The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel (10 page)

He got a little angry. “I’m going to marry
her regardless, Grandma.”

She laughed. “Of course you are. It’s not
about us approving of her; we just want to meet her. And it’s
exciting for me anyway, Linus, I’ve never met an angel. I’ve always
wanted to.”

His heart started up again and his anger
vanished. “You won’t show her any of my baby pictures will
you?”

She laughed and said, “Maybe not me, but your
mom might.”

“Okay. What time?”

“Let’s say 7, so you can have time to get
cleaned up after work. And I’ll keep mum about the ring. I’m so
glad you’re asking for it. My mother would be thrilled.”

As Linus hung up and went to eat his lunch in
the break room, he thought about the ring. It wasn’t fancy, but it
was special. It had been in his family for generations, carefully
passed from one to the next. He’d never been inclined to give it to
Brenda. He was pretty sure that if he’d asked his grandmother for
it then that she would have meant it when she said no. No one had
understood why he married her and he’d given up trying to explain
himself. This was something he could do that was just for Karly. He
could honestly say he’d never given anyone else the family ring. He
could give her this one thing that was untainted by his past.

“Who the hell is making you all these amazing
lunches?” Bo asked, leaning over from his own seat and making eyes
at the spread in front of him. Compared to Bo’s fast food, Linus
was dining on five-star quality food. Today she’d packed
from-scratch mac and cheese, two barbecue chicken sandwiches with a
sauce she made herself, a plastic container of steamed veggies with
cheese sauce, and a dozen peanut butter cookies. He swore she was
getting up in the middle of the night to cook for him. He had no
idea how she did it all.

He smiled at Bo and picked up a sandwich. He
savored the bite of perfectly tender chicken and tangy, sweet sauce
and swallowed. “The girl that was in my bedroom on Sunday morning,”
he lowered his voice even though they were currently the only ones
in the break room, “she’s my true mate. She’s the one that has been
cooking for me.”

Bo gave him a critical look. “Is this the
human that Jason was giving you a hard time about?”

He nodded.

Bo was very quiet, so he went back to eating.
With every bite it was like he could feel his connection to Karly
growing, as if he could taste her love for him in the food she
prepared. He couldn’t wait to mark her. His plan was to get the
ring on Friday and then take her out to dinner somewhere very nice
on Saturday and propose and then mark her at home later. The
thought of her teeth sinking into his flesh, too, as she returned
the marks to him, made his heart thud in his chest.

“What’s that like?” Bo asked quietly and
startled him from his musings and erotic thoughts of the sweetheart
back home.

“What’s what like?”

“Finding your true mate?”

He finished the last bite of the second
sandwich and took a long drink of iced tea from a thermos. It was
peach this time. She’d added the juice from a can of sliced peaches
after she made a crumble the night before. Clever little angel.

He couldn’t stop his smile. “It’s amazing. I
don’t even know if that’s a strong enough word.” He told him about
finding her near death in the snow by the creek, and how he’d felt
instantly connected to her but didn’t realize what it was until
they were together the first time. He skipped the part about her
being his supernaturally perfect mate, because he wasn’t sure that
Bo would understand and he didn’t want rumors flying around about
her.

“So I asked her to move in with me and she
packed up Monday night.” Ah, could the mac and cheese be any
better? Damn she was a great cook.

“Just like that?”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t stand to know she
wasn’t with me. If I’d had to leave her there Monday night, too, I
think I would have camped out on her doorstep all night just to
make sure she was safe.”

Bo went quiet again and turned back to his
greasy burger and fries. Linus dove into the veggies and finished
off the pasta before turning his attention to the cookies. How she
knew exactly the amount of food he could eat, he wasn’t sure, but
it was clearly from practice. He always had plenty to eat with no
leftovers. While he chewed on the cookies, he looked at Bo who
didn’t look happy. Bo had problems, but he wasn’t the chatty sort
and although they had grown up together, Bo was a year older than
he and Jason. He had been struck by a car when he was 14 and the
damage to one leg was very severe. If he’d been hit after he was 16
and had the ability to shift, he would have healed most of the
damage, but even the change hadn’t helped him. He walked with a
limp and he always wore jeans, even in the hottest part of the
summer. He’d never had a serious relationship. Bo was one of those
silent types that you could trust at your back but you were never
be quite sure what he was thinking.

