Scent of a Mate (4 page)

“Aric?”

“I want you so bad, Jordan.” It was hard to make out the words through the rough deep tone. She could tell how hard it was for him to hang on to his human side.

She met his gaze, held it for a moment and spoke with clear soft words. “So take me.”

Her breath caught at the possession in his eyes. “I wasn’t asking for permission. You’re already mine.”

Well, damn. He moved behind her, caging her. Arousal bloomed with each lick he did down her spine. She shivered. The feel of his tongue on her skin was sensational, like a soft brush sweeping down her back. She fisted her hands in the grass, uncaring what she grabbed to brace herself. His tongue continued its downward journey until he licked a slow trail between her cheeks, went around her hole, and stopped at her pussy.

“Shit!” He growled.

She glanced over her shoulder at his tight features. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have protection.”

“I…I’ve never been with anyone without a condom,” she admitted. “But I want you too and I’m on the pill. I know you don’t carry diseases.”

He caressed her ass, squeezing at her cheeks hard. “Are you sure?”

God, yes. A soft whimper escaped her throat. “I’m sure.”

She hung her head and waited. And oh God was it worth it. Her breath caught in her throat as he slipped the head of his cock into her sleek channel.

“Oh my…”

He was thick, but he didn’t stop. In one slow glide, he was stretching her pussy and filling her so tight she felt her lungs fighting for air. His chest plastered to her back. His hot breath tickled her shoulder. One quick pull and an even faster thrust, and fire rushed her insides. He did it again and again, driving her mindless with each slap of skin on skin. In no time she was at the edge of the pleasure cliff, willing and ready to take the leap for him. Her body tightened until she was ready to burst out of her skin.

“Aric…please—”

“Yes, Jordan. Mine.”

The rumble was almost unintelligible, but she couldn’t stop herself from enjoying hearing him say she was his, even if only for that one moment.

“Say it!” He snarled.

Her pussy constricted around his driving cock. Maybe she was delusional to even consider voicing that. It didn’t matter. Thinking how badly she wanted him pushed the words out. “Yes, Aric. I’m yours.”

She’d swear that was the moment he lost control. He fucked her with the precision of a jackhammer. Hard. Deep. Rough. She begged him to continue. She didn’t know what was happening, but her body had never been this ready to explode from the inside. She had tuned everything out but her need for him.

He snarled. His cock felt like hot steel inside, branding her. She whimpered, and then she flew. And just when she thought it couldn’t possibly get any more intense, he bit her. The feel of his teeth, sinking into her shoulder, the pain and the pleasure he was giving her at the same time turned out to be too much.

The tension inside her shattered into a million pieces. Everything went into hyper mode. She’d never done drugs, but she’d swear this was how it felt to be high. Colors burst behind her lids. Pleasure took center stage and she might have screamed, or moaned, or both. Hell, at that point, she might have called him God. She was too involved in the feelings of joy filling her and spreading through her body to notice any of that. What she did know was that he roared. Really loud.

“Mine!”

His cock thickened inside her, until she’d swear he was going to split her in half with the harsh thrusts. Mini orgasms rocked her core. Her pussy sucked him deep, and he came in quick jerky thrusts. His snarls were sexy as hell as he bathed her insides with his warm semen.

He flipped them, and she was over him while he lay on the ground. Their sweaty bodies were glued together with perspiration. Fire, passion, and need filled his gaze, along with that possession she had come to like seeing there.

She brought her lips down to his, meshing them together in one wet wild tangle of tongues. Later she’d think about what happened; right now she wanted to feel.

“Aric? Are you listening, son?” His mother watched him with intense curiosity from her spot at the kitchen island. She’d just placed a platter of sandwiches on the center of the table while she was prepping the afternoon meal. There were multiple large cuts of steak out for grilling along with various ears of corn and foil wrapped potatoes.

“Not really.” Why lie? She’d know the truth anyway. It was one of the parts about being his kind he could do without. He watched his brother, Mason, stare at his beer deep in thought. Hell, now that he wasn’t so self-involved in his own memories of the previous night, he noticed his other brothers were all very quiet. Each of them was avidly staring holes into the kitchen table or their drink.

“I said that I invited all those young women for you boys to get to know better.” She tsked.

One thing Barbara Wolfe didn’t like was to be ignored. His mother was not going to stop trying to match make until all her children were mated and had little cubs in the oven.

“While I don’t care for the Alpha of the central pack, I allowed him to send his daughters here in the effort to see if you boys would find any of them mate material,” his father stated. He walked up to the island and kissed Aric’s mother.

They were used to his parents’ displays of affection. One of the few couples who had fallen in love with each other and became mates at the same time, it was all of their wishes to emulate them. Aric truly thought he had found that with Jordan.

She was sassy and beautiful. He smiled, remembering the times she’d answered any of his sarcastic remarks with something meant to reduce a lesser man to shreds. He found her attitude sexy as hell and incredibly fun. Last night he’d marked her. That’s what males gave their mates during a scenting ceremony. A mark. He’d bitten her. Not deep enough to create the larger scar of a mate mark, but he’d marked her as his. The bite had put his scent on her. It let others know she belonged to him. He’d been happy he’d finally gotten her alone, and for once, he was able to do what he’d been dying to for years.

He’d asked her to wait while he verified the perimeter was secure. Later, he’d returned to her, but she’d been gone.

“So?” He glanced up to see his mother frowning at him and his brothers. “Did any of you even bother to meet the girls we arranged for you?”

A chorus of “No” dropped a frown on their mother’s face.

“This really isn’t helping your cause,” she said. “How in the world do you plan to have mates by the fall if you don’t help me out here, boys?”

