“You felt like this earlier too?”
Dexter nodded as he moved across to the kitchen and pulled out a plate of leftovers from the fridge.
“Oh, yeah. I was ready to rip Jay’s head off for kissing her first, but now I feel… I don’t know… happy. Settled. Whereas before, I thought my wolf might jump forth and shift without permission.”
“That’s exactly how I feel!”
He was telling me that relief was in sight? I glanced at the stairs. How long would it take until she woke up?
“So, is this how we’re gonna do things? Have her one at a time?” Jay asked, and we both turned to look at him.
“Ah… I suppose. Why?” I glanced at Dexter and he shrugged. This was new to all of us.
Jay pulled more groceries from the refrigerator and began chopping fruit. “I don’t know. I kinda thought that working on her together would be fun.”
I caught Dexter’s surprised expression and grinned at him. Our Omega wanted to work Claire’s body with us?
I’d always thought Jay’s testosterone was lacking. Obviously, he needed his mate to bring that out in him, too.
“Well, let’s see what she says when she wakes up. Because no matter what, we need to get to know her individually, I think. We’re still separate people.”
One pack, yes.
But we were very different, and Claire needed to know what she was getting herself into.
“I made a deal with Claire to get her to stay,” Jay said suddenly and we turned towards him.
“What did you offer her?” I asked, dread tingling on the ends of my nerves.
Jay bit his lip, a sure sign he’d done something wrong. “I told her that we’d drive her home again if she wanted us to.”
“You what?” Dexter and I practically yelled at him.
Jay backed away, his hands held up in a sign of retreat. “It was all I could think of. What else was I going to say when she was so afraid? And look what’s happened already… Dexter mated with her.”
I ran a hand through my hand, my arm vibrating with anger. “You told her she could LEAVE?”
I wanted to wring his neck.
“I told her to stay for two days so that we had time to convince her to stay. She’s giving us a chance, and that’s thanks to me.”
Jay glared at me and I glared back, and that’s when I heard a soft sigh and footsteps walking down the stairs.
“We’ll deal with this later,” I hissed at Jay, and turned around to see Claire gingerly stepping down the last few stairs.
She’d put her scrubs back on but they were in pretty bad shape.
“Um... I was going to have a nap, but thought I’d ask if I can I have a quick shower first?”
Her eyes were still half asleep and there was a lack of tension in her that I hadn’t even realised was there initially.
“You look really relaxed,” I couldn’t help saying and the heat of a blush spread straight up her face.
“Oh… well…”
I could see by the expression on her face she wanted to say more, but we didn’t know each other well enough yet. And I needed to change that.
Maybe Jay was right, and we did need more time.