by R. E. Butler
Dropping the pen, she reached her hands back and clutched at him, “I missed you, too.”
He opened his eyes and dropped them to the page she’d torn out of a notebook. It looked like a grocery list. “Do you want me to take you shopping tonight?”
“That would be great.” She tried to turn to face him but he held her still and she immediately relaxed. He reached for the button of her jeans and she tipped her face up to kiss him. The zipper fell slowly, that low sound of the metal teeth parting, and he slid his tongue into her mouth and tasted whatever she was making for dinner and had been tasting before he got home. Red meat and wine. Delicious.
He found the edge of her panties, tiny little things that they always were, and she moaned and pulled back, “If we play then dinner will be cold and I’m nearly out of things to cook for us.”
“Just you, angel. Let me touch you.”
Her head dropped back to his shoulder and tilted enough so he could kiss her neck and he slid his hand to her pussy underneath her panties and found her wet and hot. She had not denied him yet. No matter what he asked, she went willingly. She teased and tormented him, but the way she let him play with her made him want to do it more and more.
She tugged her jeans down her hips for him and he rewarded her by sinking two fingers inside her and caressing her clit with the palm of his hand. He sucked on her neck, hard enough to bruise and her pussy clenched his fingers. He slid his hand around to her throat and splayed his fingers across the length of her neck to hold her firmly in place while he bruised her throat with his mouth and fucked her with his fingers. His fingers pounded into her until he wrenched a scream of pleasure from her lips and her nails dug into his arms where she held onto him for dear life.
Her climax seeped over his fingers as her body clenched him again and again in little waves and she let out a sobbing sigh and her knees gave out and she leaned heavily into the counter. He licked the dark purple bruise on her neck and nuzzled under her ear. Pulling his hand free, he showed her the glistening wetness and she shivered. “I love what you let me do to you, angel,” he said with a rough voice.
She sniffled and turned her face to him, and he caught sight of a tear on her cheek. He kissed it away. When she was really pleasured, taken right to that highest point he could take her, tears would stream down her face. It had freaked him out the first time, worried he’d hurt her, but now he knew what it meant. She was just that happy.
“Now, pull up your jeans like a good girl and let’s eat dinner and go shopping,” he gave her ass a light smack.
“We could have a quickie.”
He licked one of his fingers. Exquisite. “Nah. I’d rather wait and take my time. Why would I want to be fast with you, sweetheart?”
She tugged up her jeans and turned around, leaning against the counter. Her eyes were bright and happy and a wicked little smile played across her mouth. “You weren’t planning on getting any sleep tonight, were you?”
“Nah.” He murmured.
“Good thing.”
She watched him while he licked his fingers clean of the intoxicating taste of her come. Fuck he loved her watching him.
Dinner was amazing. Something she called Beef Bourguignon with a red wine sauce. He didn’t even realize he had red wine in the house, but she’d found it in the back of one of the kitchen cabinets. The last of the canned potatoes were roasted with baby carrots and little onions in the gravy, and she made a chocolate pie for dessert.
While he drove her to the grocery in town, he said, “So we’ve been invited to dinner on Friday at my grandma’s house. My grandpa will be there, and my mom, too.”
She was leaning across the seat with her head on his shoulder and hugging his arm. “They want to meet me?”
“Of course.”
“And they know about what I am? What we are together?”
“Yeah. My grandma is the one that recognized the tattoo.”
“My tattoo?” She looked up at him and he glanced down at her.
“Um, Monday at lunch when I was over at her house fixing her sink, she asked me to wait while she got something for me and I was doodling on the newspaper and it was your tattoo. She asked who I knew that was an angel.”
“You drew my tattoo from memory?”
“Memory? Hell, Karly, I spent a long time kissing and licking that mark over the weekend. It’s burned into my brain.”
She laughed and leaned up far enough to kiss him on the cheek. “You’re such a sweetheart. How’d I get so lucky?”
