ROMANCE: SHIFTER: Shifter to the Max Collection (Dragon, Bear, Wolf and Panther Shifter Romances) (Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection) (45 page)

              "It was an accident," he said.

Kira watched as her professor's face twisted in miserable confirmation. After a moment, she expelled a shuddering breath. The tension broke, and Donovan drew himself away from the door, setting the half-drained bottle of wine on the kitchen counter as he exited the room for the hallway. Kira stared at the steadily-expanding puddle beneath her on the floor as she tried to figure out what it all meant.

Did she forgive? Did she really have anything to forgive, if it had been an accident? Her head spun, and her body shook. At least she wasn't dealing with any more unexpected changes. It was as if they vanished the moment she made up her mind and directed herself to his apartment…

A towel came down over her head and shoulders, and she clutched at it instantly, gratefully. Donovan spun her around in his arms and mopped the water from her hair as her shuddering slowly subsided. Kira stared at his chest. How did she get herself into these situations with him? It didn't seem to matter how angry she was, or how resistant he was to the idea of them together. She always seemed to find herself back in Sawyer Donovan's arms.

"I want to talk about that night. Please," she said. "I need to know what happened. I need to understand… this. I need to understand us."

Donovan was silent for a long moment. Once he had satisfied himself that she was as dry as a bathroom towel was going to get her, he pulled back to look at her. Kira gazed up into his face, and a different sort of tremor took hold of her as their eyes met. No matter what tonight revealed, she knew one truth—and that was the reality of his warm body pressed against hers, and the deep, sensuous mastery of his lips as he articulated in a kiss everything he couldn't bring himself to say. Sawyer Donovan had feelings for her, and if their shared passion in that clearing under the full moon was any indication, they were as strong as hers were.

"Get changed out of those clothes first, and then we'll talk." Professor Donovan's eyes dropped from hers to consider the duffle bag that lay forgotten at her feet. He raised an eyebrow. "Overnight plans?"

Kira blushed hotly at his implication, despite having been too cold to be capable of doing so only moments before. "No, I… I was having a little bit of trouble shifting when my roommate came home and surprised me."

"Still having trouble?" The teasing note left his voice at once, and Kira shook her head, grateful for his switch over from levity. Whatever tonight revealed, he really did care about her. She felt tears starting to well in her eyes and bit her lip in an effort to battle them back. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck, but an impulsive move like that would only succeed in getting them both wet.

Then again, didn't she still owe him for the Fun Fair?

Kira threw her arms around his neck, and Sawyer's hands came up to receive her.

CHAPTER 11

Once they had both changed into drier attire, they reconvened back in the living room. Donovan now regretted drinking all the wine by himself. He hadn't been expecting company.

              Then again, maybe wine was better left out of matters concerning himself and Kira.

              He did manage to rustle up the last two bottles of beer in his refrigerator, and he offered one to her now. The girl accepted, scooting over to the far side of the couch as he dropped himself down beside her with a sigh. He ran a hand through his scruffy brown hair in a failed effort to tame it. No amount of last minute primping in his bedroom could make him look anything other than old and fatigued sitting next to her on the couch. The way Kira was gazing at him, shy but expectant, he assumed she wasn't seeing him clearly. The look of guarded attraction in her eyes could bring a man to ruin.

              "I have a feeling you're ready to forgive me because I've told you it was an accident," he began. "But you might like the real story a lot less."

              "Whatever it is, I'm ready," she said. She pulled her knees up and settled her back against the opposite arm of the couch. Donovan wetted his lips.

              "It was… an experiment." Not a good start, but her expression hadn't changed, so maybe she really was willing to hear him out. He shifted to prop his arm against the back of the couch, his beer dangling forgotten in his fingers. "I didn't leave my apartment during the last full moon. Not at first, anyway. I wanted to test the limits of my control, and well… I had been out at the bars earlier in the evening with some of the other faculty. I wasn't at my sharpest, but I felt good. I felt like for the first time in my life, I could fight the wolf and win. I thought that I would find the strength inside me not to shift during the full moon."

              "What happened?" Kira Bentley's brown-gold eyes shone as brightly as the amber bottle she held.

