Chapter 10
Adam
“You’re right,” she told him. Her voice was shaking. “This is my house. YOU go.”
Dammit. He was scaring her. “Faye, I swear I won’t hurt you. I just want to talk. Please, just give me a chance. Then, if you want, I’ll help you clean up and I’ll go.” When she didn’t say anything, he told her, “I swear to you, you’re safe with me. I was the guy you came to for help, remember?”
She was still tense in his arms, but after a moment, she nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
She nodded again.
“Okay. I’ve got some clothes in my truck.”
“I can go get them for you.”
The chance of her getting his clothes or hopping into his truck and taking off with his overnight bag and his dinner was about fifty-fifty.
Maybe forty-sixty. But he didn’t really have much of a choice.
It was a miracle none of the neighbors had called the cops yet as it was.
Luckily, the RVs at this park were pretty spread out this time of year.
Slowly, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he released her. “The doors are open.”
“What about…Jeff?”
“He ran off. And I don’t think he’s coming back. But if he did, I’d know.”
She didn’t ask him how he would know. With a quick glance back at him over her shoulder, she slowly walked down the steps.
He watched her go to the passenger side of his truck, open the door, and pull out his bag.
After a brief hesitation, she grabbed the pizza boxes too, then shut the door by pushing it closed with her shoulder and brought everything inside.
Adam took the bag from her. He was still a little sore in the gut, but it looked like everything had stopped bleeding.
“You can shower if you want,” she told him.
“Are you still going to be here when I get out?”
She looked over at the pizza, then back at him. “Well, I’m starving. So, yeah.”
Reaching out, he cupped her face in his hand. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” Adam’s entire body was tense as he waited for her answer.
“No,” she told him. “Other than throwing me around a little, he didn’t hurt me.”
The tension left him, and he closed his eyes in relief.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For helping me.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he told her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”
She gave him a small smile. “Go shower. You’re bleeding all over my floor.”
He started to turn away. “Hey, Faye?”
Her blue eyes rose to meet his.
“I’m still the same guy you met on New Year’s. Nothing’s changed there.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “I know.”
“Okay. Good.” His eyes traveled over her face. She was calmer. The sour scent of fear gone. “I’ll be right back.”
When he came out, wearing a clean pair of jeans and a couple of bandages over the deepest of the wounds, he found her sitting on the couch, sharing her pizza crust with Rocky. On the cushion beside her was another plate with two slices on it.
“There’s wine on the counter,” she told him.
Adam found the two glasses of red and brought them over. “I’m sorry about your table. I’ll replace it for you tomorrow.”
“You’d better.”
Sitting down beside her, he told Rocky to go lay down by the front door he’d managed to close but couldn’t lock, then he handed her a glass of wine. “So what do you want to know?”
“Everything would be nice.”
He smiled. “Okay. Um. So, my people have been around for a long time. As long as humans.”
“You’re not human?” To her credit, her voice was pretty steady as she asked the question.
“Not completely, no. But how that happened is a long story that I don’t really want to get into right now. Suffice it to say, we’re here. And we’ve lived among you for a long time.”
Faye set her plate on the kitchen counter and then came back to the couch with her wine, sitting down and curling her legs beneath her.
He noticed she’d changed too while he was in the shower, and was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a maroon T-shirt.
She looked adorable. The only thing that would make that outfit better was if it was his pants and his shirt she was wearing.
“And you can just…turn into a wolf?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You can call it magic. Or the supernatural. Or a fucked-up gene pool. But I’ve been able to do it ever since I hit puberty.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Does it hurt?”
She voiced the question so softly and with so much concern in her voice, it made him set his plate on one of the kitchen chairs beside him that made it through the destruction. “Yeah. Sometimes worse than others.”
“Can you control it? The change?”
“Most of the time.”
Her brows lowered in concern. “Most of the time?” she repeated. Although she didn’t change her expression, there was a change in her scent as she thought about that. A wisp of fear.
He turned more fully toward her. “Faye, I told you that I would never hurt you. And I meant it. You have nothing to fear from me. EVER.”
“But, what if—”
“EVER,” he told her. “Even if I shifted right now and no one else was here, I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m still me when it happens.”
She got quiet again.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Her bottom lip was between her teeth, and he reached up and touched her face, running his thumb over the plump flesh before pulling it out and smoothing his thumb over the bite.
“This is a lot to take in,” she whispered. “I still feel like I’m going a little bit crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” he told her.
He was still touching her face. “I want to touch you.”
“You are touching me.”
One side of his mouth turned up. “And you’re not screaming in terror.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I want to touch you more.”
Her breath quickened and her nostrils flared slightly. That earthy smell that was all her grew stronger, teasing his nose and igniting his blood. His cock was painfully hard now.
“You were just bleeding all over my floor,” she argued. “You’re still too pale.”
“I’ve got enough blood left to handle making you feel good.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she told him. “Or what to think. Or how to feel.”
“Faye, I’m just asking for a chance here.
That’s all. I want to get to know everything about you.
What you like. What you don’t like. Your favorite thing to eat when you’re home alone watching chick flicks.
What you sing in the shower.” He took her hands in his.
“I shared my biggest secrets with you. I’d really love the chance to get to know yours. ”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“We all have secrets. Some are just a little stranger than others.” He smiled at her, and after a moment, she smiled back.
“I’d like the chance to prove to you I can be a real boyfriend.
And maybe someday, in the not so far future, a real fiancé.
” As soon as he said the words out loud, Adam knew in his gut that this would happen.
Faye was his. And he was hers. All he needed was the time to prove it to her. “So, what do you say?”
“This is all just…I can’t wrap my head around it.”
“I know,” he told her. “It’s a lot. I’m a lot. But I swear, other than the fact that, occasionally, I’m as furry as Rocky over there, I’m just a guy. Who’s head over heels crazy for you. Is it all one sided?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not one sided. I just…”
He waited for her to say more, and when she didn’t, he made her an offer.
“How about this? Tonight, we’ll eat pizza, and drink wine, and maybe watch a crappy movie.
Then tomorrow, we’ll go pick you out a new table.
If you want to talk, we’ll talk. If you don’t want to talk, we won’t.
” His eyes roamed over her face. “A chance, Faye. That’s all I’m asking for. ”
She stared at him for a long time, and he could practically hear the wheels turning in her head. But then, she surprised him again. “Okay,” she told him.
He lifted his eyebrows. “Okay? Really?”
She smiled. “Yeah. Okay. But I don’t want to watch a movie.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to talk,” she told him. “In bed.”
Adam grinned. “Whatever my lady wants.” His heart pounded in his chest. Somehow, he was going to convince this woman to be his one and only.
And if he had to keep her naked the entire time to do it…
Well, that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
Thank you for reading Adam and Faye’s story! I really hope you enjoyed it. More Snow Ridge Shifters are coming soon!
In the meantime, if you haven’t read my bestselling vampire series, it all starts with
A Vampire Bewitched
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Lone Wolf’s Claim
Book 1 of The Kincaid Werewolves.
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