The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence (19 page)

She wrapped her arms around his neck and
hugged him, kissing his sweat-drenched forehead before he tipped
her backwards and she slid off his cock, immediately regretting the
loss of the fullness of him inside her. Dropping to the mattress
next to her with a groan that was part satisfied and part
exhausted, he put his arm over her waist and settled next to her on
his side. By slow degrees their breathing returned to normal and
their bodies stopped shivering.

“You really are mine.” His voice was rough
and deep.

With some effort, she managed to make it to
her side so she could look at him and his face was that of a man
completely happy and satisfied. “Just yours.”

"That was worth the wait, baby." He said with
a chuckle.

His eyes were dancing with happiness. "You
know," she said, kissing him, "I don't think I've seen you really
smile in a long time."

"I was pretty miserable."

"I’m sorry I didn’t remember sooner, that I
doubted your feelings for me.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, my
father said he’s sorry he made the edicts. And my mother thought I
should tackle you and mark you again as if I’d never done it in the
first place.”

“Oddly enough, it doesn’t.” She smiled at
him, and he returned it. She sat up on her elbow. "I just have one
request.”

“Name it.” He said confidently.

“Just promise that you won’t keep things from
me anymore. I’m stronger than you give me credit for, and I don’t
want our life to be built on lies.”

His eyes got darker and more serious. “I
swear I will do my best to tell you everything that you need to
know. I can’t promise I won’t keep something from you, if it will
protect you or if I have to, but I will promise to tell the truth
when I do tell you something.” His fingers stroked her jaw. “How
can you even think about forgiving me?"

"Because you're mine. You always have been.
Not because you marked me, but because it's the truth. All that
time that we wasted, we have a lot to make up for."

They made love again, more gently than the
first time, and when they'd come back down from orbit, she fell to
a boneless mass across his chest, fairly sure her joints had come
unhinged during that last orgasm. He turned her onto her side and
slid behind her, one arm moving under her pillow and the other
drawing her against him.

He kissed the shell of her ear, “Sweet
dreams, my alpha mate.”

She drifted into a deep sleep, held and
protected by the only man she had ever really wanted or loved.

She woke up alone, mildly disoriented and
largely aching from her eyebrows to her toes. As the world came
into focus she heard Jason’s voice past the closed bedroom door and
the voices of several of the pack including Michael. Carefully
stretching the kinks out of her back, she made her way to the
bathroom and turned on the shower. Mid-yawn, she caught a glimpse
of her reflection in the mirror and she shouted, “Oh for fuck’s
sake, Jason!”

The girl staring back at her looked like
someone had drawn all over her with purple markers. She had hickeys
and bite marks down both sides of her neck, her shoulders were
dotted with fingertip shaped bruises, and even her hips had finger
marks.

She was fully planning to give him a hard
time about going into overdrive marking her when he came to the
door of the bathroom, but instead she just laughed. Shirtless and
wearing only jeans, he looked almost as bad as she did, worse in
some ways because she’d raked her fingernails down his back and
sides several times. Confused, he waited until she stopped laughing
and she pointed to her neck. “You made me look like a piece of
bruised fruit.”

With a self-satisfied grin, he pulled her
into his chest and hugged her. “I won’t apologize for marking you.
It’s what wolves do. The bruises and bite marks just reinforce what
everyone knows as truth now. And you marked me back anyway, so you
can’t really complain.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Sure I can.
I may be a lot of things, but I never claimed to be fair.”

He kissed the tip of her nose with a laugh.
“Don’t stick that thing out unless you’re going to use it.”

“Are you actually threatening me with
sex?”

“Not really. The guys are out in the front
room and you’re really, really noisy.” She blushed, her mouth
falling open in surprise and he chuckled, kissing her cheek. “Go on
and get cleaned up. I’ll wait for you out in the front room.”

He patted her on the butt, gave her a gentle
nudge towards the shower, and strode out of the bathroom. She
turned back to the shower and stepped in.

