“Not pushing you?” His brows drew together.
“To consummate this mating,” I hissed at him, then lowered my voice when I was sure the others would pick up on it. “Roscoe could tell I was a virgin.”
Jackson regarded me. “And you’re mad about that?”
“I’m mad because every day that I’m still a virgin is another day that my pack isn’t safe.” I glared at him. “And you haven’t even kissed me.”
He studied my face. “I don’t want you to make a decision like that under duress. You have to be ready to move forward.”
“My pack depends on me moving forward—“
“Your personal life is yours. It’s not your pack’s.”
I began to get irritated with his attitude. “It’s intertwined.”
“To an extent. But you have to make decisions for you.”
Was he not listening to me? I was trapped on all sides. “Everything I do is for the good of the pack.”
“I know. But I want you to make one decision for yourself.” His fingers lightly touched my jaw again, examining my battle wounds.
“You’re not making this easy for me,” I said testily. “You’re supposed to kiss me and seduce me. You’re the alpha.”
“You’re an alpha, too,” he told me. And then his thumb brushed over my lower lip. “You want me to kiss you?”
I grew flustered at his direct, piercing gaze. I could still see flickers of wolf in his eyes - as it was probably still in mine. How did I answer that? Would saying yes mean showing throat to him? Could I let go of even a little bit of pride to ask for what I wanted?
“Shouldn’t we kiss?” I asked, letting my bluster answer for me.
That slow smile spread across his face. “I figured what we did last night was more intimate than kissing.”
My throat went dry, thinking of last night. My slick hands moving over his cock, and how it had made me hot just to touch him.
“But maybe you need to kiss?” Jackson asked softly. He moved a little closer to me on the bed, and I suddenly remembered that we were both still naked and sweaty from our run in the woods. His scent overwhelmed me, as did the nearness of all that bare, tanned skin.
Jackson studied my face a moment longer. “Does your mouth hurt?”
I studied his lips, in a daze with how close they were to mine. It was a strange thing to ask. My breasts ached, the nipples tight. Even my sex felt achy. Empty. But my mouth? “Does my mouth hurt?” I echoed, confused.
“Did he hit you in your mouth?”
Oh. A flush hit me again. That was what he’d been talking about? I felt foolish. “No, my mouth is okay.” Was he going to kiss me or not?
“Good,” he said, and leaned in, his hand sliding to the back of my neck and pulling me closer to him.
His mouth closed over mine.
I was startled at how fast it happened. I was kissing Jackson. I could feel the scruff of his unshaven jaw against the edge of my mouth, scraping against my cheek. In contrast, his lips felt firm against my own. He sucked lightly on my lower lip while I was still processing all the sensations, and I gasped. He continued to suck on my lower lip, then began to kiss my upper lip, caressing me in slow, careful motions. My eyes closed and I let the sensations move over me.
His tongue slicked between my parted lips.
I moaned and my skin prickled with awareness. Oh…wow. I clung to him, needing his body against mine, and my nipples brushed against his bare chest, sending twin pinpricks of arousal through my body. His tongue stroked deeper into my mouth, thrusting, and it send an odd, thrilling quiver deep inside me. He slicked into my mouth again, his tongue tangling with mine, and I began to respond to the kiss, opening my mouth for his invasion and holding onto him as he made love to my mouth. Soon, I was slick with need all over again, my pulse pounding, and the scent of my arousal hung in the air between us.
Jackson broke the kiss a moment later, and I panted against his mouth, dazed.
“No more tonight, Alice,” he murmured against my mouth, and then grazed it with another kiss.
“Why not?” I tried to press my mouth to his again, wanting more kisses. God, he kissed amazingly. I could live with his mouth on mine forever.
“Because you went through enough today, and I don’t think that any decision you made tonight wouldn’t be affected by what happened.” He gazed into my face and his thumb moved over my lower lip again. It felt swollen and delicious from his kisses. “And when we move forward, I want it to be because you want to move forward, not because you feel pressured to.”
I sighed. I wanted to move forward now. My body ached for him, and I felt delicious with need. But then his fingers brushed over my swollen eye and I winced, reminded of Roscoe.
There’d be more time for this sort of thing later.
~~ * ~~
“Don’t be nervous,” Jackson told me with amusement as we got out of the car. “It’s just dinner.”
I snorted. “I’m not nervous about meeting with the Alliance,” I said, my voice as scathing as I could make it.
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious. I could care less about meeting these two. I’m more concerned about leaving Eddie with Trina.” Holly and Dan had wanted to go on their pack run tonight, their skin itching with the need to let their wolves out, and I’d consented only because Trina had volunteered to watch the baby. I loved Trina, but she was absent- minded at best - being thirteen and easily distracted by texting - and I wasn’t sure about leaving a crawling, gurgling, into-everything baby who still couldn’t quite transform into wolf form in her hands. Any eight-month-old was a handful. A werewolf baby? Double the handful.
But Trina had looked at me with such big, pleading eyes and the others had been so quick to agree that I’d caved.
And now I was going to dinner…with the Alliance. Ugh. And I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t.
I’d even worn jeans and a t-shirt just to prove how not-seriously I was taking this. But seeing cute, adorably soft human Bathsheba again? Kind of made me a little anxious, especially since my face looked like a punching bag.
It had been almost a day since I’d last seen Roscoe and true to my wolf nature, my face was healing faster than a normal human’s would. My eye wasn’t swollen anymore; now it was just ringed with a dark blue bruise, ringed with green. There were healing cuts on my cheeks, and another equally vivid bruise on my throat.
Went well with my dark hair, I figured.
We headed into the restaurant, and Jackson’s hand automatically went around my waist, drawing me close to him. Like we were a couple. It startled me at first, and when he flashed a smile my way, I relaxed. Something about Jackson being a little possessive of me felt good, even when I looked like hell.
The small mom and pop diner wasn’t crowded. I figured it had something to do with the fact that it was the middle of the week, later at night, and the Little Paradise Cafe wasn’t exactly a hotspot to begin with. But it was close, and local, and ran by a family of were-badgers. They weren’t great with service, being a rather surly breed, but Jackson wanted to support local shifter businesses, and apparently so did Beau and Bathsheba.
I smelled Bathsheba’s scent as soon as we walked in - human female, covered by the thick scent of a feline. I wrinkled my nose, the wolf in me not a fan of cat smells. Jackson pinched my side, reminding me to be diplomatic, and I pretended to rub my nose, as if warding off a sneeze.
They were seated at a back table, Bathsheba with her long, smooth pale ponytail and demure cardigan set, seated next to a larger man with big shoulders, short, immaculately groomed hair and a pressed shirt with an open collar. They looked like any nice, white collar couple, and it was obvious from the way his hand rested on the back of her chair that they were together. The mate mark on her neck was stark, and she leaned in close to him absently while he whispered something in her ear.
I felt an envious pang at the sight of their coziness. It seemed unfair for a human to have it so very easy
