I'll Be There, page 11
part #19 of His Mate - Brother Series
“Friends?”
“Friends,” he said shrugging.
“Well, I’ll think about it,” she said, already knowing her answer. “But on the plus side, it would annoy Greg…”
“Wouldn’t it, though?” he said, grinning.
“And it would give Betty an extra spring in her step with you around,” she said.
“Then it’s sorted…”
“Not yet,” she said, shaking her head.
“A trial period?” he asked, reading her mind.
Merry gasped in surprise. “And if you read my thoughts one more time, the answer will be go to hell!” she warned him, and she meant it.
“Not even a little peek behind the curtain?” he asked, teasing her.
“Not even a smidgen of a peek, Santi,” she warned him.
“Well, I’ll try,” he said, clapping his hands together as he pushed up. “Now, where’s the booze?”
“I’m going to bed,” she protested.
“Sure you are after we celebrate,” he said and flashed her another wicked grin.
~
Flint stalked up to the front door of his cabin where all the lights were blazing like a warm homecoming and loving welcome, and when he tried the door handle, it was stuck solid in place. With a grumble of a growl, he turned his back to the door and muttered curses under his breath.
The witch, his loving mate, had zapped him and left him stuck there like a living statue as he watched her stalk away and waited with itching frustration and a clawing beast within, for his muscles and tendons to loosen enough for him to be able to move again.
Now, she’d locked him out of his own damn cabin. Did it get any more annoying than this?
“Ya can’t come in!” she called from inside, and he knew it got a lot more annoying.
“It’s my damn house!” he growled.
“But, honey, you said welcome home,” she answered in a sweet tone from behind that rock-solid door. “So, I guess it’s my house now!”
That teasing singsong tone to her voice made the itching and scratching of his frustration a thousand times worse. While it was true that he probably could easily have booted down his front door – she could have laid a trap for him, and he wasn’t falling for that one.
He was done with her locking him in or out of everywhere. There had to be rules, and rule number one was no more using her magic to keep him at bay, and he was going to tell her that just as soon as he found a way in to his own cabin.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
~
“Okay,” Lorna said, holding up her hand and trying to fight back the nervous chuckles that kept spluttering from her lips at the look Nash was giving her, kind of like a kicked puppy had a love child with a demon, as he bit down on the red-hot poker of pain in his lower gut and balls. “Awkward.”
“More for me,” he bit out through clenched teeth.
“Well, sure,” she said, absently waving a hand and motioning to where his hands were locked between his legs. “Not that it was my fault…”
“You didn’t just knee me in the balls?”
“Yes,” she said, grimacing a little and trying to appear sorry and sheepish as she fought off the nervous laughter.
“And you’re not laughing about it?”
“Well, I’m trying not to, and it’s the thought that counts, right?” she asked, all bright, breezy and hopeful.
“Not so much right now,” he said, trying to push up through the pain, but that red-hot poker stabbed him again, and he stayed stock still for fear it would happen once more.
“You’re sweating,” she said, noticing the beads of sweat on his brow.
“You think?” he bit out. “I am in the sixth stage of hell…”
“There are stages?” she asked, and he glared at her. “Not important right now.”
Nash grunted. He wanted to move, but he didn’t dare.
What a wicked witch his mate was, and she even looked like she was sorry – ha! He was on to her game. Reel him in and kick him in the balls – what a wicked, wicked woman.
What a she-demon.
“What can I do?” she asked, feeling the constant tap-tap-tapping from the hand of guilt on her shoulder, and finally acknowledging it.
“Do not come near me,” he growled. He didn’t trust her one little bit when he was incapacitated.
“That’s not nice,” she berated him.
“And kneeing me in the balls is?”
“Well, no,” she said.
“There you go then,” he growled.
“But I never meant to do it,” she protested.
“Hearing voices, right?” he grumbled.
Lorna folded her arms, tipped her head to one side and raised her perfectly arched eyebrows. “Well, if you’re going to be like that.”
“Like that?”
Lorna waved a hand. “All growly and male ego bruised…”
“Trust me, my ego is the last bruise I’m worried about right now,” he grumbled back.
Lorna sighed. “Well, I asked if I could help, and you snapped my head off,” she protested.
“Not yet, I haven’t, but there’s still time.”
Lorna’s lower jaw dropped open, and she gasped in a breath. “Well, if that’s how it is then I’m not staying around here a moment longer!”
Nash tried to push up to his feet the moment that she set off for the door, but the pain was instantaneous, and he growled, grunted, and groaned as he managed to stand. “Hold it right there,” he growled when she grasped the door handle.
Lorna tossed a look back over her shoulder that turned into a glare as soon as she noted he was on his feet again. “No!” she snapped and yanked open the door.
Nash was behind her in a heartbeat, one large hand palmed the wood, and he slammed the door shut again. He grunted at the pain those fast steps had caused him, and for one very nauseous moment he didn’t know if he was going to throw up on his mate or not.
