Etienne (The Shifters of Shotgun Row Book 1) Read online

  “Look around.” I tried not to roll my eyes, really I did.

  I had been so terrified as the ghost warned me away, and my heart was still pounding a mile a minute as Justice and I attempted baking and Bruno left, but all of that was gone. It dissipated immediately when Etienne’s arms came around me, and I just felt safe and oddly not perturbed by the mess.

  “I call the work tables and floors.” Justice pushed away from the table he’d been leaning on, the seriousness on his face gone, save for in his eyes. “These hands are too pretty to do dishes.”

  “Then put on gloves, asshat.” The teasing was nonexistent in Etienne’s tone, but we all played along at the joke. There was much to discuss, but not here.

  “I have pretty flowered ones for your dainty hands.” I threw him a pair of yellow work gloves, the only kind we had in the bakery. Didn’t make my joke less funny, given the way Etienne was holding his side.

  “My hands are far from dainty. You’ve seen my dick, woman. You know this.” He slid the gloves on, starting the water as a growling sound filled the air. “Pipe down, Eti. She’s gonna see all our dicks. It’s not like yours is that much smaller than mine.”

  “I call bologna.” I snagged the broom, going to town as Eti wiped the tables clean. “Etienne’s is bigger.” My blush burned red.

  “Lie. You haven’t seen it. Eti is too freaking gentleman to have done ya drunk.” He rinsed off my big mixing bowl before giving me the what-now look, at which I pointed to the sanitizer sink.

  “That may be so, but it was pressed against me all night, and it was fecking huge.” Who was I? I didn’t speak like this, yet here I was spouting penis comments. And I didn’t die of humiliation.

  “Damn. I was sure mine was bigger,” Justice grumbled as he went back to the few remaining issues.

  “Longer doesn’t mean shit up against girth, brother.” Etienne slapped him on his back as he passed behind him.

  The banter continued as we made quick work of the kitchen before heading out, Justice going onto the row, as I now called their shotgun house community, for it was that, a community.

  “I need to go to my place,” I clarified as he turned the wrong way. I had every desire to go back with him, but Curtis needed to eat.

  “My gator is nixing that option.” Etienne kept going as if that was that.

  I slid my hand onto his thigh, needing to be closer to him than I was.

  “Well, my gator wants to eat.” Nasty yucky bugs at that.

  “He’s coming with us, then.” Etienne banged a U-ey.

  “The gator is gonna get a pet gator,” I mused.

  I really needed to get that ghost alone. Not only did I want to help her move on, but I needed to know why the lizard. Had she known about Etienne, or did she hate the little bugger and want him gone, or something else entirely?

  “Watch that mouth, Mate.” There was zero censure to his words.

  “Or what?” I challenged as we pulled up to my place.

  “Or I’ll give you something better to do with it.”

  I practically jumped out of the vehicle, my mind wandering to all the naughty places. “And why did he have to go put that in my head? Now it will be all I think of,” I mumbled as the door slammed a little too hard.

  “I like you thinking of my kisses.” Darn shifter hearing.

  “Yeah.” I leaned up to kiss him. “That,” I lied before kissing him soundly.

  “Lies,” he mumbled as our kiss deepened.

  “Hot damn, woman, you’re gonna be the death of me.” He panted as our lips parted.

  That was where he was wrong. He was going to be the death of me.

  Etienne

  Tansy clearly did not understand the meaning of stay close. She was shadowing me, but I needed more. My gator needed more.

  “Tansy, I swear. I know you don’t get shifters yet, but I promise if you don’t get close to me and touch some part of my skin, I’m gonna turn into a ten-foot gator right here on your fucking front yard next to the damned gnomes. For fuck’s sake, get on me, woman.”

  “Oh, goodness gravy. Fine. I’m on you like frosting on a king cake.” And she was. Her curves were flush against my back while I checked out her house on the outside and until I had cleared the inside for safety.

  “No bogeymen?” she asked. Damn, the woman teased me to death about the damned gator picking up a pet gator, and now she was on me about who I was as her mate.

  I kind of loved it.

