“That’s three words,” Callie pointed out.
“Uh-uh. These pants look like they’re painted on him, making ‘tight’ and ‘leather’ eligible for one-word status. Hyphenated, at the very least. And he’s definitely got the bod to wear them. How often do we get a hunk like that singing Puccini here in Charleston?”
“Not very.” She sipped her cappuccino.
“Uh-huh. Exactly.” Shawna started to say something else when she let out a low whistle. “I’ll take one of him to go, and hold the wrapper, puhleeze.”
Callie turned to look. The coffee shop sat on a corner, with doors opening to both streets. The man had walked in through the coffee shop’s far side door, not the main entrance in front of the counter. His jet-black hair brushed his shoulders but looked right on him, like he spent a lot of time out of doors doing hard, honest labor and didn’t have time to get it cut. His grey-green eyes bore a hint of amber in them. He carried a copy of The Post and Courier tucked under his right arm, likely just purchased from the paper box right outside. Faded, tight blue jeans over worn work boots, and a collared blue knit, short-sleeved shirt highlighted his trim, lithe body. She guessed him to be around six foot and one-eighty.
Mmm. Yummy.
Callie was vaguely aware of Shawna clearing her throat. When she turned, she spotted Shawna’s playful smile. “Girl, I’ve got guys falling out my asshole. Go get him. This one’s on me.”
She’d already jumped up from her seat and taken three strides toward where he had queued in line to order when she realized who he must be.
Fuck!
Okay, well, if she had to hook up with a fleabag, there were far worse looking ones. He was almost as hot as the Lyall triplets down in Florida who Babs had warned her to stay away from.
She stepped into line behind her mystery wolf hunk. He didn’t turn around, but she stared at the back of his neck and enjoyed his warm, earthy scent.
There won’t be anything hard about this job. Well, except hopefully Mr. Hunkalicious’ cock.
When it was his turn, he stepped up to the counter and ordered a large, black coffee, with an extra shot of espresso.
My kind of guy.
When he turned around to step to the end of the counter where the pickup area was located, their eyes locked. For the first time she could ever remember, her mouth went dry.
After what felt like forever, she managed to speak. “Um, hi.”
The hint of a smile curved his lips. She saw the wolf lurking under the surface.
So this is what it feels like to be prey.
“Hello,” he said.
“Ma’am, did you want to order?” the clerk asked.
Callie fought the urge to evaporate the multiply pierced clerk where she stood. “Um, can I get an extra napkin?” she asked without breaking eye contact with Mr. My-What-Big-Eyes-You-Have.
He smiled.
“Ma’am,” the clerk said, exasperated, “the extra napkins are on the tables.” She looked past Callie, who struggled against the desire to make the girl’s head explode. Callie finally rationalized that the girl’s piercings would cause shrapnel and possibly harm innocent bystanders. “Can I help the next person in line?”
“We’d better step out of the way,” Wolf Man suggested.
“Uh-huh.” Callie knew she shouldn’t be reacting like this. No other man had ever made her react like this.
Then again, she’d never fallen for a shape-shifter before. At least, not a wolf.
I am sooo going to kill Babs for this.
She followed him to the end of the counter, where the man stuck out his hand. “Daniel Blackestone.”
She hoped her hand didn’t feel clammy. “Callie Maher.”
Another clerk set his order on the counter. “Large black coffee. Extra shot.”
“That’s me,” he said with a smile, his gaze never leaving Callie’s.
Callie nodded.
“I need my hand back,” he said with a deliciously raised eyebrow.
Oh, you stupid fuck! she chastised herself as she let go. “Sorry.”
He pulled out his wallet, fished out a business card, and handed it to her. Blackestone Construction. “That’s my cell,” he said. “I’m on my way to a meeting, but give me a call. If you’re free later, maybe we can grab something to eat?” One dark eyebrow deliciously arched again. She wished he’d stop doing that. Every time he did, it made her panties even more squishy. “Unless you’re not available?”
“Oh, I’m available!” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a frantic rush. “Anytime!”
“How about we meet at five this afternoon at Prachett’s? My treat.”
She nodded dumbly.
“Do you know where that is?”
“Over on Highway 5.”
He smiled. “See you at five, Callie.”
“Okay.” She watched him pick up his coffee and stroll out of the shop.
It took every ounce of her strength not to follow him.
Shawna’s laugh brought Callie back to the present. She looked over at her friend, who was beckoning her back to the table with a crooked finger. In a fog, Callie returned and plopped down in her chair. Shawna plucked the card from her hand and studied it before letting out a low whistle.
“I’ve heard of him. Honey, you just hit the jackpot if you don’t let him get off the hook. Rich businessman. His company makes a generous donation to the Foundation every year.”
Callie took the card back as her pulse struggled to slow its racing pace. What have I gotten myself into?
* * * *
When Callie finally made it home, she walked into the master bedroom, into the large walk-in closet. She stepped through it into her sister’s dooryard.
Babs, in her maiden form, knelt on the ground next to a small vegetable patch. A little pile of weeds lay next to her.
Callie angrily strode over to her. Babs never looked up. “Okay, sis. What. The. Fuck?”
