Taking the Belle_A Shapeshifter New Orleans Romance

by Abby Knox

This is insane, Ash thought, as he bent his woman over the bed. He couldn’t pop her cherry. He had accepted that. It had been a pretty hot little game, knowing they could do everything but that one thing until the wedding night.

  But then, on top of that, he had agreed to restrain himself from touching or tasting his favorite part of her tight little body, as some kind of twisted punishment for hauling ass in the middle of dinner with her parents. He hadn’t loved that idea, but it was now mid-March and he could wait it out until after Lent, whenever that was.

  But now, this crazy-ass fiancee of his had extended the pussy moratorium completely until the wedding night in June. But what could he do? Consider himself lucky that she allowed him access to her ass, which was way beyond what most guys could expect from a virgin fiancee.

  He lubed her up and pushed in without warning. She gasped at his roughness with her at first, and then sighed. He scanned the soft skin of her back. Rosemary was leaning over the bed, looking back at him with the expression of an evil temptress. Accepting his cock in this way might seem like the act of a beta female, but she knew she was really the one with the upper hand. Literally, as she was bringing herself to the edge with her own fingers.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  Fuck him, because her pussy, the part of her he really wanted — that part of her body that the wolf could home in on from ten miles away — was off limits to him for months.

  She did have a beautiful ass, and cupping her breasts from behind was really freaking hot. But damn, the psychological torture of knowing what he was and was not allowed to do … it was too much.

  It was too much for his psyche. Too much for his emotions.

  Too much to hold back the wolf.

  Shit.

  He let out a growl as he thrust in.

  She moaned, and the flesh on her back produced goosebumps at the sound of the beast.

  Which further teased the primal forces that battled to get out. He felt the change beginning to happen. He felt every hair on his body stand on end and his mouth start to water.

  The beast was coming out, and the beast was also … coming.

  He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through it. But his Rosemary was egging him on with her own primal noises — a feline sort of chirping, like a cat waits for the right moment to pounce on its prey.

  Ash opened his eyes at the moment of their mutual ecstasy and got the shock of his life.

  It only happened for a flash, but he saw it happen. Both he and his girl had shape-shifted, right there in the bedroom. He was the wolf. His girl was the panther. And they were together. And then, before his eyes, they were human again.

  This told him everything he needed to know about her little games. She was tormenting herself as well as him.

  What a delicious, twisted little creature he was about to marry.

  It was going to be a long slog torturous slog until June for the wolf.

  Chapter 13

  Rosemary

  The next few months flew by.

  There was so much work to do to get this wedding planned, she and Ash barely saw each.

  Besides nailing down a venue, there were photographers, invitations, flowers, music, dresses and all kinds of details to secure.

  As much as she enjoyed spending her time shocking her mother, Rosemary was relieved to be back in her good graces. Wedding planning was a bitch. Mama and Daddy’s credit cards made it a whole lot easier to get shit done.

  Choosing her bridesmaids was the hardest part of the whole affair. She knew GiGi and Chastity had to be in the wedding. But there was just one missing part. She needed a maid of honor, and there was only one choice.

  So, she girded up her courage and walked in to Lucky Penny Interior Designs.

  “Hi,” she said, without any introduction or small talk. “Listen, I know we have our differences, and I know you have a little bit of a crush on Ash. But I want you to know I understand. It’s weird. I’m weird. The DuChamps clan is weird. We are all weirdos, you know? You’re pretty weird yourself, being a wolf and all. So, anyway, I know this is awkward but would you please consider not being mad at me for maybe three seconds and please come dress shopping with me today? Because you’re the one who brought Ash and me together and I want you to be my maid of honor. It just makes sense, right? And I think it will help everybody get over the whole panther/wolf shapeshifter thing if we show everybody how OK we all are with each other. What do you say?

  Penny stared at her and blinked, mouth hanging open.

  It took a moment to get a response, but finally, Penny relented. “Sure. Whatever I have to do to get you to stop talking about this in front of my client here, I’ll say yes.”

