Page 18 of Bullied Pretend Mate (Silverville Firefighter Wolves #3)

For the first time in my life, my wolf is content.

It’s odd not to feel the consistent, insistent clawing at my insides. A pressing need for something else, something more . That feeling that always got me tied up in something reckless, something I definitely shouldn’t be doing.

That feeling is gone, replaced with the overwhelming want to have Maeve as much as I possibly can.

Around us, Silverville quietly slips out of spring and into summer, the tulips replaced by bright, blooming lilacs on every corner.

The mountainsides erupt in wildflowers, then turn back to deep green grass just as quickly.

While the snow at the peaks remains, some of the white around the collars disappears, melting down and trickling into the streams and Silverville Creek.

Shorts and dresses get shorter as the days get hotter. People flock to the lakes, and for the first summer in years , Xeran clears people to have bonfires and roast marshmallows, as long as they’re following all the extensive rules about fire safety.

Every time I get Maeve alone, I’m burying my face in the crook of her neck. Tucking my hand into the small of her back. Running the tips of my fingers along the line of her skirt. Touching just the tips of her hair until she shivers and looks at me with those dark eyes.

In a clothing store, while she’s trying on dresses for the next wedding, I press her to the wall in the dressing room and slide my hand into her shorts, making her come hard and fast against my body, my other hand over her mouth to keep her quiet so the attendants don’t find out.

In the hot tub on her rental’s balcony, I pull her into my lap and insist nobody can see us. I lower her down onto me, watch her ride me as twinkle lights glow lazily above her, the hot water swirling around us and elevating her heady scent.

One day, I get her to climb onto the back of my bike, and we ride around Silverville together, going for a picnic in the mountains. I push her down on the blanket and tangle my fingers in her curls, promising I’m just undoing her helmet hair.

Another time, she makes me ride passenger in her Jeep, and I can’t stop staring at her as we drive the winding roads, the side panels off, thoroughly into June in the mountains, the air warm when still but cool when we’re moving through it.

With her curls piled on top of her head and wrapped in a scarf, she looks like something out of a movie.

Her rose gold sunglasses perch on her face as her hand casually rests on the steering wheel.

When she lets me drive it home, I take it a little too fast around the corners, making her squeal and swat at my arm, demanding I slow down.

So I pull to the side of the road, hide us in a copse of trees, and tug her into my lap.

When I flatten my seat and lay back, Maeve grips the supports, her lips parting, her body more lovely from every angle I get to see it.

Two weeks pass like this, with Maeve and me far exceeding the original agreement. We spend all our time together. We go on public dates—going to the movies, walking through the park, eating at the nice Italian restaurant on the square.

We’re apart when I go to the firehouse during the day, or when she goes for lunch or dinner with the girls.

At night, we talk, falling asleep together, and she tells me she’s still unsettled by how easily the town has seemed to move on, not batting an eye at her, Phina, and Valerie sitting at a table together.

It helps that there hasn’t been a fire in some time. She says it also helps that Phina is the luna, that she has Xeran standing behind her.

I tell her that she has me standing behind her, and she lowers to her knees, rewarding me for my allegiance.

She’s managed to purchase a sewing machine and buy some of the fabric she needs, working slowly but surely through the pieces.

One of my favorite things to do is sit in the living room of her rental with a good book and watch her work, listening to the soothing sound of her sewing machine as it chugs along.

“I need way more,” she tells me one night when I bring her takeout from our favorite Chinese place. “But this is a start. I already promised them the samples. It would be good if I could go home, but I have to stay here, make sure the lawyer believes this thing.”

We talk about whether or not Xeran believes it. I tell her about him picking me for the leadership role.

“You know,” she says one night as we make our way through a bottle of wine suggested by the fancy wine and cheese store on the corner, “Xeran is a strategic guy. I don’t see him picking you for this if he thinks you’re the wrong choice.”

“But I am the wrong choice,” I insist, shaking my head as I take another sip of the wine and try not to wrinkle my nose.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the stuff.

“The other guys are better at leadership than me. More organized. I mean—maybe you don’t know Soren that well, but he’s more like Xeran—everything in its place.

