Reluctant Mates - 21 Paranormal Romance Stories (Werewolf Vampire Minotaur and Monster collection) Page 2

  With a naughty smile on my dimpled face, I shamelessly pulled into an empty faculty parking space and hung the little sign I’d bought from someone on the internet identifying me as licensed to park on my mirror.

  I yawned as I opened the door. “Well, good thing I’m ready for a nap. That’ll make Professor James a lot easier to take.”

  The class was full and loud with a din of discussion when I sauntered in and took a seat at the back. My eyes moved around the room, looking for Rock’s monstrous form, and I was a little surprised to see that he was absent. He’d been there every time I was, I thought. I shrugged.

  Maybe he’s sick. Or maybe he had an extra set of bench-presses today and his muscles got too big for his shirt so he had to stay home. Or maybe he’s there now, squeezing and gritting his teeth and sweating all over the place.

  I felt myself blush. And then I felt warm in a most unfortunate place to feel warm in the middle of Forestry class. Thankfully, Dr. James walked in at just the right moment, and instantly, every thought of sex or pleasure drained out of my body into a figurative pool on the floor at my feet. As he began to talk, or to drone, depending on how you view things, my consciousness immediately joined the puddle, and my head slipped down between my hands, my cheeks pushed up so that I looked like a pug, and I was out like a light.

  ***

  “Lacy Chisolm? Chisolm? Is that you?”

  I snorted, rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand and looked around at a lecture hall that was, unbelievably, void of all life. Professor James was at the lectern up front calling my name and frowning.

  Corpses don’t count as life.

  “Uh, yes Dr. James, that’s me. Sorry I fell asleep, I was just-”

  “I don’t care about you sleeping, Miss Chisolm.” His voice was sharp and irritated, the way only teachers can manage. “But I do care about your utter failure to do anything, or turn in anything, in my class. I don’t want to have you coming up to me during finals week and crying about wanting to pass the course. I expected more out of a Forestry major in a Forestry course.”

  “Jeez, I’m sorry Dr. James. I had a long night last night,” Being jostled by a werewolf, “and I’m not feeling well. I should have stayed home but didn’t want to miss again.”

  “Hasn’t bothered you yet.”

  “Fair enough. Look, I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “Fine. You people always go on about being sorry until it’s too late. Tell you what. I’ll make sure you don’t have the chance to go on too long. I’m giving you an extra assignment. Due Monday. Turn it in, or I drop you.”

  “Well, okay,” I said with a gulp. “Thanks for the second chance.”

  “You won’t be thanking me when you hear it.” He leaned back on his podium and crossed his arms. “First of all, you’ll have a partner. Rock Davidson, the young man who sits near you. He’s also a truant. A mountain of a truant, but still.”

  I snickered. The professor just glared.

  “You and Mr. Davidson, who I assume you can contact somehow through one of your Face Twit Books, are assigned to go this weekend to the university’s forest preserve, and check each of the trees listed here,” he handed me a packet of three pages, each with the tag numbers of ten trees. “Check those trees for mites, and root rot, and report back on their condition. You’ll have to walk a few miles, but that’ll be good for you anyway.”

  I gulped.

  He sneered over his glasses.

  “Get out of my sight. I want the list in my office on Monday morning. Do you understand?”

  I don’t know if I responded to him, but I most certainly ran out of the building with muscles on my mind. Unbeknownst to Dr. James, I’d never looked Rock up on my Face Twit Book, but a quick check turned him up and five minutes later I had an email from him saying that tonight would be a good night to go out there, and that he looked forward to seeing me.

  Bored in the car on the way home, because the road all looks the same with the yellow lines and black pavement, I pulled up Rock’s Twit Face page, and was excited to see that of the eighty-seven photos he had taken of himself in a bathroom mirror, most of them were shirtless.

