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I had no clue where he put all the calories; the man had less than one percent body fat. They all did. It seemed to be a shifter thing: they were each ripped as fuck.
The cabin was quiet as I puttered around, wiping down the counters and unloading the dishwasher. My skin was itchy, anxiety riding me hard, and I needed to be busy. When Tanner was with me, I struggled to focus on anything but him. With him gone for a bit, I felt untethered.
The revelation I was ‘mated’ hadn’t sunk in, and my thoughts were a raging maelstrom. I still didn’t understand what it all meant. Not really. Part of me suspected they were pranking me and this was some kind of complex hoax. In a few days or weeks, one of them would yell ‘surprise!’ and reveal it was a huge joke.
While I believed they were shifters - how could I not when I’d seen them turn into giant wolves? - the rest of it was just so…insane…my head refused to accept it.
The upside of all the drama was that I’d not thought about Brent in days. Somehow, the threat of him finding me seemed less important. I didn’t believe for one second he’d leave me be, but the more time passed, the less scared I was.
Surely he would have found me by now if he was still looking? As a cop, Brent had access to a lot of resources. If he wanted to hunt me down, without a doubt, he could. Probably not so easily if I’d made it to NYC, but out here, where there were very few people, it was not beyond his skill-set.
“How come you didn’t try one?” I asked Cole when he wandered in, wearing nothing but a pair of athletic shorts that hung low on his hips. Low enough that I could see the deep V line of his Adonis belt.
My brain short-circuited for a moment and heat pooled between my thighs. Then I mentally slapped myself. I was a newly mated female. I shouldn’t be this horny. Tanner had spent hours fucking me since we disappeared back to bed after the highly enlightening chat this morning. It was a wonder I could walk, let alone feel like having more sex. I was now sore as fuck between my legs and looking forward to a soothing bath.
“A cookie?” he replied with a grin when he saw where my attention had drifted off to.
“Yeah.” I tried to stop myself from blushing at being caught ogling him and failed miserably.
“Didn’t want to dip my fingers in the cookie jar without you saying I could, sweetheart.”
“Um… I made them as a kind of Christmas gift for you all, seeing as how I can’t get you an actual gift…” My voice trailed off. Fuck, it sounded really lame now I’d put my intention into words. It was a dumb idea.
“Aw sweetheart, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” I looked up, my eyes narrowed, certain he was being sarcastic. But no, his eyes were soft, and he looked at me like I’d hung the moon.
“Really? Cookies?”
“Yeah, nobody’s ever baked anything for me before.”
“Not even your mom when you were a kid? I assumed that was where you learned your baking skills.”
He picked me up and popped me on the counter before standing between my legs. It was an intimate position and part of me wanted to push him away, but before I could move a muscle, I’d fallen into his gorgeous green eyes.
“No, our parents died when we were young. Rufus, the Lone Pine pack alpha, raised us. Cilla, Rufus’s mate, became a surrogate mom to us, but she was too busy to do stuff like baking. I discovered early on that I enjoyed cooking.” He chuckled. “Not exactly a manly hobby, so I caught a lot of shit for it growing up, but Tanner and Silas had my back. Tanner kicked the shit out of any kids who mocked me, and once I hit puberty, I could more than hold my own.”
“You’re so good at it,” I observed, struggling to maintain my focus on the conversation as the scent of him drove me wild. My senses were sharper since Tanner had mated me. I kept meaning to ask one of them if this was normal, but didn’t want to seem like an idiot if I was imagining it.
Cole grinned. His hands slid up my denim-clad thighs and my breath hitched in my chest.
“I’m good at lots of things, sweetheart,” he purred, and instantly reminding me of when he laid me out on the sofa like a buffet and gave me an orgasm with his tongue.
I shook my head to restore brain function. “You can try one now if you like?”
“I’d love to,” he replied with a panty-melting grin.
Leaving me on the counter, he grabbed the box of cookies and opened it. I watched with bated breath as he picked out a cookie and bit into it.
Tanner had told me they were good, but as he’d been trying to seduce me at the time, I didn’t know if he meant it. And besides, Cole was a better judge of my baking skills than Tanner.
“Damn good, sweetheart,” he said after he swallowed the remains of the cookie. “The blueberries were a nice touch.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe my cooking skills were not a lost cause after all, even if I had nearly dropped the batch all over the floor.
“Thank you. I’m glad you like them.” Heat bloomed in my cheeks as he licked his fingers. It reminded me of where else those fingers had been. From the way his irises switched from green to gold, I had a feeling he sensed where my thoughts had drifted off to. Before I could react, he was back between my thighs, his large hands cupping my face.
“Now, where were we?” he growled.
Cole
