by Zoe Chant
They chased each other up the stairs, pausing more than once to tickle or caress. It reminded Joel of how they'd played out in the mountains. They could do that again, now—they could keep doing it for the rest of their lives, forever.
That was something Joel had never thought about, when he thought about the mate-bond. It meant that the best person, the most amazing person, the person you loved more than anything, would be with you forever.
And that was worth anything.
They nearly tripped on the landing, but miraculously made it to Joel's room intact. He shut the door firmly, then tumbled Nina down onto the bed.
"A real bed this time," he told Nina, who was grinning up at him. "We're coming up in the world."
"I'd rather be in the cabin by the fire any day," Nina told him, her grin mellowing into a sincere smile. "But this'll do."
"Same here," Joel admitted, and then turned his attention to getting them naked.
Nina helped as best she could while lying down, and soon all of her fine brown skin was illuminated by the soft light from the window.
"You're so beautiful," Joel said involuntarily, looking down at her stretched out on the bed. "You look like a painting." All of those gorgeous curves, the little Mona Lisa smile on her face as she looked up at him...he could watch her forever.
"You should look in a mirror," she told him, which Joel thought was a bit of an exaggeration, but he was distracted from objecting when she sat up and went for the button of his jeans. "Now it's your turn."
Joel helped her strip off his clothes, and then when they were finally both naked, pushed her gently back onto the bed. "What do you want?" he asked her.
Her eyes went wide at the question. "I...don't know," she admitted. "I'm...not too experienced. Last night was the best I've ever had."
"Me too," Joel said. "So I guess that means there are more bests to come."
Nina smiled. "I believe it. And I want whatever you want. Surprise me."
Joel kissed her. When he pulled back, she was still smiling against his lips. "I hate to break it to you," she said, "but that wasn't that much of a surprise."
"How about this?" Joel asked, and slipped his hand between her legs to catch her clit gently between his fingers.
Nina made a sound best described as a squeak. It was adorable. "I wasn't expecting that," she admitted shakily.
Joel moved his fingers a little. "Good?"
She nodded. "Good." Her voice had gone low.
Joel kept his fingers moving, stroking her clit up and down, and watched her face as he did it. He rubbed her gently at the very top of her clit, stroked down the left side, then up the right, pressed hard down by her entrance, and learned from her reactions what she liked. When he tapped his finger gently, she made a strangled noise, so he did it again, and again, until her hips started lifting to get more pressure. Then he slid his fingers down to play around the opening of her vagina, where she was slick and wet.
Nina's eyes closed, and her beautiful face was caught up in an expression of concentration as Joel learned what gave her pleasure. Her chest heaved as he figured out what she liked best. She started making little breathy moans.
Joel was hard, his dick pulsing with blood and eagerness, but he was enjoying holding himself back. Just like before, he was finding that the more he took care of Nina, the better everything was. He wanted to wait until she'd had all the attention she needed before he focused on his own pleasure.
He had his fingers down at the very base of her clit, rubbing hard, and Nina was gasping in pleasure. Joel leaned in and touched his tongue to one of her hard nipples, and she gave a tiny shriek. He sucked gently, and she writhed.
Then, keeping his thumb moving on her clit, Joel slipped one finger inside of her, finding that slightly rougher patch just a couple inches in, and pressed down.
Nina came with a yell, clenching hard around his fingers, soaking his wrist in her juices. Joel's dick pulsed hard with pleasure, and he lifted his mouth from her breast and kissed her fiercely, swallowing the rest of her noises as he nursed her through the aftershocks with his hand.
Nina clutched frantically at him, her hands sliding over his shoulders and chest. “Inside me,” she gasped. “Now, please.”
Joel couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than to be fully joined with Nina. “Yes,” he said, and knelt up over her, catching her thigh in one hand and spreading her legs. Nina shuddered.
“I love you,” Joel said, looking down at her beautiful face, her body glowing with pleasure and exertion, her stunning grey-green eyes looking back up at him.
