11. Eli

Afull twenty-four hours after the full moon, I'm inordinately grateful that Adam is also a shifter.

There's definitely been times when I've had to go into a job the day after the full moon. Rarely within hours of shifting back–the nature of the kind of jobs I usually take means that more often I work at night–but there have been a couple stents in lumber yards or construction where I ended up having to report to my crew within a couple hours of regaining my human form.

I don't like to think too much about those days. They were miserable–hours of working while sore and aching from the physical change and battling surges of painful lust mingled with an erection that wouldn't quit and a hunger that felt like it was gnawing at my bones.

Other times, I've been dead broke and barely able to afford a motel room to crawl into and fast food to keep the hunger pangs at bay. Right now, though, things are different. And for a full day following the shift, I'm grateful for it.

The minute I drive my bike away from the woods after shifting back, I head through a drive-through for something to eat, ordering two big breakfast sandwiches piled with meat, egg and cheese. Eating and riding on a motorcycle is damn near impossible, so I park and scarf both down in a hurry, tossing the wrappers away and making a beeline for my hotel. Once I'm there and in my room, I don't even bother getting undressed. I barely manage to get the door shut and locked before my back is against it, my zipper down and my cock in my feverishly stroking hand.

That's all the next twenty-four hours is–a cycle of jerking off until my knot is softened enough to ease the ache, ordering food from the kitchen downstairs in the lodge, and then sleeping until I wake up again with a hard-on so painful that I'm obliged to stroke myself to another orgasm before I can eat again. And through it all, one woman keeps flitting into my mind, every time my hand is wrapped around my cock.

Not the blonde in the forest, bent over and ready for as many horny shifters to fuck her as wanted to line up and take advantage. Not any of the women over the years that I've paid to take the edge off, or who I've taken home. Not even some impossible fantasy of the perfect girl dredged up from the corners of my mind.

Wisteria is the one who keeps slipping into my thoughts, again and again, no matter how hard I try to force her out. I have no right to imagine her soft mouth around me, or the way it would feel to kiss her, or try to picture what she'd look like naked if I stripped her out of that pretty lavender outfit she'd been wearing the last time I saw her. I have no right to any of that.

But again and again, throughout the day and night as I go through the motions of easing the moon-driven rut, she slips into my thoughts. Especially in the moments I should be thinking of her least of all–when I'm about to come, when I am coming, when my lust has unraveled to the point that I can no longer control it.

It leaves me with a feeling of guilt that's wholly unfamiliar to me. I've never met a woman who lingered with me like Wisteria has–especially one who turned me down flat. In fact, if I tried to recall any of the women I've known or slept with, I'd be hard pressed to remember names or anything much about them–beyond a vague concept of what they looked like, and if they did anything particularly spectacular in bed.

There's a feeling of relief, the next morning when I wake up. I have a hard-on, but it's a man's usual morning wood, not the unrelenting arousal of the days leading up to the moon or the ferocious rut that begins the night of. I ignore it–I'm so sore and chafed from yesterday that just the thought of wrapping my hand around the stiff flesh makes me wince. Instead, I pry myself out of bed–wrinkling my nose at the state of the sheets–and stand up slowly.

My muscles ache–both from the physical changes during the moon and from the furious rut yesterday–but as I stretch, it feels less like the immediate soreness following the change and more like the soreness after a good workout. I stride naked to the shower, still ignoring my cock jutting out stubbornly in front of me, and groan with pleasure as I step under the hot spray of water. Another thing that I don't take for granted–being in a place where I can get a long, hot shower in the aftermath. There's been times when I've been camping out, without a place to stay at all, my best option for cleaning up a cold stream.

My wolf might appreciate that idea, but the part of me that's a man likes a little comfort after a shift.

Thirty minutes later, I step out of the shower clean and scrubbed, my hair freshly washed and my cock mercifully softened. I find clean clothes and run a hand through my wet hair, stripping the bed for the housekeeper before going down to find some breakfast. It feels like the least I can do.

What would it be like, I wonder, as I pile the sheets and pillowcases in a hamper, to not be alone during this? I've never personally known a shifter in a long-term relationship–but then again, I've gone most of my life without having very many friends at all. The thought startles me into going still for a moment, the bedding wadded up in my hands, because I've never really considered it before.

I like my nomadic lifestyle. I like being alone–or at least, I always have before. I don't know if it's this blasted town getting under my skin or something to do with running with a pack for the first time since I was a teenager, but there's an odd longing that sweeps through me. I've never bothered considering what it would be like to not be alone during the full moon, but a sudden flash of fantasy flits through my head–a mate, running with me under the moon. Tumbling naked with me into the dirt as we shift back, the two of us still near-feral, surrounded by the scents of the forest. A primal indulgence made sweeter by a bond unmatched by any other.

