Dante smiled when everyone at the table lifted their heads and recognized his possessive posture. “You all got what you wanted. She left. Well, I’ve brought her back, and she’s staying. I don’t need to tell you that what Jaime needs right now is support. If you can’t bring yourself to give it to her, then fine. But if that’s how you feel, stay away from her altogether.” To Jaime’s surprise, no one said a word. She’d kind of expected some sort of uproar, or at least a few objections. Instead, she actually received smiles from some of the people who had only yesterday decided that it was best if she was gone. Apparently, her gesture of leaving and her protectiveness of Dante had gone a long way with them.
Gabe, Shaya, and Dominic weren’t very happy with her for running off and made it clear with reproachful looks, but their silent treatment didn’t last any more than two minutes, and soon they were chewing her ear off about one thing or another.
Having demolished his overloaded plate in record time, Dante leaned back in his seat.
“You’re off work today, right?”
“Yep,” she said as she petted a loudly purring Hunk. “Sundays are my day of rest from work.”
“Rest?”
Smiling at the way he echoed the word in utter confusion, she said, “Yes. I like to rest or go do something fun. Shaya and I have already arranged to go shopping for a few hours.” She was about to add that she’d take two enforcers along when Dante began shaking his head madly.
“You two can’t go out shopping alone when Glory and her brothers are desperate to get their hands on you, Jaime.”
The nonnegotiable tone had Jaime slowly arching a brow. “I can’t?” Dante shook his head again, his face darkening. “No. Not a chance.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Aw, Dante, exercising your will on me is purely a waste of time. You know this already. Would you like an aspirin?”
“You’re not going. That’s it.”
“Whatfreakingever.”
“I’m serious! There’s no way I’ll let you put yourself in that kind of danger!” Let her? “Dante, don’t make me kick you to death.”
Pissed with her attitude, he growled. His wolf was just as unhappy about her intentions.
“Look, it’s one thing not having a flight response, but it’s another thing to have no sense of self-preservation. Not only did Glory confront you, but her brothers tried to attack you.”
“Ten out of ten for observation.”
“You can’t go off and make yourself an easy target. I won’t allow it.” Jaime sighed. “I’m pretty sure we went over this yesterday, big guy. Just because you and I have close encounters of the best kind doesn’t mean you get to control me or baby me.”
“I want to do a lot of things to you. ‘Babying’ isn’t one of them.”
“Good. Then it’s all settled.” She gave him a winning smile. “See how easy that was?”
“Jaime,” he gritted out. Seeing the resolve on her beautiful face, he bit out, “Fine. I’ll go with you.”
She had to have heard him wrong. “Sorry?”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he repeated, “I’ll go with you.”
“You’ll go shopping?” she said slowly, stunned.
“Yes.”
“But you’ll be off doing Beta stuff.”
“I have Tao and four enforcers—I can delegate.” He noticed the surprise on the faces of those around him, but he paid them no attention. He was only interested in ensuring that the stubborn female beside him didn’t hand herself over to Glory’s brothers on a platter.
The workaholic was actually prepared to take most of the day off? Nah, surely not. She glanced around the room as she said, “I’m being Punk’d, aren’t I?”
“‘Fucked’ is what you’ll be getting, but that’s for later.” She studied his face, still incredulous. “But you hate the mall.” Yeah, he did. He hated shopping, period. “I hate the thought of you in danger more.” Aw, how could she resist him when he said stuff like that? “Okay, big guy. You can come.”
“Why thank you,” he replied acerbically.
“Great,” said Dominic, “you guys can drop me off at the tattoo studio first. I’m getting the finishing touches done to my tattoo.”
Jaime went to ask him about it, but Dante’s words distracted her.
“I have a condition, though.”
“A condition to what?” she asked, both suspicious and confused.
“To coming with you shopping instead of making your day miserable by hounding you. I get to buy you something.”
That would have excited her if he hadn’t said it like a threat. “Define ‘something.’” His impish smile surfaced. “You’ll see.”
