ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (89 page)

Charlotte handed them each a rather large spoon and gestured grandly to the decadent deluxe dessert in front of them. “Alright,” she said proudly, “dig in!”

“Bon appetit.” Jessica smiled, clinking her spoon with Ethan’s before taking a bite, closing her eyes in moaning in a way that forced Ethan to shift slightly, crossing his legs in a way that covered his lap.

Sighing at the realization of what a huge task he had set before him, he took a spoonful, eating the overly sweet treat and having to admit that it was just as delicious as Jessica’s moan suggested.

Ethan glanced at the clock, wondering if it was even possible to finish the treat in thirty minutes.

Melissa followed his eyes and when she saw that they were fixed on the clock, she smiled. “Don’t worry, Charlotte and I have to stay for an extra thirty minutes after closing to set the freezer temperatures, clean and lock up. You two will have plenty of time to finish.”

“Oh boy,” Ethan said, smiling but unsure of whether or not it was actually a good thing.

Ethan couldn’t believe it; he was honestly astounded as, after forty-five minutes, he found that he and Jessica had actually managed to complete the entire Sundae.

Ethan felt full beyond comparison and Jessica, while she smiled proudly in accomplishment, looked just a bit green.

“Congratulations you two,” Melissa said, taking the empty dish away from them with the two spoons, “you are one of three couples to complete this; I hope you’re proud.”

“Very proud, and very sick,” Jessica said faintly, looking queasy.

Ethan looked at her incredulously; for someone who was so petite, she could sure eat. He didn’t know if he should be impressed or afraid. Perhaps he was just a little bit of both.

“You okay sweetheart?” Charlotte asked, giving Jessica an amused smile.

“I’ll be fine after a nice, long nap.” Jessica chuckled, standing shakily and prompting Ethan to as well.

“Have a good night!” Melissa called after them, Charlotte echoing her as Ethan wrapped a comforting arm around Jessica’s waist and led her over to the door, both waving back at the two servers and giving their thanks and well-wishes.

Once out the door and in the cool night air, Jessica took a deep breath, happy that she hadn’t elected to wear a pair of her tighter-fitting pants that night.

“Just so you know,” Jessica said, a small smile in place as she nudged him gently in the ribs, “I totally and completely blame you for how sick I now feel.”

Ethan blanched, looking at her incredulously. “You practically forced me into it.”

Jessica pouted. “So you didn’t enjoy it?”

Ethan sighed, laughing to himself as he realized just how smitten he was with her. “While I have to say that it was surprisingly good, my favorite part was the company I shared it with.”

Jessica flushed, smiling happily as she leaned into his side.

She groaned. “I feel so full it’s not even funny. I’m not sure I can make the rest of the trip to the cars.”

“I can always carry you if you’d like?” Ethan suggested, an even combination of joking and serious.

Jessica seemed to mull it over for a second before she shook her head. “No, as nice as that would be, I’d feel ridiculous, and in this state I think the less I move or jostle the better.”

Ethan smirked, kissing her cheek loudly before he grinned. “You are absurdly cute.”

“And you’re an enabler,” Jessica said, grinning back, her eyes sparkling mischievously, “I hope you can live with yourself.”

“I think I can,” Ethan chuckled, “In fact, I have a feeling that I’ll end up sleeping like a baby tonight.”

“You suck,” Jessica responded, hearing the childish petulance in her voice and deciding to ignore it. Ethan laughed, squeezing her tighter to him gingerly, being careful not to jostle her too much as he bent down to give her cheek another kiss.

“Are you going to be able to make it home alright?” Ethan asked as they entered the parking lot, approaching their cars.

Jessica laughed, turning in his hold on her and smiling. “If pregnant women can drive themselves around, I can get myself back home with a minor case of a bloated belly. But thank you for your concern. Though, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you just want to take me home and get me to invite you up to my room.”

Ethan spluttered, making Jessica smirk, “I didn’t . . . I wasn’t- honestly I just-”

“Shh,” Jessica said, grabbing his hand and running her thumb across the back of it soothingly, “I was only joking. I know you’re much too chivalrous for that. At least on a first date.” She winked.

“This is technically our second date though,” Ethan said, winking suggestively.

