The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel (8 page)

Jason’s head cocked to the side and he looked
at him carefully. For what seemed like an eternity. “You look
different.”

“Because I have to leave?”

Jason snorted. “No, you just look…not
miserable.”

He chuckled wryly. “Yeah, well, getting
something you’ve wanted for a long time will do that to a guy,
right?

Jason half smiled. “I suppose so. I was going
to give you a hard time about dodging plow duty but Michael’s
already saddled you for two weeks on-call. Just make sure that you
don’t fuck up the tow truck stuff. If you blow off even one call,
you and me are going to have huge problems, new woman or not.”

Linus held up the cell phone that was the
direct line for tow truck calls. “I won’t.”

“Have a good night.”

“You, too.”

He barely contained his joy at the
development. Jason could have caused him all sorts of problems.
Racing to his house, he showered and shaved as fast as possible
without causing major blood loss, tossed on the nicest shirt he
owned with the slacks his grandma had repaired and ran out the
door. He planned to bring her home with him. After he told her what
he’d figured out.

No, he hadn’t figured it out. His grandmother
had to spell it out for him like a child, but still. He knew it now
and he couldn’t have been happier. His eye caught a local florist
in North Paddock, a few streets away from where she was waiting and
he stopped and went inside.

The woman behind the counter smiled and
straightened on the stool she was sitting on. She was older, his
mother’s age perhaps, with salt and pepper hair cut short and half
glasses on her nose. “Hello. Can I help you find anything?”

“I’m going to see the woman I’m going to
marry. I thought I should bring her flowers, maybe? But I don’t
know what kind.”

She stood up and looked thoughtful. “Let me
ask you one question. Was it love at first sight or more you were
friends first and now you love her?”

“Love at first sight.”

“Well, then there’s only one real choice.”
She disappeared into the back through a swinging door. Several
minutes passed and when she appeared she was holding a purple rose.
He’d never seen one like it. “This is a lavender rose called Old
World. I cultivated it myself. It’s rare, the color. It is used
traditionally to express love at first sight, adoration. But it’s
expensive. I can give you a dozen in a box, for,” she sighed and
looked at the rose and then at him, “$120. Or I can do red for $50.
I can promise you that women love flowers, period, no matter the
color.”

“I’ll take the purple.”

“Okay, give me a few minutes.” She winked and
disappeared.

He paced in the confines of the small shop,
his wolf going crazy in his head to get to Karly. But this was a
good thing to do. She deserved it. He’d been kind of crabby about
leaving her at the apartment, and his beast wasn’t helping his
mood. And he missed her. He’d gotten a taste of heaven and he
wasn’t even close to being satisfied.

She came out with a black box tied with a
dark purple ribbon. When she put it on the counter it sounded heavy
on one end and she smiled, “I put a vase in for you, my treat.”

He pulled out his credit card. “Thank
you.”

“Well,” she swiped the card and punched some
buttons, handing it back, “I’m a sucker for love at first
sight.”

He signed the receipt without looking at it,
thanked her again, and took the box with him. In his truck, he
caught sight of the receipt as he tucked it into his wallet and it
only read $50. Surprised but pleased, he finished the short drive
to Karly’s place.

Why was he so nervous? He knocked on the
door, shifting the box in his arms. He felt like a teenager on a
first date, not a full grown man seeing the woman he loved. The
door swung open and his heart stopped in his chest and his wolf sat
down and whined for the beauty in the doorway.

She was wearing a low cut dark blue dress
that hugged her curves like it had been painted on, showed the top
swell of her lush breasts, and barely reached the middle of her
thighs that were mouth-wateringly bare. He forgot everything and
just stared at her.

“Linus?” She laughed and pulled him into the
apartment.

He nearly dropped the roses in an attempt to
hug her, and managed to hold onto them and pull her into a
one-armed hug so he could feel her against him. “I fucking missed
the hell out of you, Karly.” He said, bending so he could put his
face into her neck, worried the stinging in his eyes was going to
turn to tears if he didn’t get a handle on himself. It just felt so
damn right to hold her.

