Page 35 of Shifter's Dream

Reed’s mind stuttered. “You what?”

He stared hard at her, like he was trying to communicate something to her with his eyes. Irritation spiked inside her. “What? Just say it.”

“You smell like candy,” he said quickly, then looked down, his face saying he hadn’t meant to say that.

“I smell like-?”

Reed needed a moment to think about what exactly was going on here. She dropped the clipboard, sat at her desk and pulled her monitor in front of her a little, so she could hide behind it. She motioned to it. “I’m going to read your file, just be quiet for a second.” He nodded, watching her darkly, like he might eat her up at any moment.

She hid her head and stared at the words on the screen, not seeing them, running through her options. Get up and walk out, go tell Aspen that she has a conflict of interest with this patient and can’t see him. Reed blushed just thinking about it, especially since she had no idea what Troy would say or do.

Growling filled the room, proving her point. Reed looked up. “Knock that off,” she said. He didn’t. He kicked it up a notch and any chance Reed had at concentrating fled out the window. “Please,” she said, and the noise cut off at once.

Whoa.Reed turned to the patient file on her screen. There it was, Troy Burbank, male, devastatingly handsome. Ok, it didn’t say that last part, and there was no picture of him and she hadn’t known his last name before now, but there still was a great chance that if she would have managed to look at this file before he’d shown up, all of this could have been avoided.

Wait, what did that say? She read it over again, then pushed her monitor out of the way so she could look at Troy. “It says here you’ve only been speaking for a month? How is that possible?”

He nodded once, matter-of-factly. “I have something to tell you,” he said. “It might be hard to believe.” He stared at her like he was trying to figure out where to start.

Her heart pounded and the bad wolf in her dream filled her mind. She waited. He didn’t speak. He only stared. She got uncomfortable. She snapped her fingers in front of her trying to make him snap out of it.

He curled his lip. “Sorry. You’re so beautiful I lost my train of thought.”

Reed felt her heart want to respond to that. She didn’t let it. “Yeah, ok,” she said flatly. “How often does that line work?”

He looked at her like she was crazy. “I’ve never said it before.”

She nodded her head and motioned to her monitor. “Makes sense, seeing as how you’ve only been speaking for thirty days.” This was getting flat out bizarre, and her irritation was spiking.

His nostrils flared. His strange choice of words earlier rang through her mind.I caught your scent.

Bizarre was the right word.

He was crazy, but he was sexy. She could smell him. Excuse her, she couldscenthim, and damn, he scentedgood. Like put-a-baby-in-me, make-me-scream-your-name, good. Reed shook the thought right out of her head.Bye-bye, Troy, time for you to go.For good.

“You’re going to have to leave,” she said. She stood and left the safety of the desk, heading for the door so she could open it and people would be able to see them. It seemed the only smart thing to do, save jumping out the window. “I can’t treat you,” she said as she walked. “It’s a conflict of-” But he cut her off by shooting to his feet when she drew even with him.

Reed yelped and stopped walking, her senses on high alert, her body betraying her mind. Troy moved in close to her and she let him. Troy herded her like she was a sheep, a very horny sheep, and she let him. Troy backed her against the desk, and she let him.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he said, in his careful way, his head down, his forehead almost touching hers, his cologne and his hot man smell all up in her face. “You look so professional,” he almost purred, touching her body, running both hands down her shoulders to her waist, then hips, sending a cascade of sensation down her body. She bit her lip to keep her reactions inside. He bit his own lip, then moved in close, ducking his head more to kiss her. “I have to have you.”

“Yes,” she moaned into his mouth.No,she moaned into her own mind, but even that ‘no’ sounded more like a ‘yes’.

Troy grabbed her ass and pulled her against him. The manhandling started, that manhandling she loved so much.NO! Get him the hell out, Reed Ann. But instead she let him turn her around and press her against her own desk like some sort of sordid porn. Did she wiggle her ass into him? Reed knew she did. She was. He was hard and right up against her and she wiggled to feel it better. She knew what he was working with, and remembering it made her mouth water and her brains go stupid.

Troy yanked her skirt up around her waist. She had on pantyhose so she was safe, he wouldn’t dare breach their defenses. He would just rub her a bit, maybe give her another one of those orgasms. Reed melted into him, keeping her noises quiet, fully aware of what she was doing, and fully unable to help herself.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiip.

Oh shit!Her pantyhose flew across the room, then her panties, too. They landed on the filing cabinet. Her bare ass caught a breeze and if she wasn’t so fucking turned on she would have been livid.

Troy’s hands were all over her, tugging, kneading, sliding through wetness and swollenness, right here in herbrand newoffice. She didn’t protest, didn’t say a word. She may have moaned, and there was a good chance she was wiggling again… until something caught her eye. Her pink panties hanging from the filing cabinet.

Reed could very clearly see clean slice marks through the fabric.

She whirled around and checked his hands again. No knives. Fingernails short.What the hell?He let her grab his hands to examine them, his eyes on her legs and her skirt bunched around her waist … and all of her bare skin underneath.

“Whoa,” Reed said. The rules had failed her, but she had failed them first.

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