by Ramona Gray
To her surprise, Cooper said, “I might be able to help you be less afraid when you’re out in public.”
She sat up and stared at him. “What do you mean? How?”
Looking a little uncomfortable, Cooper said, “I could mark you.”
Chapter Six
Cooper’s lion purred so loudly the minute he suggested they mark their mate, that even if Daisy had said anything, he wouldn’t have heard her.
His lion was already surging forward, trying to force Cooper to shift so he could mark Daisy properly. Cooper pushed him back. Stop it! You can’t mark her. It’ll scare her. I’ll mark her.
You won’t do it right. His lion was acting like a pouty cub.
Daisy sat as still as a mouse on his lap, staring at his eyes, and he muttered a curse to himself. Fuck, he’d spoken to his lion again in front of her. He hadn’t meant to do that.
“It’s okay,” he said quickly. “I won’t hurt you.”
“I know. What do you mean by mark?”
“It’s a thing that shifters can do. We can, uh, rub up against a human and mark them with our scent. It lets other shifters know that the human belongs to them and they’ll stay away from the human.”
“Seriously?” She was staring wide-eyed at him. A little of her colour had returned to her face and he breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been so pale and the scent of her fear so overwhelming when she walked into his office, he’d been worried she would faint.
“Yes.” He rubbed her back again. He shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. Daisy being so close to him, allowing him to comfort her as if he were her mate had done more for his lion’s sanity in the last five minutes than any of his calming techniques over the last five days.
For the first time since Monday night, his headache had receded, and he could actually think straight. His lion purred to Daisy, the sound making her smile. Cooper knew it wasn’t his imagination that the purring made Daisy happy. She had literally just asked him to purr and he could smell how much she liked it.
“Do shifters mark humans a lot?” she asked.
“Usually only when the human is their mate,” he said. “But we can mark a human that isn’t our mate.”
“But if you do mark me, the shifters will think I’m your mate?”
“Yes, and they won’t go near you,” he said.
“How do you know that for sure?”
“Because they can tell by my scent that I’m a lion shifter and a powerful one. They wouldn’t dare touch my mate. They know I’ll kill them if they do.”
“Is that why you told Corbin at the coffee shop that I was your mate?”
He looked away. “Yes. It was the quickest and easiest way to keep you safe.”
“Cooper?”
He made himself look at her. “Yeah?”
“Would you really kill another shifter for hurting me – I mean, hurting your mate?”
“Yes.” He probably should have lied to her. It wasn’t exactly helping him convince her not to be afraid of him.
“How do shifters not just go to prison for murder all the time?” she said.
He laughed. “Because we rarely have to kill another shifter for hurting our mates. Our scent on our mate keeps them away.”
“Grayson had to,” she whispered.
“He did,” Cooper said. “But the human was going to kill his mate. Grayson only killed him to save his mate and that’s why the police cleared him of any wrong-doing.”
“I know,” she said. “Is this a guy shifter thing only?”
“No. Female shifters will mark their mates as well.”
She tugged on the hem of her skirt. She was no longer afraid, but she hadn’t made any effort to get off his lap, and he wasn’t about to suggest that she move. He would be perfectly happy to have Daisy sit in his lap all goddamn day.
“Do you have to, um, be in your lion form to mark me?” The scent of her fear returned, and his lion whined its displeasure. Cooper hated that she was afraid of his lion but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Yeah, well it’ll be difficult for her to be your mate if you can never shift around her.
His lion snarled at his inner voice, but it wasn’t wrong.
“Cooper?” Daisy said.
“No,” he said. “I can mark you in my human form. It won’t be as strong and it won’t last as long, but it will work to keep you safe. You would just, um, have to let me mark you every day as opposed to every few days in my lion form.”
“Okay,” she said. “Go ahead and mark me.”
“You’re sure?” he said.
His lion growled at him, but Cooper wanted to make sure Daisy knew what she was asking for. “I’ll have to get close to you.”
She stared at his chest. “I’m literally sitting on your lap, Cooper. I think you being close to me to mark is a non-issue at this point. Speaking of which, I want you to know I don’t make it a habit of sitting in my boss’s lap.”
He grinned at her. “I don’t make it a habit of asking my employees to sit in my lap, so I guess this is a new experience for both of us.”
She smiled at him before it faded a little. “Seriously though, I’m sorry I was so frightened and acting like a big baby.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m glad you came into my office. I like helping you, Daisy.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate your help.”
“It’s no problem. Are you ready?”
She nodded and leaving one hand on her firm thigh, he cupped the back of her neck. He could still smell the faint scent of her fear and he hesitated. “Are you sure this is what you want, baby?”
“Yes,” she said in a low voice.
She closed her eyes, and he studied the beautiful face of his mate before leaning in. He gently tugged her head back and rubbed his face across her throat. She gasped and her hands gripped his arm. He squeezed her thigh lightly in response before rubbing her throat again. God, she smelled so good.
He started purring and he rubbed his face all over her throat before sliding it along her exposed collarbone. She gasped again and the smell of her lust made his lion growl happily. He brushed his mouth against the hollow of her throat and her nails dug into his forearm.
