If women could get blue balls, then that’s what I suffered from all day Wednesday. Every brush of my silk panties against my body had me growling Nick’s name. I heard innuendoes in the innocuous and from the wholly unsuitable. Work suffered from my complete lack of concentration while I fantasized about what I could have done last night instead of crawling under Nick’s down comforter and pretending to sleep.
All night he’d stayed on the condo’s first floor, presumably on the sofa. The only time he’d moved was when his phone alarm went off at half past six and he’d come upstairs to change for work.
Nick had snuck me home so the police wouldn’t have a Texas-sized cow when I didn’t appear for work. He’d then “appeared” at my apartment door to give me a ride to the office. We’d driven by a coffee shop on the way so we could get caffeine and muffins—the highlight of my day so far. In the forty minutes of travel time, we hadn’t said more than a handful of words. I didn’t know if he’d be picking me up after work.
I called Karen for lunch because I needed to let off a little steam. She met me at the deli across the street, looking bright-eyed and beaming. I instantly wanted to hit her.
She set her pink Coach purse on the round table I’d picked in our favorite corner and settled herself, pink suit dress and all, onto her chair. The broad smile she gave me made me wish I hadn’t called her with ranting in mind.
“Things must be going well with you and Dean,” I said.
Karen went starry-eyed, blinking rapidly. “Yes.” She sighed—a dreamy look on her face. “It’s…lovely.”
I made myself smile because I was happy for her even if it highlighted the lack of lovely in my life. “I’m glad.”
She reached across the small table and squeezed my hand. “Thank you for going to dinner the other day. You were right. We needed to move to the next stage. And so I’ll buy!”
Karen scampered to the order counter before I could argue. She put in an order for our usual sandwiches and returned with empty coke cups. By the time the counter called our name we’d filled the styrofoam with icy liquid and grabbed all the fixin’s we’d need.
Karen chatted about work and her weekend plans with Dean. They’d scheduled shopping, dinner and a movie, and some quality time in bed. My blue balls reared their ugly heads with a reminder of how my quality time in bed with Nick had been cut short.
Karen used the corner of her bread to sop up some of the oil and seasonings that had seeped out of her sandwich. “Have you seen Nick since Saturday?”
If she’d been able to hold my gaze, I might have thought the question had been an innocent one. But she was up to something.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m thinking you knew that though.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Dean mentioned it.”
Harrumphing, I said, “How does Dean know Nick anyway?”
“They went to college together, I guess.” She shrugged and wiped up more oil, nibbling on the bread without dropping a bit on her pretty suit.
I puckered my mouth before I thought better of giving her any ammunition. Smoothing out my expression, I adopted what I hoped was a neutral tone. “What did Dean mention?”
“He said Nick asked him where you worked.”
That explained how Nick ended up outside my apartment. He must have followed me home after work Monday. Except…he’d been outside my apartment on Sunday. Had he followed me home Saturday night?
I suppose in the end it didn’t matter.
I wanted to tell Karen so much—about the guy with the gun outside my apartment, how my place wasn’t safe, and the whole story of Nick giving me blue balls. But I couldn’t share any of that without admitting Nick had done something bad to a bad person.
“Dean says Nick is a really good guy,” Karen said. “He’s just been…struggling since school.”
Yeah, because he’d been infected with a virus that made him turn into a giant bear.
“But he has a really good job,” she said. “He’d be quite the catch.”
I set aside my sandwich. “He does?”
She nodded.
Toying with the lettuce that had flopped out of my bread, I contemplated asking her what kind of job he had. But that seemed like something I ought to ask Nick instead. Why hadn’t I?
Last night I’d wanted his cock. Badly. Yet I was shy when it came to learning anything about him. I hadn’t had the courage to ask him about the Transforming until he’d brought it up, and even then I hadn’t requested details. The reason smacked me in the face as surely as if Karen had thrown her drink at me.
I rolled up the rest of my sandwich in its paper. “Nick is gorgeous, and when he’s not drinking beer, he seems like a decent guy like Dean says. But… I just…” I wiped my hands on my napkin, and then crinkled it into a tiny ball, squeezing the paper as hard as I could. “I’m not interested in catching him.”
“Gorgeous, decent, and can support himself,” Karen shook her head, “yet you’re not interested.”
I shrugged, frowning. “He and I bicker all the damn time. Something about him sets me off, and I think something about me does the same to him.”
Karen closed up her sandwich and smirked at me. “Yeah, it’s called attraction.”
Sucking on my straw, I used the moment to consider what she’d said. Attraction couldn’t be the only reason I wanted to hit Nick over the head with a lead pipe half of the time we were together, could it?
She got to her feet, depositing her trash into the nearby bin. “You should ask to see some of his work. I think it might change your opinion.”
“About him setting me off?”
Karen smiled and lifted her purse. “No, about your lack of interest in catching him. I’ve got a one o’clock. Sorry to eat and run, but I gotta jet.”