She squeezed her arms around him tightly. “I
missed you, too.”

He pulled away slowly and met her willing
mouth. She stepped backwards and he mirrored her until they were in
the middle of the small front room. She pushed his jacket off his
shoulders and he shifted the box of flowers in his hands as he
wormed out of it and let it drop to the floor. Almost too lost in
the heat of the kiss, if he hadn’t wanted to hold her with both
arms he would have forgotten the flowers completely.

Reluctantly he pulled back. “These are for
you.”

“Oh, thank you.” She blushed and took the box
from him. He followed her into the tiny kitchen and watched her
open the box. Her gasp and smile were enough to let him know he’d
made the right choice.

She set the flowers upright on the counter in
the crystal vase. There were a lot more than a dozen in there; that
woman had really done him a favor. Karly turned her sweet smile to
him, “They’re just gorgeous, Linus, thank you.”

“No, you’re gorgeous.”

“Such a sweetheart,” her smile went even
wider and a delicious dimple marked one cheek. “So, are you
hungry?”

It hadn’t escaped his notice that the
apartment smelled like an Italian restaurant. “Yes, but first,” he
hooked his finger in the center of the low neckline of the dress,
right between his two favorite breasts, and jerked her to him. “I
learned the most interesting thing when I was at my grandmother’s
this afternoon. An old legend of our people, a bit of history.” He
held her close and smoothed his free hand down her neck as his
other hand slid down the front of her body and curved to her waist,
gripping her tightly. Her pulse fluttered under his thumb. Her
heart was pounding.

“Oh?”

“Hmm. It seems like my angel isn’t just any
angel, but mine. Just mine.” Her brown eyes went wide. “It’s true,
isn’t it? It’s why I wanted to mark you, why I can’t stop thinking
about you. You’re my mate.”

“Yes.” Her voice was breathy.

“Are you happy about that?” What would he do
if she wasn’t happy?

“Of course. I couldn’t have picked a better
match for myself, Linus.” Neither could he.

“And all your traveling?”

“I was looking for you.”

“You almost died.” His voice came out on a
growl and his hands spasmed reflexively on her body as the scene in
the woods appeared in his mind again.

“You won’t let that happen to me again.”

Fucking right. “You sure as hell aren’t
spending another night in this place.” He’d never been much of a
dominant person with females, but he felt the need to make sure she
was safe with him. Period.

She cocked her head to the side and squinted
at him, as if she were considering it. “Well, I don’t know. I kinda
like this place.”

He growled and didn’t try to hide it as his
fangs descended. She reached for his teeth and ran a finger down
one canine. “Down boy. I was just teasing. Put these away until
later.” She laughed and kissed him, flicking her tongue along a
fang and it made his cock stand at attention, as if it hadn’t
already been straining the zipper ever since she opened the door. A
warm hand cupped him and he moaned into her mouth and pulled her
closer. Was there anything on earth better than his woman?

He fisted her hair and pulled her away gently
and her eyes were bright. “I hope you didn’t plan to get any sleep
tonight, sweetheart.”

“Promises, promises.”

“I definitely don’t make promises I don’t
intend to keep. Now, we need to talk, so let’s eat and get you
packed.”

She grinned, “Yes dear.”

Another spectacular dinner later, he helped
her with the dishes while they talked about her heritage. Angels
were fascinating. He couldn’t believe he had ever thought it was
just a legend, but he was apparently not the only one, or theirs
the only pack that had lost hold of the traditions.

He was humbled that she’d been looking for
him for over a year, but also that she had been thinking about him
in the abstract form of her faceless mate somewhere in the world
since she was 12. She was dedicated to finding her mate because it
was her destiny. He couldn’t imagine being told at age 12 that he’d
meet his mate and fall head over heels for her and that would be
it. She wanted everything that he did – a loving home and kids –and
he wanted to give that to her in spades.

The book she shared with him about her
lineage was the last book in the series that was several hundred
years old. She could trace her family line back for centuries. How
many people could say that? Each chapter in the book was done by
the angel when she met her mate that shared details of the journey
to find him, their home pack and life together, and the names of
their children and the packs they joined.