              Donovan sighed. "The wolf won. I held out for as long as I could. An excruciating headache and the room spinning were the last things I remembered before blacking out. When I came to, I was naked and lying in a pile of broken glass in my bedroom. I had gone through the window to get out, and returned the same way before dawn. I have no recollection of that night. I have no recollection of what I did, but I…" His mouth was dry, and Donovan swallowed. "I was an animal, Kira. That night was the only night I have ever blacked out on a full moon, and I have no doubt about who was driving in my stead. Like that, I would have been capable of anything. You're living proof of what I was capable of."

              "I was walking home from the library," she said quietly. "I passed by the English building on my way back to campus. It all happened so fast. One minute I was alone, and the next I was being pulled to the ground by my backpack. I was… I was being dragged toward the trees. I thought I was going to die. I didn't realize that whatever was attacking me wasn't human until it was too late."

              Donovan rocked forward and pressed his forehead into his hands.

              "Should I stop?" Kira asked quietly.

              God, he didn't want to hear this. It was worse than anything he could have imagined, and he
had
forced himself to imagine it countless times. Almost every time he looked at her. "No," Donovan breathed finally. "Yours is the only memory either of us has of that night."

              She didn't continue right away. Instead, Kira hooked a finger in her shirt collar and pulled it aside to expose the bare expanse of her shoulder. He could see the scar clearly in the dim, warm light of his apartment, and the sight of it hit him like a punch to the stomach. He had savaged her.

              "I guess we wrestled for a bit. You stopped dragging me, and for a moment, I thought I could get away. I opened my mouth to scream, and then…"

              Her throat worked, but she couldn't bring herself to go on. He watched the memory of the attack overwhelm her, and she moved her fingers to release her collar.

              He was there in the next moment. He shifted across the couch to press against her, his own fingers catching the fabric of her shirt before it could retreat back into place. He tugged her collar back, and bent to press a kiss against the angry raised flesh. Kira trembled beneath him, but she didn't push him off, and he didn't lift his eyes to take in her reaction. He could feel it, and that was enough. He pressed another gentle kiss to the wound, as if the human in him could undo all that the wolf had done.

              "Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't falling in love with you," she whispered.

              "Don't say that." He breathed the words against her skin, helpless to pull away despite his own warning. "You can't fall for me, Kira. I'm your teacher."

              "Teachers don't kiss their students. And they
definitely
don't kiss them the way you kiss me," she said in earnest. Donovan groaned into the base of her neck and said nothing. Now would be a good time to pull away. Now would be a good time to put an end to something he should have never allowed them to begin.

              "Not without losing their jobs they don't," he murmured. "And it's more than the job, Kira. It's wrong. For all the reasons you've already outlined aloud in class. There has to be a certain… innate attraction between us. I hold power over you in the classroom, and you are young and beautiful and expressly forbidden to me. Even without the werewolf curse that binds us together, it's a disaster waiting to happen. How can you know it's not just a phase? How can you know I'm anything more than just a fleeting infatuation, a crush?"

              "Other girls have crushes on you," Kira stated firmly. "I'm not one of them."

              Donovan drew back and grinned wolfishly. "Really?"

              Kira shoved his shoulder. "Don't pretend like you don't know." She rolled her eyes. "You're a complete campus sensation. I bet your supervisors have to have special talks with just you to ensure complete pandemonium doesn't break out every time you do something different with your hair."

              "Goes to show you how effective those talks are." Donovan reached up to tuck a strand of hair tenderly behind her ear.

"I won't tell anyone." Kira's eyes pleaded with him.

Though it was getting harder and harder to resist her offer of a romantic relationship, Donovan persevered. "You don't even like me," he reminded them both. "You think I'm a son of a bitch. Remember?"

"I still think that," she responded automatically. "But that doesn't mean I don't love you."

"What if I don't love you back?" he pointed out.

Kira's eyebrows drew together in confusion, and he could tell that his question had come as a surprise to her. Good. Maybe it would hurt her, but it had the potential to wake them both up. He doubted he could do much more damage to her than he had already done.

"Kiss me again," she said finally. He moved to pull away, but Kira reached up to grab hold of his wrist. "Kiss me and prove it if that's the truth. Otherwise I know you're lying."