With that cryptic comment, Karen gave me a finger wave, and then swept out of the deli.
Nick awaited me in the parking garage after work. The ratty jeans and navy t-shirt he’d pulled on this morning were gone, replaced by a pair of black slacks and a silver-threaded navy top. His too-long hair clung to his neck in damp strips.
I narrowed my eyes and came to a stop at the back of his Honda. “Did I interrupt something?”
His mouth puckered. “Huh?”
Motioning at him, I said, “You look like you just came from getting cleaned up.”
His pale skin went pink. “I got dirty at work.”
That was an opening to ask what he did for a living. Instead, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d gotten dirty with someone.
“I thought we’d get burritos.” He headed for the driver’s side.
I followed, pulling open the passenger door as soon as he’d unlocked it.
Nick ignored his safety belt and looked over as I flopped onto the seat beside him. “You can pick if we eat there or get take out.”
I snapped on my seat belt, and then faced him. “Will you let me do what I want to you if we get take out?”
His eyes flared. That seemed like a good sign until he answered me with a question. “You going to answer me about the good girl, bad mouth question?”
Sticking out my lip mutinously, I said, “You going to answer me about why it matters?”
“Maybe after enough beers.”
I muttered an unkind word under my breath.
“Dine-in it is.” He twisted his keys in the ignition.
This time the unkind word wasn’t muttered at all.
Full of burritos, tortilla chips and beer, I was queasy from the fake-out-the-cops dance we’d done at my apartment before driving to Nick’s. The only thing I wanted to see inside Nick’s place was his bed. So the glaring Asian woman tapping her foot by his front door had me slamming to a sloshing halt.
Was this a lover of his? I couldn’t tell her age but the regal lift of her head hinted she was older than me, probably quite a bit older. Did Nick like that in a woman?
Her sculpted eyebrows wrinkled in tight lines as she scowled. She saw Nick over my shoulder and launched into a shrill litany. “This is the basic white girl Ji-woo told me about, Nicholas? What is she doing here? I know you aren’t going to invite her inside your condo.”
He nearly smacked into my back and made a gurgling noise before he got control of himself.
Nick said a few words in a language I didn’t understand. The woman growled a foreign word back. He stomped forward and unlocked the door. She strode through, chin hiked. I remained where I was, not wanting to invade a lovers’ quarrel. He motioned me forward, and then followed the woman in, saying something in their foreign tongue. I hovered just inside the door with his dining room table as a barrier, unsure what I was supposed to do in this situation.
The woman jabbed one stumpy-nailed finger at me. Her pitch rose in relation to her volume. Whatever she’d said, it hadn’t been complimentary.
“Her name,” Nick said, “is Shelby.”
The woman responded in the other language, eyes darkening even further.
He shook his head and sighed, going to the refrigerator. There he grabbed a bottle of beer and popped the top. Did this woman know how much more of an asshole he’d become in a few minutes if he continued chugging that bottle?
She must have, because she made flapping gestures at him and mimed drinking as she continued her haranguing.
Nick focused on me. “My mother doesn’t like that you’re here.”
His mother? Was that who stood at the third vertex of our little triangle, staring samurai swords at me?
Eyeing her warily and him with caution, I asked, “Does your mother know that you made me come here?”
He nodded. “Yes. She said I’m stupid.”
I would have liked to hear the reason he’d given her for my presence. Without it, I could only offer a wan smile. “I can go home if it’s going to be a problem.”
“My mother often forgets that I’m nearly thirty and a grown man who doesn’t need her permission to invite a woman to my home,” Nick said.
“Still,” I shifted onto one hip, “I don’t want to cause family trouble.”
He guzzled a third of the beer. “It’s not your fault my mother is racist.”
The mother in question ranted up one side of Nick and down the other, edging around his dining table. Once finished, she marched the rest of the way out the door, as far from me as she could manage. I stared after her, surprised how rude she’d been. Maybe she really was racist. Why else would she be so opposed to my being in Nick’s condo when she hadn’t known so much as my name? It wasn’t as if Nick had shoved a diamond engagement ring under her nose—attached to my finger. I wouldn’t have minded shoving a finger at her—the middle one, sans ring.
“Sorry about that,” Nick said on the way to close the door.
His irate mother had certainly put a damper on my libido. I gave him a twisted smile. “Can I have a beer?”
Nick laughed softly, but strode for the refrigerator. “Sure. I’m about ready for another one.”
“Uh oh.”
He opened the door and pulled out two using his free hand. Popping the top and handing one to me, he never released his nearly empty bottle. I sipped mine, enjoying the chill sliding down my throat. Watching me, he finished his and tossed it, and then carried the new one to his sofa.
“There’s probably something on TV.” He flopped onto the center cushion. “What are you into?”
Sex .
I bit down on the response, surprised at how this man ignited my hormones. He’d started it. Or he had, days ago. Then he’d gone cold.
