To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 3

  That makes sense, so I relax even as Mr. Moretti suddenly stands up and walks toward me. Why hasn’t the fact that he’s so incredibly tall been mentioned in company newsletters? I mean, they should have at least tried to prepare new employees like me. Warning: CEO Is A 6'4" Unsmiling Giant. Do Not Be Intimidated. He Does Not Bite. Something like that. It should have been a bullet point in the employee manual, at least.

  The shadow behind Mr. Moretti makes him look taller, scarier, and – unfortunately – hotter, too. It’s because he looks very mysterious, I suppose. I gulp, but I’m not sure if it’s out of terror or excitement. Maybe a little of both.

  “I know you’re wondering why I’ve called for you.”

  I bit my lip.

  “Do you have something to say, Ms. Wall?”

  Shick. What Ed said was true. He really does know my name.

  I bit my lip harder. I can’t afford to be tactless since my entire career hinges on my internship here.

  Mr. Moretti’s voice turns silky, like a snake that’s about to uncoil and spit poison. “I prefer to deal with honest people, Ms. Wall. I hope you keep that in mind from here on. If you have something to say – please do so.”

  Maybe it’s just me, but that please sounds kind of threatening. Aware that what the CEO wishes is basically an intern’s command, I say slowly, “I’m just surprised you actually know my name, Mr. Moretti.”

  I feel rather than see his smile, all the way to my toes, which curl in response. I’ve always thought myself frigid. It’s just my luck to find out I’m as susceptible to lust as the rest when my job is on the line.

  Mr. Moretti’s voice drops an octave. “You’ll be surprised at what I know about you, Ms. Wall – and how much I want to know more.”

  I’m going to pretend – again – that I did not hear anything suggestive in those words.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  I fidget. Is this the time to be honest again?

  “Then what would you say if I tell you that I know you are 21 years old, single, orphaned, adopted by Nanette Wall at age 7, with four foster siblings?"

  I need a moment after that to pick my jaw up. It’s just dropped to the floor. But it’s a waste of time because my jaw just crashes back down when he continues, “There’s possibly a new member of your family if you all decide to let your foster mother have her way.”

  Oh. My. God.

  I have this nasty feeling he even knows I’ve never had sex and that I’ve a half-completed tattoo around my belly. It’s supposed to be a sunburst design, but now it just looks like my belly button’s grown horns. I only lasted two rays long before passing out.

  But Mr. Moretti isn’t finished.

  “I also know what happened earlier between--” Mr. Moretti’s voice turns steely. “--you, Janice Rudely, and William Grant.”

  Oh.

  Shick.

  I gag.

  Again.

  “I’m sorry,” I say miserably minutes later inside Mr. Moretti’s private washroom, which – by the way – looks palatial. It has gold-plated taps, for God’s sake. Doesn’t that scream palatial? Or is it more of a testament to Domenico Moretti having more money than he knows what do with?

  “I have a really weak stomach.” I speak without actually looking at him. Under the extremely bright fluorescent pin lights of the washroom, it becomes impeccably clear why he needs to file TROs against supermodels.

  If I actually look at him just once, I think he would have to file one against me, too.

  “I understand,” Mr. Moretti says smoothly. “The sight of William Grant’s wrinkled dick would have made me throw up as well if I had been a woman.”

  The image of Mr. Moretti – who is pretty much manliness personified – throwing up because of offended feminine sensibilities makes me choke back an unexpected giggle.

  “Are you all right now?”

  I nod, still keeping my gaze trained anywhere except on him.

  “Then shall we go back to my office?” Without warning, he places his hand on the small of my back.

  I jump away, unnerved at the electrifying jolt that zings through my body at Mr. Moretti’s touch. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  Before I know it, Mr. Moretti spins me around to face him.

  I’m so fracked.

  Domenico Moretti is beautiful. His hair may be cut ruthlessly short like a soldier’s at the sides, but it doesn’t make a difference to how silky smooth it appears, how just the sight of it begs for a woman’s touch. I want to know how it feels to run my fingers through his hair.

  His eyes are impossibly green but dark – like leaves at the height of summer. His face looks as if it had been chiseled by God when He was at his happiest, without the smallest flaw to mar it. High cheekbones, an aristocratic nose, wonderfully naturally red lips, and a prominently strong jaw - perfection, in other words.

  Mr. Moretti is wearing a pale blue dress shirt of the finest silk, having discarded his blazer in his office earlier. It’s partially unbuttoned, allowing me more than a glimpse of his smooth brown chest. Even without touching it, I know that it would feel wonderfully hard under my fingers.

  But what really makes me breathless, what makes my body go weak, and makes an embarrassing amount of wetness gather between my thighs, is how Mr. Moretti is gazing at me.

