The Reluctant Mate: (Book 13, Grey Wolf Pack Romance Novellas) (10 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Reid spent the entire weekend at Jolene’s house.  He said he was there to protect her from Mark – but she suspected he just wanted to be there.  He also insisted that she tell the Alpha about Mark’s continued badgering.  She didn’t want to, but he had a way of nagging that involved just dark scowly looks, and she couldn’t help but give in.

He was also trying to get her to borrow money from him – at that she absolutely drew the line.  Enough was enough – she could put up with his continued attention – mostly because she enjoyed it, but she wasn’t going to take his money.  He didn’t like it, but he accepted it…
for the moment
.

He replayed her words over and over in his head. 
I needed you.  Don’t leave again
.

All the time he was away he thought of her, he didn’t consider that he had hurt her by leaving.  He never imagined she needed him.

He couldn’t stand the thought of watching her pine for Beau, so he left.  Now, the thought that she might never have married Mark if he’d stuck around weighed on him.  He’d run away because he was afraid she would reject him, that she’d laugh at Beau’s dumb younger brother.  It bothered him to think that maybe they could have been together all this time.

No, it was too late for regrets.  All that mattered was now.  Jolene was his, and he was going to protect her from asshole exes.

It was Sunday evening, and he wondered if maybe he should go home to get some clean clothes.  To be honest, they’d spent most of the weekend naked. 
Wasn’t much point in putting clothes on considering what they were doing
.

They’d talked about everything under the sun… except for their relationship.  He wasn’t ready for that.  Well, he was, but for him, it would be a case of him telling her she was his mate and that she belonged to him.  He doubted she’d react well to the news.  He was hoping she’d fall for him before he sprung that on her.  She was just coming around to their relationship; he was going to keep it light, let her get used to thinking of him as more than an annoying little brother.  He’d waited a long time for her; he could wait a little longer. 
But only a little.

Reid groaned as his phone vibrated again.  He could guess who that was.

He stroked a hand down Jolene’s back; his fingers dancing over her smooth skin.  He’d seen her naked at pack runs before, but nothing compared to feeling her pressed against his body.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” she murmured, her face buried in his shoulder.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he rumbled as he took the opportunity to sniff her hair.

“It might be important.”

He grunted.  “More important than what I’m doing right now?”

His hand slid down the smooth skin of her back to her ass.  He squeezed her flesh before a finger trailed over her rosette and stroked through her folds.

“No,” she whimpered as she shivered against him.

“Now, would you rather I keep doing this, or would you rather I answer my phone?”

“This,” she said, muffled into his shoulder as her hips rocked slightly against his questing digit.

He grinned wolfishly as his beast roared in smug satisfaction.

“What was that?” he teased as his fingers plunged inside her, stroking her inner walls.

“This!” she shrieked, bucking against him.

He rolled them, so she was lying on her back, his fingers pumping in and out of her.

“Reid,” she moaned as her eyes glazed with lust.

He smirked, loving the sound of his name from her lips.

She clutched his shoulders as his mouth sought her breasts, he suckled at one, teasing her nipple between his teeth before laving it with his tongue and moving onto the next.

Her hips moved against his fingers, pressing against them, wanting more, needing more.  The juices flowed from her as her arousal soared.  He added another finger, twirling them inside her.  He pressed his thumb to her clit, and as he bit down hard on her breast, she came.  Her body arched and tensed as she threw her head back and growled her release.  He felt the ripples of her orgasm as her inner muscles clutched at him.  Her claws pressed into his shoulder, and he relished the stinging pain, a sign of the pleasure he had given her.  As she vibrated beneath him, he pressed gentle kisses to her chest, slowly making his way up her neck.

“What was that about answering my phone?”

“Hmmm?  Phone?” she cooed.  “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

He chuckled against her skin but paused as his phone did indeed ring again.

“Maybe you should answer it this time.  You do that to me again, and I may pass out.”

