CHAPTER 7
Things I’d learned today: witches can be bitches, pregnant werewolves are scary, mated sex is the best sex, and nausea transfers over the bond just like pain and desire.
“Stop”—gag—“gagging, Layla. You’re going to make me”—gag—“sick right along with you,” Michael said. “Just get out of here. I’ll”—gag—“clean the rest up myself.”
I dropped the stack of paper towels I held and got the hell out of the shower stall. Michael and I had rinsed off after consummating our bond, but the—gag—larger pieces of him hadn’t gone down the drain.
“Stop thinking about it!” he yelled from behind me, and I heard him gag again, too.
I beelined for his kitchen, needing something to distract myself from the lingering smell of blood and suffering.
Coffee would do the trick. Over the years, I’d learned that the bitter bite of coffee grounds did wonders to clear all kinds of unpleasant scents from my nose.
I tore open a fresh bag and buried my face in it, taking deep breaths as I willed my mind to stop tormenting me with thoughts of what I’d done to my mate.
It was over. It had been necessary. And now I needed to move past it.
Michael and I didn’t have time for nausea.
He needed to bind me, and we needed to get the hell back to the city.
Preferably without coming face-to-face with his mother.
A dry-heave echoed from the bathroom, and my stomach gave an involuntary little spasm. “I’m trying!” I yelled before Michael could berate me again.
“That time it was me,” he called back.
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. My unflappable mate, the man who never had so much as a hair out of place, was dry heaving, and for some reason, I found that hilarious.
A low chuckle rolled from his direction, the bond turning my humor infectious.
He reemerged a few moments later, naked as the day he was born.
All thoughts of amusement fled from my mind.
His eyes were black with power again, and that wide, muscular body flexed with inhuman grace as he walked.
I set the coffee down and gripped the edge of the counter to keep myself where I was.
For some reason, I had thought consummating our bond would dull the sharp edge of need I felt for him, but if anything, I only wanted him more.
Michael stopped halfway to me. A muscle along his jawline stood out as he clenched his teeth and took a deep breath through his nose.
A breath I knew was filled with the smell of my rising desire.
An arrogant grin split his face, but instead of saying something teasing and eloquent like I expected, his gaze dropped to my sex and he growled out a single, harsh word. “Mine.”
I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. Goddess, I was in trouble. “Yours.”
He lifted his focus back up, taking his sweet time looking me over, head tilting a little to the side in a very wolflike gesture of confusion. His nostrils flared as he took another deep breath. “You smell different.”
So did he. He still smelled like Michael, but now I was there, too, a hint of feminine musk that clung to him even after he’d washed my arousal off.
“We smell a little like each other,” I told him. “It’s the bond. We’ve consummated it, so now anyone who scents us will know that we’re mated.”
Those unfathomable eyes landed on mine, the dark possession in them going straight to my core. A deep well of satisfaction rose through the bond. “Good.”
“Does your apartment have this same kind of ward around it just waiting to be invoked?”
He nodded. “Why?”
I pushed away from the counter and sauntered toward him, exaggerating the sway of my hips, feeling my breasts jiggle with the movement.
His gaze dropped to them, expression turning ravenous.
I stopped when I reached him and snaked my arms around his neck, rising on my toes to whisper in his ear, “Because when we get back there, you can trigger it, and then it’ll be my turn to fuck you up against a wall. ”
He let out a low groan and dropped his forehead to my shoulder, hands landing on my ass, fingers kneading, heat and electricity sparking between us in a way that made my swollen clit pulse and his dick jerk back to full arousal. “How would that even work?”
I bit his earlobe. “Use your imagination.”
He pulled my hips into him, just once, thrusting against my low belly.
My entire body felt like it was on fire, wave after wave of lust coursing through my veins, emanating from all the places we touched: my lips at his ear, his hands on my ass, my breasts flattened against the hard muscles of his chest, and that thick dick of his, insistent, irresistible.
Regret coursed over the bond as Michael pulled away. “I’m going to hold you to that promise.”
I forced myself to let go of him and take a step back.
As much as I wanted to consummate the bond with him over and over again until neither of us could walk straight, there were more pressing matters to deal with—chiefly, getting out of here—but that was hard to remember when he was naked in front of me, smelling like sex and magic.
