“You know,” she began, “I would have thought that someone who’d tragically lost the chance at spending their life with their true mate wouldn’t take that chance from someone else.” She’d meant to offend him, but a slow smile curved his mouth.
“That right there is why you’re perfect for me, Harley. You take no shit.”
“So you admit this is shit?”
“You won’t push me away. You’re mine.” Since she was fourteen, though she may not know it, he’d looked out for her, protected her, watched over her, and aided her—he’d say that gave him as much of a claim to her as a hypothetical mate she may or may not find.
He knew he was taking a chance by laying it all out like this, because there was never any knowing how Harley would react to a situation. She was a passionate creature who had her own codes and a quirky outlook that both confused and fascinated him. But he’d take this chance, because living without her any longer wasn’t acceptable to him. “You know better than anyone that finding your true mate doesn’t always mean hearts and rainbows and a happily ever after.”
Harley couldn’t argue with that. Even her cat could concede that he had a point there. Hell, her parents’ mating was a total joke. Lily was lost and miserable, and Clive was in a damn cell.
Jesse brushed his thumb along the crook of her neck. “I remember leaving a mark right here.” He’d do it again soon. “I remember the taste of you. Remember the feel of your pussy hot and tight around my cock.”
He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and gave it a sharp bite. She jerked away—maybe in surprise, maybe in withdrawal. Either way, Jesse didn’t like it. Instinctively, he dominantly snapped his hand around her throat. Her response was instantaneous; her pupils dilated, her nipples pebbled, and she sucked in a sharp breath. Fuck.
Harley gasped as his mouth took complete possession of hers, greedily feasting and dominating and burning away rational thought. His tongue licked into her mouth, bold and sure and taking everything. Memories slammed into her just as heat surged through her and melted every bit of resistance she had . . . and there hadn’t been much left to begin with.
Wanting more, Harley tried to deepen the kiss. His hand fisted in her hair and held her head in place, letting her know who was in charge right then. Too turned on to bristle, she went lax. He rewarded her by taking her mouth again, this time harder and deeper and hungrier. She could only cling to his shirt to anchor herself.
Then he bit her. Sank his teeth into the crook of her neck. And that snapped her out of her aroused daze. Both her and her cat bucked at the proprietary act. With a growl, Jesse dug his teeth in harder. Only when Harley stopped struggling did he release her. He licked over his mark and pulled back, savage possessiveness stamped all over his features. Her pussy clenched at the sight, throbbing with a vicious ache. “Bastard,” she hissed. “I didn’t say you could mark me.”
“I’m not a guy you can manage, Harley—you know it. Just like you know that neither you nor your cat would want me if you could control me.”
“You’re still a bastard.”
“Maybe.” Seeing her mouth swollen, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes glazed with need, it took extreme restraint for Jesse not to take that mouth again. He wanted more, but he needed her to be with him all the way. Right now, she was shocked and unsure—not to mention tired. She needed time to get used to the fact that everything had now changed for her.
Jesse swept his thumb along the black smudge beneath her eye. “You’re exhausted. Go to bed, Harley. We’ll talk more tomorrow. The bedroom’s upstairs—you can’t miss it, because it covers virtually the entire floor.”
Trying to steady her breathing, she asked, “Where will you be sleeping?”
“Next to you. But not yet.” Because there was a wolf outside who clearly wanted to speak with him. Jesse backed up, letting her hands fall away from his shirt. “Go on, I’ll be up soon.”
He watched her go, satisfaction welling up inside him despite the deathly glare she shot him. Three fucking years he’d waited, and here she was—albeit begrudgingly. With an inward smile, he slid open one of the rear patio doors and stepped outside, closing it behind him.
Nick looked up from the porch swing. “I figured you’d bring her to your lodge.”
“Did you?” His attempt at flippancy fell flat.
“Well, since you told me over the phone that if her presence couldn’t be accepted on our territory you’d be prepared to leave, yeah.” Nick pursed his lips. “I’ve never seen you even the slightest bit possessive of a female before. You’re pretty serious about her.”
“She’s mine.” It was that simple and that complicated.
“So you’re hoping to imprint on her?”
“Yes.” Shifters who weren’t true mates could still form the mating bond through imprinting—a process that mostly happened without any prompting from the couple. The bond was just as strong and vibrant as one between true mates.
“What about her true mate?”
“Fuck him.” If there was one thing that losing two people had taught Jesse, it was that life was too damn short to spend pondering and overthinking shit. He was someone who believed in going after what he wanted. For a long time, what he’d wanted most was Harley Vincent. Now he finally had her and he was damn well keeping her.
“I had a call from someone who claims to be a . . . friend of Clive’s,” said Nick. “He knows she’s on our territory and wants my assurance that she’s safe here.”
Jesse wasn’t surprised. “Clive probably has people monitoring her. Did you tell them about the bomb?”
“Yes. They said they would ‘take care of it.’”
“Which means the extremists who planted the bomb will soon find themselves the targets of an attack.”
“It won’t be as easy as that. They knew when they planted that bomb that there would be retaliation. They’ll have taken precautions, found a place to lie low.”
