Curves & Alphas: A Paranormal Box Set: (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance)

by Willow Brooks

  “Matt, from work, couldn’t stop talking about them. I think they play here at least once a month if not more,” Sarah added.

  “Oh. Cool. I like alternative,” I added, still more focused on the crowd, given the stage remained empty save instruments and such.

  I didn’t know music or instruments well, but I liked the sleek lines of the grayish guitar on the stage. Again, not that I had much experience other than watching musicians play in clubs, but I’d never seen one like it before. By force, obsession with this topic lost my interest fast, and I went back to scanning the crowd for a stranger I hadn’t even gotten a good look at him. I’d know his cries of pain, though, anywhere. Before you know it, I’d end up one of those chicks who distrusted the whole of the male species. I needed to get an ultra-fast grip.

  I’d put out of my mind the real possibility of him having died that night. I had scoured the papers more than usual, reading of every death last week that had made the cut. Nowhere had there been mention of a death at the club I’d been at. Even if the beast who had saved me had taken the body elsewhere, I hadn’t read a story that mentioned a mauled or mutilated body either.

  Searching the crowd again, this time I looked for any shifty looking man with gouges on his face, maybe a missing eye or something. I forced my shoulders down from around my ears and regulated my breathing. I knew I was being ridiculous, absurd even. First time out in this kind of public place since last Friday, though, so I’d cut myself some slack. At least until the band played. Then, I’d call it quits.

  “Find any cute ones out there, yet?” Chloe asked. “I mean, you seem pretty intent on checking out every guy here tonight. Someone in the mood to get laid?”

  I turned to her, taking in a quick breath. The word laid took my mind to being laid out on the pavement. Heart pumping in my ears, I shook my head.

  “You okay?” She asked. “You don’t seem like yourself tonight. You’re all jumpy, even a little pale. You getting sick or did you forget to apply some make-up? No, seriously, are you worried about something?”

  “No, I’m fine. Just a long week I guess. I haven’t been sleeping well, but I’m not sure why,” I answered, mixing the lies with some truth to ease my conscious.

  I didn’t keep anything from Chloe. So, doing so now bothered me, just didn’t sit right. I felt as if I was betraying her, being a bad friend by making the conscious choice to deal with the event and my now questionable sanity alone.

  “Okay,” she shrugged. “But, you know I’m here for you, at any hour, if you need to talk. Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve called at three in the morning.”

  The guilt weighed me down, sat like a lead balloon in my stomach. I didn’t believe in mere coincidences. The universe had surely just sent me a few not so subtle signs there. I’d have gone with the urge to gulp down my drink if I’d not worried about throwing it up right after. That had been Chloe’s way of telling me I could call her later if I wasn’t sharing due to Sarah being here. Yet, it still felt like she’d accused me of not calling her at three last Saturday morning when I’d needed to. She couldn’t know anything. I’d only talked to her once this week to answer her numerous messages about coming out tonight.

  “Maybe I am coming down with something,” I decided to create a confession, one a play on words would make the truth.

  I couldn’t be responsible for how she interpreted the words. Truth of the matter stood, I’d been coming down with a bad case of insanity all week, but she’d think I’d meant the flu.

  “So that’s why you weren’t picking up your phone or returning calls this week? I mean, you said you were busy and then had your nose stuck in a book, which I believe by the way, since it wouldn’t be the first time, but you know I worry.”

  “Yes, I know you do,” I agreed, swallowing my sudden exasperation with this conversation. “Honestly, a new book has me hooked. While horror has never bothered me before, maybe there is a first time for everything. Honestly, I had so many nightmares this week, and then had trouble falling back to sleep after each of them.”

  “Were the dreams about what was happening in the book?” Sarah asked.

  “Um, mostly, I guess,” I stumbled, caught off kilter by her interruption into the conversation I’d been filling with lies as easily as I created stories.

  Stories had been my one secret from Chloe over the years. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my best friend, that I wrote. She’d have insisted on reading them for one, and then good or bad, would say something nice about them. It had been my justification for the deception all these years, along with the fact that I’d forced myself to believe that no one needed to know everything about you. There, I’d just justified my current deception, as well. I could finally take a sip of my drink and try to swallow down the lump in my throat.

  “Then stop reading the stupid book,” Chloe exclaimed. “While I’m not a reader like you, I can’t imagine any book being that good that you need to finish it despite what it is doing to your health and well-being. Of course, unlike you, I’m a scared-y cat, so I’d never attempt to read a horror anything!”

  I scoffed inside my head, Yeah, I’m so brave!

  “We drink without concern for our health,” I countered, channeling some of that angst into a change of topic. “We also eat too much fried food, and…”

  “Okay, I get it,” Chloe laughed with both of her hands up, as if she could physically stop me.

  “Do you? Or do you need more analogies? Because the only time you’ve ever read a book was to appease me after I’d gone on and on about it,” I accused.