He gave him his last cookie. He could be
generous, since he’d eaten two dozen last night, licked the bowl,
and then just ate eleven. “There’s someone for everyone, Bo. Human,
wolf, or other. We’re made to have mates.” He put his things back
into the cooler and stood up.

Bo looked up at him with eyes a shade of pain
that made Linus suck in a quick breath. “Do you really believe
that?”

He swallowed the desire to ask him what was
wrong and instead gave him a sincere smile drawn from his own
truth, “I really do.”

Karly was bent over the counter and writing
something furiously when he came into the house after work. His
hands slid over the soft curves of her ass through the fabric of
her jeans and squeezed. “I love your ass, Karly. Did I mention
that?”

She wriggled her hips and tossed her hair
over her shoulder as she looked at him, “You might have mentioned
it when you were spanking me for watching one of your naughty
movies without you.”

He growled a laugh and pulled her into his
already throbbing erection with his hands on her hips. “I don’t
mind you watching, I just don’t want to miss the whole show next
time.”

He leaned over her back and hugged her,
kissing her neck and cheek. “I missed you, angel.”

Dropping the pen, she reached her hands back
and clutched at him, “I missed you, too.”

He opened his eyes and dropped them to the
page she’d torn out of a notebook. It looked like a grocery list.
“Do you want me to take you shopping tonight?”

“That would be great.” She tried to turn to
face him but he held her still and she immediately relaxed. He
reached for the button of her jeans and she tipped her face up to
kiss him. The zipper fell slowly, that low sound of the metal teeth
parting, and he slid his tongue into her mouth and tasted whatever
she was making for dinner and had been tasting before he got home.
Red meat and wine. Delicious.

He found the edge of her panties, tiny little
things that they always were, and she moaned and pulled back, “If
we play then dinner will be cold and I’m nearly out of things to
cook for us.”

“Just you, angel. Let me touch you.”

Her head dropped back to his shoulder and
tilted enough so he could kiss her neck and he slid his hand to her
pussy underneath her panties and found her wet and hot. She had not
denied him yet. No matter what he asked, she went willingly. She
teased and tormented him, but the way she let him play with her
made him want to do it more and more.

She tugged her jeans down her hips for him
and he rewarded her by sinking two fingers inside her and caressing
her clit with the palm of his hand. He sucked on her neck, hard
enough to bruise and her pussy clenched his fingers. He slid his
hand around to her throat and splayed his fingers across the length
of her neck to hold her firmly in place while he bruised her throat
with his mouth and fucked her with his fingers. His fingers pounded
into her until he wrenched a scream of pleasure from her lips and
her nails dug into his arms where she held onto him for dear
life.

Her climax seeped over his fingers as her
body clenched him again and again in little waves and she let out a
sobbing sigh and her knees gave out and she leaned heavily into the
counter. He licked the dark purple bruise on her neck and nuzzled
under her ear. Pulling his hand free, he showed her the glistening
wetness and she shivered. “I love what you let me do to you,
angel,” he said with a rough voice.

She sniffled and turned her face to him, and
he caught sight of a tear on her cheek. He kissed it away. When she
was really pleasured, taken right to that highest point he could
take her, tears would stream down her face. It had freaked him out
the first time, worried he’d hurt her, but now he knew what it
meant. She was just that happy.

“Now, pull up your jeans like a good girl and
let’s eat dinner and go shopping,” he gave her ass a light
smack.

“We could have a quickie.”

He licked one of his fingers. Exquisite.
“Nah. I’d rather wait and take my time. Why would I want to be fast
with you, sweetheart?”

She tugged up her jeans and turned around,
leaning against the counter. Her eyes were bright and happy and a
wicked little smile played across her mouth. “You weren’t planning
on getting any sleep tonight, were you?”

“Nah.” He murmured.

“Good thing.”