My body tenses, shuddering with something almost like yearning at the thought of spending the day after tangled up in sheets and wrapped up with a mate, instead of sleeping it off and using my own hand to ease the ache. The thought of staying knotted with my mate the day after, like a shifter is meant to, sends an almost physical pain through me.

What the hell is going on?Maybe I'm just getting old, brooding over things that I haven't had and probably won't ever get. The idea of having someone physically stuck with me for a full twenty-four hours after always sent a feeling of panic through me before, making me reject the ideas of packs and mates and all the typical things that a shifter is supposed to want. But suddenly, it doesn't sound so bad.

It sounds almost–nice.

What the fuck?I shove the idea out of my head, leaving a tip for the housekeeper on the dresser and heading down to the lodge's breakfast area. Even if I suddenly decided to seek out a mate, someone would have to want me. Short of a fate-touched bond, which is too much supernatural nonsense even for me–someone who turns into a wolf once a month–a woman would have to actually want to be stuck with me. Bonded to me. And hell, even the rare fate-touched mate bond can be resisted. It fucking sucks, from what I hear, and it'll pretty much ruin any other romance…but then again, I've never been one for romance, anyway. I wouldn't even believe in those mythical fated bonds, if I hadn't known someone it happened to.

Just before I booked it and got the hell away from my first pack.

I order breakfast, getting the lodge's special–pancakes, fried eggs, and a thick slice of ham with coffee on the side–and consider what to do with the rest of the day. I have to work the evening shift at the Howling Moon, but after spending all of yesterday in bed, I have the urge to get out and stretch my legs beforehand.

Shrugging on my leather jacket after breakfast, I head out for a walk. It leads me to the shops closest to the lodge, where I ended up walking the other day before the full moon. The shops are all open again, tourists wandering in and out–all except for the apothecary. The sign is still turned over on the front door, stating that they're closed, but I stop dead in my tracks when I see the woman standing inside.

Wisteria is at one of the counters, looking over a list and talking to a slender blonde woman wearing all black and nibbling at a nail. She looks more like she did the first night I saw her than that afternoon that she came in all dressed up, and something tightens in my stomach, making my blood suddenly pulse hot.

It's a strange reaction. There's nothing particularly special about how she looks today–she's wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her dark hair pulled up in a high ponytail–but I stand there on the sidewalk like an utter fool, unable to tear my eyes away from her. Those nondescript dark jeans cling to the curves of her hips and ass and thighs in a way that makes my mouth water, and the t-shirt is fitted, outlining her full breasts and narrow waist. I can see the creamy, smooth skin at the back of her neck just beneath her swinging ponytail, and I'm suddenly seized with the urge to wrap my fingers around that smooth column, pulling her against me as I lower my mouth to hers–

The painful feeling of my chafed cock twitching eagerly against my boxers drags me out of my fantasy and back into the present moment–and into a confused realization of what I'm doing.

I've never stood at a shop window and gazed at a woman inside like she's one of the things on display, but here I am, doing exactly that—and to a woman who has flat-out turned me down in the past, no less. But as if I'm not entirely in control of my body, I find myself reaching to push the door open.

It's of course locked. The ‘Closed' sign is right in front of my face. But the sound alerts the two women inside, and Wisteria immediately sets the list down, walking to the door. She frowns for a moment when she sees me, an unusually pretty expression on her face–or it might just be the way her lips twist when she frowns, her teeth nipping at them in a way that makes me want to feel those teeth graze over my skin.

Christ, maybe I really do need to get fucking laid.

To my surprise, she unlocks the door, opening it partway. "I'm so sorry, we're still closed for a few more days while I–oh." Her voice goes unexpectedly soft with recognition, and her hazel eyes widen as she looks up at me. "Eli."

The feeling that sweeps through me when she says my name startles me. My throat tightens and my chest suddenly aches, a prickle on my skin raising the hairs on my arms, and blood rushes to my abraded cock.

"Are you alright?" she asks sweetly, and I realize she must have seen the wince on my face.

No. I spent all day yesterday jerking off to deal with the moon rut, and as a result I think I'm missing the top layer of skin on my cock.It's not exactly the sort of thing a man says to a woman he's only met once, particularly one who expressed a lack of interest in said cock, and so I force a disappointed smile instead.

"I was just hoping to pick up something from your shop. A headache remedy, maybe." I've never been prone to headaches, but hell–it's not like Wisteria is going to invite me into the shop to sell me one, anyway.

