A Mate For Phoenix (Forbidden Shifters Series Book 4) Read online

  She sighed, long and loud. “Goodbye, Orion. Don’t be late for your mentor meeting this Saturday.” And then the line went dead.

  “See?” Orion said, as if absolutely nothing unusual had just happened. “All you have to do is press that button and then tell the phone what you want it to do and it can do it for you. No reading necessary.”

  “Wait, what does that have to do with this porn thing you were telling me about?”

  They broke through to the vista at the top of the trail and the brothers plunked down side by side on a large, mossy rock. Orion pulled his pack off and handed out a sandwich apiece. “I’ll show you when we get home.”

  He still had that goofy smile on his face that Phoenix wasn’t sure he exactly trusted. His brother, after all, was known to love a good joke.

  Phoenix took a deep breath and tipped his head back. He let the mossy scent on the air soothe him. He let the sunlight nourish him. He let the food in his mouth linger on his tongue. He wiggled his toes in the soft athletic socks that Ida had bought for him, his shoulder pressed firmly against Orion’s. This was what enjoying the outdoors in human form felt like.

  “You know I wouldn’t mind if you shifted, right?” Phoenix asked quietly. “I know it must be painful for you. Just like it’s painful for me.”

  “I know you wouldn’t mind. But… I’m not going to shift until you can. Except for the full moon, of course.”

  Which was rapidly approaching. It would be the sixth full moon in this new world. Phoenix surreptitiously stretched his leg and side, wondering if it was possible that he was fully healed enough to make the shift this month. God, he hoped so. He missed his wolf. And being stuck in human form on a full moon was excruciatingly painful. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. “That makes no sense, Orion. You should be shifting.”

  “I want to know how it feels for you, Phoenix. If I can understand a little bit better, what it’s like to be fully human, without the shift, then maybe I can understand how to help you get better. You’re fighting two battles, brother. One to heal your injuries and one against the need to shift. Let me fight one of them with you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ida pulled her door open in surprise. “Hi!”

  “You came to mine the other night so I get to come to yours tonight and it’s not mooching.”

  Phoenix crutched himself into her house without waiting for her to invite him inside. Ida was surprised by his logic, but she couldn’t fault it. Also, she was really freaking happy to see him. Go figure. “How’d you get here?”

  “Bus. Wren told me which lines to take.”

  He grimaced a little as he kicked off his shoes.

  “You’re in pain today,” she said, immediately worried.

  “Went on a walk with Orion.”

  “Oh.” Ida pictured Phoenix’s strapping older brother. He practically had legs long enough to cross a street in two strides. She figured a walk with Orion would be enough to make anyone a little sore. Let alone a someone who was supposed to be resting and relaxing and healing from a traumatic injury. “Come over to the couch.”

  Ida hurried over in front of him, pushing pillows to one side of the couch to make room for him.

  He plunked down and propped up his leg, tossing his crutches to the side, his dark eyes turning toward hers. “Can I—“

  “Yes,” she cut him off, sitting carefully next to him and letting herself sink down, get lost in those dark eyes, let her lips open against his.

  It was wonderfully familiar and wonderfully new all at once. Every time they kissed, he did something new, unexpected. He didn’t kiss like other men kissed. This kiss was deep and slow, nothing mechanical about it. He usually touched her with the heated curiosity of a novice. But tonight he was kissing her as if he were drawing something from her, filling up on something only she could give him.

  Honestly, it was hypnotizing her. She felt lazy and kiss-drunk, every muscle in her body going lax even as some dim awareness was reminding her that the hottest man to ever walk the earth was stretched out on her couch at right that very moment.

  His tongue was lazily, deeply petting at hers, his hands resting lightly on her back, his head moving back and forth into her in a wave-like rhythm. She was drifting, in a cloud, high on him—

  “Is your phone the kind that you can watch porn on?”

  Every lazy, drifting feeling immediately evaporated as Ida burst out laughing. She sat up and fixed her hair, trying to read Phoenix’s expression and failing. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “Orion said he’d show me what porn was today. He said it would help with my questions about sex. He watches it on the phone that Diana gave him. I wanted to learn about it and then come surprise you with all the new stuff I knew. But by the time we got home from our hike and I ate dinner, I was too anxious to come see you to stay at home and learn about porn. But I’m here now, so if you have the kind of phone that Orion has, then maybe you could teach me about it.”

  Her brain stalled out. Part of her was still surprised any time that he made a long speech like that. She was still partially wired to think of him as the cold-eyed hottie who was content to let her sweat and jabber on to fill the silence. But she had to let that image go because that was not the Phoenix she knew anymore. The Phoenix she knew was curious and not the most talkative, but he held his own.

  “These days I’m pretty sure everyone’s phone is the kind of phone you can watch porn on,” she answered, somewhat evasively.

  “Okay.” He cocked his head to the side. “So, can you show me?”

  She bit her lip, narrowing her eyes and trying to see through to the other side of his words, wondering what it was that he was actually asking her. “You’re telling me that you don’t know what it is but you want to watch it anyways because Orion said it would answer questions about sex?”

