Enticed (2 page)

Gabe chuckled.
“You’re welcome.”

Clipping the
latch back into place, I averted my gaze. “So, is your mum coming
over today?” I said, finally voicing the question I’d been wanting
to ask since he’d stepped into the kitchen.

“Damn.” He
snapped straight and wove around Mia, his hand swinging from behind
him. “Nearly forgot. She asked me to give you this.”

The envelope he
handed over was creased and bent a little, like he’d pulled it from
his back pocket.

I studied it.
Nothing special. Just a bog standard, gift-card issue envelope,
with my name on the front in Shelley’s handwriting.

And pink—as if
to drive the nail of a delivered-by-someone-else birthday card home
with more
thwack
.

The quiet that
took over the room told me everyone else likely watched me while I
stared at the envelope. Sighing at its lack of personality, I
turned it over, but paused at the back flap.

There, letters
had been neatly printed in Shelley’s hand: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.

I probably
narrowed my gaze at it a bit too long before glancing up and
finding every set of eyes pinned my way. Yeah, wasn’t sharing
whatever was inside with them, for damn sure. Clearing my throat, I
waved the envelope and scraped back my chair. “I’ll be in my room,”
I told them and, not waiting to see what they thought of that,
bolted for the stairs.

Once on the
landing, I strode along to the second door on the left and pushed
inside my bedroom. Coffee shades coloured the walls around the
decent-sized window that overlooked the back garden and, more
importantly, the forest, but only the envelope—or what might be
inside it—held my attention.

Sinking down
onto the edge of my bed, I worked a finger under the flap and took
out a regular old birthday card with a chimp on the front and a
simple ‘Happy Birthday’ printed across its top in bulky orange
letters. Nothing romantic. No hearts. No confessed feelings. No
nouns pronouncing who the recipient might be to the sender.

Though, what
could she get one with, anyway?
To my boyfriend
? My face
screwed up at that title.
My mate
? Somehow, I doubted they
did those at Hallmark.

Even so, I
found myself opening it, like some part of me hoped she had more to
say with her own words than with those fabricated by some anonymous
message maker.

Four envelopes
marked
1
,
2
,
3
, and
4
had been tucked
inside.

Moving those
out of the way revealed more of Shelley’s neat handwriting across
the inner fold of the greeting card. A cryptic note of: ‘
What?
Did you think this was it?
’

I frowned, my
eyes scanning downward to another little note.

‘
Pssst, in
case you can’t figure it out, the envelopes are number-ordered for
a reason. Open them. You know you want to.
’

“What the
hell’s got into you, Shel?” I muttered, though my lips twitched
even as I set down the card and three of the envelopes, and ripped
at the flap of number one.

No card sat
inside it. No note. Just a tiny black rag of … I grabbed it between
my two fingers and slid it out.
Lace?

Lifting it to
my nose, I sniffed. A faint whiff of Shelley lingered on its
surface, but otherwise, it just had that new fabric smell I’d have
expected from the stiffness of the strip.

Setting it
aside, I lifted number two, tore through the stuck-down flap, and
peered inside.

A couple of
glossy photos peeked back, and I withdrew them. Stared at the first
one. Tried to figure out what the hell the pinkish-but-not-pink,
creamy looking whatever the shot seemed to be of. I shuffled out
another from behind it—same thing. Kind of. Except the second one
had a couple of ridges.

Only when
looking at the third did I notice the faint porous-like
indentations, the delicate downy-looking hairs, and realised it was
a close-up of … “Skin? Lace … and skin?”

Despite my
narrow-eyed frown, my lips curved. Shelley was
definitely—
definitely
—up to something.

And experience
warned it would be something really bad.

Or something
painfully good.

I picked up
number three, my gaze flitting back to the flesh shots as I tore
through the envelope and pulled out a postcard. On it was written a
single word: ‘
Sniff
’.

Bringing it
closer to my nose, I inhaled, and the second I did, my lids drooped
at the lush dose of Shelley I’d sucked in. Not just Shelley,
though. Not just her
behind the counter of her little
bookshop
odour. Or her
doing Mum duties
smell. Or even
her
visiting for Sunday dinner subtleness
she always arrived
with.