Except she pushes the door open wider, and steps back.

"Well, like I said, we're not really open. But I think I could find something for you. Come on in."

The blonde staring at the counter looks up, and her gaze sweeps over me in one long forehead-to-toes and back up again pass that makes me wonder if that's how it feels when I check out a woman. There's a frank appreciation in her gaze that would ordinarily stir me–she's very beautiful, with delicate features and a willowy frame wrapped up in a funereal getup–but all my attention feels drawn towards Wisteria. Almost forcibly so–it feels hard to take my eyes off of her.

If I'm being honest, it feels strange. Like the blood is churning in my veins, running hotter than usual even for a shifter, and my skin has the sensitive, prickly feeling that I associate with the days running up to and the day of the full moon. It's like I rewound back to the night I first met her, when she drove me into such a frenzied lust that I ended up behind the bar, and it doesn't make sense to me. I'd blamed the reaction on that–it being right before the full moon, but today of all days my libido should be at an all time low, even for me.

Wisteria glances back at me, and then at the blonde woman. "Oh! I'm sorry. Very rude of me. Eli, this is Penelope–she works here. Penelope, this is Eli. He's a bartender at the Howling Moon."

Penelope raises one pale, arched eyebrow. "Nice to meet you, Eli." Her gaze flits towards Wisteria, and there's the quirk of an amused smile at the corner of her mouth, as though she's thinking of some private joke.

I nod. "Pleasure."

"How did you find my shop?" Wisteria asks, stepping around behind the counter and starting to look through a cabinet. Her ponytail swings enticingly as she looks over her shoulder at me.

I shrug, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans. "I was takin' a walk the other day, and passed by. Saw the place was closed, and thought it might be yours. Went out today to stretch my legs and was passin' by again, and saw you here." I gesture to the front door. "Said it was an apothecary, so I thought you might have somethin'."

"I should." Wisteria turns, biting her lip, and that almost reflexive feeling of desire ripples through me again. "I've been cataloging all the herbs and blends and such, but with my plans to change the shop, I haven't been–oh! Here you go." She pops back up from behind the counter, a small linen bag in her hand.

"Change the shop?" I look at her curiously, glancing around. "It seems pretty nice as it is." I don't know why I'm commenting on it at all–her plans for her new shop have nothing to do with me, and I've never been a man to waste words on something that's not any of my business. But I feel a surprising curiosity about what she's doing here, and I'd rather focus on that than the other strange feelings she seems to be rousing in me.

Wisteria laughs softly, and something about the sound feels as if she's tugged on a string attached to my chest. I take a step towards her, inadvertently, and the only thing that stops me is the fact that I can feel Penelope's eyes boring into me from the other side.

"I know it's a perfectly lovely shop." Wisteria bites her lip again, circling around the counter so that she's leaning back against it, standing in front of me. The small linen bag is still idly in her hand. "But I've had an idea for the sort of business I want to run for a long time. So we're going to keep it as is, until November, and then start renovations."

"Renovations into what?" Why on earth do I care? I'm not even staying in Bayton past January. I've only ever intended to make as much money bartending at the Howling Moon as I can while I do Adam a favor, and then take off again. Wisteria Avon's plans for her shop shouldn't hold any interest for me.

But her face lights up in a way that gives me that tugging sensation in my chest again. "A bookstore and tea shop." Her voice is bright, full of an excitement that threatens to spill over like rays of sun across the wooden floor. "It's going to be expensive, I've been warned, and probably not an easy transition–but it's my dream. And my aunt gave me all of this so that I'd have a chance to follow a dream. It's made me feel less guilty about it–about changing her shop, I mean."

A sudden blush rises up in her cheeks. "Not that any of that matters to you. I didn't mean to talk your ear off. Here." She holds out the linen bag containing the headache remedy, and I reach for it. Her fingers brush against mine, and the jolt of arousal feels like an electric shock. Like she reached down and touched my cock instead.

A terrible suspicion suddenly fills me, one that I barely believe in and certainly don't want. I suck in a breath, as unobtrusively as I can manage, scenting for something very specific.

She's a shifter. She would have to be, for it to be true. I just somehow missed it, the other times I've met her–too overwhelmed by the scent of her arousal amplified by the nearing moon to notice it. But when I breathe in, it's noticeably absent.

Wisteria smells like herbs, like rosemary and juniper and remarkably like this shop, actually–with a whiff of something sweeter below it, a scent that's uniquely hers and grows stronger when she's near me for very long. It's the smell of her skin, of her desire, too–and the longer we stand here, the more pungent it becomes. Her gaze is locked onto mine as she steps back, and I know without a doubt that she's aroused. If we were alone right now, and I lifted her onto that glass counter right now and pulled down those tight jeans, I'd find her slick with it.

