“What does it matter? You can’t be fucking serious. I mean, when is Wright gonna get the hint anyway? We’re already bonded, and I claimed you for life. You’re mine, Ang.”
Her hands went straight to her hips. “Am I?”
The words just popped out of her. She wasn’t even sure that she said them out loud until Maddox reacted.
Her mate went predator-still. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
What did it mean?
She wasn’t sure. It wasn’t something she said on purpose, and considering she knew damn well that Maddox hated Adam—even more now since the Nightwalkers wouldn’t have come after her in the first place if it wasn’t for his position in the Grayson Police Department—it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say to her jealous mate.
She knew that, and since she couldn’t take it back, she pretended it didn’t mean anything at all.
A flippant wave of her hand. A shake of her head as she reached into the nearest box, snatched a stocking, and turned to look for a pin. “Nothing, babe. I’m just… I’m tired. It’s making me snappish. Don’t mind me.”
“Hey… that’s alright. You want to wait to decorate?” he said, concern lacing his rough tone. “We don’t have to do this today.”
Evangeline noticed the way his anger disappeared in a heartbeat, at the very second he thought something was wrong with her. Was it manipulative? Maybe. But she didn’t want to be, so she quickly shook her head.
“Christmas is in a week. I think we put it off long enough, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Sorry. That’s my fault, too. I’ve just been so busy… you looking for something?”
Evangeline glanced down at the stocking she’d been mangling in her grip as she absently dug through another one of the boxes. “A pin or a nail. Something like that. I was gonna hang this stocking up by the tree.”
“I got it. The box of pins was tucked by the ornaments. I just saw them.” As if he needed another excuse to get away from her, Maddox hunched over, reaching inside of another one of the open boxes. “Wanna grab my stocking? I’ll hang them next to each other.”
“Wha— oh. Yeah. Sure.”
She bent over and grabbed the red stocking with Maddox’s name stitched in gold, suddenly grateful that she’d thought ahead and bought gifts for her mate right after he announced that they’d be spending a quiet Christmas together at the cabin. They were all hidden away in one of the empty bedrooms. She’d been so happy when she finished wrapping them, proud that she snuck them in under his nose and hidden them before he went searching for them.
Maddox, she remembered, loved Christmas. Their first holiday together, he sniffed out every single gift.
The way things had been lately, she wasn’t even sure he noticed her attempts at being sneaky. Or that a present could even begin to smooth things over between them.
Evangeline handed Maddox the stocking. “Here you go.”
He tacked the two next to each other, smiling to himself when “Evangeline” and “Maddox” were hanging side by side.
“Together,” he said, more to himself than to her. “Just like it should be.”
If only.
* * *
After their small fight around the Christmas tree, things went back to normal for a little while.
Well, almost.
Maddox still wasn’t showing any signs of wanting to be intimate with her. The one time they were heading toward the back door together and Evangeline pointed out the mistletoe she hung near it, he offered her a quick peck on the cheek before bolting out into the backyard. He shifted into his wolf without even bothering to strip down first, leaving Evangeline to gather the scraps of his tattered flannel and torn jeans from the snow-covered ground.
At least he returned from patrol not much later, wearing a sheepish expression and absolutely nothing else. Her hormones kicked into overdrive when she noticed that he wasn’t even a little shriveled from the cold. In fact, under her approving gaze, he was already half-hard.
Before she could make a move herself and show her mate just how much she missed his body, Maddox barked out a quick apology before her big, bad wolf dashed up the stairs, heading to their bedroom. When he came back down, he was fully dressed.
Well. That certainly killed the mood for her.
Evangeline sighed as she sank down on the couch. Maddox went into the kitchen, whipped up a plate of sandwiches for them to share, then joined her. The cabin didn’t get cable, but it did have a pretty good wi-fi signal, and the two of the