Emerald City Shifters (Bundle)

by Kit Tunstall

  She stared at him, a new wave of uncertainty sweeping over her. Grace nibbled on her full lower lip as she hesitantly reached for the front clasp of the bra. It was one of her favorites, also a new purchase.

  The creamy satin was light enough to be unnoticeable under the cream-colored dress, and it provided adequate support for her larger-than-average breasts, while still making her feel ultra-feminine with the pearl and bow accent, coupled with a flirty front clasp. Her hands shook slightly, with anticipation instead of anxiety, as she opened her bra, leaving the straps on her shoulders. Her breasts sprang free, and his deep inhale was gratifying to hear.

  A millisecond later, the unwelcome sound of heels tapping on the marble floor penetrated through the haze of passion trying to overtake her. Quickly, she pulled the robe closed and tied the sash, completely covered by the time their unwanted visitor came into sight.

  She wasn’t surprised to see Ashley standing behind Kingston, a possessive hand dropping onto his bicep. “I wondered where you had disappeared to, darling?”

  Kingston shrugged her off, but the hand came back immediately. “What are you doing here, Ashley? Have you come to apologize?”

  Ashley giggled, an annoyingly high-pitched sounds. “Why should I apologize when she’s the clumsy one who hit my arm?”

  How the story had changed already. As Kingston called her on that, Grace took advantage of the moment to slip away quietly. She was in no mood to face down the other woman, and she wasn’t certain she would get through it without ripping out a few hairs and perhaps marring that pretty face. Grace wasn’t a scrapper by nature, but she could hold her own if she had to. She didn’t want to end up with a black eye or something equally unfortunate for her friend’s wedding pictures though.

  Most of all, she escaped from Kingston and her own reaction. She wanted him with intensity that overrode common sense and her normal behavior. She had to think long and hard about if she could really handle a short-term affair. By the time she got to the point where she committed her body, her mind was already committed. It had been that way for her previous relationships, and though each had fizzled out or blown up spectacularly, depending on the circumstances, she had known her partners well at least in the beginning.

  Maybe what she needed was something completely different. Maybe that’s where she had gone wrong. Instead of trying to get to know her partners and connect with them beyond the physical level, maybe she should just surrender to her own biological imperative and jump on Kingston the next time the opportunity arose. She still hadn’t decided on that as she fished the key card from her tiny evening purse and entered the room.

  As she stepped inside, she let out a small groan of realization. Her dress was still in Kingston’s hand, assuming Ashley hadn’t torn it from him and ripped it into pieces in a snit. She should do something about retrieving it, but she was just too frazzled to face going back downstairs tonight. She didn’t want to run into Ashley, and she still wasn’t confident she could withstand Kingston’s charms if she sought him out, even for something as innocuous as retrieving her dress.

  Instead, she used her cell phone and texted Breanna to ask her to fetch the dress after the party was over. A hot shower restored some of her equanimity, along with removing the sticky wine feeling, and she slid between the sheets naked shortly thereafter. She had never enjoyed wearing nightgowns or pajamas, and now as an adult, she reveled in sleeping nude.

  Despite her uncertainty and her exhaustion from the evening, she couldn’t seem to turn off her mind as it insisted on spinning fantasies of Kingston in the bed with her, equally nude, their bodies pressed together. She could feel his hands on her in her imagination, and he would be silky smooth to the touch too, except where she ran into crisp chest hair, or perhaps the hair shielding his tender sac.

  She could easily imagine wrapping her hands around his shaft, certain he would be large and well endowed just judging by how big he was everywhere else. Her mouth watered at the thought of tasting him, and she whimpered as she pictured his head between her legs.

  Her hand was a poor substitute for the imaginary tongue magic her phantom lover worked as she fantasized while stroking herself to climax. As she hovered on the edge of orgasm, Grace vowed she would shove aside her own reservations and seize the moment if there was another opportunity with Kingston. She hoped she hadn’t made a mistake by walking away earlier, and that she wasn’t headed toward an even bigger mistake by planning to jump in without looking.

