Chapter 14

It was late, probably ten or eleven at night, when Tiffany came to take his hand and led Ollie out of the party. "No one will notice we"re gone," she promised with a smile, but he thought he probably wouldn"t mind if she"d announced their departure with a brass band and a front-page ad in the Times. They slipped out, and to his surprise, Tiffany led him across the town square toward the construction site. "You said you"d always wanted to drive one, right?"

At the moment, Ollie couldn"t remember anything coherent he"d ever said in his life. On the other hand, he didn"t think much of anybody hadn"t wanted to drive big equipment, so he made an agreeable noise, which seemed to be about as much as he could manage. After a minute, though, he did scrape together enough brain cells to whisper, "Won"t it be loud, starting those up in the middle of the night?"

Tiffany gave him a positively melting gaze over her shoulder. "Maybe we"ll have to find something else to turn on, instead."

The only thing that stopped Ollie from tripping over his own feet was the koala going homina homina homina! in his head.

Where do you even pick up things like that?he asked it, neither wanting nor expecting an answer.

Fortunately for him, the koala didn"t have one. Less fortunately, it kept up a sort of…not really R-rated commentary in his head, Ollie thought. More like a particularly embarrassing teenage boy"s level of PG-13. Ollie tried very hard to ignore it as he followed Tiffany"s pale form across the square and through the safety fence, which she locked again behind them.

His heart rate spiked again. Taking him into the construction area was intriguing enough. Making sure the metaphorical door was locked behind them seemed really promising, and also, to his mild surprise, a little nerve-wracking. People could be watching!

That said, the square was empty of people at this time of night. Furthermore, it was still a very large square. Anything that happened in the dark behind the safety-mesh-laced fencing really wasn"t likely to be seen.

Ollie still couldn"t quite believe that there was any chance of anything actually happening. Tiffany was probably just going to let him sit in one of the big construction equipment machines and pretend to push its buttons.

His koala stared at him. It didn"t even say anything. It just stared at him, full of an are you kidding? vibe that made Ollie want to blush.

When it thought Ollie had suffered under the weight of its stare long enough, it said, You better push her buttons, mate, and then shut up and turned its back on him, mentally speaking. That was okay, because in front of him, Tiffany was climbing up the treads of a bulldozer like she was still in her steel-toed boots and work jeans, not clogs and a very short skirt. A breeze lifted the skirt not quite enough, and Ollie bit his lower lip against a groan.

She turned once she was up in the dozer cab, grabbed a handle inside the door, and leaned out to offer him a hand and a shot of her cleavage. "Coming up?"

Ollie muttered, "Already there," and although he hadn"t meant for her to hear him, she split a wide grin as she took his hand and helped him up into the cab. She was strong, Ollie realized. He"d known it from watching her work all day, but he hadn"t expected the obvious ease with which she moved his weight around.

The cab was both larger than he expected, and much, much smaller, with the two of them in it. Even Tiffany couldn"t stand up straight, but Ollie felt like he was bending double. Which had the advantage of putting his nose very near that cleavage he"d just gotten a chance to admire, but it wasn"t comfortable at all.

"Go ahead and sit down," Tiffany said, amused. "Let"s see how you look in the cockpit."

He swore to God she purred that last word, and that the look she gave him was sly and sultry and absolutely devastating. It was just as well the seat was available, because Ollie wasn"t sure he could keep on his feet if somebody paid him to. He dropped into the cab"s chair and found himself looking up at Tiffany like the utter goddess she was.

She stepped out of the tall clogs she wore, putting her knees on either side of his thighs as she left the shoes behind and settled into his lap. Ollie could feel the heat of her pressed against him, even through his trousers. Even through, he assumed, her underwear, although his cock gave an almighty twitch at the idea she might not be wearing any.

He suddenly very badly wanted to find out, but tried to scrape a thread of decency together. "Should we, uh, be, should we be doing something like this where somebody works…?"

Tiffany grinned. "I usually drive the dozer. Me and some Febreze will take care of it and nooooobody else will have to know."

"Oh." Ollie was usually a fairly quick thinker. It helped to be, running numbers all the time. Right now he didn"t seem to be able to put more than one or two words together at a time. "I…what…ah, what…now?" He had plenty of answers to that question. He just didn"t want to make any rude assumptions.

