Chapter 15
North
When I’d shown up at Joel’s apartment, I hadn’t had much of a plan beyond trying to win a chance to prove myself.
I needed to show him I could be the perfect boyfriend for him, regardless of my ability to shift into a jaguar.
I’d halfway expected to be kicked straight back out, and I was ready to grovel if need be.
Instead, he blew my mind by readily submitting to the connection he felt too.
I refused to let him do anything he might later regret, so I promised myself that no matter how much Joel begged, we weren’t going to have sex yet, and there would be no marking. And boy, did he ever beg. It was a true test of my resolve.
There were plenty of things we could do without full penetration, things I’d spent years hearing the other alphas in my pride bragging about, things with fingers and tongues.
I wasn’t a prude, I’d watched porn, but so many videos were about an alpha’s satisfaction, and that wasn’t what I was interested in.
To me, there was nothing hotter than pleasuring my mate, and so, instead of sex, I spent the day learning every sound he made, mapping them out on a scale of one to “I can’t feel my legs. ”
That wasn’t to say that I didn’t climax a few times too, but one of those came simply from tonguing his ass, so… it seemed more than fair to me.
And between orgasms, we talked. Like, really talked.
About his parents and how lonely he’d been growing up as an only child, his regret that they’d been too old to really play with him.
In return, I told him about how overwhelming it was to grow up in a large pride, surrounded by well-meaning aunts, uncles, and cousins who all knew your business.
There was no privacy where I’d come from.
We talked about how maybe together, we could find a happy medium.
Shifters, especially fated mates, often jumped straight to the claiming, skipping straight past the talking phase. I was grateful for the opportunity to get to know my mate properly. Maybe there was something to this human dating thing after all.
For dinner, we ordered pizza and ate it in bed naked, cuddling up to watch a movie on his phone—though I couldn’t have told you a single thing about the movie once it was over; my entire attention had been on Joel the whole time. And, of course, you couldn’t have dinner without a little dessert…
While Joel was still in his post-orgasmic stupor, spread-eagled in the middle of the bed, I threw a towel around my waist and ran to the kitchen to grab the tub of ice cream he asked for.
I’d known Kedi and three of his friends were out here, but I hadn’t expected them all to be staring at me menacingly.
I stopped in front of the fridge and nodded to them.
“Evening,” I said, and when none of them said anything right away, I turned to pull the tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream out of the freezer.
Kedi sighed, and I heard the springs of the couch twang as he stood up, his friends moving to flank him as they approached me. “Come on, let’s just get this over with.”
I laughed under my breath at the image they portrayed. “Is this where you warn me not to hurt him?”
“No, this is where we threaten you not to hurt him,” the big guy on Kedi’s right said, cracking his knuckles in a fist.
Kedi shook his head, seemingly embarrassed by his friend’s macho attitude.
“Now, I wouldn’t go that far, Ricky. They are fated, after all,” he said to the alpha.
The guy muttered an apology and lowered his fists to his sides.
Kedi turned to me. “Look, Joel might not be pack by blood, but he’s still one of us, and it’s our duty as his unofficial family to watch out for him. So… just treat him right.”
A woman on the left muttered something about how from the sounds of it, I’d been treating him very well so far, and they all burst into snickers.
I couldn’t help my own grin from spreading in satisfaction.
Joel might not have been ready for me to mark him yet, but I could still claim my territory in other ways.
There would be no mistaking my scent all over his body now, and I was glad they all knew he was mine.
Joel was lucky to have found a pack who loved and accepted him as he was. It was more than some shifters had.
When I crawled back into bed with the ice cream, Joel was still right where I’d left him. He turned his head to watch me and stuck his bottom lip out in a pout. “Why’d you take so long?”
“Just chatting with Kedi for a minute.” I dropped the towel and crawled into bed, drawing the blanket up over us both and passing him a spoon. “Your ice cream, sir.”
“Thank you… mate,” he replied shyly.
We would both have to return to the real world tomorrow, but for now, I just wanted to enjoy being with him like this.
We finished off the ice cream and then I curled around him in the dark, the perfect big spoon to his little.
He fell asleep in my arms mid-sentence, telling me about this stuffed bunny he had when he was a kid.
I still couldn’t believe that he was here, that he was mine. He was sweeter than I deserved, smarter, kinder, but I would spend every day for the rest of my life showing him what he meant to me.
