16. Graeme #3
“You’ll speak to her, won’t you?” I made certain he heard the order in my voice so he could not mistake my intentions. This was not kindness; it was going to be a job. “And do as she asks. She so rarely makes requests of me; I would hate to disappoint her.”
“Of course,” he whispered. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Excellent,” I replied crisply, glancing at Wade, who I couldn’t read, other than his eyes never left my face. “Have a shot of scotch, just a small one,” I instructed Linny. “That always gets me breathing again.”
I left them then, but as I walked away, I heard Linny ask Wade if he had lost his mind.
“I dunno. Maybe.”
It sounded quite promising.
It took me some time, going from room to room, to realize that my mate was missing.
He was no longer with my grandfather, or with Wade’s parents, or any of our family.
I was getting nervous when my phone chirped.
Pulling it from the breast pocket of my black velvet Ralph Lauren Purple Label tuxedo, I saw that I had a text from my mate.
The words made me smile, “Meet me in the alley. We’re running away,” and I immediately slipped out of the room.
I pulled on my trench coat and left my house, which I now shared not only with my brother and his mate, but with my mate as well. There was something so comforting about that.
Slipping out the side gate, I walked around the corner to where Avery’s Jeep was parked. When I was almost to the vehicle, his head lifted a bit above the dash, and when he spotted me, his smile was incandescent.
Earlier, when he’d come down the stairs to meet me in his brown tuxedo, hair slicked back, shaved, and wearing eyeliner that was Linden’s doing, I nearly swallowed my tongue.
He was gorgeous, and I couldn’t stop staring at him.
As we received people, he was kind, engaging, oozing charm and sex appeal, and with a smile that lit his face, his dimples wicked, I soon realized that everyone else reacted to him as I had.
They’d never seen this Avery Rhine, the magnetic creature with the low, seductive chuckle who remembered their names, something random about them that to each was a surprise, and told them how pleased he was they were there.
People appeared dazed, and I could tell, easily, which alphas he’d been with from their stunned expressions.
What a mistake they’d made. He was luminous, and he came from a bedrock lupine family that was absolutely rolling in money.
How had they not used the fact that he’d slept with them to their advantage, and pressed for a bonding?
My scowl made them scurry even as I watched them look back at him in wonder.
But I was there beside him, and he leaned close to me constantly, planted dozens of kisses under my jaw, and held my hand when we walked into the ballroom together.
Only I saw him clearly, just as he alone saw me.
People had looked at me oddly as well. It seemed when I was smiling and happy, I wasn’t quite as scary.
Now he sat up in the driver’s seat and gestured at me. I jogged down the street to the car, and he got out and ran around to the passenger side and got in. I slipped in behind the steering wheel.
Gone was his tuxedo, and I was looking at a sweater under a fitted distressed leather jacket I found terribly sexy. “Why am I driving?” I asked, making my voice work even though it was difficult.
“Only because you know where you’re going,” he assured me, grinning, “and not because I’m a bad driver and you almost threw up last time.”
I nodded. “I see.” I chortled and started the car.
“Are you comfortable? I brought you different clothes, so you can change if you want, or at least take off the trench and your tuxedo jacket. I can’t drive with a ton of stuff on.”
I let him help me take things off, and when I was down to my white shirt, I rolled up my sleeves, exposing my forearms, and he leaned in, kissed me, and told me to get going already.
Being ordered around by my mate was never going to be a problem for me.
“Come on,” he groused when we reached the little cabin in the woods with the gravel parking area, a bridge over the stream that led to the front door, and a deck big enough to host a wedding reception. “Are you kidding?”
“What? We’re really going to be roughing it.”
His groan was loud, and for once I was laughing at him .
We made it inside, and he strolled to the living area, where he put our two small duffel bags down on one of the enormous sectionals and took in the view out the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Lucky I told Kat to have the place stocked before we got here or we’d be in big trouble. I could run down to the wine cellar and grab a bottle if you—”
Shaking his head, he opened the doors out onto the back deck, which was just as spacious as the front, and started to strip.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I barked at him.
He turned, waggled his eyebrows at me, took off my father’s signet ring and put it on the railing, got naked fast, and then shifted fluidly with a seamless roll that I had only seen in other alphas.
“That’s your shift?” I gasped, shaking my head. “Is there anything you’re not good at?”
He tipped his head, and I laughed because his expressions were the same, man or beast; he was a smartass.
Just as in the dream-space we’d shared, he was a smaller wolf.
I went down on my knees, then leaned back, folding my legs behind me, and he trotted over and nuzzled under my jaw.
I touched his ears and his nose, rubbed under his chin, held one of his small paws, and then looked at his paintbrush tail.
When he licked my nose, I stood and stripped.
My shift was much faster than his, and to watch a wolf’s jaw drop was a lot of fun.
I darted for the stairs, and he was right with me, following me as I ran from the cabin and deep into the woods.
It felt primordial, like we were the only creatures in the cold, dark world, with only each other to keep warm.
We ran for hours, and then I headed for the cabin, wanting nothing more than to lie in front of the fire on warm blankets with my mate.
My plan was to have him there, take my time and make him scream my name, but once we were back, he asked if I was hungry, and I realized that neither of us had eaten a thing at our own party.
Rather than put on the clothes we’d stripped out of before our run, we got comfortable instead.
I took a shower and put on the fleece pajama bottoms, heavy socks, and T-shirt he’d packed for me, which made me smile.
I found my mate in the kitchen, dressed much the same way, except he had on a zip-up Foo Fighters hoodie.
Taking a seat at the island, I watched as he made me a simple ham-and-cheese omelet and, in another pan, an eggless omelet, with spinach, mushrooms, peppers and cheese, for himself.
“I like peppers,” I chimed in, and he smiled and added them to mine.
“I didn’t know you could cook.”
“My mother taught us all. She was a short-order cook; that’s how she put herself through college,” he explained to me.
“I thought your mother came from a wealthy family as well.”
“No,” he assured me, “my mother was in foster care when she was young; both her folks were killed in a car accident when she was little, and her aunt, her mother’s sister, didn’t want her.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He snickered. “After she married my dad, people came from everywhere to claim her as family, but she wasn’t havin’ it. She always said all she’d ever needed were her own parents when she was little, and then my dad’s folks later on.”
“I bet your dad’s parents adore your mother.”
He scoffed. “To say the least.”
My omelet was amazing, and I told him so, and got a kiss for the compliment.
“My grandparents both adore you, as do Stone and Gigi,” I made clear, wanting him to know he was as loved by my family as his own.
“Same,” he assured me, leaning over the island for another kiss.
Afterwards, cleaning up together and having a cup of chamomile tea in front of the fire before snuggling up and talking was, I realized, what I craved more than anything. Time alone with my mate.
“I’ve always put the wolf part of me second,” he confessed, sliding his hand over mine, pressing our palms together, then turning it over and interweaving our fingers, over and over, and I realized how much I savored the relaxed, unhurried touching.
“But I want you to help me love that part as much as the human side. I want to trust my wolf.”
“I’ll help you with that,” I promised as he climbed into my lap, turning into me and coiling his arms around my neck. “We’ll run together often.”
“I love running with you,” he whispered, kissing the side of my neck. “I can’t wait to do it again.”
Sitting there, telling him my stories, listening to his, I was so content I wasn’t sure when I slipped from awake to dreaming. When I woke in the middle of the night, warm and cozy in front of the fire, all the lights off, I opened my eyes to find Avery snuggled into my chest.
“I love you,” I whispered into his hair, clutching him tight.
“I love you back,” he murmured with a yawn. “Now go to sleep.”
He was bossy, but I loved that, and so did as I was told.