  Fuck it. I did love it.

  I also loved what she’d alluded to doing with her mouth. I could almost imagine the feel of those soft, warm red lips around my…

  “How long do you think I’m staying at your place?” Tansy said, sticking her head out from the bathroom.

  “Few days, give or take. You want to bring a pillow or anything?”

  I was taking a mental stock of what I had in the house for her—to make my mate comfortable. It was a short list. I owned like one pillow, and it was on its last legs.

  “I’ll just use your biceps, K?” She peeked out and winked at me. Fuck it all, if that winking didn’t make me go hard instantaneously. She was playing with fire.

  “We have to stop for food. T-John’s is open for another hour.”

  “Almost done. I just need to throw some clothes in a bag. Will I be needing pajamas or…”

  Enough was enough. Before she could even finish the sentence, she was pinned on the bed, arms above her head, and her sweet voice had turned into a moan.

  “No more of that. I’m warning you, female. I want to bed you in my home, in my nest, where I can take my time and not be distracted by some fucking bear prowling around. Now, let’s hurry before I have you naked and bitten right here.”

  I barely pulled myself off her before she grabbed me back, her hands threaded around my neck.

  “Just one kiss and then I will behave.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I can’t get my mind off your mouth anyway.”

  “But not on your mouth…” She giggled.

  This woman was trouble.

  I pressed her down on the bed and covered her sweet and sassy mouth with mine. Her lips were soft but strong, and she tasted like one of those gourmet cinnamon rolls. She whimpered a little, frustrated with her hands being pinned, but gave in after a few seconds, becoming pliant underneath me.

  I made her stay with me while I packed up the Dart with her stuff.

  “Let’s get to your place. I’m all ready for bed.”

  I chuckled. “Please. What kind of man do you think I am? You have to make me dinner first. Otherwise, it will feel cheap.”

  “Fine. Fine. You’ll need your energy anyway. Wanna tell me more about this marking thing? I heard someone talk about it.”

  Justice. What an asshole.

  “For our mating to be complete and recognized by other shifters, you and I have to be marked by each other.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Explain marked. Like tattooed?”

  I reached across the console, took her hand in mine, and pulled it to my mouth, taking in more of her scent where it was concentrated at her wrist.

  “Marking as in biting. Just once, and it won’t hurt but for a second. I promise. Besides, you will be way too busy to worry about it.”

  Tansy

  The last place I wanted to be was T-John’s, but Etienne insisted and kept mumbling about how I needed to let him feed me, so I complied.

  T-John’s was fine enough a place for most people, but I could see those left behind, and it wasn’t pretty and far outside my ability to cope. According to my quick library search after my first trip there, I discovered it was built on the site of fire almost a hundred years earlier. The fire was long forgotten by the town but very much still the present for the plethora of ghosts.

  Unlike Bruno’s ghost and Meemaw, even Star’s sister for that matter, they didn’t even see me. They were still stuck in that day, screaming, running around trying to get out, or banging on nonexis
tent doors. The first few times I went, it nearly broke me, and I ended up ordering most of my food bulk through the bakery, going there only when I couldn’t finagle my way out of it.

  Now here I was, in the parking lot of awful, unable to move. There was no way Etienne was going to let me stay in the car; I’d already tried to talk him out of it with no success. I waited in my seat as he walked around to let me out, all gentleman-like.

  “Damn, woman, I was hoping being with me would make you feel safe, and here you are throwing fear out like it’s that paper confetti shit.”

  I took his offered hand, climbing out of the car and straight into his arms. “S’not you.” I squeezed him tighter. “I do feel safe with you. Did you sense fear at the bakery?”

  “Not for long.” He tipped my chin. “You need to tell me what has you like this. My gator, he wants to bleed all things right now to make it better.”

  “T-John’s. It was built over an old boarding house. One that burned.”

  “Get in the car.” He guided me in, already punching the numbers on his phone. “Hey, Callum, I need you to go to T-John’s. I need steak, eggs, veggies, cereal, and I don’t know—shit girls like. Fuck you very much.”