Reid smirked, and she narrowed her eyes.  “That wasn’t a challenge.”

He snickered and clambered off the bed.  She watched him through hooded eyes.  He found his phone under the bed and answered, and yes it was his mom –
who else would it be?

“Hi, Mom.”

Jolene smiled at him, and he sat back on the bed, running a hand up and down her long, curvy leg as his mom scolded him for not telling her where he was, or answering the phone, or coming home for dinner… the list went on and on.

He was surprised when his dad came on the line.  Harry Jacobs was a man of few words, even fewer than Reid, and used a phone about as often as he admitted to having an emotion that wasn’t about football.

“Your mother’s worried, boy.  Come home.”

“What happened?” Reid asked sharply.

Jolene sat up and looked at him in concern.

“Your idiot brother happened.  She’s upset.  Come home.”

“I’m on my way.”  He snapped his phone shut.  “My mom’s upset; she wants me to come home.”

“Do you want me to come, too?”

“Would you?”

Jolene hugged him.  “Of course, as long as you don’t think I’m intruding.”

“No,” he murmured.  “Never.  I guess we better get dressed.”

“We should probably shower first… our scents…”

Reid gave her a hard look before reluctantly relenting.  “You’re right.”  They smelled like one another and sex.  The last thing he wanted was his mom giving him the third degree about Jolene.

His mom had it in her head that Jolene pined for Beau.  It was a toss up as to whether she’d accuse Reid of seducing her and taking advantage of her because of that.  Or whether she’d blame Jolene of seducing her little boy because she couldn’t have her older son.  Either way, Norma would not
underreact
to the situation.

“And we better shower separately.”

“I suppose,” he agreed, only pouting slightly.

“I’ll be quick,” she laughed as she hit him with a pillow and escaped into the bathroom.

*

Jolene idly wondered what Norma’s crisis was this time.  Last time had been when Norma was certain that someone was hacking her computer.  Given that she only used it to look up recipes and save her own, Jolene guessed Norma thought someone was trying to steal the secrets of her tuna noodle casserole.  In the end, it turned out that it was just her husband using it to play fantasy football.  She only discovered that after calling the Sheriff and demanding a deputy come and dust her computer for prints.

Norma was lovely in many ways, but the words ‘mountain’ and ‘molehill’ sprang to mind.  But, with that it mind, she certainly wasn’t ready to let her know what she and Reid were getting up to.  There was no way to tell how Norma would react.

Truthfully, Jolene wasn’t sure where their relationship was headed, but she was happier than she had been in years.  Perhaps it was better that they didn’t label it and just enjoyed their time together.  It was just like before he left.  Except there was no Beau and the sex…
well, the sex was transcendent.

How had she endured a dry spell for as long as she did?  Easy really – sex had never been like this for her before.  It was easy not to care when it was mediocre.  With her previous partners, she’d been too worried about pleasing them that she’d never put her own pleasure first, and they hadn’t been interested in anything that didn’t involve
them
getting off.  But Reid enjoyed watching her come, he didn’t always need something in return, he gave her pleasure without needing anything.

As they walked to his house, she felt a surge of…
something
.  No, she wasn’t going to identify it.  Instead, she appeased her wolf by slipping her hand into his.  He squeezed her hand and cocked her a half-smile.

As they approached the house, they frowned at the Porsche sitting outside the house.

“Your mom win the lottery?”

He stiffened before letting go of her hand.  “No.”

He strode ahead with Jolene following him, baffled at the sudden anger she saw on his face.  They stepped inside the house to find Beau arguing with his mom while his dad scowled at them.

“Beau?”

“Jolene?”  He looked at her in confusion

Reid stood still, his face blank.

“What’s going on?” asked Jolene.

Beau grimaced.  “Tawny and I have broken up.  We’re getting a divorce.”

Chapter Fourteen

Jolene’s wolf inwardly growled as she climbed the stairs.  This was not how she wanted to spend her evening. 
What the hell just happened?

