by M. L. Briers
“With an attitude like that, who’s to say you won’t.”She warned. She didn’t want to follow him inside, but what real choice did she have? She was stuck in the middle of nowhere, and by nowhere she meant it, a hotel, a garage, and a couple of houses. And if she were entirely honest, she hadn’t been paying enough attention to know where this particular nowhere was.
“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t think that’s how you want our first mating to go.”He warned. Tossing it over his shoulder as the image of him, lean, mean, and powerful flooded her mind, and the things he was doing…
CHAPTER SIX
Dee tripped over her own feet and cursed up a storm. It didn’t help that he had whirled around to catch her, thus seeing her in the act of behaving like a bloody idiot. She cursed out again, and when she dragged her eyes up to stare at him from under her hair, that had so conveniently formed a makeshift, haphazard veil over her face, she saw the absolute amusement in his eyes, and then she did want to swat him into a ditch.
“Did you stub your toe?”She could see he was biting down hard on the urge to laugh, and the first thing that came to mind was- sod the ditch, just punch him in the face- and then she cursed again. Tossing her head back and her hair from her face she glared at him.
“Shame you didn’t go to charm school.”Dee spotted the receptionist that was standing up and giving them her full attention, and she started past him. Just as she got level, he leaned in and whispered near her ear.
“Says the woman who curses like a drunken sailor.”
Damn it, she nearly tripped again. That would truly have been the icing on the cake. He would probably have been on all fours on the floor, like the dog he was, and laughing hard enough to shake the damn rafters of the building around them.
“Bite me.”Dee spat out on a dark glare over her shoulder. It didn’t go unnoticed by her body or her mind that he was catching up to her.
“Oh, I fully intend to, sweetheart.”He growled down at her as his long legs swept him past her to get to the check in desk first.
“Good evening, checking in?”The sickly sweet blonde behind the counter eyed up the man candy that was standing in front of her, and Dee growled in her mind.
“Just out walking the dog.”Dee growled out, eyeing the woman, and letting her know with just a look to keep her damn eyes off her mate.
“Oh, we don’t allow pets.”The blonde replied. Just not to her and that got Dee’s temper right up.
“Guess you have to stay outside tonight, babe.”Dee informed him. She jabbed him in the ribs and heard a very satisfactory groan come out of his mouth a moment before he turned to her and glared down.
“Oh…”The receptionist giggled slightly, but there was no amusement in Aidan’s eyes as he stared down at Dee. And then he felt it, pure unadulterated jealousy, the green eyed monster was rearing its head within his mate, and the pain in his ribs was a like a medal of honour.
“Two rooms…”Dee offered the words to Aidan and then quickly turned her attention towards the receptionist. “Please.” She added and the blonde immediately gave her a look of apology.
“We don’t have two I’m afraid…”She started and Dee frowned a glare at her.
“You’re in the middle of nowhere, how could you not have two rooms?”She snapped back. She was sure she heard a snort of laughter from Aidan and ignored it. But she did catalogue it and store it to use against him at a later date.
“Actually, we’re a very busy hub for businessmen from the…”
“Yeah, I don’t really care. I just want a shower and a bed.”Dee offered. Rude, yes, acceptable under the circumstances though, seen as the damn blonde was still eyeballing Aidan.
“That we can do. We have one room left…”
“Tell me it has single beds…”Dee almost begged and the woman shot Aidan a quizzical look that told Dee the little minx wouldn’t be asking for single beds if she got him in a hotel room, and she growled to herself.
“Err…”The woman seemed to be having a brain fart, as she managed to drag her eyes from Aidan and check the computer screen.
“He’s gay.”Dee offered and heard Aidan growl, just the slightest hint on his breath out, and she beamed up at him. “He’s just shy about it. Not long snuck out of the closet…”Dee half whispered towards the woman, whose eyes flicked to Aidan in a mixture of disbelief and sympathy.
“Well lucky for you two that we have two singles in that room.”The blonde announced, going back to her irritatingly sweet voice and Dee elbowed Aidan in the ribs again.
“Lucky us.”She beamed up at him and heard a very distinctive growl come from him this time.
“Sounds like thunder rolling in, guess you got here just in time.”The blonde informed them and Dee couldn’t help but snigger.
“Either that or he’s hungry again. Eats like a real animal this one. You have to keep your fingers out of the way…”Dee was on a roll. She was enjoying the annoyance that rolled through Aidan, even if he was trying to control his temper. “Drools too. It’s not pretty. I think sometimes he could just eat a whole cow, just wolf it down…”
“Can we sign in now?”Aidan growled over at the woman and she stopped grinning at Dee and blinked twice at Aidan’s sudden change in tone.
“Moody too when he’s hungry.”Dee offered. She couldn’t stop the snigger that reached her lips and turned away from the pair of them. Putting her hand to her mouth she walked away from the counter and pretended to stare back out at the blackness outside the window.
“Check out time is ten in the morning. Enjoy your stay.”The blonde was ticking off her checklist and she heard Aidan grunt his thanks just before she felt him come up behind her. He slipped his hand against the crook of her arm and started moving them off away from the woman before he growled down at her.
