Scent of a Mate (5 page)

“I’m sorry about Caleb, Ellie.”

She shook her head. “It’s alright. I’m sure all will be fine.”

She lied to him. Or maybe she lied to herself. Aric didn’t have the heart to tell her that things were a lot more complicated than they seemed. He and his brother and father had their enforcers on alert. The fight in Caleb’s pack was going to be dirty. And it was only a matter of time before it touched their grounds.

“Aric?”

“Yes, little pup?”

She smiled at his pet name for her. “You need to understand that you’re going to have to work on getting Jordan to open her heart and let you in now. She is a little rough around the edges since we were in high school. Kids tended to be awful to her back then.”

Rage bubbled in his veins. “What do you mean? How were they awful?”

Ellie shrugged. “You know boys. She’s curvy. They called her names. But she always fought back. Not necessarily with her fists, but she could cut a person down with a few words. It was her defense mechanism.”

“This happened for long?” He wanted to hurt those boys.

She shook her head. “Not that I am aware of, but it’s possible. When we became friends, she’d already stopped the majority of the attacks and had grown a thick wall around her heart. In time, people stopped looking at her body and focused on her personality and her sassiness. Guys started to like her, and you’d think that was the end of it.”

“But?” This was getting more complicated by the second.

“She never forgot. I know she’s still a little insecure over her size. She won’t say it. Hell, she’d probably dare me to a duel with guns and all if I say it, but I know.” She pressed her lips together and sighed. “You need to get to know her. She’s not going to fall for the whole mate line. You’ll need to get her to want a relationship with you. Then you can bring up the mate mark.”

Frickin’ hell. His relationship with Jordan just got a lot more difficult.

“She’s my best friend, Aric. I love her and I don’t ever want to see her hurt. I know you’ve wanted her for a long time. But she’s a fighter who needs a protector—and it won’t be easy convincing her of that fact.”

He’d be Jordan’s protector now. Hell, he’d fight King Kong if needed to save her.

“Any suggestions on how I get her to accept a relationship with me?” He was clueless about the deeper side of Jordan.

He hadn’t purposely distanced himself from her through the years. Okay, maybe he had. Everyone assumed that since he was in line to lead he was some kind of super-sure-of-himself badass. And that may be true in most cases, but not with Jordan. He’d developed an instant need to seek her attention from the moment he met her, but she’d been a little girl. So he’d kept away from her, hoping that with time she’d grow to like him. What he hadn’t expected was for her to develop into such a sassy, sexy woman. His woman. One he wanted more than any other. A woman he didn’t know how to get close to.

Ellie smiled, her eyes twinkling. “I think you already have this figured out, Aric. Think about it.”

It took him a moment to realize where she was going. She’d given him a way to make Jordan listen to him. A key. And now she’d reminded him to use it. He laughed and hugged her to his side.

“You’re too smart for your own good, little pup.” His best friend Caleb was going to have his hands full with his little sister.

“I know.” She ruffled his hair.

* * *

Jordan lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. What in the world was she going to do now? She’d had sex with Aric. Oh, but it wasn’t just sex. It was the best fucking sex of her life and she wanted it again so bad she was ready to call and beg him for more.

“Argh!” She threw a pillow over her face.

She lay there, reliving every kiss, every thrust, every pant, and every moan. There had been a point she’d started to beg him to fuck her. Dear God, she was in deep shit. Her body had turned into one giant erogenous zone, and thinking of Aric, and his hands and lips made her nipples tighten and her pussy slick.

The sound of her doorbell made her lift her head from her bed. She was waiting on the other girls to drop off their flash drives. Now that she thought about it, why the hell had nobody called her yet? By now, they’d have had at least two conference calls to discuss what they’d seen. Not that she was complaining. She was happy she got to go without running into them. Aric had left her alone for a while. Well, enough time that she questioned her sanity in doing all those amazing things with him. Then she got the hell out of dodge. If they’d seen her with her torn up clothes, trying to hide all her girl bits unsuccessfully, they’d have made her the butt of their jokes for the next decade.