“Oh, you dog,” Jessica joked, “as certain of I am in my ability to totally and utterly rock your world, even in my current state, you’re just going to have to wait,” she murmured, wrapping her other arm around his neck and running her fingers through his hair, bringing him down until their lips were mere centimeters from one another. “Do you think you can manage the wait?”

Ethan swallowed, worried that if their bodies got any closer Jessica would be able to tell just how hard it was for him to manage waiting.

“I sure hope so.”

Jessica smirked. “Well, it helps that you have no other choice, but, I can give you something to look forward to,” she whispered, winding both arms around his neck and pushing their bodies flush together as she kissed him, lips moving against his tantalizingly slowly as she teased the seam of his lips open with her tongue, licking into his mouth.

Ethan groaned into the kiss, Jessica smiling against his lips before she teasingly bit down on his bottom one, pressing herself closer to him, sending little electric shocks throughout his entire body.

A moment later, Jessica had pulled away, smirking in pleased amusement at his stunned gaze, a wide smile on his lips.

“I’m going to go shower and get to bed early, and yes, you should enjoy that mental image. Call me in the morning.” And, with one more quick kiss to his motionless lips she unlocked her Jeep and hopped in, waving at him as she turned on her lights and quickly left the parking lot, leaving a stunned Ethan in her wake.

It took him five more minutes, standing in the empty parking lot and staring after Jessica’s long gone car before he blinked, coming to his senses and getting into the car. He smiled, laughing to himself just a tad as he realized how sappy he must have looked.

He grinned, the smile feeling as though it were going to be permanently fixed to his face as he wondered if how he was feeling now was that special feeling his dad had told him about.

-x-x-x- Chapter 5 –x-x-x-

“What are you smiling about?” Austin asked as Ethan walked into the kitchen, having slid down the banister of the stairs in his good mood.

Ethan shrugged, trying to come across normally as he grabbed an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table, tossing it between his hands for a few seconds before taking a bite. “Nothing much; it’s just a good day to be alive, don’t you think?”

Austin looked at him curiously from the other counter where he was preparing a milkshake for himself, scooping ice cream into the blender.

“Yes, well, I typically think each day is a good one to be alive, you know, for the most part.”

“Exactly,” Ethan said, taking another bite of the apple.

“However, I don’t think I wake up every morning with a face-splitting smile on my face either. So, go on, what’s got you so happy?”

“It’s nothing, honestly.”

Austin’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as he poured a ludicrously large amount of chocolate syrup into the blender. “Wait a minute, oh God, you’re such a sap.” He grinned, shaking his head in disbelief. “Mr. Big Bad Alpha Boss Man has become a sap. That’s amazing.”

“What are you talking about?” Ethan muttered around a bite.

“Jessica; that big smile of yours is about Jessica,” Austin said, “The only thing that can turn you into this big of a little ball of smitten puppy wolf man is that woman; God knows how she does it but it’s certainly amusing.”

“I’m not a puppy wolf or whatever ridiculous thing you just said,” Ethan said, rolling his eyes as he leaned up against the counter.

“Yes you are, Mr. Alpha is in looooooovvveee,” Austin sung, cackling as Ethan fixed him with a small glare.

Ethan flushed. “Yes, okay, fine, I’m in love with her, hardly a reason to get all amused about it.”

“Ethan and Jessica, sitting in a tree, doing things they shouldn’t be. It starts with an S and ends with an X, oh my gosh they’re having-”

“Stop it!” Ethan said, his laugh undermining his attempt at a firm order. “I swear; it’s like you’re actually aging backwards.”

“What can I say?” Austin said, pouring the milk in the blender, “you can’t prevent growing old, but growing up is purely optional. And, yours truly has thankfully decided to opt out of that horrendously restricting thing called adulthood.”

“Honestly, how did you ever get mated?”

“What can I say?” Austin repeated, speaking up over the whirring of the blender, “I found myself a truly astonishing woman; she is the yin to my yang, the peanut butter to my banana sandwich, the Bonnie to my Clyde, the sun to my moon, the gin to my tonic, the-”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Ethan said, snorting. “You love her, she loves you, before you met her you were one half of a heart and she completes you. You hear choir music every time she enters the room and you see a glow behind her face and all that jazz. What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Ethan sighed, noting Austin’s smug glance.

“Because, those are definitely your words, not mine. Far too Shakespearean and poetic and all. Which means, as I earlier sung, you my friend, are in looooovvvveeee.”