  Good God he looks good. Those lines on his chest, veins in his arms. He doesn’t even look real, he looks like something out of a movie. My thoughts turned to Jack, who was very similar, maybe even a little more muscular, and a little fatter. Two big muscle men. Maybe I can convince Jack to come out to the forest. I’ll buy them a case of Buds and I’m sure they’ll be fast friends. And – maybe I can convince one of them to give me that jostling I’ve wanted.

  I blushed at my naughtiness, as though I were trying to fool myself into believing in my own purity.

  A deer darted out in front of the car, I laid on the horn, flipped the deer the bird, and drove around him on the shoulder, then drove another mile before I even realized what happened.

  What can I say? I had two big, hunky, and honestly very sweet, mountains of muscle on the mind. And then I had images of myself pinned between the two of them on my mind.

  There’s a thought...

  “Remember, kids,” the man on the radio said, who I was sure I’d tuned away from earlier, “tonight’s the full moon. Things – both good and bad – always happen on a full moon. Just be safe. Dave Davis, signing off. Good night and stay classy.”

  “Ha!” I said, “good and bad, huh? We’ll just see about that.”

  ***

  “I, uh, I’m a little nervous about going out tonight, Stacy.”

  “Lacy.”

  “Oh yeah, sorry. Look, I’m not feeling too well, but if you want to do it tomorrow, that’s better for me.”

  I sighed. “You said you’d go when we talked earlier. Did you get invited to the TKE party or something?”

  “No,” he chuckled, “nothing like that. I just have a hangover. I think. Yeah, it’s a hangover. Sorry, but-”

  “Can’t do it tomorrow, can’t do it Sunday. Gotta work. If we’re going to get this stupid assignment done and not get thrown out of our major, it has to be tonight. Drink some water; eat a bowl of menudo or a greasy chili dog. Or, stop pretending you’re sick.”

  He didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, and then grunted something that sounded a little like ‘okay’. “But we gotta get done early, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Just...I wasn’t planning on this, and I’ve got stuff to do.”

  “Fine, fair enough. Come get me at five? Six?”

  “Make it five. Your roommate coming like you said?”

  “I don’t know. He’s not here now, but yeah if he’s not working I’ll get him to come along.”

  Rock grumbled, said goodbye and the line went dead.

  ***

  “Want to stop for a drink or anything? And where’s your boyfriend?”

  “Oh shut up, he’s not my boyfriend.” I punched Rock in the arm. His name was apt. “He used to be. We haven’t been a thing for six months now. But no, he just never came home. Guess he had to work after all.”

  A few minutes later, we pulled into the back lot of the university’s tree research lab and started on our silly errand for the terrible Dr. James. As I stepped out of Rock’s car, which was a comically small thing for his size – he was at least six three, and if I had to guess, topped two-fifty of pure muscle – a very reasonable coupe with two doors, because as he said on the drive, it was more fuel efficient.

  I pulled my jacket around myself even though it wasn’t particularly cold out, and followed him first to the ranger’s pavilion where we grabbed a map of the tree layout, and then to the first square of pines that we had to check for mold or bad breath or whatever it was. The first thing that struck me was how serious Rock was about all this. He’d pluck a leaf, rub it between his fingers, smell it, rub bark, and check for sap, just like it said on the sheet.

  To every tree, he gave the full work up as we moved from one lot to the next. Branches to sap to roots, he didn’t leave anything off.
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  “You’re really into this stuff, huh?”

  “Aren’t you? I mean you’re a Forestry major, right? Why go to all that trouble for a degree that will have you living in woods half the year and having to do a side job if you want a retirement fund if you don’t love the forest?”

  “No, no, don’t get me wrong. I do really love being out here. It’s so calm and quiet most times. Nothing but birds and wind and little things rustling around.”

  “Bigger things, too,” he said under his breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Hey, is it getting dark already? I thought for sure we’d be out of here by the time the sun went down. There’s no way we can come back tomorrow?”

  “No, I’ve got to work all day and you said you had something to do at night.”

  “No I didn’t.”

  “Well we’re here anyway, and we’re on the last page, so why not just get it over with?”