  With soul-shaking certainty, she knew she would be Kingston’s lover before the wedding was over. The question remaining was for how long?

  Chapter Two

  Late the next afternoon, there was a knock on her hotel door. Grace had just gotten back from a morning of activities with Breanna and a couple of other women she had met at the school where she taught music. They were due to go out for the bachelorette party in a few hours, and she had planned to take a nap. Her slumber last night had been restless, haunted with erotic dreams of Rafe, so she could use an uninterrupted stretch of sleep. When she opened the door, uncertain who to expect, it was a surprise to see one of the uniformed bell staff holding a large box. “What’s this?”

  The young man shrugged. “I don’t know, but if you’re Grace DiPlaski, it’s for you.”

  At her nod, he held out the box, and she took it. Before she had a chance to look in her purse for tip money, the young man had saluted her with a cheerful wave and was already on his way down the hall. Feeling mildly guilty for not tipping, she bumped the door closed with her hip and carried the box to the bed.

  Who would be sending her something? It couldn’t be wedding-related, because she already had the maid-of-honor dress she had brought with her from Calgary, tailored and fitted to her curves to perfection. She gasped after she pulled open the gold bow and removed the black lid to see a white sweater dress lying on a pool of pale pink tissue paper. There was a cream-colored card atop, and she lifted it to read the handwritten note inside.

  Dear Grace,

  The laundry staff tells me your old dress is beyond saving, and this was the closest one I could find on short notice. I hope it will be an acceptable substitute.

  Kingston

  Her eyes widened at the idea of him buying her a dress to replace the other when it had been stained through no fault of his. Her second thought was acceptable?

  She pulled out the designer-label dress, noting how soft the cashmere was. The dress Ashley had ruined was by no means cheap, but it had been a knockoff bought at a outlet factory deal, and certainly not an original designer label.

  This was soft as silk, and though it didn’t have the cable pattern she had adored on the other, it had a beautiful cowl neck and a banded hemline that would be flattering and show her hourglass figure. Frowning, she read the designer’s name and immediately dropped the dress. It was too expensive. Far too expensive. She couldn’t accept it.

  Could she?

  With a soft sigh of envy, she traced her fingers over the cashmere again, wanting just once to feel something so soft and silky against her skin. There was no harm in trying it on, right? As long as she left on the tags and didn’t spill anything on it, he could still return the dress when she took it back to him.

  Common sense dictated this was a bad idea, and it was leading her down a dangerous path, but she shut that bitch up quickly by stripping off her skinny jeans and tunic, tossing them haphazardly on the bed before slithering into the dress.

  Slither was the right word. Or floated. Glided. Whatever the descriptor, putting it on was almost as beautiful an experience as the dress itself. The outfit slid over her head and down her curves, settling into perfect position as though made especially for her. Of course it was the clever cut of the dress, coupled with the luxuriously soft cashmere material, that gave that impression, but she still liked the idea that the designer had just her in mind when he created this beautiful piece.

  She walked to the full-length mirror on the sliding
door closet, admiring the picture she presented. Unlike the creamy beige from yesterday, this dress was snowy white, a color she had thought she couldn’t pull off before. It seemed it would be too stark a contrast against her skin, but instead of making her look sallow, it highlighted her eyes and gave new depth of color to her dark-brown curls.

  The cowl neck could be worn bunched in front or asymmetrically draped over her shoulder, and she experimented with both ways before deciding she liked it over the shoulder better. It was a versatile piece, and she couldn’t wait to try it with a black belt and knee-high boots she had at home in Calgary.

  No, she couldn’t do that. That would mean she would be keeping the dress. It was an extravagance from someone she barely knew, and she couldn’t in good conscience accept it. Right? Even the mental question was weaker than it had been before. She had her arms around her body, enjoying the soft embrace of the dress, and looked at herself again.

