Free To Lie With Lions: A BBW Shifter Romance (Wolf Rock Shifters Book 4) by Carina Wilder

didn’t need this shit from a shifter. It was only unfortunate that he felt so drawn to her. The feelings were foreign to him, and much as he attempted to dismiss her from his mind for being too high-maintenance or too difficult, he had nothing in the way of success. She was leaving her mark on him, though to date it had not left a physical scar. Worse than that, though, she had branded herself on something within him.
    Cecile walked up and kissed him on the cheek when he’d let the door close behind him.
    “How are you?” she asked. “I was afraid I wouldn’t see you today.”
    “I’m fine. But what the hell are you talking about? What was that, Cecile?”
    Her smile disappeared. “What was what?”
    “I saw you an hour ago and you acted like I had leprosy. Now you’re all happy to see me.”
    “What do you m ean, you saw me an hour ago? No, you didn’t.”
    “Yeah, I did. You even spoke to me. What, are you saying you don’t remember?”
    “I’m saying it didn’t happen. An hour ago I was having a massage at the hotel. I just finished about fifteen minutes ago.” Cecile’s voice was moving into hostile territory now. “And if you don’t believe me, you can damn well go ask them.”
    “Well, sorry, but I don’t believe you. I know what I saw, and I’m not a fucking idiot.”
    With that, Cecile opened her mouth as though to speak but seemed to think better of it. She grabbed her coat and all but ran out of the café, leaving Nash confused and angry, standing alone. He watched as she got into a car and drove off. A new-looking Toyota sedan. He had watched her leave the house in an SUV.
    He sat, slumped in a chair, as he began to wonder if he was going mad.
    Nothing was making any sense.
     
     
    Cecile wiped away a tear as she drove, annoyed that any man could make her shed the damn things. She was a tough woman, she knew, and hard to hurt. But Nash was real; he was a good guy, or at least she’d thought he was. The sort of salt-of-the-earth man that every woman wanted, deep down. He was beautiful to look at, but it was his nature that she’d grown fond of. He had in him the instincts of the lion; one who would watch over his mate and eventually over their young. She supposed that it was the impression that he was strong and protective that had drawn her to him in the first place. Something in her wanted him, not only sexually, but she saw him as a potential father to her offspring; a litter of cubs who would take after them both.
    White tigers in nature were known to be infertile, but not so as shifters. She knew that she was capable of bearing offspring, and her body and instincts told her that Nash was the mate she’d always wondered about, since she’d been a young girl.
    Now she wanted to laugh through her tears. How was it that this man whom she hardly knew had made his mark on her in this way? And yet, she’d heard of this happening with shifters. They saw their mate and they knew. Everything in them kicked in at once, wanting to resolve the situation: wanting to secure the path to their future, to their mate, to their own happiness. Nash, she’d thought, was that future, in spite of her father’s very human and very snobbish objections.
    But Nash was acting like a lunatic. It was hard for even the strongest woman to love a madman, let alone like him.
     
     
     
    Nash decided at last to head back to the wolves’ cabin. He wanted to report on his findings to someone and to see if anything else had been uncovered on their end. Even though Dascha didn’t seem like the greatest alpha the world had ever seen, there wasn’t much in the way of an alternative.
    He pulled up the dirt road that led to their cabin and drove in slowly, pondering what he’d say. As he approached the house, he saw a large SUV parked out front. It looked like the same car that Cecile had driven that morning.
    As he got out he closed the door behind him. The cabin’s door opened and Zoe walked out.
    “Oh, hi,”