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I shudder. There’s a reason you don’t go shoeless in a city, especially at night, and this is it.
“Hey!” A male voice calls out from behind me.
I spin around.
And standing a few feet away is a guy holding two plastic bags. One bulges with limes, but it’s the smaller bag he holds toward me. “You forgot this.”
I step in piss and two seconds later a guy with a face so gorgeous I feel ugly just looking at him decides he wants to notice me.
Fucking typical.
Angelic.
That’s what I see when I look at this guy in his mid-twenties with white-blond hair, perfect gold tanned skin, and the bone structure of someone who shouldn’t be in grocery stores buying limes. No, a guy like this belongs on a yacht in Italy with a model hanging off his arm or living it up with celebrities in a private members-only nightclub.
Maybe he’s famous, and that’s why the sales assistant liked him so much.
“I don’t want it.” I retreat a step, keeping my focus on his face. No, Isearchhis warm hazel eyes, but there’s no feral intensity peering back at me.
I don’t know how many shifters there are in the city—or if there are even othertypesof shifters—but with twenty in Rylan’s pack, I don’t dare let myself think that there aren’t more around.
Even one of them is a threat to me because all it would take is one phone call, and Rylan would know exactly where to come. Probably not before the shifter who found me had some fun with me. The kind of fun that makes me wonder if all shifters aren’t just animals with human faces.
First, there’s Harley at the hospital and now this guy.
Pretty, but not for me.
I know all the things that can hide under pretty. Rylan’s the perfect example of that. “Keep it,” I tell him as I turn away.
“I bought it for you.” There’s that same underlying warmth in his voice that I heard in the store. It’s easy to believe he stays friends with his ex-girlfriends, talks people out of fighting him, and trouble blows right past him because he’s justthatguy.
I know the type.
Nathan would eat him up and spit him right out.
“You shouldn’t have.” I keep walking. Where? I have no clue, but I can’t stay here.
“I couldn’t help but notice your hospital gown.” He sounds like he’s following, so I walk faster.
“You could. You just didn’t want to.”
“I’m Aden. Look, I just want to help.”
My bark of laughter echoes in a street more empty than full. Everyone must be stretched out on the couch with a glass of wine or meeting friends for dinner. “Yeah, that’s real nice of you to want tohelp.”
His footsteps stop.
I take two more steps before something, some need, maybe it’s just plain guilt forces me to halt. “Just take your limes and go. I don’t need help.”
“Something tells me you do.” His voice is quiet, but there’s a note in it that makes me turn around.
“I don’t.”
His hazel eyes are steady as he studies me. “That’s all I want. To help. Haven’t you ever felt drawn to someone?”
My mind drags me back to two years ago, when a man held a hand out to me and told me I was his heart. It was the biggest mistake I made in my life, and I have no intention of making it again. “Yes. I have, and I spent two years living in hell because of it.”
His frown creases his perfectly smooth brow. “What?”
