by Tami Lund
“Matt Tigre,” he said, standing up and offering his hand to shake. Steve accepted it, pumped once and then dropped it before retreating to what Matt guessed was his favorite armchair. His mate, Sandra, introduced herself and shook his hand, too, her smile nervous. He recognized them from pack meetings, but was pretty sure he’d never had any actual interaction with them until now.
“I twisted my ankle,” Shay said into the uncomfortable silence that descended.
“Should’ve gone to the competition,” Steve replied, completely unconcerned, apparently, over his sister’s health.
“Fuck off,” she snapped, and then she blushed and gave Matt an embarrassed look. “Sorry.”
He smiled. “It’s okay. I’ve heard that particular word before.”
“Did you learn anything?” Steve wanted to know.
Shay gave him a cross look. “Yeah. That I shouldn’t go hiking without proper shoes,” she snapped.
There was a knock on the door and Sandra hurried to answer the summons. They heard her say, “Oh my,” and then Rachel and Adora stepped into the room. Matt waited for Josh to appear as well, and when he didn’t, he hurried over to the two women.
“What the hell are you doing here—alone?” he demanded, glaring at them each in turn.
Adora gave him a wide-eyed look. “We aren’t alone. We came together.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” The woman could be so damn infuriating sometimes.
“We drove straight here,” Rachel said as she stepped further into the house. “We didn’t stop for gas or anything. Hi everyone. I’m Rachel Tigre,” she said to the room at large, as she waved and smiled.
She didn’t quite get the same response. Sandra couldn’t decide who she wanted to stare at—Adora or Rachel. Steve almost completely ignored Adora and stared at Rachel. His son was having the same problem as his mate, and Jonas stared at Adora with a look of greatest longing on his face. Shay simply looked surprised.
“Please, come in,” she said. “I’d stand and greet you, but, well…” She waved at the foot that was propped on pillows in the couch.
Rachel gingerly perched on the couch near Shay’s foot. “Too bad Tanner and Olivia already left. She could have fixed you up right and tight. Maybe I should have Josh talk to Tanner about seeing if one of his healers would be interested in moving down here to join our pack,” she mused out loud. “Didn’t he say one of them was mated to a shifter? That might be a good choice.”
Matt smiled, appreciating her obvious concern for his pack. “Lisa and Dane. They aren’t mated, as far as I’m aware. Just sleeping together. She lost her mate a little over a year ago,” he explained for everyone else’s benefit. “And Dane, the Lightbearer healer, helped her deliver the pup she was carrying when her mate died. As different as they are, Tanner says they seem to have a pretty solid relationship. I don’t know why they don’t mate formally. Tanner says the healer treats the pups as if they’re his own, as does his entire family. Even the Lightbearer queen treats them like she’s their grandmother.”
“Ain’t natural,” Steve muttered. “Healers.”
Matt fixed him with a cool stare. He’d forgiven Shay her fear of healers, but her brother didn’t sound fearful so much as…prejudiced. “Do you know Kim Hendrix?”
Steve grunted. “Sure. Work with her mate.”
“Then you probably know she had a difficult time whelping her last pup. In fact, she almost died.”
Steve’s expression turned uneasy. “Yeah. I heard.”
“The only reason she survived was because your pack master sent for a Lightbearer healer, who managed to save both her and her pup. Actually, it took two of them.”
The mulish look on Steve’s face spoke volumes.
“You would rather Kim and her pup died? Because that’s exactly what would have happened, had Alexa and Olivia not stepped in and helped.”
“Natural selection,” Steve mumbled. “These things happen. Weeds out the weak, leaves the strong to carry on the species.”
With barely a growl of warning, Matt rushed toward Steve, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and slammed him against the wall behind his chair. He wrapped his hand around Steve’s neck and held him there, dangling six inches off the ground. Blood boiled in his ears. The urge to shift coursed through his veins. This guy’s perspective was so caveman, so antiquated, Matt wanted to weed him out.
