Scarlet Disaster by Colette Rhodes

Chapter 2

If Lou could see the things in my head that I wanted to do to her, she’d call the cops.

Damn it. Why’d she have to mention a bikini? I’d just been getting my dick under control after seeing her half naked body laid out in my space, and now I was back at square one. Her skin was a perfect fucking canvas, and that breathy laugh she had was like a siren song for my dick. Plus her scent. It had been sugary sweet melted chocolate when she’d walked in, mixed with the artificial coconut scent of her lotion, but now it was tart with the hint of her arousal and my dick was here for it.

She seemed so sweet, so innocent, but with an unexpected hint of sexual confidence.

Not enough for me to act on the attraction between us though. Maybe she was confident with humans her own age, but she was probably a decade younger than me and even if I had myself under control, I’d be too rough for a sweetheart like her. Any shifter would be, and yet I was more tempted than I’d ever been in my life.

I’d been with humans before, but none of them had ever threatened my control the way Lou did. Never made me want to wrap them in cotton wool and fuck their brains out all at once. They were never as sweet and innocent as Lou. I didn’t have anything against a casual fling with a human, but I had to be one hundred percent in control of my mind, body, and beast, and I absolutely wasn’t.

I was a professional! A goddamn professional. I’d seen plenty of attractive bodies in my time, more naked than Lou was now, and yet this petite woman was entirely unraveling my self-control.

She’s too young for you.

She’s a human.

You’d fucking decimate her.

Don’t ask more questions. Don’t get to know her.

Her skin was so soft though. Her legs were lithe and toned, and the graceful curve of her hip was the perfect space for the phoenix bursting into flight.

That’s what I needed to think about. The way the art would look on her body, and not how flexible she was. Despite the moments where she seemed to slip on a sultry mask, there was still a vulnerability in her olive-green eyes that gave me pause.

I’d just have to remind myself every time I picked up the scent of her arousal that she was probably imagining some gentle, third-date missionary sex, and I was not the guy for that.

If I got her in bed with me, I would terrify her.

I knew I’d made the conversation awkward with my abrupt silence, and I felt like an asshole, but it was probably for the best. Not only did she interest me in a way that very few people did, my cougar had been captivated by her since she’d come into the studio with Ria. Probably because she smelled so good.

Lou opened her mouth to say something, but I needed to nip this in the bud now before I did something idiotic.

“Why don’t you put on your headphones?” I suggested gruffly. “We’ll be here awhile.”

“Oh, er, okay. Yeah, that makes sense,” she replied, her voice a little higher pitched than before as she reached hesitantly for her headphones, refusing to look at me.

Well done, Nate. Idiot. You didn’t have to make her feel bad.

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye as she pulled herself together like she could read my thoughts. The disappointment was wiped away like it was never there, even the softness around her mouth vanished, leaving a harder expression in its place.

The moment she focused her attention on her screen, I had to swallow the impulse to demand her eyes again. To demand that open, honest look on her face again.

For fuck’s sake, I was losing my mind. When she’d first requested doing the sessions two days in a row, I’d tried to talk her out of it. Now I was grateful.

Just one more day of this exquisite torture, and I’d never see her again.

* * *

She was gone. After the longest couple of hours of my life, Lou was all bandaged up and on her way, shooting me an indecipherable look after I’d basically panicked and ushered her out the door. It was a total asshole move and terrible customer service, but I’d been this close to telling her I could smell how much she wanted me and that would have probably earned me a well-deserved slap.

There was something about Lou that got me all mixed up. If I’d opened my mouth and entertained the idea of spending more time with her, I wasn’t sure if I’d have asked her to dinner or demanded she take her winter clothes back off and let me eat her instead. Both were bad ideas, but the former was unsettling. Maybe all my mom’s lectures about finding a nice woman and starting a family were embedding themselves into my subconscious.