Beau announced he was getting a divorce and was moving home.  That startled everyone for a few moments before Norma started fussing; Harry turned the TV up louder to drown her out, Beau escaped upstairs to his room, muttering about unpacking and Reid… she turned around, and he was gone.

What.  The.  Fuck.

Jolene had been about to go looking for the amazing disappearing wolf when Norma had pressed her into talking to Beau.  No, she definitely didn’t want to do
that
.  That was the last thing on earth she wanted to do – right up there with skydiving over a live volcano and sunbathing on the top of Kilimanjaro.  What was she supposed to say?  Hey, ex-boyfriend, what’s up?  You wanna talk about why your marriage to the woman you left me for failed?

Yeah, no thanks
.  So why the hell was she hauling ass to do just that?  And where the hell was Reid hiding?

Damn Norma for crying and giving her the puppy dog pout.  And when Norma had blasted her with her best mom guilt, Jolene had folded faster than an origami swan.

As much as Jolene desperately didn’t want to hear all about Beau’s perfect –
or maybe not so perfect life
– with Tawny, she couldn’t help a little sliver of curiosity.  Weren’t they supposed to be true mates?  Hadn’t her mom told her over and over that she could never leave her dad because they were true mates and it would be like a part of her dying if she did?

So what was up with that?  How could Beau leave Tawny if that was true?  Her wolf huffed.  Maybe her mom was just full of shit.  It would certainly make Jolene feel better knowing it was all a bunch of garbage.

Either way, she was about to find out.  She tapped on the door and stepped into the bedroom; Reid’s spicy, masculine scent immediately hit her, and she tried not to shudder as she remembered his beautiful body looming over hers, taking her, filling her…  Jolene clenched her fists and forced her wolf to remain calm.

She smiled as she noted how clean and tidy his side of the room was while Beau’s looked like a bombsite.  It really hadn’t changed since they were kids.  Reid, so quietly self-contained and considerate, and Beau a complete tornado, uncaring as to how his actions affected others.

“Hey,” she said lamely.

Beau smiled at her, that same pitying smile he gave her when he told her he was dumping her, and at his engagement party, and at his wedding…  Her wolf snorted.  Why was
she
still the pitiable loser?

“Joey, it’s good to see you.”

He walked over to her, his large arms spread out, seeking a hug and she… held up her hand.

“Hi-five, yeah!”  She laughed nervously.

He frowned, but he did hi-five her.  He was nothing if not a team player.

Jolene wiped her hands on her jeans.  “Room hasn’t changed much, huh?”  She took in the various posters.  Beau’s were of half naked females, and Reid’s were movie posters.  Huh, he still had the Jurassic Park poster she bought for him.  They both sure loved that movie. 
Can’t go wrong with dinosaurs.

Beau snorted as he pulled out some badly folded shirts from his suitcase and dropped them onto the floor.  Saved time, really.  They would probably end up there anyway.  She considered picking them up, but really wasn’t she taking the joy of doing that away from his mother?

He looked around the room.  “My mom’s sentimental.  It’ll probably stay this way forever.”  His eyes narrowed.  “It was one of the reasons Tawny never wanted to visit.  She didn’t want us cramped in here.” He grunted some words that sounded suspiciously like ‘fucking princess’.

Jolene cleared her throat.  Badmouthing Tawny was not a direction she wanted the conversation to go.  “Yeah, I’d have made it into my sewing room by now,” she joked.

His face scrunched in confusion.  “You sew?”

“No, it was… never mind.”  She remembered why she and Beau didn’t tend to have a lot of conversations.  “You wanna talk about what’s going on?”  Selfish maybe, but she mentally crossed her fingers that he didn’t.

“My mom sent you up?”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to say anything.” 
He really didn’t.

“I can’t talk to my mom about this; she’d kill me with questions, but… I was wrong about Tawny.”

