Werewolf Wedding(4)

Yeah, that’s more or less what it’s like when I finish a sculpture and have to look at it before whoever wanted it picks it up. That’s why I tend not to keep a showcase around, if I can help it. But, staring at the Scotty, I knew we’d be good friends for a while. It isn’t every day that someone wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, “holy shit! I need a statue of a Scotty!”

Except, of course, when that’s exactly what happens.

“I’ll give you ten grand for that thing,” a voice from behind me, said. When I didn’t answer immediately, he upped the ante. “Twenty?”

“Huh? Why?” I turned around, stunned and slightly slack-jawed. It wasn’t my most dignified moment, but what the hell? Someone had just offered me twenty-thousand dollars for a foot-and-a-half high statue of a dog. And I’ll be damned if his voice wasn’t every bit as growly as advertised.

Taller than me by at least six inches – check.

Shaggy, dark hair – check.

My heart still beating – check.

It was embarrassingly hard to deal with myself just then. The flush from my stadium fantasy was back, except this time, I was staring at my fantasy. And he was offering me twenty grand for a statue of a damn dog.

“Why?” I croaked. “It’s just a dog.”

He took a step closer, and reached out. I’m pretty sure he was trying to shake my hand, but it turned into more of a “grab her before she hits the deck” sort of handshake. Meaning, not much of a handshake at all. He took my hand and my knees went weak from the heat coming out of his palm.

From the second our skin touched, I knew this wasn’t any regular guy. I’ve met plenty of hot men before, dated a few of them, but this was different somehow. I’m not talking about a “oh and I knew right then he was Mister Right” sort of thing – that’s a load of shit. I’m saying that no person has skin as warm and comforting as his.

With smoothness rivaled only by things in movies from a time when people wore fedoras and didn’t look ridiculous, he held my hand with both of his and let my wobbles even out. He just smiled at me, his mouth quirked up on the left side, a dimple in his cheek prominently on display. His eyes were the color of storm clouds just before rain – dark, silvery hazel – and nothing I could do was going to let me tear my gaze from his.

“What are you, a Dracula or something?” I scoffed, trying to make myself relax with a joke.

“No,” he said with another smile. “Also, wasn’t there just one Dracula?”

Witty, at least a little bit – check.

My heart still mostly beating – check. I think.

“Were you serious?” I croaked again, my throat felt like I’d swapped bodies with a bullfrog.

“About not being Dracula? Yeah,” he said, squeezing my hand a little tighter. That’s when I noticed that one of his hands was on my wrist, and that his grip was making me feel something akin to what Jeanette told me earlier, with the tingling. “I’m absolutely sure I’m not Dracula.”

I stared at him, drinking in the dark stubble, his fierce eyes and carelessly perfect hair. “Nice suit,” I said, although I think only about half of the words were actually audible. “It’s, uh, soft.”

I realized that I had grabbed his lapel, and pulled my hand away quickly. Then I smoothed the lapel back down where I’d apparently pinched it. The heat from his chest – his muscular, hard chest – was even more thrilling than that from his hand.

How can anyone be this hot? Like physically this warm of a temperature?

“Do you feel okay?” I asked. “You’re kinda hot.”

“Warm natured,” he said in a growly whisper. “Runs in the family. Twenty-five thousand? For the dog?”

I was nodding. “I woulda taken five hundred bucks.”

“Call the rest a tip. I’ll be back next week.” His thumb brushed my wrist, leaving a hot trail that seemed to stretch all the way to my ladyparts which, indeed, tingled. “You’re brilliant. You’ll do my statue and I’ll pay you plenty. Who do I make the check out to for the dog?”

“Dill—Delilah Coltrane,” I said, not quite believing what I was saying. “And are you sure?”

He whipped out one of those longer-than-normal checkbooks that usually only businesses use, and filled it out quickly.

“About which part?” he asked, capping the pen. A second later, he took my arm again, circled his thumb against my wrist and I thought I was going to explode. Wouldn’t that be a sight? “The dog? Or the statue?”

“Both,” I said.

“Well, I just wrote a check for the dog. And as far as the other bit, yeah, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”

The finality with which he spoke; the gravity, the intensity, it was all just so... perfect?

He lifted my hand to his lips, pressed them to the back of it. His eyes never left mine. It felt like they were boring into my soul, and making parts of me surge and tingle that had not done either of those things in quite some time.

“Ne-next week?” I asked, more to move my mouth and keep myself from either drooling or jumping on him and humping tis poor guy’s leg like a Chihuahua in heat.

He kissed my hand again and slid his fingers in a dance along my inner arm, finally inserting the check between my fingers in the instant before he dropped my hand, which fell limply to my side. “Next week,” he said again, never once freeing me from that burning, wonderful gaze. “Wednesday afternoon. I’m not much for mornings.”