The Mate That Wasn't Mine novel Chapter 14

Chapter 14

MAXIM POV

Even though we’re kissing, Tessa is braced for me to pull the rug from underneath her. To mock her and tell it was all a joke. Until finally, her kisses meet mine, her lips pushing for more. Her hesitancy melts away, replaced with slivers of trust. I can feel it in the way she holds herself, down to her breathing.

+20)

The feisty, urgent little hellcat who seized me on the archery field returns with a vengeance.

The more I spend with my arms around her the more I believe it might actually be a good idea to get to know each other.

Because there is no way this girl spent a quiet life on a farm. Before just randomly decided to train up as one of the best archers in a pack of

thousands.

I don’t buy it.

Clearly the Warden’s don’t either, right from the moment they heard her name she’s been treated a little differently.

She’s got something. No doubt about it. Unfortunately so do most of the people I’m going to be sent to kill in my future line of work. It’s not a guarantee she’s a good, loyal pack member. Just a sign she can learn and

take instruction.

But her shyness! It’s like I’m trying to turn a baby bird into a dragon.

My wolf surges and my control slips as I yank firmly, our bodies pressed together, my tongue finding hers. The clothing bundle is completely abandoned to the floor, one hand reaching into her coppery hair, inseparable, melded forces.

The chilly air means her hardened nipples are pressed against my chest

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and there are barely a few seconds of my functioning brain left. Without realising she’s backed up against the freezing Block A wall. Her leg hitches. up, rubbing against my outer thigh and to my surprise I let out a groan of need. “Fucking hell.”

“Don’t stop,” she murmurs, my entire body obeying her request.

Even the clanging bells of curfew don’t break us apart. Grumbling movements from a final few students register somewhere but whilst our lips still entangled I’m not moving. Tessa’s hands rake my upper body and bearded cheeks. Some moves are rough, ragged.

The ones that have me shivering are the lightly fluttering, tentative examinations. Shoulders, arms, hair, back of my neck.

Fuck, the way her slender fingers tease the back of my neck is too much. Time to kick this mate bond up a notch. I want more.

“To our room,” I whisper into her ear. There is no denying the scent of her arousal. No doubt she can feel my cock hardening against her

sumptuously curvy waist. Fuck even the way her pupils are blown out, looking up at me with that quiet, thoughtful little expression of hers. She wants this too. Good.

It’s happening.

Scooping up her uniform bundle we stride towards the stone lump of E Block. Tessa is completely silent. Even when I show her where the key to our room is hidden in a small, carved notch of the black ironwork she just nods.

It’s foolish but I want her to like it here. To feel safe. So when the heavy wooden door opens, I dart in, hurling her uniform down and briskly lighting a series of oil lamps.

The four posted bed, framed with thick, nutty–coloured oak beams and a deep red blanket dominates the room. The wooden floor is springy, gentle

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Chapter 14

underfoot compared to those freezing concrete and stone slabs that make up the other blocks.

The real winner is the bow and arrow propped up by the bathroom door. Gleaming and new. Freshly stolen from Isaac in revenge for him trying to stamp on my neck yesterday like a tantrumming toddler.

The arrows sit in a delicate quiver fashioned from strips of white and black leather in a dramatic zig–zag pattern.

“This is a mistake.”

20

Mid–way through lighting another lamp my body screeches to a halt. Tessa is saying what?

“Why?”

“Because it is. This…this is too dangerous.”

“Not doing this is dangerous,” I correct her, annoyed at having to point out the obvious. “This is the way it works.”

“I don’t mean that. Ignore me. Sorry.” she whispers, her cheeks completely aflame again. The hellcat has vanished. Her meaning is lost on me, but her brown eyes haunt every move I make all the same.

She’s pressed against the wooden door, her hands behind her, no doubt clinging onto the door handle in fear. It takes every inch of gentlemanly manner not to glance at her still–hard nipples poking through her tight

vest.

If she was running around in that thing for all of the archery training it is a wonder every first–year man hasn’t tried to “befriend” her like Briggs.

“You’re exhausted. So you’re staying here. Sleeping in this bed. So you keep your place at the top. Not for any other reason.”

Her mouth opens and shuts quickly. Something she wanted to tell me has been swallowed back.

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Chapter 14

“Tessa?”

“Are there any towels, I need to take a shower.”

Just like that the frost settles. Tessa shrinks back into the timid train- tumbler of before.

She emerges in one of my baggy white shirts, an old bit of my training uniform. I purposely keep my head buried in the pages of my report

whilst she walks around the bed. She hesitates.

It’s late, she’s taken forever to get showered, I gave up waiting and simply stripped down to my briefs diving under the blood red covers. I look up, placing the pages down.

“What is it?”

“Not that I’ve ever done this before…but that is my side of the bed. The one facing the window?”

“That’s it?” I burst into deep, throaty chuckles before dramatically rolling over. “It’s yours.”

Tessa scampers around so quickly I barely catch a glimpse of her shapely, creamy legs. This isn’t going to be some tortured spooning session with my cock digging into her back, she’s backed as far away from me as possible.

20

Her head is on the pillow within two seconds, looking straight at me with a glimmer of fear.

I try not to think of exactly what she means by “I’ve never done this before.” So she’s a virgin? I know her kisses were clumsy to start with but has she truly been left alone all this time? The hell is going on in these farming districts, are they all blind?

I shake my head, pretending to settle down into my own cold, fresh pillows. She isn’t actually my mate. I need to stop being so ridiculous. It’s a

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GO

deal, not a relationship.

<-20

Tied up in thick, coiled plaits Tessa’s hair sits in a fiery nest of twists, all catching the light in varying shades of orange and gold. The braids expose her pale, slender neck, the lines of her collarbones too. Right where I

should have bitten her…

Try harder Maxim, scolding myself silently. A lot fucking harder.

“What are all the papers?” she drawls. “If it’s okay to ask?”

“It is, mate,” I remind her. “I was asked to track someone over the summer. That’s why I was on the train back, I’d been in the far east of the industrial

sector for a few weeks.”

“I’ve never been there.”

“You’re not missing anything. You feel dirty just looking at the factories. It takes forever to scrub the scent of grime from your skin.”

“Mmm, I didn’t catch the scent of grime on you,” she murmurs with a smile creeping up her sleepy face. With her eyes closed she looks so much younger than her twenty–two years. Just smiling gently, adrift in a

humongous bed like a child’s sleepover.

“Apparently I’m some very nice berries,” I murmur, allowing myself to really look into her almost–asleep face. Her hair has been hiding some

beautiful features.

“No. Oak and berries.”

“Not just any old tree? Oak?”

“There’s an extra sweetness in there. Almost totally hidden by the berries, but it’s there. Definitely oak.”

“Hidden sweetness. Doesn’t sound like me at all,” I joke,

Tessa forces her eyes open. In this shared, humongous bed that’s enough

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to make the air around us crackle once more. Her dark brown eyes fixed on mine. I wait for her to correct me.

Someone like Princess Hazel would use a line like that to reach for my waistband.

Tessa just offers a low “hmm” before her eyes drop to where she bit me two days ago. It’s healing at a human rate. So a few more days of livid anguish before I invite her to do it all over again.