Werewolf Wedding(67)

He narrowed his eyes slightly, smiled, and nodded. “So am I.”

“Well, let’s just get to the point,” Barney said after the introductions were finished. “Jake Somerset, pack alpha, do you take this woman as your mate? Do you accept her as vita of the pack and mother of all these wolves?”

Without taking his eyes off me for a second, Jake said, “I do.”

“And Delilah Coltrane, do you accept not only Jake as your mate, but the responsibilities that come with being the vita of the pack?”

“Absolutely,” I said. I could feel the prickles running down my chest, the goosebumps creeping down my forearms. A little chill, carrying just a hint of the scent of coming rain, swept through the crowd. It ruffled hair, and shuffled clothes. A tendril of Jake’s wavy, brown hair fell across his eyes.

“Let’s have you do the first marking, Jake. I think hers will be a little more interesting.”

Lifting my wrist to his lips, Jake caressed my skin with his lips. He sucked gently, kissed my skin, and then opened his mouth. I didn’t even feel the bite, if that’s what it was. Every sense was erupting to life. It was like volcanoes were erupting in my head and hurricanes were blowing in my heart.

When he removed his mouth, he kissed my wrist again. The tingling that coursed through my entire body hummed with deep, vibrating warmth that seemed to radiate out from my center. I looked down at my arm and saw a crescent of pin pricks that looked more like a semi-circle of birthmarks than a tattoo. Maybe that’s what they were, really. Just fate’s way of showing what I’d been born for.

No – what we had been born for.

“I can’t do that,” I said, as I took Jake’s arm in my hand. “I don’t have special teeth, or... whatever it is that lets him do that.”

Barney just smiled. “It’s the effort that counts,” he said after a moment. “Symbolism and all that.”

“So I just bite him?”

“Pretty much.”

I lifted his wrist, kissed it just like he had mine, closed my eyes and chomped. Jake let out a yelp, the entire lupine audience let out a wild cheer, and that was that.

“Unorthodox,” Barney said with a barely-contained chuckle. “But it’s the thought that counts. I pronounce you mated and marked, now get outta here you crazy kids.”

The next few minutes, most of them spent on the back of a motorcycle, clutching Jake’s waist and snuggled against his back. I’ve never much been one for motorcycles, but... that was the best ride I’ve ever had.

*

“What’s all this?” I asked, pushing open the massive, carefully carved, oak door of the mansion. The smell of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and about forty other delicious things hit me all at the same time.

“I think Barney made dinner,” Jake said.

From the back of the house, I could hear singing and whistling. “How did he get back here so fast?”

Jake chuckled softly. “As fast as I was driving, when you can turn into a wolf and ignore stoplights, street signs, and roads altogether, you’d be surprised how fast you can get around.”

“And I cooked most of it before I left this morning,” Barney said, emerging from the kitchen and into the dining room, which I noticed had been completely restored to order, minus the vase.

“How did you get everything fixed so fast?” I asked.

“Haverty’s replacement plan. Too bad they don’t offer such things for priceless antiquities,” he shot a nasty look in Jake’s direction. “Regardless, the missus and I are going out for the night, so I wanted to make sure you were taken care of. How’s your arm?”

“Me? Fine,” I said.

“No, I was more worried about his,” Barney said with a grin. “I didn’t think you’d bite him quite that hard.”

And with that, a chuckle, and a swish of cloth as he spun and his blazer jacket flapped, Barney was gone. We were alone. For the first time in way too long, Jake and I were the entire world.

“Strawberry?” he asked, plucking a chocolate covered fruit off a tray. “I have to admit though, I’m finding it really hard to think about food.”

Yeah, but I’m both starving, and want to tease the hell out of this big bad wolf, I thought.

“I mean,” I started and then slowly crossed the room, pushed Jake back into one of the high backed dining chairs, and sat across his lap, draping my legs over the arm of the chair. “I know what you mean. God,” I said, shivering a little. “Do I ever know what you mean. But if I’m going to wear you out for the next twelve or fourteen hours, a girl’s gotta have energy, you know? Plus, these strawberries are—”

He stopped me short by sticking the end of one of the chocolate covered orbs of deliciousness between my lips. As I bit down, my teeth cracking the sweet milk chocolate shell and then sinking into the perfectly ripe, red flesh beneath, Jake kissed my neck.

There isn’t enough wine in the universe to make me feel as good as the combination of those two delicacies made me feel. And these two things don’t make my head spin, or give me a sulfate headache the next morning.

His lips trickled down my throat as I chewed and swallowed. A second later, Jake kissed up my neck to my lips, licking a trickle of the juice from my lips and letting out a soft, pleased whisper of a groan.