by Abby Blake
“Lunch is ready,” Isaac called through their link.
“Isaac said lunch is ready,” Andrea informed him.
“I know.”
“How do you know? Does the mating link build between my mates as well?” She seemed more curious than pissed, so he tried to explain something that he and his twin had kept hidden from all but a trusted few.
“Isaac and I have always been able to communicate telepathically. We’re not sure why or how, but it might have something to do with the legends and superstitions surrounding identical twin werewolves.”
“So, Xavier?”
“Can’t hear us, no. But he can hear you. When the mating link is at its strongest, he’ll even be able to hear you from this distance.”
She half smiled, half grimaced. “It’s probably a good thing that he can’t hear me today. I was kind of a bitch this morning.”
“Yeah, well, he deserved it. He’s the alpha, so he’s used to getting his own way, but he’s usually more diplomatic. To be honest, I’ve never seen him act quite so out of character. One of his strengths as a leader has always been to see an argument from all sides, and then do what’s best for the pack. He rarely uses his position to get his own way.”
She giggled softly and pressed close to his side as they headed up the stairs to her apartment. “So what you’re saying is I manage to bring out the worst in him.”
“Pretty much.”
Chapter Six
Xavier had been biting heads off all day. Okay, it wasn’t the literal biting of heads, but if he let his wolf side have his way, it just might lead to bloodshed. Three days. Three long, irritating, infuriating days without his mate. How had he lived so long before meeting her?
The worst part was that they hadn’t even spoken since their argument Wednesday morning, so he had no idea what the woman was thinking. When he’d rung Daegan, his younger brother had simply told him everything was under control. Under control? What the hell did that mean anyway?
He growled, stood up so fast his chair hit the wall behind him, stalked around the desk, and started pacing. Maybe he should go for a run. Maybe even do a little hunting in wolf form. Maybe he needed to just simply pound out his frustrations in the gym. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d actually had a vacation.
“Grace!” he yelled impatiently to his secretary. He heard her hurried movement and regretted frightening the poor woman for the millionth time today. Grace was a good secretary, an efficient administrator, and a close friend of his mother’s. If he didn’t settle down, he was liable to scare the poor woman to death.
“Yes, Mr. Cloveck?” Oh shit, it was even worse than he realized. Grace often addressed him formally in front of clients but never when it was just the two of them. Thanks to his wolf senses, he could also smell her fear. Damn it.
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and headed back to his desk. He had a feeling his secretary would be more comfortable if he stayed on the other side of the furniture.
“Grace, can you clear my schedule for the next few days, please?”
“Of course. I’ve already cleared Monday to Wednesday of next week. I’ll move this weekend’s appointments to early the week after.” The woman seemed rather relieved despite the huge amount of work he was asking from her. She’d likely have to work late tonight to juggle his schedule around, but it would seem she preferred it over dealing with his growly attitude. No doubt his efficient, if somewhat timid, secretary was looking forward to a long, long, long weekend far away from him.
“Thank you, Grace.” She nodded and turned to leave the room. “And Grace,” he added just before she stepped out the door, “I’m sorry for the past couple of days.”
Grace gave him a shy, lopsided smile, nodded, and left the room.
Now, if only his mate would accept his apology as graciously.
* * * *
Andrea glanced up at Isaac and frowned. “When did Xavier say he was coming?”
“Sunday night. Why?”
Her newly acquired werewolf senses must be off. She could swear she felt the man close enough to nearly touch. Almost as if he were in the same room. A sudden loud banging on the door downstairs nearly scared the crap out of her.
“Andrea, open the door.”
She was so glad to hear his voice that she almost forgave him the tone—almost. But if he was here to continue Wednesday morning’s argument, she was more than ready to argue back. She stood up, but Isaac grabbed her hand to stop her. “Daegan will get it. The shop’s closed, and it’s already dark outside. The last thing we need is you getting shot in another armed robbery.”
She rolled her eyes at his overprotective attitude, even if it did melt her heart just a little. “It’s Xavier.”
“Oh, well in that case. Can I watch while you kick his stubborn ass?”
“Of course,” she said with a mischievous smile. She really hoped he wasn’t here to start another argument, or, more correctly, to finish the last. She’d missed him too damn much to want to waste whatever precious hours he could spare fighting with the man.
By the time they got to the bottom of the stairs, Daegan had let Xavier in, and the man was stalking toward her. He didn’t stop until he gathered her in his embrace, kissed her like he wanted to inhale her, and then lifted her into his arms. He practically had her stripped bare by the time they entered the bedroom. He dropped her in the middle of the bed, dragged his own clothes off and covered her with his body.
“I missed you,” he said on a ragged breath a moment before he snaked his tongue back into her mouth and sent every one of her senses reeling.
“I missed you, too,” she sent telepathically, unwilling to break the incredible kiss just to say a few words.
“I need you,” he said a moment before he lifted her hips and plunged his thick cock into her pussy. She squealed at the rough intrusion, but he swallowed the noise as he thrust harder and harder into her body.
