Flashing Her Gators Page 9

  “I know it didn’t happen, Sam.” The class bitch was sleeping around. That wasn’t the kind of thing Sam would have gotten involved in. Even if he didn’t hate her for being mean to me.

  “Oh. Well...” He trails off, looking even more confused than he did when he saw the twin beds.

  “Why did you come to see me?”

  “We have a conversation to finish.”

  Shit, no. I shake my head. “I’m done with the past. That slate needs wiped clean.”

  “No. I meant every word I said, and you acted like it was the worst thing I could have done to you. I don’t understand, Misty. I need to understand.”

  “I can’t explain.” I can feel my cheeks flushing.

  “You can. You just don’t want to.”

  “Even if I wanted to, I’m with Justin now.”

  His expression hardens. He closes his eyes and takes a long breath before he opens them.

  “I love you. I always have, and I always will. I fully intend to make you my mate.”

  I don’t even know what to say. It feels like my heart is fit to burst, but at the same time, I’m so full of past hurts that I’m numbing to the feeling before it can overwhelm me.

  “So, then why do you flirt with every woman you see?” I keep my gaze hard, knowing he can see how close I am to letting tears fall. He always knew when I was upset, even after I erased all of my tells.

  “I don’t...” He shrugs. “I don’t really think I do, Misty. I’m just joking around with them. I joke around with guys too. It’s just how I am. I don’t mean anything by it.”

  “You were my best friend, Sam. I thought that was something special. When you started talking about mating and everything, I freaked. It felt like you were ready to treat me like all the other girls. Like I couldn’t mean anything more than a notch on a bed post. It was like a knife to the heart.”

  “Misty, you’ve never been like anyone else in my entire life. I don’t know how you can’t see that. I’d do anything for you. I kind of already have. Can’t you see that?”

  My lips tremble as I fight to hold back tears. He can’t mean this, it’s too perfect.

  He pulls me into his arms, and I gasp out a breath, letting the tears fall. They soak his shirt at the shoulder, and I feel like I’m home. I can’t count how many times he comforted me like this while we were growing up. Never using it as a chance to grope me, only holding me close and telling me everything was going to be okay. Saying it over and over again until I had to believe it.

  “I’ve got you,” he whispers. “Everything’s okay.”

  It couldn’t be further from the truth, but hearing his familiar voice in his most soothing, patient tone brings me instant comfort. The overwhelming flood of tears begins to taper off as he repeats his words, keeping me close.

  “I’ve got you, Misty. Everything’s okay. I promise it’s all okay.”

  I love this man. I can admit that now, at least to myself. I don’t know how I didn’t realize it before.

  I pull back, wiping at my cheeks. “I should go.”

  “Okay,” he tells me, “but this conversation isn’t over. I won’t walk away from this.”

  A lump swells in my throat. I don’t want him to walk away, but I don’t know how to tell him that.

  So I just nod and go inside before I can turn back into a weeping mess.

  He doesn’t leave right away. I glance out the crack in the blinds, see him pace around, hands behind his head. He mutters to himself a little. Then he goes to his car and sits there, door open for what feels like forever. I don’t see him drive off. He wasn’t kidding about not walking away.

  If he’s still out there when the sun comes up, maybe I’ll have figured out how to respond to his declaration. I turn back to Justin, remembering the way he held me last night and feeling conflicted about it already. They both love me, and they both want me to agree to be theirs for life.

  I’m not sure I can make that kind of choice. Fuck my life. I love them both.

  Thirty-One

  Tyler

  If the first time I woke up covered in blood was unexpected, the second was a complete shock. I hadn’t blacked out. I’d been sleeping. Hadn’t I? It was dark out, so I hadn’t crashed until morning. Made it even more suspicious really. I wasn’t in the habit of taking late afternoon naps.

  I tried retracing my steps from the day before as I headed for the shower. I’d gone to see Trish, the no-strings woman I’d been sleeping with for the last few months. She’d been wearing something incredibly sexy, and it hadn’t moved me. Not at all. In the slightest.

  I realized in that moment that I was done with her. With any woman who wasn’t Misty. Regret filled me as she invited me inside.

  “I can’t,” I’d told her, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore.”

  She sighed softly. “Really?”

  I nodded, not able to meet her eyes. She was a good woman, strong-willed and kind. She just wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t what she wanted either, not really. We were just using each other.

  “Damn,” she says, smiling wryly. “I thought we had at least another month in us. So who’s the lucky lady?” She pulls a robe from the coat stand by the door and covers her incredible body up.

  “I don’t think I can say it yet,” I tell her, ready to leave.

  “Come have a cup of coffee. We should say goodbye if we’re over.” She doesn’t seem angry or sad about it, just a little disappointed.

  “Just one,” I tell her. “I have to get back.”

  The coffee turned into lunch, but it never deviated from that. Trish was always something special, she just wasn’t my something special. She knew that as well as I did.

