Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Louis
I knocked on their door at two the following afternoon. Hailey answered, her cheeks red and her hair sticking to her forehead. She looked like she’d been getting pounded into the mattress, but her face lit up when she saw me, and I hoped she’d look at me like that every time we’d been apart.
“Louis! You’re back.” I sniffed for any sign of negative emotions—annoyance, anger, even a whiff of disgruntlement. “Right on time too. Eric could use your help in the bedroom.”
I blinked at her, swallowing hard. “Oh?”
I followed her as she walked up the stairs toward the second floor. It was only the master bedroom up there, and it was huge and private with a view of the valley that stole my breath, even though I’d seen that very vista a million times in my life.
“Yeah, I’m absolutely no help,” she said, grinning down at me as I followed her and tried not to stare at her ass. Fuck, it was a great ass too—perfectly heart-shaped, and it had a little jiggle to it when she walked that was mesmerizing.
Finally, we stepped into the bedroom, and Eric definitely needed help. He was trying to lift a giant four-poster bed across the room. Unfortunately for him, it was solid timber and must have weighed as much as a small car.
“Need a hand?” I laughed, and his relief was pretty fucking funny.
His cheeks were also red, and he was puffing. “We didn’t want to pull it apart. I told Hailey I could move it without help.” He shook his head. “I was wrong.”
Slipping off my jacket, I rolled my shirt sleeves up my forearms. I bit back a grin as both of them focused on my forearms like they were my cock, and I gave an extra flex like I couldn’t smell their desire.
“Where are we moving it to?” I asked, grabbing the other side. “Should have gotten Otis out here to lift. I saw him lift a Porsche by himself once.”
“Like to the side?” Hailey asked as we picked the bed up a couple of inches and moved it over.
“No, above his head. It was in a no parking zone and blocking an ambulance on a call out.”
Eric whistled, and Hailey flushed. “That’s attractive, right? I can’t be the only one who thinks that’s hot.”
We finally had the bed where she indicated. “No, that’s definitely hot. Actually, it’s really fucking hot after trying to heft this bed for the last twenty minutes,” Eric muttered to himself.
Hailey rewarded his hard work by wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pressing herself against him in a hug, kissing his cheek.
Eric looked at her with so much love, it filled that empty well in my chest. Hailey came over to me and kissed my cheek too, hugging me tightly. “Our hero. Thanks for the help.”
“Anytime. I mean it.” I kissed her forehead. “Why are we moving the four-poster anyway?”
She chewed her lip. “We found another one down in the garage. I thought we could put them together and get one of those giant custom mattresses. Plenty of room then.”
My eyebrows traveled toward my hairline. “Room for what? The Central Valley Giants?” The city’s football team was filled with some of the biggest creatures, and honestly, I’d hate to see their combined food bill.
Hailey just shrugged and flushed, and I knew deep down she was preparing her home for a pack, a clan for Eric. Fuck, she was amazing.
There was a couch up here, and Eric slumped down on it. “We definitely have to ask Otis if he’ll come out to help lift the second frame up the stairs. How did the humans get them up here in the first place?”
Laughing, I held Hailey to me, the touch casual and friendly though I wanted it to be so much more.
She looked up at me, her blue eyes sparkling like an ocean in the sunshine. “Sorry I dragged you straight into manual labor. That probably isn’t why you’re here.”
I let her step out of my arms. “I wanted to take you on a date, if that’s something you’d like.” I looked between her and Eric, whose lips were twitching in mirth.
“I’d love to, but unfortunately, I have a video call with the east coast firm in—” He looked at his watch.
“Shit, thirty minutes. I better go shower.” He strode over and kissed Hailey softly on the lips.
“Have fun with Louis.” He looked at me and winked.
“Be good, kids. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. ”
“Accidentally bonding with the waitress is okay then?” Hailey teased, and he smacked her ass. “What, too soon?”
“Love you, mate,” he grumbled against her lips, then he disappeared into the ensuite bathroom.
“Love you too,” she called back and dragged me downstairs. “I do, you know. I didn’t think I could love anyone, let alone someone this quickly,” she murmured softly. “He’s just so easy to love.”
I hummed my agreement, because this was a minefield. One wrong step, and I’d confess how easy they both were to love and beg them to mate with me. On my knees. With my face between her thighs.
Walking to the fridge, she grabbed us both a soda. “What, uh, did you have planned? For our date? Should I change?”
She was in shorts and an oversized T-shirt that I thought might have been one of Eric’s. Her hair was in a messy bun, and her nose had a soft strawberry flush, probably from the exertion. Beautiful.
“No, you’re perfect. I thought I might take you to my favorite place on pack land. I, uh, packed a picnic. There’s a water hole though, if you want to grab some swimwear. Or you can skinny dip. Most weres do. We are very casual about nudity.”
Laughing, she headed toward the downstairs bedroom. “I’ll put on my bikini. I’m not sure I’m ready to shuck my human hang-ups just yet.”
