Ask for the Moon Read online

  “No,” he conceded. “But I’ve also never known you to agree to a crazy-ass idea like this.”

  “It sounded insane to me, too, when Damien first suggested it, but then I did some digging into Gerri Wilder. I was surprised to discover how many mated couples have her to thank for setting them up. She has a damn good track record.”

  “Fuck, really?” The shock had been replaced by a spark of interest. “Maybe I should come with you for this meeting.”

  “I see how it is,” I chuckled. “When it was a crazy-assed idea, you were all about staying behind and protecting the pack. But when there’s a possibility that the matchmaker might be for real, you want to elbow your way in and meet her for your own selfish reasons.”

  “I’m always about protecting the pack. A mated alpha and a mated beta would make it stronger,” he argued.

  “True,” I conceded. He had a valid point. It just wasn’t one that swayed me into changing my mind. “But you’re going to stay behind this time. If it works out, then we can discuss the possibility of you meeting with the matchmaker in the future.”

  “You never were good at sharing.”

  “What alpha is?”

  “None that I’ve ever met,” he sighed.

  The same was true for me, and I’d met a ton of alphas in my role as head of the council. “Even if I was, I’m not sure that I’d choose to bring you with me anyway. I wouldn’t want to run the risk of pissing off the matchmaker and having her decide that she doesn’t want to help me.” Thinking about the research I’d done into the woman, another possibility popped into my head. “Or for her to decide that what I really need is a triad with you and someone she deems as our fated mate.”

  Jared’s expression turned horrified. “It would take you what, an hour or two before you decided to kill me if that happened?”

  “You’re my best friend.”

  “Three hours. Tops.”

  “Maybe four,” I laughed, knowing he was right. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said I wasn’t big on sharing; not even with my best friend. My toys had been all mine when we’d been little. Snagging food from my plate was liable to get you hurt. Even as alpha, I was selective about who I let into my private space. Nobody but me got to drive my car. And I sure as fuck wasn’t going to share the woman fate intended to be mine and mine alone. Not that I had anything against triad relationships—for other people.

  I accomplished quite a bit of council and pack business using the speaker phone when I made the five-hour drive to Gerri Wilder’s apartment building the next day. The first two of those hours were spent talking to Jared, who had been shouldering more than usual for the pack over the past six months since the council was keeping me busier than normal. Once I had the pack business under control, I switched my focus to the council and that kept me occupied for the rest of the drive.

  Finding a parking spot in front of her building was hard as fuck. I ended up a couple of blocks down the street. Big cities were definitely not for me. Living in one would have left me frustrated to no end. “At least I got shit done during the drive,” I muttered to myself as I waited for the doorman to call up to Gerri’s apartment.

  “She says you can go straight up. She’s on the top floor,” he told me, flashing me an oddly toothy grin that had my wolf pushing against my skin.

  I kept my eyes locked on his, my alpha vibes thickening the air around us, waiting for him to drop his gaze. The wait wasn’t long, only a few seconds, before he looked down. It was short enough for me to know he didn’t have a lick of alpha tendencies inside him, and that was all I needed for my wolf to back down, content in the knowledge that he was the strongest male present.

  His smugness faded away when the door to Gerri’s apartment was opened and she waved me into her home. “Come in, Alpha Bashar.”

  “Please call me Seth,” I offered. “If you’re going to help me find my fated mate, we don’t need to stand on formalities.” And wasn’t that a kicker? I was depending on this tiny as hell woman to help me with something as vital as my mate.

  “If we aren’t going to be formal, then let me grab my stepstool. All you alphas are always so damn tall,” she grumbled as she dragged a stool over and climbed on it. Even with the extra inches it gave her, she had to crane her neck up while I bent low so she could give me a peck on the cheek. Then she clamored down, put the stool back where it belonged, and gestured towards her living room. She settled on a love seat, and I chose the chair next to it.

