Stop looking at the poor man, she thought desperately. Would you like it if you were shirtless, and he was staring at you like he wanted to eat you up?
… Wait, don’t answer that.
Poppy’s eye twitched.
Say something. Anything!!
She physically forced her mouth open.
“Sorry! I just came in here to get something to nipple on.”
Her stomach dropped, even as the man’s eyebrows heaved themselves up to previously uncharted heights. Distantly, she noted that he was still holding the remains of the chicken drumstick.
Death. Death is upon me.
“Tonibbleon! Food, I mean. I want food. Give me eat.”
Surely there’s a fault line directly underneath here that’s just been waiting for an opportunity to open up and swallow me whole,Poppy thought despairingly, even as she noticed a curious look crossing the man’s face at hergive me eatcomment.
She took a deep breath, and did her level best to look like a normal person.
“I’ll just grab something, and then I’ll get out of your hair. Which really is amazing, by the way. Do you see a stylist, or does it just sit like that naturally?”
Hurrying over to the table on shaking legs without waiting for an answer, she snatched up the first few things she saw – an open jar of olives, some uncooked eggs, a few unmarked mystery boxes – and loaded them into her arms. The eggs, at least, wouldn’t be an issue – she was pretty sure her face was hot enough to cook them to a perfect crisp. And she definitely wasn’t about to embarrass herself even further by putting them back now.
Turning back to her door without a second look at the sculpted god that was apparently hanging out in her B&B kitchen, Poppy made a break for it – and promptly caught her foot on the edge of the rug.
That’s a trip hazard,she thought dazedly, as the food went flying and the floor, in slow motion, rushed up to meet her face.
Chapter 4
Max had never moved so fast in his life.
One moment, he’d been sitting there dumbstruck, watching with increasing bemusement as the gorgeous mystery woman had become more and more flustered with each word she spoke.
The next moment, the gorgeous mystery woman had been in his arms, mere inches away from a painful collision with the floor.
He honestly didn’t know how he’d managed it – the only comparable thing he’d ever seen was his mom’s shifter speed when he’d almost wandered into traffic one time when he was a kid, when she’d even managed to kick off her white patent leather high heels first before dashing out to grab him unharmed. Buthewasn’t a shifter, so where the hell had that come from?!
Somehow, the act of catching her had flipped her around, so he was now looking directly into her stunning hazel eyes, framed perfectly by her messy, curly blonde hair.
She was alittleblurry from up this close without his glasses, but maybe that was for the best. She was so stunningly beautiful that it took his breath away, even when he couldn’t quite see herproperly. If he’d been able to see her perfectly, he would’ve lost all of his higher functions and motor control and just dropped her onto the floor, which would’ve probably not been very gallant.
Silently, he cursed the fact that she’d seen him with his glasses on. He’d gotten enough grief about them from other kids at school that he usually wore contacts these days, but when there was no one else around, he preferred the relative comfort of the glasses.
Don’t kid yourself,he muttered to himself, even as his eyes roved over the woman’s strong nose, her pink cheeks, her perfect lips.The real reason you hate them is because they’re a constant reminder that you’re not a shifter.
If he’d been a full shifter, he would’ve had perfect vision. He’d kept his blurry eyesight a secret from his mom for years, because he’d known that it would be one more reminder of his father, one more hint at the unlikelihood of Max ever being able to shift. One more hint at the unlikelihood of him having a mate out there, waiting for him.
The woman in his arms blinked her eyes, her mouth opening as if she wanted to say something, but wasn’t quite sure what. Max waited, anticipation and apprehension doing battle within him. She really was more than within her rights to demand that he let her go immediately, given how long he’d just been holding on to her and staring at her face.
After several moments, she seemed to finally find what she wanted to say.
“… Are the olives okay?”
A startled laugh escaped from him. It was a feeling he wasn’t very used to.
Checking the floor, he saw that somehow the open jar, with its low center of gravity, had merely skidded across the floor, leaving only the tiniest of streaks of olive oil in its wake.
