The Alpha's Warlock (Mismatched Mates #1)

by Eliot Grayson

his (probably his, but I sure as hell wasn't going to try to inspect)

😂

The pantry yielded a box of Pop-Tarts. I didn't bother looking for an expiration date. Those things had a half-life like frosted-cherry plutonium.

I wanted to stroke his forehead again. I wanted to cradle his head in my lap and cry. I wanted him to wake up and hug me and tell me it was all right, that I was safe, that I was more than a walking, talking liability that no one trusted.

So Ian had some ideas about me, and pretty much the only way I could fix that would be to tell him the most humiliating and intimate details of how my father and Ian's cousin had both used me, in their own special ways, without giving a fuck about me.

Was it better to be useful, and therefore used, or useless and left to die?

What did a guy do when his hostile asshole werewolf mate started to, like, be nice to him? Sweet, even?

But it really did make me look like a younger, more moisturized Emperor Palpatine, and I kind of loved it.

I started to laugh, and then I pictured Ian in a waistcoat and my brain shorted out for a minute.

Note to self: alphas had no sense of humor about dog jokes.

“You make me weak,” he said quietly. “If you’re hurt, if you’re in danger, I can’t focus on anything else.”

I was like a bad supernatural country song, all wanting to be loved and sad that my werewolf ran away. Or something.

I couldn’t shower with Ian. That was…wet, and slippery, and soapy, and there would be six-foot-something of hard muscle pressed up against me, and that was the absolute worst idea ever. That was my story and I was fucking well sticking to it.

but for now I damn well deserved a huge, hot, naked werewolf soaping me up and rubbing those huge, rough hands, that could be so gentle when he wanted, all over me.

If alpha mating instincts meant they washed you in all the hot water and then uncomplainingly took cold showers on their own, I couldn’t believe everyone didn’t want one.

“Nate. I never hated that Jared was with you. I hated that you were with him. I hated him. I hated myself for hating him. I hated everyone in the fucking world except for you.”

you’re the best thing in the world. You’re everything. I always thought so, from day fucking one. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you.”

“You really think that ‘You’re an asshole, and I don’t like you, and you’re an idiot, Ian, and I’m going to steal your favorite socks and whack you with magic so hard you pass out and hit your head, so make me some coffee’ would work on someone else? Really?”

I believed him. Finally, I believed him. Part of me had been stubbornly refusing to admit that Ian could possibly, truly, want me, all of me, enough to not just fuck me into the next time zone but also bring me coffee in bed. Voluntarily.

I tipped my head back and looked up into Ian’s worried face. He was so handsome like this, all flushed and rumpled and damp with sweat, warm and big and mine.