  “We’ve got to go over to that other patch of woods, I don’t know. It’ll take a while to walk and I really need to get out of here before it gets dark.” He stretched his neck from side to side like boxers do, and scratched himself behind the ear.

  “You got fleas? Lice? Jock itch?”

  “Ha, yeah, I’ve got jock itch behind my ear. I don’t know. I might be allergic to something out here. Itches like hell. But anyway, if you’re intent on this, let’s hurry. I’ve gotta get out of here soon.”

  “Why? Why are you so intent on leaving?” I moved closer to him and put my hand on his arm. “Don’t you kinda like being out here alone with me? I’ve seen the way you watch me in class. And, well, there’s the forty-three times you’ve asked me out before that I keep turning you down. Why are you in such a hurry to get away? Reality not living up to the fantasy?”

  “No, no, nothing like that at all. Sorry, I’m just in a hurry. I’ve got some...uh...stuff I have to do tonight that can’t be put off. For school.”

  Up and down I rubbed his arm. His massive biceps, the forearm that was bigger than any normal man’s thigh, and then his big, rounded shoulder and powerful hand.

  “How are you so big? I mean, how much do you exercise?”

  “Not a lot, really. Couple times a week. It’s just natural. We – uh, I mean, I’ve just always been big.”

  “We? Do you have a strong brother or something?”

  “Yeah, that’s it, hey!” My hand slipped off his and went down the side of his leg.

  “Oh, sorry. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m totally not like this normally,” I said as I moved my hand around Rock’s leg to the inside of his knee. “I’m...kinda serious, I’m a little scared. I’m never this forward with guys. I’m shy, but for some reason I can’t keep my hands off you.”

  “Oh no,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Why? I mean, what the hell, we’re out here and alone, right? Why not be a little crazy for once in my life. It’s that you don’t like me. That’s what it is, right? You thought you’d like a girl with a little more to her, but now that I’m here, you want to go back to your rail thin floozies?”

  “No, no, no, oh God no that’s not it at all, Lacy.” Rock grabbed my hand off his leg and massaged it with his meaty paw, then squeezed my forearm. “No, it has nothing to do with you.”

  “You’ve got a girlfriend that you didn’t tell me about? God! Why is it always-”

  “No! I told you, that’s not it. I just have something to...oh God...oh God it’s starting. Hurry, run to the car!”

  “What’s starting?” I said, running my hand between his huge thighs, it shook uncontrollably the closer I got to the center of his body and the heat I already felt emanating from him.

  “You’re so hot. I mean, physically – uh, I mean like, temperature. You feel like you’re on fire. Are you sick?”

  “N-no,” he said with a warble in his deep, leather voice. “Not really.” His speech alternated between raspy whispering and very, very loud, near-shouts. “I don’t...I don’t feel very well though. Please, please, help me to the car and drive.” He tried to hand me his keys but accidentally threw them.

  “Rock? What’s happening? Are you okay?”

  “How...how is it so dark already?” Violently he scratched himself, so hard that he tore two of the buttons on his shirt and revealed a gorgeously muscled chest covered in a heavy dusting of hair.

  Goodness, that hair. I’ve seen plenty of guys naked, but never one that was so completely unashamed of himself. Something about it, I can’t stop watching. Come on, Lacy, help this guy to his car, he’s obviously having a seizure. Quit gawking at his muscles and get him to the hospital.

  “Okay, okay.” I slipped under his arm, somehow holding the massive hunk of man up, and started the three hundred or so foot trek to the car. “This is seriously so weird.”

  “I’m...I’m s-sorry, I should have...”

  “No, not you. I’m helping you to your car while you’re having some kind of attack and all I can think about is ripping your shirt the rest of the way off and clawing you and climbing on top of you and – holy shit, I can’t believe what I’m saying. Why do I keep telling you this stuff?”

  “It’s,” he fell to a knee. “It’s too late. Try to get away, try to...No!”

