by Milly Taiden
“Why?”
“Because, we had sex. It was good—”
He caught her wrist and stopped her mid-roll. “It was great.” He leaned so closely so fast, she blinked startled eyes at him. His bear roared under the skin. Her scent was making him crazy. His lips were suddenly brushing hers. “It was fucking amazing. You coming on my tongue was a lot more than just good.” Her eyes widened at his bold words. Fuck, his cock grew hard as he thought about it. “Your pussy sliding up and down my dick was out of this motherfucking planet. Don’t tell me it was good. Good doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
She gulped. “Okay. Fine. Not like it’s going to happen again. It was a one-time thing.”
He flipped her so her back was now to the station, her body sandwiched between him and it. He pressed into her softness. The sweet scent of her arousal was making it difficult for him to hang on to his humanity.
He growled and watched her lids lower as he brushed his lips over hers. He kissed his way to her ear. The softness of her skin made him want to lick her all over again. “It’s going to happen again. And again.” He licked her earlobe. A soft shudder raced through her to him. “And again. I can already see your legs wide open, pussy dripping honey and my cock spreading your sweet lips and driving home. There’s no question of it.” He bit her earlobe and sucked under her ear. Another shudder rocked her. Harder this time.
He couldn’t believe she was questioning him about them. Indecision he could get. She was human. But this assertion of nothing special between them made him want to prove to her there was going to be a lot more between them than just sex. “Don’t say those words again. You’ve faced sadness in the past at the loss of your last relationship. I get that. But it’s not that way for us. Love hit me hard when I saw you, Zuri. It almost knocked me down and made me lose control of my beast. I couldn’t stop myself from running off with you. I knew you were meant for me. I’d give my life for you. What we have, I’d kill for.”
She turned her face to meet his gaze, her brows drawn in a questioning look. “What do we have?”
“I know it will take time for you to understand how shifters work, but I’m not going anywhere. I’ll prove it.”
Her features turned neutral. “What about your mate? How many of them do you get?”
“One. It’s you. Only you.”
She pursed her lips. “What about other women? Just because you’re a shifter and I’m a human, does that mean I have to sit around while you fuck everyone in town?”
He kissed her hard, needing to feel her lips soften under his assault. It was immediate. Her response so fast, he groaned and rubbed his erection into her. When he pulled back, she was flushed and her lips swollen. “There is no other woman for me. Not now, not ever, now that I’ve found you.”
She blinked and shoved at him to move back. He stepped away, hating the loss of her warmth.
“You talk a good game, Savage. Anyway, you deviated from the subject. Being here for me is not a reason for you to be taking a cooking class.”
It was to him. That’s all he needed. Her. To be near her and to make sure his mate was fine. He’d spend all day watching chick-flicks and getting a manicure and pedicure if it meant he’d be with her.
“My sister, Poppy, wants me to eat.”
Savage watched his love raise a brow and gave him a once-over that made his balls hurt. He couldn’t wait to have her alone. He’d peel that sundress off her and lick her into orgasm a few times before he finally took her.
“You don’t look like you miss any meals to me,” she said and licked her lips.
She didn’t even notice she did that, but goddamn, that made him feel sexy as fuck. His mate liked how he looked and it was a great thing. Her eyes strayed from his lips down his body and stopped at the fly of his jeans.
“I don’t miss any meals,” he agreed. “Thanks to her. She brings me food almost every day. But now I have a mate and maybe I want to learn to cook for her.”
She turned back to rolling dough. “Right. And you plan to learn with your lack of active participation and action? Please.”
She clearly didn’t know about shifter memory. “Want to bet on it? Say a date. You come to my place and I’ll cook for you. Your choice of meals.”
“You don’t want to do this, Sav.” Her eyes twinkled with challenge and humor as she glanced up at him for a second.
“I do.”
“And if you lose? What do I get?”
“Whatever you want,” he said simply. He’d give her the world anyway, she just didn’t realize that.
“Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll give you that first date with only one expectation.” She laughed and pulled a card out of her pocket. “Memorize my lasagna recipe. You have five minutes. If you can make that for our first date, I’ll agree to go on a second date with you.”
He glanced at the card, storing every bit of detail into his mind and then handed it back to her.
“Oh,” she chuckled, her hands on her apron. “This is going to be good. You had that in your hand for like ten seconds. If you lose, I guess you’ll come eat at my mother’s and have some of her tofu casserole.”
His mate might be the most beautiful woman in the world and probably the smartest in the human world, but she was so out of her depth when it came to him, it only made him smile. He was going to take advantage of her mistake. He was a savage after all.
Chapter Fourteen
Zuri bit the inside of her cheek to try to stop the giggles but she couldn’t. Sav had turned green at the mention of tofu. One thing she knew, shifters were meat eaters. She would bet her left foot he’d feed her a steak and forget all about her lasagna.
The night of the date, the more she thought about the upcoming event, the more stressed out she got. She agreed to go on the date with him. Why was it impossible to find something to wear with two closets full of clothing?
