At work on Monday, I throw myself into my designs. All my jobs today are local, which I do prefer. The ones that come in from very far away make me feel sort of glamourous for doing them but they’re a pain in the ass too. Near the end of the day, I find I’ve got to pay a visit to an interior textile shop in the tony part of Quinton. I figure I can grab dinner on Gregory Street. I need some air anyway.
My office is a somewhat relaxed place and I tell my boss I’m leaving early to go textile shopping. Since my apartment is close enough to walk to the stores, I take my car home and stroll over to the shops. I’ve always liked the walk to Gregory Street. The ambiance is a little bougie (though so am I, I suppose) but the streets are tree lined and pleasant. I wear my cutest, but most comfortable pair of flats with my jeans today, so I can walk around for a bit and not hurt my feet.
The day is warm but there’s a crisp, cool breeze in the air and I didn’t bring a coat. It’s a little bit bracing but I feel like it’s waking me up, keeping my brain on track. Sooner or later, Micah’s going to tell Aaron that I shut him down and maybe acted a little weird about it. Then Aaron’s going to talk about it with Michelle, and Michelle is going to ask me what’s going on. It’s not as if I have to go out with him, but it’s probably obvious to everyone that when Micah’s around, I’m as into him as he is into me. Michelle’s going to want to know what my problem is. Or she’s going to assume it’s that insecurity thing I’d used as an excuse, which means she’ll try to talk me out of feeling that way. I may have backed myself into a corner on that one. Oops.
At C.C. Textiles, I take my time. Maybe I spend a little more time than I need looking at potential curtains for the kitchen for this mansion outside of Quinton. Then there’s tablecloths to consider. Some customers want you to design everything down to the placemats and silverware. It’s sort of a luxury option. They like their aesthetic really tied together. I finally make a few orders. Everyone down here knows me already. I just tell them to put it on my company card and send it over.
When I’m done, I use their restroom. I sigh when I look into the mirror, straightening my ponytail.
I need to go on a run in the woods soon, I think to myself. That’s something I never give myself enough time for. I barely ever shift anymore. I’m always afraid of getting caught. I’m lucky in that I don’t shift at the moon like some shifters. That’s down to a difference in genetics. So I don’t have to work my schedule around it. But I should still shift from time to time and let my wolf self run free. I only get more stressed out when I don’t.
I reapply my lip gloss and wonder what it would be like to run with Micah. I imagine he’s a really playful wolf, lots of wrestling around. More often that not, when I see Micah he’s laughing or grinning, at least with other people who don’t make him tongue-tied or just reject him outright. I sigh and roll my eyes at myself.
I’m doomed, I think. The fates seem to be telling me he’s my mate…but that can’t be possible. The Tremblays would never accept me and I wouldn’t even blame them.
Yeah, I definitely need air.
The fates seem to be making a point of mocking me, because when I leave the shop, the first person I see is Micah Tremblay.
He’s standing just a few feet from the shop on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets. He’s wearing a shirt and tie. I wonder what’s happened to his jacket since it’s so cool outside but I don’t care now as I look at him from behind. His sleeves are rolled up and it’s showing off his tan forearms, his blonde hair mussed by the breeze. His pants are hugging his perfect ass. He looks like not just a snack but the entire meal, like he was put there on the sidewalk just for me to find.
“Were you following me, Tremblay?” I say.
He jerks and spins around and from the look on his face, I can tell that he definitely wasn’t. He looks astonished and also quite pleased, his mouth curving up into a smile. “Luna,” he says, his voice low. I breathe in a little. He says my name like he’s talking about something both sacred and a little dirty. I don’t hate it. “I…no! No, of course not. I’m not quite that creepy.”
I walk up closer. The breeze picks up, blowing our hair around. I have the feeling of something a little magical happening, as if the day has just taken a huge turn.
“What’re you up to then?” I say.
“I was taking clients out to lunch,” Micah says. “Turned into lunch and drinks. Ended up going late.”
“Oh.” Now I feel flustered. There are butterflies in my stomach; extremely hyper butterflies. “Um…what happened to your jacket?”