“I love you.” She smiled, and somehow it made her even more beautiful.
Joel sighed as he slid inside her. She was so slick, hot and tight, and the knowledge that it was Nina he was with, that Nina’s body was taking him in, was enough to drive him almost to the edge already.
He stopped when he was fully sheathed, and breathed deep to pull himself back a little. He wasn’t going to let this end before Nina was fully satisfied.
Nina’s head had tipped back as he pushed inside her, and her inner walls were shivering around him, tiny little twitches of pleasure that were going to drive him insane. Joel inhaled again, and breathed in only the scent of Nina’s sex, thick and intoxicating all around him.
He couldn’t help himself. He started to move.
Nina lifted her hips to meet him, and suddenly they were moving together, making love to each other in this hot, perfect moment. Sweat dampened both their bodies, and the slick slide of sex sounded loud in the empty house. Nina moaned with each thrust, and Joel buried his face in her neck, inhaling her scent and kissing her soft, soft skin.
It couldn’t last. Part of Joel wanted it to go on forever, but another part was caught up in the slow, inevitable build of it, the way it was coalescing into a peak of ecstatic pleasure. He had enough presence of mind to reach down between them, find Nina’s clit and rub hard over it in the way he now knew would bring her to the edge.
He kissed her as she came, driving hard into her, catching the spasms of pleasure and prolonging them. The tight clench of her orgasm was too much, though, and with one last hard thrust, he gave in and came too.
They shuddered together for long moments. It seemed to go on forever—just as Joel thought it must be over, Nina would clench weakly around him one more time, sending an exhausted, almost painful twitch of pleasure through him.
Finally, he pulled out and let himself fall down next to her.
“Wow,” she breathed.
“Wow,” he agreed.
“I think that was a new best,” she said, after another long pause, catching her breath.
“I think so.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’m looking forward to moving that bar up a lot.”
He could feel her cheek move outward in a smile. “Me, too.”
Joel kissed her mouth, and then got caught up in the sweetness of her skin and started kissing her all over.
“Mmm,” Nina said after a few minutes. “This feels so good. Like sex, but...softer.”
Joel smiled against her wrist and moved onto the palm of her hand. She shivered under his mouth, and he smiled some more.
After a long time, he made it back up to her lips, and then tugged her into his body and lay next to her, breathing her in.
“Joel,” she said after a minute.
“Hmm?”
“Are you really all right with this? Being mates? Because I don’t want you to feel like you’re being pressured into anything that you don’t want...”
Joel cursed himself for spending so long being an idiot, and wrapped her up tight in his arms. “I have never,” he said into her ear, “felt as happy as I do right now. I have never loved anyone as much as I love you. And I never imagined that finding a mate could be the thing that solved everyone’s problems, instead of causing them...but that’s what’s happening. So there’s no reason in the world for me to regret this, or feel pressured, all right? No reason in th
e world.”
Nina sighed at that. “Good. That’s good.” She relaxed into his arms, and her eyes drifted closed.
Joel waited until she was softly asleep, and then pulled gently away to go look for his phone. He texted Cal.
Nina was going to be officially a member of this pack by the end of the day, and then neither of them would have anything to worry about any longer.
When he’d gotten his reply, he slipped back into his bed and pulled Nina close. She wasn’t waking up alone again.
***
Nina drifted into consciousness with the greatest sense of well-being she’d ever felt. Her entire body felt flushed with warm happiness. She didn’t want to open her eyes and end the illusion.
Then she felt an arm tighten around her.
Hardly believing it could be real, she opened her eyes.
Joel was smiling down at her. “Good morning,” he said. “Have a good nap?”
It was real.
Nina lifted her chin, and before she could even go for a kiss herself, Joel took the cue and dropped one on her lips. He tasted like wildness and man, and she couldn’t help going back for seconds.
