Shifter Romance Box Set

by Unknown

  “She turned on me,” Katie gasped. He saw she was using all her strength to keep the animal at bay. The animal’s head was in the noose of a catch-pole, which allowed her to keep the dog from harming her, but she was shaking—even her voice was shaking. “I cleaned all the blood off the floor and opened her kennel to clean her up and…”

  Sebastian took another step toward the dog, wary, keeping more than arm’s length away, but she was no longer in an attack pose. Her ears were up now, her head cocked, tail wagging hesitantly as he approached.

  “Get another pole,” Katie said, nodding at the wall where they were hanging.

  At the sound of her voice, the dog turned its head, reminded of her presence, and began to growl again.

  “I’ve never used one of these.” Sebastian lifted one off the hook on the wall. “What do I do?”

  “Just loop it around her neck,” Katie directed. “Between the two of us, we should be able to get her kenneled. She’s very strong!”

  “What kind of dog is she?” Sebastian crouched down, trying to decide the best tact to take. She wasn’t pulling on Katie’s pole anymore. When her attention turned to Sebastian, the dog seemed to calm down.

  “American bulldog.”

  “She’s pretty.” The dog whined, glancing behind at Katie and then lunging toward Sebastian.

  “Look out!” The pole slipped out of Katie’s sweaty hands.

  The dog headed straight for him. There was nowhere to go. Kennels on the left, the sound of excited dogs assaulting his ears, and a solid wall to the right. Sebastian didn’t even have time to get to his feet. He just managed to get his arms up, to protect his head, before she bowled him over. He heard Katie scream.

  “Hey!” Sebastian rolled to his back and the dog was on him. She had a large, wet, pink tongue she used to lick him all over his face, leaving slobber and drool on his shirt. All of her weight—probably almost a hundred pounds—was on his chest, her paws crushing his lungs.

  “Okay, girl, okay!” he gasped, laughing. The dog sat on her haunches when he pushed her off, panting and slobbering. “Katie?”

  “I’m here.” She was still in the corner, her back to the wall.

  “She seems fine now,” he said, picking the pole up off the floor. He expected her to growl when he did, but no, nothing. She sat expectantly when he slipped the noose over her neck.

  “Just… put her into the kennel down there,” Katie instructed. “There’s an open one right in front of you.”

  “Got it.” He pulled gently on the pole and the noose tightened slightly. The dog followed him happily and sat beside him as he unlocked the kennel.

  “In you go, girl.” He slipped the noose of her neck as she padded obediently into the cell.

  Katie had hung up her pole and was approaching as he locked the kennel again.

  “That was weir—”

  The dog hit the cage wire full force, making Katie scream and Sebastian jump. She snarled and barned, snapping at the cage, dog spittle dripping down the wire.

  “What the hell?” Sebastian instinctively put Katie behind him, taking a step back. The dog whined, retreating back into her kennel. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing.” Katie’s hands were gripping his waist. He could feel her trembling. “She’s in heat. A stray. But she tested fine. No diseases, no rabies, no heartworm. Doesn’t even have fleas.”

  “Well there’s something wrong with her,” Sebastian countered. “A normal dog doesn’t act like that. Maybe she was used for dog fights or something?”

  “She’d have scars.” Katie peered around Sebastian and the dog gave a low growl deep in her throat. All the rest of the dogs were going crazy at the commotion, yapping and launching themselves at the wire fronts of their cages. “It’s not her. It’s me.”

  “You?” The notion was so ridiculous he laughed. But then he noticed she wasn’t laughing along with him. The dog had calmed in her cage. She was sitting, panting from her effort. As she calmed, the other dogs did too. “Come on, Katydid, it can’t be you.”

  “It is.” She stepped around him, approaching the cages. The dog lowered itself to the ground, emitting a low growl as Katie took another step toward the cage. A warning. She took another step and the dog lunged, barking furiously.

  “Hey!” Sebastian caught Katie as she fled from the attack, even though there was wire between her and the dog. She was shaking all over. He put his arms around her, turning her instinctively away from the danger. The dog whined, shaking its head like dogs do when they get out of the water.