  “I keep thinking one day I’ll wake up and the grief won’t hit me anymore,” she tells me, pouring another coffee to go with our sandwiches. “I know it’s supposed to take time, but I don’t think it ever really goes away. I’m always going to miss him. Every day. I don’t know how I’m supposed to move on from that. I don’t know if I have room in my heart for another man, because I’ll never truly stop loving him.” She laughs lightly. “Some days I feel like a crazy person. I’m supposed to let go, right? I know that. I don’t think I can. Not all the way.”

  She’s speaking about her dead husband, but in a way I know what she means. I can’t seem to let go of the idea that Misty is supposed to be mine. Even if we barely even got started. Even if she’s only human. I thought this kind of ceaseless possessive desire was supposed to be reserved for gators who find mates of their own kind.

  Trish sighs and puts another coffee down in front of me. She changed into jeans and a sweater before she made the food. When she sits back down, she tugs the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands. Her nails look freshly manicured. She always looks like she’s put in an effort.

  “So, are you going to tell me what happened?”

  What happened? Oh, yeah, right. What happened to make me realize I couldn’t be in a casual relationship any more. I guess she deserves an answer. I’m just not sure what it is.

  “It’s complicated,” I start, taking a bite of my sandwich to give me time to think while I chew.

  “Complicated, like she’s married?” Trish raises an eyebrow at me.

  I shake my head, not sure how to explain it or even if I can.

  I’ll never be able to let go of Misty. She’s only woman I’ve even been in love with. I didn’t move on in more than five years since she left. It’s not going to happen now.

  I swallow and put the sandwich down. “She might be involved with another guy.”

  I’m not entirely convinced of that, but I can’t rule it out either.

  “I thought you knew better than that, Ty,” Trish chides me.

  “She might not be,” I add in. “That’s not really the problem.”

  “Then what is?”

  I have to think about that. “This girl, she’s kind of hard to pin down.”

  “How so?”
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  “I guess she’s kind of commitment-phobic. Kind of a work-aholic…”

  “Are you talking about Mercy Dahlen?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “Um, what?” The local news anchor?

  “She’s notoriously commitment-phobic, and she’s kind of cagey about it when she does date,” she says, shrugging at me.

  “It’s not Mercy Dahlen.”

  She squints at me, giving me her thinking face, as she likes to put it.

  “Oh!” she exclaims, picking up her coffee cup. “I know who it is! It’s that blonde girl, the one with the big tits. What is her name, again? You had a thing with her before, no wait, during college. Right?”

  “What the hell?” I ask, before I realize she knows because she was friends with the woman who rented me a room when I first came to this town at seventeen.

  I was never really down with the whole being seduced by a hot older woman thing, at least not until we bumped into each other again a few months back. That was when I didn’t think Misty would ever set foot in this town again.

  “I have a good memory,” she says, smiling. “I remember you moping around for weeks after she broke your heart.”

  “Yeah, well. She’s in town right now.”

  “She is? What are you doing here then?”

  I shrug. “There’s another guy who’s interested. She might be interested back.”

  “You’ve told her you love her?”

  I shake my head. She shakes hers back.

  “How’s she supposed to know how you feel if you don’t tell her?”

  I consider that. She’s right. How’s Misty supposed to know if I don’t make it clear? I want her as my mate. I’d do anything for her. Surely that should be obvious by what I did to help save her friend.

  “You’re right. I have to speak to her.”

  She nods. “Finish lunch first. Men don’t do so well on an empty stomach.”

  I pick up the sandwich with renewed determination. I’m not giving up on the woman of my dreams. I don’t care how many other men I have to get through to be with her. She’s mine.

  And that’s the last thing I remember before I woke up tangled in my sheets at home, covered in congealing blood. Dread fills me as wash away the evidence that something truly awful happened. I have to know if Trish is okay, but I’m afraid of what I’m going to find if I go back to her place.

  Thirty-Two

  Misty

  I leave the motel before Justin wakes up, starting to feel a little guilty about abandoning him. Still, it’s not every day a girl finds out about a fresh murder. I tapped into the local cop’s radio signal after Sam left, determined to find a lead I could use. I don’t want this week flying by without reward.

  Sheriff Trip Carson was on his way to the scene personally. The address wasn’t familiar. An apartment in a decent area. Victim suspected to be Patricia Turner, forty years old, widowed.

  I pull into the street and park a few feet away from the cop car.

  I’m kind of disappointed that the sheriff came alone. I was hoping his deputy, one of my suspects, might have come with him. I was going to have to engineer a moment with that guy to feel him out.

  I move as quickly as I can toward the building, slipping inside and halting in front of the cop, who’s standing at the bottom of the stairwell, a bemused look on his face.

  “Oh, hi,” I say, taken aback but quickly recovering. “Can I help you officer?”

  He looks me over in a mildly salacious way, like my question gave him permission to check me out. Typical male asshole response, really. I eyeball him back, noticing he’s vaguely attractive even if he might be kind of a prick.

  “You can go back to your car, Ms. Gordon. You’re not needed here.”

  Damn. He knows who I am. I suppose I’m something of a local celebrity. Kind of sucks that I can’t get away with making up stories about who I am any more though.

  “I was just here to visit a friend of my mom’s,” I tell him. “What’s going on?”

  He snorts, shaking his head. “You expect me to buy that?”

  I shrug. “It’s only the truth.”