He waited, sighing a couple of times until Jolene gave in and asked.  “Wrong about what?”

“She isn’t my true mate.”

“She isn’t?” repeated Jolene, slowly.

“No, I thought she was, but I was wrong.”  He looked sad before fury lanced over his features.  “It was just lust, nothing more, I was just young and stupid, and I couldn’t see that it wasn’t real.  Thank god we never bonded.  Things have been getting worse over the past few months, and last week we had a huge argument and… she slept with someone else.”  He slammed his suitcase down, and she could sense his beast was close to the edge.

Jolene felt an uneasy trickle of annoyance.  She wanted to be sympathetic, but when Beau dumped her, he told her it wasn’t her, it was because Tawny was his true mate – that fact was supposed to mitigate it and make her feel better, and it wasn’t even true!  Beau just wanted Tawny more than her.  Her wolf huffed, but she couldn’t work her way up to a real howl.

It didn’t matter,
what’s done is done
.  It just made her feel a little more insecure, and she wanted someone to make her feel better.  To make her feel wanted. 
Where the hell had Reid run off to?!

Beau gave her a doleful look, and she relented.  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she murmured placidly.

He ran his hands through his hair.  “I was so wrong about her; we’re getting a divorce.”

“Maybe you should hold off on that – I mean, give yourself a little time, maybe you and Tawny…”

“I made a huge mistake marrying her,” he growled stubbornly.

“I don’t think that’s true.  I mean think about your kids – they wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t…”

“I was dazzled by Tawny, and I threw away our life together.”

He eyed her meaningfully, and she felt her wolf curl her lip in distaste.  This needed to be nipped in the bud.

Jolene held up her hands.  “Don’t bring me into this – this is about you and Tawny and your family – I’m nothing to do with this.”

He gave her that damn pitying look, and Jolene felt her claws flex.  “Seriously, Beau, you’re hurting right now – just… give yourself some time.”

He looked like he wanted to argue and Jolene decided to help him unpack.  She bustled him out the way and started folding his clothes.  Being busy and bossy would stop any more dangerous thoughts – it was the Norma way of operating and was sure to be a turnoff to her son.

As she folded them into a drawer, she caught sight of the wall of pictures.  Instinctively, her lips curled up as she saw the montage of their relationship.  Proms, birthdays, date nights – undeniably there were some happy memories there.

“Can’t believe you didn’t take all these photos down,” she murmured she looked at the ‘Enchanted Under the Sea’ dance.  She’d worn a blue/green dress, and Beau told her she looked strangely shiny, but Reid said she looked like a mermaid, before running away bashfully.

Beau snorted out a laugh.  “Oh, that’s Reid for you.”

“Reid?”  Her wolf stirred in interest.

“Yeah, I guess he never took them down when he left for the army.  I’m surprised he still has them up now, but then he never took down his Planet of the Apes poster either.”  Beau gave her a look that suggested any male who would choose to put up that kind of poster was a complete mystery.

“Aren’t these your photos?”

“Well, technically some of them were mine – but we put all our photos on the family computer.  I guess Reid just printed off what he wanted.  I don’t think Reid ever had any friends – guess he wanted to surround himself with all mine.”  Beau laughed and managed to look both smug about that fact and disdainful.  “He was always odd.”

Jolene looked at the pictures more closely.  She’d never really looked at each photo individually; she’d just assumed Beau had put up whatever was most meaningful to him.  Although it didn’t sound as if any of them were.

She sucked in a breath as she realized something.  They weren’t photos of Beau’s friends – they were photos of her.  The only thing every photo had in common was that she was in all of them.  Sure Beau appeared in some, and his friends in others – but she was in all of them.

And Reid put them up.

“I should go, it’s getting late,” she said, a little breathlessly.

Beau nodded.  “It was really good to see you again, Joey.”

She mustered a smile.  “Take care and don’t do anything rash.”

