“It’s nonnegotiable. The only way my pack will accept you as my wife and their leader is if we’re mate-bonded.”
“Mate-bonded?” It was yet another foreign term that was out of her vocabulary, but she knew enough about how wolves mated to be concerned.
Dante’s thumb brushed hers. More than likely he’d meant it to be reassuring, but it practically made her jump out of her skin. “Fortunately my pack doesn’t use the sexual act itself as part of the ceremony.”
Another choke lodged in her throat, and Dante gave her a quick thump on the back again to release it. She gaped at him, her cheeks burning. “Thank God for small miracles.” She considered herself far from being a prude, but the idea of having sex with him in front of an audience was enough to give her performance anxiety. Without warning, an image popped into her head of her straddling Dante, impaled on his fat cock while his hands massaged her jiggling breasts.
A strained noise broke loose from the back of her throat. She tried to cover it up by coughing. Dropping her arm to her lap, she fidgeted with the top button on her pants. When Dante’s focus drifted to her zipper, she jerked her hand to safer quarters. “I—I don’t understand why we wouldn’t be able to fake the mate-bond like the rest of the marriage. If your pack isn’t going to witness it, what difference does it make?”
“They don’t have to. They’ll know we didn’t do it if they don’t see my mark on you.”
“Your mark?” Oh for Pete’s sake. Could anything be more Neanderthal? “So tell them it’s in a private place that I have no intention of showing off.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Lilly. A wolf marks his mate to make it clear to all that she belongs to him.”
“Why don’t you just pee on me and get it over with?”
“You’re making more out of this than there needs to be.”
She tossed her arms up. “Sure. Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’d be marked and branded like damn cattle.”
“It doesn’t mean anything. You won’t actually belong to me.”
“Your pack will think I do. That’s just as bad.”
His eyes momentarily closed as he dragged in a deep breath and released it in a weary gust. When he looked at her again, his frustration was palpable. “Why do you have to be so mule-headed?”
“What? I’m stubborn because I think your sexist werewolf rules are stupid?”
“It’s not sexist. There are female alphas who bite their mates in the same fashion. And there are even couples who give each other matching marks.”
His pronouncement gave her pause, and she eyed him in contemplation. “Can I mark you?”
“Babe, you’re not a wolf.”
“You’re not a cat, and I’m—possibly—going to let you mark me. Fair is fair.”
She could hear his molars grind. “I’ll think about it.”
“Either you will or you won’t. That’s my terms.”
They stared each other down for an interminable time, their silent battle of the wills more epic than Custer’s last stand at Little Bighorn. She was fairly certain if she listened closely enough, she’d hear war drums in the distance.
A prominent muscle tic twitched at the corner of Dante’s eye. “Fine. But I get to be on top.”
Yeah. Definitely one hell of a romantic proposal. She gnawed her thumbnail, her heart racing at the ramifications of what she was about to commit to and the fear that she would ultimately live to regret it. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
A relieved breath gusted from Dante.
“I expect a written contract between us.” There was no way she’d be so foolish to take his verbal word about the land.
He nodded. “I’ll have it written up before we get married on Sunday.”
His easy declaration squeezed the oxygen from her lungs. “Sunday? As in four-freaking-days-from-now Sunday?”
“I know it’s last minute, but I don’t have any choice. The deed has to be done before next week.” He leaned down and squeezed her hand. “It’ll work out, Lilly, I promise.”
She stared at their linked fingers, imagining a pair of matching wedding bands. What the hell have I agreed to?
Chapter Six
After their negotiations, she fully expected Dante to shrug his jacket on and head home. Instead he surprised her—yet again—by announcing he was going to make lunch for her. Bemused, but not about to turn down his offer, she tugged a blanket over her feet to combat the icy effects of the thawing bag of Brussels sprouts. Her cell went off just as she was beginning to relax into the chair. Leaning sideways, she snatched her parka from where it’d fallen to the ground earlier and dug her phone from the pocket. A quick scan of the display announced that the caller was Kinsey.
Oh God. Kinsey. How the hell was she going to explain to her sister this business with marrying Dante for the land? She knew Kinsey would be adamantly against it and would no doubt have all kinds of unsavory ways to describe what they were doing. All of which would likely be no less than the truth. But that didn’t mean she wanted to listen to Kinsey chastise her for the next sixty years about the boneheaded mistake she was committing.
Deciding to postpone that inevitable argument, she let the call go to voicemail and stuffed the cell back in her coat pocket before dropping the garment onto the floor again. Despite her best efforts to ignore the nagging doubts building in her mind, she couldn’t completely block them out.
What the hell am I doing? This whole plan is nuts. She ran both hands down her face and smothered a groan. Dante chose that moment to walk back into the living room.
Awarding her a cautious glance, he plopped a plate loaded with a fresh bagel sandwich and chips on her lap. “Everything okay?”
She swallowed past the lump of worry lodged in her throat. “No one is going to buy this—you and I.”
“That’s why we have to make it convincing.”
“Trust me, I’m not that good of an actress.”
Dante rubbed his jaw. “Well, my old man already thinks we’ve got something going on.”
“Great. One down, a couple hundred more people to go. And that’s just counting your relatives.” She snatched a chip and nibbled its crinkled edge listlessly. The healthy appetite she’d possessed minutes ago seemed to have disintegrated. She dropped the half-eaten chip back onto the plate and exhaled heavily. “Speaking of relatives…I know my sister will never believe we’ve suddenly fallen madly in love. Crap, just yesterday I told her you were a perverted peeping Tom.”
A grunt issued from Dante, and she shrugged. “Hey, I was mad.”
He stroked his goatee. “Actually, that might work in our favor. I’m assuming you told her about what happened on the road?”
She nodded.
“So tell her I made you dinner as an apology, and one thing led to another.” His mouth tipped into another of those panty-wetting grins. “After one incredible night in the sack together, you knew you could never live without me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Puh-lease. No one’s going to believe that.”
His palm curved over her knee. “I bet I can make you believe it.”
She tried not to focus on the distracting way his fingers brushed along the inner seam of her pants. “Don’t count on it.”
“Should I take that as a challenge?” His gaze still locked with hers, he took her plate and set it next to her coat.
Planting his hands on the chair’s upholstered arms, he boxed her in and leaned so close, she easily made out the flecks of gold in his irises. Compelling as his gaze was, her attention couldn’t help straying to his mouth. Her nipples tightened as she imagined those sexy, masculine lips traveling in a slow glide across her breasts and belly. What would his goatee feel like against her skin? Would it be scratchy and irritating, or soft and ticklish?