“Ask him out!” Bradford demanded from where he sat with the Senior Seven.
“Bradford,” Alana groused, “I told you a dozen times you can’t take your teeth out and leave them on the table for the other customers to see!”
“I would say ‘no,’” Sexy Yeti said.
His words stung, as if someone had spiked a volleyball directly into her face. In a whisper, she said, “I didn’t ask, but why would you say no? Is it the way I look?” The scar always caught men off guard, and it sucked that it was hindering this one’s opinion of her, too.
The man shook his head slowly, eyes locked on hers. And then he pointed to her list, to number fourteen. Not a shifter. Now his eyes were definitely a different color. More of a muddy greenish gold than blue, and he smelled different—like fur.
“Because,” he murmured, “even if I was looking for a mate, which I’m not, we aren’t compatible.” Something unfathomable flashed through his eyes, and a soft growling sound emanated from him.
They both froze, locked in each other’s gazes.
He blinked hard, his blond brows furrowing, and in a rush, he pulled something from his pocket and set it on the counter with a soft click. It was a rusty old paperclip. “Thanks for the medicine.” He stuck the tube of burn cream into his back pocket, gathered his coffee and pastry, and left her café without a single look back.
She’d always found the ding of the bell above the door so pretty, but now it rang hollowly as the loneliest sound in the world.
Chapter Three
Aaron threw his leg over the seat of his bike and turned it on, revved the engine. His heartrate was pounding too fast, but why? And why the hell had he given that woman his lucky paperclip? Baffled, he cocked his head and watched her through the window of Alana’s Coffee & Sweets. Her nametag had read Alana, so she must be the owner. The woman had piled her dark curls up on top of her head, but a few wisps had escaped, framing her heart-shaped face with pretty chestnut-brown highlights. She had curves for days, big tits, perfect ass, and that hourglass shape that drove his boner wild.
He’d been shocked when she’d asked if he didn’t like the way she looked. Was she insane? She had dark, soft-looking skin his fingers had itched to touch. Her animated doe-brown eyes and dark lashes had made it hard for him to look anywhere else. Her lips were full and colored with a pretty, glossy pink, and her bright smile had rocked him to the core. It was a little crooked from some old injury she’d healed from. Yeah, she had a deep and obvious scar that ran from beneath her nose through the left side of her lip, but who the fuck was he to judge? He’d had his neck ripped out by Aric a couple months back. Alana had stared at the scars on his neck when he’d walked into her coffee shop, so she knew he bore old injuries, too.
That woman in there was the most striking human being he’d ever seen.
Aaron pulled the pastry from the box and shoved the entire raspberry roll into his mouth. He liked how direct she’d been with him, asking him straight out if her appearance bothered him. Hell no. He’d almost pointed to his inflated dick pressing against his pants as proof, but she didn’t need to get attached, and neither did he.
He wasn’t the mating kind, and that list she’d written out said they weren’t a match.
Aaron felt strange without his lucky paperclip in his pocket, but he didn’t regret giving it to her. In fact, his bear was humming in satisfaction, which made no damned sense. He’d been so riled up after that fire with Aric, but one little conversation with Alana, and he was feeling calm again? Huh.
Aaron’s arm hurt like hell, and for a moment, he considered using the burn cream Alana had given to him. But she’d swapped that for his paperclip and he wanted to keep it as his new lucky charm instead. She would probably throw away his paperclip, but he had to be okay with that. It was done.
Aaron took a long swig of the hot coffee, ignoring the burn.
He should tell her his name… No. Aaron shook his head and pulled his jacket on for the ride back to Harper’s Mountains. He ran molten hot, but it was late November, and the Smoky Mountains where he’d recently moved got bitter cold sometimes, especially at the higher elevation.
He cast Alana one last glance as she refilled coffee cups for the seniors with a big smile on her lips. So fucking beautiful. He chugged the rest of the coffee and tossed the empty cup into the wastebasket next to his parking spot. Shaking his head hard to rid his bear of the instinct to go back in there, Aaron hit the throttle and blasted out onto Main Street. A selfish part of him hoped she heard the throaty rumble of his motorcycle and watched him leave, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. He’d shut her down for a reason. His life was a freaking tornado right now.
A soft, easy-going woman like Alana would get eaten up by a man like him.
Giving her the paperclip had been okay, but he’d been right not to give her his name.
As he weaved his way on the back roads toward the mountain range on which the Bloodrunner Dragon had settled, dawn lit up the cloudy sky. He hadn’t stopped in the coffee shop because he was hungry, but was stalling instead. Wyatt had been challenging him for Second in the Bloodrunner Crew. Not his fault—Wyatt’s bear was a brawler like his was. But it didn’t help anything if he came home riled up. It would set Wyatt off.
Before he’d talked to Alana, Aaron had felt like his skin belonged to Bear. He’d been searching desperately for something to calm his animal in the early morning hour right after he got off his shift, and the inviting glow of Alana’s Coffee & Sweets had lit up the sleeping Main Street.