Well, they weren’t going to argue about who was luckiest in their relationship. He was clearly the winner.
She offered to help pay for the groceries. He tried not to let his pride get wounded because he truly didn’t think she asked because she didn’t think he could afford it, but because she was just polite and wanted to share in their responsibilities. She only offered once, and he turned her down with a kiss and a thanks-but-no-thanks, and she let it go. She wanted to shop for a week’s worth of groceries. “But not Friday of course, and I’d like to take you out to dinner on Saturday, if you’re interested,” he said.
He walked next to her while she pushed the cart through the first aisle that was dairy products. Even though she had a list, she didn’t even check it. It seemed to be memorized. “Sure,” she smiled and flashed him her dimple.
They talked about food in the grocery. What else was there to talk about? He found out her favorite meal was chicken parmesan, but she also liked a good grilled steak, rare of course, and her favorite dessert was strawberries with chocolate sauce. She loved her parents and had a pretty charmed life, even for growing up in a strict old-school wolf pack. She had a few nieces and nephews courtesy of her three alpha werewolf brothers, and had last seen her parents at Christmas.
After he unloaded the groceries, he waited until she had the cold things put away and then he chased her back into the bedroom, “I’ve waited long enough, Karly.”
* * * * * * *
“You look dead beat, man,” Michael mused from where he leaned casually against the workbench. “Is your new girl keeping you up all night?”
Linus looked up at him from where he was kneeling next to the bike he was determined to finish today. “Yeah.”
“What’s her name?”
“Karly.”
He hummed in his throat. “She’s human, right?”
“Yep.” Eventually it would come out, but it would be on their terms and no one else’s. He could guess that Bo had talked to Jason. Linus had expected as much.
“You didn’t learn your lesson the first time?” Michael sniffed derisively. A few weeks ago, he would have throttled Michael for the insult. Now, though, he could see it came from a dark place. Michael wasn’t happy.
“No, actually, I learned my lesson well. Karly’s my mate. My true mate. If she needed my heart to live, I’d cut it from my chest myself. That’s never happened to me before. I’ve never felt that way about anyone.”
Michael’s eyes shadowed darkly. “Must be nice,” he muttered as he walked away and back to his own work.
* * * * * * *
The house smelled like fruit when he got home, and he found his little sweetheart putting a still warm from the oven dessert into a plastic container. She smiled as he kissed her cheek, “It’s an apricot braid. For your family.”
He marveled at her sweetness again. He showered and shaved quickly and when he went into the closet he found his one pair of dress slacks pressed and hanging neatly. He’d planned to wear jeans tonight and try to iron them for tomorrow. He barked for Karly.
“Yeah sweetie?” She walked into the bedroom a few moments later.
He was going to tell her that she shouldn’t do his laundry. That he didn’t want her to feel obligated or that he expected her to act like some 1950s housewife, but the moment he saw her eyes, he knew it wasn’t about any of that for her. She just flat-out wanted to take care of him, and for her, that meant this exact thing. He hung the slacks back up and he
ld his arms out for her. She crossed the distance quickly and sighed into his chest. “Thank you, love.”
“What for?”
“For everything that you do for me. You make me feel very loved. Do I make you feel that way, too?”
Her brown eyes were warm and kind, “Most definitely.”
There was something that tickled at the back of his mind while he held her against him and rocked back and forth quietly. An old saying, maybe that he’d heard as a child. That the husband was the warrior that protected the home and the wife was the warrior that protected his heart. But she wasn’t just protecting his heart; she was the living, breathing epitome of it.
As he expected, his family loved her. They peppered her with questions about her family’s pack, her upbringing as an angel, and her journey to find him. He listened with pride as she described her search for him, as if he were the most important man in the universe for her. And he guessed that he was. When they got ready to leave, his grandmother slipped an envelope into his jacket pocket and he smiled in thanks to her.