The sweet, tart scent of Lou’s arousal lingered in the studio as I cleaned up my equipment as efficiently as possible, forcing myself to concentrate. Fuck, I should get out the strong-smelling chemical cleaners, but I wasn’t sure it would matter at this point. Her intoxicating scent had soaked into my skin, my lungs, and every inch of this room the longer I left it, torturing me.

I’d never had a response like this to human pheromones before. Biology encouraged me to pursue shifters, even though my personality wasn’t suited to a shifter mate.

Focus, I berated myself. I had plans tonight. Go back to my depressing rental house. Burn some steak and potatoes. Stream a movie. Convince myself that I was happy here. They weren’t good plans, but they were plans.

I glanced at my phone that was sitting on the desk in the corner, on silent all day, noticing I’d missed six calls from my mother. I was sure that if anyone else found that, they’d be panicking that there’d been some kind of family emergency and calling back right away, but not me. If my dad or my brother Chase called me, I’d believe it was an emergency. With my mom, she was just bad with technology and didn’t understand that I couldn’t answer the phone whenever she felt like talking to me.

I hit ‘redial’, balancing the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I cleared up my desk. A conversation with Mom was exactly what I needed when I wasn’t feeling happy and settled in Fairbanks. Not because it made me feel happy, but because she guilted me into feeling like I should feel happy.

“Why don’t you ever answer?”Mom sighed the moment she picked up the phone. “I miss you, and you’re always running off and abandoning me, and then you come home and you can’t even answer your phone.”

“Mom, I can’t talk on the phone while I’m with a client,” I explained patiently. For the millionth time.

“When are you coming to visit, Nate?”she replied, ignoring me. It came from a place of love—she was excited to have me closer to home, like the rest of my siblings—but the coddling tone never failed to make me feel like a child again. Fortunately, my parents lived close to Denali State Park, as did most of my siblings, which was a couple of hours’ drive from the house I was renting here.

I loved them, but I didn’t need to see them every single day.

“I’m going to visit Chase this weekend,” I told her. “Lacey’s making brisket.”

Mom humphed. Chase was my oldest brother and Lacey was his mate. She was also mated to Rodrigo, Sergio, and Casen, and they lived not far out of Fairbanks in the woods. Chase was the only one of my siblings who didn’t have a monogamous mating, and Mom definitely had some thoughts about it, no matter what she tried to convince us otherwise.

She also hated that Lacey was a better cook than her, but she’d never admit to that either.

“You’re always visiting Chase. It’s lovely that you’re so close with him, but your father and I aren’t getting any younger…”

Mom took a deep breath like she was settling in for a long speech, and my brain almost instantly tuned out, traveling back to Greece in my mind to avoid the guilt-trip my mom was trying to take me on.

Back to the last day I’d spent in Paros before returning to Athens and then flying back to Alaska, I’d spent hours swimming in the warm Aegean Sea, before eating loukoumades on the beach, memorizing the feel of the sun on my bare skin before I returned home.

I hadn’t even gotten to visit Naxos, which had been the next destination on my list. I’d given in to my mother’s demands and returned like the dutiful son I was, determined that this time, it would stick. This time, I’d be content. I tapped my fingers impatiently on the desk, fighting the urge to check for flights.

This is what my family referred to as my “itchy feet”. That moment where I was just twitching with energy, ready to get back out into the world and explore.

It really didn’t matter how thoroughly I guilt tripped myself, I was happiest when I was exploring. I resented that sensible voice in the back of my mind that constantly reminded me that I was 35 and should find myself a nice mate, settle down, and have a litter of kids.

I didn’t want to settle.

“—I didn’t visit my parents as much as I should have when I was your age, and I’ve regretted it every day since—”

God, it was fucking cold here, and I liked my job, but the business side of it was so goddamn boring it made my head throb, and my rental was a soulless shit hole that I had no desire to return to each night.

