Page 25 of Predator

LUCAS’S DEN

Have you ever heard the phrase ‘look what the cat dragged in’?

If any of the other wolves were hanging out in the downstairs part of the house when we finally made it back, that’s exactly the kind of snotty comment I’d expect from Jade.

I wouldn’t blame her, though. My hair is still damp and scraggly. Lucas’s shirt is long enough that it hits my upper thighs, covering everything that matters, but it was soaked. Even if it wasn’t, I was. It clung to my skin, leaving nothing to the imagination.

And while my mate seemed to enjoy the view, that’s only because we didn’t run into anyone else on our way back.

Maybe we were being a little reckless, fucking out in the woods so close to neutral territory, but once I proved to Lucas that I didn’t mind, he was even wilder than when he was still the beast. In a way, I guess I’m rubbing off on him a bit, too, and I enjoyed the way his scent covered me—from our mating, from his touch, from his shirt—the entire trip back.

I did refuse his offer to track me down a pair of emergency sweatpants. It was pointless when all I want to do was take a nice hot shower and feel human again.

Well, supe, I guess, but the sentiment still stands.

Dirt is drying on my skin. I’m itchy, trying to scratch it off as he keeps shooting me side-long looks that are so heated, it’s like he’s imagining bending me over the kitchen table and taking me again so soon.

I know better than to push my luck. Outside is one thing. In the kitchen where the pack congregates? I’m lucky enough he steals kisses in the library. My stoic Alpha would never bring our mating into the communal area. It’s the cabin, my room, or the piano room and that’s all.

Until tonight, that is.

Since we enter through the back, accidentally trailing mud in through the kitchen instead of the living room that the pack rarely uses, Lucas pauses me by laying his hand on the small of his back.

I shudder at his touch, enjoying the way it sends heat blooming outward from that point.

I can hear the smile in his voice as he asks, “Hungry, sucre?”

For him, definitely. “I could eat,” I answer, knowing that it’s so hard-wired into an alpha wolf shifter to feed his mate, even if I’m full, I’ll stomach a bite or two to please him, “but I’d really rather take a shower first.”

Lucas steps into me. Even through the still-damp tee, I can feel his hard chest bumping into my back as he bows his body over mine. He wraps his arms around my waist, dropping his chin to the top of my head.

His breath is scalding on the top of my ear as he murmurs, “We can shower together if you’d like. Eat dinner after we’ve worked up an appetite. What do you think?”

Sounds like a perfect plan to me, and I tell him so.

Lucas presses a kiss to my messy hair before taking my hand in his. “Come on.”

I follow him up the stairs, stifling my amused laugh at how quickly he tugs me behind him. Over the years, I’ve had a couple of guys who were eager to hop into bed with me, but they usually lost interest after the first few times. Something tells me that Lucas never will.

Sure, maybe he’s making up for seventy years of celibacy, but I’m not so sure it’s that. Shifters mate for life. There is no divorce, and if Kirk and Eleanor are any guide, Lucas will still be looking for reasons to get me alone and naked for the next seventy years.

Trust me. With these supe ears and my new super sniffer? I don’t feel so bad that the rest of the pack must’ve heard it anytime Lucas and me got busy before because, whoa, even when I was stuck as my wolf, I couldn’t miss the sounds and scents coming from Kirk and Eleanor’s bedroom.

At least there’s a small buffer with my room being on the third floor. Between the extra level and the sound of the shower going, it might be a little bit muffled for anyone hanging around the house right now.

Only… Lucas tugs on my hand, leading me down the hall once we hit the second floor.

I give him a curious look. A wicked grin is my only response, and because it makes my gorgeous mate jaw-droppingly stunning when he flashes it at me, I’m helpless but to do anything except let him take me wherever he wants to go.

We stop at the first door on the left. Based on the gaps between rooms, this one is about the same size as the library at the far end of the hall, though I’ve never been inside of it. The door’s always been closed, and in the pack house, only an open door as an invitation to explore.

Twisting the knob with his free hand, he pushes in the door. Another tug on my hand and I’m following him inside.

I already smell like Lucas. That’s nothing compared to the pure concentration of him that is confined in this space.

It’s delicious.

Moving in, drifting toward the center as Lucas slips his hand out of mine, letting me go… I don’t know what I expected the Alpha’s room to look like. Something similar to the cabin in the woods, I guess, with the weapons and the wolf head and the couch.

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