Page 7 of Angry Lion’s Naughty Little Neighbor (Company 417 Shifters #60)

Chapter Seven

Aaron

She wakes me up with her mouth, and I let out a soft sigh and then, “What the hell am I gonna do with you, Kelsey?”

She giggles, gives my balls a light squeeze, and says, “Well, if you haven’t figured that out by now, I don’t know what to tell you. That’s the twenty-sixth blowjob I’ve given you by the way.”

I sit up. “Really? You’re keeping track?”

She bursts into laughter. She falls back and rolls on the bed as she holds her sides. “Of course I’m not!” she laughs. “You’re so easy!”

She laughs while I groan, and I say, “You keep that up, and I’m going throw you in the pool.”

She giggled and sits up. She grabs my hand and says, “Come on.” As she pulls me to the bathroom and into the shower, it occurs to me that twenty-seven was utterly believable, even a little light.

We’ve been together for just under five months.

Since I’m gone for seven days total for every fifteen days, that works out to about two and a half months.

It’s fair to say those days are filled with sex.

And more! Not just sex. Today, she starts her classes at the community college down the street.

She’s not sure what she wants her degree to be when she gets her bachelor’s degree so for now, she’s just concentrating on an associates degree.

This one will be an AA in accounting. She doesn’t know what she wants to do but she knows she wants to understand money more so that’s what we came up with.

We.

Yes. I’m her guide. I guess that’s the best way to put it.

Actually, I suppose we have a bit of a BDSM relationship.

Well, there’s no kinkiness involved but she asks me to direct her and to hold her accountable for her behavior, her goals, and her progress toward her goals.

When I talked about her with Colin, a tiger shifter at the firehouse, he told me all about BDSM and said it was pretty obvious to him that’s what we were doing even if it wasn’t kinky.

Anyway, I don’t care. I don’t need a label, and our relationship doesn’t need that sort of definition in order for both of us to love how things are going.

I certainly love it. Of course I love the sex.

She’s an incredibly beautiful girl seventeen years younger than me.

How am I not going to love it? She’s also aggressively giving when it comes to sex.

She seems to take as much joy in pleasing me as she does when she’s being pleased.

But it’s not just the sex. She didn’t know how to shop.

She didn’t know how to cook day to day. In fact, the meal she made for me that first time, the steak and rice, was the first time she’d cooked since she bought the house.

At least, the first time apart from ready to microwave meals.

Now, she’s taking classes at the community center for different recipes.

Every time I come home, she makes a new recipe for me.

She’s learning how to shop and she’s learning how to live like a normal person.

And she’s just so damned eager to do it all.

And the way she’s growing and becoming something new is impossible to ignore.

I’m proud of her all the time, excited for her all the time, and ready to go all in with this girl.

I know it’s too early to think this way but I’m ready to talk about forever.

As in, I’m ready to be with her for the rest of my life. I’m ready to tell her I’m a lion.

I won’t. Not yet. It’s not the kind of thing you just throw out to someone.

I won’t marry her without telling her. I won’t do that.

It may surprise you to know that not all shifters share that opinion when it comes to pure humans.

In fairness, we have just over two decades of being known to humanity.

We have thousands of years of hiding what we were.

So, it wasn’t uncommon for a shifter to marry a human and that human not to know at all that he or she married something more than ordinary.

Since shifter children don’t gain any shifter abilities until they reach their teenage years, it’s not something any human can tell.

A shifter can. If I walk into a room with a dozen people, I’ll instantly know which, if any, are shifters. But humans can’t.

A secretive nature developed over thousands of years isn’t going to be easily dismissed in twenty-five. I’m not one of the shifters who wants to hide his nature from the woman he loves. Not me. I just want love that’s fully aware of all the variables but still chooses to remain.

A little later, I kiss her goodbye and head for the station but I change my mind and give Garrett, my superior, a call.

I need to go wild. I need to get my head in order.

Go wild. If a shifter says that, it means to shift into animal form.

Lions retain their intellect more than any other shifter when in animal form.

Except for dragons, I suppose. It’s possible dragons retain theirs more.

The point, though, is that when I shift, I become a lion but my mind is still intact.

I can still process clearly and effectively.

Wolves can do that somewhat but the aggressiveness and powerful instinct of the animal can take over.

Bears become so like their natural counterparts that there are some bears who shift and remain in animal form for years.

Tigers. Leopards. Panthers. They keep their intellect fairly well but only lions are human minds in the animal form.

But nonetheless, we shift to get centered.

We process emotions far more effectively in animal form.

When things are overwhelming or emotional, a shift is often the answer.

Sometimes, like now, there’s no real confusion but it’s a time of clear and obvious change.

We go wild. Every shifter does and every shifter living in human society needs it from time to time. I need it now. That’s for sure.

I don’t hesitate when Garrett answers. “I need to go wild. Can I do that now or do you need me there first?”

“Go ahead,” he says, “we’re good. Standard day, nothing special.

” Then he hangs up. All of the firefighters at Company 417 are shifters.

It’s by design. The public doesn’t know we are.

Most of the people in the government don’t know either.

Perhaps seven or eight people know in total.

The idea is for us to be very successful and then to announce us to the world.

Well, we’ve been the best company for years now, hands down.

They’re never going to announce it, I think. That’s fine by me. I don’t need people to think of me as Aaron the lion shifter. Aaron the firefighter is fine. Secrecy is so ingrained into our culture, that I believe all of the other Company 417 shifters feel the same way that I do.

In any case, we’re all shifters, and that’s why it didn’t take any effort at all for me to get permission to go wild this morning, and I turn my wheel and head up into the hills.