Walk on the Striped Side (13 page)

CHAPTER-FOURTEEN

Gage

How much would Babushka hate him if
he killed the fool? Surely two grandchildren were enough and the big blond
ignoramus wouldn’t be missed. Not only had Alec cock blocked him, but he’d also
put him back at square one with his mate. Because after his nitwit of a brother
had snuck in on his and Elena’s make out session, scaring the shit out of her
in the process, Gage had lost his head and dragged his mate around like a rag
doll. Now her shoulder and arm were sore from his mistake, and worse yet, Elena
was trying to use the whole thing to put physical and emotional space between
them again.

Sitting in front of Elena in two of
his dining room chairs, he gingerly placed the bag of frozen peas on her shoulder
and tried not to cringe when she winced. Needing to take his anger out on
something, he snarled at his brother. “What do you want Alec?”

Alec was standing on the far
opposite side of his kitchen looking suitably chagrined. Not that Gage would
give him any points for that.

“I said I was sorry.” Alec mumbled.

Gage roared at his brother in
frustration.

Alec held both of his hands in the
air. “Calm down bro, I really am sorry. I had no idea that you didn’t sense me
walk into the room. You usually know when I walk into the house, much less a
room, okay?”

Through his haze of anger, Gage
realized that there was a hand petting his chest. He looked down to watch as
his mate’s hand continued to pet him in a soothing motion. Loving the feel of
her touch, he kept statue still so as not to scare her affections away. Her
hand kept up the almost orgasmic petting, so he took the risk of her stopping
so that he could look at her face. Maybe this was a good thing developing here
if she felt should try and console him like this. When he did finally look up,
she faltered for a second before continuing to run her hand over his chest.

Uncertainly biting her lip, she
leaned in just a little towards him and whispered, “You want to tuck that big
pointy thing away?”

Huh? Worried that the perpetual
hard on she gave him had somehow popped out of his pants, he looked down to his
crotch. Nope, his dick wasn’t out. He heard Elena snort and looked back up to
her face. She stopped petting him for a second and used her pointer finger to
tap one side of her mouth.

“I meant the other big pointy
things.”

Gage ran his tongue over the side
of his mouth, and sure enough, his canines had dropped down. Damn Alec for
getting him so upset! Feeling his tiger too close to the surface, he snarled
loudly in frustration, which was enough to get Elena to start petting his chest
again. That appeased his beast a little, to have their mate touching them, so
he closed his eyes to try and calm down. Inhaling deeply through his nose, and
exhaling out of his mouth, he centered himself between man and beast. It was a
delicate line that kept his tiger in check and the man in control, but he’d
been pretty good at doing it since his very first shift.

Apparently now that he had a mate, he
was going to be a little more careful of his emotions or there’d be a Siberian
Tiger running down the street from his home in no time. His fangs slowly
receded into his gum line, and after several more breaths he opened his eyes
again. He found Elena watching him closely, and he hoped it wasn’t in such a
way that she was thinking about any striped rugs in her future.

Refusing to take his eyes off of
his mate, he asked his brother again. “What do you want Alec?” Elena nodded to
herself, as if pleased with his calmer state, and moved to take her hand away
from his chest. His tiger snarled loudly in his head, and the man agreed with
his inner beast. That wouldn’t do! So Gage trapped her hand against his chest
to make his point, and then he refrained from chuckling when his mate sighed
disgustedly at him.

“If you two are done playing kissy
face then we have somewhere to be.”

Well, that statement caught his
attention. Looking over at his brother in confusion, Gage asked, “What?”

Huffing in exasperation, “I tried
to call you eight times! Where is your fucking phone man? Jenna’s Uncle called
a meeting because he received some new
intel
. We were
supposed to be at Adam’s bar ten minutes ago, but because you weren’t answering
your phone I stopped by here instead. So get your ass in gear and let’s get the
fuck on already!”

Gage’s nerves were already on edge,
so his brother getting snappy with him was only making it worse. When Gage
snarled a warning at Alec and started to get up with the intent of slapping his
brother upside his head, it was Elena’s hand on his chest that stayed him. A
wiser person would have realized that Gage was still very much on edge and
backed off a little.

