I’d run, and Fire Legs had delivered me to the shuttle just before it pulled away. But everything I’d brought with me—including my phone and wallet—was still in the den Callum and Gideon shared… with Mr. Good Time.
And for the first time in my life, there was no Robin to get my homework from the teachers, apologize on my behalf, or collect the phone I left behind at the restaurant.
Or give me a list of reasons not to feel like the biggest idiot in the world.
Are you… ? Are you stalking me?
Mr. Good Time’s question echoed in my mind. I guess his name was Rys all this time? And that he was also an insanely hot mayor/MLA bear shifter?
Nausea roiled in my stomach as I remembered that first unmasked look at him. Clean-cut and tanned, he’d worn a tailored navy suit like it had been sewn directly onto his broad shoulders, a tiny Canadian flag pin gleaming on the lapel. He also gleamed: his black eyes, his perfectly straight and blindingly white teeth, his glossy dark hair slicked back with ruthless precision—not a strand out of place, and his face, which was all charisma and GQ angles.
And even though I knew (and had taught my sixth graders) that ascribing moral qualities to beauty was an example of lookism bias, his near-perfect symmetry and the crinkles at the sides of his eyes made him come off as both trustworthy and compelling. Likehewas instantly the most fascinating man in any room—not that silver fox from the old Dos Equis ads.
I didn’t recognize him. But the feeling that Iknewhim had been immediate.
And then he’d called me by my Fetder handle, “sweetiebird,” with Mr. Good Time’s voice.
Okay… let’snotreview. Let’s just… not.
Now that the worst of my Fire Legs panic had faded, I needed to go inside the Barrington’s Super Center. See if someone would let me borrow a phone to call Robin….
Robin, who was a harried mother now and didn’t need to keep getting calls to clean up another mess Fire Legs had caused.
I hate myself…. They’re probably all laughing at me right now and calling me a stalker…. How did I manage to mess this up, too…. Why can’t I ever get it right?
Intrusive thoughts flooded into my brain, rooting me to the spot.
“Here, pussy, pussy, pussy! You looking for a party?”
A slurred, too-friendly voice snapped me out of my self-hate spiral. And I looked up to find two men in dusty leather vests looming over me. One was burly, with thick arms and a mud-brown beard twisted into a braid. The other was lean and angular, all elbows and sharp lines, with sunken eyes and lank blond hair.
“What you on, pussy?” The burly one looked me up and down with a knowing smirk. “Bet we’ve got more of it back at the clubhouse.”
Okay, Fire Legs was an involuntary response to a socially or emotionally overwhelming situation.
But backing away from the two guys withnothing but malicious intentin their eyes struck me as the smartest, most natural choice I could make in that moment.
“Where you going, pussy?” The burly biker latched on to my arm. “Don’t run away. We can show you a good time.”
“I can smell your pussy,” the sunken-eyed blond told me, like it was aselling pointfor me to take them up on their invitation. “Smells like you been freshly fucked.”
I was, actually.
After holding me all night, Callum had woken me up with morning sex in his bed, followed by a dip in the hot springs just beyond their room—a water-based balm for all the previous night’s activity. Even when it turned into another round of sex.
My heart twisted at the memory. Callum had been so sweet and attentive.
Horny in a way that made me feel like a goddess. Not just a piece of meat to be grabbed and dragged back to whatever rock these two had slithered out from.
“Leave me alone!” I used all my strength to try to wrench free. But it wasn’t enough.
“Don’t be like that, pussy,” the burly one bit out. “Talk nice to me, or you’re going to piss me off.”
“You’re pissingmeoff,” I shot back. “You’re holding me here, even though I already told you I don’t?—”
A collective cry of surprise from behind where we were standing cut me off.
And the biker finally let me go.
