Page 21 of My Blind Date is a Werewolf

I covered his hands with mine, loving the feel of his calloused palms on my cheeks. “I’m fine. Whoever it was bolted while I was in the bathroom.” I did not tell him that the intruder was likely in the bedroom with me before I went to the bathroom, probably watching me change into my PJs. I shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

“I only caught a flash of a figure dressed in black who disappeared past the Smiths’ place across the street. And it doesn’t look like he stole anything, just broke the latch on my bedroom window and left me feeling unsafe in my own house!” I hissed, now feeling more angry than terrified. Both at myself for allowing these feelings to fester in me and at the person who broke into my house. Were they hoping that I kept money from the coffee shop at home with me?

“Just because nothing was stolen doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call the cops. How sure are you that he didn’t steal anything or, God forbid, leave something behind?”

“I… What do you mean leave something behind?” Bile crept up my throat at his implication. Surely he didn’t mean to say that the intruder left recording devices in my room. Was that too far-fetched? Though, I then remembered that an ex-boyfriend of a college friend had planted video cameras in her bedroom without her knowing and recorded them…uh…you know. After she broke up with him, he’d used the secretly recorded videos to blackmail her. It was a nightmare for my poor friend.

“Where are your keys?” Adrian asked in a demanding tone, holding his hand out toward me.

“My huh? Why do you want my keys?” I scratched at my eyebrow in confusion.

He let out an exasperated sigh, pinching his nose bridge. His eyes had gone wolf bright when he opened them. They were the same as they were in human form, just…brighter. That’s the only way I could describe them. They hand an inner luminescence to them, and I could feel a feral, alien intelligence peering out at me.

“His scent trail could still be fresh. I want to see if I can pick it out and trace it,” he declared, wiggling his fingers as he waited for me to hand the keys over.

CHAPTER 14

I silently watched Adrian do his thing from the bedroom doorway. He took in everything with a detached look that gave away nothing of what he thought. Because I’d slept downstairs last night, my bed was made, thankfully. I had a habit of just getting up and getting ready for work without straightening it out when I felt extra sluggish in the morning.

I wondered what he thought of the room. My queen-sized bed took up most of the space, done up in a frilly, floral bedspread. Aside from the living room, my bedroom was the only other room in the house that I’d made an effort to make it feel homey and comfortable. I’d gone for cool pastel colors on the purple spectrum, my favorite color, and except for the pile of clean laundry in the hamper that needed to be folded, my room was mostly clean.

Adrian walked over to the window, staring at the scratch marks and broken latch for a while, even peering outside as if the intruder would materialize. I’d half expected him to sniff around my room like a dog searching for a scent trail instead of standing still and just…breathing. Surreptitiously breathing in through my nose, I wondered what scents he picked up on since his senses were like a thousand times better than mine. All I could pick up was my vanilla bean scented fabric softener mingling with my perfume and body lotion.

After staring out the window like he was in a trance, Adrian finally moved and walked over to my bed, his scowl deepening as he crouched down and brought one of my pillows to his nose. “Son of a bitch!” he cursed.

“What? What did you pick up?” Instead of answering me, Adrian shot to his feet and stalked to my chest of drawers. A sick feeling bloomed in the pit of my stomach when he pulled open the drawer I kept my underwear in. “Adrian, please tell me what’s going on?” My voice came out muffled because I was cupping a hand over my mouth.

“The scent trail is not as fresh as I would have hoped, but it looks like he sifted through your…your underwear drawer,” he forced out through clenched teeth. “Probably looked through your closet too and laid on your bed.”

All the blood drained from my brain and the room started spinning around me, I felt like someone had sucked the air out of my lungs. I grabbed onto the doorframe to keep from collapsing when I lost all the strength in my legs. Between one blink and the next, Adrian was in front of me, and the next thing I knew I was being cradled in his arms as he carried me downstairs. It all happened in a haze. He deposited me on the couch before heading into the kitchen and getting me a glass of mango juice.

