The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel (3 page)

“Bathroom?”

Looking like he’d forgotten something he
jumped up. “Oh, shit. Sorry.” He held his hand out for her and
pulled her up gently.

“Why are you sorry?” She followed him out of
the family room down a short hallway.

He cleared his throat again and looked
sheepish, “I wanted to wake up before you, and be, you know,
dressed? So you didn’t freak out.” As if she wouldn’t know that
they’d had sex. At least once, but probably more, considering the
stickiness between her legs.

Before she could even think of a response to
that, they were in what looked like a master bedroom that someone
had taken a wrecking ball to, and stopped in front of an open door
in the far wall.

He left her standing and rushed around in the
bathroom and the bedroom for a minute and then said with a slight
pant, “There’s fresh towels on the counter and a long shirt. I
don’t know how you feel about wearing my shorts, but I put a pair
in there for you and a pair of sweatpants.”

“Are my clothes not dry? I could wait.” She
chewed her lip, glancing past him into the small bathroom.

“Um,” he looked uncomfortable, “I had to cut
them off. They were frozen to you.”

Damn it. She liked those jeans. But she’d
rather be alive then dead with those jeans intact, so she guessed
it was a wash. “Thank you, um, I don’t know your name. If you told
me, I’ve forgotten.” Hello embarrassment. What a fantastic story
for their grandchildren.

“It’s alright, Karly. We really didn’t…do
much talking, so I don’t expect you to remember everything. My name
is Linus Mayfield. I’ll go make us some breakfast. Take your time,
call if you need anything.” He looked like he wanted to give her a
kiss or something, but before she could close the distance to him,
he grabbed some clothes out of the closet and took his cute butt
out the door.

She shut the bathroom door and used the
toilet. While the hot water got going in the shower, she looked at
herself in the mirror and gasped in shock. Hickeys ran up and down
the length of her neck and there were bite sized bruises on her
shoulders and down the meat of her biceps. She checked her neck
carefully and didn’t see the tell-tale four dots that indicated he
had marked her as a mate. Wolves were twitchy about marking, and a
wolf that marked a woman without a discussion would be upset with
himself. Unless they were psychos of course.

She marveled at the feelings inside her. Her
heart beat soundly in her chest, blooming with first love. And her
body was singing for him. Like, literally. If they hadn’t just
officially met, she would have called him for some hot shower sex.
She was disappointed that their first time together was missing
from her memory. She must have been really out of it from the cold,
but her body knew what to do regardless.

The hot water coursed over her, the pressure
hard enough that it stung at first, but she welcomed the feeling
after a while and used his generically male products. He clearly
didn’t have a girlfriend that stayed over, or he would have had the
tell-tale bottle of floral body wash. She was very glad for that
news. All he had was a bottle of V05 shampoo and a bar of soap that
smelled like Irish Spring. You could tell a man’s sex habits by
checking two places: the fridge and the shower. If he had any sort
of feminine bath products in the bathroom or wine coolers in the
fridge, then he was used to overnight guests of the female
variety.

She used his hairbrush and the hairdryer she
found underneath the counter to dry her shoulder length black hair.
She wondered if Linus liked the way she looked as she pondered her
reflection. She was short and curvy with her mother’s pixy features
and a mixture of her mother’s ivory skin and her father’s Egyptian
olive coloring, so she had a nice year-round tan.

She looked at the boxer briefs with a smile.
At least they weren’t tightie-whities. She put them on, and the
sweatpants, which were twice as long as her short legs but at least
had a drawstring. She rolled the bottoms until her feet, in his
white socks, peeked out, and then she held up the long sleeved
t-shirt that advertised a garage called Pete’s. It looked well
worn, so perhaps he worked there. Without a bra, her generous
breasts threatened to split the fabric, but there wasn’t exactly
anything she could do about that. And he already knew what they
looked like. And felt like. And tasted like, considering her aching
nipples. She allowed herself a moment to blush at her wantonness,
and another moment to yell at her brain for being unable to recall
what they were like together.

