Page 40 of Rejected Sold Mate
Rhie was usually easy enough to find. She had her spaces that she usually haunted—her loft studio, the loveseat on the patio when the weather was nice enough, the right side of the couch with a sketchbook in her hand when it wasn’t—but I didn’t find her at any of those spots when I looked. I considered calling her friends, but she’d gathered a rather impressive social circle without even knowing it, the three other pack Lunas and the three she-wolves in my pack. It would take me all day to check with them, and I didn’t love the idea of how desperate it would make me appear…even if Rhie made me feel plenty desperate when she wanted to.
It was 12:24 pm, but the oven was cold and there were no dishes in the sink. There was a painting drying on her easel, but her palette and brushes were clean and damp, and most telling of all, her car was gone.
I didn’t want her to feel me tracking her through the bond, but I couldn’t resist dipping into it just a little to get an idea of where she was. The golden cord between us pulled away from the house and right over the edge of my territory, and I grinned.
I knew exactly where I could find her.
***
Rhie was tucked into the same corner booth she’d been in the night of the bonfire, this time with a glass of ice tea and a plate of fried finger foods in front of her instead of a martini. I didn’t have to wonder why she kept coming back to the Broken Barrel; I understood all too well the desire to be away from the pack, anonymous. And while I couldn’t be sure, I also liked the idea that she kept returning to savor the memory of our first meeting, when we had been strangers inexplicably drawn to one another.
My blood ran hot thinking about what happened when we left the bar, and it had me stalking towards her table before she could even comprehend that I was there. Rhie jumped when I slid into the booth across from her, dropping the mozzarella stick she’d had halfway to her mouth.
“Was the food I provided for you not good enough?”
Rhie pressed her palm over her chest. “God, don’t scare me like that,” she picked her abandoned snack back up and took a bite, the cheese pulling at least four inches from her face before it snapped, and she sucked it up like spaghetti.
“I can’t help it. Stealth is just part of the Alpha package.” I reached over to take something brown and crispy, maybe a pickle spear, and she watched me with suspicious eyes.
“To answer your question, the food at home is fine. But it isn’t deep-fried.” She tracked the fried pickle from the plate to my mouth. “You seem to enjoy it just as much as I do.”
“I’m just taking advantage of the situation. But it’s sweet that you’re providing for your Alpha, my sweet Omega.”
Rhie finished her cheese stick and wiped her fingers on her napkin. There was red and yellow paint under her nails. “I’m going to ask Kiera to teach me a spell to hex your mouth shut.”
“You’d regret it soon enough,” I leaned in, “I’ve seen how much you appreciate what my mouth can do.”
A heated look swept over her face, but she didn’t back down that easily, “Yeah, everything except talk.” Then, without the previous sharpness, “Why are you here, anyway?”
There was no reason to lie, not when I wanted her praise and attention like a starving man craved nourishment, “I missed you.”
The sarcastic set of her mouth disappeared, and she blinked, “Oh. Well.” Rhie looked away, but if I was reading her right, she was…charmed. “Should we get you a drink and your own plate?”
“Hm. Yes. I think I'll stay a while.”
We ate and talked, mostly about her magic and how she’d been practicing with the other girls. The conversation veered off until we were talking about Nayeli and her upcoming birth, and my undeniably male brain couldn’t help but picture Rhie pregnant withourpup. It made the blood rush in my ears.
God, it was all so familiar. Her and I at the same bar, the tension and anger we’d carried for each other finally gone, Rhie’s laughter floating easily in the air around us. I wanted to go back to that first night, but at the same time, I wouldn’t change the progress that we’d made for anything.
I could still pretend, though. A man was due his little fantasies every once in a while.
“This feels familiar, doesn’t it?” I asked her, voice pitched low, “You, me, this place. The way you’re looking at me.”
Her eyebrows rose, but Rhie quickly schooled her expression. “And how exactly am I looking at you?”
“The same way you did that night. Like you’re…interested.”
Her smile bloomed slowly, seductively, “And so what if I am?”
“Then I have this cabin about twelve miles away—”
“God no. Not the cabin with the itchy blanket.” Rhie was quick to cut me off, and I had the distinct impression that her complaint with the cabin had very little to do with the blankets in reality. It was more likely that the small place was steeped with the bad memories of how I’d left her after our hookup, and the awful things I said.
She didn’t relive that part of our early relationship, and neither did I. So, I had to change some things up.
I stood, offering her my hand, “Come on.”
“Where?” she asked suspiciously.