  She looked amazing, and it wasn’t like Kingston had any other use of the dress. It was far too much for her to accept, at least as an acquaintance, but if her instincts are correct, they would be more than acquaintances before the weekend was over. It was a dress she could accept from a lover, no matter how brief the relationship lasted.

  Feeling like she was justifying it to herself, a twinge of guilt accompanied the decision to keep the garment, but she tried to shrug it off. Kingston clearly knew his budget, and he wouldn’t have exceeded it for a stranger, even one to whom he was attracted, or at least it wasn’t likely that he would have, so there was no harm in keeping the dress.

  It wasn’t like she was making a promise she didn’t intend to keep, or that he would expect something in return. If he did expect something—and he didn’t seem like the creepy type who would—it wasn’t anything she didn’t want to give him anyway. She had already settled that matter last night, deciding to shove aside her doubts to embrace the idea of a short-term fling with someone she barely knew.

  With that thought in mind, she grabbed her purse and key card, leaving the room just as she was. Fortunately, she wore her cream bra, which had scrubbed out nicely, aside from a tiny red stain at the seam. It didn’t show through the dress, and only the faintest lines of her bra could be seen, so she decided it would work long enough for her to find Kingston and thank him properly.

  Her panties grew damp at the thought of how that might progress, even though she told herself to play it cool. She intended to accept his invitation to share his bed if it was issued, and she might even make that invitation herself, but there was no reason to rush into it right this minute.

  They still had the rest of the weekend, and perhaps it would be better to wait until after the wedding anyway. After all, if he rejected her overtures because she had misread him, or if the sex was terrible—a seemingly unfathomable thought—it could make the last day of the wedding awkward. Far better to have sexual tension between them than the tension of awkwardness from miscommunication or crappy sex.

  She recognized a few faces from the previous evening in the foyer, and was soon able to track Kingston to the kitchen of the hotel. Feeling awkward, she slipped inside, making her way through the bustle of activity. At any moment, she expected someone to demand she stop and explain what she was doing in the industrial kitchen, but no one spoke. Either they were too occupied, or they were just too well-trained to bother a guest, even if the guest strayed where she didn’t belong.

  Slipping past the first kitchen full of activity, she found a smaller room at the back. It housed a walk-in refrigerator, along with another commercial-size display case holding three wedding cakes, and another one that appeared to be for a bar mitzvah. This must be a storage room.

  It was also a place for handsome, generous men like Kingston to forage freely through the refrigerator apparently. She admired his audacity, almost as much she admired the trim buttocks before her, displayed so temptingly in a pair of tight jeans, as he bent down to get something from the drawer.

  “Hungry?”

  She looked around, half-expecting someone else to be with them in the room. “I…a little, I guess.” How had he known she was there?

  “Good. I hate to eat alone.” A second later, he turned to face her with his arms full of food. “Even a light snack requires company to make it more pleasant, don’t you think?”

  She nodded as she came closer to the kitchen island where he had spread out his plundered booty. “I guess so. But how is this a little snack?”

  He grinned. “I’m a big guy with a big appetite. When I’m hungry, I like to eat my fill, so the more there is, the more I love it.” There was a definite sexual undertone to his words, and he underscored them by raking a lascivious glance up and down her body. It was comically exaggerated, but there was absolutely a spark of genuine lust too.

  “That still seems like a lot of food. I’ll see what I can do to help.” She eyed the salmon, berries, and various bowls and dishes of what appeared to be leftover restaurant food. “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for this?”

  He paused in the middle of opening a package of honey-smoked salmon, licking his fingers before answering. “From whom? The snack police?”

  She laughed. “No, I meant from the hotel. No matter how important a guest you are, surely you’re not going to get away with foraging through the refrigerator?”

  He winked at her. “It’s my hotel, and I’ll eat what I want to.”

  “You own the Imperial?” Wow, she no longer felt so bad about accepting the dress. He could definitely afford it, and to him, buying a designer dress had probably been something he had done without a second thought. Likely, it had never occurred to him to have his personal shopper or assistant check anywhere but an exclusive retail location. He wouldn’t have even considered a chain store or an outlet mall.