  “I have to admit that I was surprised to hear from you. It isn’t often that I have a shifter as powerful as you who’s willing to make the practical decision to use my services. The head of the shifter council, asking little old me for help.” Her blue eyes were twinkling with humor.

  “Damien was... persuasive in his argument.”

  She smiled knowingly. “At least you aren’t too hardheaded.”

  “There are plenty of people who would be more than happy to argue that point with you.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing that Damien can be hardheaded, too.”

  She was tiny, but I was starting to understand why Damien hadn’t wanted me to share his crack about her being a desperate measure. She seemed to have a knack for putting powerful shifters in their place, with very little effort.

  “How does this work?” I thought about the commercials I’d seen for dating sites geared towards humans. “Do you have a survey of some kind that you need me to fill out?”

  “I’m not an amateur who has to resort to those kinds of tricks,” she scoffed, scowling at me.

  It had seemed like a reasonable question when I’d asked it. “Then how will you know what I want?”

  Her eyes swirled from blue to a golden color. “I’m not worried about what you want, Seth. Not when I already know what you need.”

  It was uncomfortable, giving that much control to another person. But when I stopped and really thought about it, my preferences didn’t matter to fate either. How Gerri managed to find my fated mate wasn’t important. I needed to remember it was all just a means to an end—my mate, right where she belonged, with me. “Is there anything I can do to help you find what I need?”

  “As a matter of fact, there is.” She rose from her seat and marched into her kitchen. When she came back, she handed a brown paper bag to me. “Take this with you.”

  I peeked inside the bag and the scent of freshly baked goods wafted up at me. “How will muffins and cookies help me find my fated mate?”

  “You’d be surprised what some women will do for freshly baked goods.” Her answer didn’t clue me in to what she was thinking, and she didn’t look like she was going to explain it any further.

  “I guess I’d better head back. I have a long drive ahead of me.”

  “Where did you park?”

  “A couple of blocks down the street.”

  Her focus sharpened on me. “To the east or west?”

  “East.”

  “Perfect.” She flashed me a satisfied smile. “There’s a wonderful little tea shop near where you’re parked. You should stop in before you start the drive back home.”

  “I can do that.” I didn’t actually say that I would since tea shops weren’t my thing, but I didn’t want to offend her.

  I was thinking about my strange meeting with the matchmaker as I neared my car, and my wolf unexpectedly pushed for control. I reined him in, but it took more effort than it should have. Glancing around me, I tried to figure out what had set him off. I didn’t see anything suspicious, though. There weren’t many people on the sidewalk. Nothing seemed off with the traffic driving past. With all of my senses wide open, a sweet scent drifted my way. I realized what had gotten my wolf all riled up—my mate was near.

  4

  Jane

  The bell above the door to the shop announced the arrival of another customer, and my breath froze in my lungs when I glanced up and saw the man walking towards me. He was most definitely a shifter—tall, dark, and handsome
. Screw handsome, he was more than that. He was downright gorgeous. Thick, black hair. A chiseled jaw covered with scruff. Plump lips that I could too easily picture trailing down my naked skin. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, and long legs that quickly ate up the space between us. He was easily a half-foot taller than my five feet nine inches. I felt downright dainty standing in front of him.

  He looked completely out of place in the store; the proverbial bull in a china shop. That didn’t stop me from having to fight the urge to leap over the counter and into his arms, though. My wolf pushed for control, and it was a struggle I hadn’t felt in years. I’d been keeping her on a tight leash—one she’d seemed content to stay on. Until now. Until him.

  I spotted the brown paper bag in his hand, and realization dawned. “Gerri sent you?”

  “Yes,” he rasped.

  I eyed him up and down, taking in the way the black material of his shirt was stretched taut by his muscles and how his jeans molded his legs. Looking at him, it was impossible to argue that my vibrator was getting the job done. Not when he was an alternative.

