Zanthe (Primal Impulse Shifters Book 2)

by Romi Hart

  Coming to sit in front of me, crossing his mighty legs the same way I had, his smirk told me he’d caught my joke. “You are too funny, Crina.” He reached out, touching my nose and tweaked it playfully. “And I will never be too old to make babies. So there is no rush here, my dear.”

  I knew males could make babies far longer than females could. What I didn’t know was how many babies Zanthe wanted. “So, can I ask the first question?”

  “You may.” With his hands on his knees, he nodded. “Ask away. Nothing is too personal. This game is all about finding out all we can about each other. And no, there will not be a quiz later.”

  “Ha, ha.” It took me a second to figure out how to word the question in a way that didn’t come off inappropriate. “Have you planned out how many children you would like to have in your lifetime?”

  With a roll of his ocean-blue eyes, he snorted. “No. There’s no need for that.”

  I had no idea why he would answer that way. “But why not?”

  “You have to wait to ask another question, Crina. It’s my turn now.” Chewing on his upper lip, he seemed to be thinking rather hard before he smiled and put one finger in the air as if he’d solved a crime. “Okay! I’ve got one. What age do you think is the best age for you to start thinking about getting intimate with someone?”

  Is he kidding me?

  I thought I would throw him a curveball. “Thirty.”

  His eyes went wide as he gasped, “Are you serious?”

  “That’s another question and you only get one. I’m next.” I loved that I’d left him thinking that I was serious. “What is your absolutely favorite color?”

  “Hands down, it’s the color of your eyes.” He didn’t skip a beat as he went on, “Are you telling the truth about being thirty before you are ready to be intimate with someone?”

  “Yes,” I teased him. “Now me. My eyes have been called several colors and various shades of blue. What color do you think they are?”

  “Violet.” His gaze into my eyes took my breath away. “Gorgeous, deep, soulful, and something out of a dream is what they are. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul and I think that is completely true of yours, my dear.”

  I couldn’t help myself as I became lost in the tranquility of his eyes. “Your eyes have several depths to them. Now, they appear to be calming. But I can see something fierce in them as well. You have the ability to be both ways, don’t you?”

  “I do.” His hands moved over my legs with a softness I hadn’t imagined a man could have. “And now you’ve asked me two questions in a row, so it’s my turn to ask something. If you felt that you’d met the right man, would you be willing to change your answer to my first question?”

  He’d asked many times now, so I felt he deserved an honest answer. “Yes.” So, I asked him one I wanted an honest answer to as well. “Are you a man who uses women for their bodies?”

  It took him a moment to answer that. “I have to be honest with you, Crina. And the honest answer to that is, yes, but in the past. I have been that sort of a man. I have seen women in the past as nothing more than objects which had something I wanted. And once I had gotten plenty of what I wanted, I sent them on their way.”

  My chest seized to move as my breath caught fast in my lungs. He is a womanizer and freely admits it! “Thank you for your honesty, Zanthe.”

  “Before I ask you another question, let me enlighten you a bit more about my past. I have only had one female at a time. I do not believe in juggling more than one at a time. And I never had anything in common with any of them. It was sex, plain and simple – nothing more than that.”

  Perplexed at how things like that work, I had to ask, “Did they all so willingly allow you to have sex with them whenever you wanted?”

  “Yes.” His eyes held mine. “I have a certain magnetism that has drawn certain females to me. But that was all in the past. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been with a woman.” His fingers trailed over my cheek. “A very long time. My turn to ask you something. Have you ever pleasured yourself?”

  “Have you?”

  “I asked you first.” He let his fingers move with ease down the side of my neck.

  The way a shiver ran through me, ending at my crotch that had gotten hot and soaked, told me that I was heading into dangerous territory with the man. “I might’ve. Only outside touching. Nothing has touched the inside of me. Nothing at all.” My mouth watered as I watched his temple begin to pulse as he clenched his jaw.

  “Nothing?” Trailing his hand down my arm, he spoke softly, “It would please me to show you how good it can feel…”

  Jumping up, I stopped him. “Hey! No!”

  Putting his face in his hands, he apologized, “I am sorry. I went too fast. Too far. Too much. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  “You’re damn right you did!” No one had ever been so bold with me before. And no one had ever made me feel the way I did. “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.” Running out of the living room, I closed the door behind me in the bathroom. “It’s closed?” The door hadn’t ever closed completely before. He’d fixed it. And the tub wasn’t dripping. I tried to jiggle the handle on the toilet, and it was too tight to jiggle.

  Wow.

  Zanthe was quite a man. Maybe too much man for me to be around. He did things to me no man ever had. Making me all hot and getting me so wet that my panties were soaked through wasn’t normal for me.

  He’s a dangerous man for me.

  A knock came to the door. “Crina, I am sorry. I really am. You’re smart, funny, beautiful and it’s just so hard for me not to want you. But I want to get to know you. I truly do. I don’t want you to be like the other women I’ve had in my life. You’re special and I want you to feel that way.”

