Jane

The bell above the door to the shop announced the arrival of another customer, and my breath froze in my lungs when I glanced up and saw the man walking towards me. He was most definitely a shifter—tall, dark, and handsome. Screw handsome, he was more than that. He was downright gorgeous. Thick, black hair. A chiseled jaw covered with scruff. Plump lips that I could too easily picture trailing down my naked skin. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, and long legs that quickly ate up the space between us. He was easily a half-foot taller than my five feet nine inches. I felt downright dainty standing in front of him.

He looked completely out of place in the store; the proverbial bull in a china shop. That didn’t stop me from having to fight the urge to leap over the counter and into his arms, though. My wolf pushed for control, and it was a struggle I hadn’t felt in years. I’d been keeping her on a tight leash—one she’d seemed content to stay on. Until now. Until him.

I spotted the brown paper bag in his hand, and realization dawned. “Gerri sent you?”

“Yes,” he rasped.

I eyed him up and down, taking in the way the black material of his shirt was stretched taut by his muscles and how his jeans molded his legs. Looking at him, it was impossible to argue that my vibrator was getting the job done. Not when he was an alternative.

“Wow,” I breathed out. “You’re the guy she wants to set me up on a blind date with?”

“Blind date?” he echoed. “That’s an unusual way to put it, but yeah, I guess you could put our meeting this way like that.”

I cocked my head to the side, my brow furrowing in confusion. “I’m not sure why you’d call it unusual when that’s exactly what Gerri was supposed to do for me.”

“You were looking for a date?”

“Yeah. She’s one of my customers, and we got to talking about my”—I thought better of bringing attention to my lack of a love life since it was horrifying to admit such a thing to a guy like him, and switched gears—“well, that doesn’t matter. She offered to set me up with a guy, and I agreed to go on one date with him.”

“You got more than you bargained for, then.” He swiveled around and strode to the door. As I rounded the corner of the counter, trying to figure out what he was doing, he flipped over the OPEN sign so the CLOSED side faced outside and locked the door.

“What the hell? You can’t do that!”

“I can, and I did.”

He prowled towards me, and I instinctively backed up a step before straightening my spine and standing my ground. I only had myself to depend on, and I couldn’t afford to let anyone walk all over me. “The owner will fire me if I close the shop early.”

He shrugged his shoulders, as if he was unconcerned about the impact his actions would have on me. “You don’t need this job anyway.”

“Says who?” I gave a disdainful sniff. His scent filled my nostrils, and I knew the answer to my scornful question before he replied.

“Your mate.”

“My mate.”

We spoke in unison.

“Holy shit,” I gasped. “The one-night hook-up Gerri found me is my fated mate?”

His eyes flashed wolf, and I figured he didn’t appreciate my choice of wording. Considering we didn’t even know each other’s names, it might have been considered an overreaction. But being fated mates changed everything.

“I did a lot of research into Gerri Wilder before meeting with her, and I can safely tell you that the matchmaker isn’t in the business of setting shifters up for flings.”

“But that would mean—”

He nodded.

“And she knew—”

Another nod as I waved my hand between us.

“That tricky little...”

“Genius,” he finished for me. “I have no fucking clue how she managed to do it.” He pointed over his shoulder towards the glass windows lining the front of the store. “She asked me where I had parked for our meeting, told me to stop in here, and gave me this.”

He wiggled the brown paper bag before stretching his arm out and offering it to me. I gingerly accepted it, careful to not allow my fingers to slide against his. “Make that an evil genius since she knows how much I love her baking. It’s one of my weaknesses.”

His dark brown eyes narrowed, the flecks of gold in them growing brighter as he considered me. “I’m your fated mate. You don’t need to worry about being weak around me. I’ll be your strength whenever you need it.”

My knees went weak at his declaration. It had been so long since I’d had anyone to take my back, and he made it so simple. So clear-cut. If it had been three years earlier, I wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping into his arms and begging him to mark me. I’d dreamed about this moment as a young girl. Hoped for it as a young woman. And now that it was here, I had a choice to make. I could let what happened to me—what happened to my family—stop me from taking what was rightfully mine. Basically, cutting off my nose to spite my face. Or I could dig deep, woman up, and go for it. So I pulled up my big girl panties—figuratively speaking since I was planning to literally drop them—and reached for his hand.

“I don’t want to do this out here. Come back to the office with me.”

A spark of energy raced up my arm when we touched. He rewarded me with a huge smile and followed me into the back without a single objection. Then again, he didn’t have much to complain about considering what we were about to do. But before that happened, there was something I needed to know.

“I get that mating works fast, sometimes at the speed of light, but don’t you think we should at least know each other’s names?”

“Fuck,” he chuckled.

I waggled my eyebrows at him. “That’s got to be awkward, going through life with a name like Fuck.”

He roared with laughter, and it made him even more attractive. “Seth. My name is Seth,” he finally answered, once he got himself back under control.

“I’m Jane.”

“Jane,” he repeated softly, and I loved the sound of my name on his lips.

The office was cramped, but there was a small love seat shoved up against one wall. When I’d first moved to town and got the job, I spent many a night curled up on it until I’d saved enough money for a deposit on an apartment.

I might have exaggerated a tad when I’d told Seth that my boss would fire me for closing the place early. She was a panda shifter who took an extremely hands-off approach after hiring me. She was more than happy to leave the running of her shop to me while she enjoyed the solitude of a cabin she owned about an hour out of town. About six months later, she’d told me that it was the best decision she’d ever made since business tripled with me in charge. I figured it had a lot to do with her habit of munching on bamboo. It was annoying to shifters, and it freaked out humans.

I dropped down onto the love seat and patted the cushion to my left. “Sit with me?”

“Of course.”

There was barely enough room for the both of us, and I ended up snuggled into his side. Not that I minded. It felt good. Damn good. And when I peeked up at his face to find him staring down at me with eyes filled with blazing desire, I knew he was happy to be close to me, too.

“So,” I sighed, feeling slightly awkward. I was way out of practice when it came to flirting with hot men. “If you knew that Gerri specialized in finding shifters their mates, does that mean you were looking for me?”

He took my hand into his, sliding his thumb against my palm. “Every day of my life.”

Strong, sexy, and still able to be sweet with me. It seemed I’d hit the fated mate lottery.