She turned her attention back to Jackson. “At no point have I or anyone else ever drugged you. So stop that insanity. Your eyes did not deceive you Tuesday. I did indeed get cut by the hoe. It was deep, and it was long. Even I was a bit nervous for a minute. Griffen panicked and sent the men working for us running in every direction to get help. You were the first to arrive.
“By then I’d lost some blood, but more importantly, I was in shock. And it didn’t help when you stepped closer and I realized it was you. The man from last Friday night. The man haunting my dreams.” She lowered her voice to add the next part, “The man I’d been avoiding for months while you stalked me at the ski resort.” She shot him a quick grin.
He gasped. “You knew that?”
Cooper desperately wanted to ask what she meant by that, but he held his tongue.
“Of course. I just never got close enough to you to prove who you were to me,” Sharon added.
“And that is?”
“My mate. Or one of them.” She was quick to hold out a hand to keep him from interrupting her. “I did not at any point in time consider I might meet and fall for two men. What I said to you earlier wasn’t a lie. I truly believed I was destined for only one man.”
“That would be me,” Cooper added.
She shot him a look that could melt steel. “Stop being an ass. And don’t sit there all cocky like you owned me.”
Cooper schooled his face, but he loved seeing her all riled up. Her face flushed a deeper shade of red, and she pulled her shoulders back, making her nipples stand out even more. He forced himself to keep his gaze on her eyes.
Jackson interrupted his reverie again. “If you thought you were destined, or whatever, to be with Cooper, then why lure me in?”
She rolled her eyes again. “I did not intentionally lure anyone anywhere. It just happened. Fate picks who we fall for in our world, not us.”
Cooper couldn’t hold his tongue. “And sometimes she seems to find some sort of twisted humor in selecting a human.”
Sharon nearly came out of her chair. “Cooper Hamilton. I swear to God.”
“Sorry. Just trying to speed things up a bit.” He held out both palms.
Jackson turned toward Cooper. “You saying you aren’t human?” The smirk on his face was evidence he found this comical. “Who do you think you are, then? Superman? An alien?”
Cooper asked for this. He glanced at Sharon to make sure she wasn’t going to throttle him and then turned back to Jackson. “We’re part human. You can see that. But we have other abilities as well.”
“Like?” The smirk grew. Jackson wasn’t going to take this well.
“We can shift into wolves.”
“Wolves,” he repeated.
“He’s right,” Sharon added. “And since he’s such a wise guy, I’ll let him be the one to demonstrate.”
“Me?” Cooper pointed at himself. He would much rather have her strip down to nothing and do the honors. Why him?
“Whoa whoa whoa.” Jackson held out a hand to stop them both from continuing to argue. “Did you say wolves? You actually believe you’re a werewolf?”
Cooper scrunched up his nose. “No. That’s a myth.”
“Oh good, because for a minute there…” Jackson’s voice was as condescending as it could be. Not surprising.
Cooper continued. “We aren’t some strange half-man, half-wolf creatures of the night that transform for the purpose of hunting their prey and going on a killing spree.”
“Oh good. That’s such a pretty picture,” Sharon said.
Cooper ignored her, keeping his attention focused on Jackson. “We shift into actual wolves. The kind on all fours. The regular kind you see in the forest. We aren’t a menace to anyone. We don’t harm or kill. In fact quite the opposite. We serve man, doing our best to preserve the human way of life and keep Nature in balance by heeding her warnings. Sometimes in the form of spirits like the one we just saw by the door.”
Jackson licked his lips. “You really believe you can become a wolf, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe I can. I know I can.” Cooper reached for the hem of his shirt and hauled it over his head. He was too fucking tired for this, but it had to be done. He stood and popped the button on his jeans next.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“He’s going to shift for you. Until you see it, you won’t understand,” Sharon said.
Cooper lowered his zipper and then stared at her as he pushed his jeans down his legs, taking his underwear with them. “You do realize how very unfair this is, right?”