IpokedaroundAxel’sbookshelf while he played lumberjack outside. Yes, he was chopping wood in the middle of a freaking snowstorm. A totally normal thing to do, and not suspicious at all.
He’d apologized that he hadn’t prepared the extra firewood because he hadn’t expected company, like that explained everything. But wouldn’t he need to keep the cabin warm even ifhe was alone? Maybe whatever type of shifter he was didn’t feel the cold.
I’d gotten a good look inside his fridge when he was putting away his groceries. He was stocked up like he was prepping for the apocalypse. Had he planned to hibernate here?
Maybe he was a bear shifter.
My eyes darted around the cabin. The cabin was just two rooms, if you didn’t count the bathroom and the closet. Every piece of furniture in here was oversized. I’d had to climb up onto the chair earlier. Bear-sized?
Even the mugs were the big ones normally used for soups.
I looked back at the row of outdoor nature guides on his bookshelf. There was one titledThe Bears of North America,but there was also one right next to it titledCougar Sightings.He could be either. Weren’t both animals solitary?
I thought of the streaks of white in his hair. A polar bear shifter? Was there even such a thing? I didn’t even know if they existed. I wasn’t going to get hacked to pieces by an axe-wielding psycho. No, I was going to get mauled by a sexy AF bear.
This was when I realized that his massive boots—how big were his feet? And why hadn’t I noticed before?—were still sitting right next to my shoes. Did he wear another pair?
Curious, I went to the window and peeked outside. My jaw dropped and I gawked at the sight.
Axel was out there, shirtless, barefoot, and muscles flexing as he swung his axe in the snow.
I squinted at his feet. At first, I thought he was wearing a pair of furry boots. But the more I stared, the more I realized that that was his own fur, because those were toes. Furry toes. That didn’t look anything like a bear or a cougar paw, but I’d heard of half shifting before. Maybe that was what was happening.
I tried not to stare, but that was impossible. His skin was flushed from the cold, but he didn’t seem to feel it. His body moved in a powerful rhythm, like the storm around him didn’t even exist.
Heat pooled low in my belly as I watched him work, his muscles flexing. Every movement was purposeful, deliberate, and way too sexy. I went back to my previous thought of being mauled by a bear, and decided that if it were him, then I wouldn’t mind a sexy mauling. Or two. Or three.
He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, then turned to me and waved with a panty-melting grin.
Shit! I’d been caught staring.
Maybe I wasn’t the one who needed to be careful, but him, because I wanted to run out there and climb him like a tree.
I waved back, face flushed, then I forced my gaze away. It was just biology. Any red-blooded woman would react to a half-naked, musclebound man chopping wood in the snow like some Norse god.
But the guy was being nice, and he didn’t need a sex-starved hussy jumping him.
I scanned his literary offerings again. No romance novels here. Or cozy mysteries. Why oh why didn’t I bring my e-reader?
I knew why. I hadn’t wanted my nosy brothers to pry into my thorough collection of digital “cliterature.” But now I was stuck with whatever Axel read. But to be honest, his having a bookshelf with actual books was a good surprise.
I glanced around the room to see what else he did for fun and found a rather impressive gaming station set up at the desk, complete with an ergonomic chair (how he managed to find one in his size, I didn’t know), a large monitor, and sizable speakers. A tiny red light blinked on his modem, signaling that the internet was down, just like our phones. Axel might live in the woods, but he was fully up to date with modern technological amenities.
I guess there wasn’t much else to do out here.
I picked up a book on the edible plants in the area. That looked interesting and might come in handy one day.
Deciding I wanted a peppermint tea to go with my reading, I went over to his kitchen. He’d said to make myself at home, so I was. The kettle was easy to find. The tea, however, was less intuitive.
Unable to actually reach the cabinets, I pulled a chair over and climbed onto it. The first cupboard boasted row after row ofprotein bars and three bottles of rum. The next cupboard was full of beef jerky.
Okay, so maybe the whole axe murderer thing was still a possibility. Who the hell needed this much beef jerky?
I was about to open the third cupboard—because yes, I was curious as to what else I would find, and also because I really wanted that tea—when the door slammed open. A gust of wind whooshed in, bringing the blizzard with it and nearly knocking over the stool at the entrance.
Axel stepped in, still shirtless, and holding a giant stack of firewood in his arms like it weighed no more than tiny twigs. Snow clung to his hair, his shoulders, and his very bare chest, which was annoyingly perfectly sculpted and glistening in a way that made me forget what I was even looking for.
He stomped his feet on the mat, and I blinked. It looked like a normal human foot again. Normal sized too. If I hadn’t known about shifters already, I would have thought I was hallucinating.