Baba Yaga still didn’t look up. “Cailleach, you show up at my house unannounced, uninvited, and using that tone of voice with me? That’s very risky.”
“Risky my ass!” She ran a hand through her hair. “Damn it! You set me up! You didn’t say anything about me falling in love with this guy or him thinking I am his mate!”
Babs finally sat back on her heels and looked up at her sister. “I take it you met your wolf?”
“My wolf? Oh, no. Fuck, no! Wait just a freaking minute. You know damn well I’m not out to get hitched.”
“Then walk away from him.”
Baba Yaga’s calm tone infuriated Callie. She sputtered, angry and indignant, until she realized walking away from the man whom she’d just met wouldn’t be possible. Dejected, she plopped down onto the grass. “What am I going to do? This wasn’t what I signed up for,” she wailed.
Babs finally smiled. “You’re going out to dinner with him tonight.”
* * * *
Daniel Blackestone sat in his pickup truck, eyes closed, and waited.
Nope, not going away.
The rock-hard erection he’d developed upon meeting Callie Maher wasn’t getting any better. In fact, as he thought about her, his member throbbed, practically trying to claw its way out of his jeans to go find and fuck her.
To claim her as his One.
Despite all the bullshit he’d been raised on, part of him never expected to meet his One. At least, not like this. Not in line in a coffee shop in Charleston. He certainly never expected this kind of reaction from his body or his soul.
She wasn’t even a wolf. He didn’t know what the hell she was, but human wasn’t among his top thousand choices. She wasn’t a shifter, either. At least, not any shifter breed he’d ever met. Definitely not wolf or canine, and not feline. The only reason he’d let her walk away was because from the way her pulse had raced, and the way her scent suddenly overwhelmed him, he knew she felt the pull, too. She wouldn’t miss their dinner.
She couldn’t any more than he could.
> Her scent reminded him of cold, wet spring on a moor in Scotland. When he shook her hand, he had to fight the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her right there. No woman had ever affected him like that before.
The only thing that kept him from doing it was the fact that they were in public, and that he suspected whatever she was, she had the power to fry him where he stood.
He eventually opened his eyes, resigned to walking around in discomfort all day. Tonight. We have dinner tonight. Then she’ll either be mine, or she’ll kill me in my tracks.
He started the truck and backed out of his parking space. Either way, I will get rid of this boner tonight.
Chapter Two
Callie spent two hours trying to decide what to wear. Another hour trying different hair styles and colors until she went back to the purple streaks.
If he doesn’t like it, fuck him.
Although she strongly suspected she would be fucking him tonight. And well into tomorrow, if she was lucky.
She hoped he didn’t get some silly wolf idea about her being his mate, or whatever the heck it was those wolves did.
Although, if she was truly honest with herself, she realized she might not have a choice. She’d never reacted to any man, human or not, the way she’d reacted to Daniel Blackestone. The flaw in the slaw, so to speak, was the fact that she sensed he was a full-on Alpha wolf, not a man to be dominated. One thing Callie had learned in all her years was she belonged in the driver seat. She didn’t care what Baba Yaga said. She wasn’t looking to get hitched.
This could be interesting.
Her stomach tensed as she drove to the restaurant. A little out in the country, but a homey place with excellent food and a hangout for locals. She sat in the parking lot and tried to talk herself out of this.
I could call his cell and cancel.
Even as she tried to make herself do just that, thinking it the perfect answer to her problem, she grabbed her purse, got out of her car, and locked it before heading inside. Scanning the dining room, she spotted him in a corner booth, his back to the wall and facing the door. He raised his hand in greeting. Totally ignoring the hostess, Callie felt like her feet drifted a few inches off the floor as she coasted over to him.
He stood at her approach and offered a hand. “I’m glad you made it.” His playful smirk told her more than she needed to know. He felt something, too, and he thought he was running the show.
“Thanks.” She shook with him and it took every ounce of will she had to finally disengage her hand and sit in the other side of the booth.
He sat after she did and leaned in across the table. His scent filled her nostrils. She barely managed to choke back a hungry moan.
“Would you like to do this the easy, non-bullshit way?” he asked. “Or do you want to dance around the subject?”
She swallowed, hard. He’d made her. She nodded, not trusting her voice to not squeak.
He smiled. Damn, her panties were already soaked, and she hadn’t even kissed him yet.
I’m sooo going to kill Babs for this.
* * * *
Daniel studied Callie as she walked across the dining room to join him at the booth. He just hoped she didn’t see his throbbing erection straining at the zipper of his jeans when he stood.
Fuck it. Time to cut to the chase. Whatever she was, she knew it, and he wasn’t going to waste precious time or loss of blood flow to his brain pretending they weren’t what they were just to uphold social norms.
He wanted his cock deep inside her pussy, and he wanted it now.
Fortunately, she agreed to his suggestion to quit wasting time with a tentative nod.
He smiled and prayed she didn’t think she was prey. He glanced around before lowering his voice. “What are you?”
“That’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
She shook her head. “You first. You’re a wolf.”
“Give the lady a prize. Now answer my question.”
She glanced down at the table. He got the impression she was not a woman used to feeling outnumbered or overpowered. “Do you know who Baba Yaga is?”
