AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah. Sure.”
McMahon moved toward the door, and Nero shifted so the detective could pass by. As he hit the threshold, I came to my senses. “Hey, wait, can I at least go home and get some clothes and some of my stuff?”
The detective looked at Nero, who shrugged. “Tell Nero what you need, and he can go in and get it.” To Nero, he said, “Make sure you aren’t being followed.”
Not the answer I wanted, but I wasn’t in a position where I had much room to argue. “Fine.”
“Good.” McMahon slapped Nero on the shoulder. “Call me if you need me. Preferably not until tomorrow.”
Nero nodded, and then McMahon was gone, along with all the air in the room. Without the detective, Nero seemed to expand to fill all the available space. His scent was everywhere, the echo of his voice ringing in my ears, and whatever the fuck he was doing to my libido had my dick more than half-hard behind the zipper of my pants. This whole thing was going to be a very bad, possibly very good situation.
Maybe. If I could get my bodyguard on board to guard my body a little closer than maybe was strictly necessary.
“Are you ready to go?” Now that we were alone, Nero’s voice wrapped around me like a siren song and sent my heart hammering in my chest like it was trying to beat its way out to meet his. His seaside scent blocked out everything so I didn’t smell anything but him—no more stale, burnt coffee, no more vague scent of unwashed socks, no more metallic tang. I felt my body slide forward, wanting to close the physical distance between us. I wanted to crawl up his body and lie against hischest. I wanted to float next to him in my otter form and hold his hand so he didn’t float away.
And shit. Nope, that wasn’t good at all. Not even the tiniest, teeniest little bit.
Suddenly, my reaction to the huge killer whale shifter made way too much sense, but at the same time, it didn’t make any sense at all. Beyond the slim probability, it just shouldn’t have been possible. In our animal forms, he was predator, and I was prey. In the wild, shifters recognized other shifters, and we left each other alone, but a nonshifter orca would have had no problem punting me with his tail and treating me like an hors d’oeuvre.
But there was no denying what this was. Sea otter shifters only felt a pull like the one I was feeling—longing that went so far beyond attraction that attraction could barely be seen in the rearview—for one reason.
Nero was my fated mate.
I couldn’t tell what shape my face was making, but Nero was clearly concerned.
“Felix? Are you okay? If you don’t want to go with me, I’ll tell McMahon. He can make diff?—”
“No!” The single word came out too loud and echoed off every surface in the utilitarian room. Now that I knew what Nero was to me, the idea of being away from him made my heart lurch. I wondered if maybe he felt it too, though I admittedly knew next to nothing about how killer whale shifters recognized their fated mates or if they even believed in them at all. A lot of shifter species didn’t.
He moved toward me, a strange look on his face, and before I could make heads or tails of his intentions, I found myself wrapped in his huge, strong arms and pressed against his broad, firm chest.
I could have happily stayed there all day.
Long moments ticked by, but I’d never felt so safe or comfortable, and I made no move to exit the embrace. The length of the hug should have been awkward, especially for two people who’d just met, but Nero didn’t let go either.
“Sorry,” he whispered like he was afraid to break whatever spell fate had cast over us. “It’s weird, and I can’t explain it, but I don’t want to let you go.”
I tilted my head and tried to look up at him, but all I saw was the wide black patch of skin at his neck that would be the saddle patch around his dorsal fin when he was in his orca form. This close, I could see it wasn’t all black but streaked with dark gray that feathered out around the edges, and I wanted to run my fingers over it. So I did.
Nero shuddered in my arms, and something warm unfurled in my belly at the thought that I could make this man tremble with just a gentle touch.
“Tickles.” His voice was still barely more than a whisper. “That’s sensitive.”
I logged that away for later, when we were really alone without a whole police precinct on the other side of the threshold, and I could run my mouth and teeth and tongue along it.
Nero held me close for another long moment, then bent his head and let his lips trail along my neck to the scent gland behind my ear. He took a long breath, then let it out. “Why do you smell so good?”
I twisted in the cage of his arms, and he released me enough so I could actually see his face.
“Uh, I’m ninety-nine point nine percent sure you’re my fated mate.”
His eyebrows rose, and his mouth turned down into a half frown as he shrugged his massive shoulders and looked into myeyes with an intensity that made fire spark in my veins. “Makes sense.”
“Makes sense? How does this make sense? Until a few minutes ago, I had no clue my shifter species could even have a true mate that wasn’t another sea otter.”
“I think I knew the minute I walked in and saw you.” He shrugged again as much as he could with his arms still around me. “I was only humoring McMahon, telling him I’d come meet you, but I wasn’t really going to agree to be your bodyguard. I had an excuse all planned out. Then I saw you, and the thought of saying no, of me not being the one to keep you safe… I knew I couldn’t walk away.”
“I think this complicates things, don’t you?”