Micah looks down at himself as if he’s only just now realizing he doesn’t have his jacket. The wind is blowing his designer floral print tie around. “I don’t know,” he says, grinning at me. He sticks his tongue between his teeth and subtly looks me up and down. I feel like I can’t breathe, like if I’m not very careful I’m just going to be mauling him with my mouth, without even having decided to.
“I don’t know where my jacket is,” he repeats, wonderingly. “I don’t know what they said at lunch either. I couldn’t hear a word. Because I knew you were nearby-“
“Micah.”
“I could feel you were close-by. Did you feel that? I know it sounds crazy...”
“I…didn’t, but I’ve been…thinking of you,” I say. “I can’t say I haven’t-“
“Come hang out with me,” Micah says, sounding a little desperate. He locks eyes with me. He looks resigned to me saying no and my sense of self-preservation, which has always been very strong and a source of pride, is rapidly flying out the window because Micah is looking at me. “Doesn’t have to be a date. Alright? Just walk with me?”
I swear, that low, sexy voice says “walk with me” like it’s a wonderful sin.
He offers me his hand and I take it and let him lead me down the sidewalk.
This will end in heartbreak, I think. I know it as surely as I know he’s my mate.
But he’s looking at me, and right now, that’s all I can think about.
Micah lets my hand go and it feels cold, but not touching him makes it a little easier to focus.
“All right.” I feel like I have no will to say “no” left. I’m glad I don’t. “Where are we going?”
“Does it matter?” He says, looking over at me.
The thing that’s so strange about Micah is that he thinks I’m human, yet he keeps pursuing me. I know he doesn’t just want to sleep with me. That’s not what he’s playing at, at all. Just wanting that wouldn’t make him flustered.
He thinks I’m human, and he doesn’t care. Even though I’m well aware that his clan would totally ostracize him if he pursued something real with a human woman. That’s what caused so much trouble for Aaron and Michelle before they found out she had the shifter gene.
I wonder if Micah is just that passionate of a guy that he will simply follow his heart in total disregard of all the traditions and rules he’s been brought up with.
It’s hard not to love that about him if it’s true.
He felt me nearby, I think. He felt his mate nearby.
I’m trying to bite back a smile because this is impossible and I’ve worked hard to create a nice human life for myself and escape where I came from and this could blow it all up. But I can’t focus on any of that because he felt me and he’s smiling at me like we share a secret and his grey eyes are undressing me in the middle of the sidewalk.
“How’s the kitchen designing business?” Micah says.
I shove my hands in my pockets and he mimics me. “Business is good,” I say shrugging. “The kitchen is the most popular room in the house after all.”
“I don’t know,” Micah says, looking downright mischievous. “I prefer the bedroom.”
I keep wondering what his abs look like. His shirt is tight. He looks like he’s probably absurdly fit. “Oh, I bet you do,” I mutter. I glance up at him and just as quickly have to look away because it’s too much.
What stupid fates invented this
mate thing for shifters anyway? I feel like my heart is about to combust.
“So tell me everything there is to know about Luna,” Micah says.
Yikes. The thought of that is terrifying. I talk vaguely, mostly about college and how I stumbled into kitchen design. I turn all of it back on him, not just to avoid the question but also because I’m interested. I don’t need to try very hard to get away from my past anyway. Everything one of us says seems to lead to something else. We end up talking about movies and then somehow our least favorite vegetables (Micah hates cauliflower) and the last book he read and how we both hate it when people make a point by talking in questions.
“Do I hate it when people talk in questions?” Micah says. “Yes I do. Would I rather people not do that? Yes I would.”
It’s not even that funny but by that time, we’ve been talking for an hour and I have the giggles. Micah just keeps talking that way. He’s doing a kind of goofy voice when he does it and that’s just making me giggle harder.
We pause outside of an ice cream shop.
Micah looks down at me and says, “Does my brother Mason talk in questions? Yes he does. Does it drive me completely out of my mind? It absolutely does.”
