Instead of dealing with it, he forced himself to look away every few seconds. His cock was going to explode.
And he was so far from having sex with her it wasn’t funny. In fact he groaned at the thought of the road he still needed to pave to get under that short skirt and bury his face between her folds.
Why the fuck did Fate find it necessary to match him and Sharon up with a human? Was this Her way of making a joke, perhaps at his expense for being too stubborn to show up in Cambridge for two years?
It was certainly a possibility.
“Start with the leg.” Jackson pointed at Sharon’s calf as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and closing himself off from them. “I guess I only ever saw the blood. I can’t prove it was yours.” He chuckled again in a tone that was so far from funny it made Cooper’s skin crawl.
He hoped when they got through this thing, he never had to hear that sound of distrust coming from Jackson again. He hated it.
“But why? Why the farce? Why lure me off the road to take you down to the lodge if you weren’t even injured? Is that when this started? Did you do something to me that day to make me lose my mind with lusting after you ever since?”
Cooper smiled. He couldn’t help it. At least Jackson acknowledged how he felt toward Sharon. It was a start.
Sharon shot Cooper a glare. “Stop smirking. I’m not done being mad at you.” She pointed a finger at him, and then she put all her strength into twisting a large black leather chair around to face them. When she settled in it, tucking long sexy legs that went on for miles under her, she continued addressing Cooper. “Until I’m over my well-deserved frustration with your stubborn stupidity, I suggest you not piss me the fuck off.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from chuckling at this lithe woman with the tiny waist, legs that went on and on, breasts he wanted to wrap his hands around immediately, and wide brown eyes that could bring him to his knees with a glance.
She turned her attention back to Jackson. “At no point have I or anyone else ever drugged you. So stop that insanity. Your eyes did not deceive you Tuesday. I did indeed get cut by the hoe. It was deep, and it was long. Even I was a bit nervous for a minute. Griffen panicked and sent the men working for us running in every direction to get help. You were the first to arrive.
“By then I’d lost some blood, but more importantly, I was in shock. And it didn’t help when you stepped closer and I realized it was you. The man from last Friday night. The man haunting my dreams.” She lowered her voice to add the next part, “The man I’d been avoiding for months while you stalked me at the ski resort.” She shot him a quick grin.
He gasped. “You knew that?”
Cooper desperately wanted to ask what she meant by that, but he held his tongue.
“Of course. I just never got close enough to you to prove who you were to me,” Sharon added.
“And that is?”
“My mate. Or one of them.” She was quick to hold out a hand to keep him from interrupting her. “I did not at any point in time consider I might meet and fall for two men. What I said to you earlier wasn’t a lie. I truly believed I was destined for only one man.”
“That would be me,” Cooper added.
She shot him a look that could melt steel. “Stop being an ass. And don’t sit there all cocky like you owned me.”
Cooper schooled his face, but he loved seeing her all riled up. Her face flushed a deeper shade of red, and she pulled her shoulders back, making her nipples stand out even more. He forced himself to keep his gaze on her eyes.
Jackson interrupted his reverie again. “If you thought you were destined, or whatever, to be with Cooper, then why lure me in?”
She rolled her eyes again. “I did not intentionally lure anyone anywhere. It just happened. Fate picks who we fall for in our world, not us.”
Cooper couldn’t hold his tongue. “And sometimes she seems to find some sort of twisted humor in selecting a human.”
Sharon nearly came out of her chair. “Cooper Hamilton. I swear to God.”
“Sorry. Just trying to speed things up a bit.” He held out both palms.
Jackson turned toward Cooper. “You saying you aren’t human?” The smirk on his face was evidence he found this comical. “Who do you think you are, then? Superman? An alien?”
Cooper asked for this. He glanced at Sharon to make sure she wasn’t going to throttle him and then turned back to Jackson. “We’re part human. You can see that. But we have other abilities as well.”
“Like?” The smirk grew. Jackson wasn’t going to take this well.
“We can shift into wolves.”
“Wolves,” he repeated.
“He’s right,” Sharon added. “And since he’s such a wise guy, I’ll let him be the one to demonstrate.”
“Me?” Cooper pointed at himself. He would much rather have her strip down to nothing and do the honors. Why him?
“Whoa whoa whoa.” Jackson held out a hand to stop them both from continuing to argue. “Did you say wolves? You actually believe you’re a werewolf?”
Cooper scrunched up his nose. “No. That’s a myth.”
“Oh good, because for a minute there…” Jackson’s voice was as condescending as it could be. Not surprising.
Cooper continued. “We aren’t some strange half-man, half-wolf creatures of the night that transform for the purpose of hunting their prey and going on a killing spree.”
“Oh good. That’s such a pretty picture,” Sharon said.
Cooper ignored her, keeping his attention focused on Jackson. “We shift into actual wolves. The kind on all fours. The regular kind you see in the forest. We aren’t a menace to anyone. We don’t harm or kill. In fact quite the opposite. We serve man, doing our best to preserve the human way of life and keep Nature in balance by heeding her warnings. Sometimes in the form of spirits like the one we just saw by the door.”