I watched him sleep until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
Waking up with Joel was absolute bliss, his warmth and fresh scent surrounding me.
But it took me a second to realize that something didn’t feel quite right.
When I opened my eyes, my vision was not the dull spectrum of human vision in pre-dawn light, but the sharply hued tones of my jaguar.
I stared down at the large black paw holding my mate down.
No! I shouted in my head. Get off him!
Instead of listening, in protest, my beast crawled even further over Joel, pinning him to the mattress with our hefty 200-pound bulk, and continued licking his chest. Joel’s eyes were heavy-lidded, not fully awake, but I was sure any second he would realize the danger he was in.
His eyes would fly open in fear, and then the screaming would start.
My jaguar worked his way across Joel’s chest to his other pec, his smooth skin turning pink with abrasion, then moved up the column of his throat, pausing to drag his teeth slowly over his thundering pulse point.
Oh gods, my beast was going to mark him!
He was going to claim him before he was ready!
I tried to force the shift, to take my skin, but my jaguar fought back, refusing to back away. Mine, he rumbled in our mind.
Stop! You’re scaring him! I yelled.
But then Joel giggled as my beast shifted to nuzzle into his armpit, preening at the fair hair and sensitive skin. “That tickles!” Joel shoved playfully at my jaguar’s face, unbothered by our teeth nipping at his fingers.
They were both treating this as some kind of game.
I watched in awe as they play wrestled in the bed, bonding in a way I hadn’t realized we needed.
Finally, after my beast allowed Joel to win, rolling over to expose his belly, my mate glanced mournfully at the clock, which showed that it was almost 6.
He groaned. “Sorry, baby, but I need to get ready for work.” He flopped himself across my cat’s belly and bit playfully at the scruff of his neck, then reluctantly rolled out of bed. “You should probably let North come back too, because he probably needs to shower.”
My jaguar let out a long yawn, and then he allowed the shift to take over at last. “Finally!” I huffed when I found myself lying naked in bed. I yanked Joel over. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
He just laughed. “Of course not. He would never,” he said, repeating my own words back to me, before he gave me a good-morning kiss that had the rest of me waking up too.
Before my wandering hands could meander past his hip, though, Joel wiggled free of my hold.
“Ah-ah, no time for hanky-panky. I have to go to work today, and so do you. But if we hurry, we’ll probably have time to soap each other up in the shower. ”
I followed him to the bathroom like a dog on a leash—or like a shifter with his fated mate, same difference.
Closing the door, he paused when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, his hair still stuck up in all directions from my jaguar’s ministrations. “I’m thinking about getting a haircut. Maybe short like yours.”
I came up behind him, pressing my body flush with his. “Please don’t. If you did, I couldn’t do this.” I wrapped my fist in his curls, forcing his head back so I could expose his neck, letting my teeth drag across his pulse point much as my jaguar had done.
He whimpered, going liquid in my hold, and the musky scent of his slick filled the small space. “Okay…”
I lingered long enough for the water to heat up and steam to rise. I would never get enough of this man. Before pulling away, I kissed the tattoo I inked into his skin. Right here… I will leave my mark right here.
We didn’t spend anywhere near enough time in the shower, before I had to let him cover that delectable body with clothing, but I knew Joel’s jobs were important to him. His independence was just one thing I loved about him, even though it took him away from me.
I waited for the bus with him, then kissed him goodbye as passionately as I could, imprinting every sweep of my tongue with my love and devotion.
It was nearly impossible to let go of him, but it helped a little to see him dazed with need for me when I pulled back.
If I had a car, I could drive him around.
Even better, I could lock him inside my apartment and never let him leave.
When Joel got on the bus, he headed straight down the aisle so he could wave to me out the back window, and I stayed there on the sidewalk, watching the bus until it had driven out of view.
Sigh. I was a lovesick mess, and we weren’t even fully bonded yet. How much worse would it get when he was pregnant with my kittens? The thought made my jaguar almost feral.
The last 24 hours had been amazing—perfect, even—but it still wasn’t anywhere near enough.
Not for me, not for Joel, and definitely not for my beast. If I didn’t make some concessions, there was no guarantee that my jaguar wouldn’t simply bite Joel next time, giving in to our basest need to claim what was ours.
No, I’d made the mistake of trying to woo our mate like a human would. But I wasn’t a human, and he understood that. So now I was going to try things the shifter way.