Still naked. The sly smirk on her face as she reached for the door.
Fuck, I was instantly hard watching her walk through the bathroom.
“Good morning,” she said and stepped under the showerhead, water pouring over her body. She’d brought in a toothbrush and toothpaste and brushed her teeth, one arm slung under her breasts and her hip cocked out to the side as she did.
Fuck, I’d seen this shit in movies and TV shows, but watching it happen for real right in front of me… Damn. She mesmerized me, head to toe. My mate was real, not some fantasy or some girl trying to impress me. She had flaws and quirks, and she leaned over and spit out toothpaste into the drain just like I did.
I snickered at my ridiculousness. Of course, she was real. Jade was better than any fucking fantasy.
“What?” she asked, putting her toothbrush on one of the shower ledges, and stepped into my embrace. I wrapped her arms around my waist, and her body fell in flush with mine, her breasts pressed against my upper stomach.
“Nothing. You keep surprising me.”
Her nose scrunched up, and her warm green eyes met mine. “How so?”
I shrugged, not wanting to explain how absolutely goofy I was for my thoughts. “It’s a good thing. Now, there’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
“What’s that?” She asked, stepping back under the warm water after shivering.
“Wash my mate.” I didn’t wait for an answer, just picked up the bodywash and loofah and began the fucking satisfying work of cleansing Jade, every fucking inch of her. She gasped here and there and, from the sway of her body while I touched certain areas, I realized this was more than just showering. I was getting a hands-on study of my mate. Bending down, I washed between her legs gently, knowing she would be sore from her first time. But when she moaned and rocked her hips into me, hands on my shoulders, I hoped her soreness wouldn’t last long.
I wouldn’t last long either. Fuck, I was about to come while washing her.
“Aramis.” She called my name, and my dick twitched, answering the heed.
“Yes, female of mine?”
“I need you.”
Three words, and I was fucking undone. “Are you sure?” I asked and then wanted to slap myself on the forehead.
“I’m sure.”
I got on my knees right there on the shower floor and asked her to spread her legs. She hiked one of them up and positioned her foot on a side ledge, opening herself up to me, this time all her shyness gone. My mate was glistening with wetness as I kissed her thighs. Her hands knotted in my hair, pulling me closer to where she needed my mouth, my tongue. My Jade tasted like honey and apricots. My personal favorite.
“Aramis, please,” she cried out, almost in a whimper.
With both hands, I reached behind her and kneaded her ass while my mouth got to work. One day, I would explore that area further, in fact, I hoped Brax and I would take her at the same time, when she was ready, but for now, this was perfect. Lapping at her clit, I soon found a rhythm that had her breaths turning shallow and her skin heating under my touch. Moving a hand around, I slid one finger into her slick entrance and then another, pumping them in and out of her while continuing to drive her over the edge. Jade rocked her hips against my mouth, and I knew she was close by the sounds coming from her, driving me to a slow madness. With puckered lips, I enveloped her clit and sucked, keeping up the pace, making sure she was completely satisfied.
In three tugs on her sensitive bud, she screamed my name and bucked against my mouth over and over, riding out the pleasure.
“Oh my Goddess,” she said, her movements slowing and her breaths evening out.
I chuckled and stood to kiss her, my cock pressed into her lower stomach. “That was incredible, mate,” I murmured against her lips, and she nodded, flushed and glassy-eyed.
The door opened, and in walked Braxton, rubbing his eyes and taking clunky steps. “Having fun without me?”
Jade laughed and kissed him then pulled me closer so my cock met the split of her ass. “Nah, we were just getting started.”
So much for getting up early. After another hour of shower play, we were out and scrambling to get something to eat and get to class. Jade and I each had two finals left and Brax had one. He’d been able to take the other one early because the teacher loved him.
He would pick up our suits for the dance.
“I’ll see you after?” I kissed Jade’s forehead after walking her to her first final.
“No, I’m going over to Nora and AJ’s to get ready for the ball. Girl time. Makeup and hair and eyeliner and all the girly dance things.” She sounded both excited and nervous at the notion.
I sighed. “Okay, but I’m willing to take one for the team and spend the night with you, no makeup, no eyeliner, no dress. I’m just saying. It will be a sacrifice, but I’d do it for you.”
Playfully, she slapped my chest and kissed me quickly before kissing Braxton as he headed to his own class. “Go, you two. I’ll see you tonight. You’re picking me up at my room at seven.”
“See you then.”
And because she liked it and I liked it even more, I swatted her butt, loving the way she yelped in response.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aramis
We were on our way back to the suite to get ready for the dance when we heard it. Brax froze and stared at me. “Shit.”
“No kidding.” The dance was a couple of hours away, and Headmaster had decreed the Yule run afterward was not going to happen due to danger. Running in daylight was one thing, in his opinion. Nighttime was too risky, even though no signs of the hunters had been found since the incident that made the local papers. I’d heard rumors of disquiet from the other students. The Yule run was considered critical for setting up a good new year, and canceling it was not well received. “Looks like the precautions were wise.”
“We’re right by the door to outside. It’s so chilly today, all the windows are closed. Do you think anyone else heard it?” Braxton stood still, head cocked.
