by Milly Taiden
No, she was his mate.
It had taken all of his self-control to not track her down in the middle of the night. That would be one way to scare off the lovely human forever. He lay in his bed, formulating a plan to get Willow into his life. Every idea that popped into his head was too aggressive, too wolf-like. Without knowing what to do, he’d texted his sister.
You up? he had tapped out. Her response, that yes she was still awake, had been nearly immediate. I need help with something. But you can’t tell the parentals about it. Deal?
A long string of emojis had graced his screen, most of which he didn’t understand.
Of course! Tell me!
His large fingers were a menace when it came to texting. Impatient with his slow messaging pace, Ella called him.
“Spill it, big bro.”
With a sigh, Dax had told Ella all about the beautiful Willow and her sudden appearance.
“Why does she matter so much? Oh! Do you think she’s your mate? Is that why you want to find her?”
Dax didn’t want to answer that question. He felt that Willow should know about that before anyone else. It was the respectful thing to do, in his opinion.
“Would you stop trying to marry me off? You sound just like Mom. I just want to see her again. Tell me what I can do to get her to agree to go out with me.”
“Duh,” Ella had sighed. “You have to ask her out. Take her someplace special. If you’re not sure what she would like, ask her to pick the place. Whatever she decides will be very telling of the kind of person she is. Don’t forget,” Ella’s voice had turned worried, “whatever woman you bring home will one day lead the pack with you. You have to make sure that she’s the right kind of person to lead by your side.”
He knew that all too well. And he didn’t have a problem with it. Every instinct inside him told him Willow would be a good match not just for him, but for the pack, too.
He rolled his eyes. “Take her someplace special or to wherever she wants to go. Great. I could have figured that out on my own.”
“No,” Ella had laughed, “you would have fucked this up really bad because you have no experience in the mushy side of love. Melanie wasn’t exactly good relationship practice.”
“Always going for the jugular, Ella,” Dax teased before ending the call.
He paced the length of his cabin until the sun had risen over the forest. He had no idea where to take a woman like Willow, but he would let her decide. Dax wanted Willow to feel special, to feel just how amazing she was in his eyes.
It’d taken him no time at all to track down her apartment. Willow’s scent would forever be branded on his senses. When she hadn’t answered her door, a neighbor of hers told him that Willow worked at a nearby café. The woman had barely finished her sentence than Dax was already back on the prowl, looking for his mate.
When he spotted her behind the coffee shop’s counter, greeting and serving every customer with a smile—even the belligerent ones—Dax felt his heart grow and his wolf growl.
She was right there, looking more delicious in her black jeans and green top than any of the pastries in the display case. He had waited his turn, not wanting to disrupt the flow of the service. He needed her, but that didn’t mean he was going to get her fired.
When her eyes had fallen on him, finally, the wolf inside him had pushed against his skin, begging to be let out. Dax fought that battle, preferring to be civilized. His resolve had slipped when he had walked behind the counter to kiss her. Thankfully, Willow’s boss had dismissed her for the day.
That had Dax mapping out all of the day’s events, all of the ways in which he would take Willow. Her legs wrapped around his shoulders as he fucked her with his tongue. Her tits bouncing in his face as she straddled him. Him plowing into her from behind.
Yes, that’s the one his wolf wanted. Then he could bite her neck and mate her. Willow would be theirs forever.
Dax was already willing to give her everything he had. Anything she would need or want to be happy. And so, he had no problem swearing he had never had group sex. Not only was it the truth, it wasn’t his thing. Had Willow asked if he was going to try to get into her pants again, that would have been a different story.
“Tell me what you want to do,” he asked her, letting his fingers play with the ends of her ponytail. “Anything, just so long as we can spend some time together.” He wanted to add that it would be even better if the activity were the naked kind. But Ella’s words chose that time to echo through his brain.
Willow took a deep breath and tapped her chin, deep in thought.
“If I say I want to see your wolf form, would that be okay?”
Dax’s heart did a sliding thing inside of his chest. It felt like love, but he couldn’t think like that just then.
“You want to see my wolf?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s part of you. And if we’re going to take the time to get to know each other, I figure I should get to know your animal as well.”
Her smile lit up the entire truck, and Dax’s wolf pushed against his skin. She’d asked to see him, all of him. If Dax hadn’t known she was his mate before, he would have known in that very moment. Willow was so willing to get to know him, to know all of him
The women in the pack were just interested in him for his body and because he was the future alpha. Willow didn’t care about any of that. She legitimately wanted to be with him, and that made Dax feel like he was ten feet tall.
“You won’t get scared?” he asked, cupping her face in his hand, his thumb running across her lower lip. She shook her head. “Okay, then let’s go to my cabin. We’ll have all of the space we need.”
“But first, stop at a grocery store.”
Dax eyed her, confused.
“I need supplies for something. You’ll make yourself useful and help me with a project after I’ve met your wolf.”
“Should I be concerned?” he asked teasingly.
