To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (7 page)

I think about Janice Rudely and choose to hold my tongue. Whatever. Maybe I just haven’t seen those sides of her yet.

Mr. Moretti is smiling at me knowingly.

“What?” I feel defensive without even knowing why.

“Women like Janice Rudely have their uses,” he says.

My eyes widen. He really does know me! Too well!

He continues, “Based on the report I’ve received, I see that you have the qualities I look for in a future queen – one who will rule benevolently, or with an iron will when she has to.”

“Are you serious?” I choke out. I think he pretty much described a different woman there.

Mr. Moretti only stares at me.

“I’m a
wimp
.” I hated to say it, but someone has to.

He brushes my words aside with an arrogant wave of his hand. “Nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense. I’m telling you, I’m not--”

“You are the oldest in your family, yes?”

“Yes, but--”

“Your foster siblings follow you without question even though all of you know that none of you are related by blood, yes?”

“Yes, but--”

“Have you hit any of them?”

I glare at him. “No!”

“You have a brother, Kevin, yes?”

I don’t see where this is going. “Mr. Moretti--”

“He used to have a problem in school. He got into fights all the time. But it stopped. You stopped it, didn’t you?”

“He’s family!” I burst out. “Of course I’d be able to make him see sense!”

“He’s not family. They’re all not family,” Mr. Moretti said. “But you chose to make them your family, and they chose to follow you. You will do the same with and for my pack.”

He looks at me with such confidence – such trust – he makes me want to cry, and for the first time it has nothing to do with lust.

“That’s so unfair,” I whisper, trying to blink the tears away. “If you had tried to seduce me with your body, I would probably have a chance. Barely. But you…what you said…”

“But I did have one more qualification, and it clinched the deal for me as far as you were concerned,” Mr. Moretti says.

“You did?”

A slow, sexy grin forms on his lips. “I prefer to deal with someone I find irresistible.”

If he thinks that’s going to turn me on, he’s sadly mistaken.

Mr. Moretti appears shocked at the stony look I throw at him.

“Why are you angry?”

“You’re making fun of me again.”

“I am making fun of you?” He sounds so convincingly confused.

It just makes me hate him more. Makes me want to cry, too, but I’ll be damned if I’m letting him see how much he’s hurt me.

“I would have believed you if you said you were attracted to me. You’re a highly sexual guy.”

“I think there’s an insult there somewhere, yes?”

I choose to take the safe and bite-proof way out by pretending he hasn’t said anything. “But to say that I’m irresistible--”

He laughs.

A sense of humiliated fury makes me relapse. “
Fuck off
,” I snarl, hands clenching at the effort I exert not to cry in front of him. All these years of never even saying ‘shit’, wasted because of this -- this dog!

He stops laughing right away. Lifting me from the bed, he settles me on his lap with ease even as I struggle.

This is starting to feel familiar
, I think.

He tips my chin up. “Be honest. You feel the attraction between us, yes?”

I can’t stop him from forcing me to look at him, but I can definitely refuse to answer.

“Lyccans--”

My heart jumps at the word. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud, the first time he’s referred to himself like that. For a moment, it resurrects the fangirl in me, and I just
know
I’m staring at him with stars in my eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

I smile sheepishly. “I just can’t believe I heard you call yourself a Lyccan.”

A frown settles on his face. “What else should I call myself? I
am
a Lyccan.”

He sounds so defensive I feel like I have to apologize. “I’m sorry, I know--but it’s just…you know.”

His frown becomes more pronounced. “I hate the way you’re looking at me right now. You make me feel like a freak.”

“No,” I protest, utterly aghast that I actually made him feel like that. “I don’t and won’t ever see you that way!” It feels impossible to explain, but I try anyway. I just want to erase the hurt in his eyes that he’s trying to hide.

“You’re…you’re like a
dream
come true to me.” I feel myself turning redder with every word.

“Do you mean that?” he demands.

He still doesn’t believe me.

“Yes.”

I say it so simply, so matter of fact that I guess he’s finally convinced. But he still shakes his head, murmuring, “You make me feel so…” The glare that follows surprises me.

