“Yeah. Basically useless, but they make you smile when you push them down the stairs.”

He laughed before nibbling and sucking on her earlobe. “She’ll come round.”

A shiver wracked Taryn’s body as he grazed his teeth over his mark. “Trey, you can’t do that in public. It has an embarrassing effect.” His totally wicked laugh made her nervous. Of course the bastard nipped at her mark. Deciding some retaliation wouldn’t be such a bad thing, she very slightly grinded against his very hard c**k – he might not particularly desire her, but his body would still react to his mate’s scent. He groaned against her neck.

Trey knew he could leave now. They had done enough touchy-feely stuff and she probably still had things to talk about with her friends. In fact, he should leave – her friends were anxious and uncomfortable when he was around as though they expected him to lunge at them or something. But he couldn’t bring himself to break the contact with Taryn. Instead, he lazed back into his seat and pulled her forward so that she was draped across his chest. “Don’t mind me, you carry on talking. I won’t even be listening, I’m too distracted by your scent.” Another truth.

As he looked over her shoulder he saw that Tao was looking at them with envy in his expression, envy that he wasn’t bothering to conceal. Holding Tao’s gaze, Trey knotted a hand in Taryn’s hair – a gesture of possessiveness, a reminder that she was his. Tao lowered his eyes and continuing staring at his book. Did he know it was upside down?

“How’s my dad?” Taryn asked Shaya, groaning as Trey began gently massaging her back.

“Feel good, baby?” he asked. She nodded against his chest.

“Alternating from being angry with you to wondering if just maybe this mating could be more beneficial than the one with Roscoe would have been,” Shaya replied to Taryn’s question, her expression studious as she observed Taryn and Trey together.

“Thought as much,” grumbled Taryn before then groaning again. “Trey, your hands are magical.”

“You already knew that.” He groaned again as her body shook against his chest as she laughed, sending all kinds of interesting vibrations through him and his very hard cock. He combed his fingers through her hair. “I love the way it has all those different shades of blonde in it and even a little bit of red.” Another truth.

“It annoys me. It can’t seem to decide what color it wants to be.”

“It has me curious.”

She lifted her head, resting her chin on his chest. “About?”

In a voice too low for anyone else to hear, he said, “Well as much as I like you bald down there, I wouldn’t mind knowing if the color of the carpet matches the curtains.”

She slapped his chest. “Trey!”

“Oh look,” snickered a familiar, annoying, witchy voice. Greta. “Not only is she lounging all over you like a slut, but she’s flashing her underwear to all and sundry.”

Glancing back, Taryn saw that the top of her red lacy thong had ridden above her jeans. “Do you like it? I quite like your blouse, Greta. Wouldn’t you like to slip into something more comfortable, though? Perhaps a coma?”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you sarcasm’s the lowest form of wit?” Greta turned to Shaya and Caleb. “Do us all a favor and take this hussy with you when you leave.”

Taryn sighed. “How about we play fetch with a twist, Greta – I’ll throw the ball for you, but just don’t come back. What do you think?”

Huffing, the old woman marched off. Taryn smiled at a chuckling Trey before laying her head back on his chest, facing Shaya and Caleb. She wondered what their odd expressions meant. She finally found out an hour later as she walked them to Shaya’s SUV.

“I told you that what really matters is that you’re happy,” said Caleb. “And it seems like you are.”

“Is that your way of saying that I have your blessing?”

“I’m still having trouble getting my head around him being your true mate but…well you act like true mates and he obviously adores you. That’s enough for me. I have to admit I’m kind of jealous that everyone around us seems to have mated.”

She patted his arm. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your own true mate is somewhere just waiting for you to find her, and I’m sure she’s the next model up from the inflatable one you already have.”

“Bitch,” he said affectionately.

Shaya had her palm pressed against her forehead, looking stressed and confused. “I don’t know how anyone can not be terrified of that wolf…but his true mate wouldn’t be, mates never fear each other. And clearly you don’t so...Look, just promise me that if you suddenly think you’ve made a mistake or he ever hurts you, you call me and you get out of here.”

Taryn smiled. “Aw, Shaya, if he ever hurt me he’d be dead before I made that call.”

A grin spread across Shaya’s elfin face. “That’s my girl.”

It hadn’t been a surprise to discover that Trey had disappeared into his office before the car had even moved out of sight – acting time was over. She turned to Tao who had been waiting a few feet behind her. “Hey, fancy going out somewhere?”

“Where?” He sounded a little suspicious.

“I’ve gone twelve whole days without pizza and that’s just not right.”

He grinned. “Pizza definitely sounds good. Let me just tell Dante we’ll be out for a while.”

She hadn’t realized just how much she had missed her Hyundai until she was driving it en-route to town five minutes later. Tao, apparently not content enough with being her bodyguard, had wanted to play chauffeur too, but she easily got her way because he was smart enough to know that she wouldn’t give in.

“Did your friends buy the act?” asked Tao about fifteen minutes into the journey.

She shrugged. “They’ve accepted it, but I don’t think anything will ever completely convince them.”

“They don’t think you and Trey fit?”

“It’s not so much that. They saw how close Joey and I were, and then they watched me deal with his death pretty badly. For me to suddenly claim that Joey was nothing but my best friend…” She let the sentence trail, knowing he’d see her point. “I think if it had been anyone other than Trey, I might have had more luck with getting them to accept it.”