Holy fucking cow! Every nerve ending was alive, screaming for release. Never had she been taken so roughly, so completely, so overwhelmingly. Damn, if she’d still been human, it would have hurt. But the wolf part of her reveled in the rough fucking, celebrated it with gleeful abandon, willingly submitted to her alpha mate.
“Come for me,” he demanded with the full force of his arrogance. If she’d been able to deny him, she probably would have, but he pushed a hand between them, found her clit, and squeezed. Every cell in her body reacted. She screamed into his mouth, her body undulating, shaking, the rocking, rolling, sliding rollercoaster ride drowning her in liquid heat.
She moaned as he released her mouth, fucking her even harder as he groaned out his own orgasm and then finally stilled. He dropped his head to her shoulder, his mouth opening over the skin, his teeth rasping over her flesh. Instinctively she knew what he wanted, understood what would happen if he bit her at this moment. She shifted, touching his head, pulling him closer, inviting him to finish what he’d started.
But instead he pressed a kiss against her skin and moved away. Confusion washed over her, and she whimpered as he pulled his cock from her body. “Please.” The word escaped before she could call it back, and she closed her eyes as humiliation replaced her confusion. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was denying that they were mates, she had to compound her idiocy by begging.
Shit, she’d obviously learned nothing from her disastrous marriage.
He still held her trapped against the mattress. “Get off me,” she growled in a voice an octave lower than she’d been capable of before.
“Why?” Xavier asked with a confused smile.
She rolled her eyes again and answered his question with one of her own. “Why did you come here?”
Xavier frowned, his eyes narrowed, but he answered in a mild voice, “Because I missed my mate.”
“Oh, so I am your mate. You admit that much.”
“Of course I admit that.”
“Then why didn’t you claim me?”
Xavier searched her face, for what she had no clue, so she gave him a belligerent look and waited for his answer.
“I haven’t claimed you yet because I didn’t think it was what you wanted.”
Damn.
Logic.
How was it that she was angry over him not doing something she didn’t want him to do in the first place? She should be grateful that he’d held off. So why wasn’t she?
* * * *
Isaac stepped into the room, feeling his mate’s confusion. It had been so unfair that they’d had to change her the way they had. The fact that she would have died without it didn’t really matter in the face of everything she would lose. It had been more than obvious over the past three days that she loved the life she led and had been quite content in this small town.
But it didn’t change the fact that in less than two weeks the full moon would force her to change into a wolf.
“How long can you stay?” Isaac asked his brother.
“I’ve cleared my schedule until Thursday. I’ll need to head back Wednesday night at the latest.”
Daegan whistled, the high-pitched noise sounding very much like disbelief. Five days off in a row was longer than Isaac could ever remember his older brother taking. Hell, the guy rarely stopped for weekends.
Xavier was a very big reason why their pack was financially secure. He worked tirelessly to make certain that everything in both business and pack life was running smoothly. The fact that he’d taken five days off to be with his mate said a lot about his state of mind.
“Excellent,” Daegan said with a wolfish grin. “Maybe it’s time to finally claim our beautiful mate.”
“Or,” Isaac said with what he hoped was the right amount of enthusiasm, “we could head home and take care of business while Xavier spends some time with Andrea.”
Daegan didn’t look happy, but thankfully after a rushed telepathic explanation understood why Isaac was making the offer. Xavier looked surprised by the words, but didn’t say anything.
“You’re leaving?” Andrea asked, sounding a little lost.
“Only for a few days,” he assured her. “We’ll be back before Xavier needs to leave.”
She glanced at Xavier, then at Daegan, and then turned her gaze on Isaac. She looked like she was going to be belligerent, but then her determined expression faltered. Andrea dropped her head into her hands. “Shit, I don’t even know what you two do for a living,” she said through her fingers.
“We design computer games,” Isaac told her as he pulled her into his arms. He could feel her genuine distress over not having asked them earlier and wanted to assure her that they hadn’t minded. Their lives would change a little now that they’d found their mate, but it was nothing compared to the impact becoming a werewolf was having on hers.
“Games? You’re computer geeks?” She asked the question with such genuine confusion that he couldn’t help but laugh.
“I suppose we are,” Daegan agreed as he also wrapped his arms around her.
“I dated a couple of geeks in high school, and they didn’t look anything like you two.” She ran her hand over Isaac’s abdomen, and he laughed as he realized what she’d meant. The sheer number of hours they spent sitting at a desk would certainly have affected their physiques if they hadn’t already been werewolves. They still made time to stay in shape, but their werewolf DNA made it a whole lot easier.
“We’ll be back Wednesday lunchtime,” Isaac promised as he held her close and tried not to think about how hard the next few days would be. He glanced at the stunned expression on Xavier’s face and knew that their leaving was necessary. Andrea and Xavier needed to spend some time together, and it would do Xavier good to realize how much Andrea cared for, and was respected by, the people in this small town.