Seconds stretched into minutes, until finally she pulled back with a gasp. “What time is it?” It wasn’t dark yet. She felt like this day was a thousand years long.
Joel glanced over his shoulder. “Four-thirty. We’re meeting Cal at the diner at six, if that’s all right.”
Nina was struck by a cold sense of apprehension—familiar, but unwelcome after such a delicious little vacation. “What if he doesn’t like me?”
“He’s not the sort of person who...likes people,” Joel said, looking thoughtful. “He’s mostly gruff at them. He won’t cause you any trouble, I promise.”
“All right,” Nina said, although she still felt worried.
Joel seemed to sense it, because he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Hey. It’s going to be fine. I promise you. It really is.”
Nina felt warmth flood her body. This was so strange. She wasn’t used to having anyone tell her things were going to be all right. She was used to worrying about the future, and then just having to set that worry aside because other things were more important right now.
Instead, that worry was being calmed. Joel kissed her forehead again, softly, and just his confidence, his presence, was enough to relax her muscles. She could feel the tension in her neck just...unwinding.
Joel believed it would be okay, so Nina believed it would be okay.
This was so much better than being alone. Nina had fantasized about having someone, about having a mate or a pack or a family or anything, but the fantasy hadn’t even come close to the reality of this.
She smiled up at Joel, and pushed herself up to sit. “I’d better get in the shower if we’re going to be meeting the leader of the pack,” she said.
Joel grinned at her. “Second door on the right,” he said, and Nina walked off with a spring in her step.
***
Her anxiety started creeping back as they approached Oliver’s. She really wasn’t sure what to expect, and what if Cal was awful? What if he was creepy, and Joel didn’t realize because he was a man?
Alethia was part of this pack, Nina reminded herself. Alethia, and Teri, and the woman with the baby. Leah. Surely they wouldn’t all seem so happy if the pack leader was a creep.
Joel draped his arm over her shoulders as they started walking from the car to the door, and once again, Nina felt all the tension begin to melt away.
It was weird. It was like, as long as she was with Joel, it wouldn’t matter what the problems were, what the world threw at her. At them. She truly believed that they could handle it together.
She pushed the door open firmly, and stepped inside the diner.
“Hey there, Nina,” said Patsy, one of the other waitresses. “Eating where you work tonight?”
“We’re meeting someone,” Joel told her, and nodded over at a booth. Patsy nodded, snapping her gum, and stood aside as Joel steered Nina over to the booth with a hand on the small of her back.
The man in the booth was about forty, with short brown hair going grey at the temples, a weathered face, and iron-gray eyes. He stood up as they approached, and looked her over. But it wasn’t a creepy look; there was nothing sexual about it at all. It was like he was just...getting her measure.
When she was close enough, he held out his hand. “Cal,” he said.
Nina shook. “Nina.”
“Nina’s my mate,” Joel put in.
“Huh,” said Cal, giving Joel that same measuring look. “So you listened to me and got it sorted out, then, I take it.”
“Sure did,” said Joel.
“All right, then,” said Cal. “You two have a seat, we’ll get some dinner.”
Nina sat down tentatively, heartened by Joel’s solid form sliding into the booth next to her. They ordered, and then Cal, glancing between the two of them, started talking about summer in the Park and what the mountains did to the climate.
Slowly, Nina relaxed. The topic was about as innocuous as it could be, and she actually had a few things to contribute, since she’d been living out on the mountains for a while now, on and off, even before she came to Glacier.
Cal, it turned out, was just like Joel had described him: gruff and a bit abrupt, and not the sort of man who relaxed and talked about himself. He was polite enough to Nina, but he interspersed his discussion of the weather with sharp comments at Joel about what the rangers needed to watch out for. He was clearly a man who was dedicated to his job.
Nina wondered if he had a mate at home himself, or if all of his attention was reserved for the Park. She suspected the latter.
“Sounds like you know your way around the territory, Nina,” Cal said, after they’d gotten most of the way through their food. “You thinking about sticking around, then?”
