Take A Walk In My Skin

Chapter 6

    Emma's POV

As soon as the little boy with his adorable face dozed off into a sleep full snore, his confident and devoted father closed the Dr. Seuss book that he read to him, a smile plastered across his face, and took his sweet, loving time making sure the book was perfectly placed upright on the shelf before kissing Liam delicately good night on his forehead, tucking him in and leaving the door open ajar to go back to his room.

I took kindly to the couch downstairs, mindlessly staring up at the ceiling, often wondering how I got to this point. How could I possibly think there was any chance of having a date with him in my line of work? In my dangerous world and unique abilities?

With his shaggy brown hair he loved so much rustled almost every day like Shaggy from Scooby Doo —my favorite cartoon from childhood— I spontaneously wanted to brush my fingers through those creamy caramel locks and pull his luscious lips down to devour mine —yes, I'm a Shaggy fangirl— but I couldn't possibly kiss him —or Shaggy— and ruin this mission for my desire only, yet here I was wanting just that. I wanted this mission to be over.

No, I shouldn't have asked him out on a date when I had. I shouldn't have made this involvement romantic, falling for him in any way my animalistic side was telling me to. I was just supposed to talk to him and gain information as a human undercover, or at least that was the idea. The word undercover clogged in my throat. I was undercover alright. Just in other ways.

I was already falling for him by living with him. I was already falling for him by being with him. As a damn dog under his roof, living with him and his son was becoming something more out of a dream. It made what I had with Sheila and Frank more evil than I could have ever foreseen. There was no way they were my future from my past. The scars of claws left marks that would shadow me forever.

In my head, I thought, it wouldn't take long to make Blake fall in love with me as a human. I could have both him and the mission accomplished, right?

Did that make me sound cocky all of a sudden? Not possible, not after the lust I was given all my life. Love at first sight could be our kind of love. No, simply just the kind of love I was hoping for. But the way I felt about it, the more I wanted it. No, first sightings of love could be heart breaking, earth shattering. He couldn't even recognize that I was the German Shepherd he lets sleep at Liam's bedside or the dog he lets eat next to him at the kitchen table. Should that have offended me? No, not really, because the part of me that wants to see where this goes with him is willing to take risks.

I wanted to be human again. I thought my only chance was when no one was home, and I was right. Shortly after waking up to a fresh, fateful morning, and a sweet, wonderful aroma of milky butter and flour swallowing my senses, Liam gave me a kiss wetter than my canine tongue on the nose and took off for what could only be to a friend's house. For a split second after, I thought I was being left with Blake to watch me. But as it's a day off for him, he probably had shopping to do, so he eventually left, too. I had the whole place to myself.

This was my chance to get out. I wanted to be human again. I thought the only chance presented itself loud and clear the moment the car lights flickered on, the engine ignited, and Blake drove out of the lot.

Shifting and contorting my bones in ways unimaginable, the pain incomprehensible, and the screams silent by submission in the process, I wanted nothing more than to be in my human form again and out of the skin I was trapped in, but I also didn't want to draw attention to myself.

I couldn't alert neighbors to a strange noise next door, could I?

Silence was the only key to victory, and I held my breath with everything in me until the pain subsided and I was no longer a four legged creature. Fully naked and cold to the core from the quiet twists and emotional bends of my bones snapping and breaking in place, my skin radiated from the touch of air as I faltered out of the room.