Watching Sylvia’s incredible, tight ass as she rummaged through a dusty box, my eyes narrowed into slits, and my palms tingled. The shorts she was wearing did nothing to ease my imagination, and my bear rumbled quietly at the back of my mind in appreciation. My chest tightened with the phantom sensation of her breasts pressed against it, and I pursed my lips together.

She wasn’t too skinny, with full hips and a generous layer of fat that I wanted to see slowly thin out as she grew rounder.

“If you keep staring at my butt we’re never going to get this done, Ryan.” My eyes flickered up as Sylvia twisted around to look at me. My blood burned at the tease in her voice and the slight smirk she wore. Behind the safety of my jeans, my cock swelled at her confidence. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying the wrong thing, and instead only shrugged absently as my mind tried to find something better to roll off my tongue.

“What’s wrong with looking? I can’t appreciate your body?” We’d been up in this baking attic for an hour or so, and sweat was collecting between my shoulder blades. I couldn’t understand why it was so hot up here when it was maybe 50 degrees outside, but I wasn’t complaining. Sylvia’s thin shirt stuck to her form, and her skin glistened in the bright sunlight that trickled through the few, small windows.

“Ryan, what are we going to do, exactly? Make out and get touchy feeling until I go back home? No - I’m not forcing that on myself or on you.” Abandoning the box in front of me completely, I reached up to scratch my beard. Sylvia was right, of course; she had no plans of staying even after that conversation with her mother this morning. Then again, she doesn’t know I kind of eavesdropped on her.

“It’s not a terrible thing to have a little fun. You’re going to be here for another month at least, right? And if you are dead set on leaving, I’m not going to stop you, but I bet it’s been a long time since you’ve-”

“Do not go there, Ryan.” Sylvia’s gaze hardened into a glare, and I bit back a sigh before shuffling over to her. I could see the physical effect I had on her as color bled into her cheeks and her lips thinned out. Now wasn’t the time to smile, though.

“Listen, if you can look into my eyes and tell me with a straight face that you don’t want me, then I’ll stop trying. We’ll keep a strictly platonic relationship between us.” Watching her think, I knew she couldn’t do what I asked. Hell, she knew she couldn’t if the flash in her eyes was anything to go by.

Taking her biceps in my hands, I held her firmly as hope began to squeeze the air from my lungs. “I get it. You don’t want to go back home and deal with heartache. I understand that very well. But, Sylvia, why is that the only option? I’m not saying to throw your life; I would never ask that of you. Just consider this, consider us, and see where it goes.”

“Why are you doing this to me, Ryan?” My skin prickled at the heaviness of Sylvia’s question, and she heaved a sigh before reaching up to push her fists into her eyes. “Can I think about it?”

Instantly my head ducked in a nod, and triumph filled every cell in my body near to exploding. Dragging my palms up to her cheeks, I couldn’t resist pressing my lips to her forehead. Her gasp rang in my ears beyond the blood that pounded against my ear drums, and finally, a smile cracked my lips.

Releasing Sylvia, I took a good-sized step back to give her some space. “Do you need help moving that box? What’s in it?”

The tension in the air dropped fast enough to give me whiplash, and Sylvia twisted back to the box she’d been working on. My eyes ached to fix on her backside, but I wasn’t going to push it. For a long second, she was silent, staring at the open flaps and what lay below them.

“Uh - just some trains still in their boxes. It can go over there, behind the door.” Over the course of the past few days, I’d realized that what cluttered this attic was Sylvia’s great aunt’s entire life. The old woman had collected so many things, and she had a great eye for the future. A sentimentality like that would’vemade her a wonderful lady, and a deep sadness filled my chest as I wrapped my hands under the bottom edge of the box.

I wished I could’ve met her. Even in her final days, Rachel must’ve been an awe-inspiring woman. It was something that had to run in the family, too, if Sylvia was up here herself going through each and every box by hand. She wasn’t even doing it to figure out what was up here to sell it, which only made her more admirable.

“Do you know much about your aunt’s life before you were born, Sylvia?” I murmured the question, curiosity slowly started to overwhelm the triumph in my veins. Sylvia had told me stories of her aunt before, and I’d found them fascinating. Setting the box on the floor carefully, I turned back around to head back to my original spot.

“Not really, which is a real shame. I remember Auntie Rachel said she didn’t like talking about growing up and aging because she came from money. She didn’t want her grandkids and all of us to have illusions of grandeur… but you can kind of picture how that turned out. I feel sorry for my cousins, but at the same time, I feel even worse for my Aunt. She died, and all anyone thought about was her money.” The box I shuffled through was rather large, but my gaze only skimmed over the bright red pieces inside. It was a vintage peddle car that had never been assembled. There were a few others up here, one of a fire truck and another of a race car.

But I couldn’t focus on that when the soft, sad lilt in Sylvia’s voice stole all my attention. From all the things she’d said since she got here, I had an accurate image of her extended family. Rachel had grown up in oil, had married one of the wealthiest men in the country, and Sylvia’s grandmother, Rachel’s sister, had been a business woman. Money revolved around these women, so there were bound to be a few that would take it for granted. But all of them except for Sylvia? That was a travesty.

“You know, I don’t think the money actually makes a difference. I mean, yeah - it does - but at the same time maybe that’s just how your cousins are. I grew up with no money at all, and my parents weren’t around, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like splurging. Granted, there’s an enormous difference between spending my own money and spending money someone else gifted me, but still…”

“Why weren’t they around? Were they… you know - druggies?” I could sense how uncomfortable Sylvia was from across the room, but instead of answering immediately I grabbed another box. Thinking about my parents always made me sour, but she’d figure it out anyway. One didn’t move to Alaska at 18 as a guardian for a 13-year-old for no reason, after all.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. Only my parents drug of choice was the wilderness. They’d leave for Shoshone National Forest for days at a time when I was young, and then it turned into weeks. I had to grow up fast even before Lucy came along. When I turned 18, I brought us both here, and three years later I opened up my bar.” My tongue felt thick as I basically lied to my possible future mate. Even by omission I still felt grimy. My parents weren’t wilderness nuts and nature experts. They were shifters that lost themselves in their animal and couldn’t shift back to their human form.

But I shouldn’t feel too bad. It was their fault anyway. They didn’t even send us to human schools, so how human could they have been?

“I’m sorry, Ryan… I didn’t mean to be insensitive.” Glancing up, I pursed my lips together as Sylvia came into view. She was just standing over a box, her body immobile and face pinched with concern.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago, and to be honest, it doesn’t bother me anymore. Lucy, on the other hand- I would never suggest bringing it up. She gets crazy.”

“We haven’t spoken yet, actually, but something tells me Lucy doesn’t like me very much.” Now that I could believe. I was glad Lucy didn’t like Sylvia.

I wasn’t sure I could handle them being friends.