“Admission, this is the first time I’ve met parents,” he muttered as he followed her inside.
“What? Really?” Destiny liked that. Good. She didn’t want him making these memories with anyone else. She liked being his first at something.
“I saw that picture you texted me,” he growled, spinning her toward him. He walked her backward, his lips on hers, and this wasn’t the slow kiss. This was hunger.
Her body reached for his in an instant. He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his hips and pushed her tongue against his.
A deep growl vibrated from his chest right through her, and his lips dipped to her throat as he settled her on the counter.
Honk!
“Fuck,” he muttered, detaching. Dodger locked his arms against the counter on either side of her hips and leveled her with an intense look and a wicked smile. “I didn’t think you would actually send me a picture. I saw it right as I was pulling up. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a boner that fast? Before I met your dad? I had to think of the grossest thing I could think of.”
“Okay, now I have to know what is the grossest thing you can think of?”
“Slugs. The big ones. I imagined one touching my foot.” He shuddered.
Honk!
“Oh my gosh, okay,” she gritted out. Destiny hopped off the counter and grabbed her purse and her jacket.
“Beanie and gloves too,” he advised. “It’s colder up on the mountain.”
“Are you sure this is cute enough to meet your Pack in? I look like a marshmallow. What if they think I’m a wiener about the cold?”
“If they make fun of you, I’ll eat them.” He’d said it so easily, and she wondered if he really would. He led her out of the house, and she locked the door.
Dodger reached behind him automatically and she gave a private smile as she slipped her hand into his. He’d listened when she’d said she wanted affection.
He helped her into his truck and then nodded back at her parents before he got in and shut the door beside him.
Okay. Okay! Tonight, he was meeting her parents, and she was meeting his Pack, and this felt like something. It was validation that her feelings weren’t too big. She wasn’t too hurt when he’d ghosted her. Whatever this bond was between them, it held weight.
She couldn’t stop smiling, and twice before they even got to the end of the street, he looked over at her and smiled in response to the look on her face.
“Happy?” he asked.
“Happy and relieved.”
He slid his hand around hers and pulled it to his lips, pressed a soft kiss against her knuckles. “Me too.”
Chapter Fifteen
“What is it about boys and standing around the back of a truck?” Delta asked softly.
Destiny snuggled deeper into the heated outdoor chair Nory had brought her and looked over the fire the boys had built where the firepit used to be. Indeed, most of the male werewolves here were standing around the back of Dodger’s truck, drinking beer and talking about different types of exhaust.
“At least they aren’t fighting,” Nory said, from the matching heated chair beside Destiny. “It’s a miracle.”
Destiny laughed around a bite of a desert called pink lemonade pie. “Dodger said that happens a lot. He said it so nonchalantly too. He told me he and Nathan got into a fight.”
“Truth,” Delta said around a bite. “Nathan came back last night beat to hell, but he said it was a good fight. Whatever that means. The fights can get brutal here,” Delta muttered, gesturing to the cooler next to Destiny. “Can you pass me one of those canned margaritas?”
“Mmm, mango or strawberry?” she asked, digging through the cold ice.
“Is there a peach one left?”
Destiny dug around the blue cooler and found one at the bottom. “Ah ha!” She tossed it to Delta.