“One good thing about them lying low is that they won’t be able to reach her.” Even if they did try tracking her, it would take them a while to realize she was here. After all, they would never think she would join a pack, considering she was not only half cat but also had been living with humans for a long time. The moment he claimed her, she’d officially be a Mercury Pack member.
“If Clive really does run The Movement, he’ll have the resources to find them before they find her.” Nick’s gaze moved to the view ahead. “I know a lot of shifters revere Clive. They use him as a symbol of rebellion, imply he’s a hero. But I’ve heard stories from people who actually know Clive. I don’t think he was thinking of shifters everywhere when he hunted those humans. I don’t think he was pushed over some kind of edge by the death of his son. I think he was just doing what came naturally to someone who likes to cause pain.” Nick looked back at Jesse. “Do you think he formed The Movement?”
“It’s possible. What better cover is there for the front-runner than to be under lock and key? But if he was, he wouldn’t tell Harley.”
“Why? She’s his daughter.”
“I know. But such knowledge would put her in a massive amount of danger.” The Movement kept the names of the key players secret because, sad as it was, there were shifters out there who would sell them for the right price. It wasn’t just the extremists that were greedy for those names. Human law enforcement would definitely offer a high reward for such information. “Clive might be cold, but he’s protective of her. He even granted custody of her to her aunt because his pride wasn’t a good place for her.”
“What about her mother?”
“Mother” wasn’t the word Jesse would use. “Lily Vincent is too wrapped up in her own problems to take care of Harley or anyone else.”
Nick puffed out a breath. “Imagine how it would feel if one of the very few people in your life who ever made you feel important and kept you safe was a cold-blooded killer. He might not approve of you mating her. He might have hoped she’d live her life as a human
.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what he thinks or wants.”
“I can see that you’re set on keeping her. Are you sure she’ll be able to deal with you, Jesse? You’re a very intense guy. A highly dominant wolf with a very forceful personality. It’s a combination that a dominant female might find crippling and oppressive.”
“Nothing has the ability to crush Harley.” Life had thrown a lot at her, but she’d always stood strong in the face of it.
“Bracken’s family might not react well to her presence, considering they’re part of the pack that blamed her for Mia’s addiction. I’m not saying that it should influence any decision you make; I’m just saying you need to be ready for that. And there’s something else you need to think about. I know someone else who lost their true mate as a kid and then tried to imprint on another female. It didn’t work for him for the same reason that it might not work for you.”
“Why wouldn’t it work?”
“If what Bracken and Zander said is true, you walled up after your true mate died, which is only to be expected. But if you want to take Harley as your mate, you’re going to have to drop those protective walls. You need to be prepared to give her all of you or imprinting won’t fully happen. And you have to be sure you can do that before you make her promises and demand a commitment from her.”
“I wouldn’t ask anything of Harley that I wasn’t prepared to give in return.”
Nick rose from the swing. “That doesn’t mean you can do it, especially if you’ll feel guilty on some level about giving all that to her. And according to Bracken, you have a habit of torturing yourself with guilt.”
“That’s bullshit.” For some reason, Bracken had it in his head that Jesse blamed himself for Mia’s death, for not being able to find and save her. “I regret my sister’s death just as I would anyone in my family, and I avenged her death. But do I blame myself? No.” Did he miss having a drug addict hanging around, manipulating, lying to, and stealing from him and their parents—breaking their hearts on a regular basis? No. And if that made him a cold bastard, there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.
“Good,” said Nick. “Guilt has a way of eating people alive.”
As Jesse watched the Alpha walk away, he marveled at how right those words were. Guilt had devoured Mia, sending her on a dark path. He’d always thought it would be the drugs that killed her. Instead, she was kidnapped by extremists and taken to an illegal game preserve, where she was hunted like an animal and then killed. They hadn’t even had a body to bury.
He’d tried to find her and save her, but he’d failed. So he’d settled for getting vengeance by helping Bracken and Zander kill one of the bastards who ran the preserve—it had been an act of vengeance for them too, since they’d also lost family to the extremists. Nick had killed the other male who ran the preserve.
Jesse wished he could say he’d grieved for Mia as intensely as his parents had. Wished he could claim to be scarred by her death like any normal person would be by the loss of a sibling. But he’d lost his sister long before that. Lost her to drugs and alcohol and her chosen path of self-destruction.
When her drug addiction had strongly taken hold, she’d changed dramatically. Become someone he didn’t know or like. Someone selfish and abusive. In some ways, he’d felt sorry for her. After all, who actually wanted to be a junkie? Who actually wanted to be someone who would steal, lie, hurt, manipulate, and cheat as easily as they’d breathe? Surely, no one did.
He’d tried to think of her as a lost and weak-minded person who just needed help. He’d even tried to get her that help—over and over, for that matter. But he’d come to realize that Harley had been right in something she’d once said: you couldn’t help an addict unless they wanted that help. Mia hadn’t.