Thankfully, they’d all driven their own cars, so she didn’t have to feel bad about leaving the others behind. In fact, she didn’t even worry about her camera or the ceremony at that point. She had been too worked up over the multiple orgasms and having screamed out Aric’s name loud enough to be heard by a few of her friends.

She slipped on a robe and ran to brush her teeth.

“Hi, Ellie.” She let her friend inside and headed for the kitchen to make some coffee.

Ellie sniffed the air. Jordan wondered if she could smell Aric on her still. But that couldn’t be right. Too many hours had passed. She’d been so exhausted by the time she got home, she’d shrugged off the clothes and got into bed.

“Are you okay? You look really tired.” Ellie watched her intensely. Her blue eyes lit with curiosity. Jordan had the urge to fidget so instead she put the coffeemaker to brew.

“I’m fine. Just need some more sleep,” she mumbled.

“I brought the flash cards from the others. They dropped them at my car before they left, and I wanted to make sure you had them all.”

The way Ellie smiled made her a little worried.

“Oh. Great.” Jordan wanted to jump in the shower so bad now.

“So?”

Oh God. Ellie knew. She knew Jordan had sex with Aric. How could she face her friend after all the bad bad things that felt so so good that she and Aric had done? She needed to play it cool.

“So?” Jordan squeaked. Nice.

“What did you think of the scenting ceremony?” Ellie grinned. “You only harassed me half to death to let you witness it, and now, you won’t even tell me your thoughts.”

Her thoughts? Her thoughts were all on one super-sexy, tattooed badass with the body of a god and a cock that should be insured for millions.

“I think it was amazing.” Yeah. That would work. She would probably think it was amazing once she saw the video of it anyway.

“Oh really? What was your favorite part?” Ellie asked.

Crap.

“Well…uh. When the guy, Marco, right? Uh, he was…uh, sniffing Kelly.” She knew he had to have sniffed her. They were wolves for cripes’ sake.

Ellie’s eyes went saucer-wide. “You didn’t think it was a little odd for him to shove his muzzle there?”

Huh? What the hell did she miss? “Um, no. Nah. It looked pretty normal to me. I’m sure other men would think so too.”

“Human men would do that?” Ellie frowned. “I’ve never met one who has.”

“Oh well. It’s probably not a big deal. So, how is everything at your house?”

Ellie lifted her brow. “Everyone is fine. Mom and Dad are still playing match makers.” She sighed, slipping a lock of hair behind her ear. She cupped her face in the palm of her hand, resting her elbow on the table.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“They want grandbabies.” She shrugged, tapping her nails on the table. “The sooner the better.”

Well, damn.

“What do the sexy four want?” She cleared her throat and brought coffee to the table. It was a known fact Aric would need a mate, a shifter mate—soon. He was the oldest, and dammit he was also the hottest of the bunch, with the responsibility of being future Alpha. Though all the brothers had it in their blood, he was first born. They were strong, powerful, and no-nonsense. They were also soft on the eyes, or in Aric’s case, soft on all her body parts. Who was she kidding? He was so hot he made her panties shrivel into nothing. Thinking of him, remembering last night, shot her temperature up and out of orbit. Hello internal combustion.

Ellie filled a mug with coffee, sugar, and cream. Jordan watched her hand shake as she spooned sugar into her steaming cup. “They know they won’t settle for the women they feel are right for them.”

Jordan ignored her own coffee to watch her friend closely. “What’s wrong?” She studied Ellie’s face. Whoever upset her friend was going to get an earful. She may not be able to smell pain or fear, but all she had to do was look at Ellie to know something was bothering her. “Do I have to kick Caleb’s ass?”

