Guardians Of The Shifters by Shannon Schoolcraft

and ran my fingers through his hair. A small purr like moan filled the room and vibrated through me. Caden’s voice came out as a low whisper.
    “Mm…this is nice.”
    I could only muster up one word and it came out shaky. “Yeah.”
    I could hear a smile in his voice. “I haven’t held someone like this in a long time…makes me never want to let go.”
    I could hear my heart in my ears thump thump. My body started to feel warm from the close proximity. It wasn’t a bad warmth, it was more like our body heat mingled together and oddly enough it was nice. We stayed like that for a while longer, his arms wrapped around me and me running my fingers through his hair. After a few more seconds he lifted his head up to look at me. “I should probably shower.” Yes he probably should but I didn’t want to move away. I mustered up enough will power to step out of his arms and when his warmth disappeared I wanted it back.
    He stood from the bed and went into the bathroom, I didn’t leave the room until I heard the shower turn on. I walked back out to the small living room and went straight for my bag. I dumped its contents onto the couch and picked up a black dagger. The metal was a shiny black and the handle was made out of some kind of rubber with grooves. I think it was specifically made so that it wouldn’t slip out of your hands when they got all sweaty and nasty from fighting. Not a bad idea, who ever came up with it must have taken time to design it just right.
    I was so absorbed with the dagger that I didn’t hear Caden until he spoke. “What are you doing?” I jumped what seemed like a mile high causing the blade to slice across my palm. Holy crap that sucker was sharp. A line of blood bubbled up from the cut and ran down the side of my hand. Caden was in front of me faster than my eyes could track and gently he grabbed my hand. I stopped moving around like a dork when I saw that he was shirtless. There were still beads of water peppered on his skin. One rolled down between his pecs, over the ridges of his abs and disappeared at the waist band of his dark blue pants that hung loosely from his hips.
    For a minute I forgot all about my hand while I stared at him only to be sucked out of the stupor that I was in when he poked and prodded at it. I inhaled through clenched teeth, kind of sounded like a hissing sound. Caden gave me a disapproving look.
    “What were you doing?”
    Shrugging. “Just looking at it.”
    He arched a brow. “So much so that everything around you faded.”
    “I was admiring the handy work.” Until you walked out, I didn’t say that last part out loud.
    He looked back at my hand. “It doesn’t look to bad…let’s clean it up and head to dinner.” His eyes locked with mine. “I’m starving.”
    I swallowed thickly, I remember the last time he said that and he ended up kissing me. From the way he looked at me I knew that he remembered to. He had me plop down in a kitchen chair, understandable seeing how the blood droplets would stain the carpet and not the tacky linoleum. I was capable of cleaning it myself but he was determined to do it. I wasn’t going to complain, I liked the way his skin felt on mine, I know that I shouldn’t but heaven help me, I couldn’t help the way that I feel.
    After it was all said and done Caden disappeared into his bedroom and came out pulling a shirt on over his head. I’ll admit, I could watch his muscles ripple all day with some form of movement, actually I could watch him all day, after all I am a girl. Without Caden noticing I grabbed a dagger and stuck it in the waist band of my pants. Five minutes later we were out the door and heading to the dining hall.
    All eyes were on us as we walked in, the only difference was was that nobody gave us weird looks. I mean why would they? There were other pressing issues besides a shifter and guardian getting all buddy buddy like say…how the assassins were able to breach this place in the first place.