At Full Sprint (A BBW Shifter Romance) (Last of the Shapeshifters) (12 page)

“That was a few years ago, too.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I’m not.” He tilted his head to the side. “You find that harder to believe than what you just saw?”

“Hell yes! You don’t look a day over thirty five.”

“What do thirty-five year olds look like?”

“Like you.”

“Not many of them look like me.”

“Shut up,” she said, but she nodded, conceding. “So, tell me your long story. Why don’t you want to meet other shifters?”

Miles pushed his lips together. “I once met a shapeshifter, a wolf. We got into a bit of a scuffle. He broke my back, my spinal column, but the cord didn’t sever. I was in my cheetah state.”

Circe gasped. “That’s more than a scuffle.

“Shifting when you’re injured like that helps, but it’s painful as hell. The most painful thing I ever experienced.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He was trying to kill me.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Miles said, shaking his head. “He was crazy. He said he was going to kill all shapeshifters. This was about forty years or so ago. His name was…” Miles trailed off, dipping his toes back into his newly reopened puddles of memory. “His name was Marcus Ranum. Big guy, bigger wolf. Savage. Evil. I could tell he was going to kill me. I couldn’t move, you know? I had no support. When you walk on four legs, and you break your back, it’s like… it’s a strange feeling. It’s like the stretch of your skin is holding you upright.”

She winced at him. “So why didn’t he kill you?”

Miles grinned, then. “A tiger saved my life.”

“A tiger?”

“Yes. Not a huge tiger. I actually researched it afterward. This was back when we didn’t have the internet. I had to go to a library.”

“You poor thing,” Circe mocked.

“As far as I could tell, it was a Bali tiger.”

“You were in Bali?”

“No,” Miles said. “I was in Cape Town.”

“What was a Bali tiger doing in Cape Town?”

“Well, that’s one question, yes. Another I found when doing my research was that the Bali tiger had gone extinct nearly ten years earlier. So, put two and two together, it becomes obvious this was a-”

“Shapeshifter,” Circe said over him.

“Yes. Saved my life. Fought the wolf, drove it off. I had shifted back into a man then. The tiger never came back. Not long later, an ambulance picked me up. I mean, we were in the middle of the streets at night time. Somebody must have heard something. Tell you what, I had a hard time explaining what I was doing naked, with a broken back and a busted up face.”

“You never saw the tiger again?” Circe held onto his calf, before sliding her hand up and down his thigh.

“No.”

“What happened to the wolf?”

“No idea.”

“So that’s why you don’t want to meet any more shapeshifters? Because you ran into one bad egg? That’s like somebody not wanting to interact with humans because there are bad ones.”

“No,” Miles said. “It’s not just that. Afterward, my curiosity was piqued, obviously. I mean, why would a shapeshifter want to kill off his own kind? And to have a tiger show up miraculously to save my life? I started to wonder just how many there were. I started asking questions, following strange sightings in foreign newspapers that all came a week late in those days. Anyway, whisperings got to me about wolf sightings in Borneo.”

“Borneo,” she echoed.

“On the Indonesian side. A wolf there is definitely an unusual sight. Anyway, I went, did a bit of digging, and ran into a man named Leon. Big guy, sociopath if I ever met one. He was just… cold. There was something completely off about him. He was a wolf, too. But he let me talk to him. I remember sitting in a small fishing village by the river, drinking arak.”

“Arak?”

“Local moonshine.”

“I thought that could make you blind.”

“If it’s got methanol in it, yeah. I guess we got lucky. Anyway, he’d been alive far, far longer than me at that point. He told me about some of our history, about how my kind had been hunted throughout history, our existence so rooted in fear that we were erased, relegated to myth and nighttime whispers between children.”

“You know, for a dumb race car driver, you do have a way with words.”

“Anyway, I asked about Marcus, why he would have attacked me. This guy, Leon, he seemed to know Marcus, though he wouldn’t tell me how or why. He just laughed, told me that Marcus was damaged goods. The shift had ruined him.”

“What did you do next?”

“Asked about the tiger. He said he knew who I was talking about, and that it was lucky he was there to save my life. Nothing I didn’t already know.”

“He didn’t tell you who it was?”

“I didn’t ask.” Miles shrugged. “I just left. I thanked Leon, left him some money and told him to buy more arak on me, and went back to Cape Town, where I was living at the time. I had just won the Can-Am final race in Las Vegas, and had gone back home. I just tried to forget about it all. I don’t care about it. I don’t want to get involved. I don’t want to get swept up in any sort of politics. I just want to race.”

“You were racing then?”

“Been racing since before that, babe.”

“Under Miles Cohen?”

“No. Matthew Cohen. Miles Matthew. Avery Cohen. Miles Avery. Matthew Avery.” He ticked them off on his fingers and grinned. “My full name is Miles Matthew Avery Cohen, believe it or not. I just used variations.”

Circe pulled the sheets over her shoulders. “Nobody noticed?”

“Nobody was looking. So… anyway… Now you know my big secret.”

“It’s why you race so well.”

Miles nodded. “Yes.”

“So, you mean, you have some crossover, right? Like, animal instincts?”

“Clever girl.”

“Then it’s kind of like cheating. You’ve got an unfair advantage.”

“Why do you think I chose ‘Cheat’ for my nickname?”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

Miles shook his head. “No. I race for myself. I couldn’t care less about the standings, that’s just an added benefit. I couldn’t care less about the fairness of the race. Going fast makes me feel good. I do what makes me feel good. That will never change. Besides, it’s not like I should turn my gifts into a handicap. Why should I abstain because I was born different?”

Circe nodded. “I can get behind that.”

Silence shrouded them for a moment, and Miles gazed at her naked body, her thick thighs that he wanted to squeeze, her wide hips that he wanted to hold, her heavy beasts that he wanted to cup.