  It was then that Rosemary finally noticed the little old lady who had stopped flipping through fabric samples to stare at both of them.

  “OK so, I’ll go away now and come back later to pick you up for lunch,” Rosemary said, trying to recover after realizing she’d just spilled everybody’s secrets in front of a stranger who clearly thought she was nuts. “… at which time I will be medicated and not at all talking about wolves and things. Shapeshifting? What’s that? Haha…”

  Later at lunch, Penny and Rosemary cleared the air.

  “But listen,” Penny said over a comforting bowl of crawfish, beans and rice, “It’s going to take some time for me to get used to your other cat friends hanging around. I know GiGi’s become kind of a fixture too, but I have my doubts. Especially after what happened after that first date of hers. First date!”

  Rosemary shrugged and nodded, pulling back and sucking off the head of the tasty little crawfish. “We kitty cats like it rough, but everybody’s OK. You and GiGi can talk that out later. Because I don’t need any drama in my wedding party.”

  Penny sighed. “This is all happening too fast. And by the way, it’s not about me having a crush on Ash. I don’t. It’s way bigger than that. But that’s another drama for another day.”

  So much drama. So many hushed side stories in her own little wedding party. What could possibly go wrong? Rosemary accepted Penny’s explanation, as vague as it was, and after that, the pair of them shopped for dresses with Betsy, GiGi and Chastity. The rest of the bitch-ass cousins were having a bridal shower planning session somewhere, so it was just the five women.

  At the end of the day they finally agreed on a different color for each bridesmaid, reflecting the colors of the wedding: teal, silver, pink and purple. Rosemary acquiesced to her mother on a traditional white silk ballgown for the ceremony. But because she only had three bridesmaids — and because she looked really good in teal and didn’t want to give it to anybody else — she decided to keep the teal dress for herself.

  “I looked washed out in white, so I gotta at least have this teal dress for the reception,” Rosemary said as the four younger women giggled and strutted around the posh Uptown dress shop in the biggest, boldest, most over-the-top ballgowns any of them had ever laid eyes on.

  Rosemary looked at herself in the gilded mirror and sipped her complimentary champagne.

  Her mother sighed and shook her head, a little tipsy herself, having just dropped tens of thousands of Lionel’s dollars on five dresses, plus a mother-of-the-bride gown for herself. “Rosemary’s gonna do what Rosemary does.”

  The bride-to-be slammed the rest of the champagne back down her throat and said, “Why the hell not? Cats don’t actually have nine lives. I’ve got one life. One wedding. Who’s gonna tell me I can’t have two dresses?”

  The final two months before the wedding flew by in a blur of parties, brunches and meetings with vendors. She hoped Ash was having as much fun with this short engagement as she was having.

  Chapter 14

  Ash

  The final months before the wedding dragged on like an eternity.

  Due to wedding planning and work, Rosemary and Ash barely saw each other.

  He poured himself into his work at the advertising firm and into coming up Plans A, B and C to get
the stubborn old ass Lionel DuChamps to show up at the riverboat for the wedding.

  But he and the rest of his buddies, Bobby, Vann and Gavin, had it all planned out. A little chat between Lionel and Vann shortly after the engagement party had also helped in the cause, but nobody could be sure. There was no telling what Lionel was thinking. That was probably what had made him such a damn successful businessman. He was totally unreadable.

  Ash just hoped it would not go completely sideways.

  On the big day, Ash was nervous as hell.

  Not because he was having second thoughts. He was without a doubt ready to be with his bride. As far as he was concerned, they were already married. They were bonded by love. She was his and he was hers. The rest was just a party.

  As Bobby helped him with his tie, he was grateful his best man didn’t speak the utterly grotesque phrase, “last chance.” Bobby just got him. He knew as well as Ash that there was no question this wedding was happening, with or without Rosemary’s father, and with or without Old Lady Boudreaux’s heirloom diamond.

  Instead, Bobby said, “I’m proud of you, buddy. I love you like my brother. And I think Rosemary is fantastic. You’re a lucky man.”