The guy is seriously anal. And Kalen is a Sorel, which brings him more authority. ”

“But,” Maeve says, leaning across the counter and fixing her eyes on me, a gaze that says she knows me better than anybody else. That she understands this situation better from the outside than I could from the inside. “Think about this—things have been kind of shitty in Silverville for a while.”

“So, what?” I laugh, swirling the wine in my cup. “Pick a shitty leader, because what does it matter, anyway?”

“Let me finish,” she says, reaching over and running her hand over my hair in a way that’s meant to be admonishing, but just feels like an excuse for her to touch me.

“What I’m saying is that, maybe, Xeran knows that things have been rough.

Maybe the kind of leader people need is someone who can keep things light. Can joke about stuff.”

“Are you saying you think I’m funny?” I grin at her, feeling the tug of it on my face. I’m always smiling, but it’s different with Maeve. Effortless.

She snorts, finishing her wine and reaching for the bottle. “I’m saying you tell a lot of jokes. Now, hurry up. This shit sucks, and there’s no way you’re making me finish this whole bottle on my own.”

I grab the bottle, tip it to my lips, and empty the whole thing. Then, I grab her and carry her out to the hot tub, hiccupping the whole way and laughing when she swats at my chest.

The whole time, I can’t stop thinking about the look on her face. Like she believes in me. The girl who chased me around and kept me out of trouble. The girl who, at this point, has seen every single part of me.

She knows me, and she somehow thinks I’m the right choice for this new unit at work.

Maeve knows me, and she still believes in me.

***

“What in the hells is going on here?”

I look up from where I’m kneeling over a tub, my eyes stinging from the bleach.

“Felix made a bet,” Lachlan snickers. “And he lost.”

“So you’re waterboarding him?” Xeran asks, crossing his arms and eying us all.

When I got to the firehouse this morning, Xeran was running late. He told me to take over training and get all the guys moving through the weight room. None of them seemed inspired, and the vibe was downright somber.

Maybe it was Maeve’s influence—her comment about me being the right guy for the job, helping people take things a little less seriously. I’m not quite sure what it was, but I’d walked into the room, clapped my hands, and said, “Alright. Who here thinks they can beat me at three sets?”

It’s Monday morning, so the workout is ropes, pull-ups, and stationary biking for half a mile. Times are listed on the wall for three sets of each to see who the top dog is.

“What do we get if we do?” Kalen had asked, hiking an eyebrow in my direction.

“That depends,” I’d replied, shooting them all a look. “What do you want?”

Now, Xeran shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re all done with training?”

“Last guys are finishing up now,” Soren says, still breathing a little hard from his set. “But, yeah, we’re all pretty much wrapped up.”

“And I take it someone beat Felix’s time?”

“Someone?” Lachlan asks, puffing his chest up. “Try four of us. Me included.”

“Guys,” I rasp, from my place on the floor, my head over the bucket. “Think I’m getting bleach poisoning.”

“Oh, shit,” Soren says, turning back around to me and grabbing a hose off the truck, spraying a little harder than he needs to. “Bleach is already done, though. Maybe you’re getting dye poisoning.”

I watch the bucket swirl with water as rivulets of pink roll down the sides of my face and into the bucket. Ten minutes later, I’m standing and scrubbing a stained towel over my head, grinning when the rest of the guys come in from training, hooting and clapping when they see my new hair.

“What do you think?” I ask, turning side to side, acting like I’m fluffing long locks I don’t have. “You guys like it?”

“I think we should try and beat you tomorrow,” another guy calls from the back. “And see how you look with purple instead.”

“Bet,” I say, and when I turn, I catch Xeran watching me with a knowing look on his face.

Swallowing, I lift my arm in the air, “Now, come on, Soren. You were going to show me that stuff with Engine One.”

“Right,” Soren says, and I hurry with him to the engine bay before Xeran can corner me again and tell me that this is exactly what he’s talking about. Before he can show me that somehow, even with the way I am, I’ve managed to turn out as something of a good leader, anyway.

We’ll just have to see if it sticks.