Chapter Four
Stellan was agitated, but he didn’t understand why.
He’d Changed last night, he’d given the tiger his skin, so why did he still feel right on the edge?
It was nearly time for his lunch break, and he would take it at the picnic table at the back of the shop property to regulate his system. Everyone was pissing him off today. Probably because the guys couldn’t stop talking about Laramie, who was training on the computers up front.
She’d been quiet and focused today. Even when he’d pretended he had to go to the bathroom four times as an excuse to check on her, she’d only looked up at him for a few seconds before she went back to asking questions and practicing inputting jobs.
She would be fine here. He knew it. She was smart and had common sense and seemed to be learning well and asking the right questions.
She looked really cute in the uniform. She would never be in the shop changing tires, but she was wearing the same dark blue coveralls with a little nametag pinned right over her left tit.
Her waist was sinched and showed off her hourglass figure, and God, he hungered for her.
Not like a Rabbit though. Not like when he’d hunted Misty. Stellan hungered for her like Mars had craved Ren last year.
He knew he was in trouble. The tiger did too, which was probably why he was pitching a fit.
Someone like Stellan should never be anchored to a woman.
He would ruin her life.
That’s what he did. He ruined peoples’ lives.
He’d ruined his mother’s, he’d made a mess of his entire youth, and then after he’d been Turned, he’d ruined his brother’s lives. But most of all…very most of all…he’d ruined his own.
Everything he touched turned to mud, so he had to find a way to be less interested in Laramie, for her own good.
Craig returned from his lunch break, and Stellan shoved the tire onto the truck and bolted it into place at lightning speed. He didn’t even care if the guys saw him right now. He needed out of here.
Stellan strode right for the door and made a beeline for the break room, grabbed his lunch from the fridge and made his way past the front desk in a quest to go straight outside.
He couldn’t though.
He couldn’t.
Not with Laramie offering that pretty smile and the little wave, like she’d been waiting for him to come in. He backed up a few steps, ripped his brown sack lunch open and slapped a sandwich onto the counter in front of her. She jumped.
“I made this for you,” he gritted out, and then he left without looking back at her or saying another word.
Why were his palms clammy?
Stellan shook his head hard and closed his eyes tightly for three steps as he rounded the building. He nearly ran into a customer who had been smoking a cigarette back there. “Watch it,” he muttered, brushing past him.
The picnic table had been placed far enough away from the shop that most of the guys were too lazy to walk to it. For a man like Stellan though, this spot was a lifesaver. Honestly, it had probably saved the lives of half the assholes he worked with too. This was his reset button.
He walked through the shallow layer of trees and wiped off the bench seat of the table, facing away from the shop so he didn’t get distracted with annoying people.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, but he didn’t even bother to look at it. Either Mars or Dame were probably calling. They did it almost every day right now. Get a life.
He swallowed down a growl and pulled two sandwiches from the bag and muttered a curse when he realized he hadn’t bought a Coke from the vending machine before he came out here.
He turned to head back, but froze, half-standing, half-sitting.
Laramie was headed this way with the sandwich in her hand, and two Cokes wedged between her ribs and her forearm. She stuttered to a stop when she locked eyes with him and hesitated there.
“Um, is it okay if I eat with you?” she called across the empty lot.
Talk, he told himself after thirty seconds. “Fine.”
He sat back down and waited for her to reach him.
“Murph said he was surprised you didn’t get your daily Coke from the machine in there, so I figured I would bring you one,” she explained softly as she came around the table and sat on the opposite side, diagonal from him like she was trying to sit as far away as possible.
She scooted one of the soft drinks into the middle of the table and averted her gaze. Her cheeks were bright red as she unwrapped the sandwich he’d given her.
“I don’t like to talk on my lunch breaks,” he ground out.
“That’s okay with me.” She mimed zipping up her lips. But then she unzipped them again to take a bite of the BLT he’d made her.
He almost smiled but stopped himself and returned his attention to his food.
She chewed slowly, and he was done with both sandwiches before she was even halfway through with hers.
Three times, he caught her glance over at him, like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself.
He didn’t know how to do this—small talk. He didn’t care about little stuff in general, nor did he care about people’s lives.
He wadded up his trash and reached for the Coke, then cleared his throat. “Is it your lunch break?”
Around a bite, Laramie said, “Yes.”
Okay. Small talk done. Stellan stood and opened his soft drink, took a sip while he looked at her, then walked away.
On second thought, he doubled back. Laramie looked hopeful, but he wasn’t here to continue trying at small talk.
He grabbed her trash from the table and left.
It was the only way he could help her. Now she wouldn’t have to go out of her way to throw the wrapper away.
“I would’ve thrown it away,” she called in this sweet voice. “I never litter.”
He stopped and looked at her. “Are you dumb? I’m throwing it away, so you don’t have to do it.”
Her pretty eyes dipped to the table, and she didn’t say anything else.
Stellan shook his head and made his way back inside.
Women were confusing. And frustrating. He’d brought her a sandwich, so he didn’t owe her for the lunch she’d left on his truck yesterday, and now she’d brought him a soda, and now he owed her again.
And now he’d sat there and eaten with her, and it had actually been kind of nice, and now that table would never be the same again.
Now, if she wasn’t there, he would think it was less awesome.
She’d done that.
Laramie had ruined lunch forever.