Jackson licked his lips. “You really believe you can become a wolf, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe I can. I know I can.” Cooper reached for the hem of his shirt and hauled it over his head. He was too fucking tired for this, but it had to be done. He stood and popped the button on his jeans next.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“He’s going to shift for you. Until you see it, you won’t understand,” Sharon said.
Cooper lowered his zipper and then stared at her as he pushed his jeans down his legs, taking his underwear with them. “You do realize how very unfair this is, right?”
“Nope.” The burning need on her face as she watched him strip was incongruent with the tone of her word, as if she were unaffected by his nudity. She fidgeted in her seat, lifting and adjusting her ass several times.
Cooper tipped his head back and inhaled her scent, her arousal filling the room now more than ever. “Woman…” He forced himself to turn back to a very shocked Jackson. “Only gonna do this once tonight, so watch carefully. There’ll be a quiz after,” he teased.
The effect was lost on Jackson, however. The man sat very still, his mouth hanging open as if to speak, but nothing came out.
Cooper lowered to all fours and closed his eyes, letting the change take over. He listened to his own bones popping and elongating, felt the hair lengthen on his body, and altered his thinking until he was fully shifted into wolf form. He lifted his gaze toward Jackson and didn’t move.
“Holy fuck.” Jackson scooted his entire chair backward and then stood abruptly, reached out, and grabbed Sharon out of her chair to haul her away from Cooper.
She barely got her legs under her, but it didn’t matter because Jackson didn’t let her feet hit the ground. He was strong. And he had adrenaline on his side. He whisked her away from perceived harm so fast, she didn’t need her feet.
When he tucked her behind him, setting her on the ground, she finally regained control of her limbs. “Jackson, it’s okay.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and squ
eezed while she eased to his side so her head rested on his chest. “It’s okay,” she repeated. “Soak it in. I know it’s a shock.” She tipped her head back and set her chin on his pec to face him. Her small hand found its way to the other side of his chest and flattened against him.
The jealously Cooper felt was unnerving, but he remained still. This was necessary. He needed to give Jackson a moment to internalize what he was seeing. His world, the one he’d believed to know everything about for over thirty years, had just crumbled to sand around him.
It took time to break those barriers and build a new reality. Cooper was going to have to dig deep to gather up a huge amount of patience. It was one thing when a wolf found out he was mated to a human female, but a human male? He didn’t know anyone who had found themselves in this predicament.
As he cocked his head to one side, he realized most of the work of convincing Jackson was going to fall on Sharon’s shoulders. After all, Jackson would be rock hard with the need to claim her at all hours of the day and night. He wouldn’t understand the terminology shifters used for mating and claiming yet, but that wouldn’t lessen the driving need.
When he calmed down enough to accept this new reality, he would realize he and Cooper were partners for life in this adventure, and a certain level of respect, admiration, and protectiveness would come with it. But the man would never feel the same level of drive toward Cooper as he would feel toward Sharon.
It was Sharon and the pheromones she put off that would send Jackson into a sexual frenzy. So it would be Sharon burdened with the majority of the work in getting Jackson to see reason.
“You can do that too?” Jackson asked.
“Uh-huh.”
Jackson’s knuckles were white where he gripped her around the shoulders.
Sharon twisted her head to nod at Cooper. “You can shift back now.”
Cooper took a deep breath, thinking at least in wolf form he wasn’t required to join in the explanations, but he also knew Sharon would be pissed if he didn’t help. So he concentrated on his human half and let his body return to its other form.
“Jesus,” Jackson muttered when Cooper once again stood before him naked.
Cooper reached for his jeans and hauled them on, tugging up the zipper, but not bothering with the button or any of the rest of his clothes.
Sharon inched forward, taking Jackson with her. She lined him up with the kitchen chair he’d been sitting in and pushed on his chest. “Sit. Please.”
He lowered himself into the chair, but his gaze remained on Cooper. “You feel the same thing toward her that I do,” he stated.
“Yes.”
Jackson bent his head forward and stared at the floor. He set his elbows on his knees. “I can’t wrap my mind around this. Any of it.”
Sharon smoothed her hand over his shoulder and then higher to cup the back of his head. “I know it’s a lot. And there are people who will help you understand, including…” she hesitated.
Cooper didn’t know where she was going with this, but he waited.
“Including who?” Jackson asked without moving a muscle.
“Your sister.”
“What?” He jerked his head up to face her. “Jazmine? She knows?”
Sharon nodded. “Her partner, Mary, is Amanda’s sister. It’s hard to keep close family out of the loop. We avoid letting humans know about our abilities, but sometimes it’s necessary. Besides, Jazmine already knew on some level.”
“How’s that possible?”
“She had a friend who was a shifter when she was young. Apparently the girl told her.”
“Lord.” Jackson took deep breaths. His gaze roamed all over Sharon’s face and down toward her chest. “Do you know what you do to me?”
“Yes.” She smiled.
Cooper’s heart beat faster. If Jackson was feeling even half as drawn toward Sharon as he was…
Jackson jumped to his feet, dislodging Sharon and stepping back several paces. He ran his hands over his head. “I can’t deal with this. It’s too much. I don’t want to know any more.”
