I'll Be There, page 6
part #19 of His Mate - Brother Series
Escape artist wasn’t on her CV, or in her little box of tricks, but she was intent on learning fast.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
~
“The first ninety per cent of his time being alone in his room with a porn website and a sock,” Lorna said, and both witches turned bright, mocking smiles on him.
Nash was chuckling again, and Flint didn’t appreciate it. Come to think of it, neither did his wolf. He was supposed to be wooing his mate, and the beast expected him to do it, not figure out their deviousness in the first hour of knowing them.
To him, females were like fish, they were slippery and needed reeling in very gently once you had them on the hook, or they’d wiggle free and be off. But first, he needed to get his mate on the hook, and getting her all riled up wasn’t going to work out well for him.
Flint eyeballed the witches for a long moment. “Yeah, you forgot, eating, sleeping, and…”
“Farting?” Lorna said, snapping her fingers like it had been on the tip of her tongue the whole time.
Coleen turned to Lorna. “Let’s not forget scratching his balls…”
“And marking his territory,” Lorna added.
Flint shuffled his feet and folded his arms as they turned back to him. “Looks like I’m a busy guy,” he grumbled. “Where will I find time to woo my mate?” And that was his plan. She could say anything she liked, but he was going to woo her socks off.
Coleen’s nose twitched at the thought of being wooed. That hadn’t been on the to-do list that she’d made that morning. “Why bother, take a load off,” she said and used her magic to shove a stool across the floor at him.
Flint’s hand shot out and stopped the stool in its tracks. He lowered his chin and regarded her for a long moment. “What would life be without a mate?” he said, relishing the thought just as much as he relished it when she blinked hard – twice.
“Quieter,” Coleen said.
“Cleaner,” Lorna said. “Men never pick up after themselves.”
“More fragrant,” Coleen added.
“Oh, from the…?”
“Farting,” Coleen added.
“Right, good point,” Lorna replied.
“You had to ask,” Nash berated him, chuckling, as he busied himself putting cups out in front of everyone while he was waiting for the coffee to brew.
The alpha was just glad it was his brother that had found his way into the feminine minefield and not him. At least that way, he could learn by his sibling’s mistakes and take evasive action in the hope of not repeating it.
Not getting anything that he’d need later blown off by magic would be a good start to wooing his mate, and he was a fast learner.
Flint looked pained. “I didn’t mean to,” he grumbled. In fact, his intention was the opposite; he’d been trying to be easy going and show her that he wasn’t any of the things she’d accused him of being – that had worked out well – not.
“There’s a rule,” Coleen announced. “Don’t say what you don’t mean, and if you’re naturally stupid, then it’s best not to say anything.”
Flint opened his mouth but decided to close it again as he mulled over her words.
Lorna nudges Coleen in the ribs. “Oh look, you taught an old dog a new trick,” she said with glee.
Nash had come to the conclusion that he was going to have to up his game if he was going to woo his mate, but his brother? He doubted that Flint had what it took to keep up with his mate.
~
Nash liked the fact that his brother had followed Coleen to the bathroom like a lost stray and he got to spend some alone time with Lorna, but he felt frustrated that he was wasting it.
He’d never had a problem talking to a woman before, but it was a little different when it was an opportunity to say something profound and impress her socks off, and all you could come up with was a grunt.
Nash’s beast was edgy, like the wolf knew that an opportunity was slipping away and his brother could be back at any moment, and yet – nothing.
Then there was a low rumble of a growl and Nash was looking around for the culprit, but the growling wasn’t coming from a dangerous enemy – it was coming from his mate’s stomach.
Nash felt like every kind of idiot under the sun for not realising before that she hadn’t even touched her meal at the bar, and of course, she was going to be hungry.
Who didn’t feed their mate? It was his duty.
“You need to eat,” he declared and caught the surprised look on her face when she snapped her gaze to him.
“I’m not…” When her stomach rumbled again, they both looked at it. “Traitor,” she muttered.
“What big ears I have, so don’t even bother to deny it.”
For one long moment she had meant to, but then she pressed her lips together and a smile broke them apart again. “Fine, big ears, I’m a little hungry,” she admitted.
“Well, thankfully, I know you’re not one of those vegetarians,” he said, starting for the refrigerator and noting her raised eyebrows.
“Those – vegetarians?” she asked with mock surprise.
“Well, given who I am and my lifestyle, you wouldn’t expect me to be happy with a carrot cruncher, now would you?” he asked, offering her puppy dog eyes and a wicked grin just before he yanked open the door and disappeared behind it.
“I guess not,” she said with a small shrug. Not that he was looking at her, he’d practically stepped inside the huge refrigerator and was rustling things about. “Big ears,” she muttered, and he drew back and shot her a grin.
Lorna couldn’t help but chuckle, and he liked the way her eyes lit up with laughter – he wished he could keep a smile on her face, but he knew that wasn’t to be.
