4
She went to a clay jar labeled ‘Tea’ but stopped with her hands wrapped around it.
“If they agree.”
Zoe watched her carefully, the splay of her fingers, the quickening pace of her breathing. “We want others to know.”
“So, if someone claimed you as their girlfriend, everyone in town would know about it?”
Cleo was very still.
“No one’s ever claimed me,”
Zoe confessed, shivering at the idea. “But, yeah. If I—”
She swallowed dryly and tried again. “If I claimed someone, I’d be faithful. We’re possessive, but we’re not animals. It goes both ways.”
Cleo gave a small shudder. “I’m trying very hard to be sensible, but you’re making it difficult.”
She held out her hand without turning around. She was quiet. “Tell me again how I smell to you. Please.”
Zoe had once seen Tim offer his hand to Nathaniel and Nathaniel take it with a careful, reverent sort of joy Zoe had been uncomfortable to witness at the time. But she thought of it now as she came forward to curl her hands around her mate’s fragile wrist. She raised it nearly to her mouth, and inhaled over the thin skin, although she already knew the scent better than any other.
“Bright. Warm,”
she answered, and wanted, needed, to kiss that skin the way Nathaniel had done. “Spring and flowers. Nectar,”
she added, and made a rough noise when her lips brushed Cleo’s skin.
Cleo turned. She pulled her hand from Zoe’s in the same moment, but only to slide it to Zoe’s shoulder. She tilted her face up before curling her fingers greedily into Zoe’s collar. “I need you to kiss me, Zoe,”
she whispered, soft and brave.
Zoe kissed her, trying to be gentle and failing when Cleo parted her lips and pushed forward for it. Cleo was trembling, and Zoe pulled back to press lighter, careful, kisses at the edge of her mouth. Her mate was sweet as well as fierce, one hand wrapped tight in Zoe’s shirt, her body hot and shivering. Kisses at the corner of her lips became kisses at her jaw, kisses down her throat, where the scent made Zoe growl.
Cleo clutched at her, her pulse delicious beneath Zoe’s mouth. Warm skin, with the hint of salt and lavender from the spa, mate’s skin, flushed and ripe. Zoe nosed at the orange-and-pink scent and grunted in approval. She followed it down, licking at the collarbone that had tempted her all night long, and Cleo made a small, choked sound.
It brought Zoe out of her daze enough to raise her head. Cleo stared at her with wide, dark eyes, her lips wet from Zoe’s mouth. Zoe came closer, uncertain for another moment, until Cleo’s fingers curled at the nape of her neck to bring her in for another kiss. It was so hungry Zoe felt it between her legs. Her knees went weak at the hot throb there, the instant ache for her mate’s fingers, her mate’s tongue.
She slapped a hand to the counter, but the other went to Cleo’s waist, to Mate , to keep her on her feet even if Zoe fell. Cleo barely paused in her exploration of Zoe’s mouth. She tightened her hold on Zoe’s neck and leaned forward to pull at Zoe’s shirt buttons. Her arousal was a wet, orange-blossom honeyed scent that had Zoe growling again, licking desperately into her mate’s mouth for more. She remembered vaguely, distantly, that first times between mates could be like this, overwhelming. She felt her uniform shirt pushed from her shoulders, the t-shirt beneath that lifted up, and then her mate’s palm over her breast, hot even through Zoe’s plain bra.
“Zoe,”
Cleo begged against Zoe’s cheek, as if she wasn’t the one creating this ache with the slow friction of her hand over Zoe’s nipple. Zoe whined in answer and bared her throat. Cleo dragged her mouth over the offered skin but didn’t bite, so Zoe whined again.
“ Zoe ,”
Cleo repeated herself, husky and impatient, telling Zoe that Zoe was failing to give her what she needed, which Zoe could not allow. Zoe lifted her to the counter and slid her hands to Cleo’s hips as she stepped between her legs. Cleo gasped. This was right , Mate’s scent told her. This was good . Their bodies closer, thighs warm around Zoe, her mate free to run her hands up Zoe’s arms and back, and down over her stomach. “I don’t normally…”
Cleo started, but left the thought unfinished as she unclasped Zoe’s bra enough to push it up. “Oh my God.”
