“Excuse me?” She set her penetrating gaze on this man who dared to get smart with her.
I’ve killed men for less.
The man sipped his drink nonchalantly.
“You’re looking at me like I’m in the damn principal’s office. Not a good look for speed dating,” he slurred.
He’s completely shitfaced,she realized.
Her blood started to boil.
See, this is why I don’t socialize.
People are fucking idiots.
She noticed his eyes glowed behind the glaze of inebriation, flickering with the hint of a shifter’s essence.
Shifter…
Cate felt vaguely perplexed. She was familiar with most shifters, but this one did not smell like a shifter, did not emit the aura of a shifter. Despite such things, the glow was unmistakable.
“You’re a shifter.” The words fell out of her mouth without warning.
The man smiled lasciviously.
“Is that what you’re into?” The way his lips turned up in the corners sent a shiver down Cate’s spine, and she straightened her stance, looking over this specimen of shifter who did not meet the markings of a shifter.
She felt intrigued, to say the least, but his attitude was less than desirable.
“I am into individuals who can hold their liquor, for starters,” she retorted.
The man snickered. “Oh, I can hold a lot of things, sweet cheeks,” he grumbled as he shifted his position.
“I believe thou doth protest too much.” Cate felt her own lips turning up in a smile.
Perhaps she could have a little bit of fun, even if it wasn’t everyone else’s definition of fun.
“Is this your idea of flirting? Insulting me?” He ran his hand over his face, and Cate settled her gaze on his long tan fingers. The skin looked slightly weathered, as if this man spentalot of time in the sun.
Cate hated the sun.
She also noted the length of his middle finger, quietly glancing from the tip of his fingernail to his wrist, an age-old trick she’d used in her youth to determine the size of one’s endowment, which never really steered her wrong.
She blushed as she realized what she was doing, and the man let out a dark chuckle, his eyes glimmering with an amber glow.
BUZZZZZZZZ!
Just like that, he was gone.
Instead of sitting at the next table in the circuit, he’d managed to disappear into the sea of people, like a ghost. Thor, of all people, took his seat.
“Oh hey, Cate. I didn’t think this was your scene.”
She did not miss the surprise in his voice. Cate searched the room for the man who’d left her speechless, the man who had her imagining the size of his—
“It’s not. I didn’t think it was yours either, but thank you for reminding me just why I despise these sorts of things,” she drawled.
“What’s this?”