Page 53 of Sigma
“This one is.”
He laughs.
Smiles. Laughter. And the fact that he followed me here last night has me sure we’ve turned a corner. And just in time, too, because things felt pretty bleak when I got home, cried in the shower, then finished crying myself to sleep asking Fate for a sign that not giving up was the right thing.
Waking up to him beside me, holding me… it was exactly what I needed. I’m fortified; ready to move forward.
As soon as we hit the open road, he opens the car up and it’s very sexy watching my bare-chested, sexy mate in his bizarre mask driving my car at a hundred and ten with confidence.
We’re back to the camper in no time.
But halfway through my cooking him bacon and eggs, he jumps up from the couch where he’d been lounging, and looks out the window.
“Lincoln just pulled up.”
He grabs the mask and is putting it on his face.
Sadly, I didn’t realize it was off his face, or I would’ve said breakfast could wait and climbed onto his lap and kissed him. Or… climbed onto his face so he could kissme. Mm…
Linc knocks just as Jared shoots a dangerous look in the door’s direction.
“One sec, Linc,” Jared calls out and buckles the mask before he opens the door, fastening the third buckle before stepping outside.
I turn the stove off and follow.
Jared looks over his shoulder and goes tense. “Back in, woman.”
“Huh?” I ask.
“Cicely…” he says in a pleading voice.
Linc takes two steps back with his hands up. “I’m an unmated alpha. You’re in the early blush. He needs you inside, babe.”
Jared gets even tenser. “Babe?” he challenges.
Linc winces. “It’s just throwaway, bro.”
I want to feel indignant at the throwaway comment because he calls me Babe as much as he calls me by my name and has called me that since we first hooked up when I was nineteen. It never felt throwaway to me. But it’s better this way. The answer seems to relax Jared’s shoulders, but he still gives me a look that tells me he wants me back inside.
“Fine, I’ll go finish cooking breakfast. I’d offer you some too, Linc, but…”
“Some other time,” he says with a smile.
“You should know I’m gonna eavesdrop,” I warn.
“Known you long enough to know that,” Linc says with humor dancing in his eyes.
Jared shoots me a look I don’t know how to read. I go back in, shut the door, and turn the stove back on.
20
JARED
“What’s up?” I ask, in no mood for jokes, especially not banter between the two of them where she’s smiling at him the way she smiles at me.
He drops the grin. “Me and Joel sat down with our librarian. The three of us dug in on a fact-finding mission this morning, getting information from shifter archives about your old pack, including census information about you.”
“And?”