I shrugged. “Whatever is on when I sit down.”
His eyes bulged. “You just…watch what happens to be on?”
“Yes. Is that weird?”
His one squinted eye hinted it was weird. “Do you sit down at the same time every day?”
“No.” I shifted to behind the sofa, feeling like a mutant because I’d never been a fan of any particular show.
“Wow.” Nick shook his head and blinked slowly. “I’ve got some movie channels, too. Do you like chick flicks?”
“Some.” I shrugged. “Seriously, just put whatever you want on. It’ll be fine.”
He eyed me skeptically, but lifted a sleek remote control from the cushion beside him. After a few clicks, Nick got the screen attached to his wall to come alive. A soft-spoken Englishman narrated a jungle scene, giving the big cat’s stalk gravitas it hadn’t needed. Fast as a clap of lightning, the creature sprung onto the back of a hapless brown beast. The cries had me wincing. This was nature horror. Or perhaps a workshop on how to kill for the Werebear only a few feet away from me.
“Maybe something a little different.” His face went pink as he hit several buttons.
An announcer using shouty caps took over the television’s speakers. Add to that the two sweaty guys grinding in front of a bloodthirsty crowd and it could only be one thing—wrestling. I came around the sofa’s arm and sat. My thigh barely missed Nick’s, and I was good with that.
He dropped the remote control and scratched at his scalp, yawning. Even seeing the move out of the corner of my eye made me go a little melty inside. Nick was adorable on top of being gorgeous.
“So, what do you do all day?”
Nick glanced at me and lifted his eyebrows. “Depends on the day?”
I laughed quietly, embarrassed. “I was trying to ask what you do for a living.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “I’m an artist.”
An artist? How was that a decent job according to Karen? Hadn’t she said that?
I drew a leg up onto the cushion and faced him. “What kind of art?”
“I do scenic and prop design. Mostly its set pieces for live productions, custom items for private collectors, and the occasional figure for a movie.”
“Figure?” I tilted my head as if the answer would be found under his right earlobe.
He nodded. “I did a dragon head for one of the recent fantasy movies.”
“Like…Smog?”
Nick’s lips twitched. “Smaug. And no, not that one.”
“I thought most of that stuff was done in 3D these days.”
“Yeah, most of it is.” He scratched at his chin. “But this production wanted a real version of their fierce dragon for their premier and press tour.”
“Oh, that’s…interesting.”
His laugh was stilted. “That’s a glowing review.”
My face warmed. “I just didn’t think art paid enough to buy a place like this.”
Nick glanced around his condo and shrugged. “I don’t craft much, but when I do, it pays well.”
I followed his gaze and stopped on the beautiful sculpture in front of me. Soft blond wood intertwined with a silver colored metal, both creating fluid, sensual curves that begged to be touched. “Did you make that?”
His nod was visible in my peripheral vision.
Smiling, I faced him. “What’s it called?”
“‘Untitled.’” Nick laughed and ran a hand over his head. “I can make art but I can’t give it a name.”
“Did you make the one upstairs, too?”
Smirking, he said, “‘Untitled two.’”
“They’re both very nice. That’s cool that you…make art for a living.” I smiled, because it was cool. “I wish I had that kind of talent. Maybe I’d actually like going to work every day.”
Nick tossed his arm on the cushion and faced me much as I had him. His knee brushed my thigh, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Is your job that bad?”
“It’s not horrible. I just don’t like when the big boss man calls in and acts all PMS.”
A genuine laugh popped out of him. “I didn’t think guys were supposed to have that.”
“I know right?” I rolled my eyes and pushed a bit of hair behind my ear. “Especially not seventy-year-old, rich guys. But a lot of guys seem to suffer from worse PMS than any of the women I know.”
“I’d like to think I don’t suffer from PMS since I suffer from a different monthly curse.” Nick’s voice had gone somber as he pinched his lips.
My chest clenched in sympathy. “That has to suck. I’m sorry.”
“The worst part isn’t the monthly curse, it’s worrying that I’m going to hurt someone on the other twenty-seven some odd days.”
“Twenty-seven? If it’s the whole full-moon, cliché, I thought the moon cycle was longer than that.”
“It is, but our bodies force us to Transform three nights—the nights before, during, and after the full moon.” Nick sighed. “It’s a bitch when I have to travel for work and can’t rearrange the date.”
“I…can’t even imagine. What do you do in that case?”
“I have to contact the local community and get safe haven for a night or two.” Nick lifted his hands, palms up. “Not much else I can do.”
I doubted he meant the local city council, but I didn’t know what the proper title was for werebears in other locales. “That just…really sucks. I’m…”
Nick grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Don’t. I don’t want your pity.”
Apparently he’d forgotten what I’d said about sympathy. I didn’t feel like repeating it. With his cool skin gripping mine—connecting us, I had something else in mind. I wanted to climb onto his lap.
And so I did.