Chapter Two
Hayley groaned and began to stretch her arms above her head. The bed was so good, and she loved how soft it felt. She must have found a man last night on the way home, because her bed was not this comfortable.
During her stretch, she paused as last night’s events rushed over her.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
She sat up in bed and gasped. The room she was in wasn’t her apartment, nor was it any kind that would be in the city. She was back at the motel she had stayed at for her vacation.
Glancing around, she saw it wasn’t the motel. There were logs all around the cabin, and there was also a large window.
“Where the hell am I?” she asked.
“This is my home.” Micah took a seat on the bed, and she frowned. She wasn’t afraid of him, and yet he had kidnapped her.
“What is going on?”
“I brought you to my home.”
“But I didn’t want to be here. I want my own life at home!”
He snorted. “Your home? That place is so small and it was so scheduled. You deserve better, babe, and I’m the one to give it.”
Glancing down at the bedding, she saw she was also naked, and quickly lifted the covers over her body. “Why aren’t I afraid of you?” she asked.
“You don’t need to be. I would never hurt you.”
“You drugged me!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I’m here and I don’t know how the hell I got here!” She was yelling and she was so angry. I love it here. It’s so pretty. “Ugh!” She shouted and slammed her hands on the blanket.
“I may have used some chloroform.”
Hayley stared at him, really stared. He was a handsome man, sexy as well. She had noticed him even before he had seen her. Packing up her car, she had looked toward the café, smelling the coffee all the way across the street. She had wanted a cup, and right before she decided against it, Micah had walked out. His shirt had been stretched over his impressive muscular chest. He was tall, over six feet, and for the first time in her life, a guy made her feel small and delicate. Short brown hair, and brown eyes she had seen spark with amber.
Damn it.
Her pussy was already getting wet, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t want to desire him, or have anything to do with him.
“You know this is really creepy, and last time I checked, kidnapping is against the law.”
“The law doesn’t count here or with mates.”
“I am not your mate.”
“You are. You just keep fighting it.”
“You’re annoying!” She climbed out of the bed, pulling the blanket along with her, and wrapping it around her body.
“Will you stop?” he asked. “Just lie down. Let me get you some food.”
She shook her head.
“I can smell the fact you want to fuck me.”
Spinning around, she glared at him. “I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. You’re not making me want to even like you. Where is the bathroom? Unlike some people, humans need to use the bathroom.”
He pointed toward a door on the left.
“Thank you.” She found it next to impossible to be rude. Politeness was part of who she was, even with a man who had kidnapped her and claimed they were mates.
“I will go and make some food.”
She slammed the door closed and finally released the blanket, stepping out of it. Moving toward the mirror, she checked that she hadn’t been bit or showed any mark that he may have bit her.
Some of the stuff she knew from friends, other information she learned from books and the Internet.
“You will not fall for this.” A mate was something for life, and she wasn’t interested in living with a man who would kidnap her.
Mates were supposed to be something deep and meaningful, and it lasted forever. There would be no one else but Micah.
There was a knock at the door. “Leave me alone, Micah.” You don’t want him and yet you remembered his name.
She hadn’t been able to forget him, not once. If she also told the truth, she would have to admit she had also been dreaming about him a lot.
“It’s not Micah. I’m Darla. Micah asked me to come and see how you’re doing.”
Picking up the blanket, she opened the door and saw a tall woman with long brown hair and sparkling eyes.
“Micah is my brother.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, no worries. I’m mated to his best friend, and I have to say I’m so excited about you right now. My brother has finally found his mate, and believe me, it’s so fun to watch him eat his own words.”
“Eat his own words?”
“Yep. He’s always joking around with the mated males. Telling them how we’ve got them held by the balls. Please tell me you intend to hold Micah by the balls? Don’t make it easy for him.”
“I’m here because he kidnapped me.” She folded her arms, which was hard to do as the blanket was so thick.
“Holy shit, you’re not joking? He couldn’t even wait?”
“He came to my apartment, told me how he’d been hunting me, and then he drugged me with chloroform, and I woke up here.”
“That asshole.” Darla bent over and burst out laughing. “This is going to be so much fun watching you guys. Micah likes to say how no woman would ever make him fall in love with them. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned.”
“Can you get me back home?” Hayley asked. Darla seemed nice, but this wasn’t her home, nor even close.
“I can’t. Pack law states that we can’t interfere with mates. You may not feel your connection, but it is there.”
Hayley growled.
Great.
She was stuck here.
****
Right. Pancakes were good. Bacon was even better, and scrambled eggs. What about dinner rolls? Micah emptied out most of the food from the fridge, and was whipping up pancakes with as many sides as he could think of. He even had some maple syrup to warm up.