“That was an attempt at humour?”
“Better than your attempt at driving.”Dee shot back and heard his low growl roll towards her again. “And you really need to get a grip on the growling thing.”She hissed up at him, a slight snigger escaping her lips again.
They stopped abruptly and if he hadn’t of been holding onto her arm she would have kept walking right past their door. Aidan let go of her only long enough to open the door and snap on the light, before he reached for her again and manhandled her inside the room.
Furniture polish, bleach, and lavender air spray filled the air and she saw him wince as he scented the room. Kicking the door closed behind him, Aidan crossed straight over to the window and pushed it open to let in the cold night air and kill off some of the chemical scent.
He yanked the curtain closed and turned back towards her. The darkness of his eyes and the brooding look on his face let her know that he wasn’t best pleased with her, and she felt the need to pat herself on the back. Job done.
“Wolf’s his food down?”Aidan berated her with his eyes and she shrugged.
“Ten to one you do.”She offered him back. If he was looking for an apology it would be a cold day in hell before she offered it to him.
“Drools?”He started towards her and she snapped her head around to look at him. He saw her eyes narrow and her body stiffen in anticipation of him closing the gap and he changed course and yanked his jacket off, tossing it on the first bed he came too, and saw her relax out of the corner of his eye.
“Probably.”
“Gay?”He made his tone softer. He didn’t want to scare her.
“Well, she was eyeing you like you were chocolate…”Dee offered with a hint of annoyance. Turning away from him, she let her jacket slide down her arms and onto her bed.
“I didn’t notice.”Aidan informed her and she snorted.
“Yeah, right…”
“Why would I be paying attention to another woman when I’ve found my mate?”Aidan’s voice had gone to downright gentle. She could tell where he was in the room and she was glad he hadn’t moved. His words were making her insides do a happy dance, and if he touched her right then, well he might just be doing a victory ho
wl.
“I’m going to take a shower.”Dee walked straight to the bathroom as a definite growl followed hot on her heels. She closed the door behind her and locked it before he got any more ideas. Berating herself for giving him the image of her naked and wet under the water in the first place.
How had she gone from not knowing she had a mate, to wanting to scratch a woman’s damn eyes out for looking at him within a few hours? And if she was like this now then what the hell was she going to be like by morning? She’d even started to look on this as a good thing when she was in the car with him. How the hell had Tanya not recognised the signs of her mate?
Then she remembered that Tanya had been drunk and she wished she had the luxury of a bottle of anything even remotely intoxicating, even a bottle of mouthwash would do right now…
Aidan looked at the bathroom door and sighed. She was so close and yet so far from him. The door was the easy part. He could have that open in a heartbeat, then what?
Aidan looked at the two single beds and growled at his bad luck. It could have been worse, it could have been separate rooms as she had requested. The gap looked like a damn ocean between the beds. Kept apart by the small bedside table that nestled between the headboards, he growled at the damn thing and sighed again.
The hell was their first night together going to be spent in single beds, he thought. Striding up between them and grabbing the small unit. He lifted it up and bit down on the urge to toss it across the room. He carried it over to the window and placed it against the wall.
Turning back towards the beds he gave them a wolfish grin. If she thought a little thing like single beds was going to keep them apart, she could think again.
It didn’t take Dee long to realise that the only thing she had to wear to bed was her tee and her panties. Everything else was in the back of the car and the car was at the garage. But the heat and feel of the hot water over her body had been worth it. And after the first five minutes of eyeballing the bathroom door, she’d lost herself under the hot stream.
Now she was faced with putting all of her clothes back on or walking out there wearing nothing much on her bottom half. Putting aside the fact that he was male, and therefore didn’t need any encouragement to think of sex every twenty seconds a day, he was also an Alpha, which meant it was more than likely those thoughts went through his brain on a constant stream. Add to that the fact he was her mate and she knew that she could have walked out there wearing a fleece Onesie, SpongeBob slippers, and chainmail over the top and he’d still get a damn erection.
There really wasn’t anything she could do to take his mind off the mating process, and she knew that, because she couldn’t get her damn mind off it. Just running her hands over her naked skin under the shower had her mind wondering to all things him related, his deep brown eyes, those damn broody brows, the dark stubble that scaled his cheeks, and that hard, muscled body.
Dee shivered long and hard at the thought of all of those muscles caged around her. Damn, but he was a fine specimen of maleness. And she’d known that night in the bar, just from looking at him that sex with him would be an epic experience. And what she hadn’t imagined doing to his body was probably best left to the imagination of someone far more experienced than her.
“Talking yourself into or out of it?”Dee muttered under her breath. Steeling herself, she reached for the lock and clicked it off.
Dee pulled open the door and the rush of cold air swept over her body and made her gasp in a breath. Was he trying to freeze her to death? The lights might be off, but the light from the bathroom illuminated the room just fine and she had no problem seeing the changes to the room in her short absence.
Both beds had been pushed together and the unit that had held them apart was now under the window, the same window where the curtains were billowing inwards with the force of, what felt like an arctic wind, rushing through them.
