Shifters with Secrets (An MMF Bisexual Threesome)(35)

The boys were lounging around the camp, Sander and Matteo making pancakes over the fire, the rest of them drinking coffee and joking around.

Keene whistled. “Where do I sign up to enlist?”

Beckett walked over and handed her a steamy mug of coffee. “You look beautiful this morning. Don’t mind the boys they are thinking the same thing, they just don’t know how to vocalize it properly.”

Alexi smiled and took a sniff of the coffee. “I think it’s cute.”

Her eyes scanned the men looking for Ellis. He wasn’t there. She looked down at her coffee in disappointment.

Beckett walked her to the table where they had a setting waiting for her. She sat down and a huge chocolate chip pancake was slapped in front of her. Matteo poured maple syrup all over it as Sander placed a napkin on her lap.

They all waited, holding their breaths, as she took her first bite. “It’s so good,” she said with her mouth full. They all sighed in relief. Smiles broke out across their faces and they went back to doing whatever they were doing.

“Some OJ?” Beckett asked, holding out the container.

“Please,” she nodded. “Where’s Ellis this morning?” she asked, as he poured her a glass.


“He’s in the hangar,” Beckett replied.

“He’s been polishing the old canoe since the crack of dawn,” Finch said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. The best fishing is on the river bank. He knows that.”

Alexi smiled knowingly. She scarfed down her pancake, refusing a second one, and took off towards the hangar. Ellis was in there with his back to her, sanding the inside of the canoe.

She leaned against the doorway watching him work. She had never met anyone who could make a t-shirt and jeans look so good. His back muscles bulged through the thin, black fabric. He turned to the side and Alexi smiled at his furled brow and intense look of concentration as he carefully sanded the splintery wood.

“Good morning,” she said.

He jumped up, startled. “How did you sneak up on me?” he asked in shock. “I should have smelled you.”

“Smelled me?” she asked, sniffing under her arm. I guess I do need a shower. “You looked like you were concentrating pretty hard. What are you doing?”

“Getting the canoe ready for our date.”

“Not a date,” she reminded him, but only this time not sounding as harsh. “Definitely not a date.”

“Come try it out,” he said, ignoring her comment.

He steadied the canoe and held out his hand for her. She took his hand and stepped in. For once the touch of a man wasn’t unwelcome. His touch felt good. It felt natural and right.

She sat down on the newly sanded seats and felt a twinge of panic at having to sit in this unsteady thing on a fast, moving river. Ellis would keep her safe. She knew that. There was nothing to worry about.

You don’t know that. Greg was all rainbows and sunshine too in the beginning. They all start this way.

Alexi glanced at Ellis holding her hand and the canoe with a big, happy grin on his face. She really couldn’t imagine him hurting her. She had inklings of Greg’s true nature even when they were kids, long before they dated. When he was throwing rocks at birds and the time he threw a puppy into a lake. Alexi vividly remembered jumping in and pulling the drowning lab from the bottom of the water, saving him just in time. Nothing about Ellis gave her a bad vibe. He seemed to be one of the good ones. If there was such a thing.

They walked back to camp, Ellis with the canoe hoisted over his shoulder like it was made of paper, and prepared to leave on their canoe trip. Ellis packed a cooler full of sandwiches, fruits, lemonade and Alexi saw him sneak in a bottle of red wine. Real red wine, not Quint’s moonshine.

When they were ready to go he lifted the canoe onto his shoulder and picked up the heavy cooler with his free hand.

“I can take the cooler,” Alexi said, impressed at his jaw dropping strength.

He looked at her sideways, like she was crazy. “What are the men like where you come from?”

Not like this.

They had walked for twenty minutes until they arrived at the river and Ellis, weighed down with all of the stuff, hadn’t even broken a sweat.

He placed the canoe in the water with the cooler in between the seats. “Come on in,” he said, offering his hand for support.

She held her breath and looked at the fast current. “Maybe we should just have a picnic here.”

He looked around confused. “I thought you wanted to go in the canoe.”

“I do it’s just…” she trailed off.

He had a look of complete bafflement on his face. She stifled a laugh. He was so cute.

“I’m scared,” she finally said.

His head snapped back as he tried to process the irrational thing she just said. He was an adventurous daredevil surrounded by other daredevils. A city girl who was afraid of a simple canoe must have been as foreign to him as an alien from another planet.

“You can’t swim?” he asked.

“I can.” She looked past him at the raging river. “But look at those rapids.”

He looked over his shoulder at the gurgling river and then back to her. “I don’t understand. You’re going to be in a canoe.”

“Oh forget it,” she snapped. She grabbed his hand and stepped into the wobbly canoe.