Chapter 9
Lex
Lex was out of the truck before it fully stopped, boots hitting the snow-packed ground as he strode toward the cabin.
The pack meeting had taken too long. Way too fucking long.
He'd wanted to leave the second Riko shut Stan down, but there had been formalities.
Explanations. A whole lot of posturing from wolves who needed to accept that times were changing whether they liked it or not.
But it was done. Stan had been put in his place—publicly, and he'd taken off like the pussy he was—and Riko had made it clear that any wolf who threatened a pack member's mate would answer to him personally. Human or not.
Mate.
He'd said it out loud. In front of everyone. The word he'd been avoiding. The truth he'd been dancing around since the moment Jules walked into his garage with her dying car and her ridiculous succulent.
She was his mate. And now the whole pack knew it.
It was time to make sure she knew it, too.
The cabin door opened before he reached it, and Adam stepped out onto the porch, expression unreadable.
"She's inside," Adam said quietly. "But you should know… she's packing."
Packing. She was packing.
Lex pushed past Adam and through the door. The first thing he saw was Faye, standing in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed and a worried expression. The second thing he saw was Jules.
She stood in the doorway to the guest room, coat on, boots on, that stupid succulent clutched to her chest like a lifeline. Her suitcases sat at her feet. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and the moment she saw him, her whole body went rigid.
"Jules." Her name came out rough, wrecked.
"I was just—" She swallowed hard. "I thought it would be easier if I—"
"Easier?" He crossed the room in three strides, stopping just short of touching her. "You were going to leave? Without talking to me?"
"I heard what Stan said last night," she said quietly. "And then while you were gone, he found me outside and—"
"What did he say to you?" The words came out as a growl.
She flinched, and he forced himself to take a breath. To soften his tone. But his wolf was clawing at his skin, furious that someone had scared her, terrified that she was about to walk out of his life.
"He said I was causing problems. That I was a distraction." Her voice wavered. "That if I was really your mate, you would have claimed me by now."
Lex went very still.
Behind him, he heard Faye usher Adam toward the door. "We'll just... give you two some privacy."
"Call me!" Faye called.
The door closed. They were alone.
"Is that what you think?" he asked quietly. "That I don't want you? That I haven't claimed you because you don't matter to me?"
"I don't know what to think." Tears spilled down her cheeks, and each one felt like a knife to his chest. "You left this morning without saying goodbye or explaining anything.
You've had every opportunity to... to be with me, and you haven't.
And now your whole pack is fighting because of me, and I just—" Her voice broke.
"I can't be the reason you lose everything, Lex. I won't."
"Jules." He reached out, gently taking the succulent from her hands and setting it on the nearby dresser.
Then he cupped her face, tilting it up until she had no choice but to look at him.
"I haven't claimed you because I wanted you to have a choice.
A real choice. Not one made in the heat of the moment, or because you were trapped here with me, or because my wolf was pushing too hard. "
"But—"
"I left this morning because Riko called an emergency meeting and I didn't want to wake you.
I should have left a note. I should have done a lot of things differently.
" He stroked his thumbs over her cheekbones, wiping away tears.
"But I have never, not for one second, doubted that you're mine.
Not since the first time I ever saw you.
And I stood in front of my entire pack today and told them exactly that. "
Her breath hitched. "Adam said you called me your mate."
"Because you are." He rested his forehead against hers.
"You've been mine since the moment you walked into that garage babbling about your car.
Hell, you've been mine since before that.
Since the first time I saw you locking up your shop, singing to yourself thinking no one was watching.
" His voice dropped. "I've just been too scared to do anything about it. "
"You? Scared?" A watery laugh escaped her. "You're the least scared person I've ever met."
"But I am. I'm terrified of you." The admission cost him, but she deserved the truth.
"Terrified of wanting you this much. Terrified of what happens if I let myself have you.
Terrified that my world will hurt you, that the pack won't accept you, that you'll wake up one day and realize you made a mistake. "
"Lex—"
"But I'm more terrified of losing you." He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. "So if you want to leave, I won't stop you. But I need you to know that if you stay... if you choose me... I will spend every day of my life making sure you never regret it."