  “What’s happening? What’s going-”

  Dropping to all fours, Rock began to writhe and thrash around in the pine needles on the ground, snapping twigs and grunting as he did. He clawed at himself like he’d done earlier, but with such ferocity that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was like the guy was trying to rip his own skin off, like a dog with a shampoo allergy. Just clawing away, ripping and tearing.

  One of his sleeves got caught on a root or something, and split right down the line of his muscle, then unbelievably, it looked like his muscles started to bulge larger, growing even as he wretched around.

  I sprinted to the car, hoping that he had an inhaler or an Epi-Pen or whatever would get rid of his problem, but didn’t find anything, so I decided to go back and try to drag him to the car as soon as he stopped the main part of his fit.

  But, when I left the car, I looked back in his direction and saw nothing. No Rock, no writhing man clawing at his own skin. He was gone.

  “Rock? Rock, are you there?” I called out.

  In the distance, I heard a grunting sound that reminded me of a deer who got hit with a badly aimed bullet.

  “There’s no way that’s...” I swallowed hard. “Rock?”

  I walked back to where he was and found a pile of clothes, all torn to shreds. He had just been there. He had been right there, and when I got back all that was left was shredded clothing. On the one hand, I worried about him. On the other hand, he was naked.

  Stop it Lacy! What are you thinking! Stop with all the horny stuff! He’s hurting somewhere, find him!

  But all that rolled through my mind was the newscaster, or the radio man, whatever he was. The only words I heard were his warnings for all the kids to be safe and to stay classy.

  “Right,” I said out loud, “classy. Way to stay classy, Lace.”

  Then I noticed something that looked like hair, hard, black hair going from where Rock had been, off into the edge of the forest. After that I realized there were footprints, broken sticks, and all sorts of other stuff, leading off to the trees. And then I heard it.

  Or rather, I heard them.

  In front of me, just past the edge of the woods, a howl broke through the growing dark of night. Behind me, I heard another. I looked back and forth, trying to decide what to do, but before anything made much sense, I felt that same twinge I did earlier that got me to grope poor, nervous Rock’s rock.

  I wanted to go to him, wherever he was, to make sure he wasn’t hurt, or worse, been grabbed by...

  “A wolf!”

  I ran so fast that I forgot to worry about myself. What the Hell was I going to do if there really was a wolf that dragged him off? No time for that, I thought, gotta make
sure he’s safe.

  ***

  “Stay away!” Rock shouted as soon as I neared where he laid, his back against a tree trunk. “Go back to the car and leave me here! I won’t be able to control myself...much...longer...”

  “What are you talking about? No way am I leaving you here alone. Not a chance in hell. What if that wolf comes back?”

  For some reason, he laughed.

  In the back of his throat was a weird sound, kind of a hitch or a snort or something that reminded me of what dogs do when they sneeze. “Seriously, seriously, Lacy, I can’t control what I do. I’m a monster.”

  “If you’re talking about letching on me, that’s not a problem. You’re not the first guy that stared at my tits instead of my eyes and to be honest I sorta like it when you do it.”

  “No, you don’t under – hnnnng! – you don’t understand!” He thrashed around again like he was taken with either another fit, or he caught the spirit, I couldn’t tell. “Please...”

  He flopped over on his back and I thought maybe he was about to be taken with another of his seizures but instead he just screamed out into the night and grunted a couple of times, then rolled back over. The night had gone full dark by then and when I watched him, it seemed that he reacted to the moonlight coming through the trees. When he moved in a way that the light struck him, Rock thrashed a little harder, but screamed less. When he was in darkness, he wept pitifully.

  “I want to help you, Rock.” I was surprised that my voice had a twinge. “Please?”

  “Lacy, get away. As soon as the moon...” his breathing was ragged. Rock, I was convinced, was dying right before my eyes. “The moon...it...full...”

  Suddenly, I saw what I thought was impossible. Rock pushed himself to his hands and knees and stumbled forward into a beam of moonlight.

  Hair? He’s covered in hair? No way. No way is this happening. Not possible. And – what is that? Oh my God he is actually bent over like he’s a...