  “Wow,” I breathed out. “You’re the guy she wants to set me up on a blind date with?”

  “Blind date?” he echoed. “That’s an unusual way to put it, but yeah, I guess you could put our meeting this way like that.”

  I cocked my head to the side, my brow furrowing in confusion. “I’m not sure why you’d call it unusual when that’s exactly what Gerri was supposed to do for me.”

  “You were looking for a date?”

  “Yeah. She’s one of my customers, and we got to talking about my”—I thought better of bringing attention to my lack of a love life since it was horrifying to admit such a thing to a guy like him, and switched gears—“well, that doesn’t matter. She offered to set me up with a guy, and I agreed to go on one date with him.”

  “You got more than you bargained for, then.” He swiveled around and strode to the door. As I rounded the corner of the counter, trying to figure out what he was doing, he flipped over the OPEN sign so the CLOSED side faced outside and locked the door.

  “What the hell? You can’t do that!”

  “I can, and I did.”

  He prowled towards me, and I instinctively backed up a step before straightening my spine and standing my ground. I only had myself to depend on, and I couldn’t afford to let anyone walk all over me. “The owner will fire me if I close the shop early.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, as if he was unconcerned about the impact his actions would have on me. “You don’t need this job anyway.”

  “Says who?” I gave a disdainful sniff. His scent filled my nostrils, and I knew the answer to my scornful question before he replied.

  “Your mate.”

  “My mate.”

  We spoke in unison.

  “Holy shit,” I gasped. “The one-night hook-up Gerri found me is my fated mate?”

  His eyes flashed wolf, and I figured he didn’t appreciate my choice of wording. Considering we didn’t even know each other’s names, it might have been considered an overreaction. But being fated mates changed everything.

  “I did a lot of research into Gerri Wilder before meeting with her, and I can safely tell you that the matchmaker isn’t in the business of setting shifters up for flings.”

  “But that would mean—”

  He nodded.

  “And she knew—”

  Another nod as I waved my hand between us.

  “That tricky little...”

  “Genius,” he finished for me. “I have no fucking clue how she managed to do it.” He pointed over his shoulder towards the glass windows lining the front of the store. “She asked me where I had parked for our meeting, told me to stop in here, and gave me this.”

  He wiggled the brown paper bag before stretching his arm out and offering it to me. I gingerly accepted it, careful to not allow my fingers to slide against his. “Make that an evil genius since she knows how much I love her baking. It’s one of my weaknesses.”

  His dark brown eyes narrowed, the flecks of gold in them growing brighter as he considered me. “I’m your fated mate. You don’t need to worry about being weak around me. I’ll be your strength whenever you need it.”

  My knees went weak at his declaration. It had been so long since I’d had anyone to take my back, and he made it so simple. So clear-cut. If it had been three years earlier, I wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping into his arms and begging him to mark me. I’d dreamed about this moment as a young girl. Hoped for it as a young woman. And now that it was here, I had a choice to make. I could let what happened to me—what happened to my family—stop me from taking what was rightfully mine. Basically, cutting off my nose to spite my face. Or I could dig deep, woman up, and go for it. So I pulled up my big girl panties—figuratively speaking since I was planning to literally drop them—and reached for his hand.

  “I don’t want to do this out here. Come back to the office with me.”

  A spark of energy raced up my arm when we touched. He rewarded me with a huge smile and followed me into the back without a single objection. Then again, he didn’t have much to complain about considering what we were about to do. But before that happened, there was something I needed to know.

  “I get that mating works fast, sometimes at the speed of light, but don’t you think we should at least know each other’s names?”

  “Fuck,” he chuckled.

  I waggled my eyebrows at him. “That’s got to be awkward, going through life with a name like Fuck.”

  He roared with laughter, and it made him even more attractive. “Seth. My name is Seth,” he finally answered, once he got himself back under control.

  “I’m Jane.”

  “Jane,” he repeated softly, and I loved the sound of my name on his lips.