She was a witch, and for whatever reason, even knowing fate the way she did, she was going to fight against being a mate with every fibre of her being. Strange but true when it would have been so much easier just to give in to it as he had.
It wasn’t like he was expecting a witch for a mate – anything but – but he wasn’t about to fight the love of his life because she could do magic.
Ugh! Magic, that was going to take some getting used to.
“You guessed right,” he tossed back.
“Maybe I should have said I was a Vegan and watched you run for the hills,” she chuckled.
“But that’s not just me; most carnivores would rather run than give up their precious meat like a vegan wouldn’t eat meat for a guy.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t give up meat for a mate?” she asked, and his head and shoulders popped into view again. His brows were drawn, and his eyes narrowed as he considered it.
“I don’t think fate would be so cruel as to demanded that of my beast,” he said, shrugging, and disappeared again, only to back up a few seconds later, his big arms full of food, and he backheeled the door closed as he came towards her.
“Oh, not just a meat eater then?” she asked, mocking him with her tone and her smile.
“A man cannot live by meat alone,” he said, dumping the food stash down on the counter between them, and snatching a few tomatoes back as they tried to run from him across the top of the counter.
“Those poor tomatoes, one day happily enjoying the sunshine on their ripe skins and the next – plucked from the vine, taken from their siblings, and they become fodder for humans.”
“And very tasty they are in a salad. The circle of life, even we become food for something eventually, and I don’t think worms have a conscience when they eat us.”
“The little carnivores,” she said grinning.
When their eyes met and locked, she had the strangest feeling like she’d been doing this with him forever, but the reality kicked her in the backside, and she snatched her gaze away and cleared her throat. “So, what are you making?”
“What are we making,” he corrected her. “This is pack land, and there are no free lunches here.”
“But, it’s not lunch, it’s dinner,” she tossed back with a winning smile.
Nash tossed her one of the tomatoes that had tried to escape, and she snatched it out of the air. “Start massacring tomatoes,” he said and withdrew a long-bladed knife from the block.
A wicked little smile grew on Lorna’s face, and he was mesmerised. “Be careful it’s not just the tomatoes that I go after. I might have a hankering to chop off a few other bits and bobs around here,” she warned, but the sparkle of amusement in her eyes told him that he was safe – for now.
“Well, I’ll just have to remember not to miff you off while you’re armed,” Nash said, grinning.
“I have magic, I’m always armed,” Lorna warned him.
“Point taken.”
Lorna looked at the blade and raised her eyebrows. “Not yet, but there’s always time.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
Coleen pulled open the bathroom door to the hallway, and there he was; Mr Tall, dark, and handsome with a glint in his eye that riled her up as much as it fired up some primitive want or need within her.
She was going with the riled up emotion because anything else meant that she’d given up the fight long before she’d actually had time to consider a future with him and what that would mean.
“There see,” she said, meeting his gaze and holding it. “I knew you were full of it,” she took a step out of the room and hooked a thumb behind her. “Have at it – when you gotta go…” She left the words hanging in the air with a satisfied smirk.
Flint allowed himself a chuckle. She was fiery and fierce, and she was definitely going to be a handful, but who didn’t want that in a mate?
He closed the distance between them in a heartbeat. “And who’s to say I’m not here for you?”
It wasn’t what he said, but the underlying growl that rumbled in his chest and made her ears prick up, and the sound seemed to skim over her skin like velvet. It took everything she had to stop the shiver in her core, but she did it. “Right here, right now?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with mischief and amusement. “How thoughtful, not making me walk all the way to the bedroom.”
“That’s not…”
“Up against the tile wall?” Coleen took a couple of steps back from him and eyed the room. “A little cold on my back. Maybe you want to get naked in the shower and kill two birds with one stone, because…” She waved her hand under her nose and winced.
Without thinking, Flint dipped his head and scented his armpit. He couldn’t smell what she could, but he sniffed again to make sure.
By the time he looked back up, she was headed out of the bathroom. “Hey!” he grumbled, turning to follow on behind her.
It wasn’t that he’d even entertained the idea of taking his mate in the bathroom for their first time together – but she had drawn him a mighty tempting picture, and he’d been distracted by it. That wasn’t going to happen again.
“Sorry, you snooze, you lose,” she said and used her magic to slam the door shut with him still inside the room.
Then a mischievous thought slammed into her mind, and she couldn’t help but act on it. With a pull on her magic, a grin on her lips, and a spell on her tongue – she sealed the door closed just as she heard the handle move.
“What the…?” he growled from behind the closed door. Coleen couldn’t help but stop, turn around to face the door to savour her mischief and a little victory. “Hey!” he growled, rattling the handle. “Let me out!”
“Oh, no, are you stuck?” Coleen asked, unable to keep the laughter from her voice as she did a little victory jig. The sound of another deep growl of annoyance only made it worse. “I’ll just rush off and get help,” she lied, poking her tongue out at the door.
Coleen turned on her heels and started away from the room with pigeon steps. The sound of the handle rattling made her cover her mouth with her hand and chuckle into it.
