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“Come back here when you’re done,” he continued. “We need to talk.”
“Um…okay.”
That sounded ominous, but considering my life as I knew it was over anyway, how bad could it be?
I looked around for my purse and found it sitting on a chair. Grabbing it, I stepped out of the room and into the bathroom. It looked more like a high-end spa.
Marble and stone clad every flat surface, and the bronze fixtures screamed luxury. Unlike the small bathtub-shower combo I had in my apartment, Gunnar had a huge jacuzzi-style tub and what looked to be a custom-built shower that was the size of a small room. Curious, I poked my head in. There were two giant showerheads mounted to the ceiling and an oversized cedar bench running along one wall.
Fancy, huh?
I did my business and brushed my teeth, horrified when I saw my raccoon eyes. God! Was this what that sexy stud muffin had seen? What a horrible trade. I did my best to remove the makeup before stepping back into the bedroom.
Gunnar was sitting on the bed, his eyes on me.
“Um,” I started awkwardly. “Thank you for helping me out last night.”
Now that I was more awake, I remembered him showing up and chasing off the asshole and his friends. I also remembered totally feeling him up. Shit. Was that what he wanted to talk about? Was he pissed that I’d basically copped a feel on the street?
My face heated. “Listen, I’m sorry for touching you without—”
“I liked your hands on me.” The words were said in a matter-of-fact, quiet growl that had my stomach flip-flopping.
“Oh.” I swallowed. “Then what did you want to talk about?”
“Why do you need to marry me by Monday?”
Oh God. What the hell had I told him? I tried to recall, but all I got were fuzzy snippets of how good his hard muscles had felt under my hands and how good his lips had tasted against mine.
Gunnar patted the bed next to him. “Sit. Tell me. I promise I won’t judge you. You’re safe here.”
I sat down, letting the heat of his leg warm mine. “I guess I should start from the beginning. My parents are both 100% human. I’m adopted. They had no idea I was a shifter or that shifters even existed until I made my first mitten.”
“Mitten?”
I laughed, slightly embarrassed, realizing he had no idea what I was talking about. “It’s a term we made up to describe my partial shifts.” I sighed. “I can’t fully shift.”
“I was wondering why you didn’t shift to protect yourself last night.”
“Yeah.” I looked down at my now-human hands dejectedly.
Some full shifters had always thought of me as less because of it. I thought of my ex from college who’d left me for a full shifter who could run with him.
“I don’t think there’s enough snow leopard in me,” I admitted. “I can do this.” I held my hands up and concentrated. Two furry paws appeared where my hands had been. “ And this.” I closed my eyes and willed my cat ears into existence.
This earned me a soft appreciative sound from Gunnar. I opened my eyes to see him grinning from ear to ear.
“Adorable.” He reached up but snatched his hand back before he actually touched my ear.
“Yeah, I know. I always have a built-in costume for Halloween, and I’m every furry’s dream.” I blew out a breath. “But it’s not really useful except to keep my hands warm in the winter. So yeah, that’s why my parents decided to call my half-shifts mittens. I was six years old when it first happened. I was being a little shit disturber and I’d been sent to my room. I was so mad. My parents were shocked to find all my sheets and curtains shredded.
“Mom freaked out. Dad thought it was the coolest thing ever. But being completely human themselves, they didn’t have a clue what to do with me. In the beginning, it only happened when I was angry, and I didn’t know how to control it.
“They contacted the adoption agency and asked a bunch of questions, but nothing that might give my special condition away. There wasn’t much information since I had been surrendered as a newborn, but there was enough for them to start digging. They found what they thought could have been a possibility, a group of snow leopard shifters in central Asia, and tried to contact them through multiple means.” I paused, anger at what had happened flooding through me.
A large hand landed gently on my lower back. “What did they say?”
“Dad speaks fluent Mandarin, so when we got a phone call asking if I could shift, he replied that I could just make mittens. They laughed and hung up.” That had stung, even as a kid. “And then we sort of forgot about it until I was off at college.”
