Getting drunk didn’t help. Watching her house, waiting to ambush her, stroking himself until he was ready to burst from sexual frustration… that was no better. He settled on a compromise before he ended up being tossed inside the Cage.
Maddox took his truck out and traveled down her street twice each day—first thing in the morning, then late at night—hoping for a peek of her while praying that none of her neighbors reported him for constantly passing by.
In between, he tried to return to work, giving up when he spent the whole time obsessing over what his mate was doing, before going back to annoying the shit out of his younger brother.
And, okay. He might have staked out his territory behind her house again when he couldn’t quite keep away.
* * *
A week after he first scented her, Maddox was sitting on the edge of Colt’s couch, his legs spread, his boots tapping against the hardwood floor. He had spent the last half an hour pacing, watching the clock on the wall tick-tock, tick-tock as night slowly crawled closer.
“This fucking sucks,” he snapped out. “I just… I can’t get comfortable.”
Maddox palmed his erection with a heavy hand, trying to tame the bulge. It wasn’t working. The limp cock that always lay perfectly against his thigh was making a damn tent out of his boxers, fighting to punch through his most worn, most loose pair of jeans. It was like trying to wrangle a lead pipe into a new position, he was so hard, and nothing he’d done in the last seven days had changed it.
Colt was sitting at the table on the other side of the room. Head bent over a sheet of paper, he didn’t even look up from his sketch. “Stop playing with that damn thing.”
“I can’t help it. I’ve rubbed it raw since last Saturday and it still won’t go down.”
Dodge floated near Colt, his hands crossed over his see-through vest. As a ghost, he was more transparent than not; Maddox could make out the blinds behind Dodge, everything about him—from his old-fashioned duds to his faded derby hat—in varying shades of grey.
The only pop of color on the century-old ghost was the electric blue shade of his eyes. They were wide and mischievous as he jerked his chin over at Maddox.
“You’re lucky,” he said, his thick New York accent forever noticeable. “I haven’t gotten wood in more than a hundred years.”
For Maddox, it was twenty-six. And that was long enough.
Every Para had its quirk. Most of the community pitied the shifters for theirs. And while Maddox might have been more frustrated through those hormone-filled teenage years than a human kid, he got through them because he knew the prize at the end was worth decades of waiting.
He was going to have a mate. One woman who fate chose just for him.
As soon as she left her house, that was.
“I’d swap places with you if I could,” muttered Maddox grumpily.
It wasn’t quite true. That was the sexual frustration talking.
Dodge knew it, too.
“It’s an easy fix, Mad. Look… just go out, find some lucky gal to give you a handy. Relieve some stress, then give your real woman a chance to talk to you without that thing ready to poke out her eye. You’ll be fine.”
Maddox bared his fangs. “Not funny, Dodge.”
“What do you mean? I’m serious.” He drifted closer, a smirk on his hazy face. “What about Priscilla?”
“Cilla? What about Cilla?”
Dodge shrugged. “Ask her for a hand.”
Maddox stared over at him. It was getting harder and harder to focus on the ghost. Did he always used to be so see-through? Maddox didn’t think so. Then again, Maddox was having a hard time concentrating on even the smallest of things these days.
But Cilla? Really?
“Why the hell would I do that?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe because she’s been in love with you since she was a witchling?”
That was one thing Maddox couldn’t stand about ghosts. Dodge had been dead more than ninety years, but he’d seen a lot in the time since. Worse, he had a memory like a steel trap. He didn’t forget anything. Certain things that happened to Maddox and Colt back when they were kids, Dodge recalled them with vivid clarity. Time just didn’t have the same meaning to him since he died.