  He’s looking at me like he wants to devour me, and the sexual tension emanating from him, from me--from us--is palpable.

  I can’t take my gaze off him.

  His nostrils flare. “You smell…”

  I pale.

  Was he saying I stank?

  “I’m sorry,” I say weakly. “It was really hot this morning on my way to work.” I think I’m going to kill myself after this. I have never been so humiliated in my entire life.

  Mr. Moretti looks frustrated and furious. “No, I don’t mean it that way. I meant, I can smell--” He shakes his head and takes a step forward.

  I instinctively step backward, mostly because I don’t want him to smell me even more, whatever it is that he smelt.

  “I was hoping this would be the case, but I hadn’t dared hope,” he murmurs seemingly to himself.

  Yuck, I can’t help but think. He has a fetish for bad odors? It’s such a turn-off I shake my head at it.

  “What is it?” he asks sharply.

  “Nothing,” I stammer.

  “It doesn’t seem like nothing,” Mr. Moretti says while taking another step forward.

  I take another step backward and almost curse when I realize I’ve inadvertently backed myself into a corner – literally. Mr. Moretti closes the distance between us, and with his gorgeous face this close, I forget all about his weird fetish and just focus on keeping from hyperventilating.

  God, he’s hot.

  God, God, God, he’s hot.

  Mr. Moretti bends his head, nuzzling my hair. “You let it down. Why?”

  It takes me a while to realize what he’s asking. And what that question means.

  “I...couldn’t find my band,” I say, stumbling over the words because I’m so tense I have a hard time stringing words together. I tense even more when he lifts a lock of my hair, and then I feel close to fainting when he brings it to his lips, closing his eyes as if savoring the scent.

  Another fetish?

  “You smell so good.”

  Oh. So maybe that was what he was saying a while ago. That I smelled good.

  His head moves lower and he nuzzles my neck, inhaling again. “So good,” he says with something like reverence just before inhaling my scent again.

  It feels like he’s worshipping me, and just the thought that this man wants me so much makes me moan again. It’s too much. He’s too close, too hot, too everything that my body is arching towards him before I realize what I’m doing.

  “Misty.”

  The sound of my name on his lips seems to work like a key, unlocking the chains of restraint and common sense between us.

  I twirl my arms around his neck j
ust as Domenico Moretti brings me close to him, his lips taking mine in an unashamedly carnal open-mouthed kiss. Our tongues touch, play, and entwine as our bodies fuse. His fingers bite into my butt as he pulls me even closer, and I groan against his mouth when I feel his erection, larger than life and pulsing like crazy. It’s unbelievably erotic.

  He makes me want to forget all the rules I’ve made for myself and just have sex with him right this very minute. I’ve never felt this way before, and it’s a feeling that I don’t ever want to lose. It’s only now I understand why some women so desperately beg for a man’s touch.

  I know I should struggle, pull away. That would have been the sensible thing to do, if not the right one, but I can’t. It’s impossible. He’s irresistible. My first taste of lust is unquenchable. My hands rush over him, and I can’t help but moan when I finally know how silky his hair feels like.

  Domenico Moretti doesn’t stop kissing me--he’s a master at it, knowing exactly when to go soft and when to go deliciously rough, lips and tongue dancing in a way that makes my head swim and my body become more and more pliant in his arms. He is my sculptor, and I am his clay. The sensual spell he weaves around me is so potent I’ve gone over the edge, my thoughts turning from logical to cheesy.

  A faint spell of dizziness assails me.

  Mr. Moretti releases me with a muttered curse. “Breathe, Misty.”

  I blink in a daze then begin inhaling huge gulps of oxygen when I realize what’s wrong with me.

  Well, this is awkward.

  And telling.

  I actually forgot to breathe because of his kisses. When I look up, Mr. Moretti’s face is a mixture of amusement and bemusement.

  “I was right,” he says, his gaze unmistakably possessive as it roams around my face. I remind myself to continue breathing when the sight of an unexpectedly tender smile touches Mr. Moretti’s lips, softening the harsh lines of his coldly beautiful face. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him smile. None of the hundreds of photos Google has of him in its database ever showed him smiling, that’s for sure. I would have remembered it if it did.

  “You’re unbelievable,” he says, tracing my lips. He smiles again.

  Second time in a row, I can’t help thinking, his unabashedly sensual smile turning my thoughts into mush. The press will kill for this kind of shot.

  “I need you to do something for me,” he says, his voice turning husky again.

  “Y-you do?” It’s so hard to think when he’s looking at me like that and his erection is still grinding against me.

  “You’re the only one who can do this for me.”

  Oh, dear. He had me at ‘you’re’. The heat of his gaze makes my panties even wetter than they already are. Shick, I’m so easy.

