Her long curls were still pulled up in a messy bun, and he longed to let it down, run his fingers through her hair, bury his face in it. “Please.”
At that one pleading word, she finally shuffled forward, her bare feet making no sound against the old tile floor. The moment she reached him, he pulled her into his embrace. Again. He released a breath as she relaxed into his arms. Her heartbeat fell into sync with his. A whimper escaped her lips. And she wrapped her arms around his middle.
Heaven—or as close as he was going to get for the time being.
Hunter ran his hands up and down her back, wishing the yellow tank top would disappear. Maybe he could risk lifting it over her head tonight, at least granting him the view of her chest without tempting himself too much.
She tipped her head back. “You said you’d shift for me.”
“Yep.” He brushed a loose curl from her forehead. “Let’s go someplace more private in case your sister comes home.”
She flinched. “Why can’t Elena see you shift?”
“Elena can see me shift. But I don’t think you want Elena to see me naked.”
Her eyes went wide. “Naked… Didn’t think of that. You have to take your clothes off…”
“Or shred them to pieces, yes.” He smiled at her as he ran his nose along her cheek, inhaling her sweet scent. “Shifters aren’t quite as prudish as regular humans. We see each other naked every time we shift. Men and women. It’s just part of life. We don’t think that much about it. At least until two of us mate. In that case, sometimes a mated couple prefers not to flash themselves to other shifters anymore.”
“I guess that’s not much different from skinny dipping. Young people do that all the time. Strip and jump in the water.”
“Kinda like that. Yes.”
“So, Caleb sees you naked.”
“Thousands of times. Remember, we’ve been friends since birth.”
“Speaking of which, do your parents live here in town?”
“Yes. But they’re in Minnesota for a few weeks, visiting my younger brother and Caleb’s younger sister. They just had their third baby.”
Her eyes widened. “Third?”
He nodded. “I guess they haven’t reached a point when they’re willing to stop touching each other constantly,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes. “So it does let up? This crazed infatuation?”
“Eventually. Or so they say. I mean not everyone in town is wandering around horny and dazed, so I assume what I’ve heard is correct. It must lighten over time. It’s sometimes a running joke that a mated couple can’t keep their hands off each other. And, as you can imagine, they tend to procreate rapidly.”
She flinched. “Can’t they use protection?”
“Of course. And many do. They can also take birth control. In the case of my brother, Cory, and Michelle, they wanted to have kids. They apparently want a lot of them.”
“So, your mom and dad are there helping with the baby and two other small kids.”
He nodded. “Caleb’s parents are there too. The four of them are competitive. No way could any one of them have seen that baby first. In fact, they went in the same car so neither couple could beat the other.”
Layla laughed, the vibration making his heart swell. He loved that sound. He loved the way she smiled and how she could let go and enjoy life. If she smiled like that at him once a day for the rest of his life, he’d be over the moon. If he could make her smile that way all day every day, even better. He’d spend his life trying. “I think I like your parents already.”
He cupped her neck. “What about yours? You haven’t told me anything about your parents, just that your grandmother raised you.” He hated to bring up this subject, but it would be weird no to.
She sighed. “I never knew either of them. Apparently my mother showed up at my grandparents’ house pregnant and alone. According to my grandmother, she never told them who the father was.” Layla’s shoulders sagged and her voice dipped. “And she died giving birth to us. She lost too much blood. Preeclampsia.”
His heart ached for both Layla and Elena. They’d grown up without either parent. He stroked her neck with his thumb. “I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged, trying to make it seem like it didn’t matter to her as much as he knew it did. “Elena and I never knew any different. My grandparents were amazing. They loved us to pieces. I hate that they’re both gone.”
“That must be hard. And then coming here to a home you’ve never known that belonged to an aunt you never met. That’s rough.” And very sad. Why did grown adults have to make such poor decisions sometimes? There was no reason for Layla and her sister to have spent their lives without knowing their aunt, or their father for that matter. The world could be a very fucked up place.
“It’s strange being here. At first, I thought everything was foreign. But the more I’ve snooped around, the more I like my Aunt Marge. It’s kind of eerie because every time I see a picture of her somewhere in the house, I pause. She looked exactly like my grandma.”
He smiled. “That shouldn’t seem very weird to you of all people.”
She returned the smile. “Yeah. You would think so, but since I never met her, it’s still strange. Even the pictures from later in their lives, fifty years after they last saw each other, they still looked so much alike.”
“I guess that would make you miss your grandmother.”
“Yeah. But also I feel kind of angry with her. She kept this aunt from me and Elena for no good reason. She was so stubborn. And now we have no family at all. I actually feel bad that Elena and I never came here to meet Marge while she was alive. Why didn’t we? We never even considered it.”
The repercussions of such a visit raced through Hunter’s mind. Too many to count. He had to believe Fate had a hand in that. She had a plan, and it hadn’t included Layla and Elena passing through Canyon Springs one minute sooner than they did.
“I can almost see your mind working,” she teased.
He snickered. “I was just thinking about what would have happened if you had crossed my path before yesterday.” Among other things.
“Hmm. So you think if I’d come to visit when I was sixteen, I would have met you and it would have altered the course of my life?”
“It’s possible.”
“And Elena too.”
“Correct. I don’t mean to imply that if you’d visited all your life, six-year-old Layla would have fallen in love with twelve-year-old Hunter. It doesn’t work like that. But we might have run into each other, had a connection, changed the future.”
“I might not have gone to college or moved to Los Angeles or experienced everything I did in life up to this point,” she mused. He liked how she was able to ponder what he was suggesting with far less apprehension than earlier. She was starting to come around.
“Exactly,” he whispered. “You’re young. Even though I’ve waited what seems like an eternity to find you, now that I have you in my arms, I’m glad I didn’t disrupt your life earlier. It gives me peace.”
She tipped her head to one side, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “What about now? You don’t think you’re disrupting my life now? A starving actress with no job, no home, and no prospects?”