Nina nodded cautiously. “If that’s all right. I’ve got a good job here,” she waved a hand, indicating the diner, “and Joel and I...”
“Makes sense,” Cal said. “We’re pretty casual around here. No formal pack meetings or anything like that. There won’t be much interference with your business; I mind my own and I expect everyone else to do the same.”
Nina thought about Zach and Teri, and wondered if other pack members might be taking it into their own hands to change that a little bit. “That’s just fine,” she said truthfully.
Cal set down his fork and nodded, looking between them. “Well,” he said, “glad to see it all working out for you, Joel. Don’t let any of this new mates business interfere with your work.”
“I won’t,” Joel promised.
“Good to hear it.” Cal pulled out his wallet and dropped enough money on the table to cover everyone’s bill, over their protests, and stood up. “Good to meet you, Nina.” He headed for the door.
Wow. That had been surprisingly...easy. Even pleasant.
Beside her, Joel let out a breath. “Well, looks like you’re welcomed into the pack,” he said to Nina. “In Cal’s signature style.”
Nina was watching Cal get into his truck through the window. “He wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“He’s not really what anyone expects out of an alpha, I don’t think. I don’t have any experience with packs, and I was still surprised at how hands-off he is. I think he’d be happy to—well, maybe not.”
Nina looked back at Joel. “What?”
Joel had an abstracted look on his face. “I was going to say, I think he’d be happy to just live alone in the Park, without anyone bothering him, but that’s just what he told me to avoid, not too long ago. So I don’t know.”
“He doesn’t have a mate?”
Joel shook his head. “Or any family, as far as I know. Although he never talks about himself, so he could have a whole pack of relatives hidden away somewhere and I’d have no idea.”
“Huh.” Out in the parking lot, Cal’s truck pulled out and headed for the road. “I wonder
if he’s lonely.”
Joel shrugged. “Teri and the other girls keep inviting him to things, but he never comes. I don’t know if he doesn’t like us, doesn’t think it’s right to hang out with people who work under him, or if he’d really just rather be alone. I mean, I can sympathize; I mostly don’t come, either.”
“Why not?” Nina asked. “You said you had a hard time with Zach and Teri being mates...”
Joel was quiet for a minute. “Yeah, it’s mostly been that,” he said finally. “I don’t like crowds of people, and I wouldn’t want to hang out with all of them every night, but once a week or so would’ve been okay, if it wasn’t for...that.”
“So now that we’re together—”
Joel was looking at her. “Is that something you’d like? Spending time with Zach and Teri, and Grey and Alethia and Jeff and all of them?”
Nina pictured spending a Saturday night having dinner with Alethia and Teri and Zach and everyone else, laughing like she’d seen Alethia laugh with her friends before. She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Then we should do that,” Joel said softly. “I haven’t been a very good brother to Zach lately, anyway. I should step it up a little. Maybe start helping him out with that deck. Get to know Teri a little better. She wishes we could be better friends, you know? But I never could before.”
“I understand,” Nina said. She cleared her throat. “But even if we spent the evening with them sometimes...then we could go back to the cabin when it was all done. So it’d be fun for a while, but not—overwhelming.”
They smiled at each other for a long moment, caught in a moment of understanding each other perfectly. But then they were interrupted by a shout echoing across the diner. "Nina!"
Nina twisted in her seat, startled. Then she froze, utterly shocked.
Standing at the hostess' stand, staring over at her, were her mother and father. Here at Oliver’s. What?
"Nina!" Her mother came running over. "It's really you! It is you!"
Joel, sitting on the outside, looked from her mother to her. "Nina? What's up?" He frowned at her expression. "Is everything okay?"
Her mother had paused by the table, and was staring at her. She looked so different to how she'd been seven years ago when Nina had left. Her face was more lined, her hair cut short, her clothes darker than the colorful outfits Nina remembered her always wearing. She looked older, and sadder.