I watched her go and sucked in a deep breath of oxygen that wasn’t laced with the scent of her desire. Fuck. I was going to have to go on my date with a hard dick like an asshole, but she smelled so damn good.
She returned in minutes, dressed in a soft sun dress and cute sneakers. She looked like every wet dream I’d had as a teenager came to life. “I’m ready.” She stuffed her phone into her pocket. “I’ll just run upstairs to tell Eric we’re going out.”
She was gone in another instant, and I resisted the very real werewolf urge to chase my mate.
My potential mate. I was trying not to get ahead of myself or put the pressure of all my forevers on her shoulders.
She bounded down the stairs, her eyes sparkling with happiness, and I gave up. She had all my forevers. She didn’t know it yet, but my heart, and my wolf, were set on her. “Let’s go!” she said happily.
I wanted to wrap my arms around her and carry her around like something so precious that it would shatter if I put her down even for a moment. Instead, I opened the door for her and raced ahead to get the passenger door too.
“Chivalry isn’t dead after all.” She laughed, climbing in.
I came around to the driver’s side and slid in.
“Respect is big in the pack. It’s how we keep cohesion.
We still fight occasionally, and we disagree a lot, but the alpha especially fosters a pack of respect and community.
We help where we can, and we open doors for people. We’re a village. A family.”
She tilted her head as we reversed out of the driveway. “Isn’t there any just… like, bad apples?”
I frowned. “Of course. Not many though. It’s very rare that someone is born bad.
The pack is very involved with raising all the kids, so there’s no trauma that happens behind closed doors.
No one turns the other cheek to someone struggling.
There are weres who don’t enjoy that, so they move on to another place or pack that suits them better. That’s always hard.”
She chewed on her lip, her eyes unfocused as she stared out the window. I knew her upbringing was difficult. We’d all eavesdropped on her interview with the CVPD the other week. I hated that she’d suffered, but I wanted her to know my family wasn’t like that.
I pulled down the fire trail that would lead to the water hole. The main one was often frequented by the pack, but there was a little offshoot farther up the rock face, and it was harder to get to, even for werewolves.
I parked at the base of the fire trail and grabbed a backpack from behind the seats. “You aren’t scared of heights, are you?”
She laughed. “I was a stripper for six months. You can’t climb a pole in nothing but a thong for that long and have a fear of falling.”
I hated that there had been other men, human men, drooling over the nearly naked form of my mate, but I would never say anything. She did what she had to do to survive, and I respected the hell out of that.
“Is it true that the pole spins and you don’t actually spin around the pole?”
Hailey opened the car door, but I raced around so I could help her down. She smiled and tapped her nose. “Can’t tell you the tricks of the trade. You’ll have to try it yourself.”
Grabbing her waist, I lifted her from my truck. She fit in my hands so perfectly. “Do you think I’d look good in a thong?”
A brief scent of desire flooded my nose.
“I think you’d look good in anything… or nothing.
” I closed my eyes and breathed slowly through my parted lips so I didn’t put her back in the truck and eat her out as my picnic.
“If you keep saying stuff like that, this is going to be the shortest date in history.” Putting the backpack on, I waved at the rock face.
“Come on. It’s just a little climb, and then we’ll be in paradise. ”
When we made it to the bottom of the cliff face, she looked up at it skeptically.
“It’s pretty easy to climb, except for that last ledge. I’ll carry you up the last bit if you’d like. All you have to do is wrap those pretty legs around my waist, and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
She breathed out a giggle, but she grinned as she picked her way up the rocks.
I hovered behind her, making sure she didn’t fall.
I’d taken this route up the rocks a million times over the years.
The guys and I had hung out here every summer throughout high school.
We got drunk for the first time up here.
I touched my first set of boobs up here.
It was a sacred place, and it seemed right that I was taking my future mate here.
We got to the last, more difficult climb, and we paused. “Do you want me to carry you?”
She chewed her lip but shook her head. “I can make it. It’s only like ten feet.” I didn’t tell her that most weres could make the jump and pull themselves up.
She started climbing and only made it a few feet before she looked down at me with a grin. “Are you going to look up my skirt?”
Shaking my head, I scrambled up closely behind her. I wanted to be able to catch her if she fell. “Nope. Going to climb with my eyes closed.”
“Liar,” she purred then continued. Little did she know, weres, and my pack in particular, took consent very seriously. I wouldn’t so much as breathe in her direction unless she wanted me to. She was captaining this ship, and I was just a helpless castaway hoping she’d give me a single kiss.
We finally made it to the plateau, and she let out a soft gasp.
It was beautiful up here, that was for sure.
There was a small waterfall that created a natural pool before flowing off the ledge and down the rocks to the large pool at the bottom.
Someone had carved a fallen tree into a long bench and dragged it over beside a flattened boulder that we used as a table.
“Louis,” she whispered, “this place is beautiful.”
It was. Out here, it felt like no one else existed in the whole world. There were no problems that couldn’t be solved by dipping in the cool water then lying on the smooth rocks as the sun warmed your skin.
With Hailey here, it might be the closest to heaven I’d ever get.