  I thought about stopping him a couple of times, but even I could see his gator was close.

  “There, shopping done.” He started the engine, the tension in the car thick. He was livid.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I can handle it. I promise.”

  His keys were out and on the dash, his body facing mine before I finished my vow.

  “You think I’m mad about T-John’s?”

  I nodded.

  “Crazy, silly, gorgeous Tansy, my gator is pissed at me for not seeing the signs of your discomfort soon enough.” He cupped my cheek as he spoke, his warmth removing the last bit of fear I had. I wasn’t going in that place. Etienne saw to it. He protected me, even if to the rest of the world being scared to buy groceries was ridiculous. Good gator.

  “So, you’re not mad I didn’t tell you?”

  “I’m a little miffed, yeah, ’cause telling me would’ve saved us time, but my gator—he’s pissed at me, not you.”

  I wasn’t going to pretend to understand what he was feeling, my body didn’t house a beast, but I took him at his word, and as we drove off I held onto his thigh, needing to feel him and less than pleased at myself for picking out a stick, one that made holding his hand and feeling his skin less than ideal.

  By the time we got to his place, I was good and calm. Better than. Something about Shotgun Row had me feeling like I belonged in a way I never had before, not even at Meemaw’s. This crew of foul-mouthed men was where I belonged. They were like brothers. Not Etienne, of course. Nothing I felt about him could be described as brotherly.

  “We’re home,” I announced as we pulled in front of his house.

  “Say it again.” Etienne unbuckled his belt, turning to me so I could get his undivided attention.

  “We’re home?”

  “Perfect damn woman. That’s what you are.” Yanking my face to his as he kissed me hard, all teeth and tongues and lips, I let myself get lost in him, his scent enveloping me, his body singing to mine. I began to climb over the darn stick, ready to climb him like a tree as a knock on the window had me jumping back.

  “Food’s here, asshole,” Callum called through the glass.

  “My name’s Tansy,” I called back, being a sass monster, and was rewarded with a bellowing laugh from my Etienne, for he was that—mine.

  “I like her,” he called behind him as he marched to Etienne’s door, holding mass amounts of groceries in his arms. He was dropping them as we got out of the car. “You owe me ninety bucks.”

  “Put it on my tab.” Etienne grabbed my hand as we made our way to the house.

  “Har. Har.” Callum shoulder-checked Etienne as we got to the groceries. “Just for that I’m coming for dinner.”

  Of course he was. Probably for the best since all I could think about was getting Etienne out of his jeans. I blamed the mating stuff because that was so not like me.

  “You cookin’?” Etienne threw him a bag of what looked like mostly jerky from my original perusal. I had a feeling his ideas of what I would eat were drastically different than reality.

  “You’re the one who mated a chef.”

  “Baker,” Etienne corrected.

  Fine, I was a chef, but I was not by auto-default the one to always cook. Best set that precedent from the get-go.

  “Same dif, pansy.”

  “Um, pansy?” I asked, more curious than perturbed.

  Etienne all but growled. Good man. Pansy? Wasn’t that like offensive?

  “Yeah, your mate said I can’t call you panty anymore so pansy is close.”

  So not the way I thought it was offensive, but offensive for the win.

  “Or there is my name—Tansy.” I countered knowing it was a losing cause.

  “Which means a kind of pansy,” Justice appeared out of nowhere, thankfully clothed this time. “So, I’m with Callum. And I like your cooking.”

  “For serious, guys?” My exacerbation almost comical. “Fine. Call me whatever you want, but if I’m cooking, you’re cleaning.” At least I could get out of dish duty, since it looked like the Tansy cooking pressure was being turned up a notch.

  “You bring dessert?” Justice asked hopefully.

  “Etienne did, and it’s for me only.” And I was so going to enjoy it.

  Etienne

  “That never happened, and you know it, you dumb som-bitch.”

  There were no lies in the air, so either both of us were right, or both of us truly believed we were telling the truth.

  I tended to believe the latter.

  “I’m not even fucking with you, Tans.”

  Loic was now calling Tansy, Tans, and even made a joke about her being the Tasmanian devil in bed.