"I suppose," Tiffany murmured, "that depends on whether you"d like to see if I can…" A little smile formed on her lips, pressed against his neck, and she bumped her hips against his. "Whether I can drive a stick."

"Oh, my God." Ollie laughed and curled his arms around her, reveling in the sturdy strength of her body and her warmth settled against him. "Somehow I"m very sure you can."

"I am, in fact, extremely good at it." He could feel her grin. "Although I"ve never done this particular kind of stick-driving in a dozer. It seems like a good adventure, though."

An unexpected pang shot through Ollie"s heart. He kept his arms wrapped around her, but his question was quiet, careful: "Is that what this is? An adventure?"

"Life is short. I thought we should live a little before you leave town." Tiffany leaned back, eyebrows drawing down. "Oh. Or do you not want to?"

"Oh, God. Tiffany. It"s not that I don"t want to." Ollie gave a hoarse laugh. "I don"t think I"ve ever wanted to do anything more in my life. But I need you to know something first. Two things."

She was visibly startled. "Is everything okay? Are you a virgin?"

"What? No."

"Oh. Okay. What, then?"

"First…" Ollie groaned and put his face against her throat, inhaling her scent and trying not to lose track of his thoughts. "First, again, no objections here, but also if you want this right now because you think I"m going to leave and we"ll never see each other again, that"s not what"s going to happen here. Not unless you tell me to go."

She hadn"t been saying anything anyway, but somehow Tiffany still paused, absorbing that information. After a longish moment, she said, "You live in Australia," in a tone that summed up how unlikely she felt his conviction on this topic was.

"I do. And I"m going to need to get a visa to stay, or if you want to go to Australia, we"ll figure that out, but your job is here, your entire company is here, so I"m thinking I stay. But again, unless you tell me to go, I mean I might still go out west and visit the cousins but I"m not leaving the States, or you, unless you want me to."

"You met me yesterday, Ollie." Tiffany sounded baffled and overjoyed all at once. "This isn"t a decision you make based on meeting somebody yesterday. Not even if you"re a Disney princess, these days."

"I"m even better than a Disney princess."

That time they both paused, until Tiffany gave a truly inelegant snort of laughter and buried her face in Ollie"s shoulder to muffle her giggles. "I don"t even know how to respond to that. Are you a Disney prince, then?"

"No, but I am somebody…oh, God, you"re going to have to get out of my lap."

To his intense delight and almost as intense dismay, Tiffany rolled her hips against his. "Are you really sure about that?"

A groan rose from the bottom of Ollie"s soul. Some other things rose, too, or rather, rose more, until all he really wanted to do was get out of his trousers.

I don"t wear trousers!the koala objected.

That was true. In order to show Tiffany what he needed to, Ollie would not, in a manner of speaking, be wearing the trousers anymore. "I am…deeply conflicted in my answer to that question," he admitted in a low rough voice. "But I think for a minute, yeah. Because I really have to explain the second part of why I"m not going to leave you."

"Okay." Tiffany"s mouth left a heated spot against his throat, but she crawled off his lap and stepped as far back inside the dozer cab as was possible. "I"m listening."

He looked up at her, silhouetted by the streetlights, pale hair, white dress moving lightly in the breeze, and for a moment wondered what the hell he was doing talking when he could have been making love to such an incredible woman.

But the truth was that no matter how much he did want her, and he wanted her very much indeed, taking this step because she figured he was going to leave her just didn"t work for him. It had to be all or nothing.

And everyone swore to him that fated mates always went for all.

Ollie closed his eyes, nodded once, and looked up at Tiffany again. "I"m going to tell you something, and you"re not going to believe me, and then I"m going to show you it"s true. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you were the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life."

A slow smile crept across Tiffany"s mouth, but as she took a breath to speak, Ollie lifted his hand, pleading for a moment"s more time to explain. Her eyebrows rose, but she nodded, and Ollie plunged onward. "I know people talk about knowing the first time they met someone, but this is even more than that. I"m what"s called a shifter, Tiffany. I have a second shape, an animal form, and that shape has a voice that tells me—tells people like me—when we"ve met our fated mates. The person we"re supposed to be with."

Now her eyebrows were rising higher in skepticism. Ollie felt his smile go nervous. "See, this is the part where I tell you and you don"t believe me, so now I"m going to show you."

There was literally nothing else to say or do. He shifted into his koala form, and waited.