Zoe stilled in embarrassment, but with a sweet sound of pleasure, Cleo continued to touch her. She put her mouth to Zoe’s bicep as her fingers trailed over Zoe’s exposed nipples. It was only for the few moments before she leaned back to look at her. Cleo watched Zoe’s face while she ran her thumb across the peaked, sensitive skin, and when Zoe bit back a cry, she slid her other hand down, past Zoe’s belly button to the waist of her pants. She was breathing raggedly. Zoe was too. She was wet, as swollen as Cleo’s mouth, and all she could do was shiver for the press of Cleo’s fingers, over her underwear, then inside them, cool where Zoe was so hot.
She closed her eyes, knowing she didn’t wear anything pretty or pink, although Cleo didn’t seem to mind boring white cotton-and-elastic. Cleo hummed for how wet Zoe was, and finally scraped her teeth across Zoe’s throat as she spread Zoe open. She began to smell of sharper arousal, the scent enough to make Zoe weak. Zoe wanted to taste her and couldn’t, not like this. She moved her hips instead, rocking forward into the tease of her mate’s fingertips, and then gasped for the heat of Cleo’s mouth on her skin, her teeth pressing not quite hard enough, the suction going straight down to her clit.
“Mate,”
Zoe pleaded, after a long time of heavy breathing, and tentative, bruising hickeys, and spiraling, building hot need beneath the push of Cleo’s fingers. She grasped at Cleo’s hips and shuddered for Cleo’s breath over her damp skin.
Cleo dropped her mouth to Zoe’s chest, kissing as she whispered fragments of sentences. “I’ve never…. But you need…. I want…. Oh, good, Zoe. So good.”
Her mouth went everywhere, Zoe’s shoulders, her arms, dragging across her nipples in slow approval when Zoe squeezed her harder. Cleo’s edged, honeysuckle desire was nearly on Zoe’s tongue. Her mate was aroused by her arousal. Zoe wanted her to have it, and begged for her, rough, panting sounds that grew louder and louder until Cleo finally let her come, left her shocked and trembling and weak-kneed.
Zoe leaned onto her while lightning flashed behind her eyes. Cleo wrapped herself tighter around her, one hand curled lightly to the back of Zoe’s neck. “So good,”
she murmured again, while Zoe caught her breath. “So good it hurts, Zoe.”
Zoe found Cleo’s mouth, blindly, and licked at her parted lips, her tongue. Even with her underwear soaked and her mate’s fingers stroking smaller bursts of pleasure from her, Zoe needed more. “Taste. I need to.”
She wondered if Cleo knew about weres, how they couldn’t get sick, that they couldn’t spread sickness either. They barely got tired. She put her face to Cleo’s shoulder and inhaled. “Let me taste you.”
Desire was rich at her mate’s skin now, blood-heavy, like the pulse Zoe could hear, like the hungry gasp of her name when Cleo heard Zoe’s request.
Zoe followed the sound, nosing at the damp valley between Cleo’s breasts and moaning in gratitude when Cleo pulled her own shirt away. Zoe felt empty with Cleo’s hand gone, but nuzzled at the swell of cleavage and the light, blushing lace of Cleo’s bra. The taste was closer there, but it still wasn’t enough. Zoe whined. For a moment her thinking wasn’t entirely human. She gathered sweat with the flat of her tongue and whined again.
Cleo curved her body forward for Zoe’s mouth, and twined her hands into Zoe’s short curls. She displaced the bobby pins and tugged until Zoe lifted her head. Cleo forced Zoe to look at her. She used words . “You want to taste me?”
she demanded, tone muzzy, eyes dazed. She hitched a loud breath when Zoe considered the words and gave a human response; she nodded. Cleo immediately knotted her fingers in Zoe’s hair and urged her closer. “Then eat me out already,”
she whispered, her breath light and damp at Zoe’s mouth. Whatever look crossed Zoe’s face made her shiver.
Her mate knew about weres. Knew enough to give Zoe what she, what they both, wanted. Zoe picked her up, arms careful under her thighs, and carried her to the bedroom. Cleo’s pulse jumped. She slid her mouth over Zoe’s, a kiss of surprise and delight that tormented Zoe’s instincts. She wanted to kiss back, harder, leave marks. She wanted to protect and please. That last instinct won. Mate would be comfortable. Zoe would please her.