  He nodded.

  “Um,” she attempted to gather her thoughts. “Porn isn’t really used for educational purposes. It’s generally where people turn to suspend reality, not learn about it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Right.” She pushed on her forehead and tried to keep her cheeks from catching on fire.

  Phoenix reached up tugged at lightly at the ends of her hair, his hand coming down to rest against her cheek. “You’re embarrassed?”

  “It’s just not usually something I talk to people about. Well, except for Wren, but we tell each other everything.”

  “You can tell me everything,” he said. And when she searched his dark gaze, all she found was genuine sincerity.

  Somehow, Ida realized, she’d gone and found herself cuddled up to the least judgmental person she’d ever met in her life.

  She turned so that she was facing him better and he automatically made a little more room for her to snuggle up next to him.

  “Okay,” she said, blowing out a breath like she was trying to settle her nerves before she jogged out into the big game. Put me in, coach! “Porn is videos or pictures of people having sex.”

  His brow furrowed. “And other people watch this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But not for educational reasons?”

  She laughed. “I mean, never say never. I am sure there are people out there trying to learn about sex from watching porn. But yeah, I think, I hope, most people understand that porn sex and real sex are pretty different. Mostly people watch it because it turns them on. Then they either have sex with someone or they, um, take care of it on their own.”

  He frowned. “Take care of it… oh. You mean…?” He made a crude gesture with his hand in the air.

  She blushed and blew out another deep breath. “Yes.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Wait, you said people. Do women do that too?” He made the crude gesture again, asking the question as if it had genuinely never occurred to him before.

  “Definitely,” Ida said, reaching up to stop his hand from jacking off the air and feeling a bit like she was
in a parallel universe. Sure, she made a living training shifters for the real world, but she’d never had to lay it all out in the open like this before. She was kind of a sex-in-the-dark type of girl. “I mean, the movement is different for girls than it is for boys. You know, because of the way we’re built. But, yeah. Men and women both, um, masturbate.”

  His eyes dropped to her breasts. To her hands. To her legs. She knew the question he was going to ask before it left his mouth. She braced herself. “Ida. Do you do that?”

  “Um…” She cleared her throat. “Yes?”

  His gaze darkened immeasurably and his arm tightened around her back.

  “But I don’t really watch porn that often,” she hurried on. “Not as often as I use my, um, imagination.”

  She was breathing hard now and having trouble figuring out exactly how she was feeling. Was this conversation embarrassing her or turning her on? She wasn’t sure she could tell the difference.

  “I love this color,” he murmured brushing his fingers against her cheeks. Cheeks she was positive were blazingly pink. “This color means you’re feeling something very intensely.”

  “I don’t think you should start with porn,” she whispered.

  “Why?”

  Because you’re so hot and strangely innocent and freakishly sexual and I don’t want you to suddenly turn into all the other guys I’ve been with.

  “Because there’s a lot of freaky stuff on the internet and I wouldn’t want you to stumble onto something and think it’s common when really it’s an extreme outlier.”

  “Sounds like,” he said, pulling her down for a quick kiss and pressing his lips to hers. “We should watch it together. That way you can tell me if something is weird or if it’s normal.”

  He wanted to watch porn together. Right. Rightrightrightrightrightright.

  Ida knew that there were couples who did that together, of course. She’d just never been in one of them.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” was her immediate answer. She was up and off the couch a breath later, grabbing her phone from the counter and locking herself into her bathroom.

  Wren answered on the second ring.

  “He wants to watch porn with me,” Ida hissed into the phone.

  Wren burst out laughing. “Are we just not saying hello anymore?”

  “What do I do?!”

  Wren’s laughter escalated. “Ida, this is hardly an emergency.”

  “He’s never watched porn before. He had to ask me what it was. And now he wants to watch it. With me.”

  “Sounds like the party of the century, my friend.”

  Ida pinched the bridge of her nose. “I feel like you’re not understanding what I’m saying or something.”

  “Ida, your hot-ass wolf man —who moved apartments and is getting a job in order to be a better boyfriend for you— wants to watch porn and roll around with you. I feel like maybe you’re not understanding what you’re saying. You’ve hit the freaking lottery! Go forth! Watch porn! Get sweaty with wolfy.”

  “I—” It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

  “If you don’t want to do it,” Wren said, “then don’t do it. But please don’t talk yourself out of this just because life is complicated and you’re not sure where all this is going with Phoenix. Even if he goes back into wolf form and leaves for the wilderness forever and all you have left are memories, wouldn’t you rather you had some kick ass memories? Ones involving horned-up porn sex?”

  That wasn’t the worse point ever made.

  “Besides,” Wren continued.

  “Wait. Stop talking. You convinced me.”

  “Oh. That easily?”

  “What can I say, you’re a wordsmith.”

  “Either that, or you’re just really horny,” Wren said with a touch of laughter in her voice.

  Ida cringed at the blunt —and accurate— assessment. “Both can be true.”

  Wren was full-on laughing again. “Have fun tonight, my friend. Meanwhile I’ll just babysit the other wolf shifters and try not to die of jealousy.”