He snorted. “Let me guess, you’re her?”
She shook her head again. “Her younger sister.”
That stopped him in his tracks. He’d always assumed Baba Yaga was a myth.
Then again, so were shape-shifters.
“Her younger sister?”
“You might know me as Cailleach.”
Now that name he knew. His Scottish grandmother had scared him by invoking her plenty of times in his youth, a good hundred and fifty or so years earlier. When he’d wish for warmer weather, she’d say, “Daniel, ye ken better than that. Don’t make the Cailleach angry by wishin’ her away too soon, now. Ye hear me, laddie?”
“But…” He looked at her, dumbfounded. “What?”
Now she smiled. “Yes, I’m Cailleach. Or the Cailleach. Callie’s fine.”
“But you’re human.”
Before his eyes, her hair changed to ginger. “So are you. Just consider me a different kind of shifter.”
He sat back, appraising her with a new eye. “I have to be honest with you—”
“Yes, you do.” She smiled.
“As I was saying, I think you’re my One.”
“You think, or you know?”
“I know.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice. He could smell how wet she was, how much she wanted him. Her cool-as-winter act wasn’t fooling his lupine nose in the least. “I’m going to take you home, fuck your brains out, and mark you.”
He watched the beautiful muscles in her neck work as she swallowed hard. Good. Her composure was on shaky ground.
He suspected that was the only advantage he had over her.
“What exactly do you think you’re going to turn me into?” she asked.
“What you know you are. What you already feel. I’m going to make you my mate.”
“I belong to no man.”
“I’m not a man. I’m a wolf.”
* * * *
Unfortunately, she couldn’t argue with that logic. And she also couldn’t argue with the fact that, if it wouldn’t get them thrown in jail and irrevocably emotionally scar some of the children and adults in the dining room, she’d fuck him right there on the table without a second thought.
Wasn’t the kinkiest thing she’d ever done in her existence, but it would rank somewhere in the top fifty.
“True. But I’m not your average woman.”
“I never said anything about you was average,” he quietly shot back.
Callie suspected the verbal Ping-Pong match would have continued had the waitress not returned to take their drink orders. Alone again, Callie once more leaned in close. “If you think I’m just going to go home with you and submit to you and be a good little wifey, think again.”
He matched her tone and posture. “If you think I’m going to let you walk out of my life without a fight, you’d better think again.”
She sat back, her throat dry. She took the opportunity of the waitress returning with their drinks to slip out of the booth and practically sprint to the bathroom. Fortunately alone, she locked herself in a stall and turned, closing her eyes.
She opened them in Babs’ kitchen. Babs sat at her counter, in her maiden form, a vintage Vogue magazine from 1968 before her.
“What the fuck is going on, sis?”
Baba Yaga didn’t look up from her magazine. In fact, she flipped the page. “You’ve just gained yourself a wolf for a mate.”
“Argh! I don’t want a ‘mate.’ A fuck, a fuck buddy, hell, a friend with bennies, sure thing. A one-night stand, no problem. I don’t want, or need, a ‘mate.’”
That’s when Baba Yaga looked up, her eyes burning. “You said you’d help.”
“Yes, I did! Brighde and I both helped you with the ritual. But this—”
“This is helping. He and his kind are needed. You are an important part of the prophecie
s. Without you, evil will reign.”
Callie let out another scream of frustration and irritation. “What if I don’t fucking care?”
“But you do care.”
“You made me fall in love with this guy—”
“No.” Baba Yaga shook her head emphatically. “I didn’t do that. That was Fate. He is as much your mate as you are his. Your perfect match. There is one small issue, however.”
“‘One small issue’?” She looked incredulously at her older sister. “Only one? Because falling in love with this dude was not on my life plan for today!”
Babs smiled. “When you mate with him, you must submit to him. Willingly. He cannot and will not take you otherwise. It is their way. And if you don’t have him, you will spend the rest of your life miserable, as will he. Not to mention—”
“I know, I know! The whole end of the world, blah, blah, blah, problem.” She heavily sat on one of the barstools. “What is it about him?”
Baba Yaga shrugged. “It’s love. What can I say? It makes us all crazy.” Her older sister’s face clouded with deep pain. “If it’s any consolation, if you mate with him, you are fated to be with him longer than even I can see.”
* * * *
Unless she slipped out through the kitchen, there wasn’t a back door to the restaurant. Daniel sat there, considering if he should follow her or not. When he glanced out the front windows, he could see her car still sat in the parking lot.
So she hadn’t run…yet.
The thought of giving chase to her set his blood boiling in a good way and made his already throbbing cock so hard it almost hurt.
Although he suspected if she truly wanted to disappear, she probably could.
He tried not to glance at his phone every thirty seconds to check the time. He could still smell her scent in the other side of the booth. He knew he wouldn’t be able to force her to become his mate—she could probably kill him where he sat if she wanted to—but he could tell from her scent she wanted him, even though he could also sense she was as shocked by that revelation as he was.
Time to burn my little black book. He’d never had a relationship last more than a few months, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to go a couple of years without a girlfriend. He had his work, pack obligations, and…