“So your brothers are full wolves?”

She nodded, running her hand fondly across
the last page of her mother’s chapter, where her own name was
written with a beautiful script and a sketch of angel wings
surrounded it. “They’re all alphas, actually. Bren is in Ontario,
Rico is in Washington, and Graise is in southern Florida. Almost
all the males born to an angel are alpha powerful.”

“Are you, disappointed, that I’m only
fourth?”

She closed the book slowly and put it on the
coffee table, turning to give him a long look. “Linus, you’re my
mate. You could be at the bottom and it wouldn’t change how I feel
about you. You make me happy, you make me feel loved and safe and
cared for, and the fact that you’re gorgeous and excellent in bed
are just icing on the cake for me.”

He pulled her into his lap and kissed her,
cupping her face to angle her mouth to his and filled her mouth
with his tongue, tangling with hers while he held her tightly. He
pulled back enough to lick across her lips and said, “I love you,
Karly. Please be my mate.”

Chapter 6

I love you
. Her sweet wolf had just
told her he loved her. Three sweetest words in the universe, just
for her.

She made sure that he could see the truth in
her eyes. “I love you, too, Linus. And I already am yours.
Completely.”

Another searing kiss that branded her soul.
Another stroke of his large, warm hand. She captured his wrist as
his hand started to move across the swell of her breast. “Unless
you want to stay here tonight, we shouldn’t get carried away.”

He looked like he was considering the truth
of the statement, and then finally stood up and put her down on the
floor. “Yes, dear.” He parroted back to her with a slight bow at
the waist.

“If you want to just pack for the week, I can
bring you back here this weekend and we can pack up the rest of
your stuff.”

She pulled a suitcase out of the closet. “I
travel pretty light. I buy clothes as I need to for whatever area
I’m in if the weather starts changing, and I donate my old stuff to
charity. And I only get furnished places.”

He sat on the bed and watched her as she
moved around the room between the small dresser and closet. “Did
you ever work in the places you stopped?”

She hummed in her throat, “Sometimes. If I
was in an area where there was more than one wolf pack, I would
stick around longer, wait for that, I don’t know, tickle of
awareness that I’d found my mate? So I picked up temp jobs.”

“So what did you do for money, if you didn’t
really work?”

“My parents provide for me. They’re thrilled
to get to stop the gravy train once we’re official.” She gave him a
wink and he grinned.

“When can that be?”

“When can what be?” She paused in the doorway
of the bathroom and looked at him.

“When can we be official?”
Aw,
sweetheart
.

“Well, my mom said that we can come visit the
pack in the spring and make plans then. And,” she showed him her
bare fingers, “something’s missing from this hand anyway.”

He looked so happy just then, as if he’d been
given a gift he wanted more than anything else in his life. She had
already packed up her things after showering earlier, pretty sure
he was going to insist she come home with him. It hadn’t missed her
notice this morning that his wolf was giving him a hard time about
leaving. She grabbed her makeup and girlie products and put them in
the front pocket of the suitcase.

“Did you want to go anywhere this week or
just stay in?” She asked, folding a sweater into the suitcase.

His brow furrowed slightly and he frowned and
she moved to him and nudged his legs apart with her knees and
cupped his face. “You can tell me anything, Linus. I won’t make fun
of you or give you grief for anything you think or feel. Right
here,” she motioned to the space between them, “is safe for both of
us. It’s supposed to be that way.”

Emotions flickered through his eyes so fast
she couldn’t get a read on any of them until the end, when he
looked relieved. His hands kneaded her waist and he looked into her
eyes, “I don’t want to share you. I’m afraid you’ll think I’m
ashamed of you or something and I’m not, I just, when the guys
showed up yesterday and they were close to where you were in the
bedroom I could barely keep hold of my beast.”

She ran her thumbs along his cheeks, “Okay.
So we’ll stay in. I have to warn you, though, with this moving in
thing: I will flip out if you leave the toilet seat up.”