  “Owe you a million! Byeeee!”

  Ida hung up the phone and marched back out into the living room. She snapped her fingers and pointed at Phoenix. “Let’s do this, Wolfman.”

  ***

  Phoenix crutched after Ida, a little unsure where they were even heading. That was, until he realized there was an entire section of her house that he’d never even seen.

  Of course she’d have a bedroom. He’d just never really considered it before. He was new at this human thing.

  He paused at the threshold of said bedroom and just really took it in. It was so freaking Ida. Colorful pillows, colorful bed, everything so ruffled and fluffy and useless. Useless in a way that endeared her to him. It was like her high heels in bedroom form. Utterly impractical and somehow still so cute.

  But the appearance of her room wasn’t what really got him. No. It was the scent. Even for a shifter, even for a wolf, Phoenix had an exceptional sense of smell. He wasn’t quite as impressive as Orion, who could scent a change in the wind from twelve or so miles out, but still, there wasn’t much that Phoenix’s nose didn’t tell him.

  And right now, Phoenix’s nose was telling him that he was in the territory of a most delicious female. There were soft, synthetic scents, clean and lovely. Those told him that she took good care of her home and her body. But more than that was the concentrated scent of her being. This was where she spent the most time of any place in the world, her bedroom. Even if she wasn’t conscious when she spent time there, she was still infusing that room with the essence of her. Something that no other being on earth could replicate.

  He took deep lungfuls of that scent now and didn’t try to place it or compare it. It wasn’t a combination of flowers and fresh air. It wasn’t fruit-like or powdery or sugary or hot honey. There was simply nothing else like it on earth. It was Ida. Pure Ida.

  She grabbed what Phoenix recognized as a small computer from a desk in the corner of the room and slid onto her bed, clicking on a bedside lamp.

  Phoenix stood in the doorway still, not wanting to invade her space unless he was truly invited.

  She blinked up at him from where she sat, computer on her lap, and patted the bed next to her.

  His part of the bed, apparently. Her pats were an invitation to him, and he felt them inside his ribs. She’d patted the bed twice and it was, to him, as if she were telling him which side of the bed was his. His to use, his to claim.

  He propped his crutches up beside the door and walked over to the bed, barely noticing that the normally ripping pain in his side and leg had decided to hibernate for the time being.

  Without hesitation, he collapsed on his side of the bed, stretching out so that his feet fell off one end and his palms went flat against her white headboard.

  “I used to think beds were stupid,” Phoenix told her, tipping his head to one side.

  He was rocked by the expression on her face. There was something hot there. Fiery. A little out of control.

  “And now?” she whispered, laying on her side, the computer laying on the bed between them.

  “I like this bed,” he told her. He bounced himself a little and to his delight, that made her bounce as well. She still wore her clothing from the day, a dress that was soft like a T shirt but cinched in at her waist. When she lay on her side like she was doing now, her breasts pressed against one another, falling to one side. Phoenix loved that, he wanted to press his face into the weight of her there. And when he bounced her, her good parts bounced as well, making her look just as soft as she was. Perfect.

  “Good,” she whispered. Her eyes darted to the door, her cheeks pink, her fingers tugging lightly at the blanket stretched beneath them.

  “What is it?” he asked, knowing immediately that she had things going on in her brain that she wasn’t telling him. Wasn’t sure if she should tell him, most likely for some human reason that made little to no sense to him whatsoever.
r />   “I’ve…” she cleared her throat. “Never had a man in my bed before.”

  His brow furrowed. “You’re not a virgin, though?”

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No. But I don’t hook up very often. Well, I don’t really “hook up” ever.” She did this thing with two fingers on each hand when she said “hook up”, like she was making tiny claws in the air. Phoenix made a note to ask her about it later. Right now there was far more interesting stuff to learn. Like Ida’s romantic history.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’ve only ever fooled around with men who were committed to me. My boyfriends, really. I’ve kissed a few others. But not many.” Her eyes dropped. “You’re coming to me with questions about sex. And I have some answers, but Phoenix, I have to be honest, I don’t have all the answers. Not even close.” Her cheeks flamed. “Compared to most human women my age, I’m kind of inexperienced.”

  He remembered the last time she’d explained a perceived inadequacy to him. It had been when they’d first met one another in that hated room in the center. Short doesn’t matter, he’d told her then. “Experience doesn’t matter,” he told her now. “I mean, unless one of us hurts the other one, we can’t really do it wrong, can we?”

  She blinked at him. “Huh. I’ve never really thought about it that way before. Actually, I’ve never really been comfortable enough with someone to be able to think about it that way. I think there’s always been some sort of performance element to it. Like I needed to pretend to—“

  “No pretending,” he whispered. “Just promise me you won’t pretend. No matter what happens.”

  She nodded immediately, soothing him. “I promise. Honestly, I don’t even think I could pretend with you. I think you’d know right away.”

  They blinked at one another for another few moments before Ida animated, pulling the computer open. “Okay. Right. Porn,” she muttered to herself. “Porn puh-porn porn porn.”

  She turned to him with a smile on her face, but he merely frowned in confusion.