“Who’s in love?” Amanda asked, skipping over to the two.

“Ethan is, with Jessica.”

“Oh, old news, I thought we were talking about something new. Unless . . .” her eyes widened, “are you going to pop the question?! Will our Alpha finally get himself a mate?!”

Ethan frowned. “What do you mean finally-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Amanda said, waving a hand in front of his face as if it would erase any worry that could have been residing within him. “But, you two have been dating for a quite a while: are you going to take that next step, take the plunge, do the deed?”

“Do the deed?”

Amanda shrugged. “Alright, so maybe not my best work but you get the gist. So, are you?”

Ethan shrugged, trying to appear as if his next words weren’t such a big deal. “Well, I sort of already did.”

“WHAT?”

Ethan winced at the twin yells that assaulted his ear, cringing just a bit.

“I asked her if she’d mate with me.”

“Oh! I’m so happy for you!” Amanda said, hugging him as Austin clapped him on the shoulder in way of congratulations. “So, when’s the wedding?”

Ethan’s eyes furrowed, stopping his hand with the apple halfway to his mouth. “What wedding?”

“When’s the wedding? You proposed, do you mean you haven’t set a date yet? You should really ask her about that.”

“Why, we’re not getting married, I asked her to mate, she said yes.”

“Oh boy,” Austin said, taking a sip of his milkshake.

Amanda’s eyes widened. “What is wrong with you! Dear God, you’re such a man!”

“What?” Ethan asked, perplexed, as Austin just shook his head in pity.

“Have you talked to Jessica today yet?”

“No, why?” Ethan said, not quite getting the relevance of Jessica’s question.

“Is that normal for you two, to not have talked at all by this time?”

“Not really, did I do something wrong?”

“Yes!” both his pack mates yelled simultaneously.

“How can you not know man?”

“Are you a complete idiot?”

“Boss man, even for you that’s a new one.”

“Stupid, stupid man.”

“What, what’s going on?” Ethan grunted, feeling attacked but not knowing why.

“She said yes to the mating?” Austin asked, confirming.

Ethan nodded, suddenly feeling nervous.

“And what did you two do after that?” Amanda asked.

Ethan flushed, feeling just a tad exposed. “We kissed, I suggested tomorrow, I mean, she hesitated a bit but I thought she was just, you know, mentally going over her plans, I said we should probably get some sleep,” his cheeks reddened even further at that, “and then we kissed and left.”

“And you haven’t talked to her since?” Austin clarified.

“Yeah, why? I figured I’d see her tonight.”

“You are a complete and utter dunderhead, you know that?” Amanda sighed.

“What, what did I do?”

“The romance, the romance, you’ve forgotten all of that? No girl just wants to hear, hey, let’s mate. They want a proposal, a wedding so that all the people in their lives know about their commitment and can be jealous; they want to be swept off their feet and romanced.”

“And you, my friend, failed,” Austin said, shortening what Ethan feared would have been a very long rant.

“You are a terrible, terrible person.”

“Well don’t pull any punches,” Austin muttered.

“Do you really think she’s upset?”

“Yes,” Amanda growled.

“Oh yeah, most definitely, no doubt,” Austin agreed.

Ethan suddenly felt very sick. “Do you think that she’s going to leave me?”

“Nope,” Austin said.

“No,” Amanda agreed, “but she will forever live with bitter resentment about her lack of a fairy tale ending for the rest of your lives together, wondering why she settled for such a hopelessly unromantic man and watching romantic comedies over and over again each day wondering what could have been.”

“Austin?” Ethan asked, praying that she was wrong.

“I hate to say it,” Austin said, rubbing the back of his neck and feeling just a bit bad for his Alpha, “but for the most part, yeah, I’d say she’s right.”

“Oh God,” Ethan said, eyes wide as he walked over to the table and sat down hard in one of the seats. “What am I going to do? I can hardly say let’s not mate.”

“Definitely not.”

“That would absolutely make it worse,” Amanda confirmed.

“Then what do I do?”

Amanda’s eyes widened, lighting up with her look of inspiration that usually spelled trouble for Ethan or anyone in her line of sight.

“I have a brilliant idea!”

“Oh boy,” Ethan and Austin said.

“Hear me out. She’ll probably show up, but she’ll be riddled with disappointment on the ride.”