  I couldn’t wait to see. I bet she was a hellcat.

  It didn’t take long for all the boys to come in. I knew once they smelled food cooking in my house, they would be over.

  They needed to know my mate, and she needed to know she was safe with them even though most of the time I wanted to shove my foot up their asses.

  “I bet it was cute,” she cooed over Loic’s story of me supposedly wearing a Wonder Woman costume to school on Halloween. I would go to my grave saying it was Superman.

  “At least it was better than Justice. He wanted to be the Grim Reaper for like seven years straight. Claimed he could talk to the dead.”

  Fuck. My eyes darted to Tansy. I needed to kick my own ass for saying stupid shit.

  “Man, that would be a trip, though. Talkin’ to dead people and shit? Yeah, I bet they wouldn’t let you sleep or anything, like that dopey-looking kid on that movie with Bruce Willis.”

  He did an impression of the kid in the hospital bed, delivering the line. Everyone knew the line.

  “They do let me sleep. But, I have had some visit me in the shower.” Tansy twirled her fork in the plate of spaghetti in front of her while she spoke. Her hesitance was thick in the air. She wanted them to accept her.

  And she trusted my brothers enough to share her secret.

  “A gifted one. I knew there was something but couldn’t put my finger on it. Not a typical human, after all.” Callum always sounded like his sentences had been put together a century ago, and he was just the mouthpiece to deliver the knowledge.

  Tansy shrugged, still not sure.

  “Fuck me. Dead people? Etienne, why didn’t you tell me?” Justice asked.

  “Not my story to tell. My mate needed to trust you first.”

  Lazare jumped from his chair. I stiffened, thinking he was going to set a fire or take his pants off. You never knew what was going to happen with the coyote.

  “I need a nap. Just get your gloves on. I’ll wash and you dry.”

  They never missed a beat. My mate just told them she talks to dead people. She might as well have said she blows
her nose for all they cared. She belonged to me, and she clicked with my crew. That was all we needed to know.

  “A nap?” Tansy said, looking at her watch.

  Loic leaned over. “He doesn’t sleep like the rest of us. He just naps like he’s on crack or something. It’s coyotes for you. Too much energy.”

  Tansy wasn’t allowed to help with the dishes or the cleanup. She watched on and tried to help two or three times before I put her over my shoulder and carried her out into the living room to stew.

  The boys filed out after everything was clean.

  She got a lot of “thanks, Pansy” and one ‘thanks, Tasmanian devil’ from the boys before she shooed them out of the house.

  “Come on, just one more slice of pie,” Justice whined. Why did I have to cave and whip up a pie?

  “Nope. Etienne and I have plans.”

  His eyebrow furrowed. The dork. He just wasn’t getting it.

  “Plans with my mate and my mouth and his…”

  That’s when I put my hand over her mouth, tossed her over my shoulder again, and shut the door in Justice’s face.

  Tansy

  “Pecker,” Loic shouted through the door. “She was gonna say pecker.”

  Etienne tensed up behind me as I tried in vain to contain my giggles. My cheeks were burning, but it was oddly comforting to hear him comfortable enough with me to torment Etienne through me like that.

  “Etienne, you lucky son of a bitch,” Callum called out. They were all still on the stoop from the sounds of it. How they were not busting a gut was beyond me.

  “I call bullshit.” Justice was loud, but his voice getting farther away. “She was gonna say cock.” Farther away to get a head start from my mate, who swung the door open, pushing me behind him as my laughter poured out.

  “Asshat. She’s a fucking lady,” Loic countered with a wink just as I peeked from behind Etienne. “She was probably gonna say penis.”

  “Will you jackholes shut the eff up?” And that was when I noticed the twitch in Etienne’s side. He was about to laugh, too. “I’m losing my boner.”

  “No.” I snaked my hand around to the front of his jeans. “He’s not.” Who was I, and what had I done with the girl who was all shy about naked time. Something about Etienne had my filters for what was appropriate for a woman to do when completely gone. He also had my engines revving at all times. It was the mate thing. It had to be because it was so not a Tansy thing.