  The office was cramped, but there was a small love seat shoved up against one wall. When I’d first moved to town and got the job, I spent many a night curled up on it until I’d saved enough money for a deposit on an apartment.

  I might have exaggerated a tad when I’d told Seth that my boss would fire me for closing the place early. She was a panda shifter who took an extremely hands-off approach after hiring me. She was more than happy to leave the running of her shop to me while she enjoyed the solitude of a cabin she owned about an hour out of town. About six months later, she’d told me that it was the best decision she’d ever made since business tripled with me in charge. I figured it had a lot to do with her habit of munching on bamboo. It was annoying to shifters, and it freaked out humans.

  I dropped down onto the love seat and patted the cushion to my left. “Sit with me?”

  “Of course.”

  There was barely enough room for the both of us, and I ended up snuggled into his side. Not that I minded. It felt good. Damn good. And when I peeked up at his face to find him staring down at me with eyes filled with blazing desire, I knew he was happy to be close to me, too.

  “So,” I sighed, feeling slightly awkward. I was way out of practice when it came to flirting with hot men. “If you knew that Gerri specialized in finding shifters their mates, does that mean you were looking for me?”

  He took my hand into his, sliding his thumb against my palm. “Every day of my life.”

  Strong, sexy, and still able to be sweet with me. It seemed I’d hit the fated mate lottery.

  5

  Seth

  I dropped my head against her shoulder and inhaled her scent. “And my search is finally over. I found you.”

  It was almost impossible to believe it was true. That this gorgeous she-wolf was my fated mate. With her long dark hair, startling green eyes, tanned skin, and plush lips, she’d make any man take a second look. Along with a third. And that was without taking her delicious curves into consideration. She was tall, with plenty of tits and ass for me to hold on to.

  “You sure did.” Her arms wrapped around me, and she hugged me close.

  “Remind me to thank G
erri.” I lifted my head until my lips were barely an inch from hers. “Later.”

  I bent lower and captured her mouth. Her lips parted on a gasp, and my tongue swept inside to stroke hers. Her flavor burst across my senses, and a growl crawled up my throat. My wolf was riding me hard, knowing his mate was close. I deepened the kiss, giving in to the urgent desire swirling around us. When I finally pulled away, we were both panting for air. I nibbled and sucked at her lips, pushed by my need to devour her.

  “Need you,” she whimpered.

  “I’m all yours, baby,” I reassured her. “If you need, it’s my job to give.”

  We didn’t have a lot of space to work with, so she crawled onto my lap. She slid her hands under my shirt, scoring her nails against my skin. With her pussy resting against my cock, my need to be inside her was growing out of control. I ground against the heat between her thighs, making her cry out. When she did, it took all of my restraint not to come right then and there.

  I ripped my shirt over my head, wanting to make it easier for her to touch me. Needing to press my naked skin against hers. She must have read my mind because she returned the favor by ridding herself of hers, too. Her tits were magnificent, wrapped in pink lace. I popped the catch of her bra, and they tumbled free. They were tipped with hard, pink little peaks, and my mouth watered with the desire to taste them. Bending low, I took one in my mouth, sucking deep while she arched her back, pressing against me.

  “Mine,” I growled against her skin. “I need to taste you.”

  Lifting her up, I set her down where I’d been sitting and dropped to my knees in front of her. She slid out of her pants, leaving only a tiny, lacy, pink pair of panties between me and her pussy. I buried my nose against her and filled my lungs with the scent of her arousal. I’d never smelled anything better.

  In my desperation to get to her pussy, I tore her panties from her body. With nothing left in my way, I sank a finger into her pussy. She was damn tight, but dripping wet. Reluctantly pulling my finger from her body, I spread her lips wide and licked up the center. It was a taste I wanted in my mouth every day for the rest of our lives. But for the moment, I needed to get her off so I could sink my cock inside her tight heat.