My cock throbs, the pain more distinct than the pleasure. I grit my teeth, trying to will the arousal away–Penelope is still looking at me, and the last thing I want is to get a noticeable hard-on while trying to fake needing a goddamn migraine remedy from Wisteria. But my attention is fractured, pulled in wildly different directions–and mostly on one confusing fact.

What I don't smell is a shifter.

Not on Wisteria, or Penelope, or anywhere in this shop for that matter. I wanted to convince myself that I'd just failed to clock Wisteria as one when I first met her, but I know that's impossible, too. A shifter can smell another shifter. I'd have known as soon as she walked into the bar. I could go into any business in this town, and tell who inside was a shifter and who was not.

Which means this impossible, confusing lust that I feel for her is just that–for her. And I don't know if that's better or worse.

If she was a shifter, I'd think it was that mythical, fated mate bond. That I'd gotten marked by it, and my reaction would have been to turn tail and fucking run. The idea of settling down with a woman is foreign enough to me–but the idea of being bound to one that I barely know, locked into a forever kind of relationship before we've barely even exchanged names…that sounds like a special circle of hell. One I have no intention of visiting.

But so far as I know, those sort of mate bonds are between shifters only. Hell, a fated bond, so far as I'm aware, only occurs between shifters of the same type–whereas a chosen, marked bond could be between shifters of different species…a wolf and a lion, for example. What doesn't happen is a bond of any kind between a shifter and someone who isn't. A particularly determined woman could take my knot, and let me do all the things to her that I might with another shifter–but my bite wouldn't bond us together. Knotting her would just be for the pleasure of it. Nothing more.

On the other side of me, Penelope clears her throat, and Wisteria jumps a little. I realize that I've just been standing here, staring at her. Trying to figure out why the hell she makes me feel this way when she's just a person.

"How much do I owe you for this?" I hold up the small bag, my tone more brusque than I meant for it to be. I need to get the hell out of this shop.

Wisteria shakes her head quickly. "Don't worry about it. Call it a little welcome gift, on the house. Since you're new in town too." She flashes me another smile, but there's something nervous at the edges of it. She's looking at my face, but it seems like she's having as hard a time with it as I am with her. I want to devour every inch of her with my eyes, burn the curves of her body into my memory so I can imagine running my hands over them later, but I'm trying to be a fucking gentleman about this.

A first for me, and nearly as strange a feeling as every other one I've had around her.

"Thanks." I force a tight smile, putting the small bag in the pocket of my jacket. "I'm gonna head out, then. Get out of your hair, since you're not really open for business. Thanks for indulgin' me."

Wisteria's smile is genuine. "You should stop by again," she says softly. "When we're done with the renovations. You could come in for a cup of tea."

"I'm not really the tea-drinkin' type." I manage a slightly more sincere smile. Every muscle in my body feels strung taut, the wolf in me demanding I pounce, the man in me demanding I flee. She smells so fucking good.

I want to know how she tastes, and somewhere deep inside of me, I think the only thing that might be stopping me from trying to find out is the blonde woman pinning me with her gaze on my right. Not the tourists walking outside the glass windows, or even just the sheer folly of trying to seduce a woman who has already told me no once–or the foolhardiness of allowing myself to get caught up in something that can make me feel so out of control.

My whole life has been about controlling the urges that the wolf creates. The urge to run with a pack. The urge to find a mate. The urge to knot, to breed. To settle down. I've done the opposite since I was a teenager–ran on my own, a lone wolf, never staying in the same bed for more than a night and never giving anyone, friend or otherwise, the idea that I might hang around.

There's no reason to start thinking about changing now.

"Maybe a drink, then." She looks as startled as I am by the suggestion, as if she hadn't actually meant for the words to come out of her mouth.

She's feeling it, too. Whatever this is.

"I'm not the datin' type, either, Wisteria." It's hard to force out, because drinks might lead to something else, to her in my bed, a thing that I know we both want. But in the same instant, I'm glad I did, because the way her cheeks color reaffirms what I've been thinking all along.

A one-night stand with this girl isn't going to be good for either of us. No matter how much I want it–and I think she does, too.

On my other side, Penelope makes a noise, and I take a step back.

"I'm sorry, ladies. I've taken up too much of your time. See you around." I glance at Penelope, and then back at Wisteria, and turn to leave before I can change my mind.

This is nothing but trouble. For her, and for me. Better if I walk away from that trouble, before it starts.

But if there's been one consistent thing about my life so far, it's that I've never been any good at that.