Vague memories poked in her mind, and she
scanned through them. She could hear herself asking him to take
her. Pushing when he offered to leave. He had growled, more than
once. She could guess what she’d been thinking when she woke up in
his arms, safe and alive – that she was glad that he’d saved her
and that she’d known even subconsciously that he was hers. And she
was lonely. Achingly lonely. And tired of searching.

How do you start a conversation that changes
everything?
Hey, Linus. Thanks for saving my life and what I’m
sure was plenty of hot sex. By the way, I’m your true mate and
we’re perfect for each other. So when can I move in here?

Somehow that seemed crass. Perhaps she didn’t
need to say anything. He would know that they were mates, and if he
hadn’t figured it out yet then he’d figure it out pretty soon and
then she could tell him everything.

When she came out of the bathroom, she found
the bed put back together and the room straightened. He must have
been working furiously fast while she was cleaning up. The smell of
bacon assaulted her nose as she walked out towards the kitchen that
was attached to the family room they had woken up in, and found him
standing at the stove in jeans and a black t-shirt. His hair was
damp, so he clearly had another bathroom in his house and had taken
a quick shower. Or she had taken a damn long one.

He turned as if he could sense she’d come
into the kitchen and gave her a smile. “Have a seat.” He gestured
with a fork to the table that was set for two. Coffee in a pot on a
coaster, milk and sugar, orange juice in small glasses.
Adorable.

She poured a cup of coffee for herself and
fixed it with milk and sugar. “Thank you, Linus. For saving my
life.”

“I’m glad I found you. I hope breakfast for
dinner is okay, I don’t do too much cooking. I’m mostly a grill
kind of guy.” He smiled again and turned back to the stove.

“Breakfast is great, thanks.”

She took the quiet to peruse the man that had
gotten to know her so well physically without knowing more than her
name. Tall, over six feet, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist
that spoke of good genes and discipline. Muscular but lean, a
perfect combination. Strong jaw, straight nose, and powder blue
eyes. She’d never seen eyes quite that color. So light, so pretty.
His dark brown hair was short and tousled, the perfect length for
grabbing and holding onto. She mentally patted her angel nature for
picking out such a perfectly handsome man.

It was damn hard not to think about sex
around him. He looked like a man that didn’t know how sexy he was,
and that made him even more irresistible. She tried to think of
other things except him, so that her body didn’t start smelling
like a horny teenager, but that didn’t work, so instead she
concentrated on remembering the lyrics to Henry the Eighth. By the
time she got to the tenth verse, he came to the table with a bowl
of scrambled eggs with melted cheese, slices of thick cinnamon
raisin toast, and crispy bacon.

As he sat down, she said, “So it’s 8:30 at
night, but it’s still Friday, right? I didn’t lose a whole day, did
I?”

“Yeah, it’s Friday. I found you around 1:30,
maybe, by Fischer’s Creek.”

“That’s good.” It had been 12:30 on Friday
morning when her neighbor, Mrs. Beckinson, had banged on her door
and begged her to help find little Jacques.

“Was the dog yours?” He asked, a sad look on
his face.

“No. Dead, right?”

He nodded. She told him the story, and he
laughed at her self-deprecating humor. Only an idiot would run out
into a blizzard to find a dog that had nipped and growled at her on
more than one occasion.

She looked out through the back sliding glass
door to the snow that lay piled up high on the deck. “Is it pretty
bad out there?”

He looked disappointed for a second but then
his face shifted to neutral, “City’s on lockdown for the next
twenty-four hours at least, maybe forty-eight, depending on how
fast Damsen can get their streets plowed and come here. Are you, do
you have someone you need to call?”

Aw, was that his roundabout way of asking if
she had a boyfriend? “No, I live alone and my parents are in West
Virginia. I don’t want to intrude on your life, Linus.”

He snorted and took a bite of his eggs. “I
don’t have much of a life, Karly, and that’s the damn truth. You’re
the most exciting person to cross my doorstep, ever. I’m sorry, if
you’re ashamed of what happened between us. I won’t,” he sighed low
and dropped his eyes, “I won’t touch you again, I promise.”

She tapped her fork on the table until he
looked at her. “Don’t be rash.”

