Chapter Sixteen
KIT
Isat on a stool behind the counter, my laptop open on the polished wood. Usually, I didn’t like working on my computer while Island Books was open because I thought it made me look less approachable, but there was too much to do for the next stage of the book awards to fit it all into evenings.
And I might have had the ulterior motive that any time outside of work hours spent absorbed in photo and video editing was time not spent cosied up with Lucas.
The middle of the day was a lull for the bookshop anyway.
Errol made three trips across to mainland Scotland each day; one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening.
After the first two, tourists flooded in.
Some grabbed maps and headed out on rambles across the island, but others admired Hamish’s window display and browsed the shop.
Midday saw them all head to the bakery. My door was closed year-round because the salty air would cause too much damage to the books if it was left open, but each time someone opened it a waft of baked goodness found its way inside.
I looked up to check I wasn’t actively ignoring customers who needed help.
A couple of people about my age were giggling in the romance section.
Perhaps they didn’t expect a small bookshop on a tiny island to have such a robust selection of smut.
An older man browsed the sci-fi shelves and a frazzled-looking man with a toddler sat on the floor beside the picture books with a growing pile to take home.
Everyone was happy, which meant I could focus on picking the perfect twenty photos to send to the award committee.
When I’d worried aloud about what pictures I should choose to best showcase the shop, Hamish had grabbed my phone and spent the entirety of his Saturday shift creating an album for me to choose from.
He didn’t add every photo stored on my phone, but wading through the two hundred pictures he’d approved was time consuming.
Even when he wasn’t around, I could feel his judgement that I’d pick the wrong ones.
Maybe not just Hamish’s judgement. There was a lot of my own thrown in too.
I needed to get this right. Island Books was by no means failing, but like so many others it was a bad month or two from slipping into the red. I’d used my savings to refurbish it and buy new stock at the beginning, and I had perilously little to fall back on if sales suddenly dropped.
If the shop made it onto the competition shortlist, I wouldn’t need to worry about profit margins for a while.
I’d settled on five pictures of Hamish’s window displays.
The current dragon, the first Christmas display he made with a train that wove around his book selections, a vampire one that made me shudder the whole time it was up, one he’d reluctantly made about the island, and his very first. He’d included ten pictures of that in the pre-approved album. I couldn’t not include it.
I smiled at the photo. Fifteen-year-old Hamish stood beside the display, his shocking red hair bright beside his chosen adventure novels. Between the books, action figures scaled a shoulder height mountain. He’d had to employ the help of his father to bring over to the bookshop.
I scrolled to the photos I’d not yet decided on.
I’d whittled it down from two hundred to fifty, but the remaining were all fierce contenders.
I had to include one or two of myself, so I’d chosen a couple where I had been caught mid-laugh with regular customers.
Other than that, I needed to use the last spaces to encapsulate Island Books and its place in the community.
My finger didn’t act of its own volition, but there was certainly a voice in my head telling me to stop as I scrolled to the last photo I was considering for the collection.
Hamish had taken it a few days ago. I hadn’t realised he’d nabbed my phone, let alone that he was snapping candid shots of our customers as they browsed the shelves. I’d been mid-lecture when I’d gotten to this photo and abruptly closed my mouth, my rant about photo consent evaporating.
Lucas often popped into the shop if he finished work early. He gave me a hug if I wasn’t serving customers or browsed the shelves if I was.
Hamish had caught him reading the back of the latest Olivia Dade I’d placed face out on our romance display.
Lucas was wearing his work uniform of immensely practical trousers and a jumper smattered with various shades of fur.
His dark eyes were downcast, his wild hair falling over his forehead.
Hamish had caught the light perfectly to show off Lucas’s rich skin tone, his tan hands cradling the book.
The picture had been taken the day before The Incident That Became Several Incidents.
I’d thought I was imagining it at first. I’d just opened the letter from the Indie Bookshop awards and my brain was fizzing.
I hadn’t known anyone had put the shop forward, but that enough people had done so to launch it straight onto the longlist was amazing.
I’d been pleased Lucas thought working in a bookshop was right for me, but this nomination felt like extra confirmation.
I was doing something possibly award-worthy.
That had to be equally as good as forcing myself through a law degree I hated every moment of but which made my mum so damn proud and would have earnt shed-loads of money.
Lucas had walked through the bookshop door and I hadn’t thought before launching myself into his arms. My internal countdown had stopped kicking in each time someone I cared about touched me, but I’d barely clung to him for two seconds before I pulled away to tell him the good news.
I didn’t realise what happened at first. I’d become so used to touching Lucas that my lips brushing across his stubbled cheek hadn’t registered as particularly significant.
Until a wave of want crashed over me.
I’d blinked, and in the next second it was gone. But another rose up before Lucas fled the shop to talk to his mum, just as brief as the first.
It was nothing like the harsh slap from others who looked at me once and decided they wanted to do all kinds of depraved things to me, but no less undeniable.
We’d cuddled on the seawall after I closed up the shop and no hint of anything other than friendly regard mixed with swirling sadness in Lucas’s scent.
