Changing Focus by Marilu Mann

about her family, he let her shift the focus to him. “We grew up close, but we’re fairly scattered now. I have a large family, that’s for sure.”
    “How large?” She moved to sit at the table again and he followed slowly.
    “I have my mother, eight siblings and at last count-twenty nieces and nephews. My father died when I was a teenager, but my paternal grandfather helped rear us.”
    She simply stared at him. He wasn’t sure if it was in awe or utter shock. “You have thirty people in your immediate family?”
    “At last count. I’m sure there are more nieces or nephews by now or on the way. My siblings seem to enjoy large families. Only two of us aren’t married and procreating just yet.”
    “I see. Well, thank you for answering my questions and for the stew. I really should go transcribe these notes so I don’t wonder what I chicken-scratched later.”
    She stood up, stretching as she did. Micah watched her lean form move under the shirt. Her breasts. His hands ached from not being able to touch her. Still, he had to wait for that first move. Her ass swayed delectably as she exited the room.
    Micah cleared the table, glad the seeming crisis had been averted but determined to find out more about Olivia’s childhood. If in fact she didn’t know she was a shifter, if that was why she didn’t acknowledge that he was, it might be interesting to introduce her to their shared world. But it was going to be hell on his hormones if he couldn’t act on his need for that sexy she-wolf.
    Olivia headed back to her room full of information but she really needed to process her own reaction to her dreamy host. When he’d reached out to stroke her hair, she’d had to fight leaning into him. It just seemed like the right thing to do but there was no way she could do that.
    If she let him know how much she wanted him, she knew he would respond favorably. There was no mistaking the interest in his eyes. Olivia closed her eyes as she shut her door behind her. Sagging against the wood, she released a gust of air.
    “Olivia. You know why you can not have sex with that man.” Scolding herself did not help. She sat down to type out her notes, but opened up a second document on her computer to journal a bit about her reaction to him. As the first man in a while who had seriously made her want to get naked, Micah Keeps Vigil would have to be processed.
    As she wrote about him, the words turned from clinical to personal to sexual. Soon she typed out an erotic fantasy where she was on her hands and knees with him pounding his cock into her as he called out her name.
    “Olivia?
    This time he knocked too. Olivia jumped as she realized the knock and her name were real. Slamming the laptop closed, she shoved back from the desk. Where had the time gone? Her clock showed two hours later.
    “Olivia?” Micah’s voice carried through the wood. “I thought you might like to take an afternoon walk with me. I have to check some of the property and you might see a different variety of wildlife at this time of day. Would you like to go?”
    He stood with one hand on the doorframe, filling the space when she opened the door. Ducking his head, he stepped across the threshold when she waved him in.
    “I’d love to, Micah. Let me grab a sweater and then we can layer up for the outside.”
    His approving chuckle made her belly feel toasty and warm. Once they were rewrapped for the weather, Olivia followed Micah out again in the afternoon for another walk on the snowshoes. She’d gotten the hang of them though she wasn’t quite as graceful on them as she’d hoped she’d be. But now that she was focused less on her face not being planted in the snow, she had to acknowledge the frisson she felt around this man.
    As they walked up to a lake, she imagined she would feel little arcs of electricity when he would stop to point out various animal burrows, squirrel nests and the mistletoe in the tops of some of the trees. She allowed herself a