Mating Behavior Read Online Free Page A

strange.”
    I feel strange.
    She held that part back, choosing instead to
wrinkle her nose and wink. “Hurry up. Okay?”
     
    Alan stared into Katie’s dark brown eyes and
pushed a stray strand of white blonde hair back into her cap. How
she managed to get her unruly mane of hair into nothing more than a
knit hat still boggled him. Most of what Katie did managed to
surprise him time and time again. She was a free spirit. One he
envied greatly. He’d lost count of the number of classes she’d
taken that wavered off her major’s requirements some time ago. If
she had an interest in it, she signed up for the course.
    When she’d insisted on doing a research
paper on the mating behavior of the red wolf, she’d taken the cake,
shocking him to the core. She’d gone on to tell him about having a
series of dreams consisting of the two of them surrounded by a pack
of baby wolves. The thought moved him dramatically. He’d found
himself blurting out how he’d take her to observe them, if she
wanted, and how they could use his family’s cabin in the mountains.
The next thing he knew, the woman he loved more than life itself
was wrapped around him, squealing with delight and making him swear
to honor his promise. He could no more deny her this than he could
deny his feelings for her.
    How he’d managed to keep his feelings a
secret from Katie this long was a mystery to him. Somehow, she
didn’t seem to notice his lingering stares, his need to be close to
her and the way they seemed to live life around one another’s
schedule. Neither had been part of the dating scene for six months
now. Even when they were, it was merely a ruse. Alan’s keen senses
allowed him to pick up other men’s scents on Katie. For the first
month or so after meeting her, she’d held another’s scent. He was
elated she’d gotten rid of it until the incident six months
ago.
    Even then, with the scent of another man on
her, he didn’t run off and take another woman to his bed. He
thought about it, but ended up bailing midway through dinner and
dancing, only to return home and crawl into an empty bed. No one
but Katie would do. Of that, he was sure.
    He had lost his temper that night and had
come close to shifting in front of Katie. Even now, smelling
someone else on what should be his made him bristle in jealous
rage. Lucky for him, Alan chose to rush out of the room and slam
the door so hard it broke. He then disappeared for several days
after, needing time to try to cool his jealous streak.
    I have no claim on her.
    It didn’t matter how many times he told
himself that—it changed nothing. He wanted to claim Katie as his
mate and no amount of mental psyching out was going to change that.
Still, taking her as his would be the equivalent of signing her
death warrant. He’d never harm her or let harm come to her.
    When he’d first met Katie, it had felt as if
a Mack truck slammed into him, leaving him breathless. She was in
the market for an apartment and had no luck finding one. She’d
stopped in the same coffee shop he was in and began searching their
message board. She was a senior in college at the time, putting her
five years younger than him, but something deep inside wouldn’t let
Alan watch the moment pass him by.
    He owned the building he lived in and was
careful who he did and did not rent to. There was a set of elderly
sisters who lived on the first level. One had been harmed in a
mugging in their old neighborhood and Alan wanted to know they were
safe, so he charged next to nothing for them to live there and kept
an eye on them. They took on the role of surrogate grandmothers to
the residents of the building, even going so far as to pack lunches
for Alan with the crusts cut off the sandwiches. He didn’t have the
heart to tell them to stop.
    A single mother lived on the second floor
and across from her a man Alan trusted with his life—a long-time
friend and fellow outcast shifter. His friend’s obsession with the
single mother