With my hand over his, my body pressing on his back, and my cock fucking him hard, we tugged at his length. Reed’s breathing became ragged, his body trembled and his hand shook. His words slurred and became mewls.
“Can’t. Can’t hold on any longer.”
He shuddered and his hand froze as cum spurted from his cock over the sheets. I pumped into him, no longer pushing my orgasm away. I could see it as it hurtled toward me, capturing my emotions until it exploded, like fireworks, as I spurted my cum deep inside my mate.
I lowered myself onto Reed and when our breathing slowed and my knot had swollen, it was time to mark one another. I hadn’t really explained to him the details of marking and whispered it would sting a little. He nodded, his eyes still glazed from his orgasm.
I allowed my beast’s teeth to replace mine and grazed Reed’s chest, enough to break the skin.
“Mate.” I kissed his mark.
“Me too.” He bit me, digging his teeth deep enough to draw blood. He kissed my mark, though my wound was already healing, leaving a tiny scar.
“Mates,” he told me.
NINE
REED
Three days after Roscoe and I officially became mates, I locked myself in the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. It creaked a little, like most other things in the house, and I grimaced ‘cause my mate had supersonic hearing.
Being in the bathroom about to pee shouldn’t have been a big deal, but yesterday when I’d dashed into town for groceries, I went to a pharmacy. Not my usual one because they knew me there but a different place on the other side of town.
Wearing sunglasses and a cap in case I met one of my customers or any of the Dark Crown Pack, I’d shoved a bunch of pregnancy tests into a basket and sidled up to the counter as if I was the bad guy in an old fashioned melodrama.
And now I was in my bathroom, staring at one ofthose tests and wondering what the heck I was doing. It wasn’t going to bite me, at least I didn’t think so. There was nothing in the instructions about the tests being aggressive.
I was being silly but I couldn’t help myself.
Roscoe had said it was possible I might get pregnant straight away. There were no reindeer shifter statistics showing how likely it was. And if I was honest, we needed time to be a couple so one of us could get annoyed about the other leaving their clothes on the floor instead of putting them in the hamper. Or the other person yelling at the toothpaste tube because it’d been squeezed in the middle not the bottom.
I was guilty of both those domestic crimes so I put those thoughts on the back burner.
Just do it, Reed.
I peed, but how did I justify being in the bathroom for so many minutes, especially as I’d wasted time umming and ahhing and reading the instructions? Shower! I’d had one earlier but turned on the water and squirted body wash on my hands and arms as Roscoe had commented he liked the smell.
After checking my watch, I picked up the test. What? The single line mocked me from the bathroom counter. I wasn’t pregnant and that was a good thing. It was too soon for a baby. I sighed because I was relieved, but how come I was a tad disappointed?
A day later I tried again, pleased I’d bought more than one test. A single line again. Maybe this batch of tests was defective. They’d expired or there was a problem with the factory’s quality control.
But not being pregnant was what I wanted and I told myself to stop making excuses for the tests being faulty. Roscoe and I were mated but we were on a getting-to-know-you journey and it should be just us two for a while. But at moments during the day, I brushed a hand over my belly, wondering what was in our future.
“I’m silly, right,” I told Doug as I adjusted his Christmas lights. “It’s been less than a week. Of course, I’m not pregnant."
Doug rustled his branches which could have been him agreeing or he was fed up at my chattering. Perhaps he wanted to be in someone’s home and he was sad. I thought I could interpret his rustling but today I was at a loss.
By day eight, I was annoyed and stomped around the farm as I listened to the building work going on over the hill. The farm was busy with a constant stream of customers thanks to an article the local TV station had done about me. I suspected my mate had used his contacts and arranged that but he didn’t admit to anything. I was ecstatic about all the customers, but I wasn’t spending much time with Roscoe.
But my irritation wasn’t with my work, the trees, customers, or my mate. It was because of those damn tests. I’d had to buy more and they were all crap. Negative every single one of them. It definitely wasn’t because I wanted to be pregnant. Nope, No. Nada. That wasn’t it.
But was there something wrong with me or with my mate? Maybe our mating bond was… I don’t know? Twisted? Broken? Needed a new battery? I was running excuses through my head and rejecting each one.
And as I was taking a test each day, sometimes twice or three times, it was getting expensive and I was spending too much time in the bathroom. Cars were approaching which meant customers and I had to be professional and friendly and not someone who’d been peeing on sticks all week.
“Morning.” Roscoe found me in the Noble Fir section. Gods, he was handsome in the thick sweater that brought out the color in his cheeks. "How are you feeling?"
I shot him a glance because his tone suggested he was fishing for information.
