Chapter 12
JESSIA
“Watch it,” ChaCha hissed as I threw a dress on its hanger at the bed she happened to be sitting on.
I’d taken a new room, my original one cleaned out and ready for someone new, and it had been filled with my things for a few weeks now.
I hadn’t stayed with Devil overnight again yet, but I was hoping that would change tonight.
“The bed is for throwing clothes onto,” I said. “It’s not my fault you’re sat on it.”
She made an affronted noise. “And here I was trying to help you, offering moral support in your hour of need, standing by your side while you—”
“Alright,” I cut in with a laugh. “Point taken. Just tell me which one these says I’m a very classy woman who may or not be hoping to get fucked tonight.”
“That’s a specific request for one dress.” ChaCha sat up from a slouch, giving me her full attention. “But I’m up for the task. Try this slinky black one first.”
I grinned and accepted the dress she held out, practically skipping into the en-suite to change.
When Devil said to meet him in the garden, right at the back of the grounds beyond the shed and the chapel, I hadn’t had high expectations. But I was happy to spend time with him. With my mate.
It still made me a little giddy; I had a mate, a man whose soul was the matching puzzle piece to mine.
It didn’t hurt that he was kind, and made me laugh, and was so wickedly handsome that when I crossed the garden and saw him sitting at a small metal table dressed in dark blue jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, I swooned a little.
There was something inherently masculine about him, and that was before his scent of ocean and freedom hit my senses, filling up my lungs with the promise of safety and forever.
I grinned, closing the last bit of distance between us, and gazing at the lights that were strung from the trees around the table, making this back corner of the garden quiet and romantic.
“This is beautiful,” I breathed, a flutter moving through my belly when Devil stood and brushed a kiss to my cheek.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been on a real date, and I felt…
good. Pretty, feminine, and excited. Hopeful instead of the dread and numbness that had dogged my footsteps for weeks. “It must have taken ages.”
“Took even longer because I had to fight with the branches to make that heart in the lights there.”
His hand flitted over the small of my back as he guided me to the table, and I gave the ‘heart’ a dubious look. It was more of a squashed W, but the effort he’d gone to was so sweet that I smiled. “So that’s what it is.”
“Harsh, angel. That’s clearly recognisable as a heart.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, my tone light. “Of course it is.”
He shot me a playful scowl, which only made my smile deepen. “I’d like to see you do a better job,” he quipped.
“Okay,” I said with a laugh, crossing the grass towards the tree and adjusting the lights, pulling the shape higher at the top. When I turned back to Devil with a smug little smile, he was watching me with a soft expression that made my heart trip.
“I bow down to your superior light arranging skills,” he said, actually giving me a bow. “Would Her Royal Decorating Highness like wine or water?”
I snickered at the title. “Wine. As long as it isn’t that cheap vinegar stuff.”
“I made Winner burn that shit, don’t worry,” he replied, pulling out my chair for me to sit before taking a seat opposite me. “Pretty sure he used it as lighter fuel at the last barbecue.”
I accepted the glass he poured for me and peered at the covered dishes on the table. “Cheese on toast?” I guessed, earning a scowl that made him laugh.
“I’ll have you know, angel, I can make one entire dish and it turns out flawlessly every time.
Behold.” He reached across and whipped off the metal cover.
“Spaghetti Bolognese. My dad taught me when I was a teenager, and I’ve been perfecting the recipe since then.
I add extra cheese and a secret ingredient, and avoid dumping the whole container of salt in it. ”
“Smart.” I nodded, kept a straight face. “I bet it used to have a really great flavour profile.”
“Oh yeah,” he agreed with a lopsided grin, his attention fixed on me as I took a bite. “The salt really brought out the flavour of the port.”
I gave him a horrified look.
“It was an experimental phase,” he defended himself, blue eyes glittering when I made an appreciative noise. It was really good. Thankfully no port, and only a normal amount of salt.
“What’s the secret ingredient?” I asked, expecting him to say chocolate.
I snorted when he said, “Love.”
“You’re full of shit.” But I grinned and ate some more, sipping the wine and happy to find it fruity and palatable. “This is nice. You’re nice.”
“Only nice?” He put a hand to his chest. “I was aiming for spectacularly, mind-bogglingly amazing. Not to mention devastatingly handsome, incredibly well-dressed, and so good at putting together romantic garden dates that you can’t help but swoon.”
“Humble,” I drawled. “How do you know I swooned?”
“I’m your mate,” he said with a softer, deeper smile. “I can feel what you feel.”
I glanced down, emotion squeezing my throat. “I can feel it, too. Feel you.”
