Page 30 of Hot Girls Date Shifters

“... but really, I think you might’ve saved my life tonight so, thank you. I mean it.”

He gives the tiniest little huff.

Almost...

Hopeful.

I smile despite myself.

“You really are a beautiful Bear, you know that? And I think you might be the closest thing I’ve made to a friend since I moved here.”

The moonlight catches his cinnamon-colored fur, making it shimmer like polished mahogany.

His shoulders are enormous.

His paws look bigger than dinner plates.

And yet...

There's something oddly gentle about him.

Like all that power is being held carefully in check.

I shake my head.

“Okay, Elsie.”

I take one deep breath.

“Your apartment is five minutes away.”

“Let's go home.”

And then I do what is probably the dumbest thing any woman has ever done unless she’s the final girl in a horror flick—I turn my back on the giant Bear.

Every instinct screams not to.

Every nature documentary I've ever watched tells me this is how people become cautionary tales.

Still...

Something deep inside me whispers—he won't hurt you. And like an idiot, I believe that voice.

I take one step.

Then another.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Leaves rustle behind me.

The sound of something huge stomping on fallen leaves, summer grass, and tiny pebbles that litter the path.

I stop.