  “I need you, Misty,” he whispers.

  “For what?” I whisper back.

  His eyes seek mine, blazing with life. “Say you’ll become my wife.”

  The fury in Misty’s face only served to arouse Domenico even more. She would make a magnificent princess – and an even more magnificent queen one day. She was fire and ice – a rare and royal combination.

  The sway of her hips as she pushed Domenico away and stalked out of the washroom was hypnotic. He wanted to grab her hips and keep them still long enough for him to tear her skirt out of the way, rip her panties off, and start pounding into her again and again until she was weak in his arms, begging for him to go harder and faster, begging for him to come inside her.

  That she would misunderstand his attentions was something he had already anticipated. He had studied every aspect of her life carefully, had taken his time analyzing every nuance of her personality because he wanted to be sure.

  His kind mated for life and though there were ways to break a bond between mates, Domenico preferred not to simply because it would have meant he had chosen wrong – and he preferred to be known as someone who always came out victorious.

  Chapter Three

  I’m so angry I want to cry, throw a tantrum, and strangle Domenico Moretti all at the same time. Since I’m the lowly intern, I have to satisfy myself with leaving his fracking office with my head held high.

  He catches my wrist just as I reach the doorway.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  He sighs – he actually sighs like I’m acting like a child. What does he expect? That I’d let him get away with his stupid little prank? I try to break free unsuccessfully. “Let me go!”

  “I was hoping you won’t require proof--”

  “I don’t need any kind of proof!”

  “But I guess there’s no other way,” he continues, ignoring my words and my struggling. When I try to kick his groin, he easily avoids it and tosses me up over his shoulder.

  I scream. I only stop when I remember the office is soundproofed, but I scream again when he throws me on the couch.

  Staring at me, Domenico Moretti starts unbuttoning his shirt.

  Oh, frack! He’s going to rape me! Wait – is it really going to be rape? Does it matter? My thoughts are in a jumble, but I still try to run away.

  He catches me even before I can take more than a step past him, tossing me back onto the couch with impressive ease. He’s down to his fifth button when I bounce back on the couch for the third time. I don’t give up trying to escape, but he never fails to get a hold of me, doesn’t even break a sweat with all the times he has to bodily carry me back to the couch. I’d be flattered – he makes me feel so ridiculously light – if I wasn’t busy panicking. I panic even more when I realize he’s down to his fancy Italian custom-designed pants.

  Oh. My. God.

  For one moment, I am insanely tempted.

  Would it be so terrible to let him take my virginity? I’ve been saving myself this long for marriage, but maybe it’s not such a waste if my first time’s going to be with Domenico.

  When his pants join his shirt on the floor, I want to groan.

  Why, God? Why, why, why did you have to make someone this irresistible? I want to weep at the sheer beauty of his body and the sheer unfairness of the situation. If only he hadn’t decided to play a prank on me. If he had just asked to have sex, maybe – maybe I would have said yes. To actually think I’d fall for his prank when he asked me to be his wife?

  It’s fracking unforgivable.

  When Domenico Moretti’s hands go to his briefs – black silk, although I shouldn’t have even noticed or cared – I recover my senses and jump off the couch. I’m thrilled when I manage to dash past him. Maybe his enormous erection got in the way.

  Got to reach the door, got to--

  Something heavy lands on my back, and I find myself crashing to the ground. I immediately twist around, getting ready to hit him because CEO or not, this has gone far enough. I’m going to kill him then I’m going to sue his ass for this.

  A big black wolf growls into my face.

  Shick!

  He has a wolf in his office? Seriously, a wolf?

  The wolf growls again, baring its razor sharp fangs this time, and I forget all about getting back at Domenico Moretti. Now, all I care about is getting out of this place alive, preferably without missing any body parts or having to be treated for rabies.

  “Mr. Moretti?” I say shakily without taking my eyes away from the wolf staring at me with such intense green--

  Green?

  No fracking way.

  I blink. I mentally slap myself. I pray for the angels to take away the deceitful ploys of the Devil. But when I open my eyes, it’s still just me and the wolf that had green eyes like Domenico Moretti’s.

  “No,” I whisper to myself, as if denying it out loud will make all of this a dream.

  Incredibly, the wolf nods and slowly inches away from me. I carefully back away, too, wanting to put more distance between us, holding my breath as I do.

  Resting on its haunches, the wolf locks its gaze with me again.

  “Mr. Moretti?” I say for the second time, praying that somewhere in this room,
I would hear a human voice answering me.

  The wolf--

  Sighs.

  It sighed.

  It actually sighed!

  “It can’t be.”

  The wolf’s eyes gleam, and I have a nasty feeling it’s smirking at me.