"Maybe I don't want to kiss you," he said.

Kira's eyes narrowed. "If that's true, then it will be over quickly."

He could give her a swift peck on the lips and call it good. Hell, he didn't have to rise to her challenge at all. This wasn't a freshman lab where experimentation was required to prove a theory.

Donovan leaned in, and Kira parted her lips against the seam of his mouth as he gave into her demands and kissed her. She was determined not to make this easy for him. Her approach brought with it all the wetness and warmth that he normally would have had to work toward; she opened like a flower to him, urging him on wordlessly. Her hand alighted on his neck and her fingers flared up toward his jaw. She didn't hold him with any force, but Donovan couldn't have pulled away if he wanted to.

"Like hell this is going to be over quickly," he growled. He surged forward, pressing her back into the couch, and Kira sighed against him blissfully as he escalated the kiss past what he had promised himself he would. His tongue delved against her mouth, testing her defenses, and she gave herself over to him. Despite her eager submission, they both knew who held the real power in that moment.

Donovan parted her knees with his hand and pushed his aching body between her legs. Kira shifted to accommodate him, but he wouldn't allow an inch of her to escape; his hand alighted on her thigh and smoothed up the denim that sheathed it, cupping the curve of her backside. A tug had her sliding back beneath him as he moved to align himself atop her. Again, she went willingly, melting into the strength of his embrace, as Donovan continued to do for the next hour what they both knew he shouldn't: he kissed them both into a state of lightheadedness that even his earlier bottle of wine had failed to achieve.

Kira returned to her apartment without incident the next morning, but over the course of the next several days, she started to feel… strange. It wasn't a feeling she could put into words, but she guessed it had begun with her long make-out session with Professor Donovan on his couch.

              She felt lighter; her hips rolled more deeply when she walked; her legs seemed longer, and the swells of her body seemed somehow more ample. It was an overnight change, if it
was
a change, and it confused her. Was it just her body reacting to feeling good? To finally scratching the surface of what it wanted? Was she less tense now that she knew Professor Donovan, without a doubt, reciprocated her feelings for him?

              By the time the weekend concluded and Monday rolled around, it was obvious that the changes were taking place in more than just her imagination. She was used to getting occasional appreciative looks as she walked between classes on campus, but today it felt like male students and teachers alike were stopped in their tracks by the sight of her. She noticed that even Dr. Kilman paused overlong to stare at her on his way to the faculty break room. Kira nodded to him uncomfortably, and was grateful when she was finally able to duck into Professor Donovan's classroom.

              She wasn't the first student to arrive by any stretch, but she was earlier than even Professor Donovan today. Kira took her usual seat by the window and stowed her bag beneath her desk. When it became apparent that the awkward boy who sat next to her was about to find the courage to strike up a conversation, she quickly pulled out her copy of
Jane Eyre
and hid herself behind the text. Her heart was racing—just trying to get to class had felt like an event in and of itself. What on earth was going on? Was she just anxious to see Donovan again? Her lips still felt raw from their last heated session together, and she passed her tongue over them unconsciously. The words blurred together on the page as she lost herself in memories of his passion, his skill, his
taste…

             
Something crashed to the floor at the front of the room, and every head raised itself in alarm. Professor Donovan had entered his class and knocked over his chair in almost the same stride. His eyes were riveted on Kira.

After a loaded moment, she sank back behind her book once more as he bent to pick up his chair. Her pulse was racing in her veins, and she felt like she was running a fever. Was that why he had knocked over his chair? Because he felt the same reaction upon seeing her?

What the
hell
was going on?

              Professor Donovan didn't call on her for the entire lesson, which should have come as a relief to Kira, but whatever was mounting between them was decidedly the
opposite
of relief. She found she couldn't hold still as the minutes ticked by; she squirmed constantly. Was she imagining it, or did Donovan pause every time she moved in her seat?

This was a disaster. She couldn't believe her fellow students hadn't picked up on it with the way they were carrying on. Donovan had been right to protest a romantic relationship with her—they were way, way too obvious.

