Page 71 of Legally Mated
“I could eat,” he said diffidently and leaned in for a soft kiss. “I need tounpack,too.”
“Why don’t I cook while you unpack?” I wasn’t that bad, now that I was paying attention to it. It kind of burned me to think I was starting to develop traditional omega skills, but maybe it was also time I moved past my bachelor days of shoving whatever was edible and not moldy into my mouth for the sole purpose of not passing out from hunger. And as I pulled on my jeans, watching him in the mirror as he wiped down the glass of the shower stall and dried the floor where we’d dripped, it occurred to me that maybe this was my solution to the drug problem. Maybe, if I could spend November here, with him, I would only ever need the pills to change my scent—infinitely easier to get, and with no felony charges attached to their discovery. I couldn’t get pregnant from him—biology class, way back when I’d been a half-grown pup, had informed me of that. Yes, there was a twinge of sadness, but only until I actually thought about it, then I was glad. I didn’t much care for other people’s pups, and certainly didn’t want any of my own. So to have someone who could ease my heats without the consequences—I’d have to broach this subject with Holland and see what hethought.
He caught me watching him in the mirror and I smiled in response to his startled expression. “Salmonokay?”
“You don’t like fish.” He was still staring at me inbemusement.
“You do.” Feeling unaccountably maudlin, I crossed the two steps between us and kissed him as a promise to be kinder in the future. “I get to pickdessert.”
He chuckled and nipped at the corner of mymouth. “Deal.”
But as I turned away to leave the bathroom, I caught an uncertain look on his face, and it bothered me all the way down to the kitchen, where I buried myself in meal preparation to soothe the hair rising on the back ofmyneck.
* * *
Ishould have paidattention to my instincts—I knew something wasn’tright.
And Laine sprang the trap on me while we were full of salmon and speedily-thawed cheesecake, relaxing bonelessly on the couch with the news playing in thebackground.
“I want to talk to you about something,” he said, in a tone I’d learned to recognize as his relationship voice. The one he used when he was trying to fit me into his human mold, figure out where my pieces relatedtohis.
“Can it wait until tomorrow?” I didn’t want to talk about whatever thorn he had in his paw right now. What I wanted was to touch him again, seduce him, have him cool the heat rising in me once more. I was half-hard already and the urge to just hump against his hip like a badly taught youngster was growing in me. My body wanted him and, until he’d said those words, I’d wanted him too. Now, I was leery, despite how marvelous hesmelled.
“I suppose,” he said, the words seeping out of him slow as autumn mud, plainly showing his reluctancetowait.
“Because,” I said, killing two birds with one hunt, “I have better things to do with you now that we’re past curfew.” I thought wistfully of how nice it would be to just be able to talk openly about who I really was, then shook the thought off. No one would respect me if they knew I was omega. And I couldn’t bear to see that change in Laine’s eyes, for more reasons than I couldcount.
“Yeah?” he asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice even though, with my head tucked in under his chin, I couldn’t see it. “I should go away moreoften.”
Only in November.I slipped a hand underneath his loose t-shirt and sighed at the feel of his skin underneath my palm. “Don’t do it on my account.” I leaned in to mouth his collarbone. “Can you take this off?” I was still shirtless and the desire to feel the skin of his chest against mine roaredthroughme.
“I’ll take everything off, if you’ll do the same.” His fingers glided down my spine and I arched my back into the sensation, all my control temporarily ceded to the flush of desire that followed the light touch. Air huffed out of my mouth and he laughed and bent to press a kiss to my forehead. “You’ll have to get up, though. I’mpinned.”
I snorted and sat up, unable to stop the shiver of desire that raced over my body. “Thatgood?”
“It is.” He pulled off his shirt, but his hands paused at the pajama bottoms he’d put on after our shower, thumbs hooked over the band ofelastic.
I assumed he wanted to watch me take my jeans off, since now we weren’t worrying about the lights being on. He had started to show a shocking predilection for certain types of voyeurism since that first day. Not the kind that got you time in jail, but he’d never failed to get a certain look in his eye any time he thought my clothes might come off. Even if there wasn’t time for sex. So I slid off the edge of the couch and stood up, then paused to pull the curtains closed over the wide window that looked out over his sleepy little street. "Don't want to give the neighbors a show," I said as I made my way back to the middle oftheroom.
"That, and getting taken downtown for gross indecency." His smile stretched into a grin, then fade, turning lascivious as his gaze roamed my body, their path marked by a weird ghostly non-touch that made goosebumps rise alongtheirpath.
Slowly, I undid the button, my heart beating faster as I pulled the cloth back, lowering the zipper with a lack of speed that drove me as wild as it seemed to be driving him. Good. I liked to watch the way his lips parted, as if he was so distracted he forgot control of his body. His hands twitched as I peeled the cloth down over my hips, his thumbs still hooked in the elastic band of his pants, and he let out a long, shuddering breath, like at the end of alongrun.
Though this one was only just beginning, Ihoped.
His gaze roamed my body, but returned over and over to my hands as I freed myself from my jeans, my cock springing out in wild enthusiasm. Laine's tongue slipped out to glide across his lower lip and he sat up at the soft thump of my jeans hitting thefloor.
"God. Getoverhere."
I laughed and he stood, his pajamas flying for the floor before he reached for me. I stumbled over the edge of the coffee table and fell into his arms and he twisted so we fell onto the couch with me on the bottom this time. "Got you," he said, andkissedme.
I kissed him back, and freed my right arm so I could wrap it around him. He kissed his way down my neck, across my chest, a slight prickling over my skin as he followed the paths of invisible veins down toward my groin. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back, tangling my fingers in his hair to track the seductive movements of his head as he moved toward my cock. Don't stop, oh,don'tstop.
His lips pressed to the skin just below my belly-button, in the middle of the thin trail of hair that blazed a path from it to my omega line and parts south. "So, that thing I wanted to talk to you about," he began, and I raised my head and openedmyeyes.
"You're kidding, right? Or are you trying to talk me into something and using this as an unfairadvantage?"
He chuckled, which tickled my belly and made things lower clench in anticipation. "No, not really. But I got to thinking..." He took a deep breath and pushed away from my body. Only inches, but it felt like miles for some reason, like he was opening up some great gulfbetweenus.
