Sharon's Wolves (Wolf Masters Book 10) (8 page)

It was Sharon and the pheromones she put off that would send Jackson into a sexual frenzy. So it would be Sharon burdened with the majority of the work in getting Jackson to see reason.

“You can do that too?” Jackson asked.

“Uh-huh.”

Jackson’s knuckles were white where he gripped her around the shoulders.

Sharon twisted her head to nod at Cooper. “You can shift back now.”

Cooper took a deep breath, thinking at least in wolf form he wasn’t required to join in the explanations, but he also knew Sharon would be pissed if he didn’t help. So he concentrated on his human half and let his body return to its other form.

“Jesus,” Jackson muttered when Cooper once again stood before him naked.

Cooper reached for his jeans and hauled them on, tugging up the zipper, but not bothering with the button or any of the rest of his clothes.

Sharon inched forward, taking Jackson with her. She lined him up with the kitchen chair he’d been sitting in and pushed on his chest. “Sit. Please.”

He lowered himself into the chair, but his gaze remained on Cooper. “You feel the same thing toward her that I do,” he stated.

“Yes.”

Jackson bent his head forward and stared at the floor. He set his elbows on his knees. “I can’t wrap my mind around this. Any of it.”

Sharon smoothed her hand over his shoulder and then higher to cup the back of his head. “I know it’s a lot. And there are people who will help you understand, including…” she hesitated.

Cooper didn’t know where she was going with this, but he waited.

“Including who?” Jackson asked without moving a muscle.

“Your sister.”

“What?” He jerked his head up to face her. “Jazmine? She knows?”

Sharon nodded. “Her partner, Mary, is Amanda’s sister. It’s hard to keep close family out of the loop. We avoid letting humans know about our abilities, but sometimes it’s necessary. Besides, Jazmine already knew on some level.”

“How’s that possible?”

“She had a friend who was a shifter when she was young. Apparently the girl told her.”

“Lord.” Jackson took deep breaths. His gaze roamed all over Sharon’s face and down toward her chest. “Do you know what you do to me?”

“Yes.” She smiled.

Cooper’s heart beat faster. If Jackson was feeling even half as drawn toward Sharon as he was…

Jackson jumped to his feet, dislodging Sharon and stepping back several paces. He ran his hands over his head. “I can’t deal with this. It’s too much. I don’t want to know any more.”

“I understand,” Sharon said. “If it makes you feel any better, that’s about all there is to know.”

“That’s it?” His voice was sarcastic. “So just a few things.” He waved his hand in front of him. “No biggy. Just that you two, and apparently half the town, can turn into an animal at will. Just that there are weird black smoky spirit thingies demanding attention for their unknown causes. Just that you heal inordinately quickly, leaving no evidence you were ever injured.”

He snapped his fingers. “Oh, and let’s not forget that you’re drawn by Fate to—what did you call it? Mate?—in groups of three, and you share your women between two men. That’s all?”

“Mostly,” Cooper said.

“Good. But here’s the problem—that’s about ten more things than the average human can handle. And I’m an average man, or I was until about an hour ago.” He turned toward Sharon. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

He shook his head. “I knew it the first time I saw you. Something about just watching the way you walked, the sway of your ponytail when you worked, the smile on your face and the way it lights up when you’re excited…” He stepped back farther, putting more distance between him and Sharon and Cooper.

Cooper watched Jackson swallow hard, and then he continued. “I told Jazmine I didn’t want to date you. She kept nagging me, and I tried to stop this from happening. I should have walked away any number of times.” He threw his hands in the air. “Hell, why did I even come here tonight?”

“It’s the mating call, Jackson. It’s out of your control,” Sharon informed him.

Jackson’s face hardened. “Don’t talk to me about some mumbo jumbo about Fate and spirits and destiny. It’s crazy. We control our own destinies.
I’m
in control of
my
own destiny.” He poked himself in the chest for emphasis. “And I’m going to exercise that control right now.”

“How?” Sharon asked softly.