“If I ever—ever hear you say something like that again, Steve Zebree, I’ll rip your fucking head off myself.” He snarled into the man’s purple face.
“Matt, let him go,” Shay demanded.
“Uh-oh,” Rachel said, a scant second before Adora threw up all over Shay’s ice-wrapped foot.
Shay gave a yelp and tried to scramble off the couch, managing only to roll over and crash onto the coffee table, breaking one of the legs and slamming into the floor along with the splintered piece of furniture.
“Sorry,” Adora mumbled as she waved her hand and the mess instantly disappeared.
Groaning and cursing as she scrambled to her feet, Shay stood, balanced with one hand on the arm of the couch, eyeing Adora with trepidation. Matt released Steve who collapsed to the floor like a rock.
“Let’s go,” Matt said to Adora and Rachel, and without another word, he strode to the door and wrenched it open, impatiently waiting for them to hurry through.
“You go with him,” he heard Rachel say as she gave Adora a little push toward his truck. “I’ll be fine driving myself.”
“No. Go with her,” Matt countered, heading toward his truck.
Adora ignored him and climbed into the passenger seat.
“I’m not in the mood for company right now.”
“I’m not in the mood to let you go storming off by yourself to do something stupid that you’ll regret later,” Adora replied.
Matt shot her an irritated look, but he didn’t say anything as he started the engine and followed Rachel’s truck down the road. But when Rachel turned into the circle drive leading to her house, Matt kept going past the driveway.
“Where are we going?” Adora inquired.
“I don’t know. I just don’t feel like dealing with anyone else right now.”
They ended up at Matt’s house. He didn’t know why, although he supposed a psychologist would say it was his safe place or some bullshit like that. Whatever. He didn’t feel unsafe anywhere, really, but his bungalow was small and not easy to get to, so he didn’t usually have company, unless he explicitly invited them. So maybe in the sense that he could be left alone and no one would bother him, it was his safe place.
Which suited him just fine at the moment. He didn’t want to talk to anyone else right now. No one but Adora.
Holding the screen, he twisted the knob and pushed open the front door and then waited for Adora to precede him into the house. “It’s not much, especially compared to the other houses in the area, but it’s just me, so it works. You want a drink or something?”
“It’s perfect,” she said, her gaze sweeping every which way as she followed him through the living room, into the dining room that was really no more than a breakfast nook, to the small but functional kitchen.
“And it’s your style,” she commented, running a finger along the rustic, earth-toned tile back splash.
“Oh yeah?” He opened the fridge, spotted a bottle of wine and tried to recall how long it’d been in there. Did wine go bad? The only time he kept it around was when his woman-of-the-moment drank it, and it’d been more than a few months since the last time he had someone over to the house.
Grabbing the only two wine glasses he kept in the house, he pulled the cork and sniffed it. Not that he knew anything about wine, but it didn’t smell bad. He half-filled each glass, figuring if it was bad, they’d suffer through together.
“What do you think is my style?” he asked, handing her a glass. She sipped and didn’t wrinkle her nose, so he took that
as a good sign.
“Earthy. Woodsy. Rustic. Casual.”
He arched a brow and took a drink. “Not a bad assessment. It’s like you read people for a living.”
She laughed, and he reveled in the tempting sound, until his phone vibrated. Taking it out of his pocket, he saw a text message from Shay highlighted on the screen. Scowling, he shoved the device back into his pants. Adora noticed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She sipped wine and said nothing. He sighed and paced to the backdoor and then back again, building up steam instead of dispersing it. “Goddamn it, it makes me so angry when people talk like that. What the fuck is that anyway? ‘Weed out the weak’? What century are we living in again? I’d like to weed his ass out.”
“An eye for an eye has never been a successful form of punishment,” Adora said. “And he hasn’t actually done anything but talk, so far as we know.”