“—and one day, hopefully, you’ll have a family of your own, and then you’ll want to spend more time with us, but it won’t be so easy to travel with little ones—”

Today hadn’t been so bad though. Not with Lou’s half-naked body spread out over my table, the sweet scent of her pussy filling the studio. The clouds that seemed to hang over me constantly in the moment had briefly cleared with Lou’s vibrant presence in the studio. It was a stupid, dangerous line of thought.

“Mom, can I call you back? I just need to finish up in the studio, then get some dinner.”

“I bet you’re not eating properly. You never take care of yourself. Okay, I love you. Call me later. Bye.”

I shook my head to myself as I tucked my phone away. She really did mean well. I was the youngest of eight kids, but now even the youngest grandkids were getting older and more independent, and Mom was feeling a little lost. She hadn’t given up hope that I’d give her more grandbabies, no matter how many times I’d gently told her that it probably wouldn’t happen.

If I wasn’t on the receiving end of her machinations, I could almost admire that level of stubbornness.

The bell above the door jingled, and I turned around to tell whoever it was that the studio was closed for the day, but surprise froze me in place.

“Honey, I’m home,” Brooks sang, striding into my studio like he owned the place, just like he did with every room he walked into, shoving his floppy reddish brown hair out of his unnerving ice blue eyes. They’d probably been traveling for days, but Brooks always made sure he looked pretty. He was vain like that.

“What the fuck?” I asked as Gabriel trailed behind him, all dark and brooding in comparison with his gray eyes, olive skin, black hair and stubble, looking vaguely amused at our friend’s dramatics. “I thought you two were in Santiago.”

“We missed you too much to stay away,” Brooks said solemnly, except Brooks was never really solemn, he just liked to pretend sometimes to fuck with us.

“Shut up,” I replied, punching him lightly in the gut. Brooks and Gabriel were the only shifters I’d ever met who had the same nomadic tendencies I did, and we’d been friends since we met in Mexico in our early twenties. “Seriously, what are you doing here?”

“We’re a pack,” Gabriel said simply, his Brazilian accent still thick after over a decade of traveling the globe.

“No, we’re not,” Brooks and I replied in tandem. We had this fucking argument every time we were together. We may be like-minded, but we weren’t a pack. Packs had territory and structure and an Alpha. We were just… buddies.

Gabriel scoffed, pulling his black beanie down over his dark curly hair. The stubble on his jaw was almost thick enough to constitute a beard, and there were dark shadows under his eyes. None of us could ever sleep on a plane, the noise was uncomfortably loud for our sensitive ears. “Ai, you aren’t going to pretend you haven’t missed us, are you? Don’t insult our intelligence, Nate.”

I glared at him without any real heat in it. I did miss them. I always did when we weren’t traveling together. Brooks and Gabriel were more like brothers to me than most of my biological siblings were.

We still weren’t a pack though. We weren’t even the same kinds of shifters. As big cats, Gabriel and I had a few traits in common, but Brooks was a fucking wolf. We quite literally fought like cats and dogs half the time.

“Damn,” Brooks whistled suddenly, sniffing the air. “What have you been up to?”

“Working,” I clipped, my cougar rising in warning.

“Well, she was obviously a fan of your work,” Brooks laughed before inhaling again. “She smells amazing.”

“Stop sniffing my clients,” I groused. I wasn’t jealous per se, just… irritated.

“It’s not like I’m getting up in her grill and inhaling, she’s not even here,” Brooks pointed out with a grin. “Which is unfortunate, because I would love to meet the woman who smells like this. How big is Fairbanks anyway? Maybe I’ll run into her.”

“She won’t smell like this around you,” I shot back with more confidence than I felt. Out of the three of us, Brooks was by far the most popular with women. Probably because he looked like he should be in a boy band with his artfully messy hair that he was constantly flicking out of his eyes before he delivered The Smoulder.

It was disappointing how few women laughed in his face when he did it.

“Nate,” Brooks gasped with mock offense. “Are you feeling okay, man? Is your memory getting a little fuzzy? All this cold air going to your head?”

“I’m already eager for you to leave,” I sighed, trying not to smile.