The knock at her door had her rushing out of her bedroom to figure out who it was. Sage. It was her sister and she couldn’t be happier. The door slammed the wall from how fast and hard Zuri opened it. Poor Sage. She had no idea what she was in for.
Zuri’s mind had gone into emergency meltdown. She was going on her first date since her divorce and even though she’d had sex with Sav. A. LOT. OF. SEX. Mind-blowing sex. She was still trying to guard her emotions when it came to him. Especially with Greer saying what she said.
“Good god, Zuri!” Sage yelled as she was being manhandled by Zuri. “You almost broke my wrist. What the hell?”
“Listen, did you bring any dresses with you?”
Sage took a step back. “You’re scaring me. I did. You told me to.”
She had a garment bag and headed for Zuri’s bedroom. In her room, Zuri flinched when she saw the chaos she’d created. There were clothes everywhere. It looked like someone had ransacked her room.
Sage’s jaw dropped open but she hung the garment bag off the back of the door and proceeded to pull out dresses. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“Of course, I like him. Whenever women say we don’t like a man, we’re lying our asses off. Like when Isaline says she’s not cheating on her diet. It’s all about not looking desperate.”
Sage nodded. “Right. So you don’t want to come across as desperate to him.”
“Right.”
She started to close the garment bag. “Then why did I bring all these pretty dresses? You can wear anything, it won’t matter.”
“Sage! Focus. I have to look good. You know. In case…”
“You get your freak on?” Sage blinked and pulled out a red pencil skirt and black corset top.
She shook her head. “That skirt looks uncomfortable.”
Sage raised a brow and went back to flipping through the outfits. “To get out of?”
“You’re turning into Mom,” Zuri said.
Sage then pulled out a plain black dress with a low cut neckline that appeared pretty plain from the front, but when she turned it ov
er, the thick black straps covering portions of the back were decorated in silvery bling.
“Oh, wow. That’s beautiful.”
Sage grinned. “Thanks. Another of my faves. It’s got a built-in shelf-bra and one of the back straps actually helps push the girls up.”
“You’re a genius,” she said and watched Sage close the bag.
They headed to the living room with Sage right behind her. “Do you want something to eat? I ordered pizza. It arrived right before I got in the shower.”
“Sure. Not like I have anything else going on.” Sage sat on the sofa and started flipping through the romance novel Zuri had been reading the past few days. Her thoughts on Savage had made it impossible to get through the sexy parts and not imagine him and her together.
She pulled the pizza out of the warming tray in the oven, grabbed napkins and plates, and took it all to the living room. Then she opened a bottle of wine and picked up two glasses. Sage was already biting her first slice when she returned.
“Thanks for coming over, Sage. Seriously, you’re a life saver.”
Sage gave her a curious look. “You seem really stressed with this man. Is he worth all the headaches?”
She bit her pizza and thought about it. “He’s not really stressing me, per se. It’s the idea of a relationship. I was heartbroken when Edward asked me for a divorce. He was done with his treatments and my thoughts were that we could now travel the world and see those places we’d been too busy for before.”
Sage filled both glasses and handed one to her.
She sipped and cleared her throat. “You know, realizing you’ve only got one life and living it to the fullest hit both of us differently.”
Sage nodded. “You wanted to travel the world. He wanted to be with the woman who was his nurse.”
She gulped. She hated remembering that. Edward had worked with a hired nurse at home and he’d apparently fallen for her. He told Zuri he’d never felt for her anything like what he felt for Monica, the nurse. That she was his true love and he refused to live what was left of his life without her. “At least, he wasn’t sleeping with her.”
Sage snorted and ate more pizza. “As far as you know. He told you he kept things platonic until he asked for the divorce, but you don’t know what went on there. He could have made it up.”
She didn’t think so. At that point in the relationship, Edward had no need to lie. He’d already broken Zuri’s heart. “He’s happy now.”
“Let me ask you something.” Sage sat up on the sofa and drank more wine. “Why were you really heartbroken, because he asked for a divorce, or because you didn’t think of doing it first?”
She glanced down at her glass and sighed. “I did think of it. I thought of it when he was angry and yelling at me after every treatment because he hurt so much and I couldn’t help him.” Her heart hurt. Her appetite deserted her. The glass became blurry through her tears.
Chapter Fifteen
Old wounds ripped open and pain poured out of her soul. She glanced up and met Sage’s gaze. “I thought about it when I offered him something to eat and he shoved it away not caring where the food landed. I thought about it when I told him that once it was over, we could try to have a baby and he flat out told me he never wanted kids and I needed to let that go.
“Even though he knew damn well I’d been waiting for him to be ready to try for a baby. Yes, I thought about it and I felt selfish for it.” She sniffed. “I felt like scum for wanting to divorce a man going through cancer, but I didn’t do it.
“Instead, I fought with him. I helped in every way I could to beat a disease that was killing not just him, but us as a couple. And you know what I got for it? Not a damn thing.”
She wiped angry tears away with the back of her hand and guzzled her wine.