Alec had never been a wise person.

So his brother rolled his eyes and
then muttered, “I’m never getting mated. After watching both you and Adam turn
into snappy little hormonal girls over a couple of women, I’ve thoroughly been
cured of even
thinking
about it.”

Gage opened his mouth to let his
brother have it, but Elena beat him to it. “I don’t think that we’ll ever meet
a woman that has an IQ as low as yours Alec, so you shouldn’t have to worry
about it. I seriously doubt there’s a woman on the planet with that low of a
brain cell count. And Lord knows any woman with a higher brain cell count would
be smart enough to run in the opposite direction than mate with you.”

Gage barked out a surprised laugh
as his brother glared menacingly at his mate. Alec meant for the look to scare
her into submission. That just proved how little Alec understood Gage’s mate.
Which was proven perfectly after a small silent staring contest between Alec
and Elena, when she said, “Maybe your weird white hair and freaky blue eyes
intimidate other people, but it just makes me want to take my baseball bat to
your head so I don’t have to look at you anymore.”

Gage scooped Elena up in his arms
and carried her out of the kitchen towards his bedroom, laughing the whole way.
Misunderstanding why he was carrying her away from his brother to the other end
of the house, Elena said “You don’t have to protect me from him. I don’t care
if he can turn into a giant sized kitty cat, I’ll kick his ass.”

Shaking his head, “Alec would never
hurt you love.”

Confused, Elena asked. “Then why
did you carry me out of there?”

Dropping her to her feet in his
bedroom, he led her over to his closet and pulled out his smallest t-shirt, an
XXL red t-shirt that Elena had given him as a prank gift during their
relationship that said ‘I would cuddle you so hard’. He then grabbed himself a
grey ARMY t-shirt and handed both of shirts to his mate to hold for them. As he
dragged her over to his dresser and then opened one of the drawers, he finally
answered her.

“We have to get ready to go meet
Pack Master Davies.” He grabbed a pair of jeans for himself and a pair of grey
sweatpants for her before dragging her towards the bathroom. The dragging her
bit became a little harder, so he looked back to see that his mate was
literally dragging her heels across his floor to try and stop him. Cocking an
eyebrow at her he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“We can’t take a shower together!”
She squeaked.

He smiled at her nervousness. It
was so unusual for his ferocious little mate to be spooked like this. “Why
not?”

“If we go in t-there and s-start to
get n-naked… w-w-well… I THOUGHT YOU SAID WE WEREN’T READY FOR SEX!”

From stuttering to shrieking? Elena
really was spooked. And her sudden worries over having sex were a complete
one-eighty from her earlier seduction attempts today. That could only mean one
thing. He was finally tearing down those seemingly impenetrable emotional walls
she’d put up against him. She was feeling vulnerable, and that meant he was
that much closer to convincing his mate that she was his. And it had only taken
him a day to do it. It damn near made him want to pat himself on the back for
such an accomplishment! Of course, he really shouldn’t be surprised that he was
succeeding already. In two hundred and sixty four years he’d yet to fail at
getting anything he really wanted. Gage had just assumed it would have taken
her loner to get her to start to come around. And he had been more than
prepared for a long wait if that’s what it would have taken. Tigers were
notoriously known for their patience while hunting. But, if Elena was starting
to give in already, he wasn’t going to complain.

Today’s agenda: Find out what Pack
Master Davies wanted and unnerve Elena some more with some third base action.

Tomorrow’s mission: Get Elena to
admit she still loved him and have amazing make-up sex.

It was only Wednesday, so if they kept
this schedule up, he could have her bitten and mated by the weekend. His
Babushka was going to love this.

“EARTH TO IVANOV! ARE YOU KIDDING
ME? YOU’RE UCKING DAYDREAMING RIGHT NOW?”

Elena now had a death grip on their
t-shirts and had braced her legs like she was ready to fight him tooth and nail
about going to the bathroom. It was cute, her thinking she’d be able to stop
him. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time to waste. Scooping her up in his arms
again, he carried her struggling body across the hall to his bathroom and
kicked the door shut.