* * * *
Xavier watched his woman work. All day she’d alternated between helping her customers and creating or repairing jewelry, and it was becoming quite obvious why the fates had chosen her to be an alpha’s mate.
She knew people. She was quiet and sensible with old Mrs. Keaton, loud and boisterous with Mr. Jackson from the hardware store, and knew exactly how to handle Jonathon Yates’s rude manners. Quite simply she knew people—how to treat them, when to say what was on her mind, and when to back away. He had no doubt that she’d handled the robbers who’d almost killed her with the same amount of skill.
He’d almost leapt the counter when some guy named Jed came in to let her know that he’d joined AA and wanted to apologize for trying to rob her the other day. But his woman had even known how to handle him. She’d sent a single word to Xavier’s mind—“Stay”—but had put just the right amount of humor into it that he’d hesitated long enough to realize the guy was genuinely remorseful and truly had no idea he’d actually nearly killed her. He’d even had tears in his eyes as he’d explained how relieved he was that the drunken memory he had of shooting her had been wrong.
Andrea had been kind but firm. She’d encouraged him to give up the alcohol, congratulated him on his progress so far, and explained what would have happened to him in prison if he’d “really” had a gun. Xavier shook his head in wonder. He couldn’t imagine anyone brave enough to drink after being given a talk like that.
“You’re not Daegan,” an elderly woman accused as she moved closer to the counter. “Where’s Daegan?”
“He had to go home for a while, ma’am. He should be back in a few days.”
“That’s good,” the old woman said as she assessed Xavier from head to toe. “Who are you?”
A little astounded to be spoken to so bluntly, Xavier glanced around the shop. Maybe being the alpha really did shield him from some people’s behavior. Nobody in the pack would have the audacity to speak to him in this way. He spotted Andrea, but she was busy with a young couple wanting to buy wedding rings, so he really didn’t have a way out of this conversation. “I’m Xavier. Daegan’s brother.”
“So he left you to look after her?”
“Something like that,” Xavier said, not wanting to lie to the old woman but feeling fairly certain Andrea wasn’t ready to explain why she had three boyfriends.
“Good. You make sure that Daegan takes good care of our Andrea. She’s a lovely young woman, but there was always a sadness in her eyes, until he came along.”
“Do you know why she was sad?” Xavier asked, unable to resist the chance to learn more about his mate. But the old woman shook her head.
“Nobody knows for sure, but Mavis and I reckon it had something to do with her time on the police force. Something happened to put those shadows in her eyes. Meeting Daegan made them go away.” She shook a gnarled, arthritic finger in Xavier’s face. “You make sure Daegan keeps things that way, or he’ll be answering to me and Mavis.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Xavier answered very seriously. He wanted to grin, but since he had absolutely no doubt that the woman would come after him and his brothers if they even looked like hurting Andrea, he decided against it.
“You’re a good boy,” the lady said as she reached up and patted him on the cheek. “Just like Daegan.” She smiled a toothless grin and then turned and shuffled from the store.
“Are you okay?” Andrea asked as she came to stand beside him. He laughed quietly.
“I’m fine. Daegan might not be if your latest customer thinks he’s no good for you.”
Andrea grinned and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Yes, Mrs. Thomson is very protective. She and Mavis make quite a frightening team when they set their minds to something.”
He could sense her genuine affection for the old woman and finally realized that he knew very little about Andrea. “When were you a police officer?”
She grimaced, and he could sense her se
arching for a way to change the subject without answering. Without conscious thought he growled low in his throat, the sound more wolf than human. He didn’t like not knowing, and he wasn’t going to let her avoid answering questions about her life before he and his brothers had exploded into her calm existence.
“Stop growling, pooch,” she said with an annoyed sigh. “I was on the force for eleven years. I left three years ago to start this shop, and I’ve been here ever since.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you leave the force? Why did you move here? Why jewelry? Pick one. Answer them all. Just give me something. Tell me what made you sad.”
“Wow, you and Mrs. Thomson managed to have quite the conversation, huh?”
“Stop avoiding the question,” he said, feeling his anger rise. What he really wanted to do was haul her over his knee and smack her ass. Shit. Apart from the fact that wouldn’t help him get an answer—and she’d probably kick him in the nuts—he usually preferred spanking to be part of sexual play, not a barbaric form of punishment. Jesus, he was losing his fucking mind.
Her eyes widened as if she’d heard every thought in his head, but she let out a deep breath and started talking.
“I resigned the day my ex-husband was gunned down by drug dealers. Nick survived, thank God, but it was just one of those life-altering things that made me reassess everything.” She shrugged like the story didn’t really affect her on an emotional level, but thanks to the mating link, Xavier could feel the ragged feelings clawing at her heart. “Nick and I were high school sweethearts, we did everything together—went to college together, joined the LAPD together. And even when our marriage fell apart and we got divorced, we still worked together.” She glanced up to see his expression, perhaps sensing the jealousy worming through his heart. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
He nodded once, grinding his back teeth as he tried to bring his own emotions under control.