She placed Cleo on the bed, gently, controlling her strength now, and liked how eagerly Cleo kicked off her shoes, how she arched up to help Zoe remove her pants. “Zoe,”
she kept saying, “Zoe,”
calling Zoe back to humanity, and words. “Zoe,” as Zoe undressed her.
If Zoe wore underwear, Cleo wore panties , fragile, soft, and thin, lace Zoe wanted to tear with her teeth. But the scent brought her to her knees first, made her collapse at the edge of the bed, breathing hard, and then she leaned forward to put her mouth against the soaked fabric.
Cleo bucked up, but Zoe didn’t mind. It was easy to glide her hands along Cleo’s thighs to hold them apart, and then lick in again, mate/home/mate heady in her mouth. She pushed the panties aside at first, impatient for slick, throbbing heat against her fingers, then her tongue.
The sounds from her mate were beautiful, starving little cries that the whole town could hear for all Zoe cared. She understood it now, the need that made Little Wolf demand this in public, and why Nathaniel had let him. She lapped up concentrated flower scent and musky, metallic warmth and slipped her fingers inside, deep enough to make Cleo tangle her hands into Zoe’s hair to make sure she wouldn’t stop. Her body jerked when Zoe sucked at her clit, but then she was gasping at the ceiling. She said Zoe’s name again, as though it meant something. Zoe growled in pleasure, right where she was, and Cleo arched up again with a choked noise, coming.
Surprised, but not unhappy, Zoe coaxed more shocks from her with her mouth at her clit and fingers sliding free, loving the following rush of more honeyed arousal. Zoe kissed her trembling thighs for a few moments, trying to remember to be gentle with the human, to wait a moment before continuing. The growl was in the back of her throat. Her breathing was heavy, wild. Her face was wet and hot. She smoothed her hands up over Cleo’s hips to her stomach, petting, soothing, mouthing at Cleo’s pretty skin distractedly while she waited to be allowed to make her come again.
When Cleo exhaled with a shudder and shifted her hips, Zoe grunted happily and went back to get more of her mate on her tongue. The lace of Cleo’s panties was drenched in mate-scent, pleasure-scent, burning desire for Zoe. Zoe bit at it to get at the source of that smell.
“Just take them off.”
Cleo’s throaty command made Zoe pause. She withdrew her teeth and pushed the panties from Cleo’s hips. When they were past her ankles, already forgotten, Cleo wrapped a leg around Zoe’s shoulders, without letting go of Zoe’s hair. “That’s better,”
she decided, in a slow, slurring voice that made Zoe’s toes curl. She rolled her hips up, hinting, or giving Zoe what she still needed.
Zoe didn’t need any other encouragement. She buried her face in the thatch of her mate’s short curls and lost herself in the feel and scent and the sound of her mate’s pleasure.
~~
Zoe woke to the smell of her mate’s bed and her mate’s pleasure, but not her mate herself. Some light peeked through the bedroom curtains, indicating it was morning, which meant Cleo had likely gotten up to get ready for work.
Zoe tracked the sound of movement in the kitchen, then gave herself a few minutes to bury her face in the pillows and breathe in the best scents in the world. She stretched out, for once not feeling too tall. Her limbs felt strong, put to their proper use. She almost wished she could experience lingering soreness from exertion the way humans did. But sleeping next to her mate, even for only a few hours, was invigorating.
She stretched again, taking up the entire bed for one greedy, giggling moment. She was naked under the covers, which was vaguely concerning until she remembered losing her belt and pants… and shoes… after making Cleo come for the third time, and before Cleo had sleepily curled up next to her and fingered her beneath the blankets.
Zoe put a hand to her neck, but of course, even her whispered requests for bites and hickeys wouldn’t matter now. They’d already healed.
She turned to stretch over the soft sheets, proof of her mate’s good taste, and sniff out more traces of damp spots. Her cheeks were burning, but she hid her grin in a pillow. She had been permitted to touch her mate, and made her gasp her name. That was good. That had to be good.
Tim would tease her, but whatever. It was worth it.