Five hours later, she saw. And gawked. When she could finally speak, she said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“You can’t buy me this.”
He folded his arms across his chest—a gesture that said this was nonnegotiable. He’d anticipated resistance, because he knew Jaime well enough to know that she wasn’t the slightest bit materialistic. “Yes, I can. You’re mine, I protect what’s mine, and you’re going to accept this. The end.”
“Dante, I’m serious.”
“Baby, so am I.”
“I thought you meant chocolates or maybe a pair of shoes or something. Not a brand-new top-of-the-line car!” His grin was totally unapologetic, which peeved her even more. “Dante, I’m not letting you spend that much money on me.”
He advanced on her. “Hey, I’ll spend my money on you if I want to, when I want to.” She made a slashing motion with her hands. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but it’s too much.”
“No, no more arguing. I had the patience of a damn saint today. I let you drag me around the mall, and I hardly moaned at all.”
He was right. Call her mean, but Jaime had quite enjoyed dragging him, Tao, and Ryan from store to store. Whenever Dante tried rushing her, she had slowed her pace until he finally received the message and stopped pestering her.
While Ryan often manned the entrance, Dante would personally escort her around every store while Tao escorted Shaya. It had been hilarious watching Dante’s huge frame try to squeeze through racks of clothes. It hadn’t been hilarious when the female assistants openly stared at him or flirted.
Several times Jaime had shot snarls at the women or placed her hand on his arm possessively, warning them away. She literally hadn’t been able to stop herself from doing it.
He naturally found that funny. The only thing that had saved him from getting a whack over the head was that he hadn’t once—no, not even once—responded to the ogles or the flirting. He had been solely focused on Jaime, despite most of his oglers being model material. That had scored him some serious bonus points.
He lost some of said points when he tried telling her what she could and couldn’t wear.
Basically he wanted every inch of her body covered at all times. She had just given him an indulgent,
“sure thing” smile and then bought what she wanted anyway. He soon gave up.
She hadn’t been able to resist asking questions like, “Do these jeans make my ass look big?” and “Does this skirt make my calves look fat?”
Sheer and utter horror had flashed across his face every time, as if he’d sensed that there might not be a right answer. Each time, however, he would say, “No, baby, you look beautiful, you should definitely buy that,” which of course could be translated into “Please get me out of this fucking store.” Just when she’d thought he’d forgotten about his “condition,” he’d informed her that they had one more place to go before collecting Dominic at the tattoo studio. She hadn’t for one second suspected that he meant a car dealership. Why would she? Normal people didn’t go and spend more than twenty thousand dollars on a girl they had only been seeing for, like, two minutes.
Okay, she could admit to herself that she seriously liked the silver Chevy Captiva, but damn it, that wasn’t the point. She shook her head at him. “Da
nte—”
He fisted a hand in her hair. “It’s important to me that you’re safe, and as much as I’d rather chauffeur you everywhere, my job is too demanding for that. Plus, I know that would make you feel suffocated, and then you’d get pissed at me all the time. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
He released her hair and smoothed it out. “I’m not good at relationships, baby. Most likely because I haven’t been in one since I was eighteen years old. The ones before Laurie weren’t serious.
I get that I’m going to mess up often, especially when I get all controlling and overprotective. This car is a compromise—I get to know that you’re not driving that tin can that you’ve been insisting we get fixed, and you get to have your independence. Okay, you get to have some of it. For it to be a compromise, you have to meet me halfway here.”
He really was trying, she suddenly realized. It wasn’t often you could get a controlling person to make any kind of compromise about anything. What bothered her was how expensive this compromise was.
Reading her mind, he said, “It’s just money, Jaime. I have plenty of it, and I want to spend some of it on someone who matters to me.” Trey—like most Alphas—had hands in many pies, and it was Dante who had educated him on business. He had investments of his own that had all paid off, and he wasn’t one for splurging. But with Jaime it was different. He wanted to buy her things, wanted to spoil her in the way that her parents had never been able to when she was younger. “Is that really so awful?”