  “All right, you got me there,” Chloe surrendered.

  “So, back to this any cute guys thing,” Sarah interrupted. “See any around?”

  “Honestly, not yet,” I laughed, my first true one in a week.

  Muscles I didn’t know I had ached in thanks for the rush of relaxation. I should’ve probably apologized for leaving Sarah out of the original conversation. I hated when I felt the odd man out with a group of girls. Only with Chloe did I not encounter that situation. Still, I hadn’t been the one who had started in on the topic of me.

  “I hear the lead singer is drop dead gorgeous,” Sarah went on. “They should be coming out soon, and we can check him out at least.”

  As if on cue, on the stage the rumble of footsteps over wood and instruments being picked up sounded over the crowd. We turned our heads in unison. I followed the guy who’d walked, head down, to the microphone center stage, and picked up the gray guitar on a stand there. With bated breath, I watched him adjust the microphone to his mouth.

  Unaware of anything he said, I could only focus on his face. Cute didn’t cut it. Chiseled features in perfect symmetry, his amber eyes had gold flecks that shone in the spotlight. We had this prime table, just one over from front and center, and from here I could see his dark eyes sparkle in the spotlight. I thought of the wolf from last week immediately, but berated myself for allowing the trauma to cloud everything I saw. Same colors, but different mix. Same with his hair. His black locks did have gray streaks in the light, even though he had to be far too young to have such.

  His baritone voice washed over me. Each word settled in my soul even if it hadn’t fully registered in my mind. He soothed my frazzled nerves with just the warm, smooth timbre of his tone. I watched his mouth move, forming the words, even as I observed the way his Adam’s apple bobbed over the collar of his black shirt. At times I even ventured to glance over all of him.

  The way his shirt clung to his rippling muscles, full six pack abs and all, made my heart skip a beat. By the time I’d gotten to his jeans, the mound just under his guitar packaged by snug denim, I had nearly hyperventilated. I became grateful for the interruption of Chloe’s voice lest I practically orgasm right there at the table without even being touched. Thank the stars that wasn’t a thing, or I may just have done it.

  “Yep, he’s hot,” Chloe exclaimed, a little too much the school girl for my taste at the moment.


  No idea why it bothered me. It never had before, but I wasn’t in my right mind. In my defense, this guy on the stage strumming and singing hadn’t helped my plight at all. He sat there too cute to not be dead serious about it.

  “But,” she continued, “I’m actually partial to the guy playing guitar beside him. I’m tending toward blond hair rather than dark, you know?”

  “I know,” both Sarah and I said in unison, our exasperation not only in sync, but in tune.

  “Fine,” Chloe huffed as if truly offended. “I won’t go on and on about how cute he is, or how blue those eyes are. When he turned around though, did you get a good look at that ass?”

  “No, we didn’t, but at least you are not going on and on about him,” Sarah teased before I had the chance to do so.

  “I have to say I’m impressed with the lead,” I added, trying to keep the dreamy out of my voice.

  “Me too,” Sarah said, her voice sultry like I could never make mine be.

  I couldn’t flirt. Didn’t know how and didn’t have the soft, deep voice for it. My voice, while not bad, held a much higher pitch. Even sick, I just sounded sick, not sexy. While those who cared about me had always said I had a pretty face and gorgeous hair, we all knew that was just gentle-speak for the healthy hair and skin of the big-boned girl with ample curves.

  If nothing else, my mother before she’d died, and my doting yet semi-drunk father, had instilled in me a healthy amount of self-confidence. While I didn’t date, it had more to do with my nervousness around new people, or at least so I told myself. In truth, I couldn’t bear the thought of loving someone and being left alone again. My weight, on the other hand... I carried it well. I held my head high. Most of the time. I wouldn’t let anyone see a chink in my armor, regardless of the truth, even when they did exist. Tonight served as perfect proof of that.

  I could never get a guy like the one on the stage to look at me twice, even if I wanted him to. Let’s be real here. Surely, too cute for his own good with a sexy enough to die for voice would have his sights on some perky blond in a low cut something or other. So, it was fine that Sarah liked him. No towing the line of girl code. If she could get him, she could have him. I’d put him in my dreams, try to snuff out the nightmares that had plagued me of late.

  If only I had the guts, I would speak to him, though. He was just my type, one I hadn’t even defined completely until this moment. Besides those looks, his music had such a depth about it. Just a few songs in, and I already had a list of subjects I’d like to discuss with him. Love and loss would be the first of them. The heart-wrenching love song he’d first belted out had used turns of phrase that I’d never thought of. They put the whole grief thing into a new perspective for me.

  Brains and a good heart made a man even cuter. Damn him for having it all. The muscles in his arms flexed as he strummed the guitar. He played like a devil. I could see the sheen of it on his skin, giving his tan a bronze glow. The way he hit the chords, made the guitar scream in perfect tone, vibrated through me. Each abrupt change of chords, his fingers deftly adjusting to each in seconds, quickened not only the beat of the song, but my heart as well.