But since she had no idea what time it was other than early morning with the sun rising steadily higher, she rolled to the edge of the bed to look for a clock, or at least her clothes.
She didn’t see an alarm clock on the nightstand, only a charger for Cleo’s phone, which was missing.
So were Zoe’s clothes, although she identified the lacy bundle on the floor as her mate’s underwear. She still saw no sign of her own clothes, not even her shoes. That made her smile dip somewhat, because being naked alone in the woods was different from being naked in front of someone important.
Zoe flung an arm across her chest and sat up. She cocked her head toward the sound of Cleo’s voice again, wondering if Cleo was doing laundry, and if, in her animal, lustful fog last night, Zoe had failed to notice a washer and dryer in the kitchen. Then she remembered the small washer and dryer unit by the bathroom.
“You realize what time it is? I could have been sleeping,”
Cleo was saying, faint exasperation in her tone. There was a quiet bang, like a pot or a pan hitting something else. Cleo hissed at the sound, then spoke again. “Well, no, I wasn’t asleep, luckily.”
Zoe became aware that Cleo was whispering. All her movements were muffled, in fact.
She reached out, finding the top blanket and dragging it around her shoulders as she put her feet on the floor.
“I was going to make breakfast,”
Cleo went on. This time, Zoe just made out the mumble of someone else on the other end of the call. Either the connection was bad, or Cleo’s walls were more solid than they looked. In an apartment intended for humans, in a town constructed for werewolves, that was a real possibility.
“I make breakfast for myself all the time, Mom!”
Cleo’s volume ticked up for a moment before she lowered it again. “Okay, not usually on workdays, but it doesn’t automatically mean I’m seeing someone because I’m making a real breakfast.”
Zoe stopped breathing.
“You always assume everything is serious,”
Cleo told her mother. “I wanted French toast. That’s all. I’m not seeing anyone.”
Their sex smells were overpowering, undeniable. Zoe swallowed, but the taste she’d reveled in last night was inescapable now. This was Rejection, she realized, and got to her feet in a panic to avoid the moment Cleo would tell her this had been nice but she wasn’t looking for more. She didn’t want serious, she didn’t want girlfriend, and she didn’t want mate . She wasn’t seeing anyone, certainly not Zoe with her white cotton underwear and her stupid hair.
Zoe scraped her curls from her face, but her pins were long gone, like the rest of her uniform. She couldn’t bear trying to find it now. She had to go. She’d flee into the woods. She’d escape to parts unknown, like Albert, broken and alone, anything rather than hear her mate say the words, No, I don’t want you .
She fell to the floor on shaky legs, the blanket slowing her down enough for her to remember she was naked. Then she was wolf before she had time to consciously think about it. She could go far on wolf legs, wouldn’t have to think of anything unless she wanted to.
But the scents made her dizzy and had her whimpering the moment she’d nosed open the bedroom door: mate in the carpet, mate at the couch, mate in the kitchen.
“Mom, I have to get ready for work. I’ll call you later, I promise,”
Mate said, Spring-mate, Flower-human, who still smelled of Zoe. She ended her call, and Zoe froze to see her. She had her back to her living room and Zoe as she fussed with her stove.
Zoe hunched down, fully prepared to slink away as long as she could get the front door open, but then Mate spun around with a happy humming sound. She was wearing an oversize t-shirt and long bathrobe with a pale pattern lining the inside. Her t-shirt had a large lightning bolt down the middle. Her hairstyle was a wreck from either the pillows or Zoe’s hands.
“Oh my God!”
She half shrieked when she saw Zoe and slapped a hand over her heart. She dropped the bag of coffee that had been in her other hand, but it hit the floor without spilling open. She panted for several seconds, her eyes wide, then shook her head. She shook it again when Zoe didn’t move. “Zoe?”
she questioned, and took a step forward for a longer, better look at the giant wolf in her living room.
People had seen Zoe as a wolf before. Her packmates, but also others from town when they caught glimpses of each other out in the woods. But never a human in a house like this, never mate.
Zoe stayed a wolf despite that. She didn’t want to shift to human right now. But she didn’t want Mate afraid of her either, so she sat on her haunches and lowered her head.
