She reached up and touched her chest and she could feel the heat beneath her clothes. Her skin was burning hot, but it wasn’t distressing her. It wasn’t a fever. It was a lovely warm glow making her feel as if she would be shining with energy.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself to turn around. As she did, she made sure she did it slowly, and when she saw Dash standing there ahead of her, his piercing green eyes fixed on her and his stunningly dark features popping out and catching her there like a fly in a web, she couldn’t help but smile.
She had felt him before she had seen him, and from the glinting green in his eyes, she knew now that she wasn’t going mad at all.
Dash was a shifter.
He had to be.
He oozed his animalistic nature and she could almost feel the power emanating from him.
The green glinted across his eyes again−they shone brightly−and he took a step closer to her. He held out his hand, and even though they were at least ten feet apart, she felt his energy pulling her to him.
She moved and let her hand move up and take his. When their fingers connected this time, it was stronger than before. Their souls and their energies mixed together, they intertwined and the heat between them was so strong and powerful, it made her knees shake.
“Dash…,” she whispered, her eyes fixed on his, unable to tear herself away.
He didn’t say a word, but he took a step closer to her and their bodies were almost fully touching.
She barely dared breathe, and she couldn’t speak.
Dash reached up and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and his eyes were glistening with color and power.
“I’m sorry, Jannie,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to get hurt…”
As he said the words, she felt her walls trying to spring up. She wanted to push him away, but she could see the pain in his eyes.
“I’m so drawn to you,” he whispered. “But is isn’t safe here…”
“What do you mean?” she asked with a slight sense of panic.
She could see from the look in his eyes that he was afraid for her. She had thought that if he were a shifter, he would be emotionally immature and unavailable, but from the way he was acting, she was beginning to think she must have gotten it wrong.
This man was clearly solid, and he was having trouble with his feelings. He clearly had a strong sensation when they were together, just like she had.
“We need to talk,” he whispered.
“Okay,” she said, her eyes still fixed on his.
They were holding each other in place, in the center of town, and in those moments, it was as if there was no one else around. Their lips could only have been centimeters from each other, and she could feel the heat from his hand cupping her face. Whatever he was doing to her was changing her from the inside out. But she didn’t want to run from it this time, it felt right. It was as if this was exactly where she was supposed to be.
He let his big, rough hand fall away from her face and it took hold of hers. He smiled at her and she felt something even deeper, something real and true, as if they had known each other since the beginning of time.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her, a glint passing over his green eyes.
“Starving,” she grinned.
He squeezed her hand tightly and pulled her along as he began to move further down Main Street.
“Come on,” he said. “I know just the place.”
9.
She had been expecting him to make the turn into Shifter’s Bliss, but Dash had strolled on by, still gripping her hand tightly and walking with her as if they had done this a thousand times.
It was strange for her to see him this way−he was determined and taking charge; she hadn’t been able to tell that he had it in him, but he had kept her at such a distance. Now that he was letting her in and coming closer to her, it was as if she were seeing the real Dash for the first time.
He slowed his pace when he reached a little diner on a road that intersected Main Street. It looked shabby and old, but completely authentic, and the smell of the food that was drifting out to meet them on the pavement was driving her wild.
“My god,” she said, “that smells so good.”
Dash smiled.
“It’s one of the best,” he said. “Wait until you see the menu.”
He held the door open for her to walk through ahead of him. When she looked up and around at the wonderful décor, she couldn’t believe she had walked by this place so many times and not given it a second thought.
It wasn’t just the menu that was wonderful, because the décor was too. It was old and rustic, all wooden tables with red and white checked tablecloths, antlers mounted on the walls and neon lights. She could hear the sizzle of the grill back in the kitchen, the music was just low enough for it not to be overpowering, and the men and women in there were clearly more local than they were tourists.
“One of town’s best kept secrets,” he winked. “For some reason, the tourists don’t seem interested in this place… but we all know better.”
“Hey, Dash!” A waitress smiled as she stepped over with a pencil behind her ear.
Jannie looked at her nametag and noted that it said, Emily. She looked young, maybe twenty at most, and she had blonde hair−perfectly braided and long−right down her back. She was pretty and almost cherubic in appearance, and it was clear that they must have known each other well. She seemed completely at ease around him.
“Hey, Em,” he said. “You got a booth for two?”
“Sure thing,” she said as she grabbed a couple menus and started to walk toward the back of the room.
She stood next to a corner booth and smiled as they climbed inside and then she laid the menus down.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.
Dash looked across at Jannie and she shrugged.
“I’m going to have a beer,” he smiled.
“Of course,” Jannie teased. “Well, I guess, I’ll have a beer too then.”
Dash cocked his head to the side and gave her an impressed smile. Emily moved away from the table to get them their drinks from the bar, and Jannie wiggled her eyebrows.