“Circe,” he spoke eventually, his cock rock hard, hidden from sight beneath the sheets that were tented around his knees.

“Yeah?”

“Want to go again?”

*

So, tonight was a bit crazy. Miles is asleep, and I’m at the table, scribbling into you, dear diary.

Yeah, that was quite a night. I’m not going to write the details down, though. I think that would be a bit embarrassing.

But yeah. Wow! What can I say? The man knows what he’s doing in the bedroom!

He’s a shapeshifter, too.

I mean, he can actually change fucking shape into an animal. Just one animal, though.

I don’t know why I’m not more bewildered. It was shocking at first, yes. Actually, it was a bit gross. Watching him shift, I recalled that documentary on meat processing plants. Just… ew!

I guess a lot of things make sense now. Isn’t that funny. More makes sense after learning that he is a shapeshifter. A creature of myth.

I’m suddenly in the mood for a scary movie.

Yeah, I know. I crossed a line. Now it’s all muddled. I’ll have to figure that one out by myself. Suffice it to say, getting your personal life and professional life mixed up is probably the biggest rookie mistake in the book.

But, then again, this was personal from the start. Miles picked me because he liked me. I guess I always knew. I could hardly believe it, though. I’m not exactly… never mind.

We’re going back to his home in Bali tomorrow. He’s got a flat in Bahrain – where the next race is – but I told him I wanted to go back to Bali.

I’m *not* going back to London this time around. I don’t want to deal with the flat. I know Jake and Gary have it all fucked up again.

Shapeshifter!

How can I become one? Is that a bad thought to have? Is there any downside at all to being a shapeshifter? I can’t imagine so! Even living for nearly forever is a seductive thought.

He’s so old! When I think about it too long, it’s a bit icky. I mean he doesn’t look old. He doesn’t really act old. He acts like a boy, actually. Totally childish sometimes. But when I think about the fact that I just slept with a one hundred year old man and…

Stop it, brain!

Go to sleep, Circe!

It’ll all still be real when you wake up.

O
n the eve of the Sakhir Grand Prix in Bahrain, and Miles once again finishing the qualifying round last to start at the back of the pack, Circe was beginning to wonder about him. Since they had arrived in the scorching Arab island kingdom, he had been quieter than usual, more reclusive, and less talkative.

They had made a habit of seeing each other nearly non-stop, and sharing a bed nearly every night for the last two weeks, and so his changed behavior was in stark contrast to the man she had gotten to know since meeting him in Melbourne.

And it worried Circe. Not just the usual insecurities and questioning –
Is he bored? Is it over? Is this the beginning of the end? –
But because whatever was bothering Miles was having such a pronounced effect on him that his lap times at practice the day before were fifteen percent slower across the board.

“Miles,” she said, sitting down next to him on the sofa in their rather disgustingly luxurious hotel suite. It was a penthouse with spectacular views of the stretching desert, a fully-equipped kitchen, and more square footage than a family of five would need.

“Mm?” he sounded, looking at her briefly and wrapping a large arm around her shoulders. He pulled her in for a quick hug, and she instinctively rested her hand on his naked chest, and felt there a quick heartbeat and tense muscles.

“Miles, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

He looked at her for a moment, as though not understanding what she was talking about. “Oh,” he said, and he shook his head. “Nothing. Don’t worry.”

“No,” she said, returning his head shake with her own. “No, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

“I’m not interested in answering questions tonight, babe. Can you just turn off the little journalist inside you?”

Circe bristled. “That’s not why I’m asking,” she explained patiently. “I’m asking because I’m worried, because I care. You know what that’s like, right? To have someone care about you?”

“People usually get sick of me before they start to care.”

“Well, not me. So, why don’t you just be honest with me and tell me what’s up, okay?”

He stared off at some space on the wall, evidently lost in thought. Circe felt frustration welling inside her, but it was not like she could force him to open up. She began to wonder then why she wanted to know as much as she did. Had she been totally honest with him when she told him her curiosity was born of worry, and not professional interest?

A tremor of regret rippled through her thoughts. Not regret that she was beginning to really fall in love with this man, and not regret that all the time they had spent together since Melbourne nearly a month ago – and it was a considerable chunk of time – had been nothing short of either interesting, or amazing. It was regret that she had gotten her personal life and professional life so tangled up, had heeded Ms. Jennings’ orders so completely, that now she didn’t know if she could unknot the two when it was all said and done.

Circe also doubted herself to a certain extent. Was she interested in him because he offered her such a good career trajectory? Did her professional motives not play a part at all? And if they did, could both co-exist? Or was she going to have to choose between one and the other at some point down the road?

“You really want to know?” he asked then, severing silence that had enveloped them. In his voice was the typical inflexion of bubbling enthusiasm she had come to expect of him. The spark of life relieved her – she was happy to see it again – though Circe definitely was not thrilled at the prospect that there were more secrets. How deep did this rabbit hole go? Miles must have accumulated more than a lifetime of experiences… of potential hidden truths, character flaws, and bad habits.

“Yes,” Circe told him truthfully. “I do.”

“But it has to be off the record,” he said, swiping his flattened hand in the air between them. “You can’t print any of this. You can’t even allude to it.”

Circe felt a small stab of disappointment, and she felt guilty for it. So her professional motives
were
at play here… at least in some capacity.

“Fine,” she said, perhaps eager to satisfy that guilt, to prove she really did care. Not just to him, but also to herself. “That’s totally okay with me. What’s up?”

“It’s something nobody else knows,” he said through a smirk, but she felt the smile was a little disingenuous. His lips seemed to shake with something akin to anger, and when she looked in his eyes, she saw a fog of emotion there.