“You did not look like that when I left you in bed,”
Spring-mate burst out excitedly and met Zoe’s stare. She made a noise of confusion when Zoe turned her head away, toward the door. “Oh,”
she said a moment later. “Were you trying to sneak out?”
The throb in her voice had Zoe whining before she could control herself. She pushed forward to place her muzzle into her mate’s palm and then licked it. She hated how easy it was to do and how she wanted to do it again. Mate let out a shaky breath and twisted her arm to offer Zoe her wrist like she’d done the night before, but yanked her arm back before Zoe could sniff her. “Last night you said…”
Mate cut herself off and turned around to pick up the coffee. “If you want to go, I won’t stop you.”
The waver in her voice made Zoe whine again. She got up in indecision, stared at her paws and then the tense line of her mate’s back, and knew she couldn’t do it. This was why Pack-brother had let Big-mouth stay, even with the pain he must have been in.
She shifted, grunting a little—it expended energy and she’d used up a lot last night, and had never really gotten to eat her soup. She stayed on the floor for another few moments, breathing hard and trying to work up the nerve to speak.
“I couldn’t find my clothes,”
she explained hoarsely, and darted a glance to Cleo. Cleo jumped at the sound of Zoe’s voice, but spun around to face her. She’d put the bag of coffee on the counter, in the same spot where Zoe had picked her up and kissed her.
Zoe looked away, face hot, and then got to her feet. She crossed her arms over her chest, even though it felt stupid after everything.
“You want them?”
Cleo wondered softly. She might have been staring at the awkward picture Zoe made, but Zoe couldn’t be sure without checking. “You haven’t even showered.”
Zoe lifted one arm to sniff herself, then gave a distracted, embarrassed shrug. “Werewolves have a different view of these things. I liked… I liked how I smell of us.”
She lowered her head like the eager, instinctual creature she was.
“There’s a lot to unpack in that statement. And I haven’t had any caffeine yet.”
But Cleo didn’t move to prepare any. “I hid your clothes so you couldn’t leave,”
she added.
Zoe raised her head in surprise. “Really?”
“No.”
Cleo leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. Her mouth looked bruised from so many kisses, but the corners were turned down. “But I should have. I folded them and put them on the couch for you. The stains in your uniform shirt look set. I don’t know if you can get them out. Why am I still talking?”
She sighed heavily. “Maybe you weren’t lying last night about wanting something serious, and you just changed your mind this morning. It isn’t like you’re the first to skip out before I can make you breakfast.”
Zoe was very, very bad at this. She swung a look to the couch, where her clothes were neatly stacked and waiting. She turned back toward Cleo, who watched her with an expression Zoe couldn’t read. Zoe’s other senses were too distracted by sex scents to tell her anything useful. Nathaniel always said werewolves, shifters in general, were too quick to forget they could use words, think like humans. As usual, he was probably right.
“You wanted me to stay?”
Zoe asked, because that’s what it was beginning to sound like, despite what she’d heard earlier. “This is why we’re supposed to take our time with non-weres,”
she realized out loud.
“What?”
Cleo was capable of stubborn silence. Zoe wished she’d known that before.
She reached for her t-shirt and yanked that over her head to help her feel slightly less naked, although it barely reached the top of her thighs, and that only when she pulled on it, which made her nipples stick out.
Cleo released a harsh breath, and Zoe lifted her head guiltily. “I thought you were sneaking out,”
Cleo accused, although her gaze tripped down over Zoe’s body before she met Zoe’s stare.
“You want to make me breakfast?”
Zoe asked in return, totally confused. “You told your mom you weren’t seeing anyone.”
Cleo’s eyes widened. After a pause, she nodded. “I thought you were sleeping, but of course you heard that. You slept through me getting up without even twitching, but apparently the sound of my voice woke you right up. How much of that call did you hear? Because you don’t know my mother. I had to… oh . Is that…?”
Her sudden smile was like the absence of pain when healing was done. “Is that why you were sneaking out? You thought I wasn’t serious about you?”
“You said—”
Zoe shrugged, although she could hear the hurt in her tone and knew Cleo could too “—what you said. And I couldn’t smell you.”