“Hey!”

“Stay with me now,” Amanda said, holding up a hand, “she meets you, only to find that you’ve prepared the most romantic thing ever!”

Ethan waited, but, realizing she expected it to be obvious to him, which it wasn’t, he prompted her. “And that would be?”

“A surprise wedding of course! We put a beautiful set up in the yard, with fairy lights and everything. We call and invite her pack, get everyone in on it. You might have to splurge on a honeymoon suite at a nearby hotel since it's such short notice, but trust me it’s worth it. But we’d need to get started immediately, there’s so much to do! Of course the whole pack would need to help out. We need to set up chairs, find a dress in her size and get her pack to make her wear it without alerting suspicion, you need to make sure that your suit fits, we need a cake. . . .”

“What- that’s, that’s- God, that’s crazy!”

“Crazy that it’s so late notice, yes, but it’s your best bet to fixing your colossal, boneheaded mistake.”

“Austin, help me out here.”

“As much as I’d like to, she’s right. I don’t see another way you can make up for it without disappointing her with canceling. It’s kind of traditional, marriage before mating and all that.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very,” Amanda said, looking at him sternly. “Now, what’s it going to be, a mating of happiness, or sadness?”

“God you’re melodramatic.”

“But accurate.”

“Okay, okay,” Ethan sighed, shaking his head at Amanda’s excitement, “let’s do it.”

“Yay!” Amanda squealed, the high-pitched noise hurting his ears. “Karen!” she shrieked, loud enough to scare the birds outside. “We’ve got a wedding to plan!”

Ethan groaned, closing his eyes as he rested his head back against the chair. What had seemed so simple before had suddenly turned into a long day. But he had to admit as he glanced at Austin’s amused face, it was bound to be exciting. And definitely, most definitely worth it.

-x-x-x-

Jessica was annoyed, to say the least.

Not only had her boyfriend of a year asked her to be his mate in the most unromantic way possible, but it seemed that her Alpha was intent on acting as her personal fashion police officer.

She had worn her down all day until she had finally told her that fine, she would wear the white dress that had seemingly been pulled out of nowhere from the dredges of her closet.

She had to admit, it was a pretty dress, but the funny thing was, for such a pretty dress, she couldn’t remember ever buying it.

But, at the very least, it fit well. And, she had to admit, the sleek white sundress looked great, hugging her curves in all the right places and showing off her long legs.

She sighed, grabbing her purse and walking down the stairs, noting the odd quietness of her pack house and wondering where everyone was. It was rare that they were all out at once, what with everyone’s odd work schedules.

As she drove the now familiar path to Ethan’s house, she couldn’t help thinking about how angry she’d be if he hadn’t at least paid for a hotel. Her mating night might not be the most romantic, but she’d be damned if she didn’t at least get a little privacy with it.

The ride was a short one, and when she pulled up to the house, she was surprised to see the large number of cars parked in front of it. She cocked her head, scanning the various vehicles as she walked towards the door, noticing the uncanny resemblance of several of the cars to those that had been at her house that morning.

She rang the doorbell, hearing a muffled command on the other end of the door before, a moment later, it was opened, by the last person she expected to see.

“Sarah?”

“Hey girly, you ready for your big night?”

“What are you talking about?” Jessica asked in utter bafflement as Sarah hooked her arm around hers and began leading her through the house.

“Your wedding night; we wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“What?”

“Your wedding night; don’t be so surprised. You were ranting to me just the other night that you wanted him to propose first. But, we all know you’d say yes, so, let’s skip the preamble and get this show on the road.”

“What?” Jessica asked again, her confusion remaining until they were standing at the back door and suddenly, as if on cue, the two French doors were suddenly opened to reveal something Jessica had not expected in the slightest.

The yard was beautiful. White wooden chairs lined either side of a rose covered aisle and each side contained Jessica’s and Ethan’s respective packs. Strings of fairy lights were draped over the people gathered and at the very end of the aisle was Ethan, standing beneath a wooden arch with various flowers entwined together and wound around it.

“Oh. My. God,” Jessica said, stunned.

“By the way, I’m walking you down the aisle and officiating. I’m a woman of many talents.”

“Oh. My. God.”

Sarah smirked, prompting Jessica into motion as music from somewhere Jessica couldn’t pinpoint sounded and all heads turned to face her.