“Breathe, baby, before you make yourself sick,” he urged softly, pushing the glass into my trembling hands. He kept murmuring words of comfort and wouldn’t let me put the glass down until I’d taken four sips.

“There was a pervert in my room, touching my…my freaking underwear and doing God knows what on my bed? Oh God! I didn’t even think to check if any of my underwear was missing. What if he made off with it like a psychotic sicko?” My eyes stung with the need to cry. I blinked furiously to keep them at bay, but that only made the situation worse. Adrian’s worried visage blurred in front of my eyes and I didn’t realize that I was already crying until he swiped a thumb across my cheek to wipe away a stray tear. “How am I supposed to feel safe in my bedroom knowing that?” I shuddered.

“First, you’re going to pack an overnight bag and come over to my place. Then, we’ll call Chief Gleason and explain the situation to him. I can’t place the scent, but it is familiar. I’ll definitely remember it if I run into the loser again.”

I was already shaking my head before Adrian finished talking. “Adrian, no. I can’t impose on you like that. We’ve barely started dating. I can stay over at my sister’s place or even Eden’s—”

“No,” he cut me off, trailing his hand down my denim-clad legs and giving my calf muscles a squeeze. “I need to be sure that you’re safe and the only way we can do that is if you're with me,” he insisted. I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off at the pass again. “Please don’t argue with me on this, Liv. I’m not asking you to move in with me, and this is not me trying to put the moves on you. It’s for peace of mind for both of us. Nothing against Paul and Angie, but no one would be foolish enough to break into a werewolf Alpha’s home. I’ve got plenty of bedrooms to spare and I already have takeout in the car. Besides, I’m guessing you want to keep the break-in private for now. No one is going to bat an eye at the police chief stopping by my home, but what excuse will you give if you go see Angie?”

I opened my mouth to argue and found that I had nothing to say. It was true that I would rather not worry my family over this, at least not until the police got a solid lead or something. And since I didn’t think I’d ever be able to sleep on my bed again—at least until after washing the bed linen or getting a new bed altogether— the idea of staying over at Adrian’s did put me at ease. I felt safe and protected with him, feelings I definitely needed to hold onto right now.

Fifteen minutes later, I buckled into the passenger side of his truck, my duffel back in the bag. My stomach growled when I got hit with the delicious aromas coming from the back from two brown paper bags from my favorite Chinese restaurant.

“That looks like more than moo shu pork with chow mein noodles. What did you get?” I asked, looking over my seat and squinting my eyes as if I would suddenly get X-ray vision and see through the takeout bags.

“I got a little bit of everything—egg rolls, fried rice, sweet and sour chicken…”

“Man! I wish I could scarf down an entire menu and still come out looking like that.” I poked at his hard bicep. All wolf shifters had ridiculously toned bodies, but I had no doubt they all ate as much as Adrian did. His sister Talia had a serious sweet tooth and still had a body like Scarlet Johansson in The Avengers despite giving birth recently. It wasn’t fair! “Do you all have crazy-fast metabolism juju going on? Or maybe you have a secret gym just for wolves to teach you how to keep the paunch away despite eating like pigs?” I asked, patting my own little pouch.

Adrian laughed at the obvious envy in my tone. “Metabolism juju? I suppose you could call it that. We burn a lot more energy and run hotter than other beings,” he explained as we pulled away from my house. Twisting around in my seat to face him, I asked Adrian something I’d always wondered about.

“Are you and your wolf separate entities, like two minds in one body type of deal? Although I suppose it would be two minds and two bodies since you can shift into a full-blood wolf.” I muttered the last bit to myself.

“It’s nothing that complicated, nor is it that simple. I don’t think of my wolf as something other, or as a being separate from myself. He’s just a more…feral part of me, I guess. My thoughts are still my own even in wolf form, just more primal and instinctive—pure, cold animal logic as compared to the human part of me who sees things in black and white with all the shades of gray in between.”

I nodded as if I understood what he meant. I mean, I sort of got it to a point, but I was still confused. “What’s it like, being a shifter? Does it hurt when you shift?”

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