Page 26 of Hexy Beast

“Witch,” he grumbles, but it lacks any real censure—especially since one of the corners of his mouth is fighting to stay in a straight line.

“What is your alt naaaaaaaame?” I ask in a singsong voice.

“Effie, this isn’t a joke. It’s serious.” He pivots in his seated position and looks down at me, seemingly not shocked that I’m within touching distance. “Our marriage will give me time to come up with another heist that will refill the pack’s accounts so we can make it through the winter. Then we won’t have to ransom you since the spell book is gone. Plus, that will save you from being handed over to the Council. Saying ‘I do’ at a ceremony tonight will help us both.”

I roll onto my back and look up at the beamed ceiling because I can’t let him see I’m cracking. I will not be a softie for this man, no matter how tempted I am to request that he take off his shirt and ask me again.

“This doesn’t look like the home of an alpha whose pack is scrounging to make ends meet,” I say, swerving the conversation.

“It’s not.”

Okay, I am not expecting that answer, and I roll back on my side to face him as he sits. “What is it?”

“It’s the clubhouse.” He lies back on the bed, turning to face me. “We all pitch in to keep it up. I cleaned it last.”

We sit like that for a minute, a temporary truce.

Staring into his amber eyes is mesmerizing. My heartbeat calms as my shoulder muscles relax, and before I know it, I’m slow breathing and all I want to do is reach out and touch him. Weirdly, my fingers don’t itch to brush his skin so I can yank his shirt off, but because I know it would feel nice just to hold his hand or touch his foot with mine or curl up against him and let my head rest against his chest.

What in the world, Effie? Pull it together.

“Where’s your place?” I ask, needing to break the silence before I get too used to this comfortable just-us feeling and give in to the urge to cuddle.

“Farther into the woods.” He adjusts his position, bracing his head in one hand and the other landing on the mattress between us, not touching mine but oh so close.

Breath quickening, I drop my gaze down to where his strong fingers rest against the plush comforter. He is too close and not close enough at the same time. I drove for miles curled around this man and have flirted shamelessly with him, but not holding his hand is making me breathless?

Girl, have some pride.

“Too good for town?” I ask, going for teasing and coming out squeaky.

“I just like having a little space to myself,” he says, his eyes on my mouth. “There are things I like to do without prying eyes.”

The possibilities for what those things are is endless, and I’m going to be considering each one for days to come. Right now, though, I can’t ponder even one, because if I do, I’m going to get this man naked and have my wicked witchy way with him.

So I do the first thing I think of to put some space between us and roll (not smoothly) over to the edge of my side of the humongous bed and stand up. At least I mean to; what I really do is a kind of lurch off the mattress, slip and slide on the floor before regaining my balance, and then recover just before face-planting on the hardwood floor.

Graceful I am not. That’s my sister Juniper.

“So your pack is good with orgies,” I say, waving a hand at the giant-ass bed while refusing to acknowledge my own klutziness or the fact that my cheeks are burning from nearly going ass over teakettle in front of him, “but whatever it is that you do out there in your private cabin in the woods is a step too far?”

“Who said anything about orgies?” He grins up at me, all of a sudden way too comfortable with me being flustered.

He just watches me, daring me to answer. It’s a moment that hovers for a minute, filling the air around us with a kind of tension that makes my core clench.

Of course, that’s when the sound of a lone howl, soon joined by several more voices, invades what had been beginning to feel like our space. Darius is off the bed in one quick move thanks to his shifter athleticism and is at the front window in a few long strides, all the relaxed ease he’d shown moments ago gone. He takes a second to look through the partially closed blinds and then turns back to me.

“We’ve gone off path,” he says, once more sounding every bit the uptight alpha. “You have to marry me.”

This man is going to give me whiplash going from flirty-sex alpha to all-about-business alpha.

“You don’t believe the fated mates BS, do you?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

Thank the Fates.

If I do this, there will be no forever between us. That is one hundred percent nonnegotiable.