I listened as well. “And another one. Doesn’t sound too close. Maybe it’s not on campus.”
“Maybe.” But he sounded dubious. “But I think…”
“You think we need to check.”
“Yes.” Brax rested his hand on the doorknob. “Our mate is going to kill us for not taking her along.”
“I know, and if she were here with us, we’d have to, but since she’s elsewhere…” I shrugged. “Let’s go.”
As we exited into the chill, another shot rang out, closer. “If they are trying to get you, why are they firing when you weren’t outside? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Unless they are trying to lure me out. If they know anything at all about us, they know my position, even if it’s mostly in name only, would not permit me to stay under cover while others were in danger.” I tugged my clothing off, piling it next to the building.
“And you have to prove them right? Nobody is actually out here right now to be injured, so far as we know.”
“If you’re coming, shift and let’s go, beta. We have a job to do.”
A moment later, we were tearing cross country in the direction where the shots came from. Rage consumed me that these villains would disturb the peace of our school in this way. And if they thought they had an easy mark in me, they were mistaken. When we came within a hundred yards or so of where we gauged the hunters to be, we slowed and gave a wide berth. Our wolves were in communication, something we’d begun to do ourselves since last night, a little, apparently triggered by the mating. But for now, the wolves were better at it. We decided to circle around behind and hopefully surprise them.
The cold air was sharp in my lungs, my paws stinging from the frosty ground, but I stepped carefully and quietly, trying not to alert our quarry.
“I think we’re wasting our time. We’ll have to get the prince another way.” The gravelly voice broke the stillness ensuing since the last shot. “He isn’t goi
ng anywhere, and I’m freezing my ass off. Give me that flask.”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” So there were two of them. At least. Dropping to my belly, I squirmed closer, followed by my beta.
“I’ll decide that. I have to do something to keep warm. If he wasn’t worth so much, I’d go do something else. Maybe get a real job.” The first man snorted at his own joke.
“Who wants him again?”
I turned to look at Brax, who lay next to me. We were only a dozen feet away from the pair, and it appeared there were no more.
Answers! Looks like we’re about to get some.
I want to rip their throats out. My beta had good ideas. And hearing him was getting easier.
Not yet.
“Some cousin from Bulvania or something?” the first man said.
“What the hell is Bulvania?”
“I don’t know, some Eastern European country. He wants the throne, the current prince is an only child, and if anything happens to him, his cousin can come loping in and take over. But it doesn’t matter. All that does is the small fortune he’s paying to bring the prince to him where he can kill him and claim it was a fair fight…challenge…whatever these animals do.”
I worked hard to suppress my wolf’s growl as I waited to see if I was going to learn anything more.
“And he wants us to shoot him to do this?” Man two, who wore a red-plaid jacket, queried. “Why can’t we kidnap him regular, like we always do.”
Always? These jerks are professional kidnappers. Brax’s mental tone held outrage.
Looks like it. But this is their last job.
“I think he believes this one would be too hard to take healthy.”
We were right, Brax said.
And he’s right.
I brought up my hips, poised to leap on them, when red-plaid-jacket guy said the thing that would have sealed their fate if it hadn’t already been sealed.
“We’ll still need to get the female he’s been hanging around with. The cousin doesn’t want any possible heirs if he’s been fucking her. Do you think they do it like the animals they are?”
“Probably. Ahhh!”
A blood-curdling scream followed from man number two who would have a hard time talking with his throat torn out. His blood was bitter in my mouth, but victory was sweet. I spat it out, and then turned to where Brax had the other asshole pinned to the ground, his jaws an inch from ending him.
Stop.
He threatened our mate.
And my family line. He has information we need. That my father needs. Just incapacitate him.
Brax’s eyes glittered, but he obeyed, biting through the man’s leg with a tremendous crunch of bone. To his credit, my beta managed to avoid severing any arteries. Such an injury might have prevented him from living long enough for dear Dad to interrogate him. Or perhaps to have the very sadistic member of the pack who enjoyed such things do the deed.
An hour later, I was in the headmaster’s office on the phone, talking to my father for the first time in a while. I never doubted he loved me, but sometimes he was so busy, so entrenched in his position, it was hard to find time to be father and son. “Yes, Father. Headmaster is having the live one chained in the dungeon until you can pick him up. The other, we wanted to leave for the coyotes.”
“Son, that’s not a good idea.”
“Of course, we didn’t. He’ll be buried in an unmarked grave.”
“Better. I’ll have someone come for the human tomorrow. And I’d like you to come home at the same time. I think we have a lot to talk about.”
I drew a deep breath. “I’ll come home, but I want to drive myself. My beta and our mate will be coming with me. I want you to meet her.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jade
I’d bought the dress months ago, and it hung in my closet, pestering me silently that I wouldn’t have a date or any reason to wear it at all. I’d tucked it away to the side, behind the sweaters I didn’t really care for that my mother hand-knitted for me with cats and lollipops on the front.
