When he’d slid inside her, he’d known.
Alethia was his mate.
Maybe he should’ve told her right then, but he’d been a bit distracted. And she’d been so sleepy right after. He wanted to make sure she understood what this meant, to talk to her about the future.
The future they were going to share.
Grey let out a silent laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. He never would have imagined that he’d find his mate in a bar in Ryder’s Lodge.
He’d never imagined that his mate would be someone like Alethia.
When he’d thought about it, he’d always pictured a tomboy, a woman who wore hiking boots and a baseball cap instead of heels and makeup. He’d always figured that a woman who liked clothes and nail polish and… all that stuff…wouldn’t be happy with him.
But now that he’d met Alethia, he knew different. She’d been so happy that he was willing to listen to her talk about the things she liked. It was such a simple thing. Sure, he couldn’t hold up his end of a conversation about lipstick or whatever, but he wouldn’t say no to learning a bit about things that had always been a total mystery to him.
Besides, anything that made her look that insanely beautiful had to be worth talking about.
She’d probably be happy if he bought her some… things.
Grey’s instincts liked that. A present for his mate. The snow leopard inside him was eager to kill something and drag it back for her to admire.
Fine, he’d stalk the wild feminine accessories and get her a surprise.
He frowned, thinking. Clothes needed to be tried on, and he had a vague understanding that women were very particular about that point. Makeup… He’d be completely hopeless. He’d walked past makeup aisles in stores and glanced down them, totally bewildered at how many options there were, wondering how the hell women knew what to get. He’d have a ninety-nine percent chance of getting the wrong thing.
Maybe a bath… thing? One of those things you put in the bath and it smelled good. Or a perfume. Surely it’d be hard to go wrong with that. His sense of smell was excellent.
And this was only the beginning. As time went on, if he
did
listen to her, he’d learn what she liked.
Grey thought about years in the future, being able to bring home her absolute favorite perfume. Or some piece of jewelry that she’d eyed in the store but turned away from because it was too expensive.
Years
in the future.
This was his mate, sleeping next to him. He was distracting himself with little things because this seemed too enormous to be real, that he could have stumbled across his mate so accidentally, now, tonight.
If he’d refused John’s invitation, he’d never have met Alethia. Had it been some kind of fate that led him to accept? He’d never know, but he was more grateful than he could say.
Years
. They were going to have years.
Grey watched Alethia breathing softly in sleep, and smiled.
***
Ali woke up to her phone buzzing.
Normally, she was groggy and disoriented when she woke up, and if she was somewhere unfamiliar, it took her a while to sort herself out and remember what she was doing there. But not this morning.
She smiled at Grey’s long body. He was blinking awake as she leaned over to grab her purse from where she’d dropped it by the bed last night.
She looked at the phone. It was Molly. “Hello?”
“Where are you, Ali? You said you’d help me get ready for the club this morning!”
Molly had a book club, but it did more eating and drinking than reading. Ali didn’t have any interest in joining, but she was drafted to help clean and make snacks for it whenever it was at their place.
Yesterday, Ali vaguely remembered, Molly had said,
I’m hosting book club this week.
Ali had said,
Mmm
.
Ali would much rather stay in bed with Grey than go help Molly frantically try and clean the whole house while simultaneously surfing Pinterest on her phone for the perfect hors d’oeuvre recipe.
She could hear it now:
This says violets are edible! I could garnish it with violets! Do we have violets growing anywhere around here? Wait, where are you going, the counters need to be scrubbed!
But if she didn't help, Molly might just spontaneously combust.
“I’ll come home and help,” Ali sighed. “Give me a little while to get there.”
“Where
are
you? At some guy’s place? Tell him to
get his butt out of bed and drive you home!
” Molly shouted, clearly hoping to be heard by
some guy
on the other end of the line.
“See you soon!” Ali hung up.
She turned to Grey. “My sister-in-law wants you to get your butt out of bed and drive me home.”
“I heard.” He stretched. “I’d rather stay here with you.”
Ali couldn’t help the smile spreading over her face. “Me too. But I really need to go home and help her out with this, or she’ll explode from anxiety, probably. And I have work later. Maybe we could see each other again?”
Every day for the next week? Or longer?
But that wasn’t something you could say after one date, no matter how amazing the date had been.
“Tonight?” He was smiling back at her. It was a warm smile, with just a hint of smolder in it. She was struck again by how much it changed his face when he really smiled.
“Tonight sounds wonderful. I work until seven, but after that…”
“Great.” He stretched. “I can drive you home like your sister-in-law wants. Even though looking at you in my bed like this makes me want to keep you here all day.”
Ali groaned. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” His smile grew.
“It’s too tempting.”
“Let me make you breakfast, at least.”
That
, she wasn’t going to say no to. “Okay.”
He leaned over and kissed her softly on the mouth, and then got up.
Her eyes followed his long, graceful body, up and up and up. She hadn’t had a chance to just look him up and down last night, since they’d been so busy with…other things. He was lithe and muscular, with powerful shoulders and a lean stomach, with a trail of blond hair leading down to his groin. His cock was big, half-hard with morning wood.
Ali couldn’t help herself. “Wait.”
Grey stopped, raising his eyebrows inquiringly.
