Page 40 of Married into the Mob
I should let my uncle take care of himself because he was the one that started this tragic chain of events. But though he’d betrayed me most of all, and also his wife, I couldn’t let those mob guys—I guessed the ones who’d shot at us—take their revenge on him.
I didn’t have the resources to protect him, and there was one person I knew who did: Hunter. So no matter his freaky behavior and his mob involvement, I’d have to ask him for a huge favor and secret Uncle away, maybe forever. Neither Aunt Louisa nor I wanted to be around him, but perhaps over time, we could… if not forgive him but leave the incident in the past.
“You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“True.”
He was clothed, and a tiny twinge in my briefs reminded me I’d enjoyed getting an extended peek at his substantial length.
Perhaps in another universe, we might have met at the restaurant where I worked, and he’d have left a sizable tip and his phone number. From there we might have dated, and that frisson of danger I experienced when he was close would be explained away by his mob connections. And once that was revealed, I’d have broken it off, sad our bedroom romps and late-night dates had come to an end.
“Odell.”
“Mmmm.” Conscious I had a euphoric smile slapped in my face, I replaced it with a frown.
“You weren’t daydreaming. You did see a wolf.”
“Not once did I think I was dreaming.” I straightened my spine, irritated at his condescending tone.
“Sorry, my mistake.”
His words punctured my annoyance, but he had to fill me in. Come to think of it, he’d been doing that all day. But him becoming a wolf couldn’t be explained away.
“Me and my family aren’t human.” He must have taken in my incredulous expression because he rushed on. “We are human in appearance, but we have an animal inside us.”
I tilted my head to the side, not only from disbelief but from exhaustion. “There’s that poem about a woman swallowing a fly. You trying to tell me you accidentally put a wolf in your mouth and now he lives in here?” I tapped his tummy, and he gasped.
“Explanations and history can come later.” He got up and flung off his clothes. Geez, this guy really wanted to show me his length. And holy crap, I got a better view than I had earlier. My mouth gaped, and if he’d been closer, I might have swallowed his dick.
But his cock vanished. No! Where’d it go? A sound came out of my mouth, not sure what, because the rest of him disappeared, and Hunter the man was replaced by a wolf.
Shit! Now what? I couldn’t get up, and if I did, my legs would give way. They were jelly, and I was a sitting target for a wild beast. The hairs stood up on my arms, and my skin was pin-pricked by goosebumps.
I couldn’t get my breathing under control. Huge jagged gasps of air flowed in and out of my mouth as my brain attempted to compute what I’d witnessed. But the animal was no more, and a naked Hunter was once again standing in front ofme. The threat level had decreased, but I couldn’t make sense of what I’d seen.
“Tell me that didn’t just happen.” I wanted it to be not real, but at the same time, I wasn’t dreaming and I wasn’t crazy.
“It did.” He pulled on his pants, hiding his very fine cock, and squatted on the wooden floor.
He rambled on, and I picked up pertinent pieces of information. Wolf shifter but there were other animal shifters.His family were shifters but not his brothers-in-law. They were like me, human. The kids’ status was as yet unknown. And shifters had lived among humans since forever. Before that, shifters had padded through the woods on four paws.
I rubbed my face too hard and my skin complained. “And Draven?”
“Same. He’s got his own wolf.”
“So—” Hunter opened his mouth, but I shushed him. “Let me think.”
Trawling back through the day’s events, I came to the conclusion that somehow the predicament I’d found myself in was because of shifter grievances.
“Draven, that’s an unusual name.” I’d never heard it before, not that it meant anything. There were millions of given names, and I’d encountered maybe a hundred.”What does it mean?”
Hunter squirmed and appeared more uncomfortable than he had since I met him. “Hunter.”
“I know who you are.” Maybe he needed the sofa, two quilts, and a hot drink.
“One of the meanings of Draven is Hunter. There are other interpretations, but that’s the one his family considered when he was born.”
“Hunter, just like you.” Shit. What were the chances of getting mixed up with two hunters?
