The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence Read online

  The marking had felt exactly like Cadence remembered, now that her memories seemed to be set free, except this time she understood what it meant. And this time, they were both old enough to act on the feelings that accompanied a declaration like that. She pulled him down on top of her, and they kissed, really kissed for the first time as mates.

  He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Are you sure that you’re ready? We can wait.”

  “Of course I’m ready. I love you. I want to make to love to you.”

  He groaned softly, “I really want to make love to you, sweetheart, but,”

  “But?” She laughed.

  “But, my wolf is snapping in my brain so if you’re sure that you’re ready, then I’m going to apologize in advance if I split you in half, okay?” He grinned and she laughed again. It was all she’d ever wanted from him. Love. Acceptance. And hot, naked fun time.

  She smacked him on the ass and said, “Time to play, my alpha.”

  He let out a satisfied grunt and growled, “I hope you didn’t plan to get any sleep tonight.”

  Their clothes came off in a blur of torn seams and flying fabric and then everything went into slow motion as he moved slowly, kissing a lingering, hot trail down the center of her body. He paused above her tingling pussy, one arm hooked around her thigh, and said with a husky voice, "Look at me."

  She went up on her elbows to look at him. She had a feeling that a lot of their pent up frustration and past denial was going to make their first time together incredible. "Say my name." He demanded.

  "Jason." She whispered. He rewarded her with a swipe of his tongue up her tender clit and she moaned as heat washed through her.

  "Who am I?"

  "My mate." She locked eyes with him and he held her gaze while his tongue made a deliberate circle around her and her brain stalled out.

  "And?"

  Her mind, still not recovered, screeched in dismay when he pulled the tip of his tongue back into his mouth at her silence. She writhed under him. "And?" He demanded again.

  "My, my alpha?" She stuttered.

  "Good girl." He slid his tongue against her again, and her body lit up. The fingers of his free hand pierced her as he pulled her clit into his mouth, sucking it like it was his favorite piece of candy. She lost the ability to stay up on her elbows and splayed out on the bed while he twisted his fingers inside her in a fast rhythm. Her fingers dug into the covers and her stomach tightened like hands reaching into places they shouldn’t be able to reach.

  His fingers curved upwards and danced against her most sensitive place and she cried out his name as the wave of orgasm rushed over her and she shuddered against him. Relentless, he worked her to another cresting wave of pleasure that thundered down on her, and when she came, bucking against him at the sheer pleasure, so intense, so decadent, she couldn't stop from screaming, he slid his wet fingers from her body and pressed a nearly chaste kiss to her throbbing clit.

  He kissed up her body while she shivered and panted, capturing her mouth in a hot kiss, settling between her legs with only the very tip of his cock pressing against her.

  He rounded up from her a little, reaching between them to guide his cock inside her, and she draped her legs around his hips, helping to draw him inside her with her feet hooked at the small of his back. They both groaned when he thrust inside her, his cock filling her perfectly. Almost too long, almost too thick, but just perfectly made for her body.

  As close together as two people could be, he held himself tightly to her and looked into her eyes, holding her gaze with an intensity that threatened to burn her alive. “I wanted to be your first, but I’ll gladly take being your last. I love you, sweetheart.”

  “Definitely my last. I love you, too, Jas.”

  Slowly, he slid out of her, agonizing inch by inch until just the bare tip of him was inside her, and it was the last thing he did slowly. He didn’t thrust into her body so much as try to pound himself through her, and she drove her hips towards his, frantic to find the rhythm that would allow her to come around his cock, to feel her body clutch his like a vise and then feel him come, deep inside her.

  He rocked into her, driving the breath from her lungs with each thrust until the only sound that she could make was panting, mewling cries as she thrashed under him on the verge of ecstasy. He bit her neck and shoulder, growling with the most primal of sounds that made her spine tingle and her body light up, and she drug her nails down his back and returned each bite with one of her own.