It wasn’t like she didn’t deserve it, but he’d bet she wouldn’t agree with him on that.
If Lorna wasn’t being caged in by his frame and large muscled arms then she might have turned a look of daggers on him, but she was, so all she could manage was a hard glare back over her shoulder. She didn’t feel like it had enough impact, but it would have to do.
The look on his face made her change from berating him to questioning him. “Why do look like you swallowed a worm?”
“Because someone kicked me in the nuts…”
“I did not kick you…”
“Knee then, but they were still my nuts,” he growled, thankful for the fact that she’d distracted him from the waves of nausea that had washed through him.
It seemed like a damn stupid set up to him that he had the ability to heal fast, but his nuts still took the longest time. He’d often reasoned that the ultimate creator of his species must have been a woman – maybe even a witch – cursed and cursed again.
“That’s what happens when you get too close…”
“To a wicked witch,” he grumbled and realised his mistake when he saw the look on her face.
If looks could kill, he’d be on the floor as dead as a Dodo.
“Yeah,” she said like she smelled a rat. “That’s how that is. You’d better run away, you wouldn’t want to get too close,” And she sounded like she’d just licked that rat by mistake.
“Oh, you’d like that…”
“Now I would,” she tossed back.
“Well, I’d like my balls to drop down again, I already went through puberty once, and that was enough,” he growled.
“Then don’t put your balls on my knee!”
“Hello!” Betty said and snapped their attention her way as she came from the kitchen and stopped short in the hallway, placing her hands on her curvy hips. “I guess I missed something somewhere in that conversation.”
“You had to be there,” Nash growled.
Betty eyebrows rose high on her forehead. “I really don’t think I wanted to be,” she said, looking the pair up and down. “You know that vampire is hassling Merry, right?” she asked, and Nash sighed.
“Yeah, I got the message from Greg,” he said and tapped his temple.
“And you’re okay with that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes on him.
“Merry’s not fifteen anymore, and she knows where I am. Besides, I never believed those rumours about him,” Nash said.
“Me either,” Betty said, shrugging.
“Then why did you call Merry tonight?” he asked.
Betty snorted a chuckle. “I’m too old to have missed out on that one,” she said and went to turn to leave, but turned back. “Besides, if I hadn’t, you might not have found out she was your mate.” She snorted a chuckle as she strolled off back into the kitchen.
“Does she live with you?” Lorna asked, distracted by the elder.
“No,” Nash bit out and screwed his face up at the thought. He loved Betty, but living with that woman would have driven him insane.
“Then how’d she get in?”
“This is pack land, we don’t lock our doors,” he said, and she snorted a chuckle. “What?”
“That could prove … awkward,” she said, thinking about intimate moments and cursing herself for the x-rated movie that immediately started in her mind’s eye.
“Not really, we have great hearing,” he informed her, and she screwed up her face.
“Eww,” she said and matched his expression. “That’s … weird.”
“Not as weird as being kicked in the nuts by your mate…”
“I did not…”
“And not as weird as doing magic,” he said and watched her scowl.
“I’m not weird…”
“You’re not normal either,” he said, finding the will to see the funny side of things again. “You’d fit in great around here.”
Lorna was about to give him a mouthful of abuse and a sneering comeback about him being a shifter, but he’d done it for her. The fact was, and she hated to admit it, but he was right – she would fit in on pack land where she didn’t have to hide her true self.
Lorna guessed she should put that in the plus column of things that would be good about being his mate – not that she was making one – not without a pen and paper and she had her hands full with him.
Then she heard a low, deep rumble of a growl start and it jolted her to the fact that he was all around her and she was still being caged in by him. She had been leaving – making her great escape, but unfortunately, she couldn’t even do that right.
Not that Coleen was doing any better – she’d been caught too.
“I guess your balls feel better,” she said, noting that the growl wasn’t one of annoyance or anger, it sounded more like the ones in the kitchen when they were up close and personal and making pizza together.
“It’s nice to know you care,” he said, making a mental note to thank Betty for the interruption and distracting them from the bickering that had ensued.
Bickering wasn’t going to woo his mate. He needed something more – something that was going to make her see that she belonged with him, and he’d felt like there had been a real connection between them, and not just with his balls.
“It was a statement, not a question, and I never said I cared.”
Or maybe not a connection, more of an understanding. But he was an alpha and alpha’s never gave up.
Nash was all in, and no matter what she threw at him, he was going to win her over.
He ducked his head and bobbed and weaved as she tried to look anywhere but at him. “You never said you didn’t either,” he said, teasing her, and bringing her gaze to his.
That look didn’t have the pain of a knee to the balls, but it certainly hit him somewhere – maybe his heart?
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
~
Flint was having an unhappy memory of climbing out of the bathroom window at his brother’s house and landing headfirst into a bush as he straddled the windowsill and tried to squeeze through the opening. This time, however, he was climbing in through the downstairs window of his cabin after his mate had locked him out.