She watched him while he licked his fingers
clean of the intoxicating taste of her come. Fuck he loved her
watching him.

Dinner was amazing. Something she called Beef
Bourguignon with a red wine sauce. He didn’t even realize he had
red wine in the house, but she’d found it in the back of one of the
kitchen cabinets. The last of the canned potatoes were roasted with
baby carrots and little onions in the gravy, and she made a
chocolate pie for dessert.

While he drove her to the grocery in town, he
said, “So we’ve been invited to dinner on Friday at my grandma’s
house. My grandpa will be there, and my mom, too.”

She was leaning across the seat with her head
on his shoulder and hugging his arm. “They want to meet me?”

“Of course.”

“And they know about what I am? What we are
together?”

“Yeah. My grandma is the one that recognized
the tattoo.”

“My tattoo?” She looked up at him and he
glanced down at her.

“Um, Monday at lunch when I was over at her
house fixing her sink, she asked me to wait while she got something
for me and I was doodling on the newspaper and it was your tattoo.
She asked who I knew that was an angel.”

“You drew my tattoo from memory?”

“Memory? Hell, Karly, I spent a long time
kissing and licking that mark over the weekend. It’s burned into my
brain.”

She laughed and leaned up far enough to kiss
him on the cheek. “You’re such a sweetheart. How’d I get so
lucky?”

Well, they weren’t going to argue about who
was luckiest in their relationship. He was clearly the winner.

She offered to help pay for the groceries. He
tried not to let his pride get wounded because he truly didn’t
think she asked because she didn’t think he could afford it, but
because she was just polite and wanted to share in their
responsibilities. She only offered once, and he turned her down
with a kiss and a thanks-but-no-thanks, and she let it go. She
wanted to shop for a week’s worth of groceries. “But not Friday of
course, and I’d like to take you out to dinner on Saturday, if
you’re interested,” he said.

He walked next to her while she pushed the
cart through the first aisle that was dairy products. Even though
she had a list, she didn’t even check it. It seemed to be
memorized. “Sure,” she smiled and flashed him her dimple.

They talked about food in the grocery. What
else was there to talk about? He found out her favorite meal was
chicken parmesan, but she also liked a good grilled steak, rare of
course, and her favorite dessert was strawberries with chocolate
sauce. She loved her parents and had a pretty charmed life, even
for growing up in a strict old-school wolf pack. She had a few
nieces and nephews courtesy of her three alpha werewolf brothers,
and had last seen her parents at Christmas.

After he unloaded the groceries, he waited
until she had the cold things put away and then he chased her back
into the bedroom, “I’ve waited long enough, Karly.”

* * * * * * *

“You look dead beat, man,” Michael mused from
where he leaned casually against the workbench. “Is your new girl
keeping you up all night?”

Linus looked up at him from where he was
kneeling next to the bike he was determined to finish today.
“Yeah.”

“What’s her name?”

“Karly.”

He hummed in his throat. “She’s human,
right?”

“Yep.” Eventually it would come out, but it
would be on their terms and no one else’s. He could guess that Bo
had talked to Jason. Linus had expected as much.

“You didn’t learn your lesson the first
time?” Michael sniffed derisively. A few weeks ago, he would have
throttled Michael for the insult. Now, though, he could see it came
from a dark place. Michael wasn’t happy.

“No, actually, I learned my lesson well.
Karly’s my mate. My true mate. If she needed my heart to live, I’d
cut it from my chest myself. That’s never happened to me before.
I’ve never felt that way about anyone.”

Michael’s eyes shadowed darkly. “Must be
nice,” he muttered as he walked away and back to his own work.

* * * * * * *

The house smelled like fruit when he got
home, and he found his little sweetheart putting a still warm from
the oven dessert into a plastic container. She smiled as he kissed
her cheek, “It’s an apricot braid. For your family.”

He marveled at her sweetness again. He
showered and shaved quickly and when he went into the closet he
found his one pair of dress slacks pressed and hanging neatly. He’d
planned to wear jeans tonight and try to iron them for tomorrow. He
barked for Karly.