At first, his mouth didn’t move.
Huh. She’d never been the one to cause surprise or confusion. No. She wasn’t this woman one bit, and she loved it.
His hand snaked around her waist and pulled her against him. She obliged and pressed her hips hard into the towel. A smile spread across her lips as something not so little greeted her beneath.
Their tongues wound together in a dance that she wanted more of.
He pulled away slightly. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me?”
She pushed away, sense returning.
“Oh my God. I’m pissed you marked me or made me your mate or whatever. What the hell is wrong with men? Don’t you try and seduce me again.”
Humor sparkled in his eyes, and she had to snatch the anger back before it tried to fly away into the wind.
He stepped forward slowly, the towel around his waist dangling precariously by a tucked corner around his hips.
Please fall. No, wait. She mentally slapped herself.
Another step closer.
“First. I didn’t make you anything. You are my mate. You are the only one for me ever. You are her, regardless of whether you embrace it or not. I simply jumped the gun and marked you so no one would ever take you away from me.”
She countered each step he made and stepped back into the tile.
“Olivia. Like it or not our souls are bound. There will never be anyone else for me ever.”
Well shit. If that wasn’t the worst, and best line she’d ever heard. How could she stay mad at that?
Chapter 8
Ethan rubbed a free hand over his neck.
“I screwed up. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
No, he hadn’t ever felt anything like that ever. He couldn’t get his hands on her fast enough. From the second his lips touched hers there was no going back.
Maybe it was her body calling to him or her scent. It was a damn drug screwing with his own instinct. Even now the air around her a rich field of desire. Mad or not, she wanted him.
“You screwed up? That’s your answer?”
Pink tinged her face, running a flush down her chest. Regardless of her exterior, the sound of her rapid heartbeat tipped him off that she wasn’t okay, and this was his fault. But damn, he’d do it again and again. Maybe without the biting part right away.
“You took away my choice. You took away my chance to learn to love you if in fact, I am your mate. What does that really even mean? I’m human, a magical one, but human none the less. How does that work? How can you know I’m the one?”
Her hands fisted into the apron he hadn’t noticed until now. Sugary white smeared across the front, and one of her hands seemed to still have some leftovers from whatever she’d been doing.
“Ethan? Look at me.”
He was looking. He saw her, he could see her as the mother of his daughter. The mother of his future cubs. Only, he saw the hand coming at his face a little too late.
“Shit.” He rubbed the burning on his cheek. “I deserved that.”
Olivia glared. Damn if she wasn’t a scary beta.
“You take away my choice to marry someone of my choosing, and the best you’ve said is you screwed up. And then you drift off into God knows where while I'm talking to you.” Her fingers curled in as if they were claws.
“It’s just that I don't know how it all works. I've never been a mate to anyone. But don’t you feel it? The pull? Being away from you has been the absolute worst twelve hours of my life.” Ethan paused at the realization dawned. He had no idea how she knew about any of this. He was still mustering the courage to see her and yet, here she was.
“How did you figure it all out?” He pointed to her shoulder. “You finally noticed the mark? Although, you don’t seem to believe anyone can know their soul-mate. So, I doubt it was the mark then. Unless you know more about wolf-shifters than you let on. What made you come here?”
She rubbed her temples. “I didn’t think anything of a sore shoulder. I assumed it was bruised from our, uhm, well you know.”
Ethan loved the way her breath grew less steady with each word. He couldn’t hide the smirk.
“You mean the quickie in the alley?”
Shit, shit. He tried to remember to think of puppies or fishing, or anything less sexy than Olivia’s body slamming down on his dick in the alley. He definitely remembered.
She cleared her throat. “I could ignore that. What I couldn’t ignore was the pack of men that showed up in my shop claiming I not only smelled of their alpha, but I was mated to him.”
And good feeling gone. “Oh.”
“So what? You're like their king? This isn’t seventeenth-century England. You can’t just go around claiming woman for your own.” She gasped. “Oh, my God. How many of us are there? What, do you have some kind of harem hidden away? I am not going to get sloppy seconds.”
He snorted.
“That’s not funny. If you’re my mate, or husband, master, whatever the hell you wolf shifter guys do, I own your ass,” she said. Her fists pressed down on her hips.
His heart skipped a beat. She was kind of scary. And sexy as hell. His vision clouded as he pictured her face down on his bed, her ass in the air as he drove into her over and over, her screams muffled as he worked her until her body trembled and her voice was hoarse until their bodies pulsed in orgasm together.
He played with the idea that she might be able to hear some of his thoughts by now, willingly mated or not, she had the title. He tried to push the image to her, let the thoughts travel into her.
He focused on her body moving from her baby blues to her breasts rising and falling more rapidly than a second ago. The apron kept him from going any further, but he saw her legs cross at the ankles, and he quirked his brow.
Instinct pulled him to her. She backed away until there was nowhere else to go. He braced his arms on either side of her.
“So, what you are saying is that as long as there’s no harem, no sharing, that you’re open to the idea of us?”
God, he hoped she’d say yes. He’d take her down to one of the rooms right now and lock out the rest of the guys. He’d show her a proper mating.