“I didn’t think you’d be the beer kind of girl,” Dash said warmly.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she said confidently. “And by the looks of things, there’s plenty I don’t know about you either.”
Dash leaned forward and his eyes glinted again.
“I get the feeling you know more than you let on…” he whispered.
Jannie’s heart was pounding out of her chest. She was so into him, and seeing him again, after two days of being denied, was rousing feelings that she didn’t know were possible.
“Maybe,” she said as she grinned and bit her lip. “But I want you to tell me… what is going on?”
He looked up as Emily approached the table and set down two beers. Jannie and Dash thanked her, and then she moved away as they pretended to look at the menus.
“I don’t want Emily to hear any of this,” he said quietly, as a way of explanation. “I’ve known her since she was a kid. She’s a friend of mine from high school’s younger sister, and she certainly isn’t as in the know as even you appear to be.”
“In the know?” Jannie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I get the feeling you sense something in me,” he said. “I’ve known it since the second I first saw you. And when you said you were a writer, I don’t know… I got the feeling you were here to cover a news story. Maybe something to do with our legends and our past…”
“I’m not a journalist,” she told him firmly. “I did tell you that when you asked the first time.”
He smiled at her warmly; he clearly enjoyed her feistiness.
“Well, I’m glad,” he said. “Because the people around here, they don’t like being investigated.”
“Which people?” she asked as she leaned forward.
Dash took a sip of
his beer but his eyes never left hers.
“What have you heard about Bridge Hollow?” he asked her.
Jannie swallowed and bit her bottom lip. She had no idea what was going to happen when she told him she was a believer, but she just hoped it wouldn’t push him away.
“I don’t know much,” she whispered. “But I know what you are.”
His eyebrows raised slightly, but then he smiled and nodded his head.
“Okay,” he said. “Were you looking for that when you came here?” He seemed serious.
“No,” she told him honestly. “I came here for inspiration for a book I want to write. I didn’t know what I believed… but I had heard plenty of stories… and then, when I met you, I don’t know. I was confused at first, I didn’t get the feeling that you were a…” she mouthed the word, shifter. “I had read things about them, and I thought that I would know straight away if I ever met one… but it wasn’t until our fingers touched and something happened… something big.”
He nodded his head slowly.
“Something big did happen,” he confirmed. “Something that even I wasn’t expecting.”
She swallowed nervously, and he reached out and took hold of her hands. When she felt his warmth, she was comforted, and she liked what she was feeling.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he whispered. “I don’t want to drag you into something that is going to be dangerous… but fate doesn’t take any prisoners.”
“Fate…” she whispered.
The word was so apt. It was as if they had been waiting their whole lives to be led to this point, to be sat opposite each other right here in this diner, to be holding hands and to be looking into each other’s eyes.
“I don’t want any danger,” she said. “But when I’m with you, for some reason, that all seems to go out of the window.”
She was so confused. She knew she shouldn’t be walking headfirst into something risky, but for Dash, it all seemed to be worth it. She just hoped she wasn’t going to get burned.
“What is going on here in this town?” she asked him.
Dash took a deep breath and then he tapped the menu.
“Emily is coming back over,” he said. “Let’s order and then we can really talk.”
“Okay,” Jannie agreed.
She felt a twist of dread knot in her stomach and she suddenly she felt way out of her depth again.
Whatever he was about to tell her, she knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“A few weeks before you came to town, someone was murdered in Shifter’s Bliss,” Dash said before he took a big bite of his burger.
“What?” Jannie’s eyes had grown wide and she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
They had waited until their food had arrived and they knew they weren’t going to be disturbed anymore. The tables around them had cleared out, and they had the back of the restaurant to themselves, and it was clear that Dash was feeling more comfortable about talking now that they were all alone.
“A man, a drunk,” he said sadly. “He was a resident of the town, and somebody that everyone kind of knew in one way or another. A familiar face I guess you could say.”
“Okay…” Jannie urged him to continue, her heart raging in her chest.
“It happened in full view of everyone,” he said. “And no one saw a thing.”
He shook his head and took a swig of his beer.
“Things like that just don’t happen here,” he said with concern. “Me and my pack, we could sense danger in a room in a split second, but this guy had been lying dead for at least ten minutes… and he was cold. Ice cold.”
Jannie felt a chill creep right up her spine.
“That’s awful,” she said.
“You must have heard, on the news, some of the stories that have been coming out here lately?” he said. “Plenty of people come here looking for the supernatural, but they don’t truly believe it… What makes you different?”
Jannie sat back and looked at him. How could she explain that she just knew?
“I guess it must go back to my grandfather,” she said. “He stayed here for a while, sometime around the second World War… He believed, and he told my grandmother stories and she passed them on to me. He was here and he had something to do with the mine… there’s a mine here, right?”