I turned my back on him and went to bury my nose into the coffee bag again. My voice came out muffled. “You need to put some clothes on. Three-piece suit. Tie. Vest. Button everything.”
I felt his understanding in the back of my mind.
His clothes were his armor. For him, but also for me.
When he wore the guise of the polished businessman, it was easier to trick my brain into thinking he was untouchable.
That he was still the aloof snob I met the night of our bonding ceremony.
It was complete bullshit, but I clung to it nonetheless.
If I didn’t put some distance between us and get my barriers back up, I’d do something stupid, make some amateur mistake and risk exposing us.
“Spell first,” Michael said.
I nodded. “And then, many, many layers.”
Amusement snaked over the bond as he left the room. Right. I needed clothes, too.
A few minutes later, Michael and I reemerged from our bedrooms. I was in running shorts and a bathrobe.
He wore faded jeans that sat low on his hips, and Goddess help me, it was somehow worse than when he was naked.
I tamped down my lust the best I could, gaze snagging on the dark blue cloth tucked beneath Michael’s arm.
He must have felt my curiosity because he paused in a clear space in the living room and shook it out.
It was a heavy blanket, and he spread it over the floor and indicated I sit.
I folded myself down, legs crossed, watching him as he rifled through the kitchen. “There’s something else we might have to worry about.”
“What’s that?” he asked, pulling what looked like rolled canvas out of a drawer.
“The fact that you’re on the verge of becoming an alpha.”
He stiffened. Surprise and confusion came over the bond. “Please tell me this is another one of your strange jests.”
“I wish it were, but you know I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”
He nodded, back still to me. “I know. I only hoped.”
“For the record, I wish I was wrong.”
He hefted the canvas wrap in his hand and came back to me, dark eyes boring into mine. “You’re positive you’re not?”
I shook my head. “I’m not wrong. I’ve felt it all day. It’s more than just your power growing through the bond. Back in the shower when you told me to get it over with, my entire body twitched forward to follow the command.”
Michael dropped to the floor behind me. “Layla, I didn’t know. I would never try to command you to do something.” His hand landed on my shoulder, kneading my muscles, and I felt a wave of remorse tinged with sadness from his end of the bond.
I shifted so I could look at him, grabbing his hand before he could pull it back. “I know you wouldn’t.”
He squeezed me and let me go. “How did this happen? My mother still lives.” Something must have shown in my face because he sighed. “Let me guess. The bond?”
I nodded. “The stress of mating can sometimes trigger the gene prematurely.”
A low growl built in his throat, and he broke eye contact. If Michael were a swearing man, I was sure he’d be dropping f-bombs by now. He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking more annoyed by the second. “We need to get out of here.”
“Hard agree.”
He shook his head. “Not just this house. The city.”
Panic shot through my mind. “We can’t go back to New Hampshire.”
“No, I see that.” Michael’s gaze was troubled as he stared at me. I was still acting weird, and he didn’t like it. Well, that made two of us. “There’s a large stretch of packland in Western Mass we can go to. I have a cabin there near the Vermont border.”
“What about Kolbeck Industries?”
“The company won’t collapse if I leave the city for a few days.” He glanced down, a sheepish feeling rising from him. “Plus. The cabin might be primitive, but it has Wi-Fi.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course it does.”
“It’s so I can be available if any critical issues arise on the rare occasions I stay there.”
“You’re going to work the whole time, aren’t you?”
His gaze came back to mine, dark eyes hooded as he looked me over. “Not the whole time. The cabin is warded.”
My heart rate picked up. “Warded like this room is?”
He nodded, gaze latching on to the bite mark half-hidden by my robe.
The wilderness. My mate. A ward strong enough to hide whatever Michael and I did out there. Oh, sweet Goddess, yes. I turned my back to him and shrugged out of the robe. “Get this spell on me, and let’s get out of here.”
Ten minutes later, I sat perfectly still while he painted a mixture of blood and ink on my back.
I really didn’t like the fact that for the second time in less than an hour, the coppery smell of my mate’s blood filled my nose.
It made me twitchy and uncomfortable, especially when Michael had to keep cutting his arm open to mix more of himself into the paint.