“I understand,” Sharon said. “If it makes you feel any better, that’s about all there is to know.”
“That’s it?” His voice was sarcastic. “So just a few things.” He waved his hand in front of him. “No biggy. Just that you two, and apparently half the town, can turn into an animal at will. Just that there are weird black smoky spirit thingies demanding attention for their unknown causes. Just that you heal inordinately quickly, leaving no evidence you were ever injured.”
He snapped his fingers. “Oh, and let’s not forget that you’re drawn by Fate to—what did you call it? Mate?—in groups of three, and you share your women between two men. That’s all?”
“Mostly,” Cooper said.
“Good. But here’s the problem—that’s about ten more things than the average human can handle. And I’m an average man, or I was until about an hour ago.” He turned toward Sharon. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
He shook his head. “I knew it the first time I saw you. Something about just watching the way you walked, the sway of your ponytail when you worked, the smile on your face and the way it lights up when you’re excited…” He stepped back farther, putting more distance between him and Sharon and Cooper.
Cooper watched Jackson swallow hard, and then he continued. “I told Jazmine I didn’t want to date you. She kept nagging me, and I tried to stop this from happening. I should have walked away any number of times.” He threw his hands in the air. “Hell, why did I even come here tonight?”
“It’s the mating call, Jackson. It’s out of your control,” Sharon informed him.
Jackson’s face hardened. “Don’t talk to me about some mumbo jumbo about Fate and spirits and destiny. It’s crazy. We control our own destinies. I’m in control of my own destiny.” He poked himself in the chest for emphasis. “And I’m going to exercise that control right now.”
“How?” Sharon asked softly.
“By leaving.” Jackson strode across the room, his long legs needing very few strides to get to the door. “This is over. I won’t tell anyone about you, and I don’t want either of you to come after me. Let me go.” He chuckled. “Hell, no one would believe me if I told them, anyway. Instead of the two of you ending up in a loony bin, I’d probably find myself in a padded white room for life. How’s that for irony?” He whipped the door open, stepped out into the night, and slammed it shut behind him.
Sharon didn’t move except to breathe heavily while staring at the door in the silence of the room.
“You want me to go after him?”
“No.”
“You sure?” Cooper inched toward her, unsure how she would react to his proximity.
“Yeah.” She ducked her head. “He needs to process all this. We threw a lot at him.”
Cooper finally reached her side. He slowly lifted both arms until he could wrap them around her frame and haul her into his chest. For the second time in his life, he buried his face in her hair and inhaled her scent. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled against her head. “For so many things.”
A sob escaped her lips, but she responded to him finally by turning into his chest and wrapping her arms around his middle also. She held on tight. “This is so fucked up,” she whispered against his bare skin.
Chapter Ten
Sharon wanted to scream. How had a perfectly good evening gone so wrong so fast? She had started out imagining a long night of sex and gradual revelation with one mate, Jackson, and ended up in the arms of another man, the very man she’d assumed for two years was her intended mate.
And the bitch of it all? No one was having sex with anyone.
Cooper tipped her head back with a hand under her chin and met her gaze. “May I kiss you?”
She nodded. At least he wasn’t being an ass anymore. His expression told her how truly sorry he was for his part in this charade.
When he lowered his face, angling it to one side, she tho
ught her knees would buckle. And then his lips were on hers, and the world melted away. His kiss started out gentle, languid swipes of his lips across hers and then his tongue. He moaned into her mouth as she opened to him.
She needed more. He smelled fantastic. His warm naked chest rose and fell under her palms while he reached into her mouth with his tongue to devour her. He tasted of mint. She could smell his aftershave, his soap, his shampoo. And she memorized every bit of this information.
Time stopped while she explored him with her hands, learning the contours of his firm body while she stroked his tongue with her own in a suggestive tease that made him moan louder into her mouth.
She pressed her smaller frame against his, the thickness of his cock thrusting against her belly.
When her hands wandered down his chest toward the opening of his jeans, they did so of their own accord.
Suddenly, just as she was about to wrap her palm around his length, Cooper broke the kiss and groaned.
She blinked, lifting her face to see his expression.
His eyes were focused on something behind her, and she twisted her neck around to see what he was looking at, half expecting to find Jackson standing in the doorway. Maybe he already realized the futility of his escape and returned.
But that wasn’t what met her gaze.
It was another spirit. It was agitated and shimmering in the same spot as before, waving back and forth as though pacing.
“We aren’t meant to have sex without him,” Cooper muttered. “It won’t let me claim you alone.”
She nodded. That much was obvious. And then she started giggling, her nerves so frayed she couldn’t stop the uninvited emotion from surfacing. “How many bases do you think Fate allows between two out of three mates before the claiming?”
He chuckled, his chest vibrating against hers. “I don’t know, but I can’t concentrate on finding out, either, with that thing hovering over us. It’s daunting.”
“Yeah.” She sucked in a deep breath, regretting it instantly when her head filled with the strong luring scent of Cooper. Finally, she released him and backed away, putting a few feet between them and glancing around the room. The spirit disappeared. What now?
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