~

 

“I don’t see how I’m the bad guy in all of this,” Lewis reasoned as much with himself as with his mate. “You zapped me — you made my tongue swell in my mouth — you ran away from your mate…”

“Geez, how many times are you going to drag that one up?” Mia raised just the one eyebrow back at him. “My stupid, irrational, female brain cannot compute much more.”

“Probably about as many times as you’re going to hold that one against me,” Lewis said.

“Fine, I’ll stop if you will.”

Mia might have been offering a truce, but the way that she folded her arms, tipped her head to the left and offered the Alpha something closely resembling the evil eye had Lewis wondering if she actually meant it or not.

He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt — but he would still err on the side of caution. She might have been his mate, but she was still a witch, and Lewis knew that they could be sneaky.

“Deal.” Lewis offered a nod of agreement. “So, now we can get back to the wooing…”

“Back? I hadn’t noticed that we’d started,” Mia said as she offered him a skeptical look.

“I guess, not really, no,” Lewis admitted. “So, now we can start the wooing.”

A thousand comeback lines whooshed through her mind and made her hesitate to pick just one. In that moment of indecision, he smiled, but it wasn’t just any smile — it was a drop dead gorgeous, hold onto your panties, as sexy as hell — smile that sent a jolt of everything that felt oh-so-good through her body, and assaulted her womb in the best possible way.

Mia wanted to groan. Even as her body wanted to jump up and down with glee and do a damn jig, while assuming the position.

She might have wanted to grumble and growl like a shifter at what seemed like the impossibility of fighting the mating pull, but how could she fight the temptation that was her mate?

Fate might have expected her to give up, to give in, but she had the type of personality that screamed out to cut her nose off to spite her face.

“What? No snappy comeback line?” Lewis asked.

Mia hated herself at that moment. Challenged to come up with something, and fast, her brain had turned into a mushy mess of lazy thoughts — and most of them involved her mate naked.

She couldn’t seem to shed the image of Lewis in the woods, no matter how hard she tried. Maybe, because she was trying so hard — it just kept popping back in there.

“Still nothing?” Lewis’ smile was bordering on victory, and it wasn’t even a well earned victory. All that he’d done was smile.

Lewis wasn’t entirely sure if his mate was having a senior moment, was constipated, or if the woman had taken to chewing an imaginary wasp again. He did kind of like having her on the back foot.

“Stupid head,” Mia practically spat out the words, and as the alpha raised just one eyebrow back at her — she wanted to groan, drop to her hands and knees on the floor, and crawl away in shame.

“Stupid head? Was that really the best that you could do?” The alpha’s voice held a teasing quality to it that riled her up and stomped all over her very last nerve.

“I have the urge to zap you until you squeal like Jules discovering a chocolate fountain.”

“When you can’t win the argument with words you resort to violence,” his teasing grin grew wider.

“Ha! Says the alpha.”

“And then deflect with a snarky comment.”

“I’m not deflecting.”

“Well, you’re certainly not answering,” Lewis offered back.

It wasn’t just the teasing grin or the teasing tone of his voice that annoyed her. It was the amusement that danced within his eyes.

Mia knew that she had lost, lost the argument, lost the high moral ground that had fallen away beneath her feet, and the thought of curling up into a ball appealed to her.

“So, this is wooing?”

Mia tilted her chin upwards in defiance. She’d be damned if she went down without a fight.

Lewis padded the few steps that it took for him to stand in front of her. Mia frowned as she pulled her head back on her neck and scowled up at him like a poop Demon had appeared in front of her.

There was still amusement within his eyes, but those eyes were darkening. There was a brief moment that flashed within her when she had the urge to take off on fast feet, but his eyes had bewitched her, confused her, and that moment of indecision cursed her once more.

One strong, muscled arm wrapped around her waist, and before she knew what was happening, he’d yanked her body forward. She hadn’t even had a chance to lift her hands and cushion the crush of her breasts against the hard muscles of his chest.

Mia managed one squeak of protest that caught in her throat as Lewis brought his lips down on hers. There was a heady rush of pure sensation that tore through her body and whacked her brain with a large sledgehammer.

Rational thought took flight. Her hands sought his impressive biceps as she looked for stability in an uncertain world.

She didn’t know which way was up, and even if she’d found it, then she wouldn’t know what to do with it. Not that her body or her mind were looking for a way out, if anything, her instinct was to get closer.

 

~

~

~

 

“Says you.”

“Says me,” Daniel offered back.

One moment things had been going really well — they’d been kissing, and he was wooing his mate. The next moment, he’d said something stupid and put his foot in it.

The instant that he’d said it he’d wished that he could take it back, but he couldn’t. Now they were bickering over nothing at all and everything in general.

Daniel knew that this was no way to woo his mate.

“And what if I don’t agree?” Jules asked as she placed her hands on her hips and craned her neck forward toward him.

“Then…” Daniel was having to think fast. He hated that.

Jules looked impatient for an answer and that only made the pressure mount upon him. He ground his teeth together in frustration and then tossed up his hands.

“I guess we’ll do things your way,” Daniel grumbled a retreat.

“Say what?” Jules snapped her head back on her neck and offered him a look of pure disbelief.

“You heard me.”

“I think I did.” Jules wished she’d been taping that moment so that she could replay it — just to check.

“You did.” Daniel tossed back on a scowl.

“You sure I did?” She just wanted to be certain.

“You can’t even stop arguing with me when you get your own way and win.” He offered her a look of amused disbelief.

“I can!”

“See!”

“What?”

“You can’t. You’re doing it again!” Daniel gave a small shake of his head and chuckled in disbelief.

“I’m not!”

“Still doing it.”

“No, I’m…” Jules stopped when he raised his eyebrows at her. “Maybe — just a little bit,” Jules admitted on a sheepish look.

“A lot. But that’s okay; I’m a big enough man to overlook your challenging behavior…”

“Oh boy, do you want a punch on the nose?” She scowled.

“No, not really.” Daniel had meant it teasingly, but he could understand how she’d taken it the wrong way.

He’d done it again. But this time, he had both of his big feet in his mouth at once.