Magic. How he hated magic.
Being locked out of his own house and not daring to try to break down the front door for fear his mate had laid some kind of witchy boobytrap was … embarrassing. What if one of his pack was to see him?
Flint cursed himself for not remembering to set some rules about her using magic before she’d locked him out, but he was damn well going to tell her some home truths when he got inside.
The getting inside part might have been easier said than done if it wasn’t such a tight squeeze, and as the overhead light suddenly came on and there was his mate, standing in the doorway of the den giving him a judgemental look, he groaned to himself.
“Hold it right there,” Coleen said, and he rolled his eyes.
“Right now, woman, I don’t seem to have a choice – I’m stuck,” he growled, and suddenly her mood lightened a hell of a lot.
Flint noted the spark of amusement in her eyes, the curl of her lips, and then she was cackling like an old crone, or what he imaged an old crone sounded like if she were to cackle, and he felt like a total and complete idiot = which was probably what he looked like right about then.
“Yeah, real funny,” Flint grumbled, trying to edge his way further through the gap but he seemed to be snagged on the handle of the window.
“You can’t even break into your own house?” she said, snorting a chuckle at his expense.
“I shouldn’t have to break into my own house, and it’s not a house, it’s a cabin,” he growled in annoyance.
“Ah, poor baby,” she mocked him, and she couldn’t keep the grin from her lips – not that she wanted to.
Flint grumbled a few choice words under his breath, but she caught the meaning. “I’d ask for a hand, but that went so well the last time,” he grumbled, remembering how she’d slow clapped him.
Then she did it again, and he rolled his eyes and growled some more. Witches were a tough crowd.
“You’re a frigging genius,” she said, spluttering chuckles as she turned on her heels, flicked off the light, and started away from him. “Goodnight!” she called back over her shoulder.
“Really? Leaving me stuck like this?” he called after her and grumbled a few more curses. “I’m damn well sure that mates are supposed to be a bit more sympathetic to their mate,” he grumbled, and yanked his body away from the handle – which was when he heard something rip, and offered what he hoped was a manly yelp as whatever was holding him came loose and he headed for the floor.
Flint hit with a hard thud, but he guessed that he should have been thankful that it wasn’t another bush he’d dove headfirst into.
He slapped his palms against the floor and pushed his upper body away from the wooden surface. His eyes were locked and loaded on the empty doorway where she’d been standing.
“It’s payback time,” he growled, but a roguish smile took his lips as he imagined what that payback was going to look like.
~
Lorna felt a little uneasy. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was facing the door and her mate was still all around her caging her in, but more to do with the fact that she liked it.
For one long moment, she wondered if she was losing her mind, and then she remembered that it was fate. She was his, and he was hers, and no matter how many ways she decided to dissect it – there wasn’t a damn thing that she could do about it even if she wanted to, and she didn’t know if she wanted to do anything at all.
Well, aside from maybe press her back against his chest and feel the heat from his body against hers, feel some more of those sexy tingles that chased across her skin when they touched, and maybe – just maybe – finally kill the cat as she got the better of her curiosity and kissed him.
“A-re…?” Her voice breaking sounded like the crash of symbols in her ears, and she stopped, grimaced, cleared her throat, and groaned inwardly. Just her luck!
“You were saying, sweetheart?” he asked in a gravelly deep, but soft tone that travelled over her body and made her want to slap herself upside the head.
She needed to get a grip – either that or hang a vacant sign on her forehead to show the world that her brain was void.
“Are you going to move back now?” she asked, grateful that her voice had behaved that time and held out long enough for her to get a little pride back again.
It was just a smidgen of pride, but it was worth it.
“I’m feeling something right here…”
“I do not want to know where right here is?” she spat out on a chuckle, but that was a lie, she did. That curious cat was back again, and she was itching to know more.
“I meant where I’m standing, but you go ahead and imagine what I was talking about – because I like a woman with a dirty mind,” he teased, and she grumbled inwardly as she blushed a deep shade of mortified.
“I do not have a dirty mind,” she lied again.
That was two for two, and she felt the need to headbutt the door in front of her, just a few bumps to try to wake up her brain and get it work. She had a foot wedged firmly in her mouth, and she didn’t need a matching pair in there.
Lorna hated to be on the back foot, or no feet if they were in her mouth because she knew that she was usually so on top of her game. She could bat Santino’s quips, sarcasm, and double entendres away without breaking a sweat, but right then she was a fish out of water and gasping for air.
“That’s not what I heard,” he said and chuckled.
That sound was just as deep and gravelly as his growls were, and Goddess help her, but she loved it. It made her go all mushy inside and weak at the knees.
Brain not working, voice giving out on her, weak-kneed and mushy inside – she didn’t think that was a good place to be in, but who was she to judge? It wasn’t as if she was in control of her brain enough to do that.
