1
“Jason. Jason! Wake up.”
Pale fingers shook Jason’s shoulder, their perfect French manicure digging into the skin under his Fireborn pack tattoo. He rolled onto his back, passing beneath a curtain of silky blond hair that brushed his cheek from above. The hair cascaded from a perfectly shaped head attached to a perfectly shaped body, with perfectly shaped lips that parted slightly when he opened his eyes. Sarah. Her fair skin seemed to glow in the dim light, making her look as sweet as an angel. But he knew better than to judge this book by its cover. The nail marks down his back proved otherwise. Angel in the daylight, devil between the sheets.
“Mmmm. Haven’t you had enough, darling?” he drawled. “Are you going for some kind of a record?” He grabbed her thigh and tried to pull her on top of him. She smiled but slapped his hand away.
“Seriously, you need to get dressed and leave. My cousin is in town. We’re meeting for drinks.” She bounced from the bed and swept her bra from the floor in one lithe movement, her Fireborn tattoo flashing in the mirror above the dresser.
Jason glanced at his watch; it was only 10:30 p.m. The night had barely begun. “I could join you.” He grinned wryly.
She slipped her silky underwear over her hips as her expression tightened. “Are you kidding me?”
“What? Your cousin isn’t interested in meeting pack royalty?”
“No, I’m not interested in becoming the latest pack gossip.”
“How long have we known each other, Sarah?” Jason propped his head up, eyes tightening in feigned concentration.
“Two years.”
“And we… date regularly.”
“We bang regularly. In private. With no other expectations.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with doing something other than bang. We could take our relationship to the next level.”
“Don’t, Jason. Don’t make this something it’s not.” She shook her head and pulled a flowing apricot dress over her head. “We have an arrangement, not a relationship.”
Jason swung his legs over the side of the bed and retrieved his custom-tailored dress shirt from the back of her desk chair. “I’ve never treated you like an arrangement.”
She snorted. “You call me every Thursday. We have sex and then you leave. I know the women of Tuesday and Friday personally, Jason. They are two of my closest friends.”
Horrified, he pulled on his Armani slacks with more gusto than necessary. “Are you saying you compare notes about me with your girlfriends?”
She shrugged. “It is what it is.”
He stepped in close, tipping his head and giving her a wolfish grin. “You seemed to enjoy our arrangement well enough tonight.” As he approached her, his inner wolf woke up and paced inside him, ready for action. She shifted playfully at first, but the moment her wolf recognized his, her body sagged in submission. He caught the base of her lovely head in one hand and slipped the other under the skirt of her dress.
“What exactly do you talk about with Tuesday and Friday?”
“I talk about… I…” He brushed the strip of fabric over her sex, reveling in the wet heat he found there. His mouth hovered over hers. “I talk about how impossible you are to quit,” she said in a voice as brittle as dried bones. “How I’ll never be able to find a mate because I’ll always be Thursday.”
He stopped. Pulled back. “You feel like I’m keeping you from finding a mate?”
“What male would mate with a woman who is at the Fireborn prince’s beck and call? Even if he didn’t have to submit to you, I would. I couldn’t say no, even if I wanted to.”
“I’ve never forced you to do anything.” He wasn’t the alpha after all. He had no metaphysical power over her.
“No. I knew what I was getting into the first time I said yes. Don’t pretend you don’t realize the effect you have on women. It’s okay. I’ve come to accept this relationship for what it is. Sometimes… I think of it as a service to our pack.”
“A service to our pack?” Jason cried, pulling away from her. “A service to our pack!”
“You have a vice. I get it. I don’t even want to know what would happen if your wolf wasn’t fed regularly. I understand my place in the pack—I’m a willing participant.”
“So this is charity sex to you?” With a pensive grunt, Jason fastened his cufflinks. One of his Italian leather loafers was missing. He dropped to his knees and fished it out from under her bed.
She spread her hands, looking frustrated and confused. “How would you characterize our relationship?”
