"…would have mated her myself to save her from Sheppard's brothers," Cole mumbled, making me snap my head around and suppress a growl.
"What?"
"I said, I would have mated her myself if I could, but we're just friends, Ren and I. Besides, I'm waiting for my fated, and I pray to God she gets hers. Can't deny I wasn’t tempted, though. The female can cook, and you should taste her chocolate cakes. Those things are delicious." Cole moaned while I fumed inside, and my mind seethed with needs I didn't want.
Oh, I wanted a taste—
"Nope." I hissed, both to myself and Cole, because I feared I was going to need to keep reminding myself of all the reasons I didn't want this.
And I didn't give a damn that Cole or any other male would mate her. It wasn't my problem, and I didn't care. What Ren Sheppard needed wasn't my problem. Not my problem.
The problem was, I found myself smiling as I undressed and slipped into my clean bed, dragging in the scent of lavender, clean sheets, and something so undeniably Ren it made my cock stiffen before I could control it.
I wouldn't like her.
"I don't," I growled as I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep with her scent lingering in my nose.
I. Didn't.
Chapter 5 Ren
Iwas bored. Sure there were things to do, and I should be doing them, but if I had to look at that hallway closet again, I would scream. It was just so overwhelming, and even after having cleared half of it and finding homes for the junk Caleb called his stuff, there was a boatload of organizing to do.
“You could bake,” I murmured, immediately grimacing and nixing the idea because I’d baked yesterday and had to deal with Caleb stomping around, barking at me, and demanding to know what I was doing.
What kind of asshole didn’t like baked goods? Even worse, he seemed to hate chocolate cake and warned me if I even thought of making one, he’d rip the oven out of the wall and toss it out.
Sighing because I didn’t want to know what’d crawled up his ass, I looked around the kitchen and groaned. It’d been a few days since my first disastrous day of work, and I was settling in. I’d learned to ignore Caleb’s outrageous moods and had eventually cleaned up the mess he’d left in the hallway. And yes, I nearly scalped him because he’d found out my dirty secret before I could fix it, and it was galling.
Now he probably thought I was a slob just like him, and that just made me want to scream.
“Dammit, don’t go there. Do something.” I mumbled my jitters down to one thing and one thing alone.
Caleb was gone for at least a little while, and I was itching to go into his studio. Which I wouldn’t do because one of the rules on his stupid fridge list was that I had to stay out of his 'personal' areas.
I’d love to explore his personal areas.
“Would you stop?” I moaned, shaking my head to rid it of images of Caleb naked and me on my knees.
Nope. Not going there. We’re going to be friends, I told my wolf and inner nuttier self resolutely, tapping my foot nervously until I snapped and found myself outside, staring at his studio door.
“Don’t do it, Ren,” I whined, even as I reached for the door and pulled it open quickly as if that made it acceptable.
It didn’t, and I should feel guilty, but I was way too curious to dwell on it as I peeked inside and then froze, my breath stalling in my lungs.
“Oh shit.”
Oh, shit, indeed. Girl, what the hell kinda crazy is this?
I shook my head, unable to answer my inner beasts, as I stepped inside and took in portrait after portrait of the same woman. She had red hair the color of autumn leaves, green eyes so bright I found myself envying them, and an air about her that made me wonder. I mean, not that she wasn’t perfectly gorgeous, but something about her was so cold in every portrait, I shivered as I walked in closer and peered at them.
“I know.” I breathed, gulping down a sniffle of sadness.
I had married Shane and wouldn’t call it a mating like most shifters do because I understand one thing I can no longer deny; we hadn’t loved each other, and nothing about our lives could have been deemed normal for shifters. I’d never shifted with Shane and run through the woods under the moonlight. We also hadn’t bonded, he’d never bitten me to claim me, and I’d never gone past the initial stages of heat with him.
This…what I saw here was just terrible, and I felt so badly for Caleb because I got it now. He’d loved this woman in ways nothing but this mysterious fating could explain, and the sad truth was, he probably still did.
“What the hell are you doing in here!” I heard a gasp leaving me as I twisted and saw a furious Caleb standing in the doorway, glaring.