  I couldn’t shake the nagging sensation that I knew him from somewhere. Ridiculous. I wished. I’d have remembered that face, that body. I knew I’d never forget it now. I trusted my instincts, the majority of the time, but my knowing him fit in the preposterous category. No one could forget his voice either.

  By the third song, my drink gone and replaced with another, I started to comprehend the words to his songs a little more easily. I was in the zone, focused on each syllable and the words of wisdom they contained, no matter how trivial. I had to know if he’d written such strings of words himself. Not only did he play like he’d been born with a guitar in his hands, but his words, the profound understanding of life he had, awakened my eyes to things I’d never contemplated before. He had to be wise beyond his years if he were indeed the composer. He would have to be centuries old, I thought, to have that kind of talent and understanding of life combined.

  Sarah’s giggle, high pitched like a woman on the make, interrupted my musings. She flirted with a guy I hadn’t even realized had approached our table. Chloe rolled her eyes at me, and then moved right to wide-eyed. Combined with the slight tilt of her head, I knew she was asking me if I were alright again. I nodded with a smile, one not forced or fake this time, and looked back at the stage. I made an honest attempt to not to be irritated by the conversation going on beside me. Instead, I paid more attention, if possible, to the guy singing on stage.

  In between songs, he’d take a sip of the beer a waiter had placed beside him, and then move right on to the next song. Luckily, by then, Sarah had taken off with the guy who’d approached her, and moved to another table. At least she was out of the imaginary running for this guy’s affections that I had going in my head. An odd sense of relief filled me.

  For the first time all week, my body hung lose and my breathing stabilized, even if my heart still did double time. It wasn’t until Chloe asked me what was wrong that I realized my mouth had fallen into a frown after the band had stopped playing.

  “Nothing, why do you ask?” I pretended to have no idea what she was going on about.

  “You’re frowning, scowling even,” she accused with a coy smile on her own face.

  “Oh, hadn’t realized. Guess I was just really enjoying the music. The songs are amazing, the depth of meaning, the deep male voices,” I mused.

  “Not to mention the sexy lead singer,” she teased.

  “Well, there is that, but ugly as a dog, he would be an amazing singer,” I countered.

  “Sure. Sure,” she giggled. “The looks help, though, right?”

  “Of course,” I agreed, rolling my own eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “I wonder if he wrote those songs too?”

  “I’ve no idea. He was looking at you as he played,” she stated, looking at her nails to feign indifference before letting her smile take over her face.

  “Yeah, right?” I grunted.

  I’d thought the same a few times, that our eyes had met, but assumed I’d just been imagining things in my sudden, passionate fixation with the man. Surely he hadn’t been looking at me. As proof, I scanned the room to count all the women I thought more his type, ones that would gather his attention before I would. Not that I found myself unattractive or boring, but in my experience, the other girls, the skinnier and more flamboyant ones, always went home with the guys. I didn’t factor in my shyness, but deep down, I knew a few times I’d been the cause of myself going home alone.

  In my musing, I hadn’t noticed the lead singer walk my way. So, I gasped when he said hello.

  “Sorry, you startled me,” I stammered as my face burned crimson. “Ah, hi.”

  “We thought you played amazingly,” Chloe intervened, on my behalf obviously, as she’d used my word.

  “Thank you,” he nodded her way before turning his attention back to me. “She said we. You feel the same then?”

  “Of course,” was the most articulate thing I could come up with.

  “Good, because a few times I lost track of where I was in the middle of a song, and hoped I’d picked back up in the right place without anyone noticing,” he admitted.

  “I never noticed,” I assured him.

  “Oh good, because it was your fault.”

  “Mine?” I asked, still trying to process the words. “How could I have had anything to do with it?”

  “You’re beautiful,” he stated in a low, gravelly voice, one so smooth he could have still been considered to be singing.

  I cocked my head, felt my brows furrow in response. My mouth tightened into a flat line that prevented speech.

  “It’s not a line. Honestly,” he practically whispered as he leaned in closer to me. “You are beautiful. To distraction in fact. I spotted you out here during one of my first sets, and I could barely focus. Good thing I’ve sung these songs a thousand times. Obv
iously, I could do it in my sleep, or when I’m distracted. Highly.”

  “I…I don’t know what to say,” I stammered again, consciously forcing my face to relax.

  “Say I can buy you a drink,” he offered. “My name is Lex, by the way. What’s yours?”

  “Christina.”

  “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

  I simply gave him a brief nod of acknowledgment that he’d spoken. Speechless, his words had struck me mute by the way he’d hit on me, like I’d watched men do to Chloe and other women I’d been out with.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to embarrass you,” he said. “Can I get you a drink?”