Page 111 of The Enforcer's Rejected Mate
“It’ll be a tight fit though…sorry.”
He comes to my bed with a shrug. “I’ll take the chance to have you close.”
I stare in shock at the alpha while he makes himself comfortable in my bed. He doesn’t make an effort to make himself smaller to make room for me. Instead, he settles in and takes up as much space as a body possibly can in a bed this size.
Just because Thorne is insanely sexy doesn’t mean he can just hog the bed.
I cross my arms and glare at him. “Excuse me, and where am I supposed to lay down?”
Thorne puts an arm over his eyes with a sigh. “Right here,” he says, tapping his chest. “Can you turn the light off or do you want me to do it?”
Maud used to say a fly would fly in your mouth if you didn’t shut it. Now is definitely one of those times for me. “I, ah, what?”
“The light. I can get it.” Thorne moves his arm off his eyes and looks up at me. “Is it by the door?”
I’m too stunned by what’s happening to do anything else but answer him. “Yeah,” I tell him. Thorne’s up and out of my bed and across the room to flip the light off and back again in record time. I’m only now processing what’s just happened when he settles back down and motions for me to come closer with a “C’mere, lay down with me.”
I don’t even think twice. I lay down with Thorne and let him tuck me into his side.
“Do you have enough room?” he asks. I’m half laying on him, our bodies pressed flush up against the other. There’s no me without him. Not with the way we’re laying together. I turn to look up at him, the moonlight slanting through the window lets me see him clear as day.
He’s so pretty. I wonder if anyone has ever told him that.
“You’re pretty,” I say. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“No. You’re the first.” The corner of his mouth lifts in a smile. Pleasure warms my chest at knowing I’m the first to say it. “You’re delirious if you’re saying that. Get some rest for me. Please.”
His voice gentles on the ‘please’ and I smile when I lay my head down on his chest. It doesn’t feel weird to be in bed with Thorne, laying in his arms with my cheek on his chest and just having told him he’s pretty. It feels right. The ache that’s confused me for days lessens until it falls quiet and so do I as I fall asleep in the Enforcer’s arms with the afterglow of having a first with him.
Chapter
Forty-Seven
THORNE
Idon’t plan on getting in bed with Cordelia. It’s one of those things that just happens, which is ironic considering I never believe the people that claim things ‘just happened’. This isn’t getting caught with my pants down at the wrong time with someone I have no business touching. It’s Cordelia. I shift and look down at her. She’s fast asleep, face squished against me while she curls into my side.
I’ve never slept with anyone before but it’s easy with her. I reach out and run a finger down the bridge of her nose before I trace the space between her brows. She stirs slightly when I do that so the next time I touch her I make sure to keep my touch light. Dark lashes fan out against her cheeks, full lips parted with sleep, hair slightly mussed. She’s beautiful.
She’s starlight but I knew she would be without seeing her up close like this. I’ve been up close to Cordelia before but this is new. She’s relaxed in a way I’ve never seen before. She looks younger, innocent, the kind of girl that was never taken away from our pack.
I watch her for another minute before I slide her arm off me and get out of bed. I managed to get a few hours of sleep which is more than I thought I would get laying in bed with her. I onlymeant to watch over her while I waited for a good time to leave. I’d need to leave before sunrise if I wanted to get to the Eastern Ridge at a decent time. It was four hours from where we were and I planned to arrive an hour or so after sunrise. Lucian and the others would be there and ready to make moves after the Moonshadow Pack. It was a solid plan, a perfectly logical plan that was nearly derailed when I fell asleep next to Cordelia. The second she curled into me and I felt the soft sigh of her breath on my skin…everything got foggy. I relaxed and fell the fuck asleep.
I’m lucky I’m trained to wake up early. If I wasn’t…hells, I’d still be sleeping the morning away while the patrol went on without me.
“Playing with fire,” I mutter. I stop at the foot of the bed and look Cordelia over. She rolls into the space I was just in and snuggles into the pillow. She pulls it close, nose pressed to it and only after a deep inhale does she calm and go still again.
Did she just scent me?
It’s a stupid question. I know she did. An alpha’s scent is calming to an omega and vice versa for an alpha when it’s the right omega. I couldn’t smell her but I knew Cordelia would be the right kind for me. I grab the blankets that got kicked lower on the bed and rub my wrist on them to make sure they carry my scent. When I’m satisfied they smell enough like me I tuck them around her.
I brush away the hair that’s fallen over her brow. “I’ll be back soon,” I tell her softly, being careful not to wake her. I know she can’t hear me but it’s important I say it because it’s true. When I’ve gone on patrol I’ve always done so for the pack. I’ve never had anyone to come home to, no reason that was all my own. Now I do.
I’m going to fix this shit and make it safe for her. I’m going to make the world bend to my will so that she’s never worried or scared again.
I slip out of the cottage and keep a careful nose out for the alpha that was here last night. Her ex-mate.Keiran you little fucker.
I stop at the top of the hill in front of Cordelia’s cottage and scan the woods around it. The mountain soars up behind the cottage. How did he get this close? And where did he go? When I tracked him last night, his scent was the oldest in the backyard and the woods around the house. He’d been there first. Must have gone straight there and then doubled back over his tracks to where he first came up on the cottage. I could spell his stench leading back down to Red River but there was no use following it with Cordelia back in the cottage. I went back to her fully intending on going out to track Keiran down but then she’d asked me to stay.
