“For getting rid of my boner.” He laughed as he ducked her swat.
“I’ll have you know I’m the subtle type of sexy.”
“So subtle I can’t see it.”
“Lies!” she yelled, laughing. “I have a worm farm. Does that turn you on?”
“A worm farm?” he asked, turning right into the campgrounds. “So that’s why you have dirt under your nails and smell like earth?”
“I stink?”
“Nah, you smell fucking delicious. Shampoo, soap, earth, and whatever flavor of lip gloss you’ve been slathering on all night. Cherry? Oh and…”
“And what? Finish it!”
“And you smell like arousal.” He cast her a quick glance.
Heat flooded her cheeks. “That’s not fair. You have heightened senses, and that is private information. Use your Spidey senses for good, not evil, Matt.”
“I have an obvious boner that you keep pointing out. It’s all fair, Nerd.”
Touché. Leaning forward, she pointed out the front window toward the pop-up camper she’d bought second-hand a couple years ago. “That’s me.”
“Sweet,” he murmured, turning in behind her Tacoma. “Is that one yours, too?” He gestured to the silver pickup. “Sure is, Griz. I use it to haul around my camper. Me and the bombshells had to take two separate cars out here, which is probably what saved my sanity.” Were her words even making sense right now? She felt like she was floating.
“The bombshells?” He twisted in his seat and trapped her with those striking, inhuman eyes of his. “You never told me why you’re on this trip with them.”
“Because we made a pact as kids. Have you ever had a group of friends you thought were going to be together forever?”
Sadness pooled in his eyes. He looked away and swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“Well, that was the bombshells and me. We were inseparable all through elementary and middle school and half of high school. Then we kind of…drifted apart. I think I was too different, and they couldn’t understand me anymore. We’d always planned this trip, though. Right after graduating college, we were supposed to take a week long road trip together to someplace fun where we could just cut loose before we started looking for jobs in the real world.”
“You graduated college?”
“Yeah, two weeks ago with a degree in fine arts. Hold your applause, you sexy giant.” God, she hadn’t meant to say that last bit. She pouted her lips and squished them together with her fingers, lest they speak on their own again.
Matt chuckled and opened his door, so she did the same. She nearly fell on her face when she slid out of the lifted truck, but bless her legs, they didn’t fail her this time.
“You know,” she murmured, punching the soft earth with the high heels she’d borrowed from Gia and trying not to break an ankle. “I used to feel sorry for you.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, steadying her waist as she aimed for the trees.
When she was back on track and marching toward the camper, she said, “I wanted all the humans to leave you alone when you came out to the public. I thought you lived these sad, lonely lives afraid of the humans, but you’re not like that. I can’t imagine you are afraid of anything. And look! Now you have shifter groupies to put your dick in all the time.”
“Stop.”
His voice had gone hard, so she turned and frowned up at him. “I don’t feel sorry for you anymore is all I’m saying. You’ve changed my mind tonight.” She splayed her hands against his taut chest, over his nipples which had perked up against the thin material of his charcoal T-shirt. Matt shuddered under her palms, and a soft growl rattled his chest.
Whoa, he was sexy. “You may ravish me now.” She swayed but caught herself.
Matt gripped her wrists and plucked her hands off him. “Polite decline.”
“Come on, Griz. This is what you do. This is your game. You lure shifter groupies here with your sexy selfies and witty one-liners on your social media pages, and then you sleep with them to settle whatever dark, primal desires your animal has. That’s what everyone does nowadays, right? Boys sleep with girls and expect them to not get attached, and then they never call again. How many times have you done that? No strings attached fucking. How many times?”
Matt swallowed audibly and looked sick. Slowly, he shook his head.
“Ten? Twenty? If I don’t jump on the bandwagon, I’ll pass my prime and be an old, shrivelly-vaginaed shrew with nineteen cats and a pet pineapple. So here I am. A human telling your big”—she poked his chest—“bad”—she poked him again—“animal that he can have me.”