Jim’s smile tickled the bite mark Gabe had left behind. “When did you get a hickey, Sarah?”
Her eyes went wide. “Um…”
“Did you burn yourself with curlers or something just to make him jealous?” He leaned back and put his arm around her shoulders, smiling at Gabe. “Gotta love a smart woman, eh, Gabriel?” he shouted across the table.
Gabe smiled back, showing more teeth than should be humanly possible. “Some women are smarter than others, I’ll grant you that.”
Her lashes lowered at the look on his face. She had the feeling that if they’d been in their dream her ass would be burning right now.
“Sarah? I need to speak to you privately.”
She looked up at Gabe and noted the smile had turned into fierce determination. She opened her mouth to reply, not quite sure what she was going to say. Her heart was pounding, partly in fear, partially in anticipation.
Jim interrupted her before she could speak, kissing her cheek. “Are we still going dancing after dinner?”
She smiled sweetly up at Jim, taking the out he handed her, ruthlessly ignoring the seething man across the table from her. She knew at some point there would be a reckoning, but for now she was going to enjoy the support of her friend. Something about the way Gabe was watching her reminded her of what he’d been training to do for the last several months. “Sounds great!”
Jim picked up her hand and kissed her fingers again. A small shiver went through her, but not because of Jim. The two fingers Gabe tapped against his plate were a warning, and she knew it. Luckily the restaurant’s animated animals chose that moment to begin their screams, distracting Jim from the golden-eyed glare Gabe was sending his way. That had to be giving him a headache. She’d never seen a Puma’s eyes remain gold for so long.
Gabe’s sudden turn-around was startling, and she didn’t quite trust it. He’d spent the better part of two months ignoring her in favor of Chloe, but a couple of hours of Sarah flirting with Jim had him doing a countdown to a spanking? Hah!
The Pride leaders were standing, laughing and joking about dancing the night away over at Universal Studio’s nightclubs. Her plan was to dance and have fun with the blond god next to her. She would deal with the consequences tomorrow. Tonight she had a date with a good friend and a little white pill that guaranteed her a dreamless sleep.
Gabe stood next to one of the many sofas that surrounded the dance floor and watched as his mate shimmied to the music with Jim. Part of him wanted to storm over and cart her off into the sunset.
The other part was stuck listening to Simon and Adrian while he sipped a beer and pretended to listen.
At least she wasn’t dirty dancing with the asshole.
Actually, he couldn’t call what she was doing dancing. She looked like she was having spasms. He hid his grin behind his beer as he watched her happily gyrating to the music. The look on Jim’s face as he watched his partner was priceless. He doubted the man would stay on the dance floor with her for much longer. He at least seemed to know what he was doing. Sarah, on the other hand…
“She looks like someone’s poking her ass with a stick.” Simon cocked his head, watching as Sarah’s body bowed in a way that should have been physically impossible while standing. In fact, Gabe was surprised she was still standing.
Adrian shook his head sadly. “What I want to know is, does she thinks she’s actually dancing?”
Simon cocked his head the other way, like he was studying some strange alien life-form and didn’t quite know what to make of it. “That’s dancing? I thought it was some sort of weird religious thing. I know I saw a few of those moves on the Discovery Channel.”
“Yes, but were they done by humans?”
Gabe turned back to his two friends, not surprised to see them smirking at him. “Do I make fun of your mates?”
“Have any of them given you such a good reason to?” Adrian took a sip of his own beer, his gaze straying over to his pale fiancée. She sat on the sofa behind them, her sensitive eyes carefully shielded from the strobe lights by big white sunglasses. She was laughing and chatting with Becky and Belle. Rick hovered over the women, a small smile on his face as he listened to them chat, his massive arms crossed over his chest, hard, cold eyes softening as they rested on Belle.
“I don’t think any of our mates would be, ah, brave enough to step out onto the dance floor like that,”
Simon laughed, his own gaze straying to Becky’s wild head of curls. The big glass artist’s face was full of happiness.
Gabe rolled his eyes, his attention drifting back to Sarah. Jim was laughing at something Sarah had said or done, but he kept his body at a distance, possibly fearing for his limbs. Gabe was okay with the way they were dancing together…for now. The moment a slow song came on, however, he was going to be on the dance floor. There was only so much he could stomach. Seeing Sarah in another man’s arms was not an option. “I still need to mark her.” And he had to do it before Jim got any closer to Sarah than he already was.
“You should have taken care of that before you left.” Gabe shot Simon a look. The Beta slammed one large hand down on Gabe’s shoulder. “What the hell were you waiting for?”
Gabe grimaced. “The Hunter who trained me told me it would make things a lot more difficult for both of us.” He ran his fingers through his hair wearily. “I’m beginning to think taking his advice was a huge mistake.”
Simon frowned. “Damn. Six months, knowing who your mate was but leaving her unclaimed? The dreams must have been driving you insane. I know they’re what finally made me realize what my Puma had been telling me for months. I just wish I’d acted sooner, before she got hurt.”
Gabe nodded. Simon would probably never forgive himself for not claiming Becky before Livia, the rogue Puma who had tried to make Emma and Becky’s lives hell, had managed to hurt her. “Seeing the hickey I gave her in one of those dreams was surreal. It just solidified for me how big a mistake it was.”
It took him a moment to realize that the two men were staring at him, shock on their faces. “What?”
Adrian was the first to recover. “You bit her in a dream and the mark showed up for real?”
“Hickey. I gave her a hickey.” What would have happened if he had marked her in the dream? Would they be going through this now?
“Whatever.” Adrian frowned. “As far as I know, that’s impossible.”
Gabe shrugged. That jived with what Gabe knew, but nevertheless the mark was there. “Obviously not.”
Simon kept watch on the women while Adrian and Gabe chatted, but Gabe could tell they had the Beta’s full attention. The fact that the Alpha and Beta had been made, not born, meant that the two men occasionally ran across some aspect of being a shifter that was still new to them.
And wouldn’t he have loved to be a fly on the wall when Jonathon Friedelinde, the old Alpha, had bitten the two men? He wondered how all of them had handled the inevitable arousal that would have spiked between them. He’d heard the sensation was incredibly intense. He figured their girlfriends must have walked funny for a week afterwards, but no way in hell would he say that out loud where Emma and Becky could hear it considering they’d been dating Livia and Belle at the time.
Come to think of it, perhaps he shouldn’t mention it in front of Rick, either.
Adrian shrugged. “Well, as far as I know, the mate dreams are just that: dreams. What you do in them has no impact on your mate whatsoever.”
“I know that’s how it normally works, but she knew it was there. She even covered it with her hand.”
Gabe watched as Sarah attempted to twirl and nearly fell on a nearby couple. Jim’s quick hands stopped her from a nasty fall. Gabe grumbled and wondered if he’d actually have to thank the asshole.