I checked his scent over the next couple of days, but had to conclude that what I thought I’d smelt couldn’t have been true. Maybe it had come from someone else.
It could have been that I was so desperate for Lucas to return my romantic feelings for him that I’d translated his perfectly innocent scent into something strong and wanting.
I told myself to get over it and move on. Lucas wasn’t lusting after me. I was falling for him, and I was falling alone.
But then it happened again. Days of telling myself I must have been wrong, all undone in a few short seconds.
Errol’s latest boat load of tourists had included a group of women on a day trip.
As soon as they crowded into Island Books, unwelcome licks of regard bristled across every inch of my exposed skin.
I offered them a tight smile before they dispersed among the shelves and I tucked my nose into my scarf to avoid the barbed edge of their attraction.
Most of them didn’t pay much attention to me beyond that first look. They moved around the shelves in twos and threes, their arms gradually filling with twisted thrillers and fantasies with colourful sprayed edges.
Only one of the women’s gazes kept sweeping back. Each time, a fresh burst of want cracked over me.
There was no way I could avoid the fact that a great many people looked at me and liked what they saw. Years ago, I would have revelled in how my enhanced nose allowed me to ascertain exactly when someone was into me.
But something changed between Mum getting sick and when I’d ditched my law degree to run off to a Scottish island.
I wasn’t interested in relationships that went no further than skin deep.
I wanted a future partner to find me attractive, but I needed more than that.
I wanted them to desire me as much when my body was young and pretty as when it would inevitably become weathered and wrinkled.
The changes I’d gone through when I became a wolf had made it even harder to trust someone in such an intimate way, to allow them to see all of me. Even the thought of it had me burying my chin deep into my scarf.
The woman walked over to the counter, her coat undone to show off her dress underneath. I wondered if she had leant so far forward at the bakery or during a brewery tour.
I was a bisexual man with eyes, which darted to the cleavage generously on show. Another spike of desire scratched over me as she noted the brief flick of my gaze.
I’d served her quickly, saying just enough to be considered polite. Maybe she thought I was shy. Maybe that’s why she stayed at the counter. She grinned at me like we were in on some joke together, but I’d never felt further from laughing. I wanted her stink of lust away from me.
I hadn’t realised I was clenching my teeth until my mouth fell open.
I’d been so preoccupied with dodging the woman’s unwanted attention that I hadn’t noticed when Lucas came into the shop. He stormed over to the counter with a book I was fairly certain he’d picked up at random – he’d never expressed an interest in shed building before – and coughed loudly.
The woman flinched, then twisted to look at him.
He practically growled at her. ‘Have you been served? I need to pay for this.’
The woman turned back to me, perhaps ready to exchange a puzzled look about this strange man covered in fur, but I only had eyes for Lucas.
Around the edges of the woman’s sharp attraction was something warmer. As she moved out of the way and Lucas stepped closer, the new scent swept over me.
The harsh edge of jealousy didn’t take away from the deep pool of incredibly welcome want spilling from Lucas.
There was no mistaking it that time. Lucas liked me as more than a friend.
He stayed in the shop until closing. After the women left, the sting to his scent fled.
By the time we walked upstairs, his unignorable desire had mellowed back to familiar softness.
He seemed content to cook and work on a puzzle together, none of his touches roaming beyond anything other than friendly.
I didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know if I should do anything about it.
But over the next few days, it kept happening.
I burst into laughter when Kat pressed her face into Lucas’s for a fishy kiss and his want pulsed over me.
I talked about the bookshop award and his scent would heat.
I gave him a book I thought he’d enjoy and his eyes skittered away from mine, his heart pounding.
I watched him closely. If anything, he seemed disconcerted by those moments. Aster had assured me – with a fair amount of moaning – that his best friend was disgustingly straight. If he was right and this was the first time Lucas had felt attraction towards a man, then it had to be confusing.
I longed to talk to him about it, to reassure him that what he was feeling was okay, but that wasn’t possible.
I wouldn’t have known about his attraction if I wasn’t a wolf.
Lucas’s actions stayed the same. He was kind and his mouth ran away with him in the best ways and he held me like a friend.
No one without the advantage of my super charged senses would have any clue that anything else was going on.
So I left it. I basked in the glow each time his warm desire flowed over me, and I left him to find his own way.
But I hoped. I couldn’t stop that. If Lucas could get over his discomfort and acknowledge his feelings, then maybe I could have everything I’d ever dreamed of.
The door of Island Books crashed open, shocking me back to the present. My laptop was still on the picture of Lucas. I quickly scrolled away.
Louisa sauntered in, her hair tied back with a yellow ribbon and her curves showcased by a bright red jumpsuit.
‘You ready to film this video, then?’
I cringed as she pulled me into a hug. ‘I guess.’
If this book award wasn’t so important, I would have ditched it due to the video requirement. At least an afternoon of wincing as I struggled through the short script I’d written would distract me from wondering if Lucas was thinking of me.