One minute there had been a big, foul-smelling human bearing down on her, jabbing a knife at her midsection; the next minute the human was literally flying through the air. He’d smashed into a streetlamp with an echoing clang, then crumpled into a heap on the ground.
And Krista had been gaping up at a wolf who was easily six foot two, with tousled brown hair and light amber eyes and a rugged jawline. He wore a battered black leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. On the boinkable-meter scale of one to ten, he scored an infinity.
Sexy Hot Stalker had insisted on walking her back to her car. His voice had been low and growly. She’d stammered out her thanks and then driven away, hands sweating and heart pounding. It had been the strangest reaction. She’d been in fights before, and she’d faced off against muggers on several occasions because she worked in a cruddy neighborhood, and she wasn’t one to go all weak and girly at the first sign of danger.
But a few days later she’d had the exact same reaction again. Glancing around, she’d realized that the hot guy was fifty feet behind her, emerging from a bodega. No attacker in sight this time. And she’d realized she was reacting to the wolf, not the near-mugging.
She’d seen him or felt him nearby half a dozen times since then. And she’d felt the same tingling awareness every single time. If she were to have confided in her great-aunt, Hattie would have insisted that he was her “fated mate”. Hah. Krista was a thoroughly modern shifter, with a degree in the medical field to prove it. She didn’t believe in such superstitions.
She just wished she could tell that to her lady-bits, which practically sang with joy every time the shifter got near her.
The fact that the wolf had never given her his name, and never even bothered to walk over to say hi to her when they kept running into each other, pretty much proved that he wasn’t her fated mate—he was just some weird crush. After all, the “fated mates” thing was supposed to work both ways, wasn’t it?
“I’m a hundred million percent not interested,” she mumbled defensively. “So he’d better not get any ideas.”
Then she realized Hattie’s bright little eyes were narrowed on the big shifter lounging on the bench across the street. “So, heisbothering you,” she exclaimed, grabbing her cane and leaping to her feet. “These city boys got no manners at all when it comes to courtin’.”
She barreled out of the coffee shop with amazing speed, leaving the door swinging behind her. Hattie’s “arther-itis” only seemed to bother her when it was convenient; the rest of the time she could run like an antelope.
“Wait, Aunt Hattie, no—” Krista protested, but it was too late. Hattie, all five feet nothing of her, shot across the street like a bullet from a gun. By the time Krista caught up to her, she was violently bashing the tall, muscular shifter with her cane.
“How dare you stalk my niece, you creepy pervert!” she yelled.
The wolf’s friends, a lion shifter and a bear shifter, laughed so hard they were actually crying. Tears ran down their faces, and they gasped for breath as they pointed at the wolf and howled. They didn’t make the slightest move to help him, either.
The wolf warded off the blows with swift movements of his muscular arms and slowly backed away. He could have shifted and gulped down her aunt in one snap of his jaws, but instead, he just winced and looked annoyed.
Krista leaped between him and her aunt. “He is not stalking me! He’s sitting here eating his lunch and minding his own business!” she yelled at her aunt. She didn’t want to tell Hattie that he’d saved her from being mugged because her great-aunt would either try to kidnap her and drag her back to Flowering Dogwood “among good country folk” or want to round up a posse to hunt the mugger down and make him into finger food.
Hattie looked narrow-eyed at the wolf shifter. “Likely story. What are you doing here if you’re not stalking her?”
“Eating lunch, ma’am. I work security at a warehouse down the street.” His warm, rich voice gave Krista shivers.
“Eating lunch? Likely story. What’s your name?” Hattie demanded.
“Blake Wheeler. And these are my friends, Dexter,” he nodded at the bear shifter, “and Mal,” he nodded at the lion shifter.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” rumbled Dexter, shambling to his feet. The lion smirked and bowed with a little flourish.
“I’m Krista, and this is my Great-Aunt Hattie.” Krista’s voice squeaked, and she wanted to sink into the sidewalk and die of embarrassment. Her crazy great-aunt. Her squeaky voice. Why, universe, why?
Blake barely spared her a glance.
“I’m going to check up on you. I know people,” Hattie said loftily. “And you leave my niece alone and go stalk somebody else. Run along now, boys.”
The three of them actually grabbed their lunch bags from the bench and left. They didn’t run, but Krista wouldn’t have blamed them.
She watched Blake leaving with a pang of yearning, then tore her gaze away from his broad back and his perfect round butt cheeks and headed back across the street with her great-aunt.