“I’m sorry, Zuri,” Sage said softly. “You’ve never told us anything and we didn’t know what to think.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s been a year. We’re divorced. He’s happy. Last I heard, they were having a baby and I got a great settlement.”
“But you can’t get those ten years back.” Sage hit the nail on the head. That’s what hurt most. She’d spent ten years with a man who never truly loved her. He’d been so honest, he even had to tell her that. That he’d loved her as a friend and they’d had a good marriage, but he’d never been in love like he was with Monica.
“No. I can’t get those years back.” She refilled her wine and glanced at Sage. “What now?”
Sage grinned and raised her glass. “Now, you go out on a date with a shifter that thinks you’re his whole world and wants to give you all the babies your body can handle.”
“You don’t know that,” she laughed.
“Um, has he used protection at all?”
Her cheeks heated and she shook her head. “No.”
“Once they find their mate, they want a family, Zuri. It’s instant.”
“How do you know so much about them?” she asked, eyeing her sister carefully.
Sage shifted in her seat and glanced down at her glass. “I am curious.”
“Yeah. I have been, too. I don’t know, Sage. It seems too good to be true. I mean, the things he says. The way he touches me. Heck, even his looks do things to my body that are unnatural. I turn to a puddle with one word. It’s pathetic. I don’t want to lose myself again.”
“You won’t. That’s the beauty of this. I’m not going to tell you more. Just know that if he’s like the rest of them, all he wants is to do whatever he can to keep you happy. That means, you’re his only focus.” Sage grinned. “It should be fun to be a man’s center of attention for once and not have a needy man in a relationship.”
“You’re right. What the hell am I worried about? If it doesn’t go anywhere, at least I got great sex out of it.”
Sage raised her brows. “That’s one way to look at it. A more realistic way would be to see where this goes with an open mind. He’s a different species. For all you know, you’re already married to him.”
She frowned. “That’s impossible. I’d remember marrying somebody.”
Sage giggled and refilled her glass. Sage never drank this much. She looked a lot more relaxed than usual. It warmed Zuri’s heart to know whatever was making her shy sister so quiet lately was probably resolved. “Did he scratch, bite, or mark your body in some way shape or form?”
She almost choked on her sip of wine. “What?”
“Uh-oh. Which was it?”
“Um…”
Sage picked up another slice of pizza and smiled evilly. “Out with it, sis. If he’s that hot in bed, he had to have done something.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s a bear. It could just be part of their species. Like dogs pee on trees.”
Sage chewed slowly. “So you’re comparing yourself to a tree?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. But I know I didn’t marry him!” She downed another glass of wine and ran to the kitchen for another bottle. Shit just got real.
“Okay, from what I know of bear shifters, they can mate a female by clawing and by biting at the time of orgasm.”
She gulped the wine in her mouth and blinked in shock. “The what at the what?”
Sage continued to smile. “And they make it a dual marking. He’ll come inside you at the same time he bites or scratches. That’s it. You’re mated for life. You’re his, girlfriend. Ain’t nobody else touching your booty but him.”
“I think I feel sick.” She sat back and placed a hand over her face.
“Relax, sis. He’s a good man. I’ve been asking around. He’s a bit on the wild side,” Sage laughed, “but I think you already knew that, but he is a great clan leader to his people.”
She sat up and stared at Sage. “What if he becomes a stalker?”
“You are his mate. To him you are his wife. There is no stalking. Did he ask you to be his?”
She frowned. “What the hell does that matter? Of course, he did, while he was doing some di
rty shit to me. When he had his face between my legs and I was seeing the gates of heaven, I was going to tell him whatever he wanted to hear to keep him going.”
Sage nodded. “There you have it. You’re a mated human. This is amazing. I’ve only met one other.”
Zuri raised her brows. “Oh? Who?”
Sage shook her head. “Never mind. Tell me what you plan on doing now that you know you’re his.”
“Stop saying that. I’m not really his. It’s not like I’m a sofa and he bought me.”
“You’re right. You’re definitely not furniture. You’re his wife. And pretty soon, the mother of his children, so you better figure out this fear of yours and get to work on creating that happily ever after others only dream of.”
“You know what, Sage?”
“What?” she asked as she picked up her pizza.
“I really hate when you talk all that common sense shit.”
Sage winked. “Oh, stop. It’s what makes me the sister you talk to when you have problems.”
“I could have asked Isaline to come.”
Sage nodded. “And spent the entire time talking about everything but the problem at hand. She’s more than happy to let you feed her until she can do nothing but crawl out of your house. I’ll let you feed me, but I’m focused. I know when you need a dose of reality.”
“Bitch.”
“I love you, too.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sav glanced at the clock for the tenth time. She was coming. His bear wanted him to go and get her and bring her back but that wasn’t the deal. She called and asked for directions. His mate was coming to him. The food was done.
He’d made her lasagna and searched up other things that would go well with it. Since he didn’t know her food tastes, he decided to make everything he’d found. He hoped she was hungry.
The sound of tires on gravel made him tense. He marched to the front door and flung it open. She had just shut off the car when he reached her door and opened it for her. He offered his arm to help her out.