“But, I don’t want you to think that I, well,
it wasn’t,” he stuttered and floundered and his face flushed a most
adorable crimson. She’d never seen a shy wolf before. It was pretty
easy to guess that he’d been burned before and was twitchy about
probably everything about women.

“Linus, Linus,” She put her fork down and
reached over for his free hand and squeezed it, wanting to comfort
him, “it’s okay. I mean I’m a little mortified because I didn’t
remember your name, but I feel safe with you. And I’m not ashamed,
I promise. I mean, unless you have a girlfriend or wife?”

His eyes narrowed just slightly, “Ex wife, no
girlfriend.”

“Good. Well, I’m single, too,”
painfully
single
, “and judging from all my hickeys and my aching joints,
I’m guessing we had lots of fun and next time around I’d like to
remember, okay?” She flashed a grin at him, and he laughed, the
tension easing from his shoulders and his lips breaking into a
smile.

“Okay.” He smiled. Sweetheart. Funny, shy
wolf.

The quiet stretched for a few minutes while
they ate and then he put his fork down suddenly. “I have to tell
you something, and if I don’t I’m going to hate myself.”

She put her fork down and folded her hands
and waited, giving him an encouraging smile.

“I’m a werewolf.” He said the words like they
hurt his mouth. As if she might freak out at the mere thought.
“You’re safe with me, I swear I won’t hurt you or anything, I just,
I can’t pretend I’m human because I’m not entirely. And if you
thought I was, I didn’t want you to think I kept it from you on
purpose.”

He ran both hands through his hair as if it
were a nervous habit, and then peeked up at her through the veil of
his thick lashes, those baby blues imploring her to be kind.
Whoever had hurt him was going to pay if she ever saw them
again.

“I knew you were a wolf when I woke up.”

Confusion reigned. “You did?”

She took a moment to decide if she should
tell him exactly what she was, but he probably wouldn’t know the
history of her people; it wasn’t a story that got told around the
campfire much anymore. In fact, a lot of the wolf packs she ran
into thought it was just legend. “My father is second of his wolf
pack.”

He straightened. “Your mother is human,
though, right? Because you don’t smell like a wolf to me.”

“Yes,” she smiled, “she’s human.”
Sort
of.
“What do I smell like to you?”

“Vanilla.” He blushed again and she felt warm
from head to foot. When he met her eyes again, the heat banked in
the depths told her that he was feeling the connection to her as
strongly as she was. With some difficulty, he picked up his fork
again, “Please tell me about yourself, Karly.”

“Well, I’m 22, I’ll be 23 in the fall, and I
have three brothers, and a fine arts degree, and I like to paint
and take photos and be creative. And I just moved to North Paddock
less than two weeks ago.”

“Why did you come here, for a job?”

I came to find you
. “I’ve been doing a
bit of traveling, trying to find my place in the world. There was a
guy in my father’s pack that kind of flipped out and got a little
possessive of me, and I knew he wasn’t the right man for me, so I
decided to head out on my own.”

He looked surprised. “How long have you been
traveling?”

“15 months, give or take.”

“Because he couldn’t take a hint?”

“Not just because of him, because there
wasn’t anyone in my father’s pack that I wanted to be with and I
didn’t want to stay when there were other places for me to
explore.”

He hummed in his throat, looking
disappointed. “So you won’t be sticking around, then?”

Aw. Where was his self-esteem? “Actually, I
plan to stay.” He brightened considerably and then she used his own
questions on him. Age 27, he was fourth ranked in the pack that was
led by his close friend and his mate who was close to her age. They
were mated from childhood but had some problems getting to the
place they were now, but he didn’t seem to want to dwell on them,
and that was okay with her. He skipped his childhood and went right
to the meat of his romantic history which was apparently very
short: married for less than a year to a wolf groupie and that
ended three years ago.

“Do you miss her?”

He shook his head. “No, I miss the time I
lost pining for her and I hate that I, that I will have to tell the
woman I want to spend the rest of my life with that she’s not the
only wife, you know? I feel like I’ve already betrayed her.” He
looked away, leaning back in his chair.