She’d seen him sitting on the edge of the bed. How could she not? He looked like the sexual equivalent of everything she could ever think to ask for at Christmas and Birthday for the next ten years rolled into one. And it might have been as hard as hell to dismiss him with her eyes, as she scanned the room, but it was even harder to dismiss him with her body.
“I suppose this is the Alpha’s equivalent of throwing your toys out of the crib?”Dee muttered, knowing full well he could hear her just as if she’d shouted at him.
“Start as you mean to go on.”Aidan growled out. He was barely holding onto his need to push up off the bed and take her there and then.
He could scent her so much more clearly now that she wasn’t covered in artificial chemicals, just the sweet smell of lavender soap and her. He was harder than a damn hammer just from her scent, let alone the fact that she was only wearing a short tee that barely covered the dark triangle at the tops of her thighs, although he was sure he could see just a dash of black panties in the shadows there.
His eyes scooped over the hardened nipples that poked against the soft fabric and down again to those long, shapely legs that he could already feel wrapped around him. Christ, he was going to lose it before he even started.
“I’m gonna take a shower.”He growled out. Knowing that he needed to get the hell out of that room and away from her, before the urge to lift her against the wall and thrust into her until they were both sated became more than just an urge. But he didn’t move, barely even took a breath as he waited for her to move away from the doorway.
“Close the damn window on your way.”She growled out at him. Moving off towards the first bed and allowing him the distance between them he needed to keep his mind and body in check, but only just.
Dee wanted to throw herself at him and hide beneath the covers at the same time. Her body was telling her one thing and her mind another, well almost another, it was still flashing images of her body under the unyielding muscle mass of his. She would have closed the damn window herself, but she didn’t want to risk walking past him in case she somehow managed to accidentally detour onto his lap and press herself against him in a totally harlot kind of a way.
His quick movement from the bed to the window made her body tense with anticipation, longing was in there somewhere too, she knew it, and it was hard to dismiss. And she had to admit she might have been a little disappointed when he walked straight into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
Slipping in under the covers, Dee shivered from the feel of the ice cold sheets against her bare skin. It wasn’t any warmer inside the bed, just inside her body, and that was on fire for only one reason. Him.
Dee’s mind ran riot with thoughts of him getting naked in the bathroom, peeling the layers of clothes from his toned body, and when the sound of the shower seeped into her mind, she had images of that too.
It took everything she had to not get out of the damn bed and go to him. Ease the ache that her erotic imagination had created inside her by ravishing him in the damn shower cubicle. And she groaned and flipped over in the bed. Knowing it was inevitable that she was going to become this man’s mate and accepting it were two different things.
Her body wanted him, that wasn’t an issue. Fate had made it so that he was her chocolate on a needy day. Her favourite ice cream that she wanted to run her tongue over, savour the feel of him, and taste him down the back of her throat…
She ground her eyelids down and tried to banish the thoughts from her mind, but how the hell could she? Not when her whole body was crying out for more than a damn taste, she wanted to devour the whole thing, over and over, until she was full of him…
And there lay the problem. It was glaringly obvious, but probably only to her. He wasn’t a weekend fling or a one night stand, he was forever, and that was a damned long time. Sexually, probably not, she doubted that she would ever tire of him, or him of her, but emotionally, well that was another matter.
She’d been going around telling herself that she needed something more and here it was, presented on a damn platter, not silver, b
ecause that would be bad, but he was being dished up by Fate for her to emotionally lap up. So why was she hesitating?
Billy. Simple answer, he was one fine looking Lycan that had rocked her world, but turned out to be one step away from the funny farm. He optimised an Alpha male even though he wasn’t one. And the Lycan dictionary probably had a picture of him next to the word possessive…
Billy wasn’t an issue, she told herself. Billy was nuts and Aidan was her mate, and yet, she’d experienced possessive before and this was going to be so much more than that. And this time she knew that all three Fae put together would not be able to spell Aidan into leaving her the hell alone, as they had with Billy. It was an impossibility to keep a mate away with Magic, because magic was what brought mates together.
The sound of a low growl came from inside the bathroom and made her brain spin into a totally different direction. She had a pretty good idea about what he was doing in there, and it wasn’t hard for her mind to conjure up the image. Her body pulsed with a need for the same thing, release, sweet pleasure, however empty it would be without him inside her body…
“Damn it.”She ground out into the pillow. Praying for sleep to take her away from her mental and physical anguish, and yet knowing that wasn’t going to happen. The thought of just getting up, going into the bathroom, and doing all of those things that would make them both feel a damn sight better hit her mind a second before she heard the door to the bathroom being yanked open, and she couldn’t help but raise her head from where she’d buried it inside the pillow and letting her eyes feast on him.
He certainly didn’t disappoint. He walked out of the room with the kind of presence that only an Alpha could command. He wasn’t flashing off his hard, toned body for her benefit, he didn’t need too. He probably hadn’t even thought about how the sight of him would affect her as he walked out totally naked, reaching up to his neck to dry off his skin with a towel, the same towel that hung just where she didn’t need it to be, clear down the middle of his body, hiding his manhood from her eyes.