“Wow, who are you feeding? A tiger?” David asked.
David was a fellow wolf shifter, his best friend, and mated to his sister.
“I’m making some food for my mate. She’s going to need her strength.”
David sniffed the air. “You’ve not mated her yet.”
“I will.”
He couldn’t look at his friend. When he had seen that David had mated to Darla, Micah recalled all of the jokes and ribbing he gave his friend.
“You will?”
“Well, first I’ve got to get her to agree to stay. I kind of … kidnapped her.”
David burst out laughing.
“It’s fine. She just doesn’t know what we’re like.”
“This is just too good. You always said that your mate would be so easy and she would know how important it was for you two to be mated together. Now you’re telling me your woman doesn’t even want you?”
“It’s not that she doesn’t want me. She doesn’t get how important it is for us to be together. No problem.”
“I’ve got to meet this woman. She’s after my own heart.”
Micah growled. He couldn’t help it. The thought of any man touching what belonged to him made him want to tear out his throat.
“Whoa, you do know I’m mated, right? There’s no chance in hell of me ever wanting anyone else but my own woman.”
“I don’t care. You stay away from Hayley.”
“Hayley? Wait, why do I recognize that name.” David frowned and rubbed his chin.
Micah gritted his teeth.
“Holy shit, this woman is the one who stayed over at the motel. She loved to take walks in the forest.”
“I wasn’t around while she was here. I left, remember?”
“Yeah, you went mate searching and all the time, your mate came home.”
Micah didn’t need to relive his own mistake. He had heard many times that mates would find a way to be together. It was some kind of gravitational pull. Two souls that were meant to be together no matter what. He never believed in it thinking it was an old wives’ tale, or something like that.
If only he had some faith, he would have been able to date Hayley and not kidnap her.
“I like her,” Darla said, entering the kitchen.
“Where is she?” Micah asked, dolloping mounds of pancake batter into a skillet.
“She’s heading down.”
He heard her walking downstairs. Seconds later, she appeared in the doorway, and his heart squeezed. She wore one of his old shirts, and a pair of boxer briefs. He was bigger than her in everything. Her blonde hair was also down and all around her shoulders. She looked so beautiful.
“Morning,” he said.
She glared at him, but still muttered a ‘morning’.
“Here, Hayley. This is my mate, David.”
“Hey, David,” Hayley said, taking a seat beside Darla. The sound of her stomach growling filled the entire kitchen.
In a flash, Micah placed a bowl of diced fruit in front of her. “Please, eat something.”
She stared at the fruit and then at his hand before looking back at the fruit. He handed her a fork, and she took it. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He watched as she speared a mango slice, taking a bite.
Satisfied that she was eating, he went back to flipping pancakes.
His mate was in his home.
He was feeding her.
The wolf inside him was dancing and so damn happy right now. Micah couldn’t help but smile. This was the first time in his entire life that he had felt truly content.
“So, Hayley, how are you finding Forest Palm?” David asked.
“I loved it the last time I was here. I didn’t expect to be back so soon.”
Micah looked up to see that she was looking at him.
“She’s here against her will,” Micah said. “She doesn’t believe that we’re mates, and she doesn’t care how important that means to me.”
“How dare you? You expect me to give up my whole life because you say so? You … pig.”
“First, I’m a wolf, babe. Remember that. Second, what life? You lived alone, and from the smell of the apartment, you hadn’t been with a man in a long time. I’d have smelled him.” And he would have killed him. There was no way his wolf would have been able to handle that kind of intimate touch between his mate and another man.
“You … ugh, I don’t like you. How come this is the first time I’ve met you?” she asked. “Do you even live here, or is this someone else’s house?”
“I live here, babe. This is my place.”
“So why didn’t I see you before? I was here for like two weeks, and you’re telling me that not once during that time you didn’t venture out to town?”
David laughed. “Micah was out … hunting, weren’t you, mate?”
Micah glared.
“Hunting? Like rabbit and deer or stuff?” Hayley asked, eating a piece of strawberry now.
“No. I was actually out hunting for my mate.” This was not going well for him, not well at all.
She stopped eating and stared at him. “Oh, wait a second. You’re telling me that you could have been here when I was here, but you were determined to find a mate, and you went looking elsewhere?”
“Yes.”
Hayley started laughing. “I really shouldn’t laugh, but it is so funny.”
He was screwed, royally screwed.
Finishing the pancakes, he handed them out to Hayley first, and then his sister and brother-in-law. During breakfast, he watched Hayley talk with Darla and David. She seemed happy talking to them, and he was pleased he didn’t send them away so he could be alone with Hayley. She wasn’t ready for that, not yet anyway.
Her body wanted him. He smelled her arousal, but her mind was nowhere near where her body wanted to be.