Page 193 of Secret Shifters Next Door

She chewed at her lip. A jolt of fear shot through me. Had I overstepped? Worried I’d offended her, I added, “You don’t have to answer that. I’m sorry. I should have known better.”

Celina shook her head and smiled sadly. “No, it’s fine. I actually did find her.”

“Oh,” I said in surprise, then waited for her to explain.

Celina set her fork down and put her hands on her lap. “I found her right after I turned twenty-one. I’d just sold my biggest book and had a lot of extra money to hire a private investigator to try and find her. He did. She didn’t want to see me.”

“Wait, what?”

She nodded. “I guess she still felt really guilty about giving me up. She also wasn’t married to my dad, and in Brazilian Catholic families, a baby born out of wedlock is still a really big no-no. She more or less told me to have a great life but not to contact her.”

I could understand her mother’s point of view. I’d run from my pack all those years ago, abandoning my parents. I was also ashamed of what I’d done. If Mom and Dad tried to contact me now, would I even be able to look them in the eyes? Could I stand seeing the pain I’d caused them by running out on them? I wasn’t sure, and that didn’t make it right. At least I’d grown up with my parents. Celina’s mom had left when she was so little that she’d missed almost everything. Wouldn’t she want to at least get to know her daughter?

Needing to change the subject, I pivoted. “Well, what brought you to Lilly Valley?”

She visibly relaxed. “I’d hit some writer’s block for the first time in my career, so I came here to get the creative juices flowing again.”

“Is it working?”

She looked across the table at me, her eyes wide. “Yeah, I’ve found…some inspiration in town. I actually finished the book I was stuck on, and I’m working on another.”

I decided now was the time to plant a little seed and see if it would bloom. “Sounds like things are going well. Maybe a month isn’t long enough. Why don’t you stay in town until this new book is done? No way to know for sure you won’t get burned out again once you go back home, right?”

She blinked at me a few times and chewed at her lip. I could see the wheels turning as she considered it. If I hadn’t been using my hands to eat, I would have had my fingers crossed under the table. Finally, she nodded. “That might actually be a pretty good idea. Maybe I will stick around a little longer. Who knows.”

My wolf gave a satisfied growl at hearing that. I covered the sound by clearing my throat. We finished up dinner, and Celina cleared the plates and bowls while I poured us more wine, finishing off the bottle.

She sat back down and took her glass. “All we’ve talked about is me. What do you do for a living?”

“Me?” I asked. “Well, my three best friends and I own a security firm in town. I’m a private investigator. We each have our niche, and that’s mine.”

Celina made a surprised face and looked away. I frowned at her. She didn’t look upset. Instead, she seemed lost in thought, a faint grin on her face. After a few seconds, she whispered to herself, “I need to add that to the story.”

Again, my heightened hearing picked up the words I wasn’t meant to hear. I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant by that. Shelooked at me, and something she saw on my face made her go deathly pale. “Did…did you hear that?”

The look on her face was absolute terror. I did my best acting. “No. Did you say something? I only thought you looked like, maybe, you didn’t like what I did for a living.”

Sighing in relief, she waved me off. “Oh no. That’s not an issue at all. It’s the fact that I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“Is that good or bad?”

She blushed. “It’s good. A good thing, yeah.”

I smiled back. This woman was so sweet and innocent, but I was nothing like that. I wanted her, my wolf wanted her, but I didn’t want to corrupt her. Though, as soon as that thought hit me, ideas about how to corrupt her filled my head. Images of her back arching as I buried my face between her legs, the delicious feeling of my cock slipping into her mouth, the veins standing out on her neck as I made her come. The mental flashes burst unbidden into my head. I knew the wolf probably had something to do with it, and I couldn’t get it to stop. My dick was getting hard. I stood from the table, too fast.

Celina flinched. “Is everything okay?

“Hmmm? Oh, uh, nothing. I mean, yeah, I need to get going. I have…uh, an early morning. A meeting first thing I almost forgot about.” Jesus, I sounded like a panicked fool.

Celina rose. “Are you sure?”

The crotch of my pants was starting to bulge noticeably, and any second now, she’d see my hardness. There was no way to know how she’d react to that. Having been around her, I thought she might be mortified at seeing my physical excitement. Although, from the things she wrote, maybe she’d be equally excited. I couldn’t risk things moving too fast, though. There was too much on the line.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” I said, heading for the door.

She looked disappointed, and I felt like shit for it, but my hormones were raging in a way they hadn’t since I was sixteen. I saw her standing there, and all I could do was imagine her naked, rubbing oil across her body, massaging her own breasts. I swallowed hard and opened the front door.

“Dinner was amazing. Thank you so much. Next time, I’m cooking for you, okay? Uh…anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow probably. I need to get to bed. Bye.”

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