  He nodded. “It’s one of my investment properties, and I do love the location. I live upstairs, on the top floor, and when Rafe and Breanna decided to get married, it was the perfect location for the wedding and reception.” He winked at her again. “That way, I didn’t have to worry about shopping for a wedding gift. I’m not good at shopping.”

  She looked down at the beautiful white dress. “You could’ve fooled me. This is an amazing dress, and even though I shouldn’t take it, I really wanted to thank you for the thoughtfulness.”

  He resumed struggling with the salmon packet, muttering under his breath before finally tearing forcefully through the plastic with a sigh of satisfaction. “Why shouldn’t you take it?” He took one of the plates from the stack on the counter, serving up a generous portion of the salmon before sliding the plate to her.

  “It’s an expensive dress, and we’re strangers. Ethically, it’s wrong to take the dress, but once I put it on, I didn’t think I could take it off again.”

  His thoughts must have veered from food, as his gaze raked her again, pausing overly long to admire her breasts and generous hips before his eyes darted back to hers. “I hope you’ll be able to take the dress off at some point, because otherwise, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to fuck you.”

  She gasped at the bold statement. It wasn’t the profanity so much as the assured confidence that they were going to get to that point. She would have called him on it, except it was completely warranted. The air sizzled with electricity from their suppressed attraction, and they both knew they wanted each other. It was only a matter of time before circumstances presented them the opportunity to act on it.

  “I’m sure I can find some reason to take it off, with the proper motivation.” She licked her lips in an exaggerated fashion before taking a ripe raspberry from the package nearest for, bringing the bright pink-red fruit to her lips and running it over the full contours before popping the berry in her mouth. It was a little too tart, and she feared her blinking eyes might have ruined the sexy moment.

  He let out a low growl when he clutched the counter as though physically keeping himself from jumping across it to take her on the floor. No
, apparently she hadn’t ruined the sexiness of the gesture.

  She picked up a bite of the salmon, taking a deep sniff of appreciation before letting the salty-sweet fish melt on her tongue. “That’s delicious, but I’m really not hungry enough to enjoy it. Plus, I need a nap for tonight’s activities.”

  “‘Tonight?’” he repeated roughly, his voice thick.

  She nodded, striving to look innocent. “Of course. It’s Breanna’s bachelorette party, and presumably Rafe’s bachelor party. I imagine we’ll get drunk and stare at strippers all night. Isn’t that what bachelors do? And bachelorettes?”

  He lifted his shoulder. “I don’t know. Rafe’s having a more casual get-together with just the guys.”

  She nodded. “Well, thanks again for the dress.” With one more last swipe of her tongue across her lower lip, she pushed away from the counter and sashayed from the kitchen, practically feeling his burning gaze on her, scorching through the soft cashmere to the skin underneath. She managed to make it out of the busy kitchen before she giggled at the flirtatious interval. They knew where they were going, but the journey was just as important as the destination, and she intended to have fun along the way.

  ***

  She met Breanna and several ladies downstairs in the foyer around eight o’clock that evening. To her surprise, Rafe and his friends stood nearby. Where the women had gone all out, the men looked more low-key, all wearing jeans and flannel shirts, with about half wearing leather bomber jackets, and the other half wearing lightweight wool coats. Clearly, whatever they had in mind for their evening wouldn’t involve going to the club. They looked better suited for cutting wood than cutting up in a fancy nightclub.

  She was running a few minutes late, so the girls caught her up in the crowd as they headed toward the exit. She had only a brief moment of eye contact with Kingston, but the desire she read in his eyes was enough to boost her confidence through the stratosphere.

  She had chosen wisely, having picked out a sexy number for the bachelorette party. Though typically confident in her curves, she’d never worn anything quite as revealing as this before. The leather corset and snakeskin skirt screamed sex, or perhaps dominatrix. High-heeled gold shoes completed the look and added a few welcome inches of height to her short, curvy frame.