  Opening the door, I ducked my head as shyness filled me. “I’m so inexperienced that I don’t understand what it is that you make me feel. I know I seem like some kind of a child to you. And I’m sorry that you like me the way you do. But I have no idea when I’ll be ready for sex. And I don’t think it will ever be with a man so much older than me.” My father’s death, leaving my mother alone had affected me in many ways.

  Taking my hand, he led me back to the living room. Only this time he sat me on the couch, and he took the chair across the room from me. “So, talk to me, Crina. Tell me why you’re waiting. Tell me why you’re afraid of older men.”

  “I never said that I was afraid of them.” It wasn’t like that.

  “You’re afraid to be with one.” Nodding, he knew that was the case.

  And then I knew it too. “My mother’s alone now. She’s not even fifty yet and she’s all alone now. Dad was ten years older than her and he died. He left her alone, Zanthe. She’d been with him since she was eighteen. She never knew any other man. Can you imagine how awful it must feel to know that the man you thought you would spend the rest of your life with is gone?” I didn’t want to know how that felt. I had seen my mother’s anguish firsthand. I didn’t want to feel it as well.

  “I know this might sound untrue, but you don’t have to worry much about losing me to death.” Pounding his fist against his chest, he laughed. “My brother and I have something extra. Abnormal chromosomes might seem bad to some. For us, they are good. If we get sick, we get better much quicker than others. Even when we are injured, our injuries heal faster. And the medicines my brother has developed help with that too. Our ancestors lived much longer than most people. It’s quite possible that I will outlive you, my dear.”

  I couldn’t see how that would happen. But the age thing wasn’t the only thing that I had issues with. “You might. You are something else after all. Something wonderful. And something way out of my league.”

  The way he shook his head so hard nearly made me laugh. “I am well within your league. Don’t shortchange yourself.”

  “You’ve got tons of sexual experience. I will disappoint you. I am certain of that. Do you think that I want to have my first experience w
ith a man be so shattering for my self-esteem? You’ll be great and I’ll be floundering, trying to figure out what goes where and how I’m supposed to be acting and moving.”

  “So, you’re afraid of sex.” He nodded like that was all there was to it.

  “No.” I had to admit that there was some fear. “Well, yeah. I mean that I just don’t know all the ins and outs of sex. And I don’t think that cutting my sexual teeth with a man who has experience would be the smartest thing to do. It would most definitely be the most embarrassing thing for me to do to myself, that is for sure.”

  His expression of confusion told me he was having a hard time understanding me. “So, you want to have your first time with a man who is also having his first time? What a fiasco that would be.”

  I hadn’t thought it all through. “That’s why I’ve told you that I’m not ready for sex yet. I haven’t come up with a good plan as of yet.”

  “I’ve got a great one.” Getting up, he came to me, placing his hands on either side of me as his face was very close to mine. “Let me be your first. And quite possibly, your last. There is no reason to be embarrassed about your lack of sexual experience. I like the fact that you’re innocent.” He paused as he looked up then back at me. “No, I more than like that fact. I love it. You are special and that makes you even more so.”

  “What about love?” I had to ask. I had never loved anyone. And my mother had always called sex, making love. Never had she called it sex when she spoke to me about the birds and bees. “The way you’ve told it, you haven’t had love for anyone you’ve ever had sex with. So, what would you know about love and making love?” I crossed my arms over my chest to make a barrier between us.

  My words had him standing back, making room between us. “Love?” He moved back to the chair, then sat down. “You are right. I have never known love. You want love, don’t you?”

  “Very much.” I hadn’t realized it until then. “Zanthe, I want something like I used to read in fairytales when I was a girl.”

  “The stories I’ve read had no love in them. The prince came in, swept some damsel in distress off her feet and they lived happily ever after. In my opinion, the love came later. The attraction is what came first, and they acted on it.”

  I’ll be damned. He’s right!

  7

  Zanthe

  I’d sparked something in the female with my view on fairytales. Her jaw dropped; her eyes went wide. “It’s true!” But then all the drama on her face disappeared. “Well, those are only stories is why that went on in them. In real life, it takes people a good deal of time to fall in love.”

  She really had me working. “What about love at first sight?”

  “What about it?” Her light laughter made my heart flutter. “I did not fall in love with you at first sight. You should be aware of that.”

  Nor had I fallen in love with her at first sight. But the scent of her did do things for me that no scent ever had. It pulled at my heartstrings right along with my nether regions. No other female in three hundred years had ever done that.

  How nice it would be if I could tell her that.

  But no shifter tells a mortal female about that. At least not on the first date. “So, it’s true that neither of us has fallen in love at first sight. But you do have to admit that we have chemistry. I do affect you and you certainly affect me.” I could smell her arousal. The musky scent of it had made it hard to control the bear inside of me. He was an animal and as such, he was into mating when he smelled a ripe female.

  I was human and knew that if I wanted to win the heart of this female that I would have to keep my bear at bay. Just looking at her as she twirled a dark lock of her silky hair around one long finger made my heart leap. Why it leapt was a mystery. It never had before.

  Of course, it might’ve been a heart attack. I’d never had one before. And I was three hundred and some change.

  Maybe this isn’t love at all. Maybe it’s cardiac arrest.

