"You should. Your hips are sexy as fuck, your ass makes my dick twitch in excitement, and," he paused as he raised her hand, "you asked me when we first met if I was looking for something, and I said no. Do you remember that?"
She nodded. "Yeah. My magic was going crazy around you. It seemed logical."
"Right. Well, the thing is I was looking for you. Only I'd never admitted that, not normally. Because to me, having someone to love is having someone to lose. I've lost more than I ever thought I could handle."
His bear nudged him to keep going. Caleb wanted to back off and start curling back into his metaphysical hole. He didn't want to be vulnerable, but it was out there now.
She sat down on the bed.
"Tell me about you, Caleb. Tell me what you've lost. I can't get my finger on you or your past."
Fuck. Caleb needed to stop pushing her away. His bear was going to rip him apart if he didn't. His skin started to itch. Yeah, the bear was going to take over if he didn't man-up.
"My life's a bit of a mess. I was found as a small child, alone in the woods. Who knows what happened? Shifters can be unpredictable at times, at least from what I've met. At the time no one knew I was a shifter and the humans placed me into a human foster system. Imagine their surprise when I shifted. After that, it was one home after another as they tried to figure out where I fit. Crazy how the world says we all exist and yet at the end of the day the paranormal world and the human world still don't operate as one."
He closed his eyes as Marci absently ran her hands down his back. Her touch had his bear shimmying as if she was the best tree he could find to rub up against. Caleb couldn't disagree though; he definitely didn't have complaints rubbing against her soft skin as he buried himself within her.
"So, what happened next?" she asked.
"What?" Oh right. He'd been talking. "Well, I finally found a house that accepted me. They had a son my age, and we hit it off. That kid was the driving reason I went on to join the military only he went for the human branch, and I was filtered off to the special forces for shifters. He was my brother in every sense of the word."
He broke off. The heat of her touch keeping him out of the depression that rolled in like storm clouds off the ocean.
"That's where I got to learn that we, shifters, are superior, or so they said. In the end, it didn't matter. We can all die; even a shifter can't heal from a shot to the heart."
Frank came to the edge of the bed, his large body shaking the mattress as he rubbed up against them.
"Oh my God. Has Frank been here the whole time?" Marci squeaked.
"Uh. Yeah."
"But he didn't make a peep last night - between all the ..."
Caleb laughed. "Moaning and screaming?"
"For lack of a better word - sure."
"Yeah. Well, Frank's pretty much deaf. Once he's asleep, you won't usually be able to disturb him."
Caleb reached out and played with Frank's ears. Even Frank hadn't made him feel as calm as Marci had.
"But, I thought I'd heard you call his name."
"Have you actually ever seen him come? I do it out of habit; I don't know that he hears me much anymore."
She glanced at the dog. Caleb swore he could see the gears turning in her head.
"Right. So does Frank need out?"
Caleb shrugged. Franks' tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. "Doubt it. I took him out this morning before you woke up."
She shifted and tucked her legs back under the blankets. "Oh. I didn't even notice."
He laughed. "I'm not sure I like the idea that you didn't notice." He leaned over for a kiss.
She started to giggle and sunk into the bed. "I guess I haven't slept well since I got here."
"I'm not planning to help you sleep ..." he said.
He planned to help her forget that there was ever a life before him and her.
13
Marci's eyes fluttered open. He hadn't lied when he'd guessed the town would shut down for a few days. Annie had checked in yesterday. The thought that Hazel was adjusting to her small flock well, weighed more on her heart than she'd ever have imagined.
That chicken was coming home if Marci had to build her the Buckingham Palace of coops. Once she figured out how to build a coop.
Stretching, every muscle in her body ached. Muscles in her toes protested, what the hell had she done to her damn toes? She didn't care.
How could she not have realized that this was what life should have been like? This is what love felt like. This is what it meant to find the right one.
Right, because she grew up in a bunch of politically motivated bat-shit crazy witches. Her coven didn't believe in fated mates, let alone love.
Marci dug deep into the recesses of her mind and remembered hearing about a witch who'd married a wolf-shifter. That might be the only witch she'd ever known to marry for love. Olivia and Ethan if she recalled. But that wasn't a typical union either. Well hell. She'd already thrown caution to the wind and welcomed chaos into her bed.
Her toes curled as memory flooded her body. That explained the sore toes at least.
She smiled and reached out for him. Two days and she already didn't want to live without the feel of him. Something tugged at her in her mind, and her magic woke from its sleepy hibernation. Not what she wanted, not here, not now.
Being in a small town, she shouldn't feel the need. In the city, she'd figured out how to surprise
