Her Brother, Her Mate

I bit down on my l*p and nodded.

“How?”

“Simone,” I shrugged sheepishly, “She talks a lot more when she’s drunk.”

“She does,” Mark nodded, worrying over his coffee cup in his large, rough hands.

His hands are like the rest of him; rough and rugged. He may have the same features as Mitchel, but his face is a little sharper. His hair is much shorter, and slightly darker. He doesn’t have tattoos all over him the way his brother does, but I do see a few randomly all over his arms.

He may look similar, but he is very different from his brother.

“So, did Simone also tell you what the mate bond meant?” Mark asked hesitantly.

I looked around the little coffee shop to see if anyone was listening, then leaned across the table closer to Mark, making him lean closer to me.

“You mean that you and your brother are werewolves?”

He sits back quickly in surprise, “Did she tell you everything?”

“Lord, I hope so. I don’t think I could handle any more freaky information right now. And if you ever do the mighty morphing wolf thing, give me a fair warning first. I almost peed myself when Simone randomly did it in the middle of her living room.”

Mark chuckles at that, “Fair enough. So did she tell you that you’re Mitch’s mate too?”

I bit my l*p and nodded slowly, “She did.”

“Are you okay with that?” he asks me nervously.

I sit back in my chair, opening the package the biscotti is in, opening the lid to my latte and dipping the cookie inside. I take a bite, using the time to think about my answer.

I honestly am not sure if I’m okay with it, but I also know in some deep part of me that being mates with both of them is how life is supposed to be. They are a part of me and I am a part of them, even before I knew what that meant. It feels like fate brought us together for a reason.

“I don’t know, but I know it hurts to see either of you upset. I know without the freaky mate bond, I probably wouldn’t feel the way I do about you both that I do now.”

Mark grimaces at my words. Crap.

“Sorry. That came out harsher than I meant for it to. I meant, I just didn’t want a handsome, experienced, man. I really didn’t want any man after the fiance from hell I left back in New York. Now I have not one, but two of the sexiest men I have ever seen in my life, that I have been warned away from repeatedly by everyone including their own mother,” I smirk when he flinches, “and I just found out they’re in some mystic, all consuming bond with me, and I’m some weird witch energizer and you’re both werewolves, and also witches. It’s a lot.”

I take another bite of the biscotti, looking out at the ocean as I get my thoughts back in order.

“You’re not, uh, going to reject us are you?” Mark asked me nervously.

“Reject you?” I asked, not sure what he was talking about. Simone and Vincent made it sound like being with them was inevitable. How can I reject them?

“Nevermind,” he says quickly, looking into his coffee quickly, then back up at me, “I really want to be with you, Hadley. I know Mitchel does too. If you can’t accept us, it would devastate both of us. I’ve been thinking about how we first met over and over again and all I can think about is how much I messed this up. I don’t think I could survive life without you now. I know you probably don’t believe me, but you’re my mate. My everything. My whole world now revolves around you.”

I want to swoon at his words. They’re not like the cheesy lines he put on that stupid card. They were heartfelt and true.

I reached my hand across the table, offering it to him, “Let’s start over from the beginning. Hi. I’m Hadley Hart. I’m your mother’s new event coordinator and your mate,” I smiled softly at him.

A crooked smile graces his face. “Hi Hadley Hart. I’m Markus Meyers, werewolf and witch hybrid, and love of your life.” He grimaces slightly before smiling sheepishly, “Well, one of them.”

I giggled at his elated face.

After finishing my coffee, Mark walks me to my office, asking me questions about myself the whole way.

Jenny is working at the front today, and gives us an old look as we walk by. I wave at her, and she waves back, but I can tell she is wary of me being with Mark. Just a few days ago, she was upset Mark didn’t know her name and I told her he wasn’t worth her time of day. Now I’m walking casually back to my office with him as he walks dangerously close to me, head bent down as he intently stares at me with adoration in his eyes.

I can’t bring myself to put more space between us. It makes him so happy being close to me, and honestly, it makes me happy too.

Mark drops me off in my office, leaning against the door frame, “Can I take you to lunch today?”

I smiled warmly at him, “Sure, but,” I gnawed on my l*p, thinking about his mom. Vincent said that she knew, and she was encouraging me to go out to lunch with Mitchel yesterday. It just feels kind of wrong to be going to lunch with one brother one day, and the other the next. I’m worried about what my new boss will think of me now.

“But what?” Mark looked worried as he looked at me.

“Will your mom be upset with me?” I asked him, my voice barely above a whisper, not wanting everyone else in the office to hear me.

He looks at me confused, “Why would she be?”

I shrug, “It just feels kind of, I don’t know, unethical to go to lunch two days in a row with each of the boss’s sons.”

Mark laughed at me, “Oh, honey, if she was worried about something like that she would be banning us from the resort. We’ve gone through so many-….”

Mark’s voice cuts off when he notices the look on my face. I’m not amused.

“Gone through so many what?”

“Uhh,” he shifts nervously on his feet, “I, uh, well…..Mitch did it. I was just saying, like, hypothetically. If mom got mad at, I mean….shit. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I was just…”

His stammering has a slow smirk breaking across my face. A giggle breaks out of me involuntarily, I clamp my hand over my mouth to try to keep it held in.

Mark noticed my amusement, stopping and dropping his face into his hands. “You’re going to keep me on my f*****g toes, Hadley. Goddess, I got to quit putting my foot in my mouth.”

“Yeah, you do. But it’s okay,” I told him, taking a step toward him and grabbing one of his hands. “I like you much better like this, honest and stammering, than the ladies man I saw the other day.”

Mark grips my hand in his, then brings it up to his lips, not in a sleazy way, but as if he is cherishing the feel of my hand in his.

“So, lunch?” he asks as he drops our hands back down between us, squeezing mine as his thumb gently rubs against my skin, making those bursts of electricity dance all over.

“Okay,” I told him softly, “Let’s do lunch.