“What I mean to say is, I don’t think she’s speaking to me at the moment.”
“It’s hard to blame her for that after the way you behaved.”
Thirty-six years old and his mother still called him “pumpkin” and scolded him like he’d tracked mud onto her kitchen floor. And to think people called him leader of his clan. If they only knew.
“Mom . . .”
“Never mind.” She released his hand with a final squeeze and rose to her red-soled heels. “We’ll stop through when we get back next month. You can introduce us then. In the meantime, come help me pry your father away from his toys so we can take our time getting to the airport. I hate when he drives too fast.”
Dutifully, Jonas followed his mother out of his office. If anyone said it aloud, he’d call them a filthy liar, but he couldn’t wait to get his parents back on the road. The sooner he rid himself of the distraction, the sooner he could come up with a plan to launch a new approach to his pissed-off wolf.
He had the impression it would need to be a good one.
Chapter Nine
Annie’s wolf whined again. Its incessant pacing around inside her head was driving her crazy, but no matter how often she urged the animal to patience, it was having none of it. It wanted their mate, and it couldn’t understand why they weren’t out hunting the stubborn bear instead of sitting here in a dull, half-empty office reviewing research and medical charts until her eyes threatened to bleed.
All in good time, Annie soothed. We’re almost done here. As soon as we have a preliminary report, we’ll have the perfect excuse to find Jonas and corner him for a while. Alone.
The wolf hated that plan. What did it care about reports and scientific findings and excuses? As far as it was concerned, it didn’t need an excuse to corner the bear and bite his ass whether he liked it or not. In fact, given the aggravation of the past week apart, it was leaning toward putting the mating bite on the jerk’s uncooperative ass, just for spite. How dare he deny their mating and then abandon them for seven whole days? Who did he think he was?
Annie didn’t bother reminding the beast—again—that she had been the one who had done the abandoning. Semantics flew right over its head. All it knew was that they had a mate, and their mate wasn’t here. Something needed to be done about it.
Rolling her eyes, Annie gave a firm mental shove and pushed the wolf back until she could think clearly again. A week wasn’t a lot of time to work on a problem like Jonas had outlined to her, the decline of an entire species. However, it had turned out to be just long enough for her to gather some very interesting facts, and she couldn’t wait to share them with Mr. Bears-Don’t-Mate.
What she actually couldn’t wait for, she admitted, was the look on his face when she hit him with her hypothesis. She had a feeling he would never see it coming.
Whether or not he tried to be stealthy about it, Annie heard him coming. Yet again, she proved to be the last person in the clinic, staying behind to work after the doctors and staff had closed up shop for the night. Her sharp Lupine hearing immediately picked up on the sound of movement when no one else should be there, and a moment later, his scent drifted to her on the artificial current of air created by the building’s HVAC system.
She kept her eyes on her work, but her attention split to direct half of her focus to him. Okay, maybe more than half. The electrical current of awareness caused by their mating made the hair stand up on her arms and a low tingling begin just beneath her skin.
It felt like her senses turned into a great big hive of bees anytime he was around, and the buzzing and spinning of their activity threatened to drive her crazy. She could only hope that at some point, it would all calm down. If she had to live the rest of her life feeling like she was being swarmed by hyperactive insects, she’d have to rethink the benefits of this whole mating deal.
Annie waited until she sensed his presence in her doorway. Then she calmly set her pen down on top of the notes she had been making and folded her hands on her desk. She looked up, keeping her expression a carefully polite mask.
“Mr. Browning,” she said, matching her tone to her face. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this evening.”
His brow twitched, then smoothed, as if catching himself in mid-frown. “No, I’m sure you weren’t. Do you have a few minutes, or is this a bad time?”
“I’m working for you, Mr. Browning. I’m fairly certain that means that my time is yours.”
He winced.
“Please. I told you to call me Jonas, and I meant it.” He stepped into the room, pushing his suit jacket aside to slide his hands into his trouser pockets. “Look, I realize it’s getting late, and I’m probably keeping you from finding your dinner, but I just wanted to—”
“No need to apologize. Actually, I was going to come find you quite soon. I probably would have waited until morning, regular business hours, but I do have a few things I’d like to share with you.”
That appeared to take him by surprise. “You do? I thought you weren’t speaking to me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She said it casually, but she saw the barb hit its target. He didn’t like having his concerns dismissed any more than she had at their last meeting. “We have a professional relationship, so of course we’ll have to talk from time to time. But as it happens, I’ve finally reached a point in my research where I think I can summarize for you my preliminary impressions of the problem you brought to my attention.”
Jonas stared at her for a moment, his expression blank. Then he looked confused. “You mean you wanted to talk to me about the population thing?”
She took a certain amount of glee in presenting him with her own look of confusion, feigned though it might be. “Of course. What did you think I wanted to talk to you about?”
“About us, dammit.” He closed the distance to her desk in two long strides and braced his palms on the surface. “Or did you forget about what happened between us the last time we were both in this room?”