“Mom,” Jake answered. “I hate to break this to you, but we never said we wanted mates by fall.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course you didn’t. If it were up to you four, I’d never see a grandchild.”

Ellie walked in at that moment. She glanced back and forth between the table and her parents. She made a move to leave the kitchen, but Aric needed her.

“Ellie, come have something to eat.” He pulled out the chair next to him.

She glared at him. Hell, his sister had done him a favor and he repaid her by putting her on the spot with their parents. She strolled to the table and took a seat across from him.

“Ellie, honey, did you have fun last night?” His mother asked with enthusiasm. Apparently he and his brothers were not the only people she was trying to hook up.

“I did. Seeing Kelly and Marco so in tune to each other and their wolves make such a match was…great. And knowing that she got marked made the entire event a success.”

Nice. She brought it back to the main event. Their cousin Kelly and Marco. This reminded Aric of Marco’s younger—much dumber—brother Ricardo. The stupid teen had been ready to pounce on Jordan when Aric had arrived. Though he didn’t scent fear from her at being growled at by the brown wolf, it had still pissed him off to see any other male near his woman. Especially during a scenting ceremony. She was his.

“Yes, honey, but did you find any males there interesting?”

“No.” Ellie placed a sandwich on a plate and proceeded to ignore it. His sister’s blonde strands and delicate features matched those of his mother to perfection, while he and his brothers took after their father with the dark hair and harsher looks.

“Do you have any news on Caleb and what is happening with his pack?” His father asked, taking a seat at the large table next to his sons. He took a bite of a sandwich and pointed to Nathan. “I understand he’s having some trouble over on the south.”

Ellie’s gaze jerked up to stare at him. There were a number of questions in her eyes. Many of which Aric couldn’t answer. He had no idea what Caleb was thinking, nobody did. Things were strained over at the Rahound Pack. Though he and his brothers didn’t speak of it, they knew Ellie and Caleb had something going on, something deep. Even his parents knew. They didn’t bring it up, but they knew.

“Caleb is getting ready to fight for the pack leader position.”

“Damn.” Jake shook his head. “Things must be really bad for it to have gone there.”

They all knew Caleb would never remove anyone from power unless they abused it. He was the Alpha’s son. When his father passed, Caleb had been out of the country, leaving his uncle Rocco to take control.

“Do we need to go help him?” Nathan asked, pushing food around his plate.

He watched Nathan swivel his glass to make the soda funnel inside.

“He knows to ask for help if it becomes necessary,” Aric answered. “But I know he wants to try to handle it himself.”

His father nodded. “He does. If he is to be Alpha, he needs to push Rocco out of the way and face the pack on his own.”

“What made him choose to fight?” Ellie asked.

Aric heard the tremor in her voice. She cared for his friend, but he didn’t know how much. Ellie was private. Even when he’d made it known to his sister that he wanted Jordan, she’d refused to let him near her friend. She was so protective of Jordan he often wondered why. She said Jordan wasn’t someone he could just use for one season of mating heat and let go. He’d been forced to admit to her that he wanted more than that before she agreed to even discuss her friend with him.

“Some of the enforcers turned violent against the women,” Nathan answered.

Ellie gasped.

Aric nodded. “They wanted them to be forced to mate with them. Caleb brought it up to Rocco. What surprised him most was that the old man agreed with the enforcers.”

Ellie stood. Her pale features had turned even ashier. She headed for the outdoors. Their house was surrounded by a large dense forest and Aric knew where she was going. He stood and followed behind his sister.

He found her sitting on the two-person swing a few hundred feet away.

“Are you okay?” He sat next to her.

She turned to face him. He was taken aback by the agony he saw in her eyes. “Do you know if he’s okay?”

He pulled her into his side and held her. “I do. He’s fine.”

He knew she could hear the words he didn’t say. For now. Caleb was going up against a large number of people. The fight could spill into their territory, but until it did, they needed to stay out of it. Caleb needed to prove he was the Alpha his pack needed.

“How did it go last night?” Ellie asked after a few minutes.

“It was good. We didn’t find any human intruders.”

She turned. Sad lines deepened on the sides of her mouth. “That’s not what I meant.”

Their deal. That’s what she’d been referring to. In order for her help, he’d offered to let her know how things went with Jordan.

“I marked her.”

Her blue eyes went wide. She flung her arms around his neck. “I’m so happy for you, Aric.” She sighed into his neck. “Jordan is perfect.”

He cleared his throat. “I already know that.”

Ellie pulled back, her smile dimmed as she stared at him. “What went wrong?”

“She left me.”

“I don’t understand. You said you marked her. She’s yours.”

“I still needed to do a perimeter check after and asked her to wait for me, but she left before I returned.”

Ellie bit her lip. “Have you called her?”

He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Hell yes! I’ve called her. I went by her house. Hell, I even went by the school.”

She grinned. “Aric?”

“What?”

“It’s Saturday.” She smiled at him as if he were an idiot.

“So?”

“We don’t have school on Saturdays.”

“I know that, but I had to check. I needed to know where she went.”

She hugged him again. And he let her. His baby sister was giving him some of the comfort he needed. For a future Alpha, he felt mighty insecure when it came to his mate. Jordan could run him around in so many circles he didn’t know if he was coming or going.

“Don’t worry big brother. You’ll have your mate soon.” She winked. “I have a plan.”

Thank God for his sister. He had no idea what else to do. He’d been attracted to Jordan the moment he saw her. The first whiff of her scent and his wolf had been in agreement. She was theirs. But Jordan had been young, too young. And he knew she wasn’t from his world. She didn’t know what it was to be mated to his kind. There was no divorce. There was no other person. There was just the two of them. Working through everything, together. So he’d been waiting and hoping that with time she’d want to be with him.