Willow shrugged and flipped her hair over her shoulder. The gesture nearly made him crazy.
“Only if you mind getting dirty.” Her words went straight to his cock.
Oh, they’d be getting dirty all right.
Chapter Twelve
Willow glanced around in wonder. Dax’s cabin was even more beautiful than she remembered. That first night, she had been too turned on to really take in her surroundings, and she had completely ignored the back half of the cabin.
There was a living room with a beautiful wall of windows that gave the perfect view of the forest. To the left was a large fireplace set in pretty gray stones. This gave way to a small yet beautiful kitchen with a modest island in the center of the space. The marble counter-top glimmered by the sun streaming in from the skylights. The cabinets were a deep brown color, a stark yet beautiful contrast next to the cream-colored walls.
“This space is amazing,” she said, dropping the only bag Dax had let her carry onto the counter.
“It’s all right. I like the privacy, and I like being so close to the woods. It soothes my wolf.”
“Who lives in the big house we saw back there?”
“My parents and my sister, Ella,” he answered, placing his palms on the counter.
He looked tense, and Willow wondered if he was nervous about showing her his wolf. Was that something shifters did? She should have asked. She hoped she wasn’t being rude. Her motivations were completely selfish. She wanted to know everything there was to know about Dax.
She wasn’t the kind of woman who had sex to have sex. And the one night they had shared had been so incredible, Willow wasn’t exactly hoping to leave it as a one-time thing. The fact that Dax had found her suggested he felt the same. She would hang on to that for a bit.
But truly, she was behaving so differently than her usual self. She was studying to shape and educate young minds, and here she was, in a relative stranger’s house, hoping to get fucked silly again.
Her mother’s, Noelle’s, and Amy’s words all played out i
n her head. They all wanted her to be happy. To take a chance. With a deep breath, Willow decided she would be the brave woman her mother and friends wanted her to be. Especially if it meant she could spend more time with the very sexy Dax.
“You look deep in thought,” Dax said, pulling her away from her thoughts. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes. I was just wondering if this is all family land?” Willow asked.
“Pack land, actually. It belongs to the alpha, which just happens to be my family. So I guess you weren’t wrong.”
Willow started taking things out of the bags as she talked about the boys and girls club where she did volunteer work as a tutor. The cupcakes were to celebrate the end of midterm tests. All of the kids had done well, and Willow wanted to make sure they knew their achievement meant something, that it hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Dax busied himself putting the ingredients away. His eyes were always on her; she could feel them. It made her a bit dizzy with desire. But she wasn’t going to fall into his bed again. Not just yet, anyway. They had things to do.
The first of which was the wolf thing. Willow was dying to see what a shifter wolf looked like. Once they had put away the perishable items, Willow stood in the middle of the living room.
“Show me your wolf,” she said, a thrilling shiver going up her spine.
Dax took giant steps in her directions. He grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it off of his head. Willow had to make a conscious effort to keep her mouth closed. Dax had abs for days, and they ended in that V-shape, which was nothing more than an arrow straight to his cock.
“What are you doing?” Willow’s voice was raspy with desire. She almost started stripping herself.
“If I don’t take my clothes off before my shift, they rip. And I kind of like this shirt.” With a wink, Dax undid his pants.
He stood in tight black briefs. The outline of his dick was right there, and if Willow wasn’t mistaken, he was half-hard. She wanted to get on her knees and take the thick length between her lips.
His hands went to the waist of his underwear, and Willow swallowed audibly. He had to take them off to shift. She knew that. But she hadn’t realized how turned on she would be by Dax’s stripping.
With no sign that he was self-conscious about being nude in front of her, Dax removed his underwear.
“Ready?” he asked her, a smile bending his full lips.
Fuck me, Willow thought before she could stop herself.
But no. That wasn’t the point of today. Even if it killed her. They were here to get to know each other. Not to know each other in the biblical sense. They’d already done that. And they could do it later. A lot. God, she hoped they did that later. A lot. Her underwear felt damp, and the man had just stripped. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if he touched her. She’d probably spontaneously combust.
Willow watched as Dax’s skin sprouted fur. His limbs shortened and bent at odd angles. Before she knew it, an enormous gray wolf was staring at her. The animal had the same eye color as Dax, a deep green that resembled the thick forest. Did wolves have green eyes? Probably not. That must be a shifter thing.
The massive wolf padded forward, and his tail wagged happily. Willow balled her hands at her side to keep from touching Dax in his wolf shape, but she really wanted to touch him. This should be the only time she felt a wolf.
“Can I touch you?” She thought it was better to ask before she just reached out.
Dax sat on his hunches and made a little noise. She took it as a sign that it was okay. Taking a few unsure steps forward, Willow held out her hand and rubbed Dax’s head. The fur was coarse, at first, but soon turned soft.
“This is insane. You’re a man.”
The wolf shook his head, and a few moments later, Dax stood before her, in all of his naked glory. She tried to keep her eyes above his waist.
“So, now you’ve seen my wolf.”
