~

“Open the door,” Rock demanded. His pride might have taken a double whammy, but she was his mate — a witch mate — and he had no choice but to woo her.

Rock wasn’t sure that sat right with him. She was a little bit crazy, maybe more than just a little bit, and a witch – that one was going to go down well with his pack.

Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe his sense of smell was off by a country mile.

Mine…

Maybe not.

Maybe he just needed a moment or two to get his head around the fact that he’d found his mate. It might take him a while longer than that to get his head around the fact that his mate was a witch.

There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot that he could do about her being a witch. He didn’t think it came with an off button inside of her.

“Who is it?” Her innocent tone came back a little bit muffled through the door, and not only did he narrow his eyes on the wood in front of him as if he could see her clearly, but he pulled his lips back and sneered at it as well as if she could see him too.

“Oh, that’s a good one, but I’m in no mood to play games,” Rock grumbled a growl of annoyance to himself. He was still out in human territory and couldn’t risk anything louder.

“Nobody is here right now, but if you’d like to leave your name and number we’ll get back to you, please hold your breath.”

Rock’s lips twitched as he mumbled and muttered dark curses under his breath. He really needed to growl, but with the way his luck was going today some random human would probably be walking below the balcony that he was standing on like an idiot, trying to persuade his mate to open the damn door to the big, bad wolf.

“You’re so cute I could just eat you,” he sneered back.

That certainly got his wolf’s attention, and the beast growled a warning at him. The damn beast had no sense of humor.

Like he was going to eat his mate — well, maybe if she annoyed him enough… No, with another growl from his beast; he pushed that idea back into the deep, dark recesses of his mind.

“And I’ll huff, and I’ll puff…” She followed that up with a hearty chuckle that rattled his nerves.

Rock had been waiting for that. How like a witch to be annoying.

“And I’ll kick the door down,” he offered back. There was silence from the other side.

A moment later and the door was pulled open. There she stood with her eyes blazing with accusation and annoyance.

“You’re taking this a little far, don’t you think? It was just a little love tap with my bumper. You’re a big guy, and we both know how quickly you heal, and not in the walk beside your owner sense…”

“This isn’t about that, although, you should not be on the road driving.” When she narrowed her eyes, and her lips parted to speak, Rock held up his hand to silence her. He was surprised when it worked. “This is about something completely different.”

“Go ahead then, say your piece. And then don’t darken my door with your big man self anymore.” Frankie folded her arms and questioned his sanity with the arch of her eyebrows.

“My big man self?” He cocked his head and offered her a look of pure disbelief.

“Tick-tock, I’m not getting any younger,” she tossed back. She noted the quirk of his top lip as amusement flashed in his eyes — she could practically see the light bulb turn on above his head. “I wouldn’t come back with an answer for that one if I were you, not if you value your balls.”

“Right now, not as much as you’d think,” Rock muttered.

“Oh, for the love of everything – I have an appointment with a bubble bath, so would you just spit it out and be gone?” she hissed back before she took a deep breath and sighed it back out again.

“Fine, I was looking for an easy way to say this, but you leave me no choice…”

“And yet you’re still not saying it, still mumbling on, flapping your lips, she-wolf got your tongue?”

Rock straightened to his full height, folded his arms across his chest, and slowly nodded his head. He was going to enjoy this.

Mine…

“Say hello to your mate.”

The smug smile of victory spread across his face, exposing two rows of perfect white teeth, and he watched as she twisted her head to one side on her neck and narrowed her eyes at him.

“Say what?” Frankie knew that she’d heard him perfectly well — but that didn’t mean that it didn’t feel like she’d just run headfirst into a brick wall.

“You heard me,” Rock grinned.

“No, no, say what now?” She craned her head forward on her neck, and he had to wonder if she was going to lift her hand and cup her ear. Rock slowly leaned his upper body in toward her and noted the way that she held her ground.

“Hi — mate,” he offered back that victory grin stretching his lips as wide as they could go.

Mine…

Frankie’s top lip lifted and fell, lifted and fell as she searched for a word that wouldn’t be off limits to a nun, but she struggled with that concept. Fate was evil, mean, and as bad as hell — the same hell that she now found herself in.

“Don’t you have a snappy comeback line? Nothing to say?” Rock’s grin hadn’t dropped even by a millimeter.

Oh, Frankie had something to say alright… She just couldn’t seem to spit it out past the lump in her throat.

Her mouth made the shape of an O and then closed again. The next attempt to speak made her look as if she had a fish’s mouth, but all in all, she was lost for words.

“Anything?” Rock was enjoying her silence. “No?”

Frankie opened her mouth, and a small wheeze came from the back of her throat, but as for actual words — and there were enough of them pinging around in her brain — she found that she couldn’t spit out one.

“Well, this is going to make it easier to woo you,” Rock chuckle.

“Woo!” That kicked her brain back into gear as self-preservation held up a big banner in front of her with all the bells, whistles and alarms that it possibly could, and then it screamed at her to save herself. “What are you, bloody nuts?”

“Apparently, I’m nuts for you, baby,” Rock chuckled back as he poured salt on her wounds.

“You’re a — that’s not even a — I need to…” She stopped and considered her words.

“Finish a sentence?”

“Jerk — Muppet — numpty — who needs a whole sentence when you can perfectly capture somebody’s essence with just one word?” And she was back, maybe she was fighting for her sanity, but at least her brain was working once more.

“Sugar and spice, and everything — not you,” Rock grumbled.

“Oh, stop grumbling, it’s not you that has you for a mate. Now that’s a tragedy, and a crying shame,” Frankie bit out, as she looked anywhere but at him.