“Liar,” Gabriel laughed. “I bet you rented a house big enough for all of us, hoping we’d show up.”

Damn it. I had rented a three-bedroom house just for me, which had seemed excessive even to myself at the time. Gabriel grinned like he was reading my mind.

“Give me the keys and the directions, irmão. We’ll go make ourselves comfortable while you are hard at work.”

“Bastards,” I muttered affectionately before digging out my keys and pulling the house one off the ring, rattling off directions. “Can you even drive in the snow?” I asked dubiously, trying to remember if we’d ever traveled somewhere this cold together and coming up short.

“I’m from Colorado,” Brooks shot back, looking offended even though he hadn’t spent any time in Colorado since he was a teenager.

“And yet, I’m the one driving,” Gabriel replied, clapping Brooks on the back. “We’ll see you soon, yes?”

“I won’t be long,” I assured them as they left, finishing up in the studio, feeling that cloud around me dissipate a little more.

* * *

By the time I got back—with cheesesteaks, fries, and cheese curds—Brooks and Gabriel had already set themselves up in the two spare rooms at the house and got the fire going. I hated to admit how much homier the place felt with those two assholes in it. I was supposed to be adjusting to life on my own.

“I come bearing food,” I announced, kicking the door shut behind me and letting myself into the miniscule living room. It had felt snug when it was just me, but all three of us were big guys, and now it was uncomfortably cramped.

“That smells so good,” Brooks groaned, following me into the kitchen. There was a small dining table pushed against the wall, and we pulled it into the center of the kitchen so we could comfortably sit around it. “We’ve alternated between airline food and airport food for two days.”

“Beer?” Gabriel asked, pressing his back against the wall and inching his way around to the fridge.

“Of course,” I chuckled. There was fuck all else to do at night. “Have you guys slept?”

“Not yet,” Gabriel replied, getting three bottles out of the fridge. “We’ll probably crash right after we eat.”

“So,” Brooks said, helping himself to food. “When can we leave?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Gabriel snorted, giving him a reproving look. “Perhaps it’s a little colder here than we’re used to, but winter in Alaska is going to be a huge hit, you know that.”

Brooks took a huge bite of his cheesesteak, making a disgruntled noise of agreement. He was a photographer and Gabriel was a travel writer—the two of them collaborated on projects all the time while I fucked around, doing my own thing. I knew as well as Gabriel did that once Brooks got out there with his camera, he’d fall at least a little in love with the landscape. He always did.

“So, a few weeks?” Brooks asked hopefully, after swallowing loudly.

“I’m not leaving. I opened a studio,” I pointed out unnecessarily.

“For the winter,” Brooks replied, like it was obvious.

“Forever.”

“No,” he said simply, shoving some fries in his mouth.

“No?” I repeated. “What do you mean, no?”

“He means no, we are not staying here forever,” Gabriel replied, wrinkling his nose as Brooks attempted to speak around a mouthful of fries. “You are miserable here, irmão. We’ve seen you for all of fifteen minutes and we can tell you are miserable.”

“I’m not miserable,” I shot back, a little defensively. “The studio got off to a stronger start than I thought it would—especially considering the time of year—and I’ve been spending time with my brother…”

“And you’re miserable,” Brooks said with a grin. “But fine, fine. You’re not ready to accept the inevitable yet. We’ll play along.”

“Eat your fucking cheesesteak,” I grumbled, annoyed that they were both looking at me like they were just humoring me. Dickheads.

So, the idea of spending the rest of my life in Fairbanks felt like a vice around my ribcage, breaking bones and squeezing the air out of my lungs. That was probably normal in the beginning. I just had to push through the initial terror to get to the good bits, until I wanted to stay and I’d settle in and be happy.

But Brooks and Gabriel would eventually leave. They’d find an exciting new place to explore and drop everything to go, and I’d be left behind, wondering if I’d made the right choice. And that vice around my ribs tightened a little further.