              The clock struck the hour, finally, and Kira was out of her chair in an instant. She tried to pack up her materials quickly, but her hands shook, and her fingers fumbled, until it was a sure thing she would be the last one out of the classroom. Once she finally thought she had her shit together, both literally and figuratively, she turned to make a break for the door. She wanted to say something to Donovan, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him, much less speak—she had no idea what had come over her. She needed to get this figured out, and
fast
, before…

              As she passed his desk, his hand shot out to seize her inner thigh. She shot a startled look toward the door and watched as it only narrowly eased shut behind the last student. Professor Donovan's grip on her couldn't be mistaken for anything other than intimate.

              What was he doing? Someone could walk in on them at any moment!

              He reeled her in and out of view of the window inset into the door. His face looked unusually flushed, and his glasses lay forgotten on his desk. "What did you do?" he demanded. The pressure of his hand between her legs was exquisite agony, too much and yet not enough. He gripped her in a way that Kira knew meant he wouldn't let her go until he had an answer. The only problem was, she didn't
have
one. It was like the early days of English 101 all over again.

              "Something is different," he continued.

              "I know." Being this close to him, Kira felt as if she had forgotten how to breathe. The classroom was the exact wrong place to be having these feelings, but she felt as if her carefully-guarded attraction for Professor Donovan was rapidly overrunning her. She could get in a quick kiss, couldn't she? Maybe even more than that? She imagined how it would feel to have the pressure of his hand higher up at the junction between her legs and shuddered. She had guessed all along that they would probably take things slow in their relationship, but this was a new and unexpected development.

              "Well, what the hell is it, Bentley?" Donovan demanded in a hard whisper. "Are you wearing perfume?" She didn't flinch from the temperamental tone of his question; she was mesmerized by it. She had never seen Professor Donovan acting this way before. His loss of composure made her feel raw and achy, almost as if she
wanted
him to turn that aggressive energy on her.

              "No," she gasped. "I don't wear perfume, professor."

              "You smell different. You're… everything about you is different." He drew her closer, until she was practically seated in his lap. His hand inched upward, and Kira bit her lip to keep from making any sound. "I think I know what this is. Jesus."

              "What?" she demanded tersely. "Is there something wrong with me? If there is, just tell me. I've felt like this all weekend ever since I left your apartment! I feel…" She struggled to form the words. The hand creeping up her thigh was doing nothing to help her concentration. Had he forgotten it was there?

              "I feel… like I need something. Desperately. But I don't know what it is."

              Professor Donovan dropped his bomb. "It's possible you've gone into heat," he murmured. "I've heard about it happening in the wolf world. Your body senses that there is a viable mate around, and it begins to produce pheromones to let them know you're sexually available."

              "That's creepy," Kira said, but she couldn't hide the fact that she was blushing behind her unhappy tone. "And clinical. How do I stop it from happening?"

              "It's unconscious, from what I understand. I doubt you have any real control over it."

              "It would explain the way everyone is acting," she mentioned. "At least, the way the males on campus are acting."

Donovan's steely eyes narrowed territorially. "How are they acting, exactly?"

"Like they're attracted to me," Kira said despondently. "Like they're'
stupid
attracted to me. But I don't understand how anyone else would even pick up on it, if what you're saying is true. Isn't that something only a werewolf would know?"

              "Pheromones are something that every species gives off to varying degrees. You're a wolf, but you're also a human woman." Professor Donovan paused, and she saw his throat work. "Those poor fools probably have no idea what's hitting them now."

              "Are my pheromones affecting you?" Kira asked in a breathless whisper.

              "To say the least."

              The hand that gripped her flank drew her all the way in against him, and Kira settled into straddling his lap. The magnetic pull between them only grew stronger the closer they were. She had a hazy awareness that they were still in his classroom, but it seemed somehow less important than it had been only moments before. She slipped her arms around him as he lowered his mouth to her neck. It felt so easy to come together like this, so natural, so…

"This is a mistake," Donovan insisted huskily. His hot breath gusted across the base of her throat, but he held back from giving her what she wanted. Kira
wanted
his lips on her, not hovering maddeningly close to her skin in a state of unbearable indecision. "I don't want to do this with you now. Not when it's some… biological imperative."

"But you've been wanting to do this," she said. She was getting better at reading between the lines of his words. "Haven't you?"