  He jerked them both upright suddenly so he was on his knees and she was on his lap, her legs wrapped around him, and he thrust up into her while his hands on her waist drove her downward. With each bone shattering connection, her nails dug into his shoulders and scored her pleasure into his flesh.

  “Come on, love, come for me again.” He growled, his fingertips digging nearly painfully into her flesh, and she reveled in the sound of their bodies coming together, that hot, wet sound that screamed pleasure and satisfaction.

  Her nails dug deeper into his skin as she moaned, “Uh, Jas.”

  Power filled his voice and he growled, “Come, Cades, come with me!”

  Her body responded, and in her mind her wolf side howled and her human side shrieked in bliss as the center of her body went liquid and hot, and everything froze for a perfect moment and then she exploded in climax around him. He thrust hard up into her, grunting and clenching his teeth together, and then he let out a harsh strangled cry as his body spasmed inside hers.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, kissing his sweat-drenched forehead before he tipped her backwards and she slid off his cock, immediately regretting the loss of the fullness of him inside her. Dropping to the mattress next to her with a groan that was part satisfied and part exhausted, he put his arm over her waist and settled next to her on his side. By slow degrees their breathing returned to normal and their bodies stopped shivering.

  “You really are mine.” His voice was rough and deep.

  With some effort, she managed to make it to her side so she could look at him and his face was that of a man completely happy and satisfied. “Just yours.”

  "That was worth the wait, baby." He said with a chuckle.

  His eyes were dancing with happiness. "You know," she said, kissing him, "I don't think I've seen you really smile in a long time."

  "I was pretty miserable."

  "I’m sorry I didn’t remember sooner, that I doubted your feelings for me.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, my father said he’s sorry he made the edicts. And my mother thought I should tackle you and mark you again as if I’d never done it in the first place.”

  “Oddly enough, it doesn’t.” She smiled at him, and he returned it. She sat up on her elbow. "I just have one request.”

  “Name it.” He said confidently.

  “Just promise that you won’t keep things from me anymore. I’m stronger than you give me credit for, and I don’t want our life to be built on lies.”

  His eyes got darker and more serious. “I swear I will do my best to tell you everything that you need to know. I can’t promise I won’t keep something from you, if it will protect you or if I have to, but I will promise to tell the truth when I do tell you something.” His fingers stroked her jaw. “How can you even think about forgiving me?"

  "Because you're mine. You always have been. Not because you marked me, but because it's the truth. All that time that we wasted, we have a lot to make up for."

  They made love again, more gently than the first time, and when they'd come back down from orbit, she fell to a boneless mass across his chest, fairly sure her joints had come unhinged during that last orgasm. He turned her onto her side and slid behind her, one arm moving under her pillow and the other drawing her against him.

  He kissed the shell of her ear, “Sweet dreams, my alpha mate.”

  She drifted into a deep sleep, held and protected by the only man she had ever real
ly wanted or loved.

  She woke up alone, mildly disoriented and largely aching from her eyebrows to her toes. As the world came into focus she heard Jason’s voice past the closed bedroom door and the voices of several of the pack including Michael. Carefully stretching the kinks out of her back, she made her way to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Mid-yawn, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and she shouted, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Jason!”

  The girl staring back at her looked like someone had drawn all over her with purple markers. She had hickeys and bite marks down both sides of her neck, her shoulders were dotted with fingertip shaped bruises, and even her hips had finger marks.

  She was fully planning to give him a hard time about going into overdrive marking her when he came to the door of the bathroom, but instead she just laughed. Shirtless and wearing only jeans, he looked almost as bad as she did, worse in some ways because she’d raked her fingernails down his back and sides several times. Confused, he waited until she stopped laughing and she pointed to her neck. “You made me look like a piece of bruised fruit.”

  With a self-satisfied grin, he pulled her into his chest and hugged her. “I won’t apologize for marking you. It’s what wolves do. The bruises and bite marks just reinforce what everyone knows as truth now. And you marked me back anyway, so you can’t really complain.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Sure I can. I may be a lot of things, but I never claimed to be fair.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose with a laugh. “Don’t stick that thing out unless you’re going to use it.”

