* * * *
“That went well.” Blane scowled at his brother. “Why the hell did you decide to confront her today? She’s been here a couple of days, and we’ve managed to keep track of her without her noticing us watching her.”
“You mean spying on her.” It was just like Blane to make it sound better than it was. Watching didn’t sound half as bad as spying.
“We’re just making sure she doesn’t do anything stupid before we can ease her into accepting us as her mates. Hell, Reese, everyone in Forever’s kept a wide berth for the Holms cousins’ sake as well as ours. Then you have to go and surprise her. Are you trying to get her to run off again?”
They’d watched her, trying to figure out what she was up to. Was she out to hurt her sister’s mates? Did she want to kidnap Shannon and force her to return to Boston? Or was she just making sure her sister was safe? Whatever the reason, Reese hated having to wait.
Reese shot a glare at his brother then pivoted and headed for his motorcycle. “I got tired of waiting. She’s our mate, so let’s just get on with it.”
“We’ve already talked about this. She’s going to need time. Time to get used to the idea that her sister’s a werewolf first. After that, we can tell her about us.”
“Bullshit. We should’ve taken her the first time she was in town.” Reese slung his leg over his Harley but didn’t make a move to start the motor.
Blane scratched the stubble on his jaw. Unlike Reese, his brother liked to keep his face shaved most of the time, but handling a problem at The Moonstone Bar had taken up most of his day. As part owner along with Anderson Holms, Blane tried to do his part in handling the staff. Having both humans and werewolves working at the bar meant conflict every so often, but that’s the choice Anderson and Blane had made when they’d decided to mix the two. Blane was even talking about hiring a vampire bartender, but Reese thought that would just add fuel to an already-smoldering fire. Still, he made it a point to stay out of his brother’s business.
“Sometimes I wish we’d taken her, too, but Anderson asked us to back off, and we agreed. They had enough trouble dealing with their mate, Shannon, wanting to stake Deacon. Besides, by the time we’d sensed that Charlie was our future mate, she’d already plugged Daniel with a bullet.”
Reese chuckled, a rarity for him. “Can’t say I blamed her. She walked into a vampire’s house and found her sister with two werewolves. I’d say she showed a lot of guts going in there. She just needs to improve her aim.”
Daniel Holms had gotten lucky that day. Lucky that Charlie’s aim wasn’t great and lucky that she hadn’t loaded the rifle with silver bullets. “Don’t go letting Daniel hear you talk that way.”
Reese had to hand it to his brother. Blane was the even-tempered one and always strived to find a compromise. Reese was the hot head and the one most likely to go off half-cocked, barging into a situation without thinking first.
“She’s hotter than I remember.”
“Damn right she is. But we didn’t really get a good look at her the first time.” Taking their cue from the Holms cousins, they’d stayed out of the trouble Shannon was causing and had only gotten a quick glimpse of Charlie as she’d lit out of town like a cat with a dog nipping at its tail.
Their mate was smokin’. No doubt about it. From her long reddish-brown hair to her full chest and curvy body, she was the kind of woman a man liked to look at in men’s magazines. Yet even wearing a simple pale-yellow T-shirt and jeans, she was sexier than the naked girls in those magazines. He hadn’t seen her standing up yet, since she’d always stayed in her pickup, but he knew her legs would run from Texas to the Canadian border. Her brown eyes, even clouded with wariness, had grabbed him and held him in a vise of desire. He longed to see what her eyes would look like when he plunged his cock into her and made her scream his name.
He’d gotten a good whiff of her, too. He’d smelled the alarm wafting off her, but it had gotten mixed with a heavy dose of pussy heat. She’d liked what she’d seen as much as he had. If she listened to her libido, getting her into bed wouldn’t take much doing. Too bad she seemed to have an attitude, but he’d adjust that soon enough. Not to the point of breaking her, but just enough for her to realize who was really in charge, in and out of bed.
She was more than just a pretty face. He’d done some research on her since her first visit and had found out she was a big deal in the business world. She’d jumped into her family’s business and had not only handled the company well but had managed to increase their profits in a time when most businesses were struggling to stay alive.