chapter 3
“Hey, Michael.” Shyne smiled on Tuesday night. “You joined!”
She had met Michael at the fair on Saturday. He was just amazing. Sandy blond hair cut in a tousled way, bright blue eyes, and the most perfect set of lips. The tight black sports shirt he wore showed off a nice chest and stomach, muscular but not overly so. Personally, she preferred a man with a nice body, not crazy muscular like most of the meat-heads at the gym — not to mention the owners. She liked her man to take care of himself but not be insane about it. She knew a lot of the women in her classes swooned over Dante, Cairo, and Mason, but she wasn’t one of them. If she liked Mason, it was because of his sweet personality, not his muscles on top of muscles.
Michael slung a bag over his shoulder as he checked in with Kathy. He flashed Shyne a smile that was all perfectly straight white teeth and a dimple for days. “You were very convincing, Shyne.”
“Aw, thanks. So you want to bounce around with me?” Mortified, she blushed hard and groaned. F*cking great, woman. “I mean, did you want to take my class?”
“Maybe I’ll sit in sometime.” He grinned further, and the dimple deepened. Oh, to kiss it. That would be heaven.
“You do that.” She smiled at him.
He walked away with a wink to stow his bag in the locker room, following a few of what appeared to be his friends. Kathy had flirted with all of them, but Michael had ignored her completely. He got points in her book for that.
Shyne's schedule had filled up fast. Already she had enough new recruits from the weekend and contacting current gym members to have a class every night during the week. She tried to shake things up with what was offered, including high impact, low impact, step, and fat-burning workouts.
The boys worked in shifts. Cairo opened the gym. Mason came in around lunchtime. Dante stayed until closing. The strange thing was that since she’d met Michael on Saturday, they had been acting weird. Trying to get closer to her. She had caught a jealous vibe from them the moment she met Michael.
She couldn’t figure out why, but she liked Michael right away. It felt like they had an instant connection on some deep level. And she really wanted to ask for his number or give him hers at the fair, but Dante had pulled her away and then Michael was gone. She was so happy to see that among the men named Michael who had joined up for the fair special, he was one of them.
Trav thought she was just horny. Maybe. But it seemed like more than that. Did she believe in love at first sight? Not really. But then again…
After her class, she stood against the second floor railing and let her eyes run over the first floor. Standing in front of the mirrored back wall, Michael was doing curls with heavy dumbbells, watching his reflection. Her feet were suddenly moving without her really thinking about it.
“You’re still here,” she said, coming to stand near the weight rack. That sounded a lot more casual in my head.
He smiled. “Sure. It’s a half hour drive from Allen up here. I wanted to make it worthwhile.”
“That’s quite a drive.”
“Yep. You live around here, Shyne?”
“I have an apartment in Austin, it’s not too far from here.” She watched his bicep tense and relax. It was almost hypnotic.
They talked casually while he worked out for a few more minutes, but then he began to stretch out his arms, and she had the sinking feeling he was leaving. He explained why he had to leave. “I’m part-time running the bar in Allen. Our pack owns it, and someone has to keep the peace. I got drafted to do that.”
“Pack?”
“Werewolf.”
“Oh. Are you and your friends?” she gestured around.
“Yeah. Does that bother you?” He stopped stretching his arm long enough to give her a serious look. There was something in those baby blues that just screamed she could trust him. And she did.
“Nah.”
He relaxed and went back to stretching, and she fished for some more details about his life. “Tell me about the bar.”
“It’s not my life’s work, you know? But I don’t mind it. I’m hopeful that one of these days a manager will come in and take over so I can get back to working on bikes and cars. It’s called Jake’s, after the former owner; we never changed the name.”
A tall, blond, muscular man strode up to them. “Yo, man, we need to hit it.”
He held out a bag to Michael, and he straightened and took it. “Right.”
The man who gave him the bag raked his eyes up and down the length of her body, and it made her want to retch. Michael cleared his throat in a way that sounded like he was growling, and the man glanced at him with a nod, turned, and walked out.
Cool.
“Have a good night, Shyne.”
“Thanks, Michael. You, too.”
Gracing her with another of his killer smiles, he turned and walked out of the gym. She thought her heart might give out.
Glancing at the clock, she decided to call it a night and go get some man-trapping advice from Trav. Once she was home, showered, and wearing her comfy jammies, she padded across the hall to Trav’s apartment and found him watching a Family Ties rerun. Snagging some popcorn, she told him about Michael showing up at the gym and what she felt had been a good flirting session.
“So go for it. Next time he comes in, ask him out for coffee.”
“Coffee?”