But today, I pulled it out and hung it in the bathroom to steam while AJ fixed my hair and gave me what she called a smoky eye. Yes, black eyeliner was one of my best friends, but she’d used some gray eyeshadow and some kind of liquid dark silver glitter, and, after she was done and I looked in the mirror, I knew she was some kind of miracle worker.
“Oh my Goddess, get the dress on. I have to see the whole thing.” AJ jumped up and down, clapping. I tugged the red-velvet halter dress from the hanger and pulled it on, no bra needed for my medium-sized but perky breasts. She tied the ribbons behind my neck, and I made sure they were tight since they and my curves were the only things keeping this damned thing up.
“Okay, I’m straight and all, but Goddess, you are sexy as hell right now.”
I shook my head and turned to look in the mirror and gasped. The dress hugged every part of me as though it were a second skin.
“I look great,” I said, surprising myself.
“Yes, you do. Okay, I’ve got to go get dressed, and you need to wait for your men.”
“Hey, AJ?” I asked, bending to position my shoes so I could get them on without ripping my dress.
“Yeah?” Her hand poised on the knob.
“What about the…? I mean, are they showing up tonight?” She knew as well as I did who I referred to. We didn’t talk about it much because she didn’t like to, but Nora and I knew she had two men interested in her, and from her blush at the mention of them, I knew she liked them back.
“I don’t know. They’re busy and have things to do and…I’m not sure. I’m never really sure.”
I nodded, and she left, sadness in her eyes. Shit. I shouldn’t have brought it up.
She hadn’t been gone long when a knock at the door made me jump in my heels. My men were here.
Men, plural. I was sure there would be a time when the idea didn’t shock me so much, but I smiled as today, right in this moment, it still did.
I opened the door, wishing I had a place with a staircase so I could saunter down and watch my mates with mouths open like in the movies, but this would do.
“Come in,” I beckoned, and both of them stood in the hallway, mouths agape, not moving, not coming in. “Anyone home?” I joked, snapping them out of it.
“Jade, you are stunning,” Braxton came in first while Aramis straightened his bowtie and tugged at his buttoned-up collar.
“Thank you.” I beamed under my mate’s praise.
Aramis came in and put down the flowers he was holding. His face was priceless as he wrapped his arms around my waist and whispered in my ear, “I swear, you are the most beautiful woman in the world. You are every day, but tonight you’re especially gorgeous.” Then he sweetly kissed my temple, and I had a flash of what we’d all done in the shower this morning. Heat flushed my entire body, and he chuckled as though he could read my thoughts.
“After the dance, Jade. I promise,” he said into my ear again and stepped back.
“Okay, are we ready to go?” If we didn’t get out of here soon, we wouldn’t be leaving at all.
“First, we wanted to talk to you about something.” Aramis sat on my bed and patted the empty spot beside him. Braxton sat, leaving a space for me in the middle.
“Okay…” I dragged out the word, a little worried.
“We were talking earlier and a dorm room, nice as it is, isn’t really the place for a mated, wait, we’re not a pair. What are we?”
Braxton chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. Move on.”
Aramis nodded. “Anyway, we are mated and need our privacy. So, I took the liberty of renting us an apartment. It’s actually meant for teachers who choose to live on the school grounds, but of course—”
I interrupted, “For a prince, the rules are bent.”
He smiled and took my hand in his. “Yes. Just until we are done with school. Afterward, well, my family has several houses we can choose from, or we
can buy another one, or if you don’t like any of those, we can have one built. That’s down the line, of course. So, while we are at the dance tonight, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to arrange to have your things brought to the apartment.”
Wow. Moving in. A big deal. But then again, we were mated.
“That’s great, actually. This way I can walk around naked all the time and not worry about being caught.”
They both stammered for something to say but ended up speaking in gibberish. I’d broken them.
“Don’t tease us, mate,” Braxton said, the first one to get his head on straight again.
“Not teasing at all. Now, is that all? This dress was made to dance.”
Aramis grunted. “That dress was made for sin.”
Chapter Twenty Five
Jade
The ballroom glittered with decorations prepared by a committee I’d been a member of last year. I’d served punch and cookies with my friends AJ and Nora, just single girls helping out who didn’t have a mate of their own. Tonight, I had no time to pass out gingerbread wolves and dragons.
AJ was dancing with two guys rumored to be real dragons. She swirled and dipped and laughed, but something about the whole thing seemed not quite right. Nora was still on the fence about her four Volkovs, but I had no doubt they would win her over in time. They were really quality guys who treated her well, and anyone could see the yearning in her expression. As long as the Volkovs were patient, they’d live happily ever after with my dear friend.
And I didn’t really have time to worry about their love lives. I was a mated woman, and as soon as we graduated, we’d be moving to Aramis’s pack so he could take up his position as Prince of Wolves. I’d always heard it was an empty crown, but it seemed his father had begun to bring the wolves together again. Which, in this troubled world, might be a very good thing.
On the way to the ballroom, Aramis had told me we would all be spending winter break with his family. At first, my hackles went up. Alpha or no, prince or no, he was not going to just make decisions for me, for us, on his own. That caused a short sit-down in the foyer while he explained what he had in mind, and we voted.
Jaded Love (The Lycan Academy Book 4) Page 8