She stared at him for a long moment, emotions flickering across her face too fast to track. Then her hands came up to grip the front of his shirt.
"I don't want to leave," she whispered. "I never wanted to leave. I just didn't want to be the reason your life fell apart."
"You're not the reason anything falls apart. You're the reason everything finally makes sense." He covered her hands with his. "Stay. Please. Not because you're trapped or because you have nowhere else to go, but because you want to be here. With me."
"I want to be here." The words came out fierce, certain. "I want you. All of you. Wolf and grumpy mechanic and everything in between."
Something in his chest cracked open. "Jules—"
"But I need you to stop holding back." She released his shirt and slid her hands up to his shoulders. "I need you to stop trying to protect me from yourself. I'm not fragile. I'm not going to break."
Heat flooded through him, his wolf surging forward with a possessive growl. "You don't know what you're asking for."
"Then show me."
Three words. Three simple words that destroyed the last of his restraint.
He kissed her. Not gentle, not careful. He kissed her like he'd been dying to kiss her for months. Like she was air and he'd been drowning. She made a sound against his mouth, something between a gasp and a moan, and her fingers dug into his shoulders as she pressed closer.
"Lex," she breathed when he broke away to kiss down her throat. "Lex, please—"
"I've got you." He shoved her coat from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor before he lifted her easily, and her legs wrapped around his waist. "I've got you, sweetheart."
The walk down the hallway felt like a mile, though his stride ate up the distance in seconds. Every instinct he possessed was screaming, a chaotic overlapping of mate-safe-mine-home.
He kicked his bedroom door open and nudged it shut with his heel, sealing them inside. The air in here was cooler, smelling of pine and slightly of engine grease—his scent. And soon, it would smell like her. Like them.
He didn't bring her to the bed immediately.
He just held her there in the center of the dimly lit room, her legs wrapped tight around his waist, her face buried in the crook of his neck.
The trust in that grip nearly brought him to his knees.
She was small, soft, breakable. And she had looked his wolf in the eye and demanded he let it loose.
"Lex," she whispered, the vibration of it running through his chest.
"I know." His voice was a ruin of gravel. "I know, sweetheart."
He lowered her to the edge of the mattress. It was a functional thing, the bedding plain and dark, the room sparse. He’d never cared about comfort before. Now he wished he had silk sheets to lay her on, something worthy of the skin he was about to worship.
He stepped back, creating a foot of torture between them, and grabbed the hem of his shirt. He ripped it over his head in one motion, tossing it blindly into the corner.
Jules sat frozen on the edge of the bed. Her eyes took him in, wide and drinking deep. She didn't look at his face. She looked at the ink staining his throat and right arm, the jagged scars that mapped out a history of violence and mistakes.
"You're—" She swallowed hard, her gaze tracing the thick scar tissue on his shoulder. "God, you're beautiful."
The words struck him with visceral force. He felt twisted, scarred, rough. But looking at her looking at him, he felt like a king.
"That's my line."
He dropped to his knees between her spread legs. This was where he belonged. At her feet. In her service.
His hands went to her boots. His movements were deliberate, fighting the tremor of restraint in his fingers.
He unlaced the left, then the right, sliding them off and setting them aside.
He peeled her socks away, tossing them, until her bare feet rested on his thighs.
He wrapped his hands around her ankles, the contrast of his callused, grease-stained fingers against her pale skin making his wolf growl with obsessive pleasure.
He leaned forward, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the arch of her foot, then her ankle. She twitched, a sharp intake of breath hissing through her teeth.
He dragged his hands up her calves, over the denim of her jeans, up to the hem of her sweater.
"I know it's cold," he rasped, looking up at her. His eyes felt wild, burning. "But I need this off. I need to see you."
"Yes. Everything. I want—" She scrambled to help him, her movements frantic as she pulled the sweater over her head. "I want everything."
The sweater joined his shirt on the floor. She sat before him in a simple cotton bra, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She was perfect. The shadows in the room clung to the curves of her waist, the slope of her neck.