“Oh!” She sighs like it’s no big deal, and I just stare at her, not understanding her at all. “They’ll come after.”
“After?” I wave my hand trying to encourage her to finish her sentence.
She hesitates and then looks around the room. “After Sheriff Wolfe stops scaring people away.” She says the words like I pried them from her using torture.
At hearing his name, my eyes shoot to the front window to see if he’s loitering outside my shop again. I thought cops drove around in their cop cars, eating donuts, but the one here walks up and down Main Street all day, eating my cookies and drinking my coffee. He stops in front of my bakery more than anywhere else and glares in here like I’ve done something to offend him.
It was his family who owned the bakery before I did, but I was told that he wanted to sell it. The lawyers explained that he didn’t have the time to run it, which I could understand if he was the sheriff. And no way could I see him running a bakery. He’d eat himself out of house and home.
The man was a jerk-face. A sexy, giant jerk-face who was my biggest customer, but still a jerk-face, and he could barely form a sentence on the best of days. At first I thought maybe he could only grunt and growl. But then I saw he didn’t have a problem speaking to other people. I’d heard him talk to Gwen a few times and everyone else, but with me it was like I was too much of a bother or something. If he couldn’t stand me, why was he always hanging around all the time? Why did he sell me the shop? It’s not like I twisted his big, hairy, muscled arm or something. In fact, it was the opposite. I remember that day like it was yesterday.
When I came to see the place, I was so excited. I knew before I’d even got here I was making an offer. The pictures online showed me it was everything I wanted. The place was even decorated in my favorite color, red. All I'd have to do was get a new sign.
I was so excited to finally see it in person, but the first time I walked inside all I saw was him. I thought he was sitting at a mini table in the bakery, but it didn’t take me long to realize the table wasn’t mini. No, he just made it look that way because he was so big.
I stood mesmerized by him, my whole body coming alive. It was a feeling I’d never felt before, like warmth washing over me. His big silver eyes grew bigger at the sight of me. But then he stood from the table and stormed out of the bakery. Just before he hit the door, he threw over his shoulder, “It’s hers.” He made it clear he was done with me and the bakery. Or so I thought.
For some reason it knocked the air out of my lungs when he dismissed me so easily. I shouldn’t have been so taken aback by him. I wasn’t one to get noticed by men. I’m short, chubby, and have curly red hair that I can barely control. It’s why my parents named me Ruby. So having him all but ignore me shouldn’t have hurt so much, but it did.
Then I found out he’s the sheriff. I felt like he came in here to poke me, and now I find out he’s keeping people away from the shop too. What’s this? Some scheme he does or something? Sells the bakery, drives the bakery person out of business and buys it back for dirt cheap, then does it all over again to someone new? I can’t even report him because he’s the freaking sheriff.
Maybe that’s it. That day he saw me, he knew I was an easy mark. Well, the next time I see him I’m going to give him my two cents. Really give him something to growl about.
2
Dominic
Taking a few steps, I stop across the street from Red’s Goodie Basket. I grimace at the sign she just had installed a few days ago. She couldn’t have come up with something more sexually suggestive. I stand off to the side in the early morning shadows and watch as Ruby arranges cookies in the front window, her wild red hair bouncing all around her. I had a dream last night she was riding me. Her long red curls surrounding us as I breathed in her sugary sweet scent and guided her up and down my cock.
“Is that…” I cut myself off, seeing what look like cookies shaped like cocks displayed for everyone walking by to see. “What kind of place is she running?” Great, I’m talking to myself. Just when I think I can’t lose it any more than I already have. I watch as she walks back behind the counter and talks to Gwen.
Luckily, my eyesight is a hundred times better than hers, so when she glares through the glass with her dark green eyes, she can’t see me, but I can still see my mate perfectly. I feel my teeth elongate, making my jaw ache. I want to sink into her creamy porcelain skin. I want to do it as she screams my name from her plump lips. Maybe she’ll give me that little moan I’ve heard when she bites into one of her desserts.
The need for her is getting stronger, something I didn't think was possible. I don’t know how much longer I can wait. I thought with some time I could pull my wolf back under control, but that doesn't seem to be working, and I’m running out of time. I look at the sky and see the sun starting to peek out from behind the clouds, but I can feel the full moon coming. It’s almost time.
I remember the first time I saw Ruby the day she walked into the bakery wanting to buy it. It was my great-aunt Claire’s for over twenty years, but selling it was the right move. When Ruby opened the door, a warm breeze followed her, bringing her scent right to me. It was then I knew I’d found my mate.
Gray Ridge, Colorado is a small town but an old one. We happen to be situated near a national park that gets a lot of tourists throughout the year, but normally outsiders don’t move here. We never give them the chance to own property, only selling to other shifters. My family along with a few others have been here for generations. I know everyone who has ever lived here, and if I don’t know them, I make it my business to find out who they are. Most people think we’re just a tightly knit community, but in reality we are a commune of shifters living as a family pack.
The day I smelled Ruby, I knew she was mine. That’s how it works with our kind. Mother Nature brings you your fated one, the one person meant to be yours forever. My father told me I would know it when I smelled the one. She would be mine the second I looked at her; a part of me I didn’t know was missing would click into place, and he was right. My wolf knew instantly that Ruby was the one. I sat at the table in the bakery with three lawyers from our pack as she bounced in with her red hair and thick curves. I’d seen her get out of her car, and it made my wolf sit up and take notice. I was interested before I even knew she was the one, but once the door opened, my wolf went crazy, clawing to get out. It was something that had never happened to me before. Sure, when I was young my wolf would sometimes strive to get out for a fight but never like this. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I had control of him, probably because I didn’t.
I knew I had to get out of there as fast as I could. My wolf wanted out, and every second I was close to her was another second closer to my wolf breaking free. It wasn’t the full moon for another three weeks, and if I was with her and couldn’t mate with her, the pain would be excruciating. Just that brief encounter had my stomach cramping, and the ache in my cock was crippling. I felt as if I’d been punched all over my body all at once, but at the same time I was horny as fuck.
It’s not unusual for my kind to mate with a human, but it sure could make things a whole lot harder. My great-aunt Claire was a human, but for some reason I never thought my mate would be one. Another shifter would understand the pull and understand what was happening to them. A human couldn't fathom some of their body’s reactions to someone they didn't even know. I’m told humans still feel a pull, just not as acute as a shifter. They will if you take them, but until the mating, it’s not as intense. Releasing semen inside a human female will make them go into heat and crave to be mated, something that can’t be done until a full moon.