              Donovan groaned. "God, Kira, you can't say stuff like that to me. Not now."

              She had never seen him like this before. She had found herself on the receiving end of his overwhelmed passion for her, of course, but she had never had him eating out of the palm of her hand. The animal in her wanted to take full advantage of it.

              "We can't do this here," she whispered against the shell of his ear. "What is someone sees us?"

              Donovan shoved her off of him immediately and rose to his feet. "My office. Five minutes," he ordered.

Apparently 'biological imperative' was about to take precedent over romance. Not that she was complaining—she needed this heat inside her extinguished.

              Kira recovered her bag hastily and moved ahead of him out the door. Her heart beat wildly in her ears. It felt like it hadn't ceased pounding this hard all morning. She walked briskly down the hall to the water fountains and occupied herself with slaking her thirst, but it definitely wasn't the thirst that needed to be quenched. When she was finished, she turned and stared hard at the bulletin board as she waited a few minutes more.

              Then she was mounting the steps to the upper offices, trying not to sprint in her eagerness to get where she was going. She strode down the hall to Professor Donovan's office and pulled opened the door.

              The moment it was secured closed behind her, the man was upon her. Kira gasped, and the door thudded hard in its frame as he thrust her up against it in a sizzling encore of their first kiss. He lifted her off the ground and pinned her beneath his insistent body as his hand shot behind her to lock the door. Their mouths collided in a fevered exchange; her teeth caught on his lower lip as he tried his best to devour her whole.

              His thumbs glanced beneath her rib cage and hooked themselves on the hem of her shirt, yanking it up and over her head without even the briefest break in contact. Now the black pushup bra he had first seen at the Fun Fair bleeding through her wet T-shirt was in full evidence. He palmed one of her proud breasts and squeezed, and Kira went wild; she wanted to throw her head back, but his mouth kept hold of her, swallowing her impassioned moan.

              He whirled away from the door, carrying her with him. She wrapped her long legs around his waist to secure herself to him as he deposited her on the edge of his desk. Papers scattered beneath the careless sweep of his hand and fell to the floor in fluttering clumps. He pushed his hard body between her legs, and Kira opened to receive him, her form-fitting camel-colored skirt riding all the way up her thighs. His right hand detached itself from the desk to aid in its ascent, and she shuddered.

              "I can't count the number of times I've wanted to throw you across this desk," he growled into her neck. He followed up his dark admission with a nip beneath her ear, and Kira gasped. "Did you ever think about that, Kira, all the times I had you in here? Did you think about what you would do if I tried to have my way with you? Would you let me?"

              She cried out as his hand delved beneath her skirt and cupped her between her legs. Only the cotton of her panties remained as a barrier between them, but it suddenly felt as thin as tissue paper. Donovan's hand rubbed her, and she moved her body in time to his deep caresses, latching onto him with her mouth once more.

              "I'll take that as a yes," he concluded as he thrust his tongue past her parted lips. His kiss was hot and penetrating, and her awareness narrowed instantly in that moment to the way their mouths danced and joined. She barely noticed how he shifted their lower bodies closer until his pelvis was grinding her back against his desk.

              The fingers caressing her between her legs gave a firm, intrusive press over her entrance, and Kira nearly shot off the desk. Donovan's strong body barricaded her, forcing her back until she was situated precisely the way he wanted her to remain. There was nowhere for her to escape to… nowhere to turn except to the release his touch promised… she opened her legs wider, and the pads of his fingers slid at last beneath the damp fabric of her panties…

              A low knock at the door had them separating from one another in an instant. Kira gave a flying leap across the room as Donovan dove for her T-shirt, which was still hanging off the door handle where they had left it. He turned, reared back, and pitched it to her like the outcome of the ninth inning depended on it. Kira caught it handily and yanked it down over her head as Donovan straightened himself out.

              "Yep! Just a minute!" His voice sounded rough around the edges and much deeper than usual, and he hastily cleared his throat. His thumb flicked the lock and he leveraged the handle down just as Kira tossed herself down onto the couch and grabbed a book off the nearest shelf. She flipped it open to a random page and lost herself behind it just as the door opened. She didn't look up to see who it was.