“Come back here.”
He came back, and Ali pulled him in by the hips, pushing him to sit down on the bed again.
“What’s this about?”
His voice trailed off as she bent down to take his hardening cock into her mouth.
Ali loved going down on a man. When you had a man’s cock in your mouth, you were in charge of everything he felt. And she was going to make Grey feel really, really good.
She teased him a bit at first, flickering her tongue around the head, pressing kisses down the rock-hard shaft. She could see his hands flexing on the bed.
When she finished with teasing and sucked hard, he made a low, sharp noise. “
Alethia
.”
She let up and started the classic up-and-down movement, feeling him move over her tongue and
just
to the back of her throat, and then pulling back until the head was just barely in her mouth, and then down again.
She wrapped her hand around the base once he was slick enough, and jerked him off in time to the movements of her mouth. He was groaning above her, a deep, lustful sound. Her mouth was full of the salty taste of his pre-come, and it was making her pussy clench with desire.
His thigh muscles were starting to tense, and his breath was speeding up. So the next time she went down, she relaxed her throat, and swallowed him until her lips touched her hand.
He stopped breathing for a second before he came, like there was a moment frozen in time, like she was holding him entirely still with her mouth.
And then he was coming, his hand landing on her head to hold her to him, his cock pulsing in her mouth.
She lifted her head. “How was that?” Her voice was almost as husky as his, now.
“
Alethia
.” He shook his head. His pupils were blown wide open, like black pools.
Ali felt smug. Right up until he caught his breath and grabbed her around her waist, tossing her back onto the pillows.
She shrieked delightedly, and shrieked again when he buried his face between her legs without any warning.
His warm, wet tongue delved right to her core. Ali’s eyes fell closed and her head tipped back, her hips rising to meet his mouth. Oh God, his mouth was so good.
He licked her hard and fast, finding her pleasure and chasing it down, until she was quivering underneath him and gasping for her breath. She moaned and shuddered as he brought her closer and closer, until her breath went out of her in a rush and she came hard, pulsing wetly against his tongue.
But he didn’t stop. He kept licking, softly at first, but when she moaned at a bolt of pleasure, he sucked at that spot. Soon she was frantically pushing her hips up again; he gripped them with his hands and held her still as he brought her off for the second time in a row.
Ali panted as she came down, her clit twitching every few moments with remembered sensation. “You are
so
good at that,” she sighed.
“I could say the same to you.” He stretched out next to her. “Are you sure you can’t stay here in bed all day?”
Ali shook her head. “I wish.”
Not that she wanted to leave Molly in the lurch, she just…would rather be here. Would
so
much rather be here.
He sighed and pushed himself up. “Well, I’ll give breakfast another shot. Although if you call me back again, I won’t be disappointed.”
He turned to walk away, and Ali replied, “Then I’d lose this view!”
He glanced over his shoulder and grinned, a twinkle in his silver eyes.
She loved that grin of his. It made him look like a teenager. And the rear view was
very
nice.
***
Ali took as quick a shower as she could, which was pretty fast; it was easier to rush a shower when all she had were man products. She stepped out of the bathroom to the smell of bacon.
“Almost done,” Grey said over his shoulder. She went to climb the stairs to the loft.
When she was at the top, a sudden suspicion made her glance over her shoulder, and sure enough, he was admiring her rear view with as much naked—ha!—appreciation as she’d had for him.
Well, it was good to know that they were on the same page.
Ali threw last night’s clothes back on and came downstairs to a big spread of pancakes, eggs, and bacon.
“Wow,” she said, surveying the food. “I didn’t know you were running a diner in here.”
“I like to eat,” he said, unapologetically. “And I like women who like to eat. Don’t tell me you were planning on having celery for breakfast or something.”
Ali shook her head emphatically. “This looks like exactly what I want for breakfast.”
“Good, then dig in.”
Ali did. It was delicious. The pancakes were light and fluffy, the eggs buttery and soft, and the bacon had the perfect amount of crisp. "This is amazing."
Grey shrugged. "I like to cook. All alone out here, the delivery options are pretty slim, so it was either learn how to cook or eat bad food. I'm too fond of food to stand for the second option."
"Me too." Ali crunched down a slice of bacon. It was delicious. "I'm an okay cook, but I never make breakfast like this."
"I love cooking breakfast. Sometimes all I eat all day is breakfast. Omelets, waffles, sausage patties... You've only scratched the surface of breakfast, as far as I'm concerned."
Ali smiled. "I'll have to come back and test the full range of possibilities."
His eyes were warm. "I hope you do."
Ali ate until she was stuffed, and then reluctantly found her purse. Her phone had a text from Molly,
where r u???
, which kept her from pulling Grey into the bed for round two of the morning. She said, "I really do need to get going."
"Of course." Grey finished putting the dishes in the sink and turned, drying his hands. "But first, I wanted to say something."
Curious, Ali came over to him. "What is it?"
He took her hand. "I know you grew up around shifters, so I guess I won't have to explain the whole thing. I can just say it."
"Say
what
?" He looked nervous. What could be making him nervous?
"Well, last night, when we— I realized something. About you."
Now
Ali
was nervous. "Grey, you have to spit it out or I'm going to start getting paranoid."