“What did I do?”

“You confuse me, and I don’t like it,” he answers right away. “Enough with this nonsense. I’m attracted to you. It’s because of your scent, the alluring curves of your body, the feel of your skin – it’s the whole package.”

My jaw’s back on the floor and I don’t think it’s ever coming back up again.

“Can’t you feel how badly I want to fuck you?”

Umm, yes. I can. I definitely can. So much that I can’t think straight now.

“So answer me,” he says in such a commanding tone I’m turned on even more. Oh boy. Does that make me a natural-born M or something?

“What can I do to convince you to be my wife?”

He’s really asking me that? He really wants me to be his wife?

Impatient at my inability to speak, Domenico Moretti adds forcefully, “Perhaps I have not been clear enough. As my wife, you will have my eternal allegiance, my protection, and my fidelity. Everything you need, I will provide for. Everything and everyone you care about will also be under my care. In return, I only ask for your fidelity, your trust, and your loyalty. I need you to perform the duties expected from the wife of a future pack leader, but I am confident you will learn those in time.”

His words leave me reeling.

“I want to give you more time to think about this, but I can’t wait for you forever. Time is against me.” He pauses, as if finding the next words difficult to speak. “We are at
war,
Misty. My kind. Your kind, too, but your leaders don’t know it yet because in this war, your race is but a pawn. We can kill you so very easily.”

I shiver at the picture he paints.

“It is in
my
power to prevent that war but I will need your help. If you marry me, you will know the truth of my words for yourself. You will know that I haven’t lied. That it’s a war that can obliterate your entire race.”

Totally exciting stuff,
I can almost hear God laughingly say inside my mind.
Isn’t that what you wanted? And there’s nothing more exciting than war, is there?

This time the sensible and right thing to do would be to say ‘yes’. My honor is at stake. I have to say ‘yes’.

However -- this is marriage. It’s permanent, if Domenico Moretti’s to be believed. If he stops and wins the war, I’ll still be married. I need to think about this carefully.

I pause, knowing I’m lying to myself. The truth is, I’m thinking this is my only chance in life to be
selfish.
Against all odds, Domenico Moretti needs me. The sensible thing would be to ask for his wealth, but I don’t want to be sensible. I don’t want to be practical by being wimpy. I want to be selfish for a change.

“If I refuse, you won’t sack me, will you?” His extremely offended look makes me gulp. “Sorry. I had to ask.”

“If you were a man, you would have been dead by now,” he says very nicely.

“I said I’m sorry,” I mumble, gulping again.

“Your condition,” he says instead. “What do I need to make you marry me?”

“I want you to do something outrageous,” I hear myself saying.

Mr. Moretti straightens, which startles a whimper out of me because it just pushes his erection closer to the junction between my thighs.

His nostrils flare in reaction. His fingers skim my back as they move up to clasp my neck so he can pull me close.

Shick. I think I just had a mini-orgasm.

When he moves to kiss me, I remind him – both of us – breathlessly, “My condition.”

“
Fuck
.” He lets me go with a frustrated and hungry look in his eyes. “Say it then,” he growls when I’m still silent.

Here it goes
.

“I want you to make everyone think that I can make someone like you--” I bite my lip, suddenly struck by doubt. Am I really doing the sane and right thing here?

But Domenico Moretti is smiling at me.

“I get it,” he drawls. “You want people to think it’s a love match.”

He doesn’t know me that well, after all.

I say softly, “No. Not that. Love’s too easy to fake.”

That gets him frowning. When he opens his mouth to speak, I hastily cut him off, wanting to get everything off my chest before I lose my nerve. “I need you to make people believe that you’re so sexually infatuated with me--” I ignore how he is choking.

Without looking at him, I mutter, “I want you to show everyone that you want me so much all the people here will think you can’t get enough of me.”

Silence. It’s expected. If this is a scene out of an erotica novel – and I plead guilty to reading my fair share of them – things would have happened differently. For one thing, he’d be the one doing the propositioning and not yours truly.