“Oh, that.” Annie waved a hand. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Mr. Browning. I think we each made our positions clear at that time. There’s no need to retread that old ground.”
She felt a surge of pride that she managed to get all that out with a straight face and a suitably offhand tone. She’d practiced this very conversation in her head daily since her phone conversation with Sam. After all, flaming a-holes needed to be taught a lesson in manners.
“Like hell,” he snarled, and grabbed her before she could blink.
Who knew a bear could move so fast? She wondered about it even while she found herself crushed against a massive, vibrating chest. Vibrating because the man continued to growl at her even while he kissed her like the world was coming to an end.
He devoured her mouth, all heat and anger and possessive desperation. It made her fight for breath and for the strength not to wrap her legs around him like the eager hussy her inner wolf urged her to be. That bitch danced around inside her head, yipping and yodeling with joy. If she had her way, they’d already be lifting their tail and inviting their mate to hurry up with the mounting already. Annie had to work hard to get her human side to throw on the brakes.
She tore her mouth from his and panted up at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Jonas hauled her even closer, and Annie winced as the edge of the desk cut into her upper thighs. He might not notice the piece of furniture still between them, but his arms were long enough that he didn’t even have to lean over it to grab her around the waist. In order to spare herself from permanent nerve damage, she surrendered to his tugging just enough to scramble to kneel on the surface of the desk.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” he snapped back. “I’m trying to get my hands on my goddamned mate.”
“Well, when you find her, you can give it your best shot, Teddy.”
Calling on the speed of her wolf, she ignored the inevitable protests and darted to the side, leaping off the furniture and pla
cing a few feet of new distance between them.
“Get back here.”
She shook her head. “No. As I said before, this kind of behavior is completely unprofessional. And since I’ve already begun working on your case, it’s also highly unethical. You could be considered a patient at this point.”
Which was only a teensy, little, humongous stretch of the truth. Jonas’s was one of the only medical files of the North Lake Clan that she hadn’t reviewed, so he was the furthest thing from a patient of hers that it was possible for any bear in the vicinity to be. But the male still needed to be taught a lesson, no matter what her wolf might be telling her.
“I’m not your damned patient, Dr. Cryer. I’m your mate.”
“No, you aren’t,” she countered. “You said it yourself. Brown bears don’t mate, not the way we mean the term. And that brings me back to the preliminary report I was getting ready to share with you. It may very well be that not practicing the shifter tradition of matebonds might be having an impact on your species’ population growth.”
Annie had been gradually circling around the perimeter of the office, keeping her eyes on Jonas and a careful distance between them. Now, he paused in his stalking behavior and straightened.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that recent research indicates that across the majority of shifter species, couples who are matebonded to each other report higher birth rates than those who do not claim to be true mates.”
He frowned, then shook his head. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter, because like I came here to tell you—”
She ignored his interruption. She’d prefer to have notes in her hands while she told him this, just because it felt more official that way. And also because it would provide some sort of barrier—however flimsy—between them.
“Furthermore,” she continued, “females of any species who maintain supportive, committed relationships are more likely to sustain a pregnancy than females who experience the stress of unstable or nonexistent ones.”
“Annie.” His growl was a warning. “I didn’t come here to discuss my clan—”
“But the most important thing the research I’ve done this week has revealed to me is that it’s doubtful your clan has any sort of fertility problem at all.”
Annie paused, waited for half a heartbeat, then began moving faster when her big bombshell failed to have the desired effect. Instead of stopping Jonas in his tracks and distracting him from his pursuit of her, the news seemed to roll right over him as if he hadn’t even heard it.
“Jonas, didn’t you hear me? I said your problem might not be a problem at all. Your clan’s lack of births in this generation might not be anything to worry about.”
He stalked closer.
“Oh, I have a problem all right, Doc. But it’s got nothing to do with my clan. My problem is that my mate is trying to keep me at a distance when we both know that she belongs—”
He feinted right.
“—In—”
Then left.
“—My—”
Annie watched him with wide eyes, waiting for him to strike. When he did, she’d need to move faster than she ever had in her life to get around him.
He leaped.
“—Bed!”
She was too slow.
He scooped her up, crowing with triumph, then tossed her over his shoulder and began striding for the door. Annie protested loudly, but with no one else in the building, she had a feeling there would be no cavalry riding to her rescue.
Her wolf felt just fine with that.
“Jonas, what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, thumping her fist hard against his back. “Put me down!”
He didn’t even break stride.
“I think I’m claiming my mate,” he said, pushing through the lab’s swinging door and heading down the hallway that lead to the clinic’s parking lot. “You might as well lie still and enjoy the ride, honey.”
“But I’m not your mate. You told me so yourself.”
He exited the building, carrying her through the darkness to the single car left in the lot—a big, luxury SUV that suited the gigantic bear to a tee. Before she could draw a deep breath, he had her bundled into the passenger seat and securely buckled in, and he’d activated the child-proof locks to keep her from leaping out again.