Warm breath flitted over his cheek as her breathing quickened. He bent his arms a bit and allowed himself to inch closer. A sparkle lit her eyes, the sheer blue now dark midnight. Fuck, he could almost see her wolf coming through, and she was gorgeous. Olivia needed to stop fighting the shift.
“I am not open to forced servitude.”
Cocking his head, he backed off a few steps. “Servitude? You are not my servant, you are my equal. What the hell do you think this is? You’re my other half.”
She scoffed. “I’d be the better half.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you would be. The point is that you are my second, my other half. You are the emotional balance that runs through the pack where I am the strength and the pivotal force. Do you know anything about wolves at all? We’re a family. There are no servants.”
Standing there, nearly naked, he’d never felt like someone saw him less than she did right now. Pulling in the anger, the hurt, the frustration, he opened the connection between them once more. The thread was weak. It would grow stronger once she allowed her inner wolf to claim her human. Fear, tendrils of anger, confusion, pain. He expected the first two, but the pain was wrong. All wrong. He tried to dig deeper, peel away at the layers hidden in her emotions. He couldn’t find thoughts, not yet. She wouldn’t allow him.
He scanned her, but he couldn’t see a single wound, not beneath all the clothing she wore.
“Did someone hurt you?”
She fronted. “What? No. No one except you.”
What?
How had he hurt her? The whole biting thing was supposed to be pleasing. Everyone said so, not that he’d ever mated anyone before. He had taken care to not slam her into the wall or grip her too hard regardless of the loss of restraint.
He looked at his hands, turning
them over. No, he hadn’t hurt her. The shimmer in her eyes took him aback. A glistening of tears threatening to run down her delicate face.
“You have no idea, do you? You took my freedom from me. Just like my family. I was meant to marry someone because it’s what you do. It’s what witches do. Keep the bloodlines strong, keep them pure. And, you know what?” Her voice fell away.
He waited. Holding his breath until the silence got the better of him. “What?”
“I think maybe you could have been right. Maybe I could have loved you. Maybe I could have been your mate, but you took that from me. Now,” she paused. “Now, I don’t know if what I feel is this mark and whatever the shifter thing is or if it’s me. And this.” Olivia pointed to her head.
“Tell me that you can’t hear my thoughts. Or that I can’t hear yours. Tell me that maybe, that even if my heart doesn’t know what’s real that my thoughts are my own. I know you’re in there. I know it.”
He couldn’t look away, but he struggled with the truth.
“How do you trust yourselves? How do you know you love each other when to me it just seems that you brainwash your mates? You blurred the lines between us. I finally was free. I was finally me, and now I am what? Mrs. Ethan? Hell. I don’t even know your last name.”
He sucked in air against the gnawing raw pain spreading through him. She hadn’t touched him, but her words sucker punched him right in his stomach.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Tears ran freely down her cheeks now. All he wanted was to hold her. He would do his best to make it all better. Right now she wasn't the woman he wanted to have sex with, she was the woman he needed to protect. The problem was, he was the one that caused the pain.
He should have walked away. He should have stopped himself.
“It’s not worth anything Ethan.”
He tried to suck in a breath past the stabbing pain in his throat, he tried to expand his lungs against the ache of a building crumbling and landing on top of it.
“Shifters are never wrong. I love you. I know I love you.”
Her voice wavered, “Yes. But I don’t know that I love you or if it’s just what you did to me.”
He froze. He couldn’t move as she turned and grabbed at the door. A glimpse of her was all he caught as she sprinted down the hall.
The lingering sound of her heavy breathing and soft footfalls disappearing down the stairs and down the next hall until the door squeaked open.
He winced. A pain shot through his chest nearly taking him to the ground. Reaching out an arm to brace himself against the wall, he doubled over.
He’d fucked up, and this time there wasn't any way to fix it.
“Ethan?”
The bathroom door pushed open.
“Good Lord dude. Put some clothes on,” said Kian.
“I think I might have really screwed shit up,” said Ethan.
“And that’s different from all the other times how?” asked Kian.
Ethan shook his head. “No. I mean like, I found my mate and I think I lost her.”
Kian let out a loud laugh. “You can’t lose a mate. That’s not how this shit works. I mean, no I’m not one of your pack animals, but it’s not like Mother Nature up and changed the damn rules.”
Ethan stepped back waiting for something to hit him and hold him up, that or for a sinkhole to open and swallow him.
“What did you do? That look is the kind of look you reserve for when we’re at the blackened gates of hell, and there’s no chance of saving someone.”
Ethan turned his gaze to Kian.
“I might have accidentally mated her without asking first.”
He watched Kian’s face. Kian was his best friend, and the guy had just finally found his own mate. He’d know what to do. The shadow crossing Kian's face though said differently.
“That’s not good. What does accidentally mean?”
Ethan leaned into the wall, turning his bare back against cold tile. Sheer willpower kept him from sinking to the ground like some damn wimp.
“It means that I’m a dumb ass with no self-control. I get these ideas in my head, and I go for it.”
Kian rocked back on his heels. “Well that did make you alpha of your father’s pack, so your instincts seem to be doing something right.”