That pitying look returned, and she got the hell out of there before she really did scratch his eyes out, or worse, he tried to hug her.

She found Norma hovering outside the door.  “Goodnight, Norma,” she said loudly and before the older she-wolf could object, Jolene ran downstairs.  She scented for Reid but couldn’t find him.  Her wolf grumbled in annoyance.

Harry looked up from the TV.  “He’s out, said he wanted a run.”

Jolene tried to hide his surprise about Harry actually looking away from the TV.  Or knowing where any member of his family was.  He was notorious for not paying any attention.  It was how Reid had once made it all the way to Florida when he was seventeen and decided he wanted to go to a rock concert his mother had strictly forbidden him from attending.

“Oh, thanks.  Did he say when he might be coming back?”

“No, used to disappear for hours when he was a kid.”

“I remember,” she said softly.

“Always been a good boy.  Odd, but a good boy.  Been through a lot.”

“I know.”  Her eyes prickled even now as she remembered what Reid had told her.

Harry’s eyes widened slightly before he nodded.  “Remember that.  He’s not the easiest boy to get along with.”  He gave her a significant look before returning his attention to the TV, summarily dismissing her.

Jolene left, dragging her feet.  Harry’s words flitted through her head while she considered what Beau had said.  It made her even angrier about true mates.  The mere idea made stupid shifters think having a true mate was something wonderful, but it all led to nothing.  If Beau hadn’t been hoodwinked into thinking he had a true mate, he’d never left her.

Her wolf whimpered.  Would they still be together?  No, surely…
she didn’t like the directions of those thoughts.

For so long she’d lamented her lost life with Beau, which had only been worse when she married Mark and that turned out to be a disaster of epic proportions.  But after the past few days with Reid, she couldn’t ever wish to go back in time and change things with Beau.  She was angry on Beau’s behalf, and maybe a little sore that her pride was hurt.  Knowing Beau had to dump her for his true mate was one thing.  But knowing that he preferred Tawny within a few minutes of meeting her compared to all the years that he’d been with her – that smarted just a little.

Although, could she deny a little selfish pleasure in knowing the relationship hadn’t worked?  Maybe just a touch.  She felt bad, really she did, but it was there.  Then she remembered their kids and felt really guilty.  She was a bad wolf.  She hoped they got back together.  It’s not like she wanted Beau – no, that ship had sailed.

But where the hell was Reid?
  He’d just disappeared the moment Beau returned.  Was he worried about his older brother knowing about them?  Was he embarrassed by her?

He could, at least, have said goodbye – but, no, he just ran away.  Was that it then?  A couple of days of fun and now he was out.  She knew they hadn’t labeled their relationship but still.  Maybe he’d done this with other women.  Her wolf growled at that thought.

She sighed as she walked home.  Good thing she stocked up on ice cream.  An ice cream orgy might be just the thing to improve her mood and make her forget her troubles.

*

Reid watched Jolene with the same stalkerish attention he’d given her throughout his teenage years.  He was angry at himself for not sticking around.  But he saw it on Beau’s face, he saw the happiness at being reunited with Jolene,
saw the twinge of lust
.

And his beast went crazy.

He had to get out of there and shift.  It was the only way he had ever been able to deal with his jealousy of his brother.  Not that there ever had been much rivalry between them.  Beau was the perfect son who did everything right, and Reid could care less.  Jolene was the only thing that Beau had that Reid ever wanted.

And now you have her, growled his wolf.

No, he didn’t, Reid responded sullenly.  They’d had fun, but now that Beau was back, did he even stand any chance?  Beau was the love of her life.

But we’re her mate insisted the beast.

Yeah, try getting Jolene to admit to it.

He stalked her, not too closely as she walked home, her head hung in silent thought.  The wolf wanted to go to her, demand she choose him, demand she take them for her mate.  But Reid wouldn’t let him.  No, he couldn’t stand the thought of being rejected.