  “Are you actually threatening me with sex?”

  “Not really. The guys are out in the front room and you’re really, really noisy.” She blushed, her mouth falling open in surprise and he chuckled, kissing her cheek. “Go on and get cleaned up. I’ll wait for you out in the front room.”

  He patted her on the butt, gave her a gentle nudge towards the shower, and strode out of the bathroom. She turned back to the shower and stepped in.

  Callie had packed well for her and remembered everything except her body wash and hair products, which meant she had to use Jason’s. You know what men use? Men things. Like Irish Spring and Suave regular scent. Ugh. She liked how Jason smelled; she just didn’t want to smell like him, too. She dressed in a pair of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt that advertised a bar up on campus called Little Brothers and pulled her hair back into a quick braid after drying it enough so she didn’t get a chill.

  Out in the front room, Jason, Linus, and Bo were drinking coffee and watching the news. Jason had pulled on a sweatshirt, and she hated to see him covering up all the bites and bruises. Jason’s face lit up when she walked into the room and he motioned her over. “I’ll just grab a cup of coffee, Jas.” She said, and he said, “Michael will bring you a cup. He’s in the kitchen making breakfast.”

  She sat down on his lap on the easy chair and pecked his cheek. “Michael’s making breakfast?” Although an excellent cook, Michael was notoriously lazy when it came to cooking for others.

  Bo and Linus started to snicker, and she looked at them but they wouldn’t meet her eyes. Jason called for Michael and she heard the unmistakable sound of heels on linoleum and she nearly died when Michael came into view, wearing a French maid’s uniform complete with fishnet stockings and black pumps. He grinned at her and curtsied awkwardly. “My lady.”

  “What the hell?” She sputtered in shock.

  Jason made a gesture with his empty mug and Michael took it from him and clunked off into the kitchen after asking if she’d like coffee, too. “It’s his punishment, part of it anyway, for breaking the alpha order not to tell you that you were my mate or alpha.”

  “You put him in a dress as punishment?”

  “Well,” he tweaked her chin, “I’m not really mad that he did, but I had to do something to show that I respect the old alpha rules and laws. There’s no hard and fast rule for punishments for these sorts of things. So he has to wear that and serve breakfast to us.”

  “And the other part of his punishment?”

  “He’s going to be your lackey today while I go into the shop and see how things are going. He is yours to abuse.”

  She shook her head with another laugh and accepted her coffee from Michael without making eye contact with him. He had hooker red lipstick on, for goodness sake! Her best guy friend made her coffee just the way she liked it, sweet with whole milk, but the only thing she could think of was wondering what he’d filled out the top of the costume with and whether he was actually wearing a garter belt.

  Michael called them into the kitchen for breakfast several minutes later, and they sat down while he clomped around the kitchen like a foal on unsteady legs and put bowls and plates of food down. He made a feast for an army with scrambled eggs, buttered toast, oatmeal, hashbrowns, and sausage links, and Cadence filled her plate first on Jason’s order and then the rest disappeared in a flurry of forks and pleased grunts. Seconds were out of the question for her. It never ceased to amaze her how much they could eat.

  While the boys talked about the shop, Jason winked at her, and she marveled at how relaxed he seemed, even in the midst of a lot of bad shit. Maybe that’s what being mates meant. That they could comfort each other, support each other? That nothing seemed quite so bad when you were with the person that you loved and they were safe. She didn’t need to wonder how pissed he was at Chris, because she knew how she would have felt if someone had injured Jason so severely. Chris was going to suffer, and Jason was going to enjoy it.

  After breakfast, Jason kissed her goodbye, promising to be back by lunch and to also stop by her house and get her bathroom stuff. When they were gone, she insisted Michael take off his heels before he wrenched his ankle and then helped him with the dishes.

  She gave his fake boob a poke. “What the hell is in here?”

  He laughed and pulled the top down part of the way to reveal a grapefruit. She groaned into her hands.

