Mischief in a Fur Coat Read Online Free PDF Page B

She had been too hard on him. He was doing the best he could.
    “I’m sorry,” was all she said. She didn’t need to say more. He knew what she meant.
    “Me too,” he said softly.
    And then, without warning, he leaned in and put his lips on hers. They were rough and warm, and she felt an instant flash of hot fire passing from his body to hers. He had closed his eyes, but hers had flown wide open with shock.
    Drew Brooks, a man she would have sworn hated her only fifteen minutes earlier, had just kissed her.
    As suddenly as he had made the move, he pulled back and opened his eyes again, looking a little shell-shocked himself. Then, without any further words or explanation, he jumped up and took off into the woods, leaving Hope alone and baffled.
    She touched her lips where his had been moments before, and then, despite the shitty day she’d had up to this point, she cracked a small smile.

Chapter Five
    Drew sat on the tiny porch of his one room cabin, puffing on a cigar and listening to the soft snoring coming from inside. It was past midnight, and everyone else was asleep. But Drew couldn’t seem to quiet down his racing mind, so he’d decided to come out and get some fresh air. He stared over at the massive addition to the cabin that was days away from completion. Drew should have been excited to move in, but he was starting to wonder if the building project had been a waste. The more he saw on the news, the more he had a feeling that the crew wasn’t going to be able to hide out in Michigan much longer. Sure, they were in the middle of the wilderness. But there were people around. People who liked to ask questions. And, although Drew had tried to be as conservative as possible with the amount of groceries he ordered from the general store, he knew the grocer was starting to get suspicious. There really wasn’t a way to order food for himself and nine bears and not have it look a little questionable. After today, he was pretty sure it was just a matter of time until someone figured things out.
    Besides, Hope was right. They couldn’t sit around and hide forever while the rest of the shifters in the world were being hunted and killed. Drew had always viewed the government as corrupt and useless, but he had preferred to keep his distance. This time, however, things had gotten too personal. His own family was being hunted. His friends’ clans were being hunted. Every day, new shifters were being murdered for the simple crime of just being shifters. Drew couldn’t keep just sitting by and watching that happen, and he knew his friends couldn’t, either.
    Drew took a long drag on his cigar, and then puffed the smoke out in little circles, watching as the moonlight lit up the small, gray shapes. He’d spent the evening finally coming clean to the rest of the crew about the news he’d been keeping from them. He hadn’t intended to be secretive. It had just kind of happened. He’d minimized what was truly going on out in the world in an attempt to protect his shifter friends. After all, if there was nothing they could do to help at the moment, anyway, wasn’t it better for them to be blissfully unaware of how awful the persecution had become?
    Drew had acted with good intentions, but he saw now that his secrecy had been a mistake. The clan had handled the news better than he’d expected, and instead of becoming blind with anger they had started brainstorming ways they could help. Thankfully, they had also forgiven him for not being thorough with the news. Hope had stared daggers at him the whole time, but that was about it. And he could handle a couple of angry looks from her. In fact, he almost enjoyed it when she glared at him. She looked so sexy when she was all fired up like that.
    Drew felt a stirring of desire, and he let out a long sigh. He should have known that being around beautiful shifter women all day would eventually lead to his developing a big crush on one of them. Drew hadn’t had a girlfriend