Page 18 of Jacked-up Mate
“Longest day ever,” he said later when he got in my truck.
“You worked four hours.”
“Yeah, but now that I have an alpha to come home to, it was a very long day. It seemed that way, at least.”
I held his hand. “It was a long span for me too. I will pour you a coffee and we can watch the sun go down together.”
“That sounds incredible.”
My mate and I had supper together on my back porch. Our back porch. Maybe we didn’t have to find answers to questions like where would we live. With Foster, everything was natural. I got a little twist in my tummy as the tangerine globe dipped low into the sky, making way for the moon and the night to take over.
Foster sat in my lap for the last of it. “Don’t be scared anymore, alpha. I’ve got you, no matter what happens, and you have my love.”
He was right, but I held my breath until there was no more sun in sight. And I was the same as I had been. Human head. No triangles. No webs of goop and seed. No orange fruity head.
Just me. Finally.
And all of it was because of the gorgeous omega in my hold. He’d saved me from myself with nothing else but his love.
Chapter Fourteen
Jack
The first time I kept my human form all night long, it was like a dream, one I didn’t fully believe. I tried to convince myself it was just a fluke, that it would be back the next day. Not because I wanted it to be so but because I was scared. Scared I’d finally gotten everything I thought I’d ever wanted, only to have it yanked from me.
And then the second night came and went. I cherished it and started to believe, for the first time, that it was real. My curse was lifted.
As fabulous as it was not wearing my huge jack-o’-lantern head every night, not feeling the need to hide away from the world so I didn’t terrify everyone, staying in human form wasn’t the best part. The best part was that I had Foster in my life. My mate. My forever.
I’d heard of true mates before. I lived in Whisper Grove, for goddess’ sake, of course I had. But I never fully got it, not really. I thought it was like that first feeling I had when dating someone new that I really liked. Giddy and sweet, and I thought, hey, this might be forever. But finding my true mate was nothing like that.
When I was with Foster, I was home. Sure, my heart raced and butterflies fluttered in my stomach when he smiled at me, and when he touched me, that simple caress reached deeper than anyone’s ever had before. It was so much more than that. Together, we were complete. And that sounded cheesy, maybe even silly, but that’s how it was.
A few weeks into our mating, I decided I wanted him as a forever resident in my house. Asking him to marry me was silly because wolves didn’t do that. Mating was so much more than a ring and a few words could ever be. Living together? That wasshowing commitment not only in our hearts but also in our fiscal lives.
He already was with me every night. Usually we were at my place but sometimes at the cabin he rented from his boss. Tonight, I was going to ask him to give up the rental and this be his permanent house. We were with each other every night, so it wouldn’t be a huge change. More symbolic than anything else, my way of showing him I was all in. Or that was the intent, anyway.
While he was at work doing the lunch shift, I went to the bakery and the grocery store and got the fixings for a special meal. It wouldn’t be overly fancy, but it was going to be Jack fancy.
I went back home to get everything ready. I opted for a pasta dish; that way, if he was running a little behind, it wouldn’t make much difference. Once everything was set and ready for the pasta to be cooked and plated, I went in for a shower.
That’s when everything was yanked out from under me.
As the water rinsed my hair, suddenly there was no longer any hair, and in its place? My jack-o’-lantern head.
It was back.
I froze. I didn’t know why, but my first fear was that something had happened to Foster. If finding my mate broke the curse, him being hurt or worse might bring it back.
Water off, I scurried out of the bathroom, not even toweling off, and hunted down my phone. Relief flooded me when he answered.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, it’s fine. Just go to work. I just…I was worried.” An understatement. I had gone into full-blown panic mode, fearing the worst.
“I’m coming home now.”
“Seriously, I’ll be here when you get here. I love you.” And then I disconnected the call. The more I said, the more he would hear just how wrong I was.