Saturday morning they went back to her apartment and finished gathering her things. Her clothes were all at the house and her angel books, but her art supplies and camera equipment that she lugged from city to city were waiting to find a place in the house. He couldn’t wait to look through her albums. She spoke with such an excited gleam in her eyes when she talked about photography and art. He wanted the walls in the house full of her pictures.
On the way to her tiny apartment, they stopped at a dog breeder she had apparently contacted during the week and she picked out a little female rat terrier puppy. He managed to find the frozen body of the original dog in the creek at her request and she’d bundled it carefully in a cardboard box and they had given the puppy and the dead dog to her neighbor, who was going to take it to a pet cemetery. He took the opportunity of the mutual tears of the two women to load up her things, and then he reminded Karly that they had plans and needed to get going.
She followed him home in her fantastic Porsche Boxter. She said it was her father’s and he apparently liked to get a new car every year and donated his old ones to his children. It fit perfectly in the garage after he moved his motorcycle to make room for it. He was itching to drive it, too, and have his arm around her while he did it.
“Now you said we had plans?” She asked, watching the garage door slide shut.
“Um, naked plans, yep.” He laughed and swung her up over his shoulder and carried her back to the bedroom like the caveman he felt like. It was going to be a great weekend.
Chapter 8
He said nice restaurant, and he had grabbed his only pair of dress slacks and one of his two dress shirts, so she took the hint and looked through her dressy things and finally settled on a pretty v-neck sweater dress that she paired with black stiletto heels.
He was looking out the back door when she walked out of the bedroom. The black slacks and dark blue dress shirt looked wonderful, and the tie was black and blue checks. The shirt offset his eyes and made them look darker than they really were – blue jean and not baby blue. Gorgeous, nonetheless.
He folded her in his arms, “You are so beautiful, sweetheart.”
“You are as sweet as you are handsome.”
She could see he was going to do that arguing thing where he was going to tell her that she was the better part of the relationship, so she silenced him with a kiss.
He drove to a restaurant about twenty minutes away. The ride was quiet and he held her hand on his thigh, but he seemed nervous and tense. When he parked in front of the Italian restaurant, he got out of his side and came around to hers and opened the door for her, holding her hand as she hopped down.
They were seated at a small table in the dimly lit restaurant, punctuated with a roaring fireplace and candles on the tables. It was definitely romantic. She played conversation-keeper and asked him about the garage and the bike he had just finished that afternoon, his friends, and pack news. The full moon wasn’t for three more weeks.
He told her about his friend Bo who seemed very unhappy and lonely, and the second in the pack, Michael, who was the smartass of their group of friends.
Dinner was wonderful. They shared a tiramisu and talked over coffee, and then he was ready to take them home. He seemed to get more nervous as the evening drew to a close. He asked her to give him a minute in the family room alone, so she went into the bedroom and sat on the bed and waited. He came to get her about ten minutes later, and held her hand in his and led her back out. A fire crackled in the fireplace, candles twinkled on every surface, and a blanket had been spread out and large pillows tossed casually around the edges. An open bottle of wine and two glasses were on the end table.
He pulled her to the center of the blanket and before she could do anything, he dropped down to one knee and her heart stopped beating.
He pulled a ring from his pocket and looked up at her. In the firelight and candlelight, she could see clearly that there was a part of him that worried she would say no. That she might not really believe they were mates.
“Karly, my sweet angel, I love you. I know it’s only been a week, but I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it. And I want to marry you. I want you to have my last name and make a family with me. I want to spend the rest of my life making you the happiest woman in the world. Will you marry me?”
Tears slid down her cheeks, “Oh Linus, of course I’ll marry you.”
He pushed the band onto her finger and stood up slowly, his face a motley of emotions as he hugged her and kissed her hungrily.
They made love on the pillows on the floor as the fire flickered orange and yellow across their bodies and when he had caught his breath, he said, “Sweetheart, can I mark you?”
She lifted her head from his chest where she had been listening to his heart pound, and said, “Of course.”