  “A girl like you is about as well acquainted with the truth as she is dumb. What do I look like to you, Gordon? An idiot? Get the hell out of here, or I take you to the station for questioning.”

  I stand my ground. If it’s an empty threat, I lose nothing. If he makes good on it I get to meet my deputy suspect. Win, win. “You have no authority to tell me to leave.”

  “Hands behind your back.” His stare turns dark as I do as told, turning around to allow him to cuff me. His hands are rough, his touch far from gentle.

  “So, do women really go in for that whole asshole power-trip thing you’re doing?” I ask as his grip tightens a little on my wrists. He strokes a thumb over the pulsing vein on my left wrist. My stomach crawls and I wonder if I just made a heinous mistake allowing myself to be restrained by this asshole.

  He leans in and whispers, “You tell me, sweetheart. You’re the one with the racing pulse.”

  Ugh. He thinks I’m into him. I clear my throat.

  “I’m a lesbian.”

  He laughs, loudly, in my ear. I wince at the sharp sound of it. Then he pushes the door open and manhandles me into the back of his cop car.

  I glower as he closes the door. The window’s open a crack and he looks in on me, a satisfied smile spreading on his face as he gazes at me. “Get that sweet ass comfortable, Misty. You’re going to be waiting there a while.”

  He moves away and I feel the tension drain from my body. The sheriff’s a creep and one of his deputies might be a killer. This town really is in big trouble.

  I wriggle about but I can’t find a way to get my phone out to attempt to use it. Contrary to what movies would have you believe, it’s not that easy to bring handcuffed hands around to your front when they’re cuffed behind your back. It’s not entirely impossible, but being limber is super important, and when you have to factor in a ridiculous ass, forget about it.

  I sigh, wondering if I’ll get a phone call once he brings me to the police station. Considering he’s an asshole, I can’t count on it. I sit back, waiting. He comes out of the building when the coroner’s van pulls up. Two people get out. I get to watch a body being carried on a stretcher into the back of the van, zipped into a body bag, before Sheriff A-Hole gets into the front seat.

  “Who died?” I ask, as he starts the engine.

  “Do I really have to read you your rights?” he asks, in a warning tone.

  “I mean, if you don’t then any information you get from me will be worthless.”

  “Just as well I’m not looking for any information then, I guess.” He smiles at me through the rear view.

  Shit. I start to wonder if he’s one of those serial rapist cops who take women they arrest out to the middle of nowhere to fuck them and because they’ve committed a crime they don’t report it. Thing is, he has no dirt on me. Well… Maybe he kills them after he rapes them. And, it just got worse.

  Don’t freak yourself out, Misty. You’re getting out of this.

  “Well then what exactly did you cuff me for?”

  He laughs a little. “You wanted that, Gordon. Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t.”

  Fuck. I’m getting a seriously bad feeling about this. Why didn’t I just wake Justin and get him to wait in the car? He could have been following us now, ready to snatch me the second this idiot decides to stop the car.

  “My friends know exactly where I am right now.”

  He laughs. “You can’t bullshit a cop.”

  “It’s not bullshit. My boyfriend’s the jealous type. He can track my phone, and he will come and find me.”

  “Oh, really? So why isn’t he already here?”

  I smile slowly at him. “He likes to bide his time.”

  He disengages in conversation, and soon all I can hear is the sound of the motor. My thoughts begin to race. I only hope Justin’s awake and l
ooking for me now. I don’t think I have much other chance of rescue. The cop isn’t taking me to the station. The dark, empty road he takes us down is taking us in the opposite location

  I feel my legs shake a little as he pulls into the side of the road in the woods, and gets out.

  This is it. This is where I have to think of some way out of whatever fucked up scenario he’s dreamt up for us. He opens my door and barks, “Get out.”

  I hesitate before moving . Staying in the car seems like the worst idea anyway. I don’t want to make it easy for him to corner me.

  I step out of the car. I recognize our location. When I was a kid, this was called The Wilds. The lake runs through a forest. It’s a popular place for regular gators to congregate. There are usually a couple of them close to the road. Every hair on my neck stands on end as the Sheriff stares at me.

  He turns me around, pins my head against the car’s roof. I get ready to fight, when I realize he isn’t going to try to rape me. He’s uncuffing me.

  “Don’t let me catch you interfering with a murder scene again.” He gets into the driver’s seat as I back away, gunning the engine and taking off. Leaving me alone in the dark, the sounds of apex predators all around me.

  I’m so damned dead right now.

  Thirty-Three

  Justin

  It’s dark in the room when I open my eyes. Misty isn’t around. I don’t need to look to know this. She has a kind of sweet but spicy scent to her, like vanilla and cinnamon. It’s not perfume, and I never would have noticed it before I became a shape-shifter. My senses are intense now. Everything feels and smells and tastes a million times better than it did before.

  The knocking on the door gets louder. I haul ass out of bed, considering covering up before I answer it. I can’t see my pants lying around. So I just shrug and head over there, half thinking Misty must have forgotten her keys. When she snuck out. Again.

  I open the door and find Sam on the other side, his eyebrows rising as he looks me over.