“You okay, baby?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. Her breathing had quickened, and he could see the outline of her nipples through her bra and shirt. “Yes, I-I’m good.”
“Good. Just a bit more, all right?”
“Okay.” Her voice was a low moan and the need in it was giving him a semi. Fuck, he needed to get her off his lap before she felt how hard he was getting for her. Instead, he marked her again. Her throat and upper chest were bright red and, unable to resist, he pressed a light kiss against her throat.
“Your skin is red now. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, I… ohhh…” she trailed off, her back arching when he licked the hollow of her throat.
He rubbed just below her jaw line, the feel and smell of her soft skin driving him wild with need. He had a full on erection now that pressed against her hip, but she wasn’t pulling away.
Her nails dug into his forearm again and she bit at her bottom lip. “Is it, um, working?”
“Yes,” he growled before marking her throat again. “You smell like me now, baby. You’re my mate and no shifter will touch you. I promise.”
“Cooper, I…”
His lion surged forward and took control. “You’re my mate, little human. Say it.”
She blinked at him. “I… I’m your mate?”
His lion roared with happiness and Cooper rubbed her thigh before kissing her collarbone. “Come home with me tonight, my mate. I’ll take you to my bed and put my cub in your belly.”
Her eyes widened and the lust faded in them. “Um, what did you say?”
Shit! Cooper pushed his lion back. Jesus, how the fuck was he going to explain this to Daisy?
“Daisy, I -”
“Hey, Coop? H
ave you seen Daisy? She’s not at her desk and…hello, what’s this?”
Cooper groaned inwardly as Daisy squeaked and scrambled off his lap. She stared at Boone who was leaning against the doorjamb and grinning at them both.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your…whatever this is.” He studied Daisy’s red throat and Daisy’s cheeks immediately flushed.
“Sorry, I’m – uh, I’ll be back at my desk in a few minutes, Boone.”
Without looking at Cooper, Daisy headed for the door.
“Move,” Cooper said to Boone.
The tiger shifter stepped into the office, giving Daisy plenty of space to pass him by. He sniffed the air as she passed him and turned to stare at Cooper as Daisy practically ran out of his office.
“So… you gonna explain why Daisy was sitting on your lap and why she smells like you now, or can I start making wild and incredibly inaccurate guesses?” Boone said with a grin.
“Out,” Cooper said. “Out of my office, Boone.”
Boone laughed and started toward the door. “Talk to you later, boss.”
* * *
“Morning, Coop.” Grayson walked into his office without knocking and sank into the leather chair across from Cooper’s desk.
Cooper closed the calendar app on his computer. “Morning.”
“You look better today.”
Cooper scowled at his best friend. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you looked like shit yesterday.”
“I had a headache and my lion was having a bad day. He feels better.”
“Because Daisy sat in your lap yesterday?” Grayson said.
“Fucking Boone,” Cooper muttered. “I’m gonna fire him.”
Grayson laughed. “No, you won’t. Besides, I didn’t need Boone to tell me. Daisy stinks like you so bad. The entire reception area has a distinct eau de Cooper smell. Does she know you marked her?”
“Yes,” he said.
Grayson glanced at the open doorway and lowered his voice. “Buddy, did you have sex with Daisy yesterday?”
He jerked and nearly spilled the cup of coffee he’d been reaching for. “What? Why would you say that? What the fuck did Boone tell you?”
“All Boone said was that he walked in on Daisy sitting on your lap. But your scent is super strong on her and that only happens if you’re in your lion form when you mark or if you’re fucking the human while you mark them. I know you didn’t shift into your lion form to mark her – Daisy would have quit on the spot if you’d shifted – so did you fuck her?”
“No, of course not. The marking was strong because…”
Grayson stared knowingly at him. “Because you want to fuck her.”
When Cooper stayed silent, Grayson sighed. “Coop, it’s me. Grayson. Talk to me, okay? I know you better than anyone and you thinking you can hide your attraction to Daisy from me, or hide that your lion thinks she’s your mate, is ridiculous.”
Cooper gulped down some coffee, grimacing at the cold bitterness. “My lion won’t listen when I tell him that Daisy isn’t our mate. I don’t know what to do about it. Before Daisy sat on my lap yesterday, before she let me mark her, I was…”
“Feeling off-balance?” Grayson suggested.
Cooper grimaced. As much as he appreciated what Grayson was doing, there was no point in sugar coating it. “I was going mad.”
He could see his own fear reflected in Grayson’s eyes for a few seconds before Grayson said, “It won’t happen. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen, buddy.”
“How?” he said hoarsely. “My lion believes Daisy is his mate. He’s believed it for three months now and I can’t convince him otherwise. It was really nice of Daisy to help me out last week, but I shouldn’t have let her do that. It’s made everything so much worse.”
His voice sounded plaintive and weak. He slammed his fist on his desk, wincing when pain radiated from his shoulder. He rubbed his shoulder and said, “Having her in my house, making my dinner, helping me shave and shower -”
“She helped you shower?” Grayson stared in surprise at him.