He waved his hand absently. “Or whatever you straighties do on first dates.”
She hummed non-committally in her throat.
“What’s the matter, baby girl? You think he was just flirting for the sake of flirting?”
“I don’t know. He seems sweet. Genuine. And it was like I couldn’t help but go talk to him, you know?”
“Nope.”
She gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder and grabbed another handful of popcorn. “Maybe I’ll wait for him to make the first move.”
“Sounds brilliant, unless slutty desk girl gets to him first.”
“Good point. I’ll think about it.”
In the end, she did think about it, but way more than she should have, and she effectively thought herself out of asking him out for anything even remotely close to coffee.
The week eeked by. The only time that sped by was when he came in every day. She talked to him each day, and the very strangest thing that happened was that Cairo, Dante, and Mason started to get a little overly attentive toward her. Suddenly, she wasn’t just their friend, but it was like they were actively trying to get to know her better. But what might have been even stranger was that they seemed to be making a group effort. Once more her thoughts that they shared women came to the front, and that made any other thoughts that even touched on curiosity with them fade away to nothing.
Friday, when she was pathetically stalking Michael from the second floor while he joked around with his wolf friends and worked on various parts of his upper anatomy, making her want to see all of that anatomy up close and personal, she chewed on her lip in frustration. She didn’t want to go a whole weekend without seeing him, but was she maybe moving too fast or being desperate and clingy by asking him out? Hell, she was desperate, but did she want him to know that?
She jumped when Dante spoke into her ear, “Wolves aren’t known for being monogamous.”
She glanced at him in confusion. He shrugged. “The full moon makes them crazy. If they aren’t mated to a she-wolf they can f*ck on the fly, they take the females in their packs. It’s why humans don’t stay with them, because of the cheating.”
She looked straight into Dante’s dark eyes. She remembered what she’d seen in Michael’s eyes every time she looked into them: honesty, truth, caring — all the things she wanted to see in a man’s eyes. In Dante’s eyes, she saw nothing close to that. Swirling in the depths of his eyes were anger and jealousy. She didn’t like either of those things.
“Goodbye, Dante,” she said firmly and walked down the steps to the first floor, now more determined than ever to ask Michael out.
“Hey, beautiful,” he grinned and put the bar down. “I was hoping you’d come down to see me instead of staring holes into my back from the second floor.” He wiggled his brows and gave her a p-ssy-melting smile.
She shrugged. “You’re cute, what can I say?”
“Cute?” Mock offense colored his features. “Bunnies are cute. Wolves are tough. Dangerous. Sexy.” His voice dropped low on the end, and it slid down her spine like a caress.
“Sorry, sorry. Mr. Tough-Dangerous-Sexy-Wolf.”
He barked out a laugh and shook his head. “You’re a trip. So I heard that there’s a holiday tomorrow.”
July 4th was tomorrow. “No shit?”
He smirked. “No shit. Apparently, people get together on this holiday and hang out. That sound like something you’d be interested in?”
Her heart stuttered. Was he actually asking her out? She licked her lips to buy herself some time. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”
He told her about a lake in Allen where his friends gathered in the summer to swim, barbecue and hang out. There would be fireworks when it got dark. He offered to come and get her or to give her directions, and she decided the better idea would be to drive herself.
He disappeared into the locker room and came out with his bag, his cell phone in his hand. He took down her phone number and email address, promising to email the directions. He gave her a devastating grin that threatened to melt her sports bra off her body and left with his buddies. She wondered if he’d been waiting around for her to come down and talk to him? Wicked. Cool.
An hour later, she was freshly showered, wearing her psychotic bunny pajama shorts and tank and pressing the refresh button on her inbox repeatedly. “You’re going to get a muscle cramp from that,” Trav said, handing her a glass of wine.
She laughed, but it wasn’t real. She was too nervous to appreciate good sarcasm right now. Once he sent her the email, then she’d feel more confident. Right now she was feeling about as confident as a virgin on her wedding night.
Trav tried to distract her with tales of his latest obsession, the newbie firefighter, fresh out of the academy. He sounded right up Trav’s alley, and she’d probably be drooling over him too, if she didn’t have a serious thing for Michael.
“Do you think he’s gay?” She sat back with a sigh and took a sip of a sweet white zin. She swore she wasn’t going to check for a whole five minutes.
“I don’t know. Anything’s possible.”
“Do you suppose that even if he is gay that he might not be out of the closet because of the ultra-male way that firefighters can be?” She peeked at him through slit eyes. He leaned his head on his upturned hand, his elbow planted at the back of the couch.
“You could field him out for me.”