Nope, the scent
that hit me was one hundred percent 'Shelley the Female', and had
my grip tightening around the rectangle of card, and my senses
craving another blast, even while my mind already chased after what
might be in the final envelope to top it off.

Snatching up
number four, I ripped it open and yanked out a folded piece of
card.

Once more,
Shelley’s handwriting stared up at me, but with some kind of
instruction:

I’m at a place
that’s a step up from 2D in a backward sort of way.

You want your
gift?

Come get
it.

xxx

Still with no
clue as to what she might be up to, I shot off the bed and into the
bathroom.

***

A
ground-breaking six minutes later, I trampled back down the stairs,
hair dripping a river down the grooves either side of my spine and
gluing my
WOOF!
T-shirt to my back. The rest of the pack
hadn't arrived yet, which was good. It meant I had less scrutiny to
undergo—because everyone else seemed to quit whatever they were
doing and glance my way, the second I stepped into the kitchen.

“I’m heading
out,” I said, as Mum’s gaze swept the full length of me.

“To Shelley’s,”
Kyle said, and as my attention darted to him, he lifted his palms
and shrugged. “Hey, I’ve seen that look in your eye before. You
only get it when you’re …”

I’d no idea
what my face expressed, probably something along the lines of
Shut the fuck up or die!
Or maybe it was the dig Brook gave
his ribs that stemmed his spewing. Either way, it worked.

“Thank God for
that,” Gabe said. “Some things I just don’t wanna know.”

Mum cleared her
throat. “You’ll be back for the barbeque later?” Somehow she made
the question sound more like an order.

I nodded,
hoping I told the truth. Without knowing what Shelley had planned,
how the hell could I even know myself?

Only one way
to find out
.

Before anyone
else could say anything on the matter—mostly Jem, who’d kept
deceptively quiet despite the smirk tilting her lips—I spun away,
grabbed my truck keys, and bolted for the door.

***

Good thing
about the pack company owning a property: I could always get into
them whenever I needed. The foyer was cool as I strode through
there to the door of the stairwell, and the few flights up were an
easy enough climb. Busting through the final door took me onto the
third floor landing, from which four other doors led off. I ignored
three of them and headed straight to one of the two on the
left.

A brass
D3
hung on the wood below the peephole.
A place that’s a
step up from 2D in a backward sort of way.
Really, Shelley
couldn’t have made the clue any easier—or maybe that was her
intention. Maybe she’d wanted to ensure I found my way.

In truth, I’d
half expected to pull up and find Shelley in the car park, dolled
up and ready to head out somewhere for the morning, but she wasn’t
even so much as in the window of her flat when I arrived. I half
wondered if she was even waiting for me at all.

Knowing I’d
never find out if I didn’t shift my hide, I lifted a hand and
rapped my knuckles against the wood of the door.

It took all of
three seconds for the soft pad of steps and the abrupt click of the
catch to drift through from the other side. The door swung inward,
and, barely filling the gap, Shelley stood staring up at me,
wearing a white terry-towling bathrobe, with mischief lighting up
her green, almond shaped eyes. “Hey,” she said.

When she didn’t
step back and wave me in, I braced a hand against the doorframe and
leaned in some. On a good day, my six-seven frame towered over her
pocket-sized one; she seemed even smaller peering up at me then.
“Hey yourself.”

Gaze flicking
to my shirt, her lips twitched. They looked glossy, like she’d
stuck some of the crap on them she liked to use. Her hair twitched
a little, too. Couple of weeks back, she’d dipped the ends with a
bright raspberry over her latest dark chocolate dyed elfin style.
No matter what Shelley did to her hair, she always resembled
something that should have wings and flutter about the garden, or a
pond, or something. “So …” She reached out a finger until she
tapped its tip against my chest, where she left it hovering right
over the
Woof!
.

My eyebrows did
some weird jig—she tended to have stupid effects on me. “So?”

