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wasn’t quite sure what to do with my hands and arms. Wrapping them around his neck seemed a little too something , though I had no idea what that something might be. I was feeling a bit like I was in junior high school on a first date at the roller rink, not quite sure whether to grab the boy’s hand.
    I really never did figure out what to do with my hands and arms the entire time we were walking. Eventually, I decided to keep them how I’d originally put them, which was just kind of awkwardly loosely folded on my chest.
    For the first maybe ten cabins we passed, neither of us spoke. Which, that probably should have been the awkward thing, if anything was, but somehow it wasn’t. Not to me, anyway. I could tell that Jim wasn’t the kind of man who chattered, and he seemed perfectly comfortable with stretches of silence, even with a woman who was essentially a stranger cradled to his chest; and I supposed that his seeming comfort with silence between us made me feel okay with it, too. He kept his gaze ahead, and I kept mine up at the stars.
    It was Jim who ended up breaking the silence, but it didn’t seem like he’d done it out of even the slightest sense of creeping awkwardness. He asked me what I’d done in Ridgewood before the agents had come knocking on my door, sounding as if he genuinely wanted to know the answer, and wasn’t just trying to get me to talk for talking’s sake.
    I studied his silvery, moonlit face, surprised that he didn’t already know the answer to his question. “You mean the agents didn’t tell you all about me? They seemed to know everything. Near-everything, anyway.”
    “Well... they told me a few things about you. But I don’t like to learn about people from third parties. I like to learn about a person from the person themselves, in their own words. So, what did you do in Ridgewood before the agents came knocking on your door?”
    “Well... for the past nine months, I attended the local college by taking online classes for a degree in business administration. I earned a degree, and I was set to begin a new job this Monday.”
    “And was this job important to you?”
    “No. Not really. It was just a way to earn money.”
    Jim seemed to consider this for a moment. “And what did you do before you started the college classes?”
    “Well, I worked as an art teacher at the high school for twelve days. Then my position was cut because of all the state and federal money being diverted to deal with the Angels.”
    “And before the job at the high school?”
    “Chicago. Ran a small, failing art gallery for a few years. Before that, a couple months waiting tables after studying art, art history, and getting a teaching certificate.”
    “And how about before that? Before you struck out on your own. What was your family like?”
    Now we were getting into slightly uncomfortable territory.
    “Well... past age eight, I was raised by my maternal grandparents.”
    “And before age eight?”
    Now we were waist-deep in uncomfortable territory. I needed to change the subject.
    “Jim? Can I ask you a question? How are you not getting winded in the least? I know I’m not feather-light.”
    I did really want to know how he wasn’t getting winded. He wasn’t breathing heavily in the least.
    Ignoring the fact that I’d ignored his last question to me, he cracked a half-grin, the effect devastating in its sexiness. And this was even without me being able to fully see his half-grin, because we were walking along in the dark.
    “All shifters have increased speed, strength, and stamina in animal form, but many shifters have increased speed, strength, and stamina in human form as well.”
    “And let me guess. You’re one of those shifters.”
    Another half-grin told me that he was. Immediately, and seemingly of its own accord, my mind began wandering to thoughts of how increased, speed, strength, and stamina, particularly strength and stamina, might play out during a bedroom experience with a