Now she really did laugh. Opening her eyes all the way, she said, “I will not confirm someone’s homosexuality for you. And besides, if he’s not gay then I’m going to have to be mean to him, because I’m into Michael. At any rate, I don’t date firefighters.”
Scoffing, Trav took a sip of wine. “Just because Brett was a dick doesn’t mean that all firefighters love the job more than they love their significant others.”
“He didn’t love the job more; he loved the money that came with working for two houses more.”
“I suppose you could do a lot worse than a small-town mechanic.” He made a gesture with his head toward her laptop, and there in bold was a brand new email. She squealed and slapped her wine glass down hard enough on the coffee table that some of the wine spilled across the scattered magazines.
From: Michael Garrett
Subject: Tomorrow
Shyne, although I have every confidence in your navigational skills, I think it would be easier if we met at the bar in Allen. You can leave your car there, and I’ll drive you to the lake. Getting to Allen is easy, but the back roads to the lake can be tricky, and I’d hate for you to miss all the fun. I’ve included a link to a map from Austin to the bar, and my cell number is below. Please call me if anything comes up. I’ll be waiting for you in the parking lot at 5:30. You don’t need to bring anything except your beautiful smile. And maybe a towel. Drive safe. Michael
She read the email three times before her brain was convinced it was real. Halle-f*cking-lujah! After doing a little happy dance with Trav and toasting what she hoped to be the start of something amazing, she crafted a carefully worded email back to Michael, entered his phone number into her cell and sat back to bask in the glow of waiting for tomorrow night.
“You know what this means, right?” Trav said with a grin. “You need a bikini. We have to go shopping!”
By the time she had cleaned her little apartment and got ready to go to the mall the next day, Trav was tapping his sandaled foot impatiently in the foyer between their apartments. “Come on, sweetness. Let’s go find you something so sexy that wolf won’t know what hit him.”
They skipped the department stores and went straight to the swimsuit store on the second floor of the mall. Like a rainbow of debauchery, bathing suits hung from the walls in varying styles from simple one pieces to tiny scraps with thread holding them together.
Right away she set the ground rules. “No thongs, I don’t know him that well yet. And nothing too indecent. There might be kids there.”
“Boo.” He thrust his lip out. “Fine, but I pick the color and style.”
She trusted Trav’s sense of style more than anyone else. He’d never steered her wrong yet, even if he did have rather expensive tastes for a guy that slung coffee all day.
She flipped through the suits but knew her opinion only mildly mattered. Shoving a handful of suits at her, he pushed her towards the open dressing room, and she went inside. After stripping off all but her panties, she began to try them on.
Too orange.
Too leopard.
Too tiny.
I said no thongs!
Standing in the open door, she popped her hip out and gave him what she hoped was a sultry smile. “Yeah?” she asked.
Although it looked ridiculous with her bikini panty hanging out, the sleek black suit was hot. The top was a string-tied halter with a twist between the soft triangle shaped cups that covered her ample breasts just right. The bottoms were matching triangles that covered most of her cheeks and tied on the sides.
“Oh yeah, baby girl. Can’t go wrong with basic black, and it looks awesome with your skin tone. Right, man?” He made a gesture to the man who was working behind the counter, and he leaned over, looked at her until his eyes bugged out, and nodded enthusiastically. “See? And he’s actually looking at your body. I’m just looking at the fabric and the design.”
Laughing as she changed back into her street clothes, she tossed the suit over the door to him, and it was waiting for her at the counter where she paid for it, took the clerk’s number on a slip of paper, and left. Discreetly tossing the paper in the trash on the way to the nail salon, Trav groused that she had all the luck.
While she got a mani-pedi and he got a man-medi, he said, “You sure you can’t dig into one of those beefy guys you work for? Is Michael that good looking?”
“Yep. You’ll see. I have a good feeling about him.”
After picking out cherry red with a glitter top coat for her sport length natural fingernails and toes, they stopped for lunch before heading home. She packed a bag with a change of clothes for after the fireworks. She wasn’t sure she wanted to sit in her bathing suit in the bar, if they ended up doing that, and she was all about being prepared for any eventuality.
She donned the bikini then slipped on a pair of jean shorts, a fitted red tank top, and a pair of casual red wedge sandals. She left her hair plain and long and slipped on her mother’s gold butterfly charm necklace.
Just before five, she stepped out of her apartment with a small duffel containing a change of clothes and shoes, a beach towel, her cell and wallet, and locked the door. She hoped his friends and family liked her, but she really only cared that Michael liked her and that he kissed her at the end of the night.
She was pretty sure that one kiss could change everything. For both of them.