Chapter 35
35
EMMA
“Johnny!”
I’d only been apart from this man for hours, but I viscerally felt the sense of relief at being near him again. As if my body was celebrating his very presence.
Johnny whirled to take me in. “Lyssa!” He rushed toward me by the laundry room. I’d come out of Lyssa’s bedroom when I heard glass breaking. Watched as two wolves had fought with a gray one, and then killed it. How the wolves had turned into me who’d only had eyes for Lyssa.
“It’s Emma, actually,” I finally admitted.
His steps faltered for a moment, then he came even faster. “Okay. Emma. I don’t care what your name is, or who you work for, baby. Or why there’s a woman who looks exactly like you in the kitchen. I love you. You’re my one and only. My mate.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him pick me up with my legs straddling his waist. I held him tightly, not wanting to ever let him go.
He carried me into the bedroom, away from the dead wolf in the living room. And the two naked men I saw holding my sister’s hands.
Figured.
She was always a party waiting to happen. Two wolves broke through glass windows and killed another one, and now she had snared them.
He sat on the bed, with me straddling his lap.
“I’m sorry,” I told Johnny. “I overreacted. I felt used.”
His nose ran up along my neck, breathing me in. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have used you. Or let you feel like that. I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head, swallowing hard. “I… may have made things worse for you with Mitch.”
He frowned. “How so?”
“At the hot spring, when you wanted me to call him. I didn’t know his number. I’m Emma, not Lyssa, remember?” Tears filled my eyes. “I lied. I mean, really lied when I faked calling him. I didn’t know he was dangerous. Or that–”
“Shh, it’s okay. ”
I shook my head. “You can’t forgive me that easily.”
“I kept being a shifter. And an enforcer. And that I marked you. And that your not-boss was really dangerous and a bad guy. I think we both lied, huh?”
I sniffled then nodded.
“Now tell me about being a twin, ‘cause that’s a twist.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“But…why did you say you were Lyssa?”
I sighed. “She was the one who had the job here. I really did quit my job in L.A. and came here to visit with her. Then she went off with some guy to Ibiza. When you showed up, I pretended to be her. Taking on her persona allowed me to act more like her. Be the wild and crazy one.”
He frowned at me, confused. “Like what?”
“Like hooking up with you. Leaving with you. Skinny dipping. The box of toys. All of it. I’m not usually impulsive. I’m very conservative. I don’t hook up with random guys or take chances like that.” I had to glance away when I admitted my biggest fear. “I…I don’t know if you’ll like boring Emma.”
I expected Johnny to say something sweet, but instead he laughed. My gaze returned to his.
“Is that funny?”
He immediately schooled his face. “No, baby. Sorry. It’s just that I haven’t explained something to you yet. Something kind of huge. About us.”
I went still. Held my breath. What could be huge about us? What else could there possibly be?
“Remember when I asked you if you believed in fate?”
I nodded.
Johnny looked so earnest. A little nervous. Handsome as hell. I brushed his stubbly jawline.
“Well, every wolf has a fated mate. They’re hard to find because they could be anywhere on the planet, but the lucky ones find each other. When we meet our mate, we know her by scent.”
My heart did a double-tap in my chest. What was he telling me?
“When you opened that door three days ago and I caught your scent, I knew immediately that you were mine.”
I blinked. Hard.
“Oh. ”
“So you see, it wouldn’t have mattered whether you worked for Chapman or for the governor or if you were unemployed. It wouldn’t have mattered if you said your name was Mickey Mouse. I was definitely going to do everything I knew to make you see what I already knew–that we were made for each other. ”
A sheen of tears coated my eyes, and my lips parted. “And if…Lyssa had opened the door?”
“Your sister?” He shook his head. “Nope. She’s not the one. But it sounded to me like Knox and Travis think she’s theirs.”
“Both of them?” I exclaimed.
He nodded. “They’re from the Two Marks pack in Wyoming. A slightly different breed. They mate in pairs.”
I laughed. “Well, it would take two of them to handle her!”
Johnny laughed with me then sobered. “Did you really think I might like Lyssa better? Or that what we have wasn’t real, and I was just using you to get to Chapman?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. It was silly. I just…I got scared.”
He stroked my hair back from my face. “Yeah, me too. I was scared of losing you.”
I pressed my lips over his, stroking them softly. “Well, you didn’t.”
He rubbed his lips together as if savoring my taste. “There’s one more thing I haven’t told you yet.”
“What is it?”
“Last night when I bit you?”
“Yeah?”
“When a male wolf meets his fated mate, he marks her with his scent, so the other wolves know she’s been taken. It’s stupid, but it’s our biology, so we can’t help it. I didn’t mean to mark you, but I got carried away with the full moon.”
I touched the small scab on my neck. “This? You marked me here?”
He nodded. “Yeah. A serum coats our teeth and embeds into your skin. So you carry my scent now.”
I carried his scent. “I guess it’s the wolf version of a wedding ring?”
He laughed. “I guess so.”
“I don’t get to mark you?”
Johnny’s smile was brighter than the moon. “Are you saying you’re okay with it? Being mine?”
I smiled, too. “That means you’re mine in return?”
“For life, baby. Wolves mate for life. You are my purpose now. Keeping you safe and satisfied is all I fucking care about.”
Well.
In that light, who really cared if he’d used me to get info about Chapman? That guy was dangerous, and I was thankful that Johnny tried to do everything possible to find him.
“Is the gray wolf out there Chapman?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t me who finished him. Knox and Travis fought it out with him before I got here. He was choking your sister based on the marks on her neck. ”
“Oh my God!” I climbed off Johnny’s lap. “I need to make sure she’s okay.”
“Yeah, for sure. Sorry, baby. I just needed to make us okay first.”
I threaded my fingers through Johnny’s, and we walked out to the living room and stopped short.
“Um. Yeah. She looks okay to me,” I mumbled, and Johnny pulled me into his arms.
Lyssa was in the kitchen, sandwiched between the naked shifters, making out with both of them. At the same time! One kissed her while the other stood behind her, one hand between her legs, the other on her breast through her moo-moo.
“Yep. Pretty okay.” Johnny and I smothered our laughter as we walked backward into the bedroom. As soon as we shut the door, we burst into peals of laughter. It felt good to laugh with him, all the tension and angst of the day releasing into the air. As we expelled the old, we refilled our lungs with fresh oxygen.
With a new understanding of who we were together and apart.
A restart to us.
“Are they her mates?”
“Absolutely. I love you, Lys-I mean, Emma–Oh!” Johnny grinned. “Now I know why you only wanted me to call you baby in bed! ”
I laughed. “Yes. I didn’t want Lyssa intruding on our intimate times.”
Johnny pointed toward the door. “Like we just intruded on hers?” We fell into another fit of laughter.
When it petered out, Johnny ran his knuckles down my cheek. His dark eyes met and held mine. “I love you, Emma. I know I still have a lot to learn about you and how to make you happy, but I’m all in. I’m your guy, thick or thin. Forever.”