Page 61 of Eat Your Heart Out

“Shit.” He held it out to her, blushing.

“Thank you.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. I dropped my hand in front of my zipper to hide try to hide the bulge that formed from witnessing that simple act. I hated to think what would happen if she actually kissed him on the lips. Maybe I’d jizz in my pants like a schoolboy looking at his first girlie magazine.

As she put it on, I elbowed Teddy out of the way, holding out my elbow for her to take. “I’ll walk with you while the other two run over there.”

When Teddy went to put up a protest, Noel pulled him outside, talking too quietly for us to here. And then they transformed into Noel’s wolf and our panther, bringing a gasp to Mel. “I’d heard that you were a mixed community, but I didn’t believe it… like this.”

“How did you think it would be?” I closed the door behind me, genuinely curious.

“I thought friendly across species, but you seem more.”

I took her hand in mind and nearly shivered in my thinner flannel shirt when the wind picked up. But if I almost shivered, she shook, gasping for air behind her scarf. And as much as I wanted to keep touching her, taking our time on the walk, she needed to be out of the cold. “Let’s shift. It will make the walk faster and warmer.”

Her eyes widened and her heart rate jumped, beating loud enough that if I would have been a vampire, she would have called me from a kilometre away. “I, uh.” She gulped as her eyes closed. “I don’t shift in front of others.”

The heartbreak in her voice broke me. I reached for her, pulling her to me as I lifted her off the ground so that our chests pressed against each other. With one arm banded around her lower back, I used my free hand to yank on her scarf, pulling it down to reveal her plump lips. “You’re safe here. Nothing will hurt you.”

And then I kissed her. She stiffened in surprise for half a second before her lips moved under mine, pressing harder, deeper, or maybe that was me. My knees wobbled as my body heated, tingles raced through me like lightening, confirming my silent thoughts. She was my, our, mate.

She pulled away and I let her, even though I hated the distance between our faces. I could still feel her heart racing, keeping time with the jumping acrobatics mine competed in. The dazed look in her eyes made me feel proud. I’d put that look there and I wanted to keep doing it.

“You’re… uh… that’s not possible.” She pressed against my chest and wriggled, wanting to be released, but I wasn’t about to. Not until we reached an agreement that wouldn’t have her running away from me because I could see the panic nipping at her heels, urging her to flee.

“It’s very possible. And we need to talk about what just happened, but later, after you’ve had a chance to see the pumping station.” At my words, she calmed. I’d noticed it earlier when she’d been overwhelmed. The moment she talked plumbing, her emotions went away, and she became a strong, confident professional. I lowered her to the ground, unable to stop myself from making sure her body slid down mine, pressing against me the entire way. When her feet touched the ground I leaned over, pressing my lips to her ear. “I told you you’re safe to shift with me.”

She glanced around, brushing her lips against mine when I didn’t move my head. She took a step back and tried to glare at me, but I gave her a slight pout of innocence that had her lips twitching and her eyes sparkling.

“Trust me, my panther won’t let anything happen to you.”

“It’s not that.” She shrugged, letting out her breath in a rush, making her upper body look like it was deflating. “I’m just a little small. And this snow…”

I grinned. “Then you can just ride me.” I winked as her eyes rounded and that blush, I wanted to put on her cheeks made an appearance. “In your animal form, that is.”

“Fine,” she huffed. And then the cutest little cat stood before me. The colour of her fur, which matched her hair, stood out against the white snow. The snow which she tried to insinuate was deeper than she was tall—and it was. I smoothly changed and then laid down in front of her, letting her climb onto my back although the thought of picking her up by the scruff of her neck with my teeth like adults did to their young made me shake with laughter. That was until she dug her little claws into me.

That just got me hot.

Chapter Five

Noel

A sand cat, a fucking sand cat is what she is. Fuck. I doubted I’d ever seen one before although I’d heard rumours that they existed in Asia, but off all the shifter communities, they were some of the most elusive. They didn’t tend to intermingle with other shifters at all, preferring to take their business to humans when they interacted with the outside world. So, what the fuck was she doing in Canada and probably alone? No wonder she was so cold and bundled up in her human form. She’d probably never experienced temperatures this low before and this wasn’t the worst it would go.

As Freddy lowered himself to the ground to allow her to climb off his back, I winced when I saw her tiny claws dig in. Not that he seemed to mind. In panther form, he couldn’t hide how hard his dick was behind clothing. I understood his response. I had the same problem from the moment I saw her and that was after my little run-in with Amber that should have rendered me impotent for days. But the moment I heard her sweet voice—the slight rasp of an accent only made it sweeter—and saw the river of her golden hair, my dick popped back to attention, reminding me how lOng it had been since I’d gotten laid.

She stood back in her human form, arms wrapped around her waist as if to ward off the cold. She spun, noting everything that her gaze landed on before she turned to me. “Who picked this location?”

That feeling in my gut that I wouldn’t like what she was about to tell me in response to my answer intensified. “Jeffers”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything, only walked towards the small outbuilding that looked like it could have been an old outhouse except for the solar panel arrays.

“Why? What’s wrong with it?” I called out as I raced after her. A single step of mine matched four of hers.

“Well, it’s not the best location, but”—she pulled open the door—“a-ha. And this is your problem.” She motioned to a weird piece of machinery located inside the building.

“What is it?” the twins asked at the same time. Their voices blended into a pleasant harmony.

“It’s the pump to move the water, but it’s the wrong one. This one only circulates water when the valve is open at one end, using the pressure difference to turn it on. It’s not the best way to run the system, but it does use less energy since it’s on standby mode until needed. But when I checked out the houses and saw how the water mains entered the basement, I wondered if the pipes weren’t buried deep enough underground to keep from freezing. So stagnant cool water, cold temperatures, and then someone turning on the water or multiple people turning the water on at the same time would have increased the pressure in the pipes, causing them to break at their weakest links… the incorrectly plumbed joints.”

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