“By leaving.” Jackson strode across the room, his long legs needing very few strides to get to the door. “This is over. I won’t tell anyone about you, and I don’t want either of you to come after me. Let me go.” He chuckled. “Hell, no one would believe me if I told them, anyway. Instead of the two of you ending up in a loony bin, I’d probably find myself in a padded white room for life. How’s that for irony?” He whipped the door open, stepped out into the night, and slammed it shut behind him.

Sharon didn’t move except to breathe heavily while staring at the door in the silence of the room.

“You want me to go after him?”

“No.”

“You sure?” Cooper inched toward her, unsure how she would react to his proximity.

“Yeah.” She ducked her head. “He needs to process all this. We threw a lot at him.”

Cooper finally reached her side. He slowly lifted both arms until he could wrap them around her frame and haul her into his chest. For the second time in his life, he buried his face in her hair and inhaled her scent. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled against her head. “For so many things.”

A sob escaped her lips, but she responded to him finally by turning into his chest and wrapping her arms around his middle also. She held on tight. “This is so fucked up,” she whispered against his bare skin.

Sharon wanted to scream. How had a perfectly good evening gone so wrong so fast? She had started out imagining a long night of sex and gradual revelation with one mate, Jackson, and ended up in the arms of another man, the very man she’d assumed for two years was her intended mate.

And the bitch of it all? No one was having sex with anyone.

Cooper tipped her head back with a hand under her chin and met her gaze. “May I kiss you?”

She nodded. At least he wasn’t being an ass anymore. His expression told her how truly sorry he was for his part in this charade.

When he lowered his face, angling it to one side, she thought her knees would buckle. And then his lips were on hers, and the world melted away. His kiss started out gentle, languid swipes of his lips across hers and then his tongue. He moaned into her mouth as she opened to him.

She needed more. He smelled fantastic. His warm naked chest rose and fell under her palms while he reached into her mouth with his tongue to devour her. He tasted of mint. She could smell his aftershave, his soap, his shampoo. And she memorized every bit of this information.

Time stopped while she explored him with her hands, learning the contours of his firm body while she stroked his tongue with her own in a suggestive tease that made him moan louder into her mouth.

She pressed her smaller frame against his, the thickness of his cock thrusting against her belly.

When her hands wandered down his chest toward the opening of his jeans, they did so of their own accord.

Suddenly, just as she was about to wrap her palm around his length, Cooper broke the kiss and groaned.

She blinked, lifting her face to see his expression.

His eyes were focused on something behind her, and she twisted her neck around to see what he was looking at, half expecting to find Jackson standing in the doorway. Maybe he already realized the futility of his escape and returned.

But that wasn’t what met her gaze.

It was another spirit. It was agitated and shimmering in the same spot as before, waving back and forth as though pacing.

“We aren’t meant to have sex without him,” Cooper muttered. “It won’t let me claim you alone.”

She nodded. That much was obvious. And then she started giggling, her nerves so frayed she couldn’t stop the uninvited emotion from surfacing. “How many bases do you think Fate allows between two out of three mates before the claiming?”

He chuckled, his chest vibrating against hers. “I don’t know, but I can’t concentrate on finding out, either, with that thing hovering over us. It’s daunting.”

“Yeah.” She sucked in a deep breath, regretting it instantly when her head filled with the strong luring scent of Cooper. Finally, she released him and backed away, putting a few feet between them and glancing around the room. The spirit disappeared. What now?

“Did you eat?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“You like lasagna?”

“Love it.” He grinned sheepishly.

She stepped around him toward the kitchen. The dinner dishes from the meal she’d shared with Jackson were still all over the table. She gathered a handful and carried them to the sink. And then she filled a clean plate for Cooper and popped it in the microwave.

She could feel him at her back, his breath heavy across her shoulders. “Is this what you always wear on a first date?” he teased, his fingers landing on her bare biceps and stroking up and down her arms as he inched closer.

“No. Only when I intend to end up between the sheets.”

He chuckled. “That didn’t work out so well for you.” He gripped her biceps firmly and pulled her back against his still-bare chest. “I’m sorry.”

“You mentioned that.”