“How’s your
birthday going?”

I huffed out a
laugh, glancing away for a half second before looking back. “Just
the same as any other birthday.”

The finger
against my chest scraped downward, and my gaze dropped, following
its route as it skimmed over my stomach, the muscles contracting
there beneath my T, until it settled against the waistband of my
jeans. “Ready for your birthday to get better?” she asked, and
before I could answer, she hooked the same finger through one of my
belt loops and pulled me inside.

Of course I
didn’t argue. Didn’t protest. I was smart enough to know when a
good thing was on its way. I just followed her in, kicking the door
shut at my rear.

In the middle
of the living room, she pushed onto her toes, and, taking the hint,
I stooped down to meet her for a kiss, tugging on her lower lip
with my teeth before releasing her.

“You want your
present?” she whispered, her button nose brushing mine as she
pulled back.

It took a whole
heap of effort not to drag my fingers into her hair to haul her in
again, or to yank off that damn bathrobe, but I’d learned early on
that nothing could be rushed when it came to Shelley, so I just
nodded instead.

“I’ll go get it
for you,” she said and, dropping back down to her heels, she padded
off toward the bedroom. At the doorway, she shot me a glance over
her shoulder that had my hips itching to storm after her, but her,
"Wait right there," held me in place, as she disappeared
inside.

Blowing out a
long, measured breath, I tucked my hands into my jeans pockets, my
knuckles nudging the presumptive swelling happening in my pants,
and scanned the room that'd once belonged to Mum. The soft
furnishing of the living space had been left behind from her time
there. Even the running machine along the one wall had been hers.
She'd used the place back when Dad deemed her in need of somewhere
safe to live because of a threat against the pack. Even once Mum
moved back home, the flat hadn't been rented out. Mostly because
Mum'd never given the keys back, but held onto them just in case.
That just in case happened to be Shelley and Gabe, when
circumstance had them needing a new place to live. It'd only meant
to be temporary, but Shelley and Gabe seemed settled and had made
no move to leave, and nobody in the pack had asked them to—though,
Gabe becoming a pack member might've had something to do with that,
too.

Catching sugary
wafts of sweetness, I crossed the room to the kitchen doorframe,
leaning against it as I peered in. Oak doors shuttered the
cabinets, and on the countertop sat a large white box with its lid
not quite connected, from where I suspected the scents drifted out.
Stretching onto my tiptoes, I peeked over the rim of the box
through the sliver of space, and spotted the edges of white fondant
icing.

I smiled like a
moron. "You made me a cake, Shel?"

"Technically, I
bought you a cake, but we can pretend otherwise," she said from the
bedroom. "But that's not your gift."

I turned, and I
could've sworn my mouth opened in slow motion as I drew my hands
from my pockets. My eyebrows probably would've creaked, if they had
sound effects to accompany their upward rise.

Leaning into
her bedroom doorframe and glancing up at me through lowered lashes,
Shelley had donned some lacy getup—a Basque, all laced up along the
front with a satiny thread, which her naturally plump breasts
pretty much danced atop of. Beneath that, tiny, tiny knickers
barely covered her groin V. Everything in a warm
raspberry—including the suspender straps, hanging downward and
clipped to stockings of chocolate brown that shimmered with the
slightest move of her legs.

The entire
getup, from her hair to toes, matched, making her look fucking
edible.

"Damn,
Shelley," I muttered—about all I could manage. The room seemed too
hot all of a sudden.

Smiling, she
did some kind of sensual twirl of her body that had my pulse
banging, and disappeared behind the door.

So I followed.
'Cause what the hell else could I do?

When I reached
the door, Shelley already had one knee up on her futon bed, her
palms flat against the mattress, and rear waving in the air like a
taunt as she lifted the other. As her body started to twist away, I
darted forward and gripped her hips.

“Don’t move.”
Hooking my hands a little higher, I propped her onto her knees and
slid her back to the edge of the bed. “Just … don’t fucking
move.”

“Did I say you
could touch me, yet?” she asked without turning.