Dash’s face tightened and concern flashed all over it.
“What do you know about the mine?” There was a chill in his voice.
“Not a whole lot, really, just that my grandfather worked there, or he had something to do with it at one point. I’m not sure of the details.”
“And he left town?” Dash asked with wide eyes.
“He was only here for six weeks…,” she trailed off. “Kind of like I am.”
Dash’s eyes started to dart from one corner of the table to the other as he looked down at it with worry. Jannie could sense the panic in him, but he was also churning something over deep in his mind, as if he were debating telling her something but didn’t know if he should.
“Promise me,” he said as he finally looked up and their eyes zoned in on each other’s. “Promise me you won’t go looking for it.”
She was taken aback when he said the words. It was not what she had been expecting.
“You want me to promise you that I won’t go looking for the mine?” she asked him.
He nodded.
She leaned back and felt nerves mounting inside of her.
Seriously, what the hell was she doing? This went against all she had promised herself.
“Okay,” she said genuinely. “I promise I won’t go looking for it. But why?”
Dash’s eyes were on hers again and he held her hand across the table.
“I can’t tell you,” he said sternly. “But I need you to trust me.”
Jannie was feeling more wary by the second, but she nodded her head. She didn’t want to argue with him, and now that she had confirmation that he was what she thought he was, she didn’t want to put herself in any more danger.
“If you can’t tell me that,” she said nervously, “can you at least tell me what you did to me when our hands touched back at the bar?”
Dash smiled warmly and gave her hand a little squeeze. The energy between them was electric and his heat was warming her right down to her bones.
“My kind all have one true mate,” he said.
Her heart began to flutter. She remembered what she had read during her research only a couple days before.
“I don’t want to scare you… but I think you’re mine…”
He smiled, and Jannie felt as if the world had stopped spinning on its axis. The two of them could have been the only two people alive. Everything around them seemed to fall away, and all she could see was him.
Dash.
This incredible magical man, who had powers she didn’t even truly understand.
“And what are you? A bear?” she whispered.
“I’m a wolf, Jannie,” he said, his eyes tingling with green. “I’m a shifter wolf.”
A wolf.
Jannie smiled and rested her other hand on top of his.
This badass wolf man was trying to claim her. And she had never been more excited or afraid.
10.
As they walked back to the lake in the dark, Dash kept his arm protectively around Jannie’s shoulder. The temperature had dropped with the autumn sun, and the chill in the air was biting and harsh.
They walked under the canopy of pine trees, and in the middle of the branches, high above, the sky was clear and covered with stars. It had been a long time since Jannie had truly looked up at the moon and the heavens, but to see it there, all clear and sparkling, was a magic all its own.
Dash had been a complete gentleman, and he certainly hadn’t put any moves on her just yet. The chemistry was so powerful between them, it was as if she had known him for a thousand years. She understood him deeply and without question, and she could tell that he felt the same.<
br />
The whole idea was crazy, and she didn’t know how she was ever going to reason with herself over it, but she had often heard people say that when they met the person they were supposed to be with, they just knew.
This is exactly how she felt… and she was struggling to keep her hands off him.
They started to walk down the slope that led to Jannie’s cabin, and she could feel that Dash was on alert. The darkness had really come in, and she could barely see a foot in front of her, but Dash strolled forward confidently and led her safely to her front door.
When she reached it, she turned and looked up at him. He was so handsome and sexy, and all she wanted to do was grab hold of him, kiss him and pull him inside with her. But she was still too afraid.
He traced a finger down her cheek and across her jawline, and she reached out and put her hands on his waist. She could feel how taught and muscular he was underneath his t-shirt, and the scent of cologne mixed in with smoke and beer was making her pussy ache. He was so much of a man. And she could see his protective side really coming forward. He really cared about her; she could feel it.
She smiled at him coyly and stared into his eyes, and when his hand went back up to her neck and took hold of her, her knees began to go weak.
When their lips met, it was as if an explosion were firing between them. His mouth opened and their tongues slipped up against each other’s as they explored one another. Jannie’s breath was taken away, her heart pounded hard and her whole body was tingling with desire and anticipation.
God, she wanted him.
She wanted him so badly she didn’t know how she was going to be able to walk away from him and see him head around to his side of the lake. But she had to be strong.
She pushed herself against him and gripped his waist tightly, the heat between them getting stronger, and she could feel his desire growing into something she had never experienced before. Something powerful and animalistic.
Her pussy throbbed and her nipples hardened. She wanted so badly to wrap her legs around him and let him do things to her that she had promised herself she didn’t need. She had promised herself she would sacrifice all her desires to save her heart, but the truth was, when she was with Dash, it was impossible. It didn’t turn into a want… it was a deep need.
Bridge Hollow Shifters: The Complete Collection Page 26
