepped into another innuendo trap. You okay?”

“Yeah, sure I am,” Dwyer said. “I guess I owe you three for not letting me die.”

After a short pause, he chuckled. “You know, from shock. If I’d actually seen what I thought I saw, my old heart would probably just burst. I’m not gonna lie.”

“I think if you’d come out a few seconds later, you
might’ve
seen what you thought you saw. Wait. Seen what you seen you saw thought?” Lita shook her head, feigning frustration. “Anyway, I’m glad everyone’s okay. Even if I did just make myself dizzy by talking in a circle so graceful that I almost threw up.”

After a few moments of silence, Dwyer excused himself to the back, leaving the three musketeers standing behind the front desk, none of them really knowing what to do or to say.

“I haven’t told her my name yet,” Mystery Man narrated into the open air at exactly the same moment that Sheena mused that he hadn’t told her his name. The two of them laughed, and for a moment she thought he was going to lean in and kiss her right then and there.

“I’m Sheena Boudreaux,” she said, sticking the hand he wasn’t holding, out for him to shake.

“I know,” he said. “Not as a creepy thing, but remember, we talked on the phone and—you know what? Let’s try that again. Nice to meet you, Sheena, I’m Steele. Rex Steele.”

Rex arched his eyebrows, as though he was impressed with himself and had just delivered an absolutely dynamite line. Sheena shook his hand for a moment longer, and then bit her lip to stifle a snicker.

“Yeah, I realized how dorky that sounded right as I was about to say it. Still, I just decided to go for it. If you’re the sort of girl you seem like you are, then we probably get each other’s sense of humor without having to mask how bad it is.”

“Oh my God!” Lita squealed. “You two either need to get to mating, or get a room, or get married or something. I’m embarrassed just watching you two fawn over each other like awkward high school kids.”

Rex laughed. “Harsh critic. Anyway, that was my best attempt at a line, you’ll be happy to know.”

“No,” Sheena said with a slightly hollow echo in her voice. “I kinda want to hear you try again. Only this time, deliver it with more... hm, what’s the word? Conviction. Deliver it with conviction, like you’re about to hit the chorus of
Livin’ On A Prayer
in the middle of karaoke.”

Lita was shaking her head as Rex cleared his throat. “I’m more of a
Bed of Roses
man, myself, but I appreciate the sentiment. Right, okay, so should I leave and come back in?”

“This is turning into a mating ritual so stupid it should be on a Nat Geo top ten list of, er, stupid mating rituals.”

Neither of them paid attention to her though. They were completely entranced with each other’s eyes, staring at one another and either refusing, or rendered unable to, break away. “Yeah, all right,” Sheena said. “May as well go all the way if we’re already acting kinda stupid.”

With a grin, Rex backed away from her until their arms were fully extended. He finally let go, and turned to leave.

“You got it
bad
, girl,” Lita said. “But somehow, I think you also got it
good
.”

Rex came back in, this time opening the door slower, with more drama and gravitas. For a moment, Sheena though about how odd it was that no one had come into the store in the midst of all this silliness. Then again, thinking about where she worked, and the numbers that Dwyer had been complaining about for what seemed like eternity, maybe it wasn’t so surprising. When Rex stepped back inside the store, his black hair was slightly back in order, but also just messy enough to be attention getting. He’d smoothed out his jacket, and the spot on his trousers wasn’t visible.

“I did a good job on that spot,” Sheena said under her breath. Lita smacked her softly on the arm and shook her head. “Sorry,” Sheena laughed.

“Hello there, how are you today?” she asked, doing her best to roleplay an actual counter clerk instead of her normal, snarky, lovable self.

Dwyer stepped out from the back, rolled his eyes, and retreated again with a smile that only Lita noticed. She couldn’t help smile too. After all the chaos and excitement that had generally been her best friend’s life, this was finally something she could smile about and really mean it. Well, other than the last time they went out for Mexican and Sheena ate so many enchiladas she had to call in sick to the print shop the next day. That was definitely something.

But as those two sat there making dummy-eyes at each other, it really hit Lita in the guts as something cute, something beautiful, and something that not even she could get cynical about.

“I’m all right,” the guy she knew was Rex was saying. “I just needed to... wow, I just noticed your eyes.”

“Is there something in one of them?” she asked, with such earnestness that there was no way she was saying it to be funny. She blinked a few times.

“No,” he said with a smile, “they’re just... they’re incredible. I’ve never seen that color before in a... you’re a lion, right?”

“I can’t keep lion,” Sheena said with a grin. “Sorry, I’ve just wanted to use that for a while. I can’t remember where I thought it up but it was pretty good, wasn’t it? Holy shit I’m nervous. Why am I so nervous?”

Lita couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re nervous because you’re feeling this more than either of us are willing to admit,” she said. “And at the same time, we’re doing some really funny role playing. Wait, you better pay attention, I think James Bond is about to introduce himself.”

“What I mean is,” she said, “I’m not nervous, lay it on me baby.”

“I’m Rex Steele, and I want to take you out to dinner, and then maybe bowling or to a movie, or go-karting if that’s what you’re into. And then I want to take you out to a late dessert, and pretend we’re getting coffee at midnight when we’re actually just waiting to go to one of our houses and have sex because neither of us are willing to admit that’s what’s happening.”

“Damn,” Sheena said. “That cut straight to the heart of everything, didn’t it? I can’t believe that was so quick to the point. But at the same time I do kinda appreciate it. And yeah, I think that’s probably about the long and short of things.”

She smiled, then she laughed, and a second later, she was smiling again, just kind of watching that gorgeous man’s face. He took a step closer. “Dinner?” he asked. “Go-karts?”

“Dinner, yes,” she said with a grin. “Go-karts, no. Sitting on a moto kind terrifies me.”

Rex let out a laugh, though he tried to hide it. “Mini-golf?”

“That’s a lot less frightening,” she said.

He nodded, grabbed her hand and kissed the back, and then turned to leave.

“Wait!” she called out. “How do you know how to get ahold of me? And when is this all happening?”

“You’re gonna tell me,” he said. “And then I’ll call you tomorrow. Also, I still need those dumb shirts. I hope asking you for them now doesn’t make this whole thing less exciting, but... yeah I still need them.”

Sheena just laughed. “There isn’t a damn thing on earth you could do to make this less fun,” she said with complete, total honesty. But if I don’t hear from you soon, I’m hunting you down. Just out of curiosity, why are you so opposed to the callback thing?”

Without any further explanation, Rex pulled his very small, 90s-style mobile phone, out of his pocket. That, and a shrug, was all it took.

“You know where I live,” he said. “I left it on the order ticket that I just put on the desk when you weren’t looking.” He stole another kiss on the back of her hand, and then a half-second later, kissed her cheek. “Talk to you soon? Tomorrow?”

Sheena tore off part of an unused order ticket, and scrawled her number on it. She picked up the paper, looked at it for a second, and wrinkled her nose at the flatly awful handwriting she saw there. “God my writing’s awful.”

Sheena stared for a second longer, and then handed it over to him. “Good thing you’re cute,” he said with a smile. “Call you tomorrow.”

“At the latest,” Sheena said, still grinning although then with her cheeks starting to ache from how long she’d been grinning. “You better be glad I don’t hunt you down and show up at your house at half-past eight tonight.”

“I’d be glad if you did,” he said, turning to leave. “But I won’t be home. I’m much too mysterious and interesting to be sitting at home on random nights. I’m kidding. I’ll be home. You show up, we’ll have a hell of a Netflix marathon,” he said. “That is, if you can handle it.”

“Oh, I think I can,” she said with a grin. “We’ll see.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We will.”