He chuckled. “It’s just different. Not what you expected. You’ll get used to being doted on. We cherish our mates more than life itself. My instinct is to take care of your every need. That’s why it will please me so much for you to let me do so.”
“Okay, Daddy. I’ll try.”
Chapter Four
Jayce’s heart swelled as he rose from the rocking chair, cradling his Little girl in his arms. As time went by, he realized more and more how utterly exhausted she was. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she leaned her entire weight against him. She had to be starving and in desperate need of sleep.
He carried her to the kitchen where he retrieved a bottle from the fridge, removed the nipple, and set it in the microwave to warm it a little.
“You’re going to heat the milk?” she asked.
He grinned. “Yep. It’s not good for your tummy to swallow really cold liquids, Baby girl.”
“What if I don’t like it?”
“Then we’ll figure something else out, but I have never met a single mate who didn’t like the taste of formula. It’s not the same thing babies drink, Little one. It’s made for adults and filled with the perfect balance of nutritious ingredients. You could live off of it and never eat solid foods again if you so desired. Rylee almost never eats regular foods.”
Sienna flinched. “She doesn’t?”
“Nope. Because of her strong sense of smell, she finds most foods to be too sharp for her taste buds. She’s been like thather entire life. Her parents thought she was just a picky eater. The truth was she didn’t like food much. The scent is too overwhelming to her. So now she mostly lives off formula.”
Jayce carried the bottle and his precious mate back into the nursery. This entire day was unconventional. Everything he would have ordinarily explained to his new mate was a jumbled mess. There was a lot she knew and plenty she didn’t understand.
He returned to the rocking chair and leaned her back in the crook of his arms.
“I feel like a baby,” she whispered.
“You’re not a baby, Little one. You’re still a woman. My woman. My mate. Letting me take care of you doesn’t make you a baby. It’s how you submit to me. It fulfills my intense need to worship you.”
She lay stiff in his arms, her dress and shifts tangled around her legs. It couldn’t be comfortable, but they’d deal with that next. She’d grown so flustered from the suggestion of him changing her that he’d decided to set it aside and feed her first. For now, he wanted her to eat. One hurdle at a time.
She stared at him as he stroked her lips with the nipple. “The hole in the tip is just the right size to control how fast you eat, Little one. It will force you not to guzzle your formula, so it settles in your tummy without making you sick.”
His heart soared when she finally parted her lips and accepted the bottle. He tipped it just right to give her the best angle. “Wrap your lips around the nipple, flatten your tongue against the bottom, and use the roof of your mouth to suckle.”
Still staring at him, she obeyed his instructions, finding her rhythm and eventually sucking and swallowing.
Inside, he held his breath, praying she wouldn’t be the first mate in the history of wolf shifters to dislike the taste of theformula. After she swallowed several mouthfuls, he relaxed. She would have scrunched up her face and balked if she’d hated it.
“Good?”
She purred around the nipple, noncommittally. Adorable. She also kept sucking. In fact, she picked up the pace, probably because she was so hungry.
Jayce was so smitten by her he didn’t dare blink and miss a single moment of this first feeding. The first of what he hoped would be many. If she remained as stressed as she’d been for the past weeks and months, she might balk at eating solid foods for a while. Her tummy might not be settled enough to accept more than the mild formula. Time would tell.
He certainly wouldn’t complain if she preferred being bottle-fed. It wasn’t that unusual, and the experience was bonding in a way he’d only heard about. He was falling harder for her by the second as she relaxed in his arms and let him care for her in this most basic of ways.
Before long, the bottle was empty. She sucked it until all she was getting was air. She also whimpered when he removed it, staring at the bottle as if she wanted more.
He set it on the table next to him and grabbed a pacifier. It was possible she’d simply grown to enjoy the feeling of sucking. He knew from other Alphas that many mates liked the soothing sensation and could relax deeper with a pacifier.
Without a word, he popped it into her mouth and held it in place.
She frowned and squirmed in his lap, not putting up too much of a fight, though.
“Try the pacifier, Little one. I bet it will help you self-soothe. There will be plenty of time in the coming days when you’ll be faced with stressful situations. Taking a bottle and going down for a nap with a pacifier will relax you in between.” At least he hoped that would be the case. No two women were alike.
But Sienna started sucking as her eyes drooped. Good. She was so tired. As much as he hated to let her nap, because he would miss her while she slept, she needed the rest. He would be patient with her while she got her bearings and learned about her new life. He wouldalwaysbe patient with her. She was his life. But for now, that would mean letting her sleep a lot. Hopefully she would feel less stressed after a few days of napping and sleeping all night. He would see to it that she didn’t lie awake fretting. In fact, he would hold her in his arms at night to ensure that was the case. Even if they had yet to consummate their bond, he would still want her in their bed at night.