  Ash agreed. “I am lucky. So lucky that I’m about to take my chances with this ceremony and hope Rosemary doesn’t try to kill me.”

  Bobby laughed. “Nah, she’ll understand. Hey, you had a job to do, and the pack gets it done one way or another, right?”

  “Yes we do. I just wish I knew the outcome already so I wouldn’t feel like I was ready to vomit. Why couldn’t we all have been cursed with second sight instead of wolf genes?”

  Bobby shrugged as if to say, it’s a little late to wish for that now. He patted his shoulder. “Well. Time to go on upstairs.”

  “I believe it’s called a deck. Were you raised in a barn?”

  Moments later, Ash was standing under the flowered arch with the justice of the peace, as well as his Voudon priestess friend Lucy, who had agreed to take part in the ceremony. Ash, who had never been a fan of having a religious ceremony, had secretly made the priest go away with a donation to the parish. He was not about to pretend to convert. He was going to marry his woman on his own terms.

  He glanced over at Lucy and crossed his fingers.

  From the gangway, beyond the ceremony space, Rosemary’s cousin Chastity, wearing the biggest purple ballgown he’d ever seen, gave him the thumbs up. He nodded back. Chastity then picked up a radio and spoke into it, quietly, so nobody could hear. Then she disappeared around the corner.

  Soon, there was a slight commotion back there. And a weird smell. That would be sage and burning crystals that he hoped Rosemary wouldn’t notice.

  Wedding guests were turning around in their seats, but nobody could see exactly what was happening from that vantage point. The only thing Ash could hear was a man’s voice booming, “Just what kind of half-assed circus is this?” And then Rosemary’s voice, on the verge of tears, “Daddy?” And then silence.

  Ash’s heart stood still in his chest as he waited for what would happen next.

  The string quartet struck up the processional and now was the moment Ash would find out if his plan — or another one of the plans of the pack — had worked or not. The only question was, Rosemary going to be a blushing bride because she was so happy, or blushing because she was ready to spit fire.

  Ash calmed himself, and smiled.

  He would take whatever version of Rosemary he would get.

  An excerpt from Abby’s next book…

  HAVING HIS CAKE

  Part Two of Her Big Easy Wedding

  GiGi DuGrey had no life. Running a new restaurant meant she may as well set up camp 24/7 at work. If that were not crazy enough, it was even crazier to think she could compete in New Orleans. But it was her home, and this was her dream.

  Which meant she did everything at GiGi’s Cafe from cook, bake, clean to check in with individual patrons in the dining room.

  After closing on this full-moon night, she was hauling out the trash when the wolf showed up.

  “Hi there, Buster. Hungry?” GiGi had already set aside scraps for her furry friend. She knelt down in front of the hulking gray creature and set down a bowl of the leftover giblets from the night’s menu. “Not much of that stuff left for you tonight, Buster. The hipster foodies are actually eating organs these days, if you can believe it.”

  Buster seemed to ignore her, but allowed her to stroke his neck as he ate and speak to him. “I hope you like your new bowl. I know it’s crazy and you’re not my pet, but I couldn’t help myself from stopping at the pet store.”

  She looked behind her, but it sounded as if her sous chef was working on the rusty bucket of a dishwasher. The last thing GiGi needed was for a pregnant woman to peek outside and have the liver scared out of her at the sight of a wolf at the back door.

  She was barely making enough to cover the expense of having a full-time sous chef, but breaking even was the way it was going to be for the foreseeable future. Hopefully her uncle Lionel’s investment would hold out until she started making a profit. GiGi had not wanted to accept his offer in the first place, but as an unknown in the business and fresh out of culinary school, it was too tempting to pass up. So, she left her job as a line cook and took the leap.

  “No niece of mine is gonna spend her best years waiting for a break,” he’d said. Not that he understood remotely what he was talking about, but a girl would be a fool to pass up old family money. But along with that came a twinge of guilt over her easy access to resources. That, combined with her drive to succeed, meant she oversaw every last detail of the cafe’s operations and worked until her back ached, day in and day out.

