Free The Shifter's Mate (Paranormal Pleasures) by Nadia Nightside Page A

counselors. But strictly speaking, Sunshine Springs was a camp for children, where parents could drop off their little ones and do whatever parents did when children were gone..
    Lauren ticked off little check marks as everyone took their food and crowded up automatically before her:
    Kyle, Carlie, the redhead twins Bree and Brittany, William, Roxanne, Roxanne’s older sister Tasha (who was counseling for her third year in a row), and Natalya, the girl from Eastern Europe with the last name Lauren still couldn’t pronounce even after hours of practice.
    She nodded and gave out brief hellos to everyone in turn, exchanging small pleasantries. Wasn’t the weather nice and warm? Did you remember bug spray? You’re welcome, I made the toast myself.
    Then, everyone was silent, waiting on her.
    “Just a few more people,” she explained to the small crowd. “Please feel free to chat and go back for seconds while you wait.”
    For a moment, Lauren felt a flutter of panic enter her mind. Where was he? Wasn’t he coming? He had told her he was coming...he had promised...
    Then she heard his car growling down the gravel drive—a classic muscle car, blue with orange trim, almost as sexy as he was. Lauren’s heart caught when she saw it, and again when she saw him step of out of his car—Bryce Markson. Local football star. Lantern-jawed hunk. Ripped stud. Total dreamboat, who Lauren had taken the time to enter regularly in her schedule of nightly fantasies—he came last, of course, because there was no thinking of anyone else after him. If he only knew how many times she had cum thinking about him...
    But as he stepped out, the other side of the car opened, and a gorgeous tanned leg stretched out slowly.
    No , thought Lauren, struggling to mask her approaching horror. No, no, no!
    But of course, yes. It was Maryse, Bryce’s girlfriend.
    Lauren clicked her pen nervously and began to approach the pair.
    What was she doing here? Maryse had canceled on the summer camp—she had insisted that she couldn’t make it, that her modeling contract made it impossible to commit to six weeks of work in a row, and Lauren had rejoiced, thinking she would finally get some alone time with Bryce. It made all her plans so much simpler.
    Maryse was everything Lauren wasn’t—blond, tall, gymnast-slim, tightly toned, and sparkling tanned, her every facet practically flawless.
    Lauren could not help but feel inferior in front of Maryse. There was no way around it. She felt like everyone felt inferior before the flawless blond.
    Lauren’s nerdy, good-natured friends—nowhere to be found, all of them finding better internship jobs through engineering companies and the like—told Lauren not to be so down on herself. They said her face was positively gorgeous, her body was voluptuous, her breasts just “amaaaazing,” and her thick brown hair a wonder to behold with how it practically never seemed to need work to look good. But all Lauren needed was a small sliver of a comparison between herself and a beauty queen-esque, tall, slender model-type like Maryse, and her whole world came crashing down.
    It didn’t help, of course, that Lauren had a naggingly present bisexual side in the members of her constantly touring sexual band, brought out to full concert whenever Maryse was around. Like many teenagers, Lauren hadn't learned yet how to reconcile all the different facets of her sexuality, and was more than a bit disgusted with herself with how badly she found herself wanting to lick and kiss various parts of Maryse’s perfect body with as much as she resented her at the same time.
    Lauren had admitted, in addition to previously-unending glee, to being surprised when Maryse emailed her, saying that she couldn’t do the work for the summer.
    Camp Sunshine Springs was a good gig—both for Lauren and the other counselors. For eight weeks of work in the sun, with the weekends off, Lauren would make six thousand dollars. Her compatriots, with less