“Are you sure?”
She tried not to roll her eyes. “I said I would marry you. Why wouldn’t I also want to wear your marks?”
“I just…wanted to make sure.”
She rolled off him and flipped her hair off her neck and stretched out on her side. “I’m positive. Mark me, Linus, make me yours in truth.”
She could smell his body change. He smelled great all the time, all male and warmth and the cologne he liked, but as he shifted slightly so his fangs elongated, she caught the scent of his wolf, like deep earth in the fall. Comforting.
“I love you, Karly. My sweet angel mate.” He said with a rough voice as his breath skirted over her neck. Tilting her head to get the angle he wanted, he sank his fangs onto either side of her spine and her body lit up. It hurt, but not worse than anything else she’d ever been through, and the emotions that came with it overpowered the pain as it slid into pleasure.
She reached for his hand that was resting on her hip and moved it between her legs and he moaned and it shifted to a growl that slid down her spine and lodged there. His fangs receded as his fingers slid into her pussy and he licked the marks and the blood that seeped from them and drove her to an orgasm. They made love again, and she rode him this time. Their emotions tangled together and she could feel his utter awe at the situation and the love that filled the whole center of his being. As another orgasm crested through her, she did what she knew he wanted but would never ask; she jerked him up by his shoulders and sank her teeth into his neck. He roared as he came, holding her so tight she could scarcely catch a breath as her teeth cut through his skin and his blood seeped into her mouth. The very raw power of his blood, the final part of their bond as mates, coursed through her and she felt as primal as she ever had. She licked across the marks as she held him tightly in place with her hands fisted in his hair. Unlike a human’s marks on a wolf’s flesh, hers would scar just like his would, but only this time when her blood was in his veins and his in hers.
She touched the marks with her fingertips, “These will be here forever, Linus.”
He loosened his grip with a
shaky breath and looked surprised, “Really? I’ll get to keep them?”
She smiled softly and kissed his cheek, “Of course. I’m a supernatural being. And these were the right circumstances. You marked me and took my blood into your body, and with your blood in me, it gave me the ability to make these marks permanent. I tried to keep them towards the back of your neck. And they’re not as neat as if I had real fangs.” She paused, “Was that okay? I should have asked.”
He slid his hands up her sweaty arms and cupped her face, “Sweetheart, I’m so glad. I wasn’t sure you would want to mark me every few days for the rest of our lives.” He smiled genuinely.
He seemed to suddenly remember that he had wine for them, so they toasted their future together. After they both went to the bathroom to check out their new marks, they settled back together in front of the fire and she got a chance to look at the ring for the first time. It was a simple band of woven white gold.
He fingered it and said, “I want to get you one from me, too, sweetheart, but this is my family’s band and I needed you to have it. You’re the only one I have ever wanted to give it to. I need you to know that.” He looked at her and a very sad little boy was peeking through his eyes. She’d caught glimpses of this part of him. Whether it was the childhood he didn’t want to talk about or the ex-wife that had caused him so much grief, there was a part of this man that expected to be hurt. That steeled himself for it.
“I love it. And I love you, Linus. I truly do.”
They made love again and although they fell asleep on the pillows in front of the fireplace, she woke up in his arms in bed, and couldn’t have been happier.
The following week passed quickly. Her mom shipped two boxes of her things she’d left at home, mostly her shoe collection, and she spent her days cooking and cleaning and taking care of her future husband. It was all very Leave It To Beaver, but she loved it. It’s what she’d always wanted. She certainly wasn’t one of those girls who thought that it was an insult to take care of her man. When he would call at lunchtime to thank her for whatever she’d put together for him, she could just hear the walls around his heart cracking; as if every time he called there was a worry at the back of his mind that she might not be there this time and he was relieved that she was. And the way he called her name at night when he got home from work...like she might have changed her mind and taken off. Time was what would help him to realize she wasn’t going anywhere, and that she would definitely give him.