Ellie glanced down at her cup. “No. I…I haven’t spoken to him in days. There’s not much to tell. He’s going through some stuff with his pack right now. I need to give him time and space to figure it out.” She sipped her coffee and pursed her lips. “Let’s go look at some of the memory cards. I don’t want to think of what’s happening with Caleb right now.”

They took their drinks to the living room. Jordan sat in her leather chair and Ellie set up the flat screen with Jordan’s laptop. Moments later, they were watching one of the videos they’d recorded.

“What happened with all those people we saw last night?” Jordan wondered about the brown wolf that’d tried to take a nibble out of her.

“Some of them came from pretty far way. They’re staying in the area for a bit with my father’s permission to explore and get to know some of our females.”

“What about Marco and Kelly? What happens with them now?” The screen changed to a shot of two wolves entering the clearing. She’d guess Kelly was the smaller of the two. With a light grey fur, she looked like a Husky instead of a wolf. Marco’s animal was brown and almost twice the size of the grey. The bigger wolf circled the grey. He shoved his muzzle into her butt. What the––?

“They mate now. He’s already marked her.”

She continued to watch the wolf sniff Kelly’s wolf all over. Then it was her turn. Jordan’s gaze was glued to the screen, watching the small wolf sniff at the larger one. She sat transfixed. The two wolves shifted into full humans. Naked humans. Even though she knew it would happen, it still felt like she was intruding on a private moment.

“He marked her?”

Passion flared in Kelly and Marco’s eyes as they watched each other. Kelly lifted a hand slowly and brought it to his face. He inhaled. His eyes glowed bright gold. He hauled her into him. Their bodies were pressed tight together like a couple making love, like she’d been with Aric just hours ago.

“Yes. Didn’t you watch?” Ellie’s eyes widened.

“Yes, but you know I had to…” What the hell could she say? She picked lint off her robe, ignoring the heat crowding her face. “I had to stay on alert so we didn’t get caught.”

Ellie giggled. “Right.”

Was her friend making fun of her? She stopped the video. It was getting a little too erotic. She was still all kinds of turned on, and the last thing she needed was Ellie to sniff that.

“So tell me what you want me to do now?” Jordan asked about the book and the original plan of putting the entire ceremony in details for her family’s library.

“Write it all out as you see it.”

Jordan crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you mind if I go back to the clearing?” It’d be easier to get a feel for what to write if she was down at the spot where it took place.

“No, but you do need to be careful. We still have out-of-towners and they may be in the area.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be careful. I don’t want any close encounters of the sharp teeth kind.” Once was enough.

Instinct told Jordan to get out of the clearing the moment she set foot there. But had she listened? Nope. That would have been too easy. Instead, she’d started taking photos and visualizing what happened there. Then she glanced up to the spot she knew she’d been at when Aric found her.

That’s how the two white wolves found her. At first she’d been distracted, remembering the night with Aric. Leaves crunched. She glanced around, finally noticing the wolves. Unease bounced around her stomach, twisting her insides into knots. The two animals watched her. Without taking her eyes off them, she pulled out an air horn and a bottle of pepper spray from her bag.

“Hello. I’m friends with the Wolfe family.” She kept her voice steady.

The smaller one of the two took a step closer and sniffed. She’d started to calm, hoping the animals realized she wasn’t lying.

The little white wolf growled, initiating a mimicked snarl from the larger wolf. And then she was running for her car being chased by two wolves.

Branches and trees zoomed past her. Growls sounded so close behind her, she knew they were doing it to scare her. Goddammit, it was working. Her heart pounded hard in her chest. Fear, something she absolutely hated with every fiber of her being, filled her until it was hard to breathe. Her mind whirled, but she didn’t know what to do. Ahead, she saw a thick tree with broken off branches. Focused solely on the branches, she ran for it.

Thankful for all the tree climbing she’d done in the summers as a kid, she grabbed on to those branches and hauled her ass up that tree faster than superman going around Earth’s orbit.