Page 75 of Destined For The Wolf Daddy

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, turning away from the bed and giving Cole a little show with the sway of my hips as I headed for our bathroom. I looked back at him just before going in, just to see him looking like a king with his arms behind his head, eyes glued on me as I gave a little flirtatious twiddle of my fingers and vanished inside.

I started up the shower and waited as the water warmed up. I wasn’t originally planning to take one since I’d had a bath the night before, but the hour of impromptu cuddling had also made my hair a little sweaty, so I figured better safe than sorry.

Not more than a few moments later, Cole opened the door behind me. “You fine with sharing the shower?” he asked. “It is getting kind of late.”

“I thought we didn’t have to be stressed about the time,” I pointed out.

“I said that when I was young and foolish,” he said. “Bewitched by a perfect pair of breasts pressed against me.”

“Ah, so it was an act of seduction,” I teased. “In that case, I don’t know if showering together is the best idea. The breasts will be front and center.”

He wrapped his arms around me and leaned down to kiss me before giving me his flirtatious grin. “I trust you to keep us on schedule.”

It was the wrong call to make. As much as I wanted to stay focused on the utilitarian act of bathing, I also couldn’t keep my eyes off my husband’s finer details. I didn’t know what it was, maybe that we’d finally decided to try for a child or that my stress levels were high with the Georgia Pack on their way. But I couldn’t keep my hands off him.

About five minutes into the shower, we got our soapy hands on each other and didn’t take them off until Cole had me pressed against the glass of the shower, emptying himself into me. When we finished with that, he saw to getting me cleaned up and even helped me blow-dry my hair as I sat to give my shaky legs some rest.

After he’d finished and I was curling my hair, he smiled over at me as he brushed his teeth. I caught his glance in the mirror and looked over at him, dropping my hair from the iron and giving him an inquisitive look. “What?” I asked.

“I just had a thought that was funny to me,” he said, leaning over to spit into the sink and rinse off his toothbrush.

“Oh? What thought was that?”

“You know your favorite pal from the Georgia Pack is coming, right?”

“River?” I asked, perking up.

“No. Well, I mean, yes, he’s coming. But I meant your favorite in a more sarcastic way.”

“Oh,” I said, pouting. “You mean the girl who made a pass at you that one time. I don’t see what’s very funny about that.”

When we’d first visited the Georgia Pack earlier in the year, many of the pack members hadn’t seen my relationship with Cole as valid since he hadn’t yet claimed me as a mate. One of those people was a pretty blond-haired woman who’d gone on a run with him and tried to have a roll in the hay when I’d been back at the bonfire, talking to River and Victor.

Originally, Cole hadn’t brought it up, but when he did, it was hard not to feel panicked about the competition and lack of consideration she’d given me when she’d propositioned him. To some of those shifters, I wasn’t even a viable partner, let alone a mate.

Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to hosting her for an extended visit.

“Well,” Cole said, “for starters, she hasn’t seen us since I claimed you.”

I had to think about that. The whole trip was so packed with stuff we’d had to do that I could barely remember what went where. I picked up another strand of hair and wrapped it up in the curling iron as I put every memory in chronological order.

“I guess that’s true,” I said. “Do you think it will make much of a difference, though? I’m sure she’ll still see me as a thorn in your side since I’m not a shifter.”

“Well, if the claiming doesn’t make a difference, the smell of you all over me certainly will,” he pointed out with a mischievous grin. “I can’t wait to see the look on her face.”

“Well, that makes one of us,” I grumbled.

“Baby, you really aren’t nervous about seeing her, are you?”

“I’m always nervous around shifters who think nonshifters don’t deserve the time of day,” I said. “Especially when they’ve tried to get my husband to sleep with them.”

I finished curling my hair and set the iron aside before reaching for my hairspray and doing a quick spritz all over the fresh curls. I reached for my wide-toothed comb to brush through and loosen the curls I’d done, but before I could start, Cole gently grasped my wrist.

“Not yet,” he said. “Every time you comb through them that quickly, you complain about them being too fluffy.” He extricated the comb from my hand and went to stand behind me, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “This whole time, I thought you’d gotten over the anxiety around all of that stuff,” he said as he carefully touched the freshest set of curls, enough to feel how warm they were, but not so much that he ruined the curls. I was surprised he remembered my ramblings about learning how to do the perfect loose curl. That he’d committed to memory that the secret to a long-lasting curl was allowing them to cool before combing them out.

“I’m still in the fake-it-till-you-make-it phase some of the time,” I said. “I’m not exactly looking forward to dealing with more of that crap when we’ve only just started to weed it out of our own pack.”

“They’ll be visiting as outsiders, so they’ll be on their best behavior,” Cole said. “If not, then either I or Gramps will remind them that they are, in fact, guests. And that they don’t have leave to be rude to anyone—least of all the mate of the alpha.”

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