The microwave pinged, making her flinch, and she squirmed out of his embrace to open the small door and remove his plate.

He followed her to the table and sat.

“Wine?” she asked.

He shook his head, chuckling softly again. “That’s where I met him, you know.”

“Where?” She sat in the chair next to him as he took his first bite.

He moaned around the flavor. “God, you’re a good cook.”

“Thanks, where did you meet Jackson? When?” she redirected.

“The liquor store. This evening. I stopped to buy a bottle of wine for my sister Laurie, and he was there buying a bottle for you. I knew it instantly.”

“You could tell he was your mate?”

Cooper nodded. “Yes. And I almost collapsed. I’d been wallowing in a pity party for one since Tuesday when Laurie told me you’d found your mate.”

Ah, that explained why Laurie didn’t bother to tell Sharon that Cooper was in town. Everyone assumed the subject was moot. She’d met Jackson. “That distressed you?” She couldn’t keep from grinning at the thought.

“Very much so. Though I hated to admit it. I wanted to kick myself, thinking I’d fucked things up by denying Fate until finally She turned Her back on me and selected another for you.”

“You think you have that much power, Cooper?” Sharon fiddled with a napkin on the table, staring at the thin paper.

Cooper shrugged. “I couldn’t think of another possibility.”

“That’s not how it works, you know.” She met his gaze. Lord, he was attractive. When he wasn’t being an ass or cracking jokes, she could tell he had a serious disposition that made him older than his years. She wanted to run the tips of her fingers over the lines on his forehead to smooth them out while telling him everything was going to be okay.

It was, wasn’t it? She shivered.

“How does it work, genius?” Cooper asked.

She shook her thoughts from her head and faced him again. “It’s an orchestrated dance out of our control. We were meant to meet tonight, not yesterday, not last year, but tonight. Hell, Jackson took up skiing this past winter. I saw him. He saw me. We knew there was a connection. And yet we didn’t approach each other.

“It doesn’t matter what our motives were, the timing wasn’t right. And you could no more have come to Cambridge before this week and forced your hand, either. I’ve always known that.

“I’m not going to suggest I haven’t been frustrated over the past twenty-some-odd months, but in my heart I knew you would be here precisely when the time was right and not a moment sooner. And here you are.” She smiled.

“It’s a cluster fuck.”

She nodded. It was.

“How are we going to convince Jackson?”

“We don’t have to. He won’t be able to stay away. I’m sure Jazmine will talk to him. Hounding him won’t help.”

Cooper squirmed in his seat, openly adjusting his cock with one hand. “How long do you suppose this will take?”

“About three seconds once you get inside me,” she teased, leaning her elbows on the table so she brought her face closer to him.

Cooper dropped his fork, stood, and leaned across the table to cup her face. “Don’t tease. I can’t take it.”

She grinned. “I don’t see how you have a choice.”

He rolled his eyes as he sat back in his chair. “Tell me something.”

“What?”

He swallowed another bite, moaning around it as he chewed. “Is it different? I mean, do you feel the same way about me as you do him?”

She shrugged. “It’s different. Probably the same way a parent loves both kids equally, but focusing on a variety of characteristics.”

“Hmm.” He ate in silence for a few minutes and then continued. “I never wanted this.”

“I know. And I never expected it. Not for a second. I have only one female cousin, Tessa, in Oregon. She mated with one man. How was I to expect I would mate with two?”

Cooper nodded. “After your brother Logan mated with Amanda and my brother Sawyer, I thought we were home free. I was so relieved I would be the one sibling who didn’t have to share.”

She reached across the table and set her hand on his. “We will get through this.”

“Do we have a choice?” His smile melted her a bit, softening her as she got to know this man she’d never met, who’d undoubtedly paced outside her condo for over an hour before taking this risk and knocking on her door.

Cooper helped Sharon clean the kitchen in a comfortable silence that was only stressful because of the elephant in the room that was their driving need to fuck. Now. Fast. Hard.

As they ignored the arousal and put the last dishes away, he grabbed the island and stiffened. “Do you feel that?”

Sharon turned to face him. “Feel what?”

“The tremor.”