His soft, cajoling tone almost had her saying no without thought. She knew he could afford it, but that wasn’t her point. “If I accept this now, you’ll try to buy me other expensive stuff, too.”
“No, baby, I won’t try to do that. I will do that. But I’ll do that even if you don’t accept it.” Ignoring her groan, he gently turned her so that she was facing the vehicle and curled his arms around her. He whispered into her ear, “You know you want it, Jaime. I know you want it. I heard you once before say you love the new-car smell. I can’t wait to christen it. You can ride me in the front seat. Up and down, up and down, up and down on my cock until—”
“You’re such a goddamn jerk!”
Ignoring her attempt to wriggle out of his arms, he laughed, relishing the scent of her arousal.
“Ready to drive your new SUV to the tattoo studio?”
A sizzle of excitement and anticipation ran through her. Sure, she was still a little uncomfortable with him buying something this expensive for her, but she also knew that this was more than just a gift to him. This was an effort to make their relationship work, even if it was a strange method. Although his overprotective streak had the potential to drive her crazy, she didn’t want to change him. She cared for him just as he was, and she understood that in order for this to work, she would occasionally have to accommodate his weird ways. “Don’t think this means you’ll get your way all the time, Popeye.”
He grinned against her nape. “Never would I think that.” His grin totally disappeared when he realized what her idea of driving was. “You’re going to get us killed! Slow down!”
“Oh, live a little, will you,” she said. “I’m only doing eighty.”
“You’re going one hundred and ten miles per hour!”
“Sure, if you want to get technical about it.”
His heart missed a beat when she barely dodged a pedestrian. “Slow the hell down, Jaime, or I swear I’ll shove you in the backseat and do the driving myself!”
“Okay, Grandma, we’re slowing, happy now?” She rolled her eyes at his thunderous scowl.
“I’ll even slow down enough that Tao can catch up, okay?” The scowl was still on Dante’s face when she parked the SUV ten minutes later. “Are you regretting giving it to me yet?” He growled at her amused smirk. “No, but I’m seriously rethinking the idea of letting you chauffeur yourself. Develop a better sense of self-preservation fast.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
Growling again, he exited the vehicle and opened the driver’s door. She was still wearing that goddamn smirk. At least she’d given up arguing about her ability to let herself out of cars and was indulging him in this. Caging her wrist with his hand, he led her into the studio, ignoring the amused looks that Shaya and the guys were wearing inside the safety of the Toyota.
Dante was surprised by the interior of the studio. He’d expected either a medical, biker, or Zen look. The place was like an art gallery, slash record store. It was very clean and had a calming, welcoming feel, and Dante had to wonder if the latter was because of a little magick, since the people who worked there were, in fact, witches. The accelerating healing that came with being a shifter made it nearly impossible to be tattooed. Witches, however, were able to tattoo shifters effectively.
He wasn’t sure whether it was because they enchanted the ink or because they, too, were preternatural beings.
On the walls were framed photographs of amazing tattoos—the kind that would make you want a tattoo yourself even if you hadn’t thought about it until then. There were, all in all, six tattoo artists at work, and all spared them only the briefest glance, totally focused on what they were doing.
Dominic, who was speaking—well, flirting—with the blushing receptionist, held up his index finger, gesturing that he’d be one minute. Jaime sighed and rolled her eyes. Typical.
As Dante flicked through one of the portfolios placed on the coffee table in the corner of the reception area, he whispered into Jaime’s ear, “Do you think we could get my name tattooed on your ass?”
Gaping, she slapped his upper arm. “I’d laugh if I thought you were joking.”
“It would be the biggest turn-on ever to take you from behind and see my name on your ass.” He was getting hard just thinking about it.
In a voice both sweet and sarcastic, she asked, “Shall I have ‘Chattel of’ tattooed there too?”