  “Let’s go.” Katie shook him off, heading toward the door Sebastian had come though. He took a moment, looking at the dog. She was sitting again. He noticed spot of blood on the concrete floor and thought she might be hurt. Then he remembered—Katie said she was in heat. Maybe that explained the aggression?

  “Hey girl.” He knew it was an insane move but he did it anyway. He linked his fingers through the wire. She was a beautiful dog. Lowering her head slightly, she came forward, nosing his fingers. She had a big, flat, black nose. Then she licked his fingers, her tail wagging.

  “Sebastian!” Katie called.

  He stood, looking at the dog for a moment. Then he turned and headed toward Katie, standing at the end of the hallway. She turned out the main light and flipped another switch that brought on a lower wattage light for night time.

  “That was really weird,” he said. She was quiet as they headed down the long hall toward the front of the building. “Maybe she was… I don’t know, maybe she was abused by someone who looked like you? By a woman? I’ve never seen a dog do that. Not like that. Have you?”

  “No.” Katie went right at the end of the hall, toward the front of the building, instead of left, where the car was parked.

  “Where you going?”

  “I just have to lock up the examining rooms.” She strode over to the unmarked door, taking a set of keys out of her lab coat pocket. He noticed blood on it as she bent to put the key in the lock. She sighed when she dropped the keys, picking them up and trying again.

  “Hey.” He moved toward her, seeing her hands trembling as she attempted to force the key into the lock. “Hey, are you okay?”

  “Fine.” Another failed attempt. She dropped the keys. “Fuck!”

  Sebastian blinked in surprise as she retrieved them again. Katie never swore.

  “Let me do it.” He reached for the keys and she yanked them away. Then she threw them across the room, a damned good throw. They bounced off the receptionist’s desk and landed on the floor again.

  “Katie,” he murmured, trying to take her into his arms. She struggled, howling, attempting to get away. “Katie, stop!”

  “No!” She screamed, attacking him now rather than pulling away, and he didn’t know whether he should count that as an improvement or not.

  “Katie!” He grabbed her flailing arms, pinning them to her sides, looking into her wild eyes. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing,” she whispered, cocking her head, searching his eyes. “Everything.”

  She went up onto her tiptoes and kissed him. He was so surprised he let her go and one arm crept up around his neck, her tongue splitting the seam of his lips like she was opening up a zipper. His cock jumped to attention far faster than his brain. And Katie surprised him again when she placed her other hand over the bulge in his jeans, rubbing her palm over it, making delicious friction.

  “Katie!” he gasped, pulling back and looking into her eyes. The hunger he saw there floored him.

  “Come on.” She opened the exam room door, pulling him in. He shut the door behind them and when he turned around, Katie’s white coat was on the floor and she was pulling off the t-shirt she had on underneath. He stood gaping at her as she unhooked her bra, the sight of her breasts falling free almost enough to bring him to his knees. Then she started on her jeans, the button, zipper, the motion of her breasts as she wiggled them down her hips more than enough to knock him
off balance.

  Sebastian leaned back against the door, his cock straining against his zipper as Katie turned around and bent over to slip her panties off. I’m dreaming, I fell and hit my head and I’m dreaming. But the sight of her naked—he couldn’t remember ever seeing her full naked except in bits and pieces, a glimpse of thigh here, a flash of breast there—left him speechless. She stood there wearing nothing but her charm from Theo—she wore it all the time—looking at him with such a primal lust it almost scared him. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He got to explore her on occasion in the dark and he’d come to accept that. This was such a complete turnaround it left him reeling.

  “Are you going to fuck me or not?” She raised her eyebrows in question and then slid slowly up on the exam table behind her. It was cold steel and had to be cold but she didn’t seem to notice as she parted her thighs and showed him everything.

  Sebastian had a thousand questions running through his head but he wasn’t about start asking them. He had his t-shirt off in an instant and was unbuckling and cursing his belt as he approached the table when Katie took it from his hands. She grabbed the buckle and pulled it hard. He felt it unthreading through the loops of his jeans and it snapped as she pulled it free.

