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That’s newly sprung in June…”
Our eyes held steady as he began to recite the final lines of the poem. Our scents played across my senses like a symphony. My own roses mingling with the sharp elfwort that I’d smelt on Paxton a year ago. Learning they were close gave me some insight to finding my mate’s smell on another’s clothes. Thank Goddess, it was an alpha. If it had been an omega, I would have clawed their eyes out. Or I would have shot to kill, instead of mistakenly wounding, as I had with Paxton.
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.”
“You could have written it,” I said as he finished. “I read it and was reminded of something you wrote. Do you still write poetry?”
“Did I write poetry? I don’t remember. Does a soldier have time?”
I turned away, hurt by the fact he didn’t remember the little bits of poetry he used to scrawl in the margins of my sketchbooks.
“What could we have been?” I wondered aloud. “Would you remember the poetry you used to write if we were mated and married?”
“You’d have become the wife and mate of a printmaker, Trix. You’d be stuck in a small flat above a shop, you’d not know the world, and your talent would go unappreciated.”
“Is that why you left, Tod?”
“Yes… I would have returned, Trix. But it wasn’t to be. You were presented at Court. And it seemed like the right thing to do… Letting you go.”
“Then why flirt with me now?”
“Flirt with you now?” He reached over and pulled a curl that had broken free from my braid. “Do you desire us to leave you alone? I doubt we could if we tried. It is too hot for you to be out here. I was considering a swim in the lake… Not as cold as the North Sea but I am sure you will enjoy the cold water against your skin.”
“Do you propose I get naked?” I did not like how my body responded to the thought of my alpha mate seeing his mark on me. “Do you promise not to…”
“I’ve no interest in knotting you in the middle of the lake, if that is what you are worried about.”
Unfortunately, there were a great many things he could do without knotting me, and every one of them made me long to strip my clothes off and race him to the lake. “No.” I said forcefully. “That is a horrible idea.”
“Hardly. You’ll faint if you stay out in this heat. I must water the horse, perhaps let him swim. I insist, Trix… Do not make me throw you into the lake.”
Like a reluctant school girl, I trudged after the whistling alpha. Whistling! Since when did he whistle? Since when had he learnt to wield that power as deftly as Da Vinci did his brush? If the alphas were reversed, I would have picked a fight with Paxton over this easy confidence that Jack exuded. On my mate, I wanted to climb him like a monkey.
“You can hide behind King if you don’t want to watch…”
“You know how much I hate horses.”
“Turn around then.”
Hearing the rustle of clothes was almost worse than if I’d witnessed him strip. He was broader in the shoulder, under the layers of cloth I knew he would be hard… No. I should not be thinking of hard things.
“Are you done?” I cried out.
“Yes. You next.”
“Don’t look.”
“I’ll keep my back turned… Unless you want me to watch.”
“No.” I shouted, knowing what would happen if I gave into temptation. His naked chest was branded on my memory. Seeing it in the flesh, matured and muscled would test all my resolve. If I looked, I’d find myself knotted in the middle of a lake where anyone could come upon us because I had none of his self control. Even if he said he wouldn’t… I did not trust my restraint in the face of the gravitational pull between us. Never mind that he would watching me if he turned around.
I peaked over my other shoulder, where I knew he would not be. The sunlight glinted across the still lake, nearly as tempting as the promise of seeing my mate naked. I closed my eyes imagining how the water would be as cold as the sun was too hot on my fair skin. Jack had dared me to join him for a naked swim. Oh Goddess, this had been a mistake, but I could not turn back now. I began stripping. Each piece of clothing I removed I carefully folded and placed on the too dry grass. Eventually I could not stall any longer. I spun around. Jack stood there as promised. His broad, soldier’s back to me. He must have ducked under for the water glinted as it dripped along the lean lines of muscle, and the hair on his head damp.
My first step into the water had me squeal. The second was easier. The third almost bearable. By the time water reached my waist I had begun to enjoy it. I waded out past Jack, deeper and deeper until the water teased the underside of my breasts, then I slowly lowered myself until the water reached my neck. With the water at my neck I just about managed to keep my voice calm when I told him, “You can turn around now.”
I watched, transfixed as he turned. His broad chest was both like and unlike. His mate stain stood out, flushed a deep port colour and slightly swollen like a wound that had become infected. A not inaccurate description since the toxin from my mate gland had infected him—right before my eyes. Proof I had a mate. From there my eyes moved up, glancing over defined abdominals and the dark hair that curled on his chest, and up still further to his face, which watched me as intently as the cat watched the mouse.