“I guess that would be all right.” He chuckled when she slapped his upper arm again.
“Does your girlfriend know that you like to flirt with other females?” asked a deep, rumbly voice.
Dante and Jaime looked up to see Nick Axton breezing into the studio, his eyes fixed firmly on Dominic, who was tucking a folded slip of paper into his pocket.
Sensing that Jaime wanted to intervene, Dante gave a subtle shake of his head. He wanted to see how this played out, wanted to know if his suspicions about Nick’s odd behavior were correct.
That wasn’t going to happen if he and Jaime stepped forward. So far the Alpha hadn’t noticed them in the corner, as his attention was solely on Dominic.
Considering that there was a powerful Alpha glowering at him, Jaime had expected Dominic to either buckle slightly or straighten to his full height and mirror Nick’s confrontational stance.
Instead, he strolled casually toward the Alpha until he was a foot away, not looking in the least bit rattled. Jaime was impressed. But then, he wasn’t an enforcer for nothing.
Cocking his head, Dominic asked, “I have a girlfriend?”
“Does she know that you take other females’ numbers, too?”
“Oh you noticed that. You sure do seem to have a lot of interest in me. I don’t bat for both teams, sorry.”
Nick closed the small distance between them. “Break it off with her.” The words dripped with power and authority. Yet Dominic simply shrugged and said, “It’s going to be hard to do that when I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Dante could see that Nick was surprised by Dominic’s failure to cower. People tended to underestimate just how capable the playful wolf was. Dominic’s dominance was subtle but very much there, and it was clear that Nick was just coming to that realization.
“In any case,” continued Dominic, “the only Alpha I take orders from is Trey. Take care now, Nicky.”
When he tried to walk past, Nick stepped in his path and growled menacingly. “I’m not done yet.”
Knowing that things would quickly esca
late from here, Dante stepped toward them. “Let him pass, Nick.” The Alpha didn’t react at all, just continued to stare at Dominic as if imagining which would be the most stimulating way to kill him. “Dominic, go wait in the Toyota. Tao, Ryan, and Shaya are in there waiting for you.”
“Excellent,” said Dominic with a grin, stepping around the Alpha, who was currently watching the Toyota through narrowed eyes.
“Want to tell me what that was all about?” Dante asked Nick, though he was damn confident what it was about.
Nick looked as though he had every intention of walking out without answering, but then he saw Jaime and stopped. “So you haven’t been thrown out yet.” Jaime gave Nick a beaming smile. “Shocking, isn’t it?”
“You find this funny? You’re barely in control of your wolf. You could hurt the people in your pack.”
She snorted. “You’re a fine one to talk about hurting people in my pack, aren’t you? You don’t deserve her.” She ignored Dante’s gaze, now only interested in the jerk in front of her. “She deserves better.”
“She told you,” he surmised in a quiet voice. “I didn’t realize you were so close.”
“So close that I’m seriously considering clawing off your balls and feeding them to you. Not because I’m losing control, but because you’re an ass.” His eyes danced to Dante. “She told you, too.”
“No. I figured it out. It won’t be long before the rest of the pack does, too, if you continue acting the way you have been. I can’t work out whether you’re planning on taking some time before claiming her, or you have no intention to at all.”
“The latter,” Jaime answered for him.
Nick’s focus returned to her. “You must know why I can’t claim her.”
“What I know is that you don’t even have the decency to discuss it with her. You act like she doesn’t exist. You make her feel small and worthless. What kind of male does that to his mate? No male worth his salt ever would.”
Even knowing that Nick was a powerful Alpha, Dante still had the undeniable urge to punch him. He might have told Trey about it and asked him to stop Nick from coming to pack territory if he didn’t know for certain that Trey would want to kill Nick. “If you don’t intend to claim her, you need to stay away from the pack and stick to phone calls from here on out. Taryn won’t be in the least bit merciful if she finds out. Trey turns homicidal if he sees Taryn even the slightest bit upset. What happens won’t be pretty.”