  Then she had her hands down there between them, quickly unsnapping and unzipping so she could free him. He groaned once she had his cock in her fist, pumping it as she pulled him even closer. The exam table was far too high to make it a good angle. He glanced around the room, looking for another option. Two chairs against one wall, a counter with a sink, and a dog scale.

  “Hang on.” He gathered her up and she wrapped her limbs around him, hanging on as he stepped out of his jeans and boxers and carried her over to the sink. The counter beside it was the perfect height and he shoved plastic holders with brochures for heartworm and flea treatments aside before he put her down on it.

  “I want you,” she whimpered in his ear. “Quick, don’t tease. Put it in me.”

  He moaned in response, her words straightening his cock like an arrow and he let it fly, not even looking as he thrust between her open thighs. Katie gasped and cried out as he slid inside, her head going back, eyes closing. The look of pleasure on her face was like a drug. He pulled back and thrust in, the sweet velvet clasp of her flesh pure heaven.

  She made a low noise in her throat as he began to pump in and out. His hands moved up her thighs to grab onto her hips, his fingers smoothing over the long, hard ridges of scars on her one leg. Usually she shied away whenever he came near her scars but this time she didn’t even flinch. Her arms wrapped around his neck as they rocked on the counter, pulling him in for a long, hot, wet kiss that left him dizzy and breathless.

  “More!” she cried, digging her heels into his back. Sebastian groaned as his cock slid even further inside, buried so deep he couldn’t see where he ended and she began. “Oh, come on, do it, fuck me hard!”

  Those words from Katie’s mouth—Katie who insisted the lights be off during sex, Katie who didn’t make a sound, not a peep, during sex, Katie who was so rigid she sometimes felt like a block of ice during sex—made him wild. And that’s just what it was—a primal, wild sort of lust. They pawed at each other like animals. Katie growled and bit his shoulder, his neck, her nails like claws down his back. He would have the marks for weeks, but at the time he hardly noticed or cared.

  He just wanted her. She was his for the taking and he claimed her with every rutting thrust of his pelvis. They were soon covered in sweat, both of them working hard. He didn’t know if it was the sound of them having sex or not, but the animals in their kennels were going crazy. But that was nothing to the sounds Katie made. He could barely stand it, listening to the sweet sounds she made in his ear.

  “Nnnn!” She was so far gone she couldn’t even verbalize. She pushed him back and his cock slipped free of her warmth. He watched her slide off the counter and get to her hands and knees on the floor. He blinked in surprise, but when she looked back at him and gave a low sound in her throat, something demanding and yearning at the same time, he got down on his knees behind her and thrust his way back into her wetness.

  Katie howled, stretching and arching her back. He grabbed her hips, feeling more of her scars under his hands, but she didn’t care. She was fucking him back in a way he’d never experienced with her, using her hips, rolling them around and around. He wasn’t going to be able to hold out much long if she kept doing that.

  And then she was coming. He felt the first sweet spasm of her pussy, oh God, what a sweet fucking pussy, his cock swelling inside of her, his balls drawn up tight. He groaned and thrust into her, grinding deep, making her yowl and arch even more. He couldn’t hold on for a another minute. He shot the first hot blast of his cum deep into her belly, aiming his cock for the ceiling as he rutted hard and fast, the rhythmic pulse of his climax almost too pleasurable to bear.

  “Mmmmmm.” Katie slowly pulled her hips forward until his cock was free. She sighed at that and then stretched out on the floor, rolling to her back to look up at him. Her eyes were half-closed, a lazy smile spreading on her face. She’d never looked more beautiful and he drank in the sight of her, every glorious inch of her, scars and all. They didn’t detract from her beauty at all—they were like sweet accents on her flesh. He wanted to trace them with his tongue.

  “What in the hell was that?” he murmured, sitting back on his heels. The room was cold and his body was slick with sweat. Goosebumps rose on his arms.

  Katie didn’t answer him. She moved with a grace that was humanly impossible, rolling to all fours and crawling toward him. She nuzzled against his bare thighs, his belly, curling herself around him and then climbing into his lap. He held her close, incredulous, holding his breath in fear that it all might disappear. He still couldn’t connect the dots, how they’d gotten here from all of the doggie drama that seemed like light years away now.

  He didn’t understand it—but he liked it.

  Chapter Six

  Sebastian was lying on the sofa, balancing a bowl of Trix cereal on his chest. When he’d decided he was mostly done, he let one of the cat drinks out of the bowl. The cat lapped around the little fruity orbs, tongue soaking up the sweetened milk.

  “That’s not good for them.” Katie didn’t even look at him from her perch in the chair.

  She’d been acting strange lately. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but she was just—different. And that was aside from the sex, which had been often and incredible. It was like she was trying to make up for lost time or something, but he still couldn’t explain the sudden shift.

  He watched her peering out the narrow window, her gaze flitting here and there, like a distressed bird hopping branches. It was dusk, near dark. There couldn’t have been much to see out there except maybe the moon. It was almost full.

  “He likes it.” Sebastian tipped the bowl so the cat could get more. The cat sneezed when it got milk up his nose.

  “Just because we like something, doesn’t mean it’s good for us.” Katie tilted her head, looking skyward out the window. She clearly had her eyes on something but he couldn’t imagine what.

  “Tell me about it.” Sebastian pushed the cat off his stomach and sat up, setting the bowl on the end table. “The new director is a complete fuck-up. He emails line changes every night we’re supposed to learn the same day. I swear he sent me that virus. Hey, did you pick up my laptop from the computer shop?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot,” she murmured. She wasn’t really paying attention to him, he could tell. He wasn’t really mad about his laptop—it was his responsibility, after all. He’d only asked her to pick it up because it was just across the street from the vet where she worked. So she forgot, it happened. That wasn’t a big deal.

  It was just that Katie had forgotten a lot of things lately.

  “I’ll get it before rehearsal tomorrow,” Sebastian said. “Anyway, he wants me to sing baritone for God’s sake! Theo is pulling his hair out trying to get
this new guy to see reason. I know he’s glad he’s leaving in a few days.”

  There was a short silence and Sebastian realized he’s inadvertently brought up the subject that should not be named. She waffled back and forth, sometimes saying they should go, other times too afraid to even contemplate such a big move. It had been almost a month and they didn’t have anything packed. That was answer enough for him, and while his dreams of singing in Italy were dying, he still had Katie. That was all that really mattered.

  “He refuses to put Anne in the lead,” he went on, pretending he hadn’t mentioned Theo’s departure. “Although, I don’t know why she’d want to dress up as a cat anyway.”

  “A cat?” Katie’s nose wrinkled, finally looking over at him. “Cats isn’t an opera.”

  She sprawled sideways across the fat, rounded chair arm by the window on her belly, hands draped over the edge so she could look outside.

  “The English Cat.” Sebastion rolled his eyes. “That’s our next production. He wanted us to do The Fairy Queen—nude. Like a Midsummer Night’s Dream version of Hair. The dean shot that down in a hurry. And Theo said he’d shoot himself if we did. Now we’re stuck with this—what are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” Katie rolled over and leaned her head back over the arm, batting at the white filmy curtains.

  “I almost didn’t get the lead either,” he said, noticing how her sweater rode up when she arched backwards like that, showing her navel. “New director nearly gave it to this one guy, oh my god, he couldn’t sing to save his life. Found out later, it’s his cousin. Holy nepotism, Batman.”

  The cat had settled back in front of his bowl of cereal milk, lapping away. The white cat, Sassy, sat below Katie’s chair, batting at her long dark hair hanging off the side.

  “But you got the lead right?”

  “Yeah,” he grumbled, leaning back on the sofa. “But now this guys—the director’s cousin—is the new bane of my existence. He stalks me all over campus. I think he’s the one who’s been going all Hannibal on me and leaving dead animals on the hood of my car.”