Rory
My entire body locks. My fingers cramp.
My glasses clang to the floor. The cleaning cloth floats down to meet it.
My lungs forget how to breathe air for sustenance, their sole purpose now consumed with consuming that scent.
Mine.
Suddenly, I am no longer driven by logic, but by instincts I didn’t even know I possessed: ancient, bone-deep instincts that devolve me into a creature capable of sensing and reacting, but not much else.
My body compresses into a tightly coiled spring, pressing my hooves hard into the floor and rotating me toward the door, prepping me to charge right toward it—to rut into the source of that scent.
A blurred, grayed blob of nervous energy stands near the doorway: a woman. She’s fuzzy, unfocused, and even though I can barely see her, her nebulous form curves in such an erotic and enticing way that it elicits a profound arousal in me.
Easy. Easy.
I swallow. Hard.
Breathe. Breathe, Rory.
Slowly—deliberately—I bend to retrieve my glasses, fighting all urges to charge blindly.
I straighten, careful not to gore anything on my way up, and lift my glasses back onto my face.
The world snaps into focus and corrected color.
The woman at the door’s hair explodes into impossible scarlet—the exact shade of overripe strawberries.
It flows loose and wild over bare, porcelain-skinned shoulders.
She’s wearing a sleeveless, floral chintz dress with gold buttons that trail up the front, drawing the eye to voluptuous breasts encased in a low, gold scallop-edged neckline.
The dress cinches at her waist and cascades down full-hips, but the fabric stops so short at her thighs that my hands tingle at the thought of sliding up between them.
A beautiful strawberry finial atop the lid of a delicate, porcelain teapot. Priceless. Perfect.
My heart doesn’t skip, it stampedes.
Mine. My mate. My fate.
For one catastrophic second, I forget how knees work. Forget how counters work. Forget how civilization works. I’m on the other side of the counter before I even realize I’ve moved—my usual control and carefulness lost to my need to be near this woman.
I want to run to her. I want to grab her. I want to run my tongue through every crevice of her body.
I want to disappear, mortified by my behaviour, but I want even more for her to see me.
She sees me!
Her eyes lock on mine. They’re green and gold-flecked, wide, impossible not to look at.
I can’t breathe. I want to breathe.
She smiles. I nearly fall over.
I can’t speak. I want to speak.
I open my mouth to greet her, but she waves and says, “Just browsing,” before turning away from me.
I can’t move. I want to move.
“Lovely,” a papery voice says beside me.
“Yeah, she is,” I breathe out in what could only be described as a swoon.
A cough from my left nearly launches me out of my hide.
The rose-covered-teapot-loving customer. Still here. Still holding the teapot. Still waiting for me to function as a shopkeeper and not a hormone-fueled rut machine.
“Oh. Um. Sorry,” I say, straightening and trying to get my bearings.
She repeats, “It’s lovely,” holding up the Herend Queen Victoria teapot for me to comment.
“Oh! Yes. It’s very well preserved,” I reply, sliding back into my soft, reverent shop voice.
She asks the price. When I tell her, she makes that sound everyone makes when they realize they’re holding something beautiful and expensive that they can’t afford but don’t want to appear as if they can’t afford it.
She replaces it gently. Perfect angle. Barely a sound.
My eyes drift back to the redhead. She’s moving through the shop like gravity doesn’t apply to her. Fingers trailing along teacup handles. Twirling to look at displays. Leaning too close to the fragile members of my herd.
When her eyes meet mine, she startles, but not in fear—it’s something else, something I don’t quite understand or recognize.
Then she pivots so hard on her heel that she launches onto a table of teacups, nearly upending the entire display.
One wobbles on the edge then rolls off, but she catches it with catlike reflexes before it crashes to the floor.
She beams at me as she returns it to the display.
She’s trouble. Glorious, catastrophic, herd-scattering, herd-shattering, trouble.
I move to follow her—
“Excuse me, sir,” the older woman says gently from the register. “I’d like this one,” she says softly, pointing at the Royal Albert Queen’s Messenger teapot.
Right. Customer. Focus.
“Excellent choice,” I manage, struggling to peel my eyes off the marvelous redhead.
My pulse pounds in my temples.
Ring up the sale.
I don’t move. I can’t.
The customer says, “It’s for my daughter’s birthday.”
Get it together, Rory!
I clear my throat, not too aggressively, then say, “Oh, I bet she will love it! It is a beautiful piece,” finally moving into position behind the counter.
I ring up the older woman on autopilot. My usual fluid motion is stymied by fumbling, trembling hands. My brain is fogged—flooded—by that scent.
It’s as if someone opened the gates of destiny and forgot to close them.
I complete the sale and start to wrap up the teapot, but am stopped when I dare to lift my eyes to the redhead.
She’s facing me, leaning over to pick up a small cup and saucer with gold-painted bunnies. Her breasts hang below her, threatening to knock a cup over. When her hair spills forward, tickling into it, I can almost feel the sensation myself.
My hands tense, and I avert my eyes, gulping.
I focus all my strength on two things: not dropping this teapot and not getting an erection. Both of which would terrify this poor woman in front of me.
Tissue paper. Bubble wrap. Box.
Careful. Careful. Careful.
The redhead disappears into the shadowy back corner—out of my line of sight.
The customer thanks me profusely as she makes her way to the exit.
I mumble my canned responses, or at least I think I do. I’m not in my body. My eyes are transfixed on the last place at which I saw my sexy, strawberry-topped teapot.
The bell above the door rings. And now—
Only the redhead remains.
And the scent of strawberries.
And the very strong possibility that my life is about to be completely destroyed.