Callie had packed well for her and remembered
everything except her body wash and hair products, which meant she
had to use Jason’s. You know what men use? Men things. Like Irish
Spring and Suave regular scent. Ugh. She liked how Jason smelled;
she just didn’t want to smell like him, too. She dressed in a pair
of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt that advertised a bar up on
campus called Little Brothers and pulled her hair back into a quick
braid after drying it enough so she didn’t get a chill.

Out in the front room, Jason, Linus, and Bo
were drinking coffee and watching the news. Jason had pulled on a
sweatshirt, and she hated to see him covering up all the bites and
bruises. Jason’s face lit up when she walked into the room and he
motioned her over. “I’ll just grab a cup of coffee, Jas.” She said,
and he said, “Michael will bring you a cup. He’s in the kitchen
making breakfast.”

She sat down on his lap on the easy chair and
pecked his cheek. “Michael’s making breakfast?” Although an
excellent cook, Michael was notoriously lazy when it came to
cooking for others.

Bo and Linus started to snicker, and she
looked at them but they wouldn’t meet her eyes. Jason called for
Michael and she heard the unmistakable sound of heels on linoleum
and she nearly died when Michael came into view, wearing a French
maid’s uniform complete with fishnet stockings and black pumps. He
grinned at her and curtsied awkwardly. “My lady.”

“What the hell?” She sputtered in shock.

Jason made a gesture with his empty mug and
Michael took it from him and clunked off into the kitchen after
asking if she’d like coffee, too. “It’s his punishment, part of it
anyway, for breaking the alpha order not to tell you that you were
my mate or alpha.”

“You put him in a dress as punishment?”

“Well,” he tweaked her chin, “I’m not really
mad that he did, but I had to do something to show that I respect
the old alpha rules and laws. There’s no hard and fast rule for
punishments for these sorts of things. So he has to wear that and
serve breakfast to us.”

“And the other part of his punishment?”

“He’s going to be your lackey today while I
go into the shop and see how things are going. He is yours to
abuse.”

She shook her head with another laugh and
accepted her coffee from Michael without making eye contact with
him. He had hooker red lipstick on, for goodness sake! Her best guy
friend made her coffee just the way she liked it, sweet with whole
milk, but the only thing she could think of was wondering what he’d
filled out the top of the costume with and whether he was actually
wearing a garter belt.

Michael called them into the kitchen for
breakfast several minutes later, and they sat down while he clomped
around the kitchen like a foal on unsteady legs and put bowls and
plates of food down. He made a feast for an army with scrambled
eggs, buttered toast, oatmeal, hashbrowns, and sausage links, and
Cadence filled her plate first on Jason’s order and then the rest
disappeared in a flurry of forks and pleased grunts. Seconds were
out of the question for her. It never ceased to amaze her how much
they could eat.

While the boys talked about the shop, Jason
winked at her, and she marveled at how relaxed he seemed, even in
the midst of a lot of bad shit. Maybe that’s what being mates
meant. That they could comfort each other, support each other? That
nothing seemed quite so bad when you were with the person that you
loved and they were safe. She didn’t need to wonder how pissed he
was at Chris, because she knew how she would have felt if someone
had injured Jason so severely. Chris was going to suffer, and Jason
was going to enjoy it.

After breakfast, Jason kissed her goodbye,
promising to be back by lunch and to also stop by her house and get
her bathroom stuff. When they were gone, she insisted Michael take
off his heels before he wrenched his ankle and then helped him with
the dishes.

She gave his fake boob a poke. “What the hell
is in here?”

He laughed and pulled the top down part of
the way to reveal a grapefruit. She groaned into her hands.

“Hey, I know it’s been a while since I’ve
seen a real tit up close, but I think I remember the basic shape.
What would you have used?”

“Oh, hell, Michael, I have no idea what a man
uses to stuff a maid’s uniform. Where did you get it anyway?”

Another of his shit-eating grins lit his
face. “From the plus sized section of the lingerie store in
Sweedesboro. I’m a woman’s extra large.” He was so proud of that
fact that she laughed until her side ached.

