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But Tasha is none of those things.
She’s warm and devoted. She has a sense of decency sorely lacking in most people. She’s stronger than she comes off at first because of her nurturing nature. And she’s beautiful. So damn beautiful. She has curves I want to worship and a soft smile she gets when she’s pleased that makes me desperate to be the one pleasing her.
So yeah, of course I’m staring.
With a sigh, I tell her, “I’ll check the kitchen to make sure we’re covered for a few more days in case it gets too bad. You get dressed. Preferably in pants. Baggy ones.”
“You don’t get to dictate what I wear.”
I turn and start for the door before I do something I’ll regret. “Put some pants on, Tasha, or I’m going to assume it’s an invitation to drag your dress up over your legs and finally get a taste of my mate.”
She makes a small choking sound, but I keep moving. Let her simmer on my words for a while. Fuck knows that’s all I’ll be thinking about all damn day.
* * *
Tasha’s instincts prove to be spot on about the storm. I’ve barely managed to put a temporary patch in the attic where the roof leak is before the first crack of thunder hits. It catches me off guard, and I nearly step off the joist I’m on to avoid falling through the ceiling.
“Fuck.” It’s only a thunderstorm, but it makes me antsy to get back to Tasha. I want to be there protecting her even when the danger is minor.
She’s back in the library hovering over those birth records again as if we don’t have bigger things to deal with than my runaway siblings. She’s stubborn. I wish she would focus more on her own family. The sooner we figure out where the danger is coming from, the sooner I can send Dominic’s guys home.
I don’t like having a bunch of unfamiliar wolves so close to the house. He might trust them, but I don’t.
Besides, I don’t like the idea of other males being so close when Tasha isn’t marked yet. Her mark from her last mate has already faded to nothing. It’s bittersweet that I want that mark gone but don’t want her to seem available to other shifters.
My chest is heavy with irritation as I carefully work my way back to the pull-down ladder and climb down to the main floor. Now that I’ve thought about it, all I can think about is how many unmated males might be outside these walls just waiting for their chance to claim my mate.
She’s powerful and beautiful. Any wolf without a mate of his own would be stupid to not lust after her, but she’s mine.
She’s mine,my wolf agrees. Now we just need Tasha to get on board. No doubt her wolf already is. Her wolf wouldn’t dare turn its back on our mate bond when it would be as good as signing a death warrant. Wolves struggle to survive losing a mate. No matter how strong Tasha is, no wolf could survive losing two mates.
Tasha can pretend all she wants that rejecting me is an option. It’s not. It’s just fucking not.
“Paxton?” As if my thoughts have conjured her, she appears on the other side of the attic ladder.
“Everything okay?” My thoughts about her have me so on edge that I force myself to watch my own hands as I grab the bottom rung of the ladder and lift it up, pushing the whole mechanism so that the ladder folds and then disappears behind the ceiling panel.
If I look at her right now, I’m going to make a mistake. Like reading something into the fact that I just noticed from the corner of my eye that she’s wearing a skirt instead of the pants I told her she needed to wear.
I barely manage to stifle a groan.
“Your phone was ringing, so I answered it.” She pauses, waiting for a reaction. If she thinks I’m mad about that, I’m not. Anyone that hears her answer my phone will assume she belongs to me. That can only work in my favor, and I have nothing to hide.
“And?” My tone is bored, and her eyes narrow like that somehow makes her suspicious. This woman is exasperating.
“Dominic’s pack wasn’t safe out in the storm. They’re staying in a cabin as close to the property as possible, but he can’t send them back out until the storms have passed. He wanted to make sure we’re extra cautious in the meantime.”
“No one will be stupid enough to come up here with the rain coming down this hard. There’s no visibility.” I don’t like not having the extra protection, but that’s how packs are. They’ll do what’s good for the pack no matter what it means for any one shifter.
“Why are you frowning so hard then?”
“Not a fan of pack culture.”
She snorts softly. “Yeah, that’s been abundantly clear.” Her voice drips with disdain.
“I would say I have good reason considering where I came from. In fact, if the stories about your family are true, I’m not sure why the hell you would care for pack life, either.”
“What stories?”