As he put the vehicle in gear and pulled out of the lot, he looked at her long enough to flash a feral smile.
“You know what, Doc? You’re an extremely smart woman. You should be able to recognize when someone tells you something that it’s a complete load of bullshit.”
Chapter Ten
Kidnapping sounded like such a harsh word. It evoked images of masked gunmen, or knife-wielding maniacs. What else was Annie supposed to call it, though, when a man forcibly removed her from her place of work, refused her demands that she be released, and transported her to a secondary location? Where he used more force to remove her from the vehicle utilized in the abduction and to haul her into a secure location of his choice.
When she put the question to him, Jonas just grinned. “I call it a first date.”
Annie stifled the urge to punch him, and then wondered why she’d bothered. She socked him hard right in the belly button.
“A date? A date does not involve the use of force, Paddington, so how about you try again.”
Jonas seemed to realize that if he released her at this point, she would waste no time in putting some distance between them. Instead, he shifted his grip until he held her against his chest. Then he simply lowered both of them to the sofa in his living room and kept her imprisoned on his lap.
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Annie,” he said with a sigh. “I’m trying to try again. With us. So how about you let me make the attempt, okay?”
She glared at him, not failing to notice that even cradled on his lap, she still had to look up to meet his gaze. His size should have intimidated her, but in reality it just made her feel safe. Cared for. Which was the opposite of the way he’d been trying to make her feel from the instant their first kiss had ended.
The memory allowed her to rebuild a bit of her defensive shell.
“Why would you need to try again?” she demanded. “Was something you said the first time unclear?”
A frustrated grumble bubbled up from his chest. “No, dammit. I made myself too fucking clear that day, didn’t I? You heard every word I said and very correctly judged me to be a complete and utter arrogant fuck.”
“Flaming asshole,” she corrected absently, barely hesitating over the unaccustomed curse. Her mother had raised her not to swear.
Shock knocked Annie back a mental step. She’d spent the last week trying to think up strategies to eventually prove to Jonas Browning that he’d been wrong about not being her mate. And now he was going to admit it all by himself?
She didn’t know if she was prepared for this.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” He sighed. “Either way, what I said was complete bullshit, Annie. You knew it then, and after having my nose rubbed in it like a naughty frickin’ puppy, now I know it, too. I was wrong. And not only that, but I was rude, and I’m sorry. For all of it.”
Nope. Not prepared at all.
Annie sat there for a few seconds, chewing over the apology. It sounded honest. Smelled that way, too. But it was also pretty vague, and she wanted to make certain her mate understood exactly what he had to be sorry about.
Shifting her weight, she ceased trying to push herself away from him, and instead crossed her arms over her chest. Then she leaned back against his arm and lifted an eyebrow in challenge.
“All right, you’re sorry,” she acknowledged. “Name the reasons why.”
He made a choking sound. “Excuse me?”
“You said a lot of things that day, Jonas. I want to know which of them, exactly, you’re sorry about.”
“I already said, Annie. I’m sorry for everything. Doesn’t that cover it?”
; She recognized the note of whining in his voice, the one that brought to mind a little boy who’d gotten caught putting frogs in someone’s bed. But Jonas wasn’t a little boy. He was a grown man. And if he was going to be her mate, she needed him to say that, straight out. Otherwise she’d always wonder whether or not he knew how he felt about her.
And she’d always wonder if he felt the same way she did.
That was no way to build a life together. Her wolf could just hold on for ten more minutes while their human sides got this sorted out.
“Damn it, Doc. I can barely remember everything that came out of my mouth last week. It was all dumb. It was all crap. Isn’t that good enough?”
“No. Because I remember it. All of it.”
Jonas let his head fall back against the sofa cushions and sighed as if he’d just finished a marathon and now wanted nothing more than to sleep for days. Annie might consider letting him. After he finished apologizing.
“Okay, then.”
He raised his head and fixed her with a level gaze. No more evasions.
“I really don’t remember all of it. That’s the truth. Not the words that came out of my damned fool mouth. I was panicking, because something was happening to me that I didn’t even think was possible, and my brain was having a hard time processing it. But I remember that I hurt you. That I claimed you were imagining a bond between us that wasn’t there. That’s the thing I’m most sorry for, because it is there. It’s real, and it’s powerful, and I’m ashamed that I ever tried to deny it.”
Annie felt herself begin to melt even as her wolf threw back its head and howled with joy. Their mate accepted them. What else did they need?
Dropping her arms, Annie curled her fingers around Jonas’s shoulder. That was the admission she’d been waiting for, but he wasn’t finished.
“I also attacked you out of my own insecurity,” he said, tightening his arms around her. “I tried to make it out that your feelings were not only invalid but inappropriate, and that was about the dumbest thing I’ve ever said in my life. I apologize. I’ll apologize for all of it as many times as you need. But can you forgive me?”
Something to Howl About: An Alphaville Story Page 6