Twirling like a little girl in a tutu, he
pirouetted for her and the skirt fluffed up to reveal black briefs
and garters. She would never look at him the same way.

“Michael, I love you. You’re my best friend.
But please, please don’t ever wear a dress again.”

“I make no promises. But I love you, too.
Alpha. Sister.”

He tucked his finger under her chin and
smiled at her, the ease and pleasure in his eyes said he was glad
she was with Jason now. And she was, too.

Taking one of the plates from him and drying
it with a kitchen towel, she said, "Can I ask you something about
the edicts?"

"Sure, baby girl." Up to his elbows in suds,
he rooted around for another plate and washed it.

"If they were binding, why was it so easy for
you to break the order? Why did no one else ever just tell me the
truth?"

He rinsed off the plate and handed it to her,
turning off the water and drying his hands on another towel. "It
wasn't easy for me to break the order, but it was a combination of
things. I was worried about your safety, about the future of our
pack, and when Jason was fighting, his wolf was just going nuts and
we could all feel it. We're connected like that, you know, because
he's alpha. When the alpha's out of control, it puts the rest of us
on edge. My frustration with the situation just hit a peak when you
seemed completely clueless about what was going on and the words
left my mouth before I could stop them. For us, when an alpha makes
a law, like the edict not to speak to you about the marking or your
place in the pack unless you came to us, whenever one of us wanted
to tell you, it was almost as if we became mute and unable to talk.
The edict would flash in my mind every time I wanted to tell you,
baby girl, and I wanted to tell you all the time I promise. None of
us liked you being in the dark, and it was hard for us to see you
floundering and feeling bad when we knew that just a simple
question from you would have opened all of that up."

He paused and gave her a long look. "I think
the reason no one else ever told you the truth, or tried to at any
rate, was because it wasn't in everyone's best interest for you to
figure out that you and Jason were mates. If you decided to give up
on him and settle down with someone else, then Jason would be fair
game for the other females in the pack. So you can guess why the
females were happy to keep you in the dark and to torment you. And
losing you might have cost him the pack if he couldn't keep himself
together enough to lead. A weak alpha, emotionally or physically,
is ripe for the picking. There are males in the pack that would
like a shot at being alpha, but would only try if he was distracted
and upset."

She shook her head in disbelief. "Jason loves
leading the pack. He wouldn't lose it like that, not over me."

His brow arched, "Haven't you figured out yet
how much my brother loves you? There is literally no one for him
but you. He wanted you with him from the time you were kids, and
being apart from you because of his own actions drove him crazy. If
you weren't with him, he wouldn't be the same, and that's the
truth."

She smiled at him, turning back to the sink.
"Thanks, Michael."

"For what, sis?"

She elbowed him with a laugh as he turned the
water on again, "For breaking the edict."

He chuckled, "Me and my big mouth are happy
to serve."

After the dishes were done, she and Michael
sat on the couch and drank coffee, talking about their past and the
future of the pack. There was so much she didn’t know and needed to
know. Callie called at lunch just before Jason got home, and
promised to stop over for dinner so they could talk.

When she hung up, she said, “How come you and
Callie never got together? I know you’re cousins but you’re like
fourth cousins. It’s not necessarily too icky.” Michael was
adorably handsome. While she couldn’t look at him as anything but a
friend and soon to be brother-in-law, she’d listened to the other
women in the bar for years rave about him. Tousled brown hair with
natural blonde highlights that curled just ever so slightly, light
blue eyes that made you think about summertime, and a smile that
would melt you in your socks, if you were inclined. Which she never
was. She knew that Michael kept away from her romantically because
of Jason, but she’d never ever really thought of him that way
anyway. He was practically sexless in her eyes. Her best friend,
the lamp.

He hummed in his throat. “It’s not for lack
of attraction. She’s very pretty and she’s sweet. But I guess she’s
just always been family to me. Besides you, she’s really the only
female I haven’t been with. I don’t think my mate will come from
any wolf around here. I’d have found her by now.” He looked a
little sad, wistful.