Matt came to a stop directly in front of her. “Are you always a glass-half-full kind of girl?”
“Usually,” she admitted. “It’s part of my nature. Every Cupid tends to be more positive than negative.”
“Goddamn it.” Pacing past her again, he was fairly vibrating with energy, energy he needed to burn. “It’s just so damn—damn it!”
Skidding to a halt in front of her again, he thrust his hands into her hair, cocked her head to the side and plundered her mouth, not thinking, just acting. Ruthlessly taking, conquering, demanding she give in to his needs, his desires. His senses swam with the scent of her—sex and love and seduction. Fates, he just wanted to strip her naked and take her, right there against the wall in the kitchen.
She wasn’t stopping him. It took a long moment for that thought to penetrate his brain. She wasn’t stopping him. Not only was she not stopping him, she was participating in the kiss, practically climbing his body in her attempt to get closer, deeper. Her mouth open, her tongue warred with his. Her hands were under his shirt, clawing at his back and scrabbling, trying to slip into the waistband of his jeans.
No, she sure as hell wasn’t trying to stop him.
He tugged his hands out of her hair and let them roam over her body. She was a tiny thing, but he was thrilled to discover she was soft in all the right places. Her breasts were small, but they fit nicely in his palms, and they grew heavy even as he kneaded them. He reached down and grabbed the hem of her dress, jerking it over her head and tossing it behind him. He needed to get to her tits, to suckle them. They were practically begging him to, after all.
“Your eyes,” she whispered. “They’re glowing.”
Hell yeah they were glowing. He was so damn hot for the woman, that didn’t surprise him in the least.
Crouching at the knees because she was so much shorter than him, he laved greedily. His senses were in overdrive, his blood pumping hot and thick through his veins. He needed this. He needed Adora. He needed to couple with her. Rationally, it made no sense whatsoever to have sex with the woman whose job it was to set him up with someone else, but his brain wasn’t thinking rationally at the moment. It was filled with Adora, with her scent, her image: her pink hair a mussed halo around her head, lips swollen and red, eyes hooded and begging him for more.
He needed to give her more.
Grabbing her thighs, he lifted her off her feet, wrapping those smooth, lean legs around his waist. Despite their difference in size, she fit him perfectly, her knees digging into his sides, her thighs draped over his hips. Wide open, clinging to him while she looked up at him, desire shining in her eyes.
So damn perfect.
Lids fluttering closed, she stretched up and kissed him urgently, his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his neck. She nibbled on his earlobe and he groaned as he struggled to hold himself back from impaling her in one hard thrust.
When she moaned his name, he gave up the fight. Holding her ass with one hand, he unsnapped his jeans, wrenched open the zipper, and pushed them down his hips, just enough to free his straining erection. And then he snagged her panties and tugged them to the side before dropping her onto his eager, swollen dick. She opened up for him, her body accepting his, enveloping him, as if they were meant to do this. Not man and woman, but Matt and Adora. They fit. Like they were meant for one another.
With one arm wrapped around her back and the other holding her ass, he carried her to the nearest wall, propping her against it to give him leverage while he pumped into her again and again. He had never been so mindless with need, so completely and utterly out of control.
It helped that she urged him on, loudly, wantonly. His petite Cupid was no watery wallflower when it came to sex. She liked it, a lot. He knew because she said so, as she encouraged him, told him how good it felt, how much she needed this, how perfect they were together, how she never wanted it to stop, ever, ever, ever.
He pressed into her, giving her everything she demanded, holding nothing back. When he felt her body quiver with the first ripples of her orgasm, he pumped harder and faster, until he exploded too, pouring himself into her. Her inner muscles milked him dry, and he was left standing on shaking legs, clutching her ass and breathing heavily, trying to regain some semblance of the control he’d discarded on the rug along with her dress.
“Sorry,” he mumbled when he finally pulled out and placed her feet gently on the ground. “I couldn’t quite last forever.”
