Page 49 of His Treasured Mate

“It’s a shot, Lil. The name of a drink,” Liam yelled, trying to come to my rescue.

“Are you sure about that?” Maddie asked.

I looked down, following her gaze to find my zipper was down.

“Shit!”

My whole body hurt, but especially the pounding in my head. I zipped up my pants and ran after her anyway.

I knew I was going to need to shift and go for a run in my wolf to get over this hangover. I hadn’t done much of that lately, always feeling guilty when Lily couldn’t shift while pregnant. It had to weigh heavily on her. Not shifting for long periods of time certainly did for me. Then again, I’d never grown another human inside of me before. Maybe it wasn’t like that at all.

“Lily!” I yelled as I got closer.

She ignored me and kept running. Of course, her run was more like a slow waddle. If I wasn’t feeding off her emotional stress, I would have laughed at our situation.

I easily caught up to her and forced her to turn and face me.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, and my heart ached like she’d just taken a Louisville Slugger baseball bat to it. In the early days of our mating, her rejection had always felt like that, earning her nickname.

“Slugger, it’s not what you think. I have never and will never cheat on you. A blow job is a drink, a shot really. We were doing shots at the bar last night and Silas thought it would be cute to see how many I could handle. It was a lot. You know me. I never back down from a challenge. I’m sorry.”

“But your pants . . .”

I pulled her into my arms as she sobbed against my shoulder.

“The zipper obviously came down at some point. I didn’t even notice until Maddie pointed it out.”

“Smell me. You’d know faster than anyone if I was messing around with another she-wolf, which I wasn’t because I could never do that to you. You have to know that by now. For me, there’s only ever going to be you.”

I didn’t think she’d actually do it, but she leaned in and sniffed me. It made me feel like a complete fool, but that little gesture instantly turned me on.

Her nose scrunched up in a cute way, and she took a step back.

“You stink.”

I bellowed out a laugh. “Not exactly what I wanted to hear but probably accurate.”

“Not probably. You’re literally churning my stomach. You need a shower ASAP.”

Giving her a lopsided grin, I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” But first, I kissed her.

“Ew,” she protested without kissing me back. “You taste like I imagine licking the floor of the tavern would taste.”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

“No, I’m not. I’m being honest. Come on. We need to get you back to the house and cleaned up quickly.”

The tightness in my chest lifted, and I knew everything was going to be okay.

Lily

Chapter 13

Ladies’ night certainly hadn’t been as exciting as guys’ night, but we’d had our own sort of fun. No one was passed out on the front lawn drunk. Actually, there’d been a lot of tears and laughs through the night as we caught up.

Times like this made me wish we all lived closer, yet I wouldn’t trade my life as Pack Mother of Collier for anything. Still, it was fun while we were here.

I had been in shock seeing Thomas passed out on Shelby and Ben’s front lawn. And I had responded emotionally when I heard he’d been offered blow jobs. I overreacted. I was big enough to admit it.