“What am I feeling right now?” he asked, as serious as I’d ever seen him, but with tenderness instead of the cold violence when he saved me from the Alpha’s Bark.
I took a slow breath, using the excuse to eat another bite as I focused inward, touching that place where I’d felt him before. “You’re… happy. Relieved. Maybe… a little sad?”
He shook his head, the smile softening his eyes, gentling the lines of his face. “Not sad, just… I wish I’d told you the second I realised we were mates, so we could have had this all along.”
“We have it now,” I replied in the same hushed tone. “And sure, we’re only on a date because I figured it out and you were going to keep it secret forever—”
“Not forever,” he said with a little smile at my needling tone.
“But we have the future, Fil. We can do whatever we want with it. At least if you want—”
“I want,” he interrupted, gravel in his voice. “I want everything with you, angel. Every last little thing.”
His words settled like warmth in my chest, and I smiled. “Every last little thing?”
“Every last one,” he confirmed, reaching across the table to run his thumb over my knuckles.
“Even ultra-salted Spaghetti Bolognese?”
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” he groaned. “First the wonky heart lights, then my chequered food past. It’s a wonder you still find me handsome.”
“Instead of fishing for compliments, you could try giving me a few,” I said sweetly, finishing the rest of my food and making the wine magically vanish from my glass.
“Forgive me, my lady,” he said with dramatic pomp. “Your eyes sparkle like stars in the night sky. Your skin is as golden and radiant as the sun. Your body as luscious as… uh…”
“Regretting using the word luscious, huh?” I teased.
“As luscious as a pomegranate,” he finished with a little, self-satisfied smile.
“You’ve never actually had a pomegranate, have you?” I asked, getting up and rounding the small table to straddle his lap. God, he was so warm, his chest like fire against my palms.
“No.” His hands found my hips, fingers exploring my shape and sending a giddy thrill through me. “Why?”
“The seeds crunch.”
“They—what?”
I nodded gravely. “They crunch.”
“But—they’re so shiny. I always imagined them like mini grapes.”
I stroked up his chest, linking my fingers at the back of his neck. “Are you calling my body shiny and surprisingly crunchy?”
He squinted one eye shut in a wince. “Are they sweet at least?”
“Very.”
“Well, at least—”
“And kinda sour. Tart.”
He groaned. “Like a peach, then.”
“With fuzzy hair all over my skin?” I teased.
“Angel,” he complained. “Jessia. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid my hands upon. The most bewitching woman mine eyes have ever seen. Take pity on me.”
“Gladly,” I said, and kissed him.
Devil’s deep moan was the highest praise, and I used my locked fingers to pull him closer, moulding my mouth to his for kiss after sweet, aching kiss.
I kissed him until my lips were swollen, my lungs ached for air, and only a rustle and crash drew us apart. We both stared at the flopped mess of fairy lights that hung onto the ground, still twinkling but now a sad heap instead of a pretty arrangement.
A smile pulled up my lips as his mouth wandered over my jaw and down my throat. Breathily, I said, “On reflection, you might be better at hanging lights than me.”
“Sweet victory,” he laughed against my throat, covering my skin in kisses that made me hot all over and liquid between my thighs.
“Fil,” I began.
“Shit,” he breathed, pulling back, cold rushing against my heated skin. “I went too far.”
“No,” I hurried to disagree. “Not far enough, actually.”
The vivid blue of his eyes darkened to a steely, hungry hue, and an answering throb went through my core.
“We need to have a conversation first,” he said with that gravel in his voice again.
“I could stay like this forever, kiss you until we’re both drugged on them.
But I need it to be us, just us. I need us to be exclusive.
I can’t handle the thought of you with anyone else, and I know you need others, need the connection of more than one person and—”
I silenced him with a brief kiss, the taste of him teasing my senses with fruity wine and sweet citrus.
“I did,” I agreed with a sad smile. “It helped, gave me my power, but after—well, I don’t want that anymore.
I had to find other ways to take my power back. I can’t stand to have anyone touch me.”
He let go of me so quickly that I fell for him, there and then. That quickly, he let go of me even though I felt his reluctance through the bond.
I caught his hands and returned them to my hips. “Your touch doesn’t make me want to scream, Fil. It makes me want more.”
“Angel,” he said with a note of warning.
A smile crossed my face. “What if I want you right here?”
I watched his eyes dilate, rolled my hips a little until I felt the hardness of him against me.
“Anything you want, angel,” he breathed as heat gathered in the bond between us, his eyes a little wide. “We’re out in the open, though.”
I kissed him again, deeper this time, the taste of him waking up all my senses. “No one will see. We’ll be quiet.”