  “Hey, I know it’s been a while since I’ve seen a real tit up close, but I think I remember the basic shape. What would you have used?”

  “Oh, hell, Michael, I have no idea what a man uses to stuff a maid’s uniform. Where did you get it anyway?”

  Another of his shit-eating grins lit his face. “From the plus sized section of the lingerie store in Sweedesboro. I’m a woman’s extra large.” He was so proud of that fact that she laughed until her side ached.

  Twirling like a little girl in a tutu, he pirouetted for her and the skirt fluffed up to reveal black briefs and garters. She would never look at him the same way.

  “Michael, I love you. You’re my best friend. But please, please don’t ever wear a dress again.”

  “I make no promises. But I love you, too. Alpha. Sister.”

  He tucked his finger under her chin and smiled at her, the ease and pleasure in his eyes said he was glad she was with Jason now. And she was, too.

  Taking one of the plates from him and drying it with a kitchen towel, she said, "Can I ask you something about the edicts?"

  "Sure, baby girl." Up to his elbows in suds, he rooted around for another plate and washed it.

  "If they were binding, why was it so easy for you to break the order? Why did no one else ever just tell me the truth?"

  He rinsed off the plate and handed it to her, turning off the water and drying his hands on another towel. "It wasn't easy for me to break the order, but it was a combination of things. I was worried about your safety, about the future of our pack, and when Jason was fighting, his wolf was just going nuts and we could all feel it. We're connected like that, you know, because he's alpha. When the alpha's out of control, it puts the rest of us on edge. My frustration with the situation just hit a peak when you seemed completely clueless about what was going on and the words left my mouth before I could stop them. For us, when an alpha makes a law, like the edict not to speak to you about the marking or your place in the pack unless you came to us, whe
never one of us wanted to tell you, it was almost as if we became mute and unable to talk. The edict would flash in my mind every time I wanted to tell you, baby girl, and I wanted to tell you all the time I promise. None of us liked you being in the dark, and it was hard for us to see you floundering and feeling bad when we knew that just a simple question from you would have opened all of that up."

  He paused and gave her a long look. "I think the reason no one else ever told you the truth, or tried to at any rate, was because it wasn't in everyone's best interest for you to figure out that you and Jason were mates. If you decided to give up on him and settle down with someone else, then Jason would be fair game for the other females in the pack. So you can guess why the females were happy to keep you in the dark and to torment you. And losing you might have cost him the pack if he couldn't keep himself together enough to lead. A weak alpha, emotionally or physically, is ripe for the picking. There are males in the pack that would like a shot at being alpha, but would only try if he was distracted and upset."

  She shook her head in disbelief. "Jason loves leading the pack. He wouldn't lose it like that, not over me."

  His brow arched, "Haven't you figured out yet how much my brother loves you? There is literally no one for him but you. He wanted you with him from the time you were kids, and being apart from you because of his own actions drove him crazy. If you weren't with him, he wouldn't be the same, and that's the truth."

  She smiled at him, turning back to the sink. "Thanks, Michael."

  "For what, sis?"

  She elbowed him with a laugh as he turned the water on again, "For breaking the edict."

  He chuckled, "Me and my big mouth are happy to serve."

  After the dishes were done, she and Michael sat on the couch and drank coffee, talking about their past and the future of the pack. There was so much she didn’t know and needed to know. Callie called at lunch just before Jason got home, and promised to stop over for dinner so they could talk.

  When she hung up, she said, “How come you and Callie never got together? I know you’re cousins but you’re like fourth cousins. It’s not necessarily too icky.” Michael was adorably handsome. While she couldn’t look at him as anything but a friend and soon to be brother-in-law, she’d listened to the other women in the bar for years rave about him. Tousled brown hair with natural blonde highlights that curled just ever so slightly, light blue eyes that made you think about summertime, and a smile that would melt you in your socks, if you were inclined. Which she never was. She knew that Michael kept away from her romantically because of Jason, but she’d never ever really thought of him that way anyway. He was practically sexless in her eyes. Her best friend, the lamp.