Somehow the fact that it’s been Mason he’s been mocking all this time sends me right over the edge and I just about fall down, my knees turning to rubber, I’m laughing so hard. I start to stumble and Micah catches me, one hand at my waist and the other at my arm.
We’re standing close enough to kiss and suddenly I’m not laughing anymore. The scent of him is making me dizzy; the scent of a man’s body and the wolf inside…
I want him so badly, I don't remember what it’s like to want anything else.
But…but…
“How about some ice cream?” Micah says, stepping away and letting me go.
“Um, okay.” I mumble and follow him into the ice cream parlor.
The way that he can be both cocky and have this devil-may-care attitude, yet be sensitive to my uncertainty even if he doesn’t understand it, is only making him much more attractive. And that should be impossible.
Micah buys me the rum raisin cone I ask for and won’t stop teasing me about it.
“It’s an old man’s ice cream,” he says, smirking around his spoon.
“It’s a classic,” I argue. “And at least I got a cone. Cones are much more respectable than that little bowl.”
“I don’t like when it starts to melt and drips over your hand,” Micah says. “It gets all sticky.”
“That’s what your tongue is for,” I say. I didn’t really intend to go for the innuendo but suddenly my tongue is out of my mouth and I’m licking a few drops of melted ice cream from around my cone.
Micah watches me, his mouth slightly parted. The temperature in the ice cream shop rises a few degrees.
Everything will melt now.
“You’re playing with me,” Micah says, looking a little hurt.
My heart sinks at that. He’s not wrong. But it’s not as if I planned any of this. It’s not as if I want him less than he wants me.
I lick my lips and say, “You could have any woman in the world you want-“
“Good,” Micah says, nodding. “I want you.”
“Micah…” I almost laugh. Instead, I sit up straight and attempt to compose myself a little. “I’m not trying to mess with you. I’m sorry if it seems that way.”
Micah smiles faintly and says, “Eat your old man ice cream.”
“I should get home,” I say once we’re back outside. The wind is even gustier and I shiver. I don’t push Micah away when he wraps an arm around me, rubbing my shoulder to warm me up. “Getting cold. I walked, so…”
“Are you close?” He asks. He says it softly in my ear and it’s off the cuff but I imagine him saying it in a very different context and just the thought makes me a little wet.
Are you close?
“Um…”
“Can I walk you?”
“Yeah,” I say. I lean into him and he keeps his arm like that, wrapped around me. Just that feels so good, I can’t imagine what sex would feel like.
We don’t talk much on the walk to my place but my heart is pounding, my blood rushing. I know what’s coming and I want it so badly. I know I shouldn’t let this go any further but that muscular, tanned arm is around me and his body is so solid and warm against me as we walk.
And more than all of that, I like him. And even more than that, the wolf in me is demanding him.
He’ll find out what you are, the mean voice in my head says. And he’ll throw you away.
Tears prick my eyes when he lets me go at my door and I find myself turning into him, getting just a little bit closer, inhaling his scent.
“I wish I knew what I could do,” Micah says softly.
“Micah…”
“Because I would do anything,” he says, and reaches up to cradle my cheek in his palm. His thumb gently caressing my skin. “I would do anything, Luna. What can I do?”
“Kiss me,” I whisper.
And he does.
Chapter Four: Micah
Kissing Luna feels like finally finding something I never knew I was missing.
This is my mate, I think yet again as her soft lips yield to mine. Her hands slide up my arms and wrap around my neck and I deepen the kiss while I embrace her. She’s a lot shorter than me so she’s standing on her toes as I lean down. When she presses up against me, just as I feel her tongue touch mine, I start to get hard.
There’s something I’m missing. There’s something about Luna that’s familiar. It’s like I’m trying to remember something that I always knew. It’s on the periphery of my mind and it’s important. But I can’t think about it now. I can’t think about anything because Luna is kissing me like her life depends on it and I’ve got her in my arms as I fall back against her door. She kisses my top lip, her tongue teasing and promising, like I’m her favorite candy.
“God, you feel so good,” I mumble against her mouth. She seems to agree if the way she’s practically climbing me is any indication. Then, she reaches around me for her doorknob.
“Inside,” she whispers. “Inside.”