“This is not funny!” Flint growled, but Coleen knew that wasn’t true – at least, not for one of them.
She thought it was a scream.
~
Lorna felt the heat inside of her, and it could have had something to do with the fact that the alpha was practically wrapped around her body as he stood behind her, but she thought it was her own internal combustion engine of lust kicking into overdrive as her mind was less on the lesson he was giving her in how to knead the dough of a homemade pizza, and more on how many ways she could get down and dirty with him in a kitchen covered in flour.
What was she thinking? She berated herself and tried to concentrate on the light and puffy dough that their hands were sinking into.
Lorna curled her upper body forward a little over the workbench just to get away from the up close and personal feeling of his face next to hers as he leaned in over her shoulder. She was being careful not to shove her curvy backside back against his hips, and other things, because that would be like holding a red rag in front of a very horny bull.
“Well, don’t you two look cosy?” Coleen said from the doorway, startling Lorna into snapping to attention.
When her back hit his hard chest, and his embrace felt all the more erotic and real, she thrust forward again, and her backside hit his hard length making him rumble a growled groan. She jumped to attention – stickman upright as her hips met the side in front of her and a look of mortification swept over her face.
“Oh, for the love of the Goddess,” she muttered, flustered and flushed, and cursing her friend for the intrusion.
When Coleen chuckled, Lorna offered her a glare.
“Where’s Flint?” Nash grumbled, cursing his idiot brother for taking that moment to be absent and keeping his mate occupied.
Nash had been enjoying teaching his mate how to make pizza dough, but it wasn’t the cooking that excited him, more the feel of having her – almost – in his arms and being able to take her scent whenever he needed it.
Coleen tried to look innocent of all wrongdoing, but Lorna knew that look. Her friend was anything but innocent, and she found herself pitying the poor beta without even knowing what Coleen had done to him.
“Bathroom,” Coleen said. “He might be a while.”
“Don’t count on it,” Flint growled, brushing the leaves that were clinging to his clothes onto the floor as he stalked down the hallway towards her.
Coleen moved aside and placed her back against the wall so that he couldn’t get behind her.
Nash eyed his brother for a long moment. It was obvious the man had been outside because he’d brought that freshness of the night scent in with him, and the leaves were a dead giveaway too, but he couldn’t figure out how he’d got there.
“What the hell have you been doing?” the alpha asked and got a hard glare back for his trouble.
“Climbing out the bathroom window,” Flint growled, eyeing his mate with a look of pure accusation.
“Oh, that’s right,” Coleen said, slapping her forehead. “I was supposed to get help for that stuck door thing,” she said, offering her mate a wickedly sweet look of amusement. “But I found these two canoodling and, well, it completely went out of my mind.”
“Did it?” Flint growled.
“We were not canoodling,” Lorna said, frowning and glaring at her friend in an attempt to get her to knock it on the head. The alpha didn’t need any more encouragement than his male brain already offered him.
“Looked pretty cosy from where I was standing,” Coleen said, deflecting from her mate’s annoyance with her finger-pointing.
“Then you were standing in the wrong place,” Lorna bit back in a dry tone that should have warned Coleen to back off.
“Really?” Coleen tossed back, smirking.
Lorna guessed Coleen didn’t want to get the message. “Oh, do not start with me!” Lorna said, thrusting her elbows back to place her hands on her hips when she felt the hard connection with Nash’s ribs. The man was definitely standing too close.
Nash grunted with the force of the blow, and Lorna folded her arms instead, grimacing a little at the hard knock. “Sorry,” she tossed back over her shoulder, but she glared at Coleen and didn’t look away.
“You mean like the alpha was doing?” Coleen asked, savouring teasing her friend for all it was worth.
“So, you climbed out of the window?” Nash asked his brother, trying to defuse the situation between the witches and turn their attention to another target – Flint.
The beta grumbled a growl. “Something like that,” he said, tossing another glare at his mate, but she wasn’t paying attention, she was still teasing Lorna with a smirk.
“That’s a pretty small window,” Nash said, thinking about it.
“Hence the encounter with the damn bush,” Flint growled.
He’d practically landed on his head as he’d squeezed his large frame out of the small opening, but he was determined to be free, and a man could do anything if he set his mind to it.
Of course, he had considered busting through the damn wall to get out, but he didn’t want to spend his time fixing it. Once he wooed his mate, which he fully intended to do, he was going to spend all his time and energy on her and only her, and not some damn wall that he had to bust through.
Flint couldn’t believe she’d locked him in a bathroom with her magic. She wasn’t playing fair, which in his mind meant that he didn’t have to play fair either.
What was good for the witch was good for the wolfman – whether she liked it or not – and she probably wouldn’t. But two could play her game – once he’d figured out how to play her game.
The fact that all three of them were chuckling at his expense didn’t help his pride, but that was okay too – he was a big enough man to admit that he’d been tricked, and by a wicked witch to boot – but it wasn’t going to happen again.