“Yeah. She was afraid, I could smell it on her, but she helped me shave and washed my hair three times that week. After a few days, she wasn’t afraid at all being in my house. It made my lion happy. Hell, it made me happy. It made my lion think there was a possibility she could be our mate. You know?”
“Fuck,” Grayson said.
“Yeah. But then as soon as my sling was off, she stopped coming over. I think having one arm in the sling helped her believe that I couldn’t hurt her. I don’t know. Anyway, I avoided her this week, told my lion repeatedly that she wasn’t our mate, and that’s when my lion really started losing it.” He rubbed at his shoulder again before glancing at Grayson. “His depression and his sorrow are terrible, Gray. Like… I can’t even explain how awful it is. And then you get this horrible headache and…”
He took a deep breath and drank another swallow of cold coffee. “Yesterday after lunch, Daisy came into my office and her fear was obvious. She was terrified. Even more afraid than she was the day of her interview.”
“Jesus,” Grayson said. “What happened to her?”
“Some female shifter scared her in the coffee shop. Daisy accidentally spilled her coffee and she started yelling at her and dropping her fangs and her claws. Daisy felt trapped and…”
His lion roared angrily at even just the thought of his mate being afraid. Cooper soothed him as Grayson waited patiently.
“She came into my office. I could smell her fear and when I asked her what was wrong, she started crying. I had to comfort her, needed to comfort her, and she let me. She let me hold her on my lap. She asked me to purr and her fear dissipated, and my goddamn lion was going batshit crazy with happiness.”
He stared blankly at his computer monitor. “My headache disappeared almost immediately.”
“That’s good,” Grayson said.
“After she told me what happened, I told her I could mark her, and that it would keep other shifters away from her.” He turned his gaze to Grayson. “I offered to mark her because I wanted to help her, Gray, I swear. But there was a part of me that…”
“Wanted to mark her because you think she’s your mate.”
“Yeah. I’m such an asshole.”
“Our cats like to mark our mates, Coop. You can’t help that.”
“It’s not just my lion though. I wanted it too.”
“Look, it helps Daisy feel safe and it will definitely keep shifters away from her, so I don’t think you need to beat yourself up over the reasoning for doing it. Is she going to let you mark her every day? Because your scent won’t last long on her if you’re not having sex with her on a regular basis or letting your lion mark her.”
“That was the plan,” Cooper said. “But then I fucked that up.”
“How?”
“I,” he laughed bitterly, “got excited by marking her and she was a little turned on by it too. I could smell her lust. It wasn’t as strong as when I kissed her, but it was there. I – my lion took control and kind of made Daisy say she was my mate and then…”
“Then?” There was no judgement on Grayson’s face, but Cooper still squirmed at telling him the next part.
He said it fast, getting his shame out into the open like a festering sore that needed draining. “I asked her to come home with me so I could take her to my bed and put a cub in her belly.”
“Shit.” Grayson said. “That’s bad, man.”
“I know! You think I don’t know that?” Cooper said. “Before I could try and think of an explanation for what I’d said, Boone walked in on us and Daisy left. I haven’t talked to her since. I don’t think she’s actively avoiding me – I know phones have been busy all morning and I’d asked her to type some reports for me – but she’s not gonna let me mark her again.”
He glanced up at Cooper. “Right?”
“Definitely not,” Grayson said. “Fuck, we’re lucky she d
idn’t quit on the spot.”
“Don’t fucking soften the blow or anything,” Cooper said.
Grayson grimaced. “Sorry, but you basically asked the receptionist to let you breed her yesterday. You can’t tell me you’re not a little surprised that she showed up to work this morning.”
Cooper groaned and sat back in his chair, scrubbing his hand across his face. “Fuck me. I’m so fucked.”
“No, you’re not fucked, which is part of the problem. But we might have a solution.”
“We? Who is we?”
Grayson waved his hand in the air. “You know, we… the guys and… Ryan.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Cooper glared at him. “You told your mate about this?”
“She might be able to help,” Grayson said.
“How? How exactly is your human mate supposed to convince my lion not to think of Daisy as my mate? And how long have you, Wes, and Boone been talking about me behind my fucking back?”
“Cool it, buddy. We weren’t talking about you behind your back. We were discussing how worried we are about you and what we could do to help.”
Cooper nodded grudgingly. “Yeah, okay.” Truthfully, he was incredibly grateful to his friends for trying to help him. He should probably actually verbalize that to Gray and the others, but he was pretty certain they already knew.
“Anyway, our original plan was for me and Ryan to talk to Daisy about spending more one-on-one time with you for a while. Just to soothe your lion. We know it’s not a solid solution and that Daisy spending time with you could make things worse, but we were worried about your sanity so…”
“I’m okay,” Cooper said.
Which was easy to say right now because he was okay. His lion was still on a high from yesterday and Cooper didn’t have the courage or the strength to remind him that Daisy would never let them mark her again or ever consider being their mate. He needed to, his lion was already itching to mark Daisy again, but Cooper wanted even a few more hours of peace.
“You’re not okay, but we’re going to help you,” Grayson said. “Ryan and I will talk to Daisy this weekend about spending some time with you. We won’t give her exact details about what’s happening, just tell her that -”