“So you didn’t know I was lying,”
Cleo interpreted, and nodded again. “No wonder you all hate lying so much. I’m sorry. Humans lie as routine, and my mother is… determined. If I told her I was seeing someone, she’d have questions. And once she found out I’d slept with you so fast—and she would have, she’s like that—she’d have been worried. I just… didn’t want to deal with that. Not this morning.”
Zoe pressed her thighs together. It did not make her feel any more dressed. “Is she…? Would she be unhappy to know about me?”
“My mother is protective.”
The way Cleo said it made Zoe think of Cleo saying other people had left her before she could even make them breakfast.
“Have you made a lot of people breakfast?”
Zoe wondered, and nearly bit her tongue. “That’s not my business. I meant that I don’t understand why anyone would leave you, before, um, before breakfast.”
“I don’t have a lot of one-night stands, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Cleo tapped the countertop for a second. “But I have dated people who, metaphorically anyway, left before things really began. I think… what did you say last night? You have to show you can provide? You feed the person you like, to show you’re ready for more?”
Zoe nodded, not following, and Cleo glanced at her small kitchen table. “I think I’ve been offering that to other people without realizing I was. Did you want to borrow some underwear?” She changed the subject so suddenly Zoe only blinked at her. Then she lost herself for a moment while imagining herself in her mate’s panties.
Cleo must have had a similar thought, because she bit her lip and gave Zoe a heavy look. “Or,”
she went on, “I might find a pair of sweatpants that’ll fit you, for you to wear while you eat.”
The corners of her mouth curved up this time. “I like you in sweatpants.”
If Zoe’s stomach hadn’t been rumbling, she would have forgotten about breakfast entirely. “You’re flirting with me?”
she asked, puzzled. “And you’re going to make food for me?”
Something important was eluding her, but she couldn’t focus to pinpoint what it was. “Do you want help? I can cook. Or you don’t need to make anything fancy. Weres will eat anything.”
“You can say that again.”
Cleo stuck out her tongue at her.
“You are flirting with me!”
Zoe stopped in astonishment, then put her hands to her cheeks. Her t-shirt immediately rode up again, causing Cleo’s eyes to drop.
She hummed. “You’re a constant surprise, Deputy Zoe Browne.”
Cleo met Zoe’s startled gaze. “With that rude woman in the restaurant, you were exactly how you seemed whenever I saw you in town, fierce and serious, short with words. Then, right now, I don’t know whether to pet you or fuck you.”
Zoe gave a start. But Cleo wasn’t quite done. “Or just feed you.”
For several seconds, Zoe felt like one of those people who sat at the library bookshop to watch the firefighters wash the trucks. The firefighters flirted the way Cleo did, especially when someone they wanted was in the audience.
Zoe had never understood it, teasing someone who obviously wanted you desperately, making them desire you so much they could barely think. If she were watching Cleo like that, she’d probably stare until her eyes were stinging and her cheeks were tomato red, and she’d agree to anything Cleo asked.
“I like you,”
Zoe admitted quietly. “I really like you, in a way I can’t help. And I want you to like me. It’s making me… awkward. More than usual.”
Her mate took a long, long breath and then let it out with a satisfied sound. Then she patted the table. “Then come sit down, so I can cook you all the food.”
Zoe gave her shirt another useless tug, and then walked slowly into the kitchen. She sat, studying her mate in absolute wonder when Cleo grinned to see Zoe at her table. She showed teeth, like a pleased wolf, and then everything finally clicked.
Her mate was wooing her. The teasing, the offer of clothing, of breakfast. These were to convince Zoe to stay. As if Zoe would be going anywhere.
Zoe sat up straight. “You don’t have to go into work?”
“Not until later.”
Cleo seemed unconcerned with time as she swayed to her refrigerator to pull out milk and eggs.
“And you don’t want my help?”
Zoe asked again, which made Cleo pause.
She put the food down and then approached the table. “Well, I did forget something,”
she remarked innocently, before bending down to give Zoe an unexpected kiss. She pulled away several moments later, breathing harder, and beamed at the expression on Zoe’s face, and Zoe’s soft whisper for more. Then, as though nothing had occurred, when everything had just happened, she went to start the coffee.
Hot all over, Zoe stared unabashedly as her almost-mate made her breakfast.
~~