“Calm down woman. We’re not having
sex, although I wish we had time for that. But the fact is that we don’t, so
we’re going to get undressed, take a shower, and then get dressed and go. So
stop your hissy fit and get your ass in gear.”

Setting her down on her feet, he
reached back and locked the bathroom door to keep his brother from intruding on
their privacy. Then he pulled his shirt over his head, but had to stop when it
was stuck on the handcuffs. He still wasn’t ready to take the cuffs off of
them, determined Elena would get his point about his refusal of any separation
between them, so he did the only thing he could do. He tore his shirt so that
it was no longer hanging from the cuffs. Rid of the garment, he unbuttoned his
jeans and let them drop around his ankles, before kicking them completely off.
Left in nothing but his boxer briefs, he quickly pushed them down his legs and
stepped out of those as well. When he looked back up to see Elena’s progress,
his eyes were met with a completely clothed woman who was standing there
staring at his junk with her jaw dropped open.

He thought that if he stood there
for a second, she would realize that she was staring and stop, but nope, she
just kept staring. Which caused the certain appendage she was gawking at to
start to get hard. Damn the woman! She was making this difficult!

“Did you want to get undressed, or
did you want me to undress you?”

Her head snapped up, and she
scowled at him. “I don’t think this is a good idea! Why don’t you just take the
handcuffs of and we’ll take separate showers?”

Heh
. If
she thought she could negotiate with him, fat chance. “Are you ready to tell me
that you love me?”

Her brows dropped into a deep and
her jaw tensed.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought
Amazon. So the answer is no. Now, get undressed so we can hurry this up. As
much as I’d like to fuck you until your screams are echoing around these tiled
walls, we don’t have time. This meeting with the Pack Master is important.”

“Well if you don’t take the
handcuffs off, how the hell am I supposed to get my shirt off all the way?”

Losing his patience, Gage reached
over, took the neckline of her shirt with both of his hands, and then ripped
the shirt down the middle. While Elena cussed him a blue streak, he reached
over and tore in half the sleeve on the arm that was handcuffed to him in half
as well.

“There, now you can get your shirt
off. Would you like me to help you with your jeans too, or can I go turn the
water on for us?”

She gave him a death glare while
unbuttoning and unzipping her jeans. Ignoring it, Gage maneuvered his body
around her so that he could reach into the shower and turn the water on for
them. Sticking his hand in the stream, he waited until it was a comfortable
heat level for his ornery mate before he turned back around to get her… and
stopped dead in his tracks.

There in front of him was something
that he’d recently been afraid that he would never see again. A naked Elena.
Every inch of her gorgeous olive toned complexion could be seen. Standing there
outraged, hands on her hips, one hip cocked with attitude, full of fiery
passion and more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen. How had he ever
thought that he could go on without her in his life?

Holding his hand out as an offer to
help steady her, she frowned at it for a second, before giving in and placing
her hand in his. He pushed the shower curtain back to invite her in, and then
guided her into the relaxing rush of water. Stepping in behind her, Gage closed
the shower curtain and then watched in fascination over his mate’s shoulder as
Elena ignored him while washing the front of her body with a soapy washcloth.
Funny how such a simple act could transfix him entirely. If he could, he’d
stand there and watch her do that all day.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have all
day. Grabbing the bar soap he lathered up his hands to wash the front of his
own body. He tried to keep a little distance between himself and Elena
regardless of the difficulty because of their handcuffed hands while they both
washed because his dick was still harder than a steel pole. He didn’t want to
make her any more uncomfortable than she already was.

Of course, that plan was shot to
hell when she reached her free hand around to wash her back. Her hand
accidentally brushed his dick, causing his eyes to cross from the small
pleasure that shot down to his already aching balls. The moment she made
contact, her whole body froze. Gage thought for sure she’d move her hand away,
not wanting to touch him so intimately, but his mate always seemed to do the
opposite of what he expected her to do.