Oh, fuck. Oh, fuckyes.
Tomorrow morning I’d have my chance to mess with Arik. Something to look forward to as my first prank of the New Year.
But tonight…tonight I had other plans, and Arik and Matt had already shut their bedroom door and disappeared for the night anyway. I got moving again, down the second flight of stairs and through the first floor of the house to the back door. I needed to get to my mate. We’d barely been alone in days.
First he’d been on that road trip with Nate, since they’d both wanted a shopping trip in a city a couple of hours away. Then they’d found Jessica’s car. And last night we’d all been on high alert, not to mention worn out. Calder had taken guard duty, citing his ability to go without sleep for ridiculous periods of time, and I’d spent the night alone.
And then, after we’d fought and won the shortest pack war on record, during which I hadn’t even gotten to throw a punch, we’d spent the rest of the day getting our newest pack members welcomed and settled and comfortable, a process that shouldn’t have had much to do with me. Matt and Arik had met with Jessica alone for a while; the pack council, Diaz’s two lawyers, Angelo, and a vampire lawyer Fenwick had scrounged up on short notice went into the big dining room and shut the door for most of the afternoon. Finally everyone had signed everything.
Really, I shouldn’t have had to do fuck-all.
Except that around lunchtime, Nate—who hadn’t slept at all the night before, and it showed—suddenly freaked out about how we wouldn’t have known Jessica and the kids were there until it was too late if he and Calder hadn’t been driving by.
I’d been all set to ignore him. Ian had seemed inclined to try to talk him down, too.
And then Nate’s eyes had gotten shiny, and Ian had fallen all over himself promising we’d do whatever Nate wanted to make sure it couldn’t happen again.
That “we” had been breathtakingly presumptuous, and I’d said so. Ian had rebutted my argument and also put me in a headlock.
Long story short, Ian and I spent the next six hours carrying big bags of salt around in a snowy, damp forest, Nate’s forced labor for his teary-eyed and also wild-eyed extra-boundary-wards project.
About an hour ago, Ian had literally carried Nate, who’d passed out and started snoring the second Ian’s arms went around him, off to their place and bed. I’d have thought Ian would’ve been disappointed by how his New Year’s Eve would be turning out, watching over his totally knocked-out mate. But the naked adoration all over Ian’s face as he tucked Nate against his chest told a different story. He’d be perfectly happy. Sap.
At least he’d given up on his crackpot plan to take Nate to a vampire bar for the night, an idea he’d gotten because in his big stupid headNew Year’s Eve partyequaledromantic. I loved my cousin, but Christ. Sometimes he left me without words. I wasn’t really the champagne and roses kind of guy myself. But vampires?
Whatever. Not my problem. Calder had left me a note in our room to meet him at the cottage we’d been building a half mile away from the pack house, and Ian and Nate and everyone else could fuck off. So what if we didn’t have any furniture yet and he’d probably have to fuck me through a bare wood floor? I’d grabbed a quick shower and a granola bar and was already half hard walking down through the surprisingly lush winter garden Nate and Arik had going out behind the house. Since I’d finally heard about last Christmas’s disaster, I knew better thanto compliment them on it. Not when I wanted them to be in a good mood, at least.
The garden gave way to a stretch of weedy grass and half-frozen mud, and then I wove my way through bushes and trees down toward the bit of land we’d claimed for ourselves. Off in the distance, cheerful voices and the occasional howl rose up from the pack’s annual New Year’s Eve gathering, a merry, half-shifted romp down by the creek. A ribbon of woodsmoke teased past my nose. They had the bonfire going, then. Marshmallows on sticks for the kids, bourbon for the grown-ups. Personally, I thought Nate probably would’ve enjoyed that a lot more than vampires, but me giving Ian advice on Nate could be a touchy subject. I’d refrained.
Maybe later I’d drag Calder down there and say hello, although not being able to shift made it bittersweet to try to join in. Matt would almost certainly drop by, whether or not Arik stayed in bed. Having the pack leader there would make everyone happy, and Matt never shirked a responsibility.
Fuck, it was cold out here, my breath rising in opaque plumes and frosty weeds and twigs crunching under my boots with every step. At least we had the fireplace finished in the cottage. Maybe Calder had a fire going.
He definitely did, I saw as I came out of the trees and our cottage came into view. Smoke rose from the chimney, and warm light flickered in the one glazed window. We hadn’t gotten to the others yet. They were tarped over to keep out the winter weather.
Not romantic, maybe. But we’d be completely alone. And that would be enough, because if I didn’t get Calder’s knot in me soon I might shrivel up and die.
Being an endlessly needy submissive mate to an alpha hadn’t been in my plans, or even in the realm of possibility,before him. But any internal struggle I’d had about that had faded away a long time ago.
Fuck, maybe I wanted him in my mouth first. On my knees on those bare boards, willing and eager and moaning. Any splinters would heal fast enough.
I jogged across the small clearing in front of the cottage and up the steps, and got in the door as quickly as I could to keep in the slightly warmer air. I turned from shutting it behind me and froze in the act of starting to pull off my jacket.
There weren’t any bare boards in front of the fire. Calder had found a thick rug—by the bit of blue and green pattern sticking out of the pile of blankets on top of it, he’d stolen it from the pack house living room—and put it barely out of range of sparks from the fireplace. Heaps of pillows almost obscured the blankets. And while there weren’t any roses, two wine glasses sat on the floor next to a bucket with an actual goddamn champagne bottle in it.
Okay, so it might’ve been a bright orange plastic bucket spattered with paint and emblazoned with the logo of a home improvement store, but it still took my fucking breath away.
I’d have sworn I couldn’t care less about anything resembling a romantic gesture. The whole boombox over the head thing made me cringe.
But I stood there blushing like a virgin prom date as Calder stepped forward from where he’d been arranging…candles. Oh, fuck me. Actual candles, on the empty paint cans along the edge of the room.
“What the hell is this?” I choked out. Gods, I’d be all teared up like Nate in a second if I didn’t get it the fuck together.
He stopped moving, all six foot six of massive, broad-shouldered muscled going so incredibly still it was almost uncanny. The silver glow in his irises, ever-present since our warlock captors’ torture-experiments, couldn’t hide the slightwidening of his eyes. And our bond had an odd hesitancy to it, as if he was trying to keep his emotions to himself.
“It’s no big deal,” he said after a second. “I know it’s not much.”
Not much. Notmuch? Fuck, he thought I wasdisappointed?