She smiled as she leaned back against the wall, pink hair hanging in her face, palms pressed to the painted plaster. “That’s okay. Obviously I couldn’t either.”
“You okay?” He bent over and retrieved her dress. “I didn’t, ah…hurt you?”
“Hurt me? Oh fates, no. I know I’m tiny, but trust me, I can handle aggressive sex.” She accepted her dress and pulled it over her head, and he watched as she murmured some sort of incantation and adjusted her panties.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Cleaning up,” she responded with a small smile that tempted him all over again.
Running his hand through his hair, he headed to the fridge, pulled out two bottles of water, and offered her one. “I didn’t mean to use you like that.”
“Stop apologizing,” she admonished. “If I hadn’t wanted it to happen, it wouldn’t have. Trust me.”
He did trust her. Without question. Glancing out the window, he asked, “What does this mean now? I mean, I’ve never had experience with Cupids before. Did we just ruin your chances at keeping your wings?”
She hesitated, just a fraction, and guilt stabbed through him. They had ruined her chances. Shit. He had to fix this. He hadn’t meant to keep her from ever going home. He never should have given in to the temptation…
“Only if you let it,” she said, pulling him from his wretched thoughts. “I know my scent or pheromones or whatever you want to call it, is extremely compelling. And now that we’ve actually given in to it, it will be significantly harder to resist in the future.”
She could say that again. Here she was trying to talk rationally to him, and all he wanted to do was carry her to the bedroom and strip her naked again. Was it really because of her pheromones? Or was it something else, something more? Shifters were well acquainted with pheromones, and he could recall only one other time in his life when he’d been as mindless as he’d been just a few minutes ago. It had been his first sexual experience, and his greatest mistake ever.
Was this the same thing?
“…But as long as we focus on resisting, and focus on finding your potential mate, we should be fine,” Adora finished explaining.
“Right,” he said, turning away from the window. “Okay.”
But he didn’t know if he really wanted to do that. He was pretty certain he wanted to focus on Adora instead. What would she say if he told her that? Would she laugh it off and claim it was the pheromones? She’d seemed awfully damn into their coupling, but she’d also just admitted she liked rough sex, which meant she’d obviously had this so
rt of experience before…
“Why did you drop to a Level One?” he asked suddenly. “Why are you in danger of losing your wings?”
She gave him a sharp look, clearly taken aback by his question. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I want to know. I asked before and you avoided answering me. So I’m asking again. I told you I wouldn’t give up.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She raked the pink locks away from her face and clamped her hands together as if trying to keep her fingers busy. Dropping her gaze and shuffling her feet, she said, “So long as you take a mate, I’ll be fine. Probably even jump to a Level Three. You’re a pretty tough assignment,” she added with a brittle smile.
“It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I care. About you.”
“This is exactly what I was just talking about, Matt. It’s the pheromones. You don’t really—”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I feel,” he said, the low growl in his voice unmistakable. “And it isn’t the goddamned pheromones, so quit using that as an excuse. If it were pheromones, then why were you so damn into it?”
“Because, Matt,” she said, her agitation meeting his, level for level. “Because I’m jealous as hell over those couples I bring together. Because I don’t get to feel what they do. Because in the end, I get to go back to Cupid’s Plain and be alone. I don’t get to experience love, like you do. And because I’m an idiot, I keep mistaking sex for love.”
Her wings sprouted from her back and fluttered madly, and before Matt could reach out and grab her, she dissolved into a swirl of light, and then disappeared underneath the crack between the back door and the frame. She was gone.
Matt slumped against the sink and stared moodily out the window. His life sure as hell was fucked up right now.
Chapter 7
“AT least Shay is staying on with her brother for a little while longer,” Adora commented to Rachel the next day. The weather had turned nasty overnight, with dark, ominous clouds spitting rain and sleet at the ground. Adora couldn’t have asked for a weather pattern more fitted to her mood had she tried.