“I have. And he’s kind of beautiful. You have the same eyes, in both shapes. Is that normal?”
“I suppose. I never really thought about it. Are you super freaked out that you had sex with a shifter?”
The words seemed to be loaded.
“You’d taken that blocking drink, right? So technically, I didn’t. I had sex with a regular man.” Willow knew the words sounded like a taunt, but she didn’t regret them one bit. She knew that by the day’s end, she would definitely have sex with a shifter.
“Let’s get baking,” he said with a wink.
With a sagging of her heart and naughty bits, she watched as Dax put his clothes back on, watching his muscular ass move as his powerful legs worked. If his abs made her want to lick them, she wanted to bite the smooth looking skin.
It was a new desire. One she’d never felt before.
It had to be because Dax was such a fine masculine specimen. He did things to her insides. He did things to her lady parts. Willow couldn’t even muster fear that he was a shifter.
Though she should’ve probably asked more questions, she felt safe in his space. She felt confident Dax wouldn’t hurt her.
Needing to distance herself from him while her raging hormones cooled, she walked to the kitchen and began rummaging. She tracked down a few bowls, a muffin tin, and the ingredients they had just purchased.
“What?” she asked when she noticed Dax had been watching intently.
“Nothing,” he answered with a broad smile on his perfect lips.
“Well, make yourself useful and help me. These cupcakes aren’t going to bake themselves.”
Really, Willow needed to do something before she climbed over Dax, tearing away at his clothes.
Chapter Thirteen
Watching Willow in his kitchen did something to his insides. It made him want to lock the doors and beg her to stay with him forever. That would be coming on too strong, though. He knew that.
Mate. Mate. Mate, his wolf kept repeating inside of his head. Dax knew it too. There was no way in hell this woman wasn’t for him. He had to do something to distract himself from the erection growing in his pants as he watched her bend down to grab the mixer from a low cabinet.
“You mentioned you were studying to be a teacher?”
There. That was a safe topic. He definitely didn’t want Willow to think he only wanted her for her body. But man, what a body it was. She wasn’t too short, but he could easily tuck her in under his chin. She had curves for days, and he wanted to get his hands on them again. He really wanted to bend her over and pound into her from behind while he tweaked her nipples.
The dirty vision was clear in his mind.
“Yup.” Damn. What had he asked her again? Right. She was getting her degree in education.
“What made you choose that field?”
Dax wanted little pups of his own one day, but he couldn’t imagine feeling the urge to raise other people’s kids for them.
“Well, my mother, really. It was her dream that I become a teacher.”
“And is it your dream?”
Willow was quiet for a few long seconds. Shit, should he have asked that?
“It’s my dream, in a way. You know, to live a life that she would have been proud of. To be the good person she raised me to be. And I do like working with kids. The way their little eyes light up when they finally understand something they’ve been struggling with. Or when they say something so profound that you wonder if they really are just a kid. Those moments feed my soul.”
“Sounds like you’re going into the right field then. I see you as a teacher. There’s this shiny aura of caring around you.”
He watched as she blushed, shrugging off his compliment. But he meant it. There was something special about her. Both Dax and his animal could sense it.
“You’re making me sound better than I am.”
“I’m really not,” he said, meaning it.
“Yes, well, anyway. What is it that the CEO of a logging business does, exactly, Mr. Wolf Shifter?”
“You remembe
r that?” He felt flattered that she did. He’d only mentioned it in passing the night they met. She nodded. “Well, I oversee the employees, most of which are pack members. I make sure we follow all environmental guidelines, and I also work in conjunction with a preservation group. For every tree we fell, we plant a new one. It bites into our profit, but it ensures our future generations will have jobs and clean air. So it’s a win in the end.”
“That’s actually pretty noble. Not many large companies would do that.”
“I can’t take all of the credit for that idea.”
He was being modest. It had been his way of bringing his family’s company into the present. If he said that to Willow, it would sound like he was bragging, and that definitely wasn’t the kind of person he was.
“Do you enjoy the work you do?” she asked.
“I do. I’m also the future leader of the pack, so that adds to my daily tasks. But I like it. It keeps me busy.”
“Idle hands, right?” she teased.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
At that moment, his hands were idle. It gave him all kinds of ideas. Things he wanted to do with her. Most of which were of the naked and dirty variety.
“Let’s get started on those cupcakes,” he said, desperately needing the distraction.
It wasn’t lost on Dax that they made a good team. They seemed to be entirely in sync with each other. They complemented each other well, and they fell into an easy conversation. It was nice. He learned all about her mother’s illness, and he told her all about his own parents.
“Sounds like your parents are happy together,” she commented.
“They really are. It gave me an idea as to what a good marriage is. I want what they have, you know? A partner in all things.”
He didn’t add that this also included ganging up on him to convince him that he needed to find his mate. He had found her, his beautiful Willow. But he knew he had to take it slow with her, seeing as she was a human who didn’t necessarily understand the way of this shifters.