“Yes!” I say, as if it’s the best idea I’ve ever heard. “Yes, inside yes…”
Luna opens the door behind me and we stumble into her apartment, almost falling to the ground before she backs up, shutting it behind her. I press her up against the door and she gasps. Our breath mingles as I shift to bring my hands up under her thighs, lifting her up. She wraps her legs around me and I see stars as she presses up against my erection.
She’s yanking on my tie and it’s all mumbling and panting as she fumbles with it and finally throws it over my shoulder. I see the flash of her grin and I’m so relieved that she’s happy at least in this moment that I shut my eyes, ducking my head so that I nuzzle her nose for a moment before kissing her face like it’s an emergency.
“Luna,” I whisper. “Luna, Luna..” I kiss her neck and that seems to rile her up even more. I can feel the way the slight stubble on my chin chafes her soft skin and she moans, her thighs squeezing around me.
I haven’t given anyone a hickey in years, it always seemed so silly to me, like the human’s phony version of a mark. But now I want to make her mine even if I can’t truly make her mine and I suck at the tender skin, my teeth likely stinging a little as I hold her tight. My wolf is on fire and I feel as if she is too, her nails raking my back through my shirt as I work at her neck.
I start to lose it just a little bit, my teeth beginning to sink in as if to actually leave a mark and I grip her hips, fighting to control myself. She moans, arching her back and I let go of her neck. She hardly seems upset though and now she starts to work at my shirt buttons before quickly giving up on propriety and ripping my shirt open. Buttons fly off my designer shirt. I don’t care. I’ll buy another shirt. She can rip open all my shirts. She pushes me back slightly even as she grips me with her legs and stares down at my
chest and stomach. I can’t help but flex a little.
I do a ridiculous number of crunches every single day just for moments like this.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” she says. “Take me to bed.”
I kiss her once, hot and firm, and say, “Yes, ma’am.”
Luna’s place seems nice. I only dimly register it in the dark as she wraps her arms around my neck again and I carry her into the bedroom, nearly tripping on a couple stacks of books in the middle of the floor. It’s already difficult to walk. She’s light as a feather but she’s still kissing me and she keeps nearly biting my bottom lip and then not and it’s making me lose my mind.
I hear her shoes hit the floor when she kicks them off as we get to her bedroom and then my shins hit the foot of her bed. I start to duck and gently lay her down, my muscles flexing as my hand slides down the curve of her back, clutching her ass. I kneel on the bed and look down at her, pulling away again just to get a good look. It’s dim inside, but outside, the moon is bright. The full moon is coming soon. I know that’s also making my wolf even more riled up.
“This can only be for tonight,” she whispers. I’m cradling her cheek in my hand now and she turns her head slightly, pressing into it. I press her lip down with my thumb and she bites it gently.
My cock is throbbing in my pants but my heart aches at the same time. I nod once. “Okay.”
I want to ask why on earth it’s only for tonight, but now is not the time for conversation.
I press my thumb into her mouth and she sucks on it, making me groan. When I take my thumb out, I rub it along her lips, leaving them slick. Just that makes me feel dirty in the best way. “So make it count,” she mumbles against my fingers.
I nod again and let her go, kneeling upright to take off my shirt. Her eyes look glassy as she watches me and then she’s arching to take off her top, the thin chain of a necklace she’s wearing dropping to rest between her breasts still hidden by a black lace bra. My wolf wants to howl at the moon. I do something I’ve been wanting to do for ages and reach down to pull the band from her ponytail, entranced by the long, blonde hair that spills out like honey. I run my fingers through it for just a moment before cradling the back of her head and leaning down to kiss her again. She pulls me down so that I lie fully on top of her and we get lost in just that sensation. She wraps her legs around me again and we rut against each other, the lace of her bra and the full softness of her breasts pressing against me as we kiss. And then the bra is gone. I’m not even sure who removed it and I breathe hotly against her skin as I duck my head to tongue one breast while cupping the other in my hand, squeezing it hard enough to make her moan again. My teeth just barely graze her nipple and she cries out.
Micah's Mate Page 3