“I’m a serious fuck up. The whole reason my father was killed in the first place was that I was determined to make the two packs get along. Don’t get me wrong, I love Amelia, and no one can replace her, but she was the only good thing that came out of everything. The poor girl doesn’t even know she’s a product of her father’s stupidity.”
Kian let out a long whistle. “Yeah. But your intentions were good. The packs would be united or whatever, from what you've said. If it weren't for that other wolf." Kian shrugged."Okay. Back to the current catastrophe. So, what do you mean you accidentally mated her? How does that even happen?”
Ethan covered his face with his hand. “I might have seduced her in an alley at your baby shower.”
Booming laughter echoed off the tile walls. “You did what? Wow. That’s a pretty dick move, dude. You were at a baby shower, and you already have one cute little cub. Baby fever hit you?”
“Not funny. You know what. You’re an asshole. I’m calling your mate. At least Raine would be of some help here.”
Kian’s laughter died. “Alright, alright. Calm down. Don’t go getting sand in your crotch. And do not disturb my pregnant mate. She’s crazy emotional right now. So, really, you screwed the pooch - or well the woman. You violated the alleyway, but she was obviously willing. Mating doesn’t just happen.”
Ethan gnashed his teeth together. “Seriously? Yes. She was willing. I don’t know why I talk to you.”
“Calm down. The details are kind of important. Was this like the second date or something? Why didn’t we meet her at the party?”
Ethan pushed away from the wall.
“Forget it, I’m just going to fix it. I have to fix it. I’m going to go mad if I don’t fix it. And no, Mr. Perfect. It was like the second meeting. I don’t know what the hell came over me. I needed her. It was like a daydream, I wasn’t the one in charge. I looked into her eyes and I was done."
Ethan pushed away from the wall and started to pace. "The issue is, she didn’t know. She’s a witch, not a shifter. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand what happened. She doesn’t even grasp that she’s it for me.”
Ethan kept a steady pace and headed for the door. “I’m just going to go talk to her. Maybe I can date her first. Right after I go kill my brothers. They’re the only ones who would have known about her. I love my mother, but she’s got to stop the meddling.”
He got the sense that his mother was pushing fate along. He was almost ready to confront her. Maybe. He was close to it, probably.
Ah, hell. The one time in his life he'd taken the time to analyze and think it through, and this time his mom got involved.
Alpha. What did that even mean when he still had his mom around?
Now it was time to man-up and fix it.
"Shut up," he told the wolf. "If it weren't for you, this might be a whole lot less complex." The wolf snorted and curled up. Ethan wasn't getting anywhere else with him. Not that it mattered.
All that mattered was fixing things with Olivia. He didn't think he'd take a deep breath again, not until she was back in his arms.
Chapter 9
Olivia rolled dough into balls as tears ran down her face. The balls of chocolate were supposed to be something new and exciting for a birthday party. She pushed one chunk into the muffin pan. Sure, she was supposed to be creating a giggling cupcake of sorts. She’d mixed all the right herbs and pounds of chocolate together, said all the right things and still every time she popped one into her mouth all she did was cry harder.
It was her luck she’d fall for a tall, dark and handsome man who she finally thought was her choice just to find out it’s what fate wanted. She hated
magic. She hated the world and all its stupid rules. She wanted her own choices.
A tiny voice within her whispered. "Is it really so bad?"
She sniffled. The idea of waking up next to him every morning eased the suffering in her soul. But was it her that wanted it or the magic? She tried to think back passed the last day to when they'd first met. How he'd captivated her from the start. That had all been lust though. Right?
The camera at the back-door flickered on, alerting Olivia someone was there. She smiled through the tears as she saw a familiar figure. Promptly, she replaced the smile with a frown.
He’d hurt her. But damn it if she didn’t want to run to him. Again though, was that her? Or was that his thought? Was that the mating?
“Oh, crap.” The icing in her hands dripped to the counter.
What the? First snow, now this?
Olivia stopped to assess herself. Her body boiling hot, the icing in her hand melting out. Glancing at the screen again she crossed her legs at the instant attraction to him. No, she was pissed.
Turning away she focused on getting the dripping pastry bag to the sink. Holding her hand under the tip as it practically created a river of sugary water, curiosity gnawed at her.
No. I won't give in.
“There. That’s better.” She rolled her head side to side. Calm yourself. Using the heel of her hand, she tried to wipe the tears away.
Olivia shook out her arms and hands. Alright, I can do this. I can be around him.
No. He should suffer.
Then she peeked at the screen again. His head hung low, his stance stressed and agitated. He hurt. She knew he genuinely suffered too.
Deflating her lungs on one long breath, her thoughts shifted past anger. If it hurt this much to be away from him, she might have to give in. But only if she got something out of this.
Chewing the inside of her cheek, she glanced at the monitor again and felt an ache deep down in her soul as his massive frame paced back and forth. Flexing her fingers against a tingle of magic, she couldn’t look away from him. She wanted to hold him and make the pain go away. The desire to kiss away the sadness almost to strong to ignore. .
Icing On His Mate (A Move Over Fate Novel) Page 7