  “You’re nice company, Buster,” she said, stroking the wolf’s neck. “I feel like you get me. You should come around more than once a month. I’m too busy to have a pet at my place so this is a nice arrangement, even if all you’re interested in is hog intestines. At least it was a happy pig. You got the best, most pampered pig on the planet. I hope you appreciate that. No rabid squirrels for you tonight. Oh, but I almost forgot. I did save you something special.”

  She took out a foil-wrapped package from her pocket and the wolf looked up with intense, ice-blue eyes, licking his chops. “Oh, you smell that squab already?” She laughed. “Here you go, stud. But shush, don’t tell the sous chef, she would freak if she knew I was doing this with the leftovers.”

  The wolf downed the wild game bird in seconds and then licked GiGi’s fingers clean. Then licked her face. GiGi laughed. “You know, for a ferocious beast, you sure are full of sugar.” The wolf licked her whole face in one swipe. “All right, calm down, man.”

  She stood when she heard footsteps coming toward the back of the restaurant, and then a voice. “GiGi, did you already bleach the cutting boards? I told you, let the crew do that.”

  GiGi stood and glanced at the door and called over, “Yeah, I know, but it takes two seconds and I was right there, so, you know. Just micromanaging again.” She turned back to the alley. The wolf was gone. There was no sign that he had even been there. Only the full moon lit up the alleyway, with its damp, mossy brick walls and ivy encroaching the second-floor windows.

  She sighed. Her big, terrifying gray pet was gone again.

  The first time GiGi had seen the wolf in the alley, about a year ago, it had scared the shit out of her, obviously. But now they were basically best buddies. As much as a human female and a huge, blue-eyed gray wolf can be friends.

  GiGi looked off into the darkness and said, “See you next month, Buster.”

  Vann

  The famous celebrity chef needed to find a way to get to his old buddy Ash’s engagement party without drawing too much attention to himself from the drunks on Bourbon Street.

  It was Mardi Gras, so of course his driver couldn’t just pull up in front of Ash’s building.

  “I can’t let you out this far away, it’s not safe,” said his driver. “You can’t
just be seen walking down the street.”

  Vann sighed. The driver was right. He was Vann West. Winner of the Foodie Network’s Carnivore World Series of Cooking. As ridiculous as that sounds, it was a huge hit.

  The title had boosted the popularity of his titular New Orleans restaurant in the Freret neighborhood by about 1000 percent, and earned him enough money in winnings and additional customers that he was able to hire more staff, hire three full-time assistants and open a location in the touristy French Quarter and a location in Times Square. The New York franchise was met with a broad spectrum of pans by food critics, but the people proved them wrong. The place was crammed day and night.

  And if that weren’t enough, his audacious behavior on the Foodie Network show—and some said his wolfy, ice blue eyes, flowing Thor-like hair and massive biceps—had scored him an amazing amount of attention. Now, a certain streaming television company was paying him to travel all over the world to eat and give his opinion on world affairs, as if he had an opinion that mattered. He had published three books in four years. In what world could a hot-shot chef be on a tour for a wildly successful book that wasn’t even about recipes?

  At this moment in time, Vann West was the shit. He finally decided that being the shit meant you had to suck up the fact that you might cause a scene. So, he got out of the car and looked at the crowds. He donned his baseball cap and sunglasses, pulled his leather jacket tight around himself and hoped for the best.

  But on some level, if he was honest, he knew that getting recognized on the street doesn’t actually suck that bad.

  About the Author

  Abby Knox lives a dual life. Fantasy Abby would love to either live on a farm with Ryan Gosling, where she could raise goats and chickens; or live in a magical cottage in the woods as a historical re-enactor. Reality Abby desires neither to muck out stalls nor to wear bloomers. So, the ever-pragmatic Reality Abby keeps Fantasy Abby happy by putting her into sweet little works of romantic fiction with her pretend hobbies. Both Abbies hope you enjoy this brand of sweet, sexy — and sometimes weird — storytelling. This is Abby’s fifth book.