His soul may not be bleeding with grief, but her death had still deeply affected his life. If she hadn’t gone missing, he wouldn’t be a Mercury wolf right now. He, Bracken, and Zander had only chosen to leave the Sequoia Pack because they’d mistakenly suspected that the Alpha—an asshole of epic proportions—might have had some involvement in the kidnapping of the missing members of their families. Rather than return to their old pack, they had remained with Nick, an Alpha they could truly respect and follow.
None of that would have happened if Mia had just listened to Jesse. He had warned her that shifters were disappearing. He’d warned her to be careful, and if she had just listened to him, she might be alive. Harley would take this shit seriously, and he would ensure that the extremists didn’t take her from him. And if she didn’t like that he was suddenly all up in her business, demanding everything she had to give, too fucking bad.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was the smell of coffee that penetrated her delightfully deep sleep, but it was the sensation of a thumb breezing along her jaw that made Harley snap fully awake. And there was Jesse, staring down at her. His expression would have been as blank as always if it weren’t for the way his eyes glittered with a heat that made her breath catch.
“Morning,” he said simply.
She swallowed. “I take it that’s for me,” she said, referring to the cup he was holding. Then she caught sight of a very noticeable bulge in his jeans. Warmth flooded her cheeks as she realized her words could be taken to mean something else. One corner of his mouth tipped up in amusement.
“It is,” said Jesse.
She sat upright. “Thanks.” Taking the mug, she blew over the rim before taking a sip. He watched her, completely still. She felt awkward and vulnerable having him there while she wasn’t fully alert, especially considering the things he’d said the previous night.
“Sleep well?”
Harley nodded. She would have thought that having him spoon her all night would have kept her awake; it hadn’t. If anything, she’d settled easier having him there. Maybe because, for the first time in months, she’d felt safe. And maybe because his bed was the shit. Seriously, the sleigh bed was huge and had the comfiest mattress in the history of . . . ever. Like the rest of the lodge, his wooden paneled bedroom was very masculine and earthy.
Harley had suspected it would take a while before she finally drifted off, considering her thoughts were jumbled and her body was humming with arousal. But minutes after she’d closed her eyes, sleep had taken her. She’d stirred briefly when she felt a solid body wrap around her from behind, but, being a heavy sleeper, she’d fallen right back asleep. “What time is it?”
“Eleven thirty. I tried to wake you earlier, but it would have been easier trying to wake the dead. You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”
“Not really.” Receiving e-mails from people threatening to break into her bedroom and rape her had a way of keeping a girl awake. Her cat too, had been on edge every night.
“We missed breakfast at the main lodge. But that doesn’t matter because you and I need to talk in private anyway.” Unease flashed across her face, which hardly surprised Jesse. “Come downstairs when you’re ready and I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“All right.”
Leaning down, Jesse slipped a hand around her nape and indulged in a long, thorough taste of her. Breaking the kiss, he swept his thumb over her plush lower lip. “Belonging to me won’t be so awful, Harley.”
Watching that epic ass disappear out of the room, Harley took another swig of her coffee. Not that she was drowsy any longer. Hell, that kiss had woken her right up. It had also rekindled the low hum of her arousal that had simmered beneath her skin last night. Shit.
Unzipping the suitcase that she’d collected from the hotel on the way to Mercury territory, she grabbed her toothbrush, hairbrush, and some clothes. Once she was ready, she descended the creaky wooden stairs and found Jesse in the kitchen, cooking breakfast while talking on his cell phone. The smells of egg, sausage, and toast made her stomach rumble.
“Zander agreed to take over my shift today,” he told whoever was on the other end of the call. “I’m taking the day off.”
&nb
sp; Oh, was he now? At that moment, he turned. She fought a blush as his dark eyes swept over every inch of her with a proprietary glint. It made her nervous, but her cat kind of liked the bold move. He gestured for her to sit at the oak table, where a glass and a carton of her favorite orange juice waited. She took a seat and poured herself a glass, watching him move around the kitchen as he continued his conversation.
As he opened one of the cupboards, she glimpsed a box of Twinkies. And frowned. Jesse didn’t like Twinkies, so who the hell were they for? And was that peanut butter? He hated that, whereas Harley loved making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She glanced around the kitchen, noticing that the brand of coffee she used sat on the counter . . . right next to a box of the peppermint tea bags she liked.
He couldn’t have bought these things for her, since he hadn’t had a chance to go shopping. Either they were for his pack mates or he had a bed buddy with tastes similar to hers. Her stomach sank at the thought. Then she inwardly shook her head. No, it couldn’t be a bed buddy. Jesse was loyal to the bone. He wouldn’t bring Harley here and say the things he’d said last night if he was involved with someone.
Jesse slid two plates onto the table and took the seat opposite her. “Dig in.”
Glad to be distracted from thoughts of him with another female, Harley dived into her meal. Silence fell, which wouldn’t have been awkward for Harley if it wasn’t for the fact that . . . “You’re staring.”
“I like looking at you.”
She spluttered. “Well . . . don’t.”
Amused, he said, “You can’t be shy. You perform on stage all the time. Who taught you how to play the violin?”
“My aunt.” Her maternal family placed a lot of importance on the ability to play an instrument.
“You’re very talented.”
“Um, thanks.”
“You don’t need to thank me. I’m stating a fact.”