CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

 

~

 

“Oh no, you didn’t!” Sandy bit out as she tried to wiggle and squirm out of his hold — a hold that felt like an iron cage around her body.

“That was all you, sweetheart,” Joel growled back.

He was fighting the best that he could to try and not squeeze the very life out of his mate, but his muscles were locked from the blast of her magic, and it was an uphill struggle all the way.

“Let me go!” she grumbled and got a grunt back in response.

“If you want me to let you go — you have to let me go first,” Joel growled back.

“I’m not holding you…!”

“Hello! Magic,” he grumbled.

“Oh.” Sandy hadn’t even realised that she was still using her magic against her mate. Didn’t she feel silly? “Awkward.”

Perhaps this whole change that she’d decided upon wasn’t exactly the real her — or perhaps she just needed to practice her magic more. Either way, she felt her mate’s arms easing their hold on her body as she cut off her magic.

“Aside from the whole — my body isn’t my own thing — I’m kind of enjoying the way that you are rubbing against…”

Sandy was mortified. She froze in place like a burglar who’d just realised that he’d broken into a police station. “Double awkward,” she muttered on a grimace, and the sound of a roll of a rumbling growl in his chest hit her ears and vibrated through her back, and strangely; it felt quite good.

“What’s awkward about doing what comes naturally?” Joel chuckled, and that deep rumble was just as potent as his growl had been to her senses.

“There you go again with that ego — what makes you think that I’m even slightly into you?” She bit out in annoyance.

Yep, the man certainly wasn’t a gentleman — there had been no need to point out what they both already knew.

“You’re my mate. What are the odds?” He teased, and she responded with a huff.

“What are the odds that you’re going to get zapped again?” She tossed back over her shoulder as she bided her time in waiting for her chance to get the heck away from him and his annoyingly strong arms.

“What are the odds that you are not enjoying this little taste of intimacy?” He chuckled at her expense, and in her book; it wasn’t fair that sound was like catnip to her senses.

Oh, how she hated fate. Just plonking a sexy mate down in front of her and expecting her to take that bait — how she would love to prove fate wrong. But in her heart of hearts, Sandy knew that fate was one of the winners in life, and she was playing a losers’ hand.

That didn’t mean that she couldn’t bluff. “You have some nerve…!”

“Sweetheart, my body is full of them, and you’re rubbing against…”

“I’m not even moving,” she grumbled back.

“If you’re breathing — you’re moving,” he growled, and that teasing tone in his voice made her want to zap him again.

Sandy pulled in a breath and held it. She didn’t move, she didn’t breathe, and she tried to focus on that big pounding heart within her chest to slow everything down.

“Well, that’s childish,” he chuckled.

“Childish? My left foot. I just don’t want to give you the wrong idea, or happy thoughts and feelings,” she snapped back.

“Oh look, you’re breathing again — moving…” he chuckled.

“I’ve just about had enough of…”

“Denying your feelings for me?”

“You really are a…”

“Whole lot of man and all yours.”

“Trust me,” she bit out as she craned her head around to be able to offer him a death glare. “When I get up from here…”

“You’re going to wrap your body around mine like a vine and give in to your desperate need for me?”

Sandy offered a little squeak in the back of her throat as she bit down on every curse word that she had ever come across in her life to date. The trouble was that his words sounded good to her ears, like candy to her overactive brain, and even her insides had taken to riding an invisible rollercoaster as excitement made her heart pound.

That wasn’t good! Sure, it might have felt good, it might have sounded good, it might have given her really, really good thoughts that were being plucked up from the depths of her mind by that little devil sitting on her shoulder – but, this wasn’t how she expected her life to go.

It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, and it was just stupid fate.

“Carnal lust…” she bit out in annoyance.

Joel found the strength within him to turn her in his arms to face him, and a heartbeat later she was on her back with his hard body caging her in. “That sounds good too,” he couldn’t help but chuckle, but maybe he should have.

With a squeak of annoyance and frustration, and without thinking — she zapped him again. That didn’t end well. Joel’s muscles gave up the ghost of trying to hold him up, and she was squished beneath him. There was a satisfying thud as his forehead hit the floor that registered in her brain.

Sandy groaned at the feel of the heavy weight upon her. “Oh sure, cos this is so much better,” she grumbled.

 

 

~

 

 

Martha felt a warm fuzzy feeling all over. Tucked into the protective steel embrace of her mate’s strong arms, every inch of naked flesh that the man could possibly have touching her body was, and it felt so good that she didn’t even mind his hairy chest tickling her cheek.

“That, my love, was definitely worth the wait.” Thorn rumbled a growl within his chest, and it vibrated through her body.

“Speak for yourself, you old fart, that stupid mating howl of yours has just about finished off my hearing,” Martha grumbled back, but she couldn’t hold onto the giggles that bubbled within her like a schoolgirl on prom night.

“What can I say? My beast was happy — I was happy — you were…”

“My hips not happy,” Martha lied. Sure, it was aching a little, but it did that when she did the gardening anyway. What she’d just shared with her mate was so much better than gardening.

“I’m sure the vampire would be happy to…”

“Are you insane?” Martha twisted her head to glare up at him.

“I stood on your doorstep with flowers, chocolates, and wine — I think insanity is warranted,” Thorn teased.

“So, I’m not worth flowers, chocolates, and wine unless you’re trying to woo me?”

“If you would like me to bring you flowers, chocolates, and wine every day for the rest of our lives together — I’m good with that,” Thorn admitted. The one thing he wouldn’t be doing was roping the vampire into buying them for him.

“So, you want to buy my affections with flowers, make me fat with chocolate, and keep me drunk, so I don’t notice your male chauvinistic, old fart attitude?”

“Sounds good.” He grinned from ear to ear like the cat that got the cream.

Martha snorted as she settled back against his chest and chuckled to herself. “Yes, it does.”

“I wooed my mate.” He sounded as pleased as punch with himself.

“I let you woo me.”

“Still, the wooing is done, my mate is mine, and … I win.”

“Yes you do, and now I get to make your life a misery for the rest of our days. I guess there can be a win-win in mating.” Martha chuckled back, and she couldn’t stop the smile of satisfaction that stretched her lips from ear to ear.

He certainly had wooed her, won her, and mated with her — and that last part he’d done so well.