  “It is true,” she mumbled as she played with her hair. “You do affect me in ways that make no sense.”

  “It makes sense. I don’t see why you don’t think it makes sense that I turn you on. You are a female and I am a male. A very rousing male with lots of masculinity. Also, I’m not hard on the eyes. At least once I’m cleaned up, I’m not.” And she hadn’t even seen how well-endowed I was. If she would’ve seen that, then she wouldn’t even be thinking the way she was.

  Maybe she needs to see my manhood.

  “But you are older than I am by a lot of years and that alone should be enough to make it so that you don’t turn me on. But that’s not happening.” Cocking her head as she ran her eyes all over my body, she went on, “As a matter of fact, the more time I spend with you, the less I think about our huge age difference.”

  “Perhaps if you stopped referring to it at all, it would go away completely.” It was such an irrelevant thing, especially since I was immortal. “Look at me. You don’t hear me going on and on about how young you are or inexperienced you are.”

  “But you like that about me. Or so you’ve said.” A slight frown curved her lips. “There must be something that is trying about me, Zanthe. Be honest. Tell me what bothers you about me. Tell me what you feel you have to look past to be able to like me.”

  “I have no idea why you would want anyone to tell you a thing like that.” I had nothing. I liked everything about her. So, I had to throw her off that subject somehow.

  “Come on. I’m not even trying to be easy to get along with. There’s that.” Shifting in her seat, she made herself more comfortable, kicking off her heels and pulling her feet underneath her. “I gave you crap about your hairy body too. It’s still hairy, just shaved off now. It will grow back.”

  “As will the hair on your legs.” My comment seemed a bit too sharp as she actually recoiled as she ran her hands over her smooth legs.

  Then she ran them over her hair-free arms as well. “I don’t give any hair on my body a chance to grow back. Well, the hair on my head is the only exception. Keeping myself well-groomed at all times is one of my finest traits.”

  “So, no hair anywhere other than your head, huh?” It had been such a long time since I’d been with a woman. The last one had had about as much hair as I did on my body. A hair-free woman would be interesting. “I would like to see that.”

  “Shut up.” Pulling the dress down to cover her bare legs, she shivered. “You’re so forward, Zanthe. I’m no fool. I do know what you are referring to.”

  “It’s just that I’ve never been with a woman who has shaved off any of her hair. It might feel nice to have satiny smooth skin rubbing against mine.” The idea excited me very much.

  And it seemed to excite Crina as well who got up, coming to me with her hand out. “Come with me, Zanthe. I’ve got an idea.”

  Not one to balk when a beautiful woman wanted to take me somewhere, I gladly took her hand, following her to the bathroom. “What are we going to do?”

  “I want you to go into the bathroom and take off your pants.”

  As if I would disagree with that. “Okay.”

  “Then I want you to wrap a towel around your lower half to cover your body. After you do that, I will lather up your legs and remove the hair from them with a razor. Then you will know what it feels like to run your leg against one that is also hair-free.”

  Now she had fooled me. “No thank you.” I let her hand go. “You think you are funny, don’t you?”

  “I know that I am.” Her hand went to her hip as she had more to say, “I also know that if I really want you to allow me to shave your legs, that you will let me.”

  For a moment, I thought she might be right. But then the man in me spoke, “Not on your life, little missy. I am a man. Not a boy who lets little girls boss him around.” Pivoting on my heel, I turned around to go back to the living room. “You’ve much to learn about me, my dear.”

  “You sure, honey?” She followed behind me, her hands runni
ng around my sides as she held on to me. “You don’t want to make me happy?”

  Toying with me wasn’t smart of her. Turning around, I caught her by the wrists. “I very much do want to make you happy. One thing that I know is that shaving my body isn’t a thing that will do that. But if you would like, I can give you a sample of what I can do to make you happy.”

  Huffing, she pulled her wrists out of my grip. “No thanks. What I would like though is an idea of how you live your life. What do you do to make money? I know that is a private matter. But if you want me to take your affections seriously, then I will want to know how you make your money.”

  Stealing from campers and empty houses probably wasn’t going to make her think much of me. Digging deep, I came up with something which sounded plausible, “Research. I get paid to do research.”

  “By who?” falling onto the sofa, she looked very comfortable as she looked at me skeptically.

  “People.” I had no idea what to tell her. Then it came to me in a rush. “On the internet. People pay me to do research for them on the internet.” I’d overhead someone saying that last week. And I had thought that it sounded like a great way to make money. Not that I had any idea how one got money out of a computer when someone paid them, but it sounded like many people did know how to do that.

  “Isn’t it difficult to get a good internet connection when you live underground?” She was full of smart questions.

  “No.” I had no idea how internet connections worked.

  Opening a drawer in the table next to the sofa, she pulled out a laptop. I’d seen plenty of them before. But I hadn’t used one. “Come, sit next to me and show me where you go to get these jobs. I love doing research. Making some extra money doing what you do would be awesome.”

  I’d